The House Next Door

1. "This Year’s Tonys Spread the Broadway Glory Around": From The New York Times. Find a list of winners here.

["Reflecting an eclectic Broadway season, the 62nd Annual Tony Awards crowned a salsa-flavored musical written by a theater novice, a nostalgic glamorous revival, a sweeping melodrama from a writer making his Broadway debut, and the revival of a ’60s sex farce."]

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2. "The "Radioactive" Farmiga Strikes Again!": Erich Kuersten demands we appreciate the work of Vera Farmiga.

["I've written about how much I love her in THE DEPARTED, JOSHUA, and DOWN TO THE BONE. Now I've just returned from seeing her in QUID PRO QUO and I can say it officially. This girl is the James Dean of our time. She is the Brando circa WILD ONE, the Monty Clift circa FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. She has that sort of poetry and intensity. But since she's a girl it's not the same kind of intensity and that's why the critics--their faculties dulled by overexposure to Will Ferrell movies--fail to encompass any of her brilliance in their witing. They merely mention it in passing, as if planting a marker in the sand and promising to return with more adjectives in the very near future."]

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3. Karina Longworth reports from CineVegas. Two installments so far: "Britney Spears & Cinephilia" & "Finally, Lillian and Dan".

["What is Britney Spears doing at a film festival? Or: what happens to a film festival bred within the natural climate of Britney Spears?"]

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4. "The Aesthete's Inferno, the Clown's Utopia": Fernando F. Croce on The Fall, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, The Strangers, and Kung Fu Panda.

["The problem with Tarsem is not that he's placing images before narrative (indeed, cinema these days would be less arthritic if more filmmakers displayed similar ambition) but that he insists on erecting monuments to an imagination that has so far been remarkable only for its many shades of gaseous pretension. (At least Speed Racer was upfront about the cartoony roots of its avant-garde splashiness.) The Fall is a long, long trip through the museum, during which the sheer weight of useless beauty just about crumbles the visitor's spine."]

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5. "Oregon man wins Great American Think-Off": From MSNBC.

["An Oregon man is the winner of this year's Great American Think-Off, a national philosophy competition that gives ordinary people the chance to debate some of life's perplexing questions. This year's question: "Does immigration strengthen or threaten the United States?" Craig Allen, of West Linn, Ore., won a gold medal Saturday after a live audience in New York Mills decided he was most convincing when arguing that the system of immigration and immigration policy is broken. He says it encourages an influx of illegal immigrants and poses a threat to the country."]

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Quote of the Day: F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Why did this 115-year old's brain work perfectly? Pickled herring!



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Clip of the Day: I see Karina's also got mad Cannes Fest Karaoke skills. (Stop hiding behind that pillar, girl!)

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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.