Links for the Day (June 18th, 2008)

1. "You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Boring": Tim Brayton of Antagony & Ecstasy on The Incredible Hulk.

["It's amazing to be alive at a time when what can be depicted on a movie screen is limited only by filmmakers' imaginations; it is terribly frustrating to be alive at a time when filmmakers' imaginations are so hidebound. Leterrier is probably best known for directing The Transporter 2, a fairly silly-minded action movie that nevertheless finds plenty of entertaining ways for Jason Statham to destroy things and people. The Incredible Hulk enjoys none of his style nor even the small level of invention involved in that film. Even Michael Bay's wretched Transformers last summer managed to come up with some pretty hellzapoppin' ways for large, fake robots to beat each other up; The Incredible Hulk just has explosions like you've seen a dozen times and things getting smashed on New York streets like you've seen a dozen times, and the only reason any of it is remotely exceptional is that it's the only place you get to see those things on a big screen right this week."]

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2. "Unwatchable #84: "It’s Pat"": Well, of course.

["The premise was so thin that the true joke of the sketch quickly became: Can you believe we’re doing this fucking Pat sketch again? So it’s no wonder that the 1994 feature film version became a punch line long before it was given its belated, limited…I hate to even call it a “release”. More of a parole, really. Anyone in their right mind would rather watch 77 minutes worth of surveillance footage of writers Jim Emerson, Stephen Hibbert and Sweeney trying to cobble the script together. “Okay, I’ve got it! Pat falls down the stairs and cries, ‘I’ve crushed my nuts!’ But it turns out – Pat has a pocketful of walnuts! And now they’re crushed!” “That’s good, but I’ve got you beat. We see Pat’s equally androgynous lover Chris (Dave Foley in a unisex bob and colorful assortment of muumuus) with his hand in her lap, or her hand in his lap, or whatever, and Chris says ‘I love to stroke your pussy.’ But –get this – Pat has a cat in his or her lap!” And so it goes, until you’re half-convinced you’re watching some sort of experimental anti-comedy."]

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3. "Burn Hollywood Burn: The Happening - Good Night, Shyamalan (Or How M. Night Tardkovsky’s War of the Winds Made a Supporter Become a Detractor)": Hammer to Nail's Michael Tully rips and rages at Manoj. More from Brendan Bouzard.

["The Happening is not just bad. It is more than awful. It might very well be the most inappropriately, resoundingly stupid movie that has ever been made. It is only funny when it is taking itself seriously. It is never frightening. It is never bad enough to be great, and it isn’t well crafted enough to earn the label of sub-mediocre. It is shockingly irresponsible. It feels like a creative writing story scribbled by a middle-school student who has just discovered Ray Bradbury and Stephen King."]

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4. "A Pleasant Surprise": That's exactly what J. Hoberman thinks Get Smart is. And our own Vadim Rizov takes a look back at Milos Forman's Taking Off.

["Surprisingly resilient for a show based on a single joke, Get Smart ran for five seasons, inspired a 1980 Hollywood flop (The Nude Bomb), and, nine years later, a more successful made-for-TV movie. (In between, Adams provided something close to his Maxwell Smart persona for the animated series Inspector Gadget, as well as reviving Smart to shill for Kmart and White Castle.) Fox actually brought the series back to life in 1995, with Adams and Feldon and, as a chip off the block, Andy Dick. All residual pop irony was trumped in 2002, when the most celebrated of the show's ridiculous props, the shoe phone, appeared in an exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library."]

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5. "Man robs lemonade stand": A tale both sweet and sour.

["Call it a lemonade standoff. A young girl whose lemonade stand was robbed of $17.50 chased the suspect into a nearby home and called police, who spent nearly an hour trying to coax the man into surrendering. “The guy came up and was, like, ‘Give me your money,’” said Dominique Morefield, who was running the lemonade stand with a group of friends. “I was shocked. It was just my immediate reaction to chase after him.”"]

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Quote of the Day: Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): This gal's got a mouth on her.



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Clip of the Day: The "Daisy" ad, the creator of which, Tony Schwartz, just passed away on Sunday.

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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.