1. "Getting It Wrong Is Right" An excellent post by Jason Bellamy at The Cooler. Same query here as there: When did you get a movie wrong? (The Kenneth Turan piece he mentions and quotes from is here.)
["So while it’s rare for me to do complete 180 on a film, as I did with The Player, I proudly admit that to lesser degrees I get it wrong all the time. I read criticism not to have my judgments validated but to have them challenged, and I am nothing short of jubilant when I come across a contradictory viewpoint argued so effectively that it becomes my own. Accuse me of flip-flopping if you want. Charge me with bending to the crowd, if you must. But in my mind there’s a bigger sin than taste-testing the Kool-Aid from time to time. It’s getting drunk on stubbornness and self-veneration. Try though he did, Turan didn’t demonstrate modesty with his response. Seems to me he exposed his closed-mindedness. So I ask you, Cooler readers: Care to share a time you got it wrong?"]
2. "Jesse Jackson apologizes for crude remark about Obama": From the L.A. Times.
["The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for making a crude comment about Barack Obama that exposed the veteran civil rights leader's unhappiness with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The revelation that Jackson was caught on a microphone using coarse language about the Illinois senator ignited a media firestorm and triggered a rebuke from his son, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), even before Fox News aired some of the comments on "The O'Reilly Factor." Jackson originally made the remarks Sunday while waiting to be interviewed on the morning show "Fox & Friends." "Barack, he's talking down to black people," the civil rights leader whispered to another guest, healthcare executive Reid Tuckson. Jackson was unaware that his microphone was on. "I want to cut his nuts off," Jackson said, making a jabbing gesture with his hand."]
3. "Robert Downey Jr. is (Also) Sherlock Holmes": From Cinematical.
["Confirming rumors that we first reported on a couple of weeks back, Robert Downey Jr. has been formally lined up to play Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's film of the same name. Apparently inspired by Lionel Wigram's comic book as much as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novels, Variety says that the film will begin shooting this October for a scheduled 2010 release."]
4. "Woolly mammoth skeleton wows scientists": From CNN.
["A 14,500-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton dug up in 1994 has been unveiled at the Milwaukee Public Museum, giving locals a glimpse of perhaps the most intact specimen discovered in North America. Few paleontological specimens are as complete as the Hebior mammoth. The skeleton lacks a rib as well as a few bones in the tail and feet, but is otherwise nearly whole. Standing more than twice the height of a person, the woolly mammoth is among three with scientific significance for southern Wisconsin."]
5. "He took a seat at Rose Bowl — 39,250 times": And he's still going...
["Jim Purol took a seat at the Rose Bowl, and then another, and then another, until he broke a world record. The Anaheim man set a Guinness World Record on Wednesday for "Most Seats Sat in 48 Hours" by sitting in 39,250 seats. He began the task Monday morning, and he's still going, hoping to rest his tush in each of the stadium's 92,542 seats by sometime this week."]
Quote of the Day: M.C. Escher
Image(s) of the Day (click to enlarge): A few pictures from our own Peet Gelderblom, just back from a trip to Nepal. 
Clip of the Day: The promo for More 4's Stanley Kubrick season, in which you and Stan are one and the same. (Hattip: The Screengrab.)
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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.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Links for the Day (July 10th, 2008)
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5 comments:
#1: The Shining. For years I thought it was one of most overrated movies. The film has always had its share of detractors, but it seemed like most negative views of the movie were keen on having a different movie, one more like the book. For me, I thought it was an empty shell of a Kubrick movie; you know the "all style, no substance" argument that blooming adolescents who want to sound smart cling to.
While I can't say I've seen the film in its entireity in quite some time, I have seen chunks of it on various occasions and found myself entranced. I've read up more on the film since then, which was interspersed with me seeing more pieces, finding myself unable to stop thinking about it.
Now, I regard it as a great movie, as if I hadn't gone through a long period of not liking it. Weird, actually.
There are other examples, but this is the one that stand out in my memory.
Great choice, Ted, considering the Clip of the Day. :-)
Funny thing is, I didn't even watch the clip before I read your comment!
#2: Jackson's comment certainly does not hurt the Obama campaign. To the contrary, it helps him. It helps him with white voters, and I'd guess with many black voters as well. Stating publicly that the tragic breakdown of the black family is in part the result of a lack of parental responsibility is not "talking down to black people"; it is acknowledging a truth, a truth that most would like to see change.
The cruder part of his comment is only a vivid reminder that the decades-old mantras of the most prominent black leadership are tired, and all too obviously tied to an agenda that doesn't have a whole lot to do with actually helping blacks in this country. Jackson sees the tides shifting (ever so slightly); his remark was a reflection of his frustration with his loss of influence.
Whether Obama's "personal responsibility" statements were part of a political shift to the center or not, they were correct and most people know it.
Having had way too much exposure to white, conservative suburbia, I have seen the disdain for Jesse Jackson first-hand, and would guess that this will probably help Obama with that voter base.
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