The House Next Door

1. "The Fantastic Disappearing Rommel": Glenn Kenny on continuity gaffes, intentional and otherwise. And how's about a Hellboy II review or three: Walter Chaw, A.O. Scott, and Alonso Duralde.

["That isn't to say that there aren't some continuity gaffes out there worth noting. Some bring a kind of peculiar poetry or frisson to an otherwide ordinary film. And THAT isn't to say that 1962's The Longest Day is ordinary. I've been fascinated by this film forever, largely because, for all the drama of the event it depicts (that would be D-Day, World War II, y'all) the movie is so peculiarly scrupulous that it contains practically no drama. It's an environmental picture with big stars; it's not so much the percursor to Saving Private Ryan as it is a peer to Andy Warhol's Empire. (Incidentally, just as I would love to screen Todd Haynes' I'm Not There for a teen who has no idea who Dylan was, I'd love to get a reaction to Day from someone who's never heard of Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Richard Burton, et al. Don't kid yourselves; there are such people out there.) If Douglas Gordon had real conceptual cojones, he'd have forged a 24-hour version of this film rather than Psycho."]

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2. "Beyond 'The Wackness': Hip-Hop & Whiteness At the Movies": From earlier in the week, Brandon Soderberg takes his hip-hop knowledge cinema way.

["Armond White's review of Adam Yauch's 'Gunnin' for that #1 Spot' and Jonathan Levine's 'The Wackness' focuses on each film's rap fueled soundtrack and how it connects to each film's "human dimension[s]" and "artful expression". What's interesting is how neither movie uses rap music as a "hood" signifier (characters enter the city=play rap) or a big dumb joke (see the work of Judd Apatow, or 'Bringing Down the House' and all that falls between), but for emotional and visceral pull. Especially interesting is 'The Wackness', which scores the white main character's life to the sounds of classic, 1994 hip-hop without irony. Rap music is hard to pull-off in a movie because it's very distracting music that demands attention; it rarely blends into the background. Additionally, most of the viewing public's stuck in incredibly out-dated (or never made sense) concepts of what rap music is, what it means, and how it can be used. So, when a rap song comes-in at a point that's emotionally powerful well, it just doesn't resonate, it's just distracting. The music's ability to work or resonate in films is further complicated by the sheer lack of black films that even get made each year. Still stuck in a conventional sense of who does and doesn't look absurd listening to rap, it's hard for films made by whites about whites to engage hip-hop in a way that doesn't come-off as one big joke or incredibly cloying. Given the obsession with irony and juxtaposition in everything from Hollywood to high-minded indies, even when a movie does use rap seriously, it's still often taken as a joke."]

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3. "Some Remarks on Bruce Conner and Report": A reverie from Bright Lights Film Journal on Conner's response to Zapruder, Kennedy, et al.

["Entering into negotiations with executives at Time, Inc. over the sale of a film he'd shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder was adamant that his 26.6 seconds of 8mm Kodachrome safety stock be used in the most dignified manner possible. He had visions, awful nightmare visions of seedy people ducking into some armpit of a movie theater in Times Square to watch the now-former President John F. Kennedy get his head blown apart in something more than living color; and the very notion of such a thing made him positively ill. But once he was given the proper assurances, the old man forked over both the film and all publication rights thereto for a final sum of two hundred grand. Thus did Abraham Zapruder become the first man on earth to make a buck off of the Kennedy assassination."]

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4. "Helped by Twitter, jailed man goes free": You may be right, Lichman. House Twitter could be a good thing.

["A one-word blog post from a cell phone helped to free an American student from an Egyptian jail, but it took the signatures and support of thousands of activists to get his translator out. When detained in April, graduate student James Karl Buck turned to his cell phone and typed the message, "Arrested," alerting all his friends on the microblog service Twitter site. Upon his release shortly afterward, the first thing Buck did was send another message, "Free." On Tuesday, nearly three months after the American and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested, Buck turned to Twitter again -- this time to tell everyone that Maree was safe at home. The post: "Mohammed is free, Mohammed is free!""]

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5. "Man robs station with cheese grater": And a few other "Weird News" stories at MSNBC.

["An armed robber held up a Hammond gas station and tried holding up a bar Sunday with a unique tool. Court records allege that James Plante, 39, used a cheese grater during his crimes. Police said one of the would-be victims realized it wasn’t a gun and threw him out of the bar. Police said Plante ran away and dropped the cheese grater, but police caught up with him, court records show."]

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Quote of the Day: Dante Alighieri

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): You all know this one, right? Head on over to Filmbrain's site for the latest Screen Capture Quiz (e-Mail him the answer; don't leave it in comments).



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Clip of the Day: A new drama animal! Kitty!

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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.