Links for the Day (July 8th, 2008)

1. R.I.P. Bruce Conner: David Hudson gathers the response so far at GreenCine. Of particular note: Ray Pride at Movie City Indie. Share your thoughts in the comments section.

["Artforum reports Bruce Conner, in declining health in recent years, has died. "Bruce Conner, a San Francisco–based artist known for his assemblages, films, drawings, and interdisciplinary works, passed away Monday afternoon. Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957 and quickly found his place within the city’s vibrant Beat community. His gauzy assemblages of scraps salvaged from abandoned buildings, nylon stockings, doll parts, and other found materials gained him art-world attention, as did A Movie (1958), an avant-garde film that juxtaposed footage from B movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, and other fragments, all set to a musical score... 'Report' target leader.png Conner was active in the Bay Area’s 1960s counterculture scene, designing light shows for Family Dog performances at the Avalon Ballroom, and in the ’70s focused on drawing and photography..." There will be no funeral."]

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2. Michael Koresky and Chris Wisniewski inaugurate a new column at indieWIRE on Queer Cinema. First installment: "Fest Forward: Activism. Identification, Titillation and Entertainment."

["For this, our first column about where queer cinema's at, and possibly where it's headed, we could think of no better place to start than the films selected for this month's slate of LGBT festivals (from San Francisco's recent Frameline and last month's NewFest in New York to Los Angeles's upcoming Outfest). If there's been any impression from the films we saw this year, it would be that reality has, with some exception, trumped fiction, but more significantly, the best films were those that dared, in this so-called "post-gay" climate, to remind us that all is not necessarily alright, whether in governmental policy ("Ask Not"), with the continued practice of safe sex ("Sex Positive"), or, most dramatically, under Islamic law ("Be Like Others," "A Jihad for Love") While I adored the festival's romantic, inspiring centerpiece "Chris & Don: A Love Story," a documentary about the decades-long romance between Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood, currently in limited release, I most admired those filmmakers who weren't ready to hang up their activist hats just yet."]

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3. "Theatrical Thoughts": Jamie Stuart's latest column for Stream.

["Over the past couple of years, I've often wondered what the state of movies will look like by the time I've completed my first feature. Around 2005, it occurred to me that I might never shoot a feature on celluloid; most likely, I would start off on a small picture that utilized Mini-DV or 720p, and by the time that project played out, higher HD formats would be more readily accepted for future endeavors. Over the past year or so, however, I've started to consider that my first picture might not even receive a theatrical release, and go out through the internet or home video instead. I'm relatively content with the former scenario, but fairly nervous about the latter."]

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4. "‘Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer,’ Stan Laurel and ‘Remembrance of Things to Come’": Dave Kehr's latest DVD column for the Times, on Thorold Dickinson, Stan Laurel, and Chris Marker.

["In the many short films and features they made together from the late 1920s to the early ’50s, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy present such fully developed characters and such an enduring portrait of friendship that it’s hard to believe that Laurel had an existence independent of his partner. But exist he did, and as the recently issued second volume of “The Stan Laurel Collection” from Kino illustrates, it was an extensive and varied existence."]

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5. "Goat and dog arrested in Alabama": They go well together.

["The goat was arrested, the Mercedes-Benz was assaulted and the dog came along for the ride. It happened Sunday when a woman driving the Mercedes saw a goat and dog playing on U.S. 72 in northern Alabama, Sheriff Mike Blakely said. She stopped, afraid they would get hit, Blakely said. But the goat jumped on the car and wouldn't come down. Fearing scratches and dents in her import's paint job, she called the Limestone County Sheriff's Department. A deputy got the goat down and put it in his patrol car, but then the dog jumped into his back seat too."]

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Quote of the Day: William Hazlitt

"The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The tablet in this picture prompts Time Magazine to ask: "Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?"



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Clip of the Day: Danger Mouse and Duckula. Ah, what Thames Television gave us back in the day.



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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.