Links for the Day (August 18th, 2008)

1. "Superheroes for sale": David Bordwell on the current prevalence of superhero movies

["The films that disappointed me on that moviegoing day were Iron Man and The Dark Knight. The first seemed to me an ordinary comic-book movie endowed with verve by Robert Downey Jr.’s performance. While he’s thought of as a versatile actor, Downey also has a star persona—the guy who’s wound a few turns too tight, putting up a good front with rapid-fire patter (see Home for the Holidays, Wonder Boys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac). Downey’s cynical chatterbox makes Iron Man watchable. When he’s not onscreen we get excelsior. Christopher Nolan showed himself a clever director in Memento and a promising one in The Prestige. So how did he manage to make The Dark Knight such a portentously hollow movie? Apart from enjoying seeing Hong Kong in Imax, I was struck by the repetition of gimmicky situations–disguises, hostage-taking, ticking bombs, characters dangling over a skyscraper abyss, who’s dead really once and for all? The fights and chases were as unintelligible as most such sequences are nowadays, and the usual roaming-camera formulas were applied without much variety. Shoot lots of singles, track slowly in on everybody who’s speaking, spin a circle around characters now and then, and transition to a new scene with a quick airborne shot of a cityscape. Like Jim Emerson, I thought that everything hurtled along at the same aggressive pace. If I want an arch-criminal caper aiming for shock, emotional distress, and political comment, I’ll take Benny Chan’s New Police Story."]

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2. "Hundreds flee after dam break near Grand Canyon": From Reuters.

["A rain-soaked earthen dam near the Grand Canyon broke on Sunday, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents from a flooded village in a downstream Indian reservation, a National Park Service spokeswoman said. Five helicopters from the Arizona National Guard and the state public safety department ferried some evacuees, including campers and river-runners, to higher ground after floodwaters cascaded into the remote Native American town of Supai at the bottom of a canyon, spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said. As of Sunday evening, 75 people had been airlifted to safety and another 350 were waiting to be flown out as darkness approached, Oltrogge said, adding some evacuees may be forced to spend the night on higher ground near the flood zone. "It sounds like all the residents and campers have been accounted for," she told Reuters. No injuries were reported."]

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3. "In Switzerland, Rivero's "Paraque Via" from Mexico Wins Locarno Fest's Top Prize": From indieWIRE.

["Enrique Rivero won Mexico's first Golden Leopard as the 2008 Locarno International Film Festival came to a close this weekend. His first feature, "Paraque via," was awarded the top jury prize at the festival on Saturday night in Switzerland. The film also won the FIPRESCI critics award at the event. Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow" won the fest's audience award. Denis Cote from Canada won Locarno's best director award for "Elle Veut Le Chaos", while Fernand Melgar from Switzerland won the Filmmakers of the Present Competition for "La Forteresse" and Eva Randolph from Brazil won the International Leopoard of Tomorrow Competition for "Dez Elephants." The Locarno fest saw a jump in admissions, hitting more than 123,000 this year. That is up from more than 117,000 last year, even though the event saw a drop in attendance of its outdoor Piazza Grande screenings due to rain on six nights of the festival."]

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4. Michael Atkinson on Vicky Cristina Barcelona at Zero for Conduct.

["I’m frankly getting tired of being the kid in the crowd pointing at the emperor’s bare-naked buttcheeks, but someone (besides Chicago Reader’s J.R. Jones) has got to make the case for the achingly obvious: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a sophomoric, cliched howler, so ludicrously bad in so many ways one doesn’t know where to begin."]

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5. "D-minus for 3-D": From Roger Ebert's Journal.

[" There is a mistaken belief that 3-D is "realistic." Not at all. In real life we perceive in three dimensions, yes, but we do not perceive parts of our vision dislodging themselves from the rest and leaping at us. Nor do such things, such as arrows, cannonballs or fists, move so slowly that we can perceive them actually in motion. If a cannonball approached that slowly, it would be rolling on the ground. In common with most species, we have excellent perception of movement. The first rudimentary "eyes" evolved to sense the difference between light (the source of energy) and darkness (its absence). Very slowly those early cells developed an ability to sense motion. The notion that eyes had to be an example of "intelligent design" is flawed because it cannot imagine an eye evolving toward what it cannot conceive. But sight has evolved independently dozens of times on this planet, growing more complex not because it what it was evolving into, but because of what it was evolving away from: less perception of light and movement. Those few creatures who because of chance mutation gained an advantage were of course more likely to survive. Our ancestors on the prehistoric savannah developed an acute alertness to motion, for the excellent reason that anything that moved might want to eat them. Movement perceived against a static background is dominant, a principle all filmmakers know. But what about rapid movement toward the viewer? Yes, we see a car aiming for us. But it advances by growing larger against its background, not by detaching from it. Nor did we evolve to stand still and regard its advance. To survive, we learned instinctively to turn around, leap aside, run away. We didn't just stand there evolving the ability to enjoy a 3-D movie."]

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Quote of the Day: Alfred Hitchcock

"This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book—it makes a very poor doorstop. "

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The Oakland Municipal Auditorium in use as a temporary hospital, 1918 flu pandemic. Photo and story from The Tech Herald.



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Clip of the Day: Brian Williams interviews Olympic athlete Michael Phelps.

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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.