Links for the Day (September 5th, 2008)

1. "Moving Day, Ghosts Included": Midway Plantation, one of the subjects of Godfrey Cheshire's upcoming documentary Moving Midway, in The New York Times' Home & Garden section. The film's new website is here and look for our Grassroots interview with Godfrey on September 12th, the day of the film's New York release.

["“Moving Midway,” which opens on Sept. 12 at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, is Godfrey Cheshire’s documentary about a cousin’s decision to move his family’s antebellum manor house from its original site to one that’s a bit less crowded. The Greek Revival plantation house (right), which Mr. Cheshire, a New York-based film critic, had grown up visiting, was built on what was once a wagon trail connecting Tarboro, N.C., to what would eventually be Raleigh; in 2005, it was sitting on a four-lane highway, not the most bucolic transit or aspect. The house’s owners, Charles and Dena Silver, sold 34 acres of their land to a mall developer, and then trucked their plantation and four of its outbuildings to a site two miles away."]

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2. "Divine Tragicomedies": R. Emmett Sweeney, at Moving Image Source, on Ruggles of Red Gap and Make Way For Tomorrow.

["This anti-establishment mentality produced a film that, paradoxically, was a beautiful ode to American democratic establishment values as well as a peerless comedy of manners. The film is a dream of America, a vision of the country’s best intentions made flesh in the town of Red Gap, where class barriers dissolve and officious social climbers get their comeuppance. This vision is crystallized in the scene where Ruggles recites the Gettysburg Address in a bar, after none of the residents can remember the words. The country of the address exists solely in Ruggles's head, but it's his (and McCarey's) unstinting belief in a more perfect union that pushes Red Gap closer to Lincoln's model—and makes the film so enduringly affecting"]

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3. "Bill Melendez, 'Peanuts' animator—and voice of Snoopy—dies at 91": From the Los Angeles Times. Robbie Freeling has a tribute up at Reverse Blog.

["Animator, director and producer Jose Cuautemoc "Bill" Melendez, whose television programs and theatrical films featuring Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" characters earned four Emmy Awards, an Oscar nomination and two Peabody Awards, died Tuesday at St. John's hospital in Santa Monica, according to publicist Amy Goldsmith. He was 91. Melendez's career extended over nearly seven decades, including stints at Walt Disney Studios, Leon Schlesinger Cartoons (which later was sold to Warner Bros.), United Productions of America and Playhouse Pictures. In 1964, he established Bill Melendez Productions, where he created his best-known works, including the holiday classic "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965). Over the years, his films were honored with two additional prime-time Emmys, three National Cartoonist Society awards, a Clio Award and 150 awards for commercials."]

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4. "Sarah Palin actually character created by Tina Fey, SNL": From Dateline Hollywood. (Hattip: Ross Ruediger)

["Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain on Wednesday admitted that his vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin is actually Tina Fey, who joined the campaign as part of a stunt orchestrated by the "30 Rock" star's old co-workers at "Saturday Night Live." "This Sarah Palin character is so obviously Tina with a bad beehive hairdo that I can't believe we managed to keep up the prank for an entire week," McCain said on Wednesday after Fey's Palin wig fell off during a press conference."]

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5. K. Silem Mohammad on The House Bunny at Lost in the Frame.

["Anna Faris almost saves the show anyway. Part of her perfectness for the role is how imperfect she is by Playboy standards: she has the stilted grace of an ostrich, and her face contorts unpredictably into various complex cheek-puffings and eye-squintings. In real life, she could never be Miss November, and when her big break finally comes in the film, we are supposed to believe that Hef has temporarily suspended his business sense, and, guided by the piercing wisdom of his benevolent sentimentality, offers her the pin-up slot out of sheer endearment. It's totally unbelievable, of course. And the movie is drivel. But bookmark Faris's expert goofiness as a small core of self-justifying value."]

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Quote of the Day: Vladimir Nabokov

"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."

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Image(s) of the Day (click to enlarge): Two images from Liverpool, the first movie I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. Miraculous. (Thanks to Adam Nayman for steering me there.)



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Clip(s) of the Day: Przekladaniec (1968), written by Stanislaw Lem, directed by Andrzej Wajda. In four parts on YouTube. (Hattip: Jordan Hoffman)







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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.