Links for the Day (October 6th, 2008)

1. Checking in with Girish and Emerson: "The Filmmaker Overview Essay" & "Pey or Falin, which is more realer?"

["I can't get enough of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin. I feel about her the way I felt about Dr. Evil in the first "Austin Powers" movie. My eyes light up whenever she's on camera. And then, of course, there are those little starbursts she sends through the screen that go ricocheting around the living rooms of America, as first reported by Rich Lowry of the National Review. Something strange is happening, though: Fey's Palin is not only sharper and funnier than Palin's Palin, she's also more vivid, more... real (maybe because she's on TV more). It's as if she's the main Palin and the other one is the paler surrogate Palin. In other words, for you baby boomers, Tina Fey's Palin is the Dick York and Sarah Palin's Palin is the Dick Sargent. Sure, they're both bewitching in their own ways, but Fey's is the real Darrin. If you know what I mean."]

***
2. "Dispatch from sunny Vancouver": By Kristin Thompson & David Bordwell.

["I’ve noticed that there seems to be a mini-revival of 1970s-style art cinema conventions. After many years in which art cinema tended to mean intricate psychological studies, a more challenging, formalist avant-garde seems to surface now and then. While watching Eat, for This Is My Body, it occurred to me that it could almost have been called Haiti Song, so strongly did it remind me of Marguerite Duras’s India Song. There enigmatic actions, often dancing, were staged in a colonial house. Eat, for This Is My Body’s action is, if anything, more enigmatic, though in this case the native population is present in the house in the person of a dignified manservant and a group of nine boys brought at intervals into the house, apparently as a treat."]

***

3. The latest GreenCine podcast from Aaron Hillis and Andrew Grant. The subject: Wendy and Lucy. The participants: Sam Adams & Alison Willmore. Special bonus above: Drunken karaoke with Hillis and Fessenden!

["To follow up on the initial NYFF entry on Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy, Aaron Hillis and Andrew Grant discuss the film with Sam Adams, who writes for the Philadelphia City Paper, the AV Club and the Los Angeles Times, and IFC.com editor Alison Willmore."]

***
4. "Sources: Taliban split with al Qaeda, seek peace": From CNN.

["Taliban leaders are holding Saudi-brokered talks with the Afghan government to end the country's bloody conflict -- and are severing their ties with al Qaeda, sources close to the historic discussions have told CNN. The militia, which has been intensifying its attacks on the U.S.-led coalition that toppled it from power in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, has been involved four days of talks hosted by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, says the source. The talks -- the first of their kind aimed at resolving the lengthy conflict in Afghanistan -- mark a significant move by the Saudi leadership to take a direct role in Afghanistan, hosting delegates who have until recently been their enemies."]

***
5. "Facebook co-founder Moskovitz leaves to start group collaboration company": From Venture Beat.

["Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz (left) and colleague Justin Rosenstein (right) said this weekend they are leaving Facebook to start their own company. The moves are just the latest in a steady exodus from Facebook, a trend that has sparked questions about whether the popular social networking company’s culture is changing and whether it is losing its magnetism."]

***
Quote of the Day: M.C. Escher

"What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness."

***
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): How much is a chihuahua worth? $29 million, apparently.



***
Clip of the Day: Brandon Hardesty reenacts a scene from Labyrinth.

_____________________________________________________
"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.