1. "R.I.P. Charles Nelson Reilly": Now departed his mortal encumbrance to pursue his selfosophical research in another dimension. See also our "Clip of the Day".
["People always think I'm exaggerating when I say something like "Charles Nelson Reilly taught me to read," but believe me, it was true."]
2. "Best way to Honor": Gary Kamiya for Salon on Memorial Day.
["For me, like most other Americans, Memorial Day is a time for barbecuing, playing Frisbee, loading up coolers with iced beer, and getting out of town. I usually don't think about America's war dead on the last weekend of May any more than I think about our nation's independence on the Fourth of July, or about the birth of Jesus on Christmas."]
3. "Cannes Report: Mike's Drive-Bys": Mike D'Angelo wraps up his Cannes experience.
["Before I get to handicapping the awards (in a separate post to follow), a few regrettably quick notes on the Competition films I didn't have the time/stamina/inclination to address earlier, mostly because none of them exactly blew me away."]
4. "U.S., Iran hold first formal talks in 27 years": From CNN.
["The United States told Iran on Monday its support for militias fighting in Iraq needs to cease, said Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Crocker spoke at a news conference after a meeting with Iranian diplomats in Baghdad—the first public and formal meeting between U.S. and Iranian representatives since the United States cut off diplomatic relations 27 years ago."]
5. ""It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief": Crime and the American genre film": First part of a three-part interview with Chris Fujiwara & Mark Roberts. Via Girish Shambu.
["I have a problem with the phrase "film noir," for I'm not sure what it really is. Maybe in Japan and France, people can talk about this genre more precisely, but in America film noir became more of a marketing tool—and a very important one—because it was one of the ways that repertory movie theaters in the United States managed to stay alive. They found that audiences were drawn to these so-called film noir, crime or mystery thrillers, films with actors like Humphrey Bogart. Actually, Bogart was one of the stars most strongly associated with the American repertory-theater movement, since the Brattle Theater in Cambridge was the place where they revived "Casablanca" in the 1960s and thereby helped that film become well known again. So, for me as an American, the phrase "film noir" has a certain association with marketing."]
Clip of the Day: In honor of Charles Nelson Reilly, the opening sequence to the Millennium episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense".
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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.
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