1. "Guillaume Depardieu, 1971 - 2008": Too soon. R.I.P. (UPDATE: Glenn Kenny eulogizes at Some Came Running.)

["Guillaume Depardieu, the son of Gérard Depardieu, died earlier today at the age of 37. The cause of death was named as pneumonia, which he'd contracted three days earlier in Paris' Raymond Poincare hospital. "]

["For the past four years, Jamie Stuart has made short Web films at the New York Film Festival (as well as Sundance and Toronto). Commissioned by Filmmaker magazine, and with a love for the quirky detail, he has brought a poet's eye to festival junkets, news conferences and sundry rituals of ballyhoo, creating off-the-cuff observational essays that vividly capture the nexus between art, absurdity and celebrity. (He once focused an entire piece on Sienna Miller's cocktail ring; in another he gave Amy Adams the camera and had her interview him.) But now Stuart, who hopes for a feature career, is ready for his own close-up. For his coverage of this year's New York Film Festival, which closes today, the 33-year-old director has created an ambitious fictional framing narrative, a "low-fi sci-fi" thriller in which he stars as a time-traveling mystery man. Here he discusses a shot in the third episode, set on the Queensboro Bridge:"]

["In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple. He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man. She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began."]

["You Can't Take It With You, apart from having an irritatingly long and un-shortenable title, is basically the manic screwball comedies that I adore so much, but diluted with the infamous corn of Capra. If making films was a culinary art (and you know you wish it were), then here we have at the helm a chef who got noticed for his originality but has landed a boss who is terrified of bad press. 'Play it safe, lad,' he says, and so our precocious young cook looks down at his delicious concution and sadly pours in Capra's Creamed CornTM into his pot. Stir, and voila! You have crazy that Oscar can adore without having to laugh too much. God forbid people think the golden man's got a funny bone."]

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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.