Posted on September 7, 2018 at 8:00 am
Screenwriting Magazine is making available links to 100 Academy contender screenplays. Whether you’re thinking of writing one yourself or just want to know your favorites a little better, this treasure trove is worth checking out.
Posted on August 22, 2018 at 8:00 am
I really appreciate Sophie Gilbert for writing in The Atlantic about something that has bugged me for a long time, the tired cliche of the movie portrayals of female journalists as completely unprofessional, and especially as always sleeping with their sources and subjects. I complained about this in my review of the Amy Schumer romantic comedy, “Trainwreck.”
Gilbert begins with Amy Adams in “Sharp Objects,” based on a novel by former real-life journalist Gillian Flynn, who should know better. “At the end of the most recent episode of Sharp Objects, “Falling,” Camille slept with someone who’s 18 years old, a murder suspect, and one of her primary sources.” Gilbert discusses “House of Cards” and “The Gilmore Girls” and she goes back to films like “Absence of Malice” with Sally Field and “Thank You for Smoking” with Katie Holmes.
You wouldn’t ever see Rosalind Russell behave so unprofessionally.
And, as Gilbert explains, male journalists in movies don’t either. It’s time to find some other storyline for female characters.
Posted on August 18, 2018 at 9:33 pm
I’m so happy that “Crazy Rich Asians” is such a great movie and so happy that audiences are enjoying it as much as I do. Some great behind-the-scenes commentary from director Jon M. Chu, with a lot of detail about what was real and what was done with digital effects:
In this scene, Rachel (Constance Wu) and the audience first see the mansion that is the home of her boyfriends’s crazy rich family.
And here he talks about one of the early scenes, where we see how the news of Nick Young’s girlfriend gets to Singapore. It reminded me of the telephone scene in “Bye Bye Birdie.” Look fast to see Chu’s baby son and also the author, Kevin Kwan.
The stars of the film talk about how much it means to them to be a part of a project with an all-Asian cast.
The Angry Asian Man blog has a fascinating description of what exactly was happening in the climactic mahjong scene.
One of my favorite critics, Inkoo Kang, writes about the film’s references and Easter eggs, and about the last film to feature an all-Asian cast, “The Joy Luck Club.” The success of “Crazy Rich Asians” means that we will not be waiting another 25 years for the next — and that this cast of exceptionally talented breakout stars will all be in other movies very soon.
Posted on August 12, 2018 at 9:05 pm
Slate’s has a great essay by Keith Phipps comparing “The Meg” to the nutty “Jaws: The Revenge,” asking “Which is the crazier shark movie?” It is wonderfully passionate, thoughtful, and thorough and tons of fun to read.
Everything about Jaws: The Revenge, from its borderline incoherent story to its chaotic action to its iffy effects to co-star Mario Van Peebles’ attempt at a Bahamian accent reveal it as a patchwork movie with little holding it together.
And it gives me a chance to share my all-time favorite stand-up routine ever, from the late, much-missed Richard Jeni.
Posted on July 14, 2018 at 5:17 pm
My friend Kristen Lopez is also one of my favorite critics, knowledgeable, forthright, passionate, and always willing to engage on issues of representation. Recently, she stared down a bunch of rabid fanboys who were upset (“Hey, it’s a MOVIE!”) on Twitter because she called out “Ant-Man and the Wasp” for the tired trope of the disabled bad guy, driven to do bad things because of the disability.
Ant-Man and the Wasp’s treatment of disability will go under the radar. But in a landscape where disability remains marginalized, particularly for women of color (and people of color in general), a character like Ava could have helped opened the door. Chronic pain remains a hot-button issue in the disabled community, and having Ava live with it could have presented something relatable. Instead, Ava is stripped of her problem in order to make her rational, quantifiable, and controllable.
I was interested to see how she would react to Dwayne Johnson’s portrayal of a disabled character in “Skyscraper.” While I prefer to see disabled characters played by disabled actors, I also recognize the idea that any actor should be able to play any part. Until ordinary characters — teachers, accountants, doctors, scientists, parents, children — are shown with disabilities that are not central to their identity and are played by actors with disabilities, I think we should be careful about putting able-bodied people in those roles. And no body is more able than The Rock.
Lopez called Johnson’s portrayal “surprisingly nuanced” and “far better” than what we usually see.
First, she says, “the adversity is the building itself, not Will’s disability….By not making a big deal of his disability, Will is a character who represents a marked improvement in representation. People with disabilities don’t want their disability to define them, and Will’s doesn’t define his character. It adds to it…. His character doesn’t walk away a changed man appreciating being disabled. He gets his family back and seemingly ends the film the same way he started. It’s just a facet of his personality he deals with in order to overcome this great challenge.”
But, she has some concerns as well. “The character is also written to fall into the “able-bodied buffer” category, a term I use to describe any character shown as previously able-bodied before a traumatic event. This ‘buffer’ is created as a means of helping the able-bodied audience bond with the newly disabled character, under the belief that disabled people are so mysterious that there’s no point of entry for the audience short of reminding them the character was one ‘like you.'”
I wasn’t the only one who appreciated this review.
Wow. I am officially verklempt. @TheRock thanks for taking the time to read my piece! Disabled representation has a long road to travel, but I was happy to see movement being made. pic.twitter.com/KvhPq5MvlR
— Kristen Lopez (@Journeys_Film) July 13, 2018
