Is “Action Violence” Okay for Kids?

Posted on July 11, 2016 at 3:55 pm

What is the difference between a PG-13 movie and an R movie? Usually it has to do with language but very often it has to do with violence — not the amount of violence but the amount of gore. A battle scene can be just as long and have as many fatalities, but if we don’t see much blood or any graphic wounds, it will get a PG-13 rating.

Some people believe that what is called “action violence” (little blood) is worse for kids than R-rate violence because it perpetuates an unrealistic notion of the real-life effect of shootouts and car crashes.

A recent New York Times piece collected four essays on the subject under the title: PG-13 Blockbusters and the Sugarcoating of Violence. Betsy Bozdech of Common Sense Media writes:

dventures that are light on blood and guts may seem more palatable. But showing violence with minimized consequences might be damaging in a different way. If you don’t bat an eye when, in a movie, thousands of innocent civilians are caught in an alien-fighting crossfire, or a national landmark explodes, you may be becoming desensitized.

More important, when movie characters are walking away from firefights with barely a scratch or slaughtering hordes of bad guys, it sends an iffy message when their actions don’t have repercussions. Research shows that if kids don’t see negative behavior punished, they’re more likely to imitate it — especially when it is performed by an appealing character or if it seems to be justified by the outcome (both of which are fairly typical of superhero movies).

Jen Yamato on Three Awful Articles About Actresses

Posted on July 9, 2016 at 3:22 pm

There have been a lot of complaints about the Vanity Fair cover story on Margot Robbie by Rich Cohen (“Vinyl”), which reads like a parody of skeezily raphsodic profiles of beautiful women. I particularly like the takedown from Rebecca Shaw, who is, like Robbie, Australian, and so addresses Cohen’s idiotic comments about her country as well as his idiotic comments about Robbie.

Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people.

Bloody hell, calm your farm Richo. We’re America 50 years ago, so what – increasing our troops into Vietnam?…

That was the middle of a search that finally led to Alexander Skarsgård as Tarzan and Robbie as Jane. Jerry spoke of the actress in a tone he reserved for the big stars, the sure things, the Clooneys and Pitts, those whose magnitude seems old-fashioned. “When I think of Margot Robbie, a single word comes to mind,” Jerry said. “Audrey Hepburn.”

A single word: these two words. Earlier in the piece Richo said that Wolf of Wall Street defined Robbie. It “put her up with Sharon Stone in Casino and Cathy Moriarty in Raging Bull – one of Scorcese’s women.

I know I am 50 years behind all of this being one of the throwback people and all, but did you know that women don’t have to be defined by 1. being compared to other women and 2. belonging to some man or another? Astonishing stuff from here, downunder.

The Fug’s Heather has some thoughts as well.

The piece reads like an interview in which subject and questioner had zero chemistry. But it’s an interviewer’s job to find that, or fix it, rather than go home and throw Google searches at the problem. Frankly, when I read that conclusion and it so strongly created the image of her just casually standing up and leaving, I wanted to shake her hand. Australia has a right to be offended by the finished article (and it is, from what I’ve read). So too does Margot Robbie, though I suspect she will calmly say nothing. She’s already won, honestly. She, somehow, still comes across as normal and cool even though she’s not given as much voice as she deserves.

At The Daily Beast, Jen Yamato insightfuly brings together the Rich Cohen profile of Margot Robbie with two other articles about actresses that have provoked complaints. Variety’s critic Owen Gleiberman wrote that the trailer for the new “Bridget Jones” movie made him think that Renee Zellweger “no longer looks like herself,” and thus he might not be able to enjoy the movie. (See Thelma Adams’ response, too.)

And the usually-better Wesley Morris wrote a piece titled “How I Learned to Tolerate Blake Lively.” He spends most of the article explaining that he was expecting to see Kate Hudson starring in “The Shallows,” but no, it was another lithe blonde actress from California instead. Yamato has some good advice: “One glaring (and fixable!) factor in this trend of vaguely lecherous, sketchy filmbro culture: Hire more women writers and editors to represent a more accurate diversity of opinions, analysis, context.”

Roald Dahl — Movies and Television

Posted on June 27, 2016 at 8:00 am

Roald Dahl was a prolific author whose books included wildly popular children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the creepy short stories that inspired some of the best-remembered episodes of “The Alfred Hitchcock Show,” including “Lamb to the Slaughter,” with one of the great murder weapons in the history of murder stories. This week, the latest Dahl adaptation comes to screen, Steven Spielberg’s “The BFG.”

Stephanie Merry has a terrific piece in the Washington Post about the films based on Dahl’s children’s books, from Fantastic Mr. Fox to Anjelica Huston’s title role in The Witches.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Aaron Sorkin Wants to Hear Your Bad Ideas

Posted on June 26, 2016 at 3:55 pm

Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing,” “Moneyball,” “The Social Network”) is teaching an online master class in screenwriting. Whether you dream of writing great films or television series or just want to learn how to communicate more effectively, this is an extraordinary opportunity.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Werner Herzog and “Lo and Behold”

Posted on June 26, 2016 at 1:56 pm

Werner Herzog is not only one of the most brilliant directors in the history of world cinema; he is also unique in the span of his films, equally impressive in narrative features and documentaries. After a decade of pleading from the AFI Docs festival for the chance to recognize his work at their Charles Guggenheim Symposium, the busy director finally agreed to attend and permit a tribute to his work that included an interview on stage and a screening of his new film about the internet, “Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.”

Herzog was interviewed by another outstanding director, Ramin Bahrani (“Goodbye Solo,” “99 Homes”). Both were championed by Roger Ebert, who brought them together for a collaboration — the wonderful short film “Future States,” with Herzog providing the voice for the existentially troubled central character, a plastic bag.

Herzog’s documentary may cover some of the most advanced technology in the world, but he does not have a cell phone, he says, “for cultural reasons. Our examination of the world should not only be through applications.” When Bahrani complimented his “location-based” images, Herzog said, “I’m good with locations. I can direct landscapes.” Whether he is shooting burning oil fields in Kuwait (“Lessons of Darkness”), the face of a deaf/blind woman on her first airplane flight (“Land of Silence and Darkness”), or the soft-drink-machine size computer that sent the very first two-letter message over the internet (“Lo and Behold”), his camera movements and images are vital and engaging. He spoke of the importance of being on top of the mechanics of filming (“I am a very pragmatic filmmaker”) and of the poetry, a sort of choreography of the camera, as he conveys “the dance between the actors and the location.”

He distinguished his documentary films from the prevalent approach to non-fiction filmmaking, which he considers more like journalism, “belonging more to television than in a theater.” He is frank about his departure from the conventions of cinema verite; he has no hesitation in asking a subject to move or answer again, to “go beyond the mere facts” in search of “narrative power.” “Illumination is more important than facts….I’m looking for deeper poetry.” But that does not necessarily mean pretty pictures. He will avoid shooting a sunset, calling it “romanticized beauty.”

He says there are things you cannot learn in film school, like “know(ing) the heart of men.” What filmmakers should learn in film school are the tools it takes to get the film made: “lock picking and forging shooting permits.”

Herzog makes films when “there is a story so big I cannot resist.” And he does not stop. “I plow on.”