Posted on September 28, 2015 at 3:30 pm
Have you ever wanted to let an advertiser know what you thought of the commercial? Or just checked out the actor or theme music? Ispot.tv is a great site with commercials and background info, with comments from viewers on what they like and don’t like.
Posted on September 24, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Here is the MPAA rating for “Hotel Transylvania 2”
Rated PG for some scary images, action and rude humor
And here is the rating for the first “Hotel Transylvania”
Rated PG for some rude humor, action and scary images
Can anyone tell me what the difference means?
Posted on September 21, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Many thanks to Tara Sonenshine for this thoughtful commentary:
It’s Yom Kippur, The Pope is Arriving, and “Meet the Patels” is in Theaters….Let’s Celebrate “Tradition”
I am very glad to have met the Patels last night via the new film, “Meet the Patels” starring Indian-American actor, Ravi Patel, in a comedic documentary about a young man’s journey to find a wife, on his own, while his parents insist on providing him with an arranged marriage. With Ravi’s sister, Greeta Patel, filming the entire quest, the movie both entertains and inspires. For me, as a Jewish movie goer, the film reminded me of the similarities in cultures and religious traditions mixed with the generational divides that challenge all faiths.
Indian arranged marriages are not too dissimilar from old-fashioned Jewish “Shidachs” where a matchmaker pairs up the groom and bride based on criteria ranging from family background to physical characteristics as well as important considerations like money. The key is parental involvement—something eschewed by modern millennials. Like Jewish parents, the Patels are desperate for their grown children to marry and procreate, and they want Indian tradition to prevail. All that was missing in the movie was a “fiddler on the roof.”
The irony about tradition is that despite the predominance of modern technology, an Internet-driven society, and the notion that people can have “friends” without ever meeting them, there is still something special about being in the same room with those we want to know. Crowds will flock to see the Pope in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City, even though they can get a better seat at home watching CNN. Our kids use speed dating—simply a scaled up version of what The Patels were offering with “biodata” and martial conventions where single people scope out the potential mates. In the end, there is nothing truly new about services like “Jewish Singles.com” or “Christian Mingle.com” or what The Patels had in mind.
So as Jews around the world celebrate “Yom Kippur,”—the Day of Atonement, and Catholics wave to the “Pope,” let’s toast traditions—may they last forever.
Tara Sonenshine is former under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.
Posted on September 17, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Karina Longworth is the creator/narrator of the brilliant “You Must Remember This” podcast, which covers Hollywood history. Last season was entirely devoted to a mesmerizing narrative about the Charles Manson murders. The show has now moved to Slate’s Panoply podcast network and the new season responds to listener requests. Longworth answered my questions about the show.
What led you to tell these stories via podcast rather than a book or series of articles? How does that format change the way you present the stories?
The simple and practical answer is that I started the podcast because I found myself increasingly wanting to consume information that way myself. I still read a lot of books and longform reporting, but I find that there’s too much of that stuff, and potentially interesting things either fall through the cracks altogether, or else I don’t get around to them as quickly as I would like. But I’m always “running out” of podcasts to listen to, so I figured if I made one that was unique I figured there might be people like me who would be willing to take a chance on it.
The more complicated answer is that on some level, I’ve kind of been waiting for this format to come around and become viable for nearly 20 years. When I was in art school as an undergraduate I studied experimental non-fiction film and video, and the work I was making was basically 19 year-old me’s version of this podcast, except that I was editing together montages of mostly found imagery in order to give it a visual element. Now I don’t have to have the visual element.
Hollywood pioneered the idea of press agents and personal brands, and even scandal magazines often suppressed negative stories in exchange for access. How does that affect your ability to research what was really happening?
A big part of the show is about that process, and that uncertainty. In most cases, I don’t think we can know without a shadow of a doubt what really, truly happened. It’s the conflicting stories, and the gaps between the facts we know and the ways in which the stories were or continue to be spun, that I think are really interesting. My hope is that through the process of sifting through all of this, larger truths will emerge.
What was it about the Manson stories that inspired you to delve into such an extended retelling? What do you think made him such a compelling leader? Do you consider him a reflection of his era?
I wanted to talk about a time and a place in which no one suspected Charles Manson was going to orchestra multiple murders — and even after the murders, no one thought he was involved for awhile — because he and everything he was doing simply wasn’t considered to be weird. It was also really clear to me after a little bit of reading that his story was kind of the worst case scenario version of a really familiar Hollywood tale, of the pilgrim who comes to Southern California thinking they’re going to “make it,” only to have their hopes dashed, and then have them respond, shall we say, ungracefully.
What kinds of resources do you use for your research?
Because I’m pressed for time, these days I primarily use biographical books and other mass-published Hollywood histories, but for various different episodes I’ve done more in-depth archival research at places like the Margaret Herrick Library, the Warner Brothers archive at USC, and the BFI Library in London, where I’m currently living.
Can you give us a hint of what some of the listener requests are that you’ll be reporting on this season?
There were so many compelling requests, but as I was weeding through them all, it became clear that multiple people were interested in the stories of the studio moguls, and how the studio system was run during the classical Hollywood era. Also, there were requests for the stories of many individual stars who were associated with MGM. So in the end, I chose 15 stories that would allow me to explore a number of different facets of how the studio worked, why it was so dominant for so many years, and how the system it mastered of creating and promoting stars ultimately fell apart.
Posted on September 6, 2015 at 3:23 pm
He keeps coming back to a character’s taking moral judgement into his own hands to commit murder, most recently this year in “Irrational Man.” What do you think this idea of literally getting away with murder is so resonant with him?
I think the fixation began with Woody’s desire to show death and evil as realistically as possible, and Martin Landau’s Judah Rosenthal (Crimes And Misdemeanors) is, perhaps, the most realistic killer captured on film. In short, it is obvious that the number of murders (usually unsolved) far outnumber the confessors- meaning, guilt is a malleable thing, and can be siphoned off for one’s own uses and rationalized away. Art has rarely shown this (especially not well), and the biggest example that we have of murder and guilt in the arts is Crime And Punishment. This film is an inversion of that, and even though Cassandra’s Dream does show guilt eating away at things to the point of destruction, even that is treated in a way that basks in its own inversions and exploits the viewer’s sense of complacency.
Bergman and Fellini are often mentioned as clear influences on Allen. Who else would you add to that list? And which current directors most look to him as an influence?
Bergman, Fellini, The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Akira Kurosawa, Bob Hope (especially the persona), and Buster Keaton all had their place. I probably would not add much to the list of artistic influences. As for the work that’s been influenced by Woody, there is- literally- all of the ‘city’ rom-coms from the 1980s-90s, to shows like Sex And The City, Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy (his best film, in fact) and- I’d wager- the majority of films that try to put romance front and center as a ‘serious’ topic. I think the majority of these attempts failed, however, partly because so many fans take works like Manhattan and Annie Hall at face value and don’t recognize how so many of their illusions are being skewered.
Which is his most under-appreciated film?
It’s a tie between Stardust Memories (one of the 10 or 20 greatest films ever made) and Another Woman. Stardust Memories, in particular, has been seen as an ‘attack’ on Allen’s films, which is both ridiculous and irrelevant. In fact, it is one of the deepest comments on art and human relationships that I’ve ever seen, from the illusory ending of the ‘inner’ film, to the way that Sandy- despite being neurotic and the like- is both wanted and demanded by thousands of others not necessarily for his fame and money, but because he is a complete person. He simply knows HOW to create and retain a measure of health and self-purpose that the others do not. Yet his flaws are front and center, too, even as the film ends on a positive note: that all of these conflicts, from Sandy’s fears, to his fans’ neediness, are self-made, and immaterial in the end. In short, no one escape’s Woody’s eye…not even great artists, as Sandy apparently is. It is simply wrong, factually, to call Stardust Memories dour. And it has more a ‘happy’ ending. It is an ennobling one.
Is “Radio Days” is most autobiographical? Or “Annie Hall?”
Probably neither. Radio Days captures the spirit of what Allen has gone through and valued, but not necessarily the specifics. Annie Hall has small parts of his relationships and upbringing, but that’s about it. Stardust Memories and Interiors have elements of his life with Louise Lasser, and Husbands And Wives is viewed- incorrectly- as a kind of corollary to his relationship with Mia Farrow. It’s hard to get an artist’s “real life” from his work of art, unless one is dealing with a memoir. But you get much more than that: you get an artist’s INNER life, which is necessarily richer than the details. It’s not the details, per se; it is the REACTION to these details and how they’re interpreted and re-interpreted that matters most.
You say that with “Mighty Aphrodite” Allen stepped “outside his comforts.” What was different with this film?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qz_zB2Pc2gIt featured a number of self-conscious changes/additions. The ridiculous use of the Greek chorus might have an analogue with his skewering of the Russian literary classics in Love And Death, but while the earlier film was all gags, there are a number of truly serious and poetic moments in Mighty Aphrodite. For example, Michael Rappaport’s character is probably the dumbest character he’s had to this point- and while Cheech (Bullets Over Broadway) was a thug, he was an intelligent one. By contrast, Michael Rappaport plays an idiot that, instead of merely being forced into the role of a pure idiot, is fleshed out by whatever means possible for such a limited human being. Thus, when Mia Sorvino is having dinner with Rappaport, you see just how little the two can talk about, and how little- by extension- most people really have in their own relationships, built, as they are, upon things that don’t really last. And Rappaport, on his end, delivers a wonderful little monologue about a ‘dream’ he has- to be dropped naked into the middle of the snow by a bird. No matter how comic it is, there is also something knowing about the scene, too- that these are the limits for so many people, anyway, and that this is the way they create and retain meaning. In short, characters get precisely what they deserve: criticism, prodding, but also the opportunity to show off their own depths, if in fact they are available.
Which is your favorite score in his films?
I’ve always been partial to the music in Hannah And Her Sisters and Radio Days. The latter probably has Allen’s best use of music, while Hannah does interesting things with song titles and lyrics that often go at odds with what’s on the screen- as if Allen means something other than what he shows.
What do you want him to do that he has not done so far?
At this point, I’d want him to simply rest. He’s done more great work than almost any other filmmaker in cinematic history. The longer that he attempts to draw his material past the point of his own talent, the more filler he’ll be responsible for. If his last film were 2007’s stellar Cassandra’s Dream, we would all be tantalized with ‘What’s next?’ and hope that he’ll continue. Instead, we had the question answered in a way that will simply not matter a half century from now. On the other hand, I don’t really care, personally. Again: he’s done great work. He has certainly earned the right to waste people’s time so that he could pass the time in old age. Let him do what he feels he must.
