Thelma Adams Asks, ‘Where’s Momma?’

Posted on June 7, 2011 at 3:52 pm

US Magazine critic Thelma Adams has a blog post about one of the most common questions I get asked: where are the parents in movies about kids? She quotes my comments:

Nell Minow, the Movie Mom, told me “This is the second-most frequent question I get asked by parents (first is: I am so careful with my kids, but what do I do when they go over to someone else’s house?)”

The answer, Minow continued, referencing Tom and Huck, Pippi Longstocking, and David Copperfield, et. al., is that “if the parents are there, the child can’t have an adventure. They’d be saying, ‘You can’t go on the yellow brick road today — you have homework, and you need a sweater!’ The satisfying fantasy of the story is that the child is able to do what the child in the audience would like to feel he can do — to master the scary adult world.”

She still doesn’t like it though, and wonders how many more parts there would be for mature actresses if the movies allowed more of their young characters to have moms. And privately, we agreed that even though we loved “Finding Nemo,” the beginning is wrenching.

Best Actor in the Worst Movie and More From Rotten Tomatoes — From Slate

Posted on June 6, 2011 at 3:29 pm

Slate has taken data from Rotten Tomatoes to compute the career trajectories of actors and directors. The results are unexpected — would anyone guess that the actor with the best reviews is….Daniel Autueil? And the worst actress…Jennifer Love Hewitt? I’m a fan of both.

To be fair, on Rotten Tomatoes actors do not get individual scores, though that’s a fun idea. How would you like to read a review that gave individual report cards to each of the people in or behind the film? Autueil is a brilliant French actor who is equally adept at drama and comedy. If he has made bad films, they have not made it to the United States. Jennifer Love Hewitt is a fine actress who has appeared in some lousy (but financially successful) movies. But the statistics are fascinating nevertheless, and Slate has included its own interactive chart, so you can put in the name of any actor or director to see how his or her career has risen and fallen over the years and even compare them to each other. Try John Travolta, Jim Carrey, and Brad Pitt.

Roger Ebert on What’s Wrong With Projectors

Posted on May 30, 2011 at 8:00 am

Studios spend tens of millions of dollars to get the best equipment to photograph and record the most beautiful performers wearing the most gorgeous clothes in the most spectacular settings. And then we go to see them in a movie theater with the wrong lens on the projector, badly focused, and an inadequate bulb.

Roger Ebert writes:

Do you remember what a movie should look like? Do you notice when one doesn’t look right? Do you feel the vague sense that something is missing? I do. I know in my bones how a movie should look. I have been trained by the best projection in the world, at film festivals and in expert screening rooms. When I see a film that looks wrong, I want to get up and complain to the manager and ask that the projectionist be informed. But these days the projectionist is tending a dozen digital projectors, and I will be told, “That’s how it’s supposed to look. It came that way from the studio.”

He explains that some theaters are showing 2D movies through a 3D lens, which dims the image as much as 50 percent, even up to 85 percent in some cases.

If you are concerned about this, write to the National Association of Theater Owners: nato@natodc.com

Related Tags:

Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Do You Remember a Movie About a Witch Who Makes Blueberry Pancakes?

Posted on May 18, 2011 at 8:00 am

If you remember seeing a movie in school about a witch who made magical blueberry pancakes, then you must be in your late 30’s or early 40’s. The New York Times has a great piece by Jennifer Mendelsohn about how that film, Winter of the Witch, continues to enthrall some of the children who saw it in 1969-the 70’s. It is a simple, short film made on a very low budget, but it features the distinguished actress Hermione Gingold as the witch and Anna Strasburg (wife of the great acting teacher) as a single mother who moves with her son into a house with a witch who cooks magical pancakes that make people happy.

By all rights the quirky little production should have faded away, just like the quaintly dated turtlenecks and headscarves it features. But something about “Winter of the Witch” burrowed its way into the consciousness of a subset of children who saw it, and it never left, leading many to search for it well into adulthood. “Those colored dots must have burned themselves into some peoples’ brains,” wrote Gerald Herman, who directed the low-budget film for $500 while a student at New York University, in an e-mail.

It has inspired a blog, The Cult of the Happy Pancake Witch, where you can watch the whole film.

The Fall TV Season — Girls Gone Wild (And Retro)

Posted on May 17, 2011 at 3:52 pm

Maureen Dowd had a good column about the upcoming fall season on network television, which features a lot of, well, let’s look at her headline: Corsets, Cleavage, Fishnets. She surmises, correctly, I believe, that the number of new shows about women in sexy outfits is a reflection of the anxiety that the increasing disparity between men in school and the workplace. “Mad Men” has presented viewers with the simplicity of a world in which women did not compete with men (and looked like Christina Hendricks). Dowd quotes a male producer:

All the big, corporate men saw Christina Hendricks play the bombshell secretary on ‘Mad Men’ and fell in love. It’s a hot fudge sundae for men: a time when women were not allowed to get uppity or make demands. If the woman got pregnant, she had to drive to a back-alley abortionist in New Jersey. If you got tired of women, they had to go away. Women today don’t go away.

And so, we have a series about stewardesses. Not flight attendants, but stewardesses, back in the days when airline fares were set by the government so airlines competed for customers with how alluring their stewardesses were. There is a series about Playboy bunnies, also set back in the good old days before feminism. Dowd says:

Set in mobbed-up Chicago in the ’60s, the script glories in “chasing Bunny tail” and opens panting: “The Door Bunny at the entrance to the Playboy Club. The ears. The tail. The satin. The breasts.” Bunny Janie’s “cleavage could pick up a salt shaker.” Our leading lady, Maureen, a Cigarette Bunny in corset, fishnets and stilettos, is described this way: “20, Norma Jean before she was Marilyn, an untethered, unconscious sexuality.”

We’re also getting a reprise of two old series with babes fighting crime: “Wonder Women” and “Charlie’s Angels.” “The remake of “Charlie’s Angels” that ABC is adding to its fall TV lineup is a masterpiece of subtlety,” Dowd says. “It takes at least 15 minutes before the three girls get wet.”

She notes that there are some promising series about smart, capable women on the schedule, too. But it will be interesting to see which shows win the ratings.