Category: media

The low-down on La La Land, Manchester By the Sea, Moonlight, Arrival, and so. much. more. Despite his prediction that Manchester WILL win best drama, this critic says, “a win for Moonlight would certainly be a satisfying rebuke to the new fashion for crude and ugly reactionary politics – and a vote for humanity.”

Movie writer and director Barry Jenkins grew up a year older and just a block or two away from playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney – but somehow they didn’t meet until Jenkins was working on the movie that’s rocketing through awards season and audience emotions. “They remember the same swinging tree, dancing at jams held in the amphitheater, and the annual turkey bowl.”

Moonlight got the top honor as a film and for its director, Barry Jenkins, and a couple of other awards, and Manchester-by-the-Sea snagged most of the rest, leaving La La Land in the cold.

The showrunner for the new Netflix-owned-and-produced comedy says, “I knew that I wanted to write something personal, I knew I wanted to write a multi-cam, and no joke, the first phone call I got was, ‘Hey, Norman Lear wants to sit down and talk about doing a remake of One Day at a Time.’ Yeah, the stars aligned.”

“According to the tale, as the silent black-and-white image of a moving locomotive filled a movie screen in Paris, the people in the cinema thought it was going to drive right into them. They panicked, and bolted for the back of the theater.” In fact, that’s probably the movie business’s first-ever urban legend. Eric Grundhauser walks us through the evidence. (includes video)

Well, the BBC tried it, and the resulting tweetstorm was pretty strong – and so was the counterbacklash. (In fact, this isn’t the first time ISIS humor has been tried, although the first practitioners were themselves Syrian.) (includes video)

“The high fees for television’s 1% — at a time when business models, episode orders, and distribution strategies are in the midst of a massive transition — has exacerbated the earnings gap between stars and supporting players.”

Affleck is getting awards and nominations galore for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. Last summer, Nate Parker was considered an even more likely contender for The Birth of a Nation – until word of his rape trial during college spread, whereupon his prospects plummeted. (Parker was acquitted.) Is the difference because Affleck is white and Parker is black? There are certainly reasons to think not, but the question keeps coming up.

The Academy just looooves movies about Hollywood. (Exhibit A: The Artist) (What, you don’t remember The Artist?)

“The Writers Guild of America hands out only three movie awards – a paltry number compared to the guild’s 26 TV categories – but this year’s list of nominees is complete with an interesting split from the Academy.”