Among this year’s movies, the Screen Actors Guild gave the most love to Manchester By The Sea, Fences, and Moonlight; the small-screen faves were The Crown, Stranger Things, and The People v. O.J. Simpson.
Category: media
What Do ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘Seinfeld’, ‘Arrested Development’, Rick And Morty’, And Every Other Sitcom Have In Common? The Magic Formula
“Almost all sitcoms can be divided into seven segments, each of which sets up or advances the plot in a specific way. As a result, it’s possible to predict at around what minute in an episode the main character will declare their goal, encounter their first obstacle, and succeed or fail at getting what they want. This formula is the reason sitcoms can be written at such a fast rate, and sometimes wind up seeming, well … formulaic. But it’s also the reason many sitcoms are able to find new and groundbreaking ways of being funny.”
Study: Watching Romantic Comedies Makes You More Empathetic
“Repeated exposure to romantic films led to increases in sensitivity for four of the five moral intuitions,” writes a research team led by Matthew Grizzard of the University at Buffalo–State University of New York. “At the same time, any exposure to action films seemed to erode those changes.”
How George Lucas Helped Reinvent Movie-Making By Challenging Hollywood
“Lucas’s titanic achievement is even more stunning when you consider his modest roots: he is from, ironically, Modesto, a small city in northern California where his dad owned a stationery store that he expected his son to take over. The taciturn young Lucas had other ideas, heading to film school at the University of Southern California (USC) where he fell in with a new generation of cineastes — among them, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola — who would be his co-conspirators in the takedown of the old Hollywood order.”
NPR Starts A Column Looking At Video Games As Literature
“For years now, some of the best, wildest, most moving or revealing stories we’ve been telling ourselves have come not from books, movies or TV, but from video games. So we’re starting an occasional series, Reading The Game, in which we take a look at some of these games from a literary perspective.” Exhibit A: Mo Man’s Sky.
Golden Globes Surprise: Nominations Go To Youth Over Stars
“Awards shows have long tangled with a dilemma. As a venue for industry recognition, they tend to value dues-paying — rewarding personalities who have put together a long body of work and earned industry goodwill. But the shows also rely for income on a television world that tends to favor, particularly in its advertising dollars, younger viewers and newer talent.”
The Golden Globe Nominees Are Announced, With Some Notable Exceptions
Mel Gibson is back, but movies from Tom Hanks’ Sully to Denzel Washington’s Fences and (surprisingly) Martin Scorsese’s Silence get snubbed.
Five Takeaways From The Critics Choice Awards
The race for the Oscars seems on, with a four-way race among four serious movies (La La Land, Moonlight, Jackie, Manchester-by-the-Sea) … and a comedy contender out of left field as well.
We’ve Had Seven ‘Live’ Musicals On TV Now; What Have We Learned?
Here are five lessons, including the perhaps obvious pop singers aren’t Broadway singers, and they don’t show up well next to talent like Audra McDonald and Kelli O’Hara (but! They bring viewers!).
Can A Hit Norwegian Show About Sexy Teens Make It In The U.S.?
In Norway, the show “Skam” has become a hot button for national conversations about consent, dating, pressure and much more. So let’s rephrase the question: Will the English-language versions of “Skam” be as careful to get everything about teenagers’ lives right?