“The early ’90s depicted in Slacker feel closer to our current epoch – the recession-tainted youth aimlessly wandering the streets, emailing their resumes into the void. But watching the film today, one can’t help but feel a certain if they only knew forbearance for the naively innocent radicalism of the time – the way they compared George H. W. Bush to Hitler, they way they casually drop slogans like ‘Remember, terrorism is the surgical strike capability of the oppressed!'”
Category: media
‘Italian Oscars’ Accused Of Rank Corruption
“The famous David di Donatello awards, widely regarded as the country’s top film honours, are, according to Il Fatto Quotidiano, in urgent need of drastic overhaul,” being “riddled with nepotism and corruption.”
Dustin Hoffman: Things Were Different In The Golden Age Of Movies
“They (the studios) don’t talk about doing good work – they just talk about making money. In our day the studio was hoping to make a good film, which hopefully didn’t lose money.”
Reconsidering Pauline Kael (And What It Says About Today’s Criticism)
“All these years later, the new attacks disguised as book notices strongly suggest that professional attitudes toward criticism have changed drastically. Since the advent of the Internet and the rise of review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes, the illusion of consensus opinion now dominates the culture’s perception of criticism. Individual critics’ voices matter less than the roar of the crowd, which judges films as “fresh” or “rotten” and drowns out anyone who begs to differ.”
Cambodia Needs Its Movies More Than We Could Know
“Film in Khmer culture acts as an emotional release for all the hidden things these young people were never told about their history, their families, or their country. Cinema in Cambodia – the medium itself – is metaphor. It stands in for historical memory. It makes it tolerable. And unnecessary.”
Has The Dumb-Dad Stereotype In TV Ads Gone Too Far?
“This pop culture trope has been around forever. From Ralph Kramden to Homer Simpson to Phil Dunphy, sitcoms have long featured goofball dudes married to much shrewder women. As a comedic formula, it works. And what works in a 30-minute show will inevitably get used in a 30-second ad.” But a recent spot for Huggies diapers to a backlash; do the offended gentlemen have a point?
Insuring Against Any Movie Set Risk, Including Bears
Before The Hunger Games started filming, “Holehouse traveled to North Carolina to check out the location, deep within DuPont State Forest. He took into account bugs, poison ivy, falling trees — anything that might pose a threat to the actors or the production schedule. He considered a chase scene across fast-running water, as well as the dangers posed by abandoned warehouses that were used as part of the set — and, of course, all swords, arrows and other weaponry.”
Watching Mad Men, And Getting Pretty Damn Angry
For some women who lived through the era of sexism and service to men depicted on the hit show, no amount of style – and no number of Manhattans – can be enough to make up for having to think about that time period.
The Hunger Games Is A Political, Religious, Moral Commentary – Or So Everyone Says
“The Hunger Games, the teen action-adventure film that is opening to big numbers this weekend, is, without question, a parable of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s also a cautionary tale about Big Government. And undeniably a Christian allegory about the importance of finding Jesus. Or maybe a call for campaign-finance reform?”
MGM Buys Back United Artists
“Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has bought back full control of its historic film label United Artists, the independent studio revealed in financial results reported this week.”