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The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere.
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“10 Huge Tentpole Movies That Should Have Been Low-Budget Gonzo Films” – Charlie Jane Anders at io9 offers us an alternative universe where Hancock was closer to Tonight, He Comes. On the other hand, there’s something vilely appealing about gigantic budgets that produce overwrought insanity.
“The six-second movie stars” – Noel Murray at The Dissolve checks in with an evolving sense of creative celebrity and the blurring lines between stars and their fans.
“Why Think Like a Man Too is proof that Hollywood fails black audiences” – Dominick Mayer at The Week recognizes a thin alleyway of success replicating itself into oblivion.
“It’s not that these films are just bad – or derivative. It’s that they’re homogenizing the black film to a point where anybody could sit down and enjoy it, lest audiences be asked to relate to characters that may not be completely identical to their own lives and ethos. And in a film market where 12 Years a Slave underperformed, where the towering Fruitvale Station barely saw a prominent release, this isn’t a solution, or really even progress. It’s a means of avoiding larger issues of audience identification.”
“The Lost Episode of Seinfeld That No One Has Ever Seen (And Never Will)” – Mike Ryan at Screen Crush offers an in-depth historical portrait of a script that the cast mutinied over, and finds himself wading into a debate over whether everything can truly be fodder for comedy. At the center of the conversation? Buying a gun for protection.
“When Harry Met eHarmony” – Megan Garber at The Atlantic points out that the genre is still stumbling around, refusing to die, and reusing all the tropes from when Urkel was still entertaining us.