The Grab Bag (Sep. 2, 2014)

Excerpt: I won’t say that Lauren Bacall was ‘the last of her kind’. Lauren Bacall was thoroughly unique, perhaps ‘the Only One of her kind’. There will always be Movie Stars. There will always be Child Stars. There will never be another Lauren Bacall.

Richard Attenborough

Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder

Robin Williams

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: The joy he brought should be balanced against the tragedy of his final hours. We shouldn’t lose focus of one over the other.

Awards Coverage

Tuesdays With Oscar: 1942

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: The exact length of Greer Garson’s acceptance speech is unknown, but some Oscar-winning performances were shorter than her ramblings.

Tuesdays With Oscar: The Love Affair With Biopics

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: If you want to win an Academy Award for acting, here’s my advise: play a real-life figure.

Essays

‘The Daily Show’, Fox News, and Ferguson: The Dangers of an Alternate News Reality

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: They’ve built a business model around the specter of the “liberal media” so successfully that we now just have multiple versions of the news, with no single trusted source. So when a story — like this one —paints a less-than-flattering portrait of trigger-happy white people, other trigger-happy white people can just find the version of the news that doesn’t make them uncomfortable.

Destroy All Monsters: My Television Cost Money; Kindly Fill All Of It

Matt Brown @ Twitchfilm

How Homophobic is ‘Love is Strange”s R Rating?

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: So unless they’d made an unprecedented decision to take a stand on a social issue, Love is Strange’s R isn’t evidence (though other films are) that our rating system is homophobic. But it is evidence, as we’ve seen countless times before, that the MPAA is deeply, perhaps irrevocably, fucked.

Imagining the Quentin Tarantino-Directed ‘Natural Born Killers’ That Could Have Been

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: In other words, this looser, funkier Natural Born Killers is a Quentin Tarantino movie, and Quentin Tarantino (at least at this early point) makes hanging-out movies. Oliver Stone, to put it mildly, does not making hanging-out movies.

It’s Time to Take Back the Action Genre

Candice Frederick @ Reel Talk

James Foley, Ferguson, Gawker, ‘NY Post’: The Whiplash of Journalism at Its Best and Worst

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: We’re witnessing a week in which journalists are risking their own safety and well-being covering one of the year’s most important stories, a story where their very presence has done a traceable good — and then here comes the story of another journalist who lost his life while doing the same. But as quickly as that life is lost, the worst elements of the profession turn around and exploit it.

The Nerdist Is a Front and a Fraud

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: Chris Hardwick and his minions are the equivalent of studio lackeys, pretending to be merely ‘super-fans’ but being in essense bought and paid for to promote the various films and television programs they insist they would love anyway.

‘The One I Love’s’ Big, Secret Plot Twist Is About the Marketing, Not the Movie

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: Once you see the movie, all of the coy pre-release hand-wringing doesn’t make a helluva lot of sense. It’s not a film that somehow hinges on explosive surprises; the fact that it’s being marketed as such is less a protective measure for the picture’s delicate fabric, and more an uninspired marketing hook.

Personal Reflections on the Twilight Series (Excuse Me, SAGA)

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: My personal theory is that the reason Twilight has become this phenomenon to teenage girls (and those who think like them) is due to audience identification. Bella is pathetically ordinary, but despite herself inspires erotic passions in every man who catches a mere glimpse of her, be they human, vampire, or werewolf.

Praise Jesus, Kirk Cameron Is ‘Saving Christmas’ From You Dirty Liberal Atheists

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: Fear not, Cameron will take to movie screens to take down “those that want to replace ‘Merry Christmas’ with ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Seasons Greetings,’ whatever that means.” Because fuck you if you’re Jewish or Muslim or not a Christian according to the specific, narrow definition of a has-been ‘80s TV heartthrob, am I right?

The Strange, Frustrating Reason Why Matthew Weiner’s Feature Film Debut, ‘You Are Here,’ Was Retitled ‘Are You Here’

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: Are You Here is also debuting On Demand this week, and the new title’s placement is much more desirable on alphabetical VOD menus. And this kind of thing happens all the time.

Why Can’t TV’s Beloved “Difficult Men” Make Good Movies?

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: ‘Are You Here’ is a bit of a mess. But there’s an odd and interesting trend at work here, where genuinely gifted television creators, with distinctive voices and unique styles, try their hand at filmmaking and whiff that transition completely.

Why the Hell Does ‘Modern Family’ Keep Winning the Best Comedy Emmy?

Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire

Excerpt: Why do we continue to be surprised — and annoyed — by Emmy voters giving the same recognition, year after year, to a sitcom that has long gone stale?

Reviews of Short Films

37º4 S

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

Excerpt: French Short Film Review

Abonrmal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd

Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies

Excerpt: Adventurous cinephiles with strong stomachs may want to pick up this disc, if you can find it at a bargain price. But don’t break the bank looking for a pristine copy unless you’re a dedicated collector of nihilist punk cinema.

La Fugue

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

Excerpt: French Short Film Review

Ponto Morto

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

Excerpt: Portuguese Short Film Review

Retrato

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

Excerpt: Portuguese Short Film Review

Television

Doctor Who: Deep Breath

Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog

Excerpt: And dive right in…

Franklin & Bash: Curse of Hor-Aha

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: With The Curse of Hor-Aha, Kevin Falls and Bill Chais have performed a television miracle. They have made the season premiere of Franklin & Bash the worst episode of the season, because it’s hard to imagine anything being as horrible as this.

Franklin & Bash: Jennifer of Troy

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: Seeing Jennifer of Troy again, it brought back positive feelings towards Franklin & Bash, when the show operated on logic rather than only gimmicks, when we were given odd cases but ones with heart.

Franklin & Bash: Kershaw v. Lincecum

Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan

Excerpt: To say that Kershaw v. Lincecum is an improvement over The Curse of Hor-Aha is like saying being diagnosed with syphillis is an improvement over being diagnosed with Ebola.