The Call Up

April 18, 2013 9:01 am

"Perry’s films have been scrutinized plenty, but the white writers who dominate film criticism have offered analyses that, while largely negative, skip across the surface and ignore the depth. It’s difficult to imagine a review of, say, Spring Breakers that doesn’t at least flick at the movie’s underlying messages and cultural ramifications. But even as Perry’s films have had criticism heaped on them, he’s had the luxury of being bashed solely for his films’ hamfisted writing, paint-by-numbers plotting, and visual blandness. Never before Temptation have this many white critics taken care to blast the troublesome, underlying message of a Perry film, completely independent of its artistic or technical shortcomings."

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Interesting round-up of the criticism being lobbed at Tyler Perry’s Temptation. It’s been largely understood that Tyler Perry films are awful, but they nonetheless seemed to be the only films starring black people, intended for black people and therefore viewed by black people (regardless of quality). The fact that they have been largely ignored by critics sort of spoke to this fighting the wind mentality — no matter how bad they may be, they would still be successful. Perhaps this latest film is just damn reprehensible to be ignored.

(Source: The A.V. Club)

April 11, 2013 8:48 am

Pretty pretty pretty excited.

April 10, 2013 9:40 pm

laughingsquid:

CBGB, Film Tells the History of New York City’s Legendary Club

Yup.

10:00 am

"At once blunt and oblique, “Spring Breakers” looks different depending on how you hold it up to the light. From one angle it comes across as a savage social commentary that skitters from one idea to another — white faces, black masks, celebrity, the American dream, the limits of self-interest, the search for an authentic self — without stitching those ideas together. From another it comes off as the apotheosis of the excesses it so spectacularly displays. That Mr. Korine appears to be having it both (or many) ways may seem like a cop-out, but only if you believe that the role of the artist is to be a didact or a scold. Mr. Korine, on the other hand, embraces the role of court jester, the fool whose transgressive laughter carries corrosive truth. He laughs, you howl."

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Seriously, have you seen this movie yet? The thing that makes it work is that it’s utterly devoid of judgement. If Korine started moralizing or presenting a point of view or doing anything to skew the viewer’s take, it would have fallen flat. It would come across as arch or heavy handed or absurdist.

But as it is…you get to make up your own mind. Is it a parable of American excess? Is it a metaphor for race and segregation and geographic divides? Is it a reflection of a youth culture we’d rather ignore? Or is it simply a good riotous spring break romp? Make up your own mind.

I’ll tell you, though, the scene where Faith (Selena Gomez) freaks out after leaving the clink was pretty on the nose. The girls’ activities from pre-slammer days were essentially identical — booze, drugs, gambling, groping, partying. But the party moved out of the hotel to the hood and the color of the revelers changed. That moment felt pretty real — you totally understood why Faith wanted to go home so badly and felt so uncomfortable, but you had to ask yourself what exactly had changed to create that feeling, and why you sympathized.

(Source: The New York Times)

April 9, 2013 8:42 pm

"With success came bigger budgets and bigger names. We found ourselves attracting the calibre of talent with which “event” movies could be made. And, more and more, we began making them. The result: costs have escalated, profitability has slipped and our level of risk has compounded. The time has come to get back to our roots…It seems that, like lemmings, we are all racing faster and faster into the sea, each of us trying to outrun and outspend and out-earn the other in a mad sprint toward the mirage of making the next blockbuster."

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From Jeffrey Katzenberg’s somewhat infamous, 28-page, Disney memo. The kicker: it was written in 1991.

(Source: lettersofnote.com)

April 7, 2013 11:00 am

So this Vice series is pretty powerful.

April 3, 2013 8:22 pm

popculturebrain:

Red Band Trailer: ‘Only God Forgives’ - July 19th

Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Tom Burke.

Holy mother of god. So Nicolas Winding Refn is basically like Kubrick meets Tarantino. Aka beautiful, terrifying, and completely unpredictable.

April 1, 2013 9:01 pm

imwithkanye:

popculturebrain:

New Red Band Trailer: ‘This Is The End’

Hermione just stole all our shit.

Alright. You win, Hollywood.

March 12, 2013 9:22 am

chrismohney:

jeffrubinjeffrubin:

Talking Heads’ concert movie Stop Making Sense doesn’t show the audience until Crosseyed and Painless, the very last song. Here are GIFs of every crowd shot in the film. For the full effect, play Crosseyed and Painless in the background.

Wikipedia: “According to David Byrne’s comments on the DVD commentary, this is intended to enable the viewer to form their own opinion about the performance, which he hoped would be confirmed by the end sequence.”

An awesome thing appears

Genius.

(via brooklynmutt)

March 4, 2013 12:27 am

But this was the best part of The Artist is Present. They were probably thinking about chewing gum.

February 23, 2013 10:00 am

"While you were all being emotionally waterboarded by the rest of what Hollywood had to offer, you guys completely missed the fact that [Zero Dark Thirty] was the best movie of the year. Jessica Chastain! She could act circles around everyone else on this planet, and she wouldn’t be exhausted because she’s, like, a healthy vegan. And you know she’s on track for world domination. GET IT TOGETHER, PEOPLE. it doesn’t even matter if this loses to, say, Argo, because Kathryn Bigelow will have her revenge on all of you. Especially you, Ben Affleck."

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Everything about this is right. Argofuckyourself.

(Source: Blackbook)

February 20, 2013 7:52 am

"I ended up crashing the party with Bret, but that’s another story. My not receiving an invite to a party to celebrate a project I was part of is the point. One, Franco is a dick. Two, I would be fighting an uphill battle. Paul and his wife were not the only ones who thought of me as a party trick. Other than Braxton, Bret, and in time, the crew of The Canyons, everyone I met and worked with saw me as a joke."

—

HA! Franco is a dick! I knew it!

But further to the point, James Deen is more than a walking hard-on, it seems.

(Source: thedailybeast.com)

February 18, 2013 10:54 pm

"If Life Is But a Dream illuminates anything, it’s Beyoncé’s conviction that every decision she makes is high-stakes, that each successive milestone reached is a blessing."

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This was a weird documentary. There wasn’t really a thesis other than “my life is huge, isn’t it?” I guess it’s supposed to be a look into the “real life” of Beyonce Knowles. But when someone films every second of their life, you have to imagine that what we end up with is HIGHLY curated. Not to say her moments of introspection and doubt are faked, that would be insane. But she never loses it, or yells, or freaks out — it’s like the Will Smith rules to image control. Always be positive, likable, empathetic, and never controversial.

The main thing you come away with is the woman is a force — talented, meticulous, hard working, kind…all that. As any with artist, she’s totally dedicated to the perfection of her own output. And in that vain, artists get away with being mostly without perspective or depth…so long as their art is good (or at least successful). I should also give her a shout out for being a top notch role model for girls/women everywhere.

Mostly it just made me wish there was a similar documentary about Jay-Z.

(Source: pitchfork.com)

January 25, 2013 11:00 am

If you haven’t seen this movie, you probably should. It’s surprising in almost every way.

Moreover, this is an unbelievable backstory.

Comment

January 21, 2013 7:36 pm

On Zero Dark Thirty

Jessica Chastain is like a ginger high priestess of acting. And then Chris Pratt showed up. And it was good.