I, Linkenstein
Friday, October 4, 2013 at 7:24PM Big Screen
Artsbeat Alfonso Cuaron talks us through a dizzy-making scene in Gravity
Flick Filosopher "Hollywood, you are 300 movies away from making me want to marry you" The manic pixie dream guy bit is fab. It's so hard to imagine... which is the point.
Guardian Olivier Hirschbiegel reacts to the terrible reviews to his Diana biopic
David Poland 22 weeks to Oscar. He correctly sees that there are very few locks but bizarrely thinks Forrest Whitaker is a lock for Best Actor for The Butler
BuzzFeed live action footage (and actors) that helped created The Little Mermaid
i09 thinks I, Frankenstein might be the most insane movie of 2014
Movie City News asks a great question about Amy Adams in American Hustle
Small Screen
Salon interviews Adam Scott on his television breakthroughs and his new film A.C.O.D.
i09 Honestly I did not see this coming. Halle Berry, whose big screen career is still going well (consider how much her ermegency call center movie made), will headline the tv series Extant about an astronaut whose baby might be half alien
Look! A new Halloween opening for The Simpsons courtesy of Guillermo del Toro so naturally there's a fair amount of Pan's Labyrinth up in there. Lots of movie referencing but the funniest bit I think is that misanthrope naughtiness of the Alfred Hitchcock cameo via The Birds.
Finally, can I just say "amen" to this Vulture piece requesting a moratorium on anti-heroes as the leads of television series? I mean you're not going to top Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Carrie Bradshaw (yeah, she was one. deal with it) and Nurse Jackie... so let it die a natural death now instead of death from ubiquity. Mark Harris has also wisely noticed that this trend has now poisoned the broadcast networks without the antidote of the artistry that made this type of protagonist so popular on cable television in the first place.
Reader Comments (12)
But, Nathaniel, if I understand correctly what anti-hero means, Carrie Bradshaw is not one because if she was, then a break from anti-heroes would mean only make shows about saints or wanna-be-saints (or cows). I mean, Carrie was flawed in a realatable way, not a murderer or a serial cheater etc. Sure, even murderers can be somewhat relatable and that's why these shows are not failures, but Carrie (or Frasier, or Monica etc) is everyday-relatable. We wouldn't want to watch a show about only Charlotte, would we?
Btw, Tony Kushner is developing a TV series and how exciting is this, right?
What's the difference between an anti-hero and a villain as a protagonist?
James T -- Carrie was a serial cheater and also a heavy smoker and drinker so by the female definitions of leading roles she qualifies. Of course men have to be more evil to achieve that but Carrie was definitely not a cutesy/ saintly role model... people remember that series just so incorrectly. I point everyone to emily nussbaum's amazing piece on carrie as antihero.
/3rtful -- the word may be distorted from overuse as some recent comments have said. I guess Walter White (from my limited exposure to that series) is more of a villain than an antihero but he gets lumped in with them.
Ugh, Nathaniel, I don't want to name names because, who knows who's watching but most of my best (girl)friends are as flawed as Carrie is in the departments you mentioned and they definitely seem quite ordinary to me.
I like to think Americans (or people in general) don't hate women so much as to equate Don Draper's refusal to think for a moment before he f***s someone, to Carrie's obsession with Mr Big. She even quit smoking and drank like 1/1000 of what Draper does.
Damn that pic of Adams is hot.
Berry is doing television because, like for everyone else, it means:
Money
Money and its no longer considered slumming
Money and producer money
Money and more control over your character
Money and a better chance of awards notice (tv has been good to her, remember Dandridge)
Money and less interference from the suits
Money and constant work
Money and less travel and upset for your family
Money and you can still do film on the hiatus
Money and.......did I mention the money, residuals, foreign releases, being remembered for the rest of your life on a daily basis (think Lucy) rather than just the late night movie and by film buffs (think Crawford).
There is far more interesting and varied and inventive work happening on TV for a lot more actors than in film. Behind the Candelabra could not get backing for theater, but ruled on TV as an example. I think its a smart move.
(This post contains generalisations, but should not be interpreted as misogyny)
James T - one of the reasons I never warmed to SEX AND THE CITY (despite the good writing and acting) was the way the female protagonists, in particular Carrie, dismissively regarded most of the men they encounter. So, on that level, I would very much argue that Carrie is on the same level as Don Draper (but, yes, not on the same level as Walt). The main difference is that Draper is working in a world that favours his gender.
Henry -- wow. i'm not sure i would ever argue that TV has less interference from the suits. But i assume you're generalizing and TV now means HBO to everyone. It's true that as TV has gotten more cinematic it's been less risk averse than big studio movies.but if you compare the big studios to the broadcast networks (which i think is a more fair comparison -- i.e. the mainstream) than ii wouldn't say they're particularly brave.
but i'll shut up. TV is in this "golden age" and people don't want to hear the naysayers like me reminding them that they are watching very selective things on TV that are not equivocal to formulaic big studio blockbusters which is what they go to at the cinema (if box office is any indication). If they were equally adventurous with their moviegoing they wouldn't think movies were so inferior to tv. they would see that it's pretty much as it's always been: there is great stuff if you look for it in all mediums.
Maybe "less interference" is the wrong term. "More tolerance" could be better. And I agree that there is great diversity out there in film........if it is available to you. I have to travel an hour minimum to see a film in a theater that isn't aimed at 12 year old boys. To sit in a theater with sticky floors, laptops and phones ablaze, constant talking, and almost no one else really interested in the film in the room. I would rather save the money, wait for the dvd or watch tv in the comfort of my home, with an excellent sound system, screen almost as big as the theater (when was the last time we got to see a film on a screen the size of the Ziefield?), drink at hand...... With the excellent quality of tv available from all the cable (and a few big 4 shows), I don't have a lot of enticement to leave home. The studios and theater owners are killing film going for serious film people. They always gasp in surprise when a "specialty" film aimed at "older" viewers (meaning anyone who isn't a virgin) finds an audience and yet, there are a couple every year. As much as I disdain Streep getting all the roles, at least she has enough pull with audiences to show that there are people with pubic hair that still go to the movies.
Nathaniel, this is a broader debate definitely worth having so a few key points
a) You're asserting that that broadcast networks = big studios, but it's often the HBO/Showtime/AMC etc networks that actually spend blockbuster amounts of money on their shows.
b) Because of the more democratic nature of the medium, a show that has one or two million viewers has more cultural impact than a movie with a similar number of viewers (which is definitely changing, but again, that's due to Netflix/Movies on Demand - film taking advantage of home viewing over theatrical).
c) We are living in a Golden Age of Television. I don't see how it's even arguable at this point.
"but i'll shut up. TV is in this "golden age" and people don't want to hear the naysayers like me reminding them that they are watching very selective things on TV that are not equivocal to formulaic big studio blockbusters which is what they go to at the cinema (if box office is any indication). If they were equally adventurous with their moviegoing they wouldn't think movies were so inferior to tv. they would see that it's pretty much as it's always been: there is great stuff if you look for it in all mediums."
BINGO. I love my Breaking Bads, my Mad Mens, Girls, and Louies, but they have very small audiences and reachability not unlike my favorites of the year, Frances Ha, Spring Breakers, The Act of Killing, and Stories We Tell. TV is afforded the binge-watch model where there is a catch-up and momentum building whereas movies are just not afforded that comfortable time frame to gain more viewers, regardless of how creative studio roll-outs are.
Also agree about the anti-heroes of TV. People think just because they have one, they should be respected but all of those characters are uniquely specific to their surroundings and situations along with having very strong supporting characters around them. Wesley Morris has noted that there are at least a couple of those shows with anti-heroes, namely Walter White/Breaking Bad, that play into the whole 'It helps he can hide behind his white privilege' part where it is easy to hide the anti-hero (that was obvious when Giancarlo Esposito's Gus Fring first appeared on Breaking Bad and was clearly playing a more blander version of Walt to the public because he has no choice as a Black Latino but to act like a boy scout to people). I wish the TV anti-hero was more gender/race balanced but I think Breaking Bad revealed why it is generally so white and so male-dominated. Homeland had that conceit with Brody's white privilege as a mask too but the show really ruined any interesting exploration of that pretty quickly.
Re: Manic Pixie Dream Guy... I felt like Safety Not Guaranteed very much played with that. And, turns out, it annoyed me just as much as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Heh.