After Link: Blue Jasmine, Red Wedding, Emerald City
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 8:20AM Stranger Than Most encourages you to see these 20 underseen masterpieces. Lot of great films mentioned though I shall limit my "seconded!" shouting to Summer Hours, Three Women and [safe] today
Guardian Joss Whedon "I kept telling my mom that reading comic books would pay off"
Gawker volcanic imagery aside, After Earth is not scientology propaganda, just a crap movie
Hollywood & Swine after After Earth's rough opening weekend, Sony cancels "take your kid to work day" LOL
The Atlantic when did men -- other than George Clooney of course -- lose their charm?
Cinema Blend pages from Heath Ledger's Joker diary. CB claims this is from a German tv series but the narration is in French so I'm not sure what's going on
WSJ Speakeasy Interesting... turns out Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is a riff on the Bernie Madoff scandal and Speakeasy claims that Alec Baldwin's performance will be talked about. (Perhaps I should change that supporting actor chart?)
Salon The internet is losing its collective mind over Game of Thrones. As I said on twitter, I am more and more convinced that fans are victims and George R R Martin and the HBO series are their abusive lover. FWIW I quit reading the books after the Red Wedding. It's just not for me. Don't need the gore and the abuse!
Playbill sings the praises of Broadway breakthrough Annaleigh Ashford from Kinky Boots. Is she the next Goldie Hawn?
Cinema Blend The Wizard of Oz (1939) is converting to 3D and IMAX for its 75th anniversary next week.
/Film ruh roh. The screenwriter of Green Lantern is signing on to the Blade Runner sequel. It was already a bad enough idea, lightning rarely striking twice.
Watch & Listens
YouTube Patrick Stewart speaks out on domestic violence and mental health awareness - lovely
KCRW - The Business interviews (literally) naked Mitchell Hurwitz on the challenges of continuing the Bluth story for a 4th season of Arrested Development
And did you see this fun video tribute above to Cyndi Lauper whose show Kinky Boots (just discussed) has a ton of Tony nominations? Various morning shows and current Broadway casts contributed for the 30th Anniversary of her classic hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
Reader Comments (10)
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is such an amazing pop song! It deserved more Broadway divas!
Victims? Please! Yes, the Red Wedding was unpleasant as all hell, but I don't get what people are so PTSD'd out about. What, did people think all their favorite characters would make it to the series finale? I loved the Starks, but the title of the show is GAME of thrones, and they got played. I thought it was a ballsy move and think it kicked the series up another notch - and it was already the best written and acted show currently airing!
In movies, Judd Apatow buried the whole idea of the mere existence of charm deep down.
In real life... well, walking the streets in flip flops, showing your underwear and/or being hypnotized by mobile phones are signs that not only charm doesn't exist anymore, but that men don't even care about it.
From the way I heard the reactions to the Red Wedding from the book years ago (I feel like I am the only one who does not care if a spoiler is revealed to them- I guess it goes back to the fact I always preferred non-fiction to fiction books even as a kid), it made it sound like I would need to walk out of the room and go outside for fresh air. I actually had to watch it again after Mad Men to see if it would hit me better, which it did. I feel like I've already seen equally shocking and bloodier scenes on the show. And although the Starks are a horse of a different color in to viewers than other characters, the proliferation of the show that has just kept on growing in characters has made me less emotionally attached to when I do see characters ripped to pieces. I enjoy when shows do something just unexpected, like those moments of violence on Mad Men are far and few between which makes the violent actions of Lane's suicide, the lawnmower incident, and Peggy accidentally stabbing Abe all the more shocking.
Love that first link.
For me, the Red Wedding was upsetting but not devastating. The Starks are the best people in the books, but they are terrible players, so at least there's some kind of narrative sense to their deaths. But so help me god if he kills off Dany before those dragons hit Westeros, I am out. And for that matter, if Jon Snow kicks it after all that time we spent on the boring wall, I'm out then too.
About the Red Wedding, I just want to say that it was Michelle Fairley the breakthrough star of this show. Those last 10 minutes were perfection thanks to her.
I think both Jon Snow and Robb Stark are better characters in the books than in the show. They work better in the books I think- I LOVE Jon Snow in the books- but they are (or were, in Rob´s case) great on the show as well.
On the other hand, Cersei and Catelyn, who were already great in the books, are even more amazing on the show. Lena Headey should have been showered with nominations last season. Cersei is such a complex, layered, complicated, frustrating, unsympathetic, sympathetic, enjoyable, so full of flesh and blood, admirable and hateable all at once. Lena headey is doing wonders with her.All the Lannister actors do. Nicolai Waldau is killing it as Jamie this season. Amazing.
Whats so frustrating about the Starks -Jon Snow among them-is that they are great people,. good, honorable, ethical people trying to do the right thing. They are guided by values, ideals, a sense of right and wrong. They do have a morality- at least most of the time and more than the others.
But they are bad at politics. They dont know how to play the game of thrones. While the Lannisters, cold, detached, vengeful, cunning, selfish, unethical, amoral and plain mean- even to each other-do know how to play it.
The show spends a lot of time reflecting on the nature of power, who should have it, how to achieve it, what to do with it once you have it, who´s suited for it and whether its a matter of merit, right or ethics. Some are wonderful players but dishonest human beings- Littlefinger, Margaery, Tywin. Some lie in between- the baratheon brothers, Tyrion. Some are pshycopaths, sick products of inbreeding and a lack of parental boundries- Joffrey. Some dont care about politics itself, like Jamie (I LOVE Jamie + Brienne).
And while the Starks are by far the best people, they are not the best players, and perhaps both things are intertwined - they are not the best players BECAUSE they are good people.
Who should now, by right, sit on the |ron throne? Stannis or Dany???
Robb, Catelyn and Talisa needed to go. Nice people, very heroic, in way over their heads. And the show did to them is what actually happens to such people in real life 90% of the time. Not that tv needs to replicate reality, but it's nice to see what happens when viewers simply expect a happy ending.
A couple of thoughts about the Cyndi Lauper video:
1. I haven't seen/heard anything from Kinky Boots, but I'm tearfully happy that Cyndi Lauper is having this beautiful moment in her career. I have to admit that I felt bad for her when I saw she was on the Celebrity Apprentice. It's always sad when our true divas debase the integrity of their careers and even sadder that some of them have little other choice. So for her to have reached this great height is so satisfying to see. Finally, a huge breakthrough for her legacy.
2. Usually she grates on me but only Kelly Ripa seems to be REALLY into that song the way one is MEANT to be into it.
3. Katie Couric must be so relieved to finally have a job she can wear leather pants and a tunic to.
Never thought I'd be compared to an abuse victim for loving a TV show.
While I get it's not for you, there's something to be said for the overwhelming visceral reaction people had. I'd compare "Rains of Castamere" to The Sopranos' "Long Term Parking" and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "The Body", in all honesty, as all time great episodes.