Link is the New Blog
Wednesday, January 8, 2014 at 6:00PM Salon Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black) continues to be a great spokesperson for trans people, shutting down Katie Couric's indelicate questions
HitFix the composers from Frozen working on Bob the Musical for Disney. Sounds like a silly/fun project.
Gawker Neil Patrick Harris has many margaritas in Mexico. LOL. #12 is my favorite, for the text as much as the picture
Variety Meryl Streep's ode to Emma Thompson and Walt Disney diss at the NBR gala
NYFCC Aftermath
Film Society of Lincoln Center has the audio of Harry Belafonte's moving speech in honor of Steve McQueen
Variety reports on the damage control the critics circle is doing now
The Carpetbagger on official apologies and Armond White's own denials that he heckled. Since I know people who were there, I know he's lying about other people lying about him.
Julianne Moore & Liv FreundlichFinally...
We never talked about Carrie (2013) after it hit theaters, primarily because I didn't see it. I guess it's on DVD next Tuesday? Up until very recently I had seen everything that Julianne Moore ever made after falling in love with her in [safe]. Yes, even that straight to DVD horror flick with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I have only met two people in my entire life who love Brian dePalma's Carrie (1976) more than I do: drag superstar Jackie Beat (who told me it was her all time favorite film) and my friend JA at My New Plaid Pants. He finally saw the misbegotten studio cash-in remake and lived to write about it. He predictably hated it but actually found one nice thing to say about Chloe Moretz so that... surprised me.
The photo to your left is of Julianne and her daughter so you can see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and also because theyre so pretty and wouldn't you rather look at that glorious matching set than a still from Carrie (2013)? You're welcome.
Reader Comments (23)
Is it possible/human/fair how Julianne Moore seems to get exponentially more radiant as she ages?
Apropos of nothing, has anyone read her children's book by chance?
Great Read and interesting discussion.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/why-white-people-dont-like-black-movies
Why White people don’t like Black movies.
A vast majority of White people don’t like Black movies because they lack the empathy necessary to identify with Black characters which in turn affects their ability to “suspend disbelief” and surrender to the narrative of a Black film. What has been called the Racial Empathy Gap in various sociological studies conducted by researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca and the University of Toronto Scarborough have revealed that,” The human brain fires differently when dealing with people outside of one’s own race.”(1) This study found that the degree of mental activity when White participants watched non-White men performing a task was significantly lower than when they watched people of their own race performing the same task. “In other words people were less likely to mentally simulate the actions of other-race than same-race people.” (2)
Why do Black people like White movies?
The short answer here is that we don’t have much of a choice.
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Sorry to derail your thread, but this site always have interesting topics and discussions. I saw Short Term 12 a while ago and liked it. However if most of the main characters weren't White would it have gotten the same response? I mean it is a bit overly melodramatic and Brie's character sort of reminded me of Precious with her 101 tragedies.
I hope Laverne Cox continues to be the spokesperson for trans issues and not Jared Leto because what I found to be a one-note, underwritten performance has turned into outright contempt in his front-runner status for what he has said about playing a trans character.
I'm with Nathaniel in why would people like Dana Stevens, who was at his table and moved when she got sick of his antics, and Katey Rich, who heard him say that stuff, lie about Armond White? To put it in Stephaie Zacharek's terms, 'If he actually used his inside voice, none of this would be happening to him'. None of these three are tied to Armond and his Hoberman-tied vendettas at NYFCC. He's running out of excuses in his isolation.
reading some online reaction to meryl's speech... people really decided to go against her this year... :(
You've met the deity that is Jackie Beat?! I love her! And I've actually posted a song of hers on a JA post on Facebook in the past so they had to be connected somehow.
Melissa -- i can't even with that quote. maybe i'm not reading carefully but it sounds like it's insulting both black and white people! First, not everyone has problems with Empathy Gaps (though obviously it's easier for the privileged set to have this since everyone and society caters to them) and second... i do not like this suggestion that black people wouldn't like white people movies if they had lots of black people movies to watch.
why would anyone only want one kind of movie and only the kind that reflects them? seriously how depressing my life would be if i could only ever watch movies about white gay men!!!
This study found that the degree of mental activity when White participants watched non-White men performing a task was significantly lower than when they watched people of their own race performing the same task. “In other words people were less likely to mentally simulate the actions of other-race than same-race people.”
Which explains why white men are so uninterested in watching sports. (Sorry, I couldn't help it.)
Yeah there's also a HUGE amount of statistical bias that goes into studies like that one about empathy. I mean think about the base of the testing. Just asking the question, "Do people respond differently to watching people of different races?" assumes that our neurological responses to race are inherent and natural, rather than a learned consequence of our social and economic placement. The essentialization of race is something that should always be questioned and interrogated because even just 500 years ago, race wasn't a meaningful category of difference. In fact to bring it back to films from this year, one of my favorite things about 12 Years A Slave was the way that it pointed to racism as a perverse rationalization of an economic system that required slavery to function.
Plus what Nathaniel and Paul said.
Maybe it's being raised by PBS and liberal parents (both of whom had been in families that at different points were on government assistance aka WELFARE) but Killer of Sheep is one of my all-time favorite films and of all the issues I had with Precious, lack of empathy wasn't one of them. I often hate that black films have become am monolith because clearly Charles Burnett is as different from Lee Daniels as Rossellini is from a Paolo Sorrentino.
This is just a tangent, but I've noticed that when certain TV shows are popular it becomes a 'white people thing to do'. Like a black person cannot possibly like Homeland, Mad Men, or Breaking Bad. Or the joke about white people and The Wire. These are not black people making these jokes at the expense of white people but it seems to just be white people who seem to question a certain level of empathy of white people not passing the smell test (White people liking The Wire). Or that lack of representation on those shows instantly means minorities are at odds with those works (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland). I notice nobody has jumped on the misplaced empathy with Orange is the New Black because of cast diversity and that's kind of great. But, I have friends of color who never cared for The Wire, despite supposedly represented their skin color (again, the monolith, of which is a show that shows only specific kinds of black lives) on that show, but watched Breaking Bad religiously. I don't think it is about having no choices. I think they just enjoy a certain kind of storytelling, in this case plot-driving pulp over a David Simon policy statement.
Anywhoo, that was CMG giving some observations about irksome social media attitudes on TV culture w/r/t race.
I don't know that I need black people in my movies to empathize with characters. I loved Short Term 12 and The Bling Ring (those two along with 12 Years a Slave are kicking each other around in my top 3 of 2013). Give me interesting characters, good filmmaking, perspectives on life from any race/cl;ass/gender/group/sub-group what have you and you're starting off in a good place with me personally. It would be nice to see more representations (not just racially) in cinema that reflect the world we live in, but I feel like (as Nathaniel said) that quote insults black and white people in almost equal measure because it doesn't give white people credit and assumes that they will always respond to movies about non-whites in a certain way, which is both reductive and a defeatist attitude that almost ensures nothing will get better. And for black people, it simplifies us and doesn't allow us the same diversity of response and feeling when it comes to how we ingest art. Just my two cents.
Meryl Streep disses Disney, I so HAVE to see that whole speech!! At the moment I don't even have the time to read the article, but I will.
On another note, I've come to find the collective hatred for Chloe Moretz here kind of funny, I almost dread the day y'all will finally start to love her (like myself), which will inevitably come sooner or later.
mmm... 3rtful may be having a field day with all the venom spreading online against Streep.
That's what I thought when i saw the variety article in any case.
Love those pics of NPH in Mexico. Nice to see a brief shot of his family, too. And way to go Laverne Cox! I'm a fan. I absolutely agree with CMG concerning Leto. the statements he's been making about how he "prepared" for his role are nauseating and fake-sounding. Like he knows that's what Academy members want to hear in order to win an Oscar. Puke. If Leto wins an Oscar before Fassbender, it will be a very sad thing.
The rightwing conservative members of the Academy won't be nominating Meryl this year.
Can you see Doris Day put Meryl on her ballot sheet after dissing the wholesome family values Disney?
Sadly this means Amy Adams will get the 5th slot for the vastly overrated American Hustle.
God help us if that film wins Best Picture. Totally not deserving.
I think Oscar nomination ballots were due yesterday?
Love Meryl...but where is the transcript for Emma's speech?
I heard Doris was voting for Brie Larson anyway.
Katie Couric has always been such a dipshit.
Why are people trying to make Katie Couric the bad guy? I didn't think her question to be impolite, a bit naive maybe, but at least she offers a platform for these women to talk about the trans people and the community. Why does Salon want to create a bitchfight?
Doing a little research wouldn't hurt. This ain't the age of Donaghue where those questions full of naivete are the fault of a lack of available tools and literature on it.
Actually, Doris Day is probably one of the few people alive who would have first hand knowledge of the truth of Streep's statement.
Emma Thompson gives the best speeches, fresh, funny, and literate. Meryl Streep comes across like Violet Weston here. Streep gives a nine minute speech, sucking up Thompson's time, and implicitly accusing her of making a politically incorrect movie. Then Emma is supposed to be flustered and defensive and say the wrong thing. It seems like jealous diva behavior.
Oh and BTW, you can't criticize Walt Disney for being anti-Semitic while at the same time praising Ezra Pound. You can't imply it's wrong to play in a movie with a whitewashed hero after playing the politically reprehensible Margaret Thatcher.
And most people take the backhanded compliment of bein called a "saint" (repeatedly) as meaning that a person is unsexy, martyred, and hard to get along with.
And what has Quentin Tarantino ever done to Streep that she has to bad mouth him? That he's hired non-famous actors? African-American and Asian-American actresses?
That was a very strange introduction.
Yeah, the Tarantino thing was weird. He's actually said he'd like to work with Streep. But she doesn't seem to be interested in working with auteurs. (Oh, I'm kidding! I guess.)
When was the last time Streep worked with a strong director? Someone who wouldn't be intimidated by her and her talent.