Link Grams

Today's Must Read
New Yorker Screenwriter Alan Zweibel on his two run-ins with Roger Ebert (who gave him his worst review)

More Links 
In Contention Melissa Leo's gone Hollywood. Are the new films beneath the LEOgend's skill set?
Open Culture Alfred Hitchcock masterclass on film editing 
Cartoon Brew Disney destroys its hand drawn animation division. Honestly I'm shocked that this only happened now. It's been so long since they were in the hand drawn business. (Sigh)
The Playlist Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell, and Anthony Hopkins in a movie about FBI agents with psychic abilities. Sounds terrible. 

And Four For You, Glen Coco! 
Hollywood.com has an empirical breakdown of the seven women of Mean Girls and who is doing best for themselves 9 years later. I almost didn't link though because of the weird lapses in facts just to praise Rachel McAdams. Yes, Hollywood.com, she has also had flops. And more than one of them.
i09 on why the western/sci-fi mashup is such a hard sell for audiences
MovieLine wonders why there's no remake of Near Dark (1987) in the works. Ugh. So glad there isn't! There's no topping Bill Paxton's "finger lickin' good" vamp.
Entertainment Weekly Matt Damon's new physique for Elysium 

The Hermione Granger Franchise

Today's Must Read
If you're interested in the Harry Potter series or gender you must read this editorial "In Praise of Joanne Rowling's Hermione Granger Series". As most of y'all know I'm not really a Potter person and this article gets at my biggest problem with it. Honestly I hate the "Chosen One" crutch in genre stories... from Potter to The Matrix to Star Wars to The Bible it's so hard to escape. It usually excuses lazy characterizations and plotting. Even two franchises that I could hardly love more (Terminator and Buffy) rest on it. I wish I could declare a cross medium moratorium on it for at least 5 years. Wouldn't you love to see what kind of fictional heroics might emerge if writers couldn't use it? And wouldn't it be better for our global character if we defined heroism & specialness through something other than accidents of birth or (the worst!) predetermined fate?

The Best of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Saturn & Nebula Awards

Though the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) isn't inordinately fan of the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres, those specialized types have enough devotees to generate their own Best of... discourse each year. Both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA) who give out the Nebula Awards and The Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films (ASFFF), a fan-based group (since anyone can join) who hand out the Saturn Awards each year, just announced their nominees for the Best of 2012. 

Bet you didn't expect to see John Carter mentioned during Oscar week! It's up for the Nebula & on Saturn Award

The Nebula Awards have only one category that suits our topic of choice here at The Film Experience and it's called the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. [Nominees, Book Recommendations, and Oscar connections are after the jump.]

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Burning Questions: Are Jump Scares Ever Not Awful?

Michael C here. I recently caught up with Andres Muschietti’s Mama and found it to be a decent little chiller with one particularly irksome habit. It is packed end-to-end with cheap jump scares. It’s as if the studio insisted the director include a quota of brainless “Boo!” moments amid all the creepy suspense stuff that takes actual filmmaking skill. 

Savvy filmgoers understand that jump scares are the worst. Apart from the fact that it requires roughly the same level of craft to startle someone with a loud noise as it does to zap them with a seat buzzer, they have the added drawback of creating distance between the audience and the film. They release tension, rather than build it. This explains their popularity among teenagers who see horror movies as a carnival ride, doling out empty “scares” with mechanical timing.

So finding a minefield of these cheap shots in another otherwise capable spook story like Mama got me thinking. Are there any defensible examples of the jump scare? Or is it an artistic sin every time it’s trotted out?

jump scares after, um, the jump.

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The First Still from Snowpiercer

Amir here. When I was compiling my list of 2013’s most anticipated films a couple of weeks ago, one of the titles that slipped under my radar was Snowpiercer. With the first official still from the film released yesterday the internet is awash with news about this sci-fi and I might have to adjust my list a little bit!

Snowpiercer, adapted from a French graphic novel titled Le Transperceneige, marks the English language debut of South Korean director Bong Joon-ho. He’s dabbled in different genres but is best known for his two most recent efforts: the monster flick The Host, which became a smash hit in its home country; and the internationally acclaimed Mother, for which Kim Hye-Ja won a bunch of best actress titles including from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

first poster and plot concept after the jump

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