Cinematic Features: Favorite Reads Of Week 2
In this new series our team will recommend interesting articles they found on the web on a weekly basis. Read and enjoy! Feel free to place your favorite articles of the week in the comments!
[row padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” bg=”#f5f5f5″ bg_light=”true” appear=”false”] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]Five Years Ago, Avatar Grossed $2.7 Billion But Left No Pop Culture Footprint
“James Cameron’s Avatar defied the skeptics and became the highest-grossing film of all time, but five years later it is all but forgotten in the pop culture landscape.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the theatrical release of James Cameron’s 3D action spectacular.Avatar earned rave reviews, went on to become by far the highest-grossing movie of all time, and won several Oscars. It then almost immediately vanished from the popular zeitgeist, leaving almost no pop culture impact to speak of.”
Recommended by David Fontana
[button url=”http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/12/18/avatar-became-the-highest-grossing-film-of-all-time-while-leaving-no-pop-culture-footprint/” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on Forbes[/button][/column] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]
Tangerine’s all-iPhone cinematography is no cheap gimmick
“For his fire-starting new feature Tangerine, filmmaker Sean Baker cut out the middle man between his brain and the screen by stepping in to shoot the picture himself, along with assistance from Radium Cheung, a camera operator on Baker’s previous film Starlet. What’s more, he shot the entire feature on an iPhone 5 hooked up to an anamorphic lens, the first time that the casual consumer technology has been used to shoot a feature-length film for theatrical release. Cries of gimmickry followed the discovery of Baker’s unorthodox methods, as such accusations follow every work of art that dares to attempt something conceptually unprecedented, but Baker’s one-of-a-kind cinematography is anything but a cheap hook.”
Recommended by Arlin Golden
[button url=”http://www.avclub.com/article/tangerines-all-iphone-cinematography-no-cheap-gimm-230261″ new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on A.V. Club[/button] [/column] [/row]
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From Steven Avery to Justin Bieber: It’s time to cool it with the White House petitions
“Late in 2015, incensed by the perceived lack of justice afforded to Steven Avery (as documented in Netflix’s new Making A Murderer series), someone with the initials “D.R.” sat down in San Bruno, California; typed WhiteHouse.Gov in their URL bar; and petitioned the president to pardon Avery. While that might seem like a noble enough cause—if Avery wasn’t given a fair trial, perhaps the president could do something about it?—it was a fool’s errand in more ways than one.”
Recommended by Manon de Reeper
[button url=”http://www.avclub.com/article/steven-avery-justin-bieber-its-time-cool-it-white–230430″ new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on A.V. Club[/button][/column] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]
DGA Publishes Inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report: Two-Year Study Reveals Women Account For Only 6.4% of Film Directors – Dropping to Just 3% for Major Box Office Titles
“The Directors Guild of America (DGA) today released its inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report analyzing the gender and ethnicity of feature film directors. Of the 376 directors of features released in 2013 and 2014, just 6.4% were women and just 12.5% were minority directors.”
Recommended by Jax Siler
[button url=”http://www.dga.org/News/PressReleases/2015/151209-DGA-Publishes-Inaugural-Feature-Film-Diversity-Report.aspx” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on DGA.org[/button] [/column] [/row]
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Sylvester Stallone Says Creed Sequel Could Reunite Rocky and Apollo
“After a successful comeback in “Creed,” which has grossed $103 million at the U.S. box office, Sylvester Stallone revealed in a new interview with Variety that he’s already getting ready to step back in the ring for another sequel where he’ll play Rocky Balboa.”
Recommended by Raul Marin
[button url=”https://variety.com/2016/film/news/creed-sequel-sylvester-stallone-1201672298/” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on Variety[/button][/column] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]
Notes On The Hateful Eight
“No one, save for a very willful person, would insist that Quentin Tarantino is an artist with an overweening, or maybe one would better say primary, interest in morality. Either in the abstract or in practice. Tarantino is, though, an artist who has a great deal of interest in manipulating audiences with respect to affinity and empathy. And as a filmmaker whose biggest point of reference is genre cinema, he owes a lot, in terms of ideas if not overt technique, to the genre cinema artist nonpareil, Alfred Hitchc*ck.”
Recommended by Mike Daringer
[button url=”http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2016/01/notes-on-the-hateful-eight.html” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on Some Came Running[/button] [/column] [/row]
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The End Of YA Novel Adaptations — And 4 Other Pop Culture Predictions For 2016
“It’s January, which means the last few bits of Oscar bait are hitting theaters. But we still have a week or so until the nominations are announced, giving us a brief breather after the start of the new year to contemplate a crucial question: What on earth is going to happen in 2016 anyway?”
Recommended by Jay Ledbetter
[button url=”https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-end-of-ya-novel-adaptations-and-4-other-pop-culture-predictions-for-2016/” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on FiveThirtyEight[/button][/column] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]
Regressive, Reductive and Harmful: A Trans Woman’s Take On Tom Hooper’s Embarrassing Danish Girl
“When Gerda is putting make-up on Lili, Hooper splices in extreme close-ups of the lipstick rubbing against Redmayne’s lips. When Einar touches a dress for the first time, we get more extreme close-ups of the fabric rubbing against Redmayne’s skin accompanied by heavy breathing and operatic strings courtesy of Alexandre Desplat. In the soon-to-be-infamous tucking scene, Hooper closes us in on Redmayne’s naked body and slowly moves his camera down, treating the tucking of his penis like a gigantic reveal that he—and thus the audience—gawks at.”
Recommended by Alistair Ryder
[button url=”http://blogs.indiewire.com/bent/regressive-reductive-and-harmful-a-trans-womans-take-on-tom-hoopers-the-danish-girl-20151203?page=2″ new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on Indiewire[/button] [/column] [/row] [row padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” bg=”#f5f5f5″ bg_light=”true” appear=”false”] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false” ]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Not f*cking it up was assignment number one for the seventh installment of the Star Wars franchise, The Force Awakens, the first without creator George Lucas as director, writer, or showrunner. Director J. J. Abrams was obliged not to f*ck up Disney’s $4 billion investment in the property; he was obliged not to f*ck it up for the legions of Star Warsaficionados and everyday nostalgists; and he was obliged not to f*ck it up for Hollywood in general, which has staked its solvency on blockbusters like Star Wars ever since Star Wars itself debuted in 1977.
Well, he didn’t f*ck it up.
Considered a great review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it was recommened by both Tyler George and Arlin Golden
[button url=”http://reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/2157/star_wars_force_awakens” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on Reverse Shot[/button][/column] [column size=”1-2″ appear=”false”]
It Shouldn’t Be Surprising When Women Directors Helm “Masculine” Stories
“Did you know that Making A Murderer was helmed by two women directors? I didn’t, and I’m ashamed to say that I probably wouldn’t have guessed it, partly because of the dearth of women directors in general but also because Making A Murderer does feel like a “masculine” story. This Fusion editorial explains that not only are women directors capable of helming stories about men (what a shocker), they’re often required to do so in order to get ahead in their careers.”
Recommended by Manon de Reeper
[button url=”http://www.themarysue.com/women-directors-masculine-stories/” new_tab=”true” size=”medium” style=”solid” color=”#d4001a” light=”false”]Continue reading on The Mary Sue[/button] [/column] [/row]
Share the good stuff you read this week in the comments below!
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