Every week With a Little Help from Our Friends highlights the best pieces of writing on film, television and literature published around the Internet. Check out the links, and feel free to share more good stories in the comment section.
For your reading enjoyment …
“I’m sorry for coining the phrase ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’” by Nathan Rabin
“Clearly labels and definitions are inherently reductive. And if you are a critic, labels and names and definitions are a necessary evil. But it’s a particular feature of the fast-paced, ephemeral world of online criticism that writers are always seeking quick reference points to contextualize their analysis — so the rise of the MPDG was in large part a creation of the Internet as well.”
“The Happily Brief Film Career Of Charlie Haden” by Glenn Kenny
“As far as I know Haden stayed clean, and it’s 100% verifiable that he stayed away from film acting, even though his love of movies informed his late music with his Quartet West (by all means seek out their Haunted Heart, a film noir for the ears).”
“Why Do People Love To Hate Zach Braff?” by Alison Willmore
“Here’s the point where I should confess that I’m pretty much Zach Braff agnostic. I liked parts of ‘Garden State’ (mostly the ones with Peter Sarsgaard), and I liked parts of ‘Wish I Was Here’ (mostly the ones with Mandy Patinkin). Upon seeing Braff, I am not overcome with the urge to punch his not-quite-handsome face. But I do think his apparent hateability is his most compelling quality, because Braff makes movies that are innately small, mild, and filled with very normal problems and solid, not terribly obscure indie rock. Braff’s offenses are mostly minor, but manage to stir some sizable emotions, and that’s a talent.”
“Anthony Bourdain’s Theory on the Foodie Revolution” by Ron Rosenbaum
“’I mean, I like watching really good food porn,’ he continues. ‘Beautiful food that I know what it is, I know what they’re making, or I’m curious about the culture it’s coming from. I could watch that all day. I like watching food porn, I like making food porn for people who are really all about the food and learning about food or imagining about food.’ But not Instagramming food. He has strong feelings about the craze of Instagramming dishes that has taken over social media.”
“Hispanic Women Are This Summer’s Most Avid Moviegoers (Exclusive Study)” by Lucas Shaw
“’Hispanics are seemingly watching everything,’ Fabian Castro, SVP of multicultural marketing at Universal, told TheWrap.”
“I killed ‘At The Movies’” by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
“Stupid as it sounds, I miss it, and, sometimes, when I’m stuck on a review, I imagine myself back on the balcony set, debating the movie with Christy. There was a certain high that came with the crosstalks. I learned over time what kinds of arguments could and couldn’t be squeezed into an edgewise sentence. I came into the show as a detail-oriented critic, but learned with practice to suppress the urge to make extraneous asides, in order to build a stronger case, pro or con. I wish it were still on.”
“The Female Thor and the Female Comic-Book Reader” by Noah Berlatsky
“Schenker says that the number of female fans seems to vary between 41 and 47 percent. Even more interesting, querying Marvel, DC, and superhero comics on Facebook gave him a figure of around 36.5 percent women. He also checked on ‘likes’ for female comics characters, and found that about 62 percent of them were from women.”
“How Bernardo Bertolucci Found Himself” by Bilge Ebiri
“Of course, Bertolucci would make the story his own. ‘If I don’t fall in love with my characters, I cannot shoot,’ he says. ‘I have to have this emotion, of idealized love. This is my way of making a story mine.’”
“Iris Scans and Reincarnation: The Science and Spirituality Behind “I Origins’” by Hugh Hart
“Nowadays in New York City if a person is arrested they get their eye scanned, babies in hospitals get their eyes scanned, you can go through the fast lane at the airport if you do your iris scan.”
