Every week, With a Little Help from Our Friends highlights the best pieces of writing on film, television, and literature published around the Internet. Please share if you like what you see.
For your reading enjoyment …
“In the past, a scene like that—depicting a woman well on her way to achieving orgasm—would have earned the film a big, ugly NC-17 rating from the relentless prudes at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a shadowy trade organization that’s long deemed any degree of corporal violence as far more acceptable than female sexual pleasure, and has done more to shame male-to-female oral sex than Michael Douglas. But recently, the MPAA has loosened the stick in its collective ass and allowed women to go there whilst maintaining an R rating.”
“Surprise! The MPAA Discriminates Against Gay-Themed Movies” by Heather Dockray
“In the past few years, it’s been amazing to see the wide range of movies that MPAA has designated PG-13, despite the fact that they feature: murderous sociopaths who destroy cities, murderous children who destroy children, boners. That’s why it comes as a big glaring shock when movies like Pride, “a life-affirming story of lesbian and gay activists helping miners,” and a story that features NO violence and “BRIEF sexual content” is given a flat-out, unsafe for under seventeen, R rating.”
“Losing Joaquin Phoenix Shouldn’t Discourage Marvel’s Risk-Taking” by Adam Bellotto
“As a gut reaction, this is saddening news. Phoenix is a truly phenomenal performer; there must have been something in Doctor Strange that piqued a creative spark inside him (why else wade through three months of contract negotiations?), and I would have loved to see Phoenix take that spark and let it amplify out into a stunning performance. As entertaining as most Marvel movies are, nobody’s winning an Oscar for their harrowing portrait of an Avenger. It’s not likely Phoenix would have changed that, but he would have brought a gravitas to the performance that guys like Chris Hemsworth or Chris Pratt, hilarious and/or ripped as they are, simply can’t match.”
“Martin Scorsese: He is Cinema – After Hours” By Michael Koresky
“Scorsese has called After Hours “an exercise completely in style,” which shortchanges the film and provides evidence that a movie can take on a life independent even of its director. After Hours is far too convincingly oneiric and genuinely disturbing to be taken as mere trickery or technical experiment. With the help of a crackerjack behind-the-scenes band (Michael Ballhaus on lenses! Thelma Schoonmaker on shears! Howard Shore on synth!), Scorsese uses Minion’s fleet and frustrating script to effectively and sensorially plumb the depths of New York neuroses.”
“Shock and Awe: William Castle’s Horror Gimmicks” by Calum Marsh
“If you’ve wandered into a multiplex recently, you may have noticed that a number of new amenities have been integrated into the experience—most of which, it seems, are designed to make you forget you’re at the movies. The arcades, fast-food kiosks and ice cream vendors crowding out the lobby are nothing new, of course, but lately these distractions have expanded their purview, and now freely impinge upon the inside of the theater doors.”
“Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi separately have histories all over Hollywood. Annable is an independent cartoonist and comics artist who spent a decade working on videogames for LucasArts before moving to TellTale Games, where he directed Bone: Out From Boneville and Bone: The Great Cow Race, and worked on the Sam And Max series. Stacchi is a former commercial director and effects artist who was an animator on the Aeon Flux television show, and did visual effects for films including The Rocketeer, Hook, and Back To The Future.”
“Horror movies were my therapy” by Samuel Sattin
“But strangely enough, if I’ve gained anything from blood-curdling terror, it’s been a deep sense of comfort. When I watch or read a work of horror, it’s not because I want to feel bad. Whether it lines up with the goals of those in the industry or not, I watch horror movies to feel good. According to studies performed at the Rockefeller University in New York, horror fans fall into the category of “thrill seekers,” compared with those who enjoy skydiving, base-jumping, or flirting with death in any semi-safe form.”
“Selfie’s Challenge: The Inherent Creepiness of Pygmalion in 2014” by David Sims
“If you haven’t guessed it from the names, Selfie updates Pygmalion—but this contemporary Eliza is no working-class flower girl who needs to pass for royalty, and this Henry isn’t taking her up as some gentleman’s bet. Creator Emily Kapnek has Eliza make the decision to update her image, but that still sticks the show with a premise that could get creepy fast: a man tailing a woman around, yelling at her to behave.”
“What Movies Can Teach Us About the Ebola Outbreak” by Nate Jones
“Ebola has arrived in the United States, and people are freaking out. Part of this is because of professional scaremongering, and part of this is because we’ve been primed to panic by decades of cinema history. After all, you don’t make a movie about a deadly virus without having that virus get loose and decimate entire populations. (Successful Quarantine is a much less catchy title thanContagion.) From the Motabo virus of Outbreak to the “Captain Trips” super-flu of The Stand, the movies’ depictions of mass sickness can get very dire indeed. Here’s what we’ve learned from Hollywood Epidemiology 101.”
