Last night I went to a panel at Housing Works Bookstore called “The Last Shot” on the state of the summer blockbuster. Afterward, some friends and I were talking about what we had heard, and one lamented that the panel seemed to overly dwell on the embarrassments and messes of summer 2011. I don’t fault cohosts Zach Baron and Sean Fennessey for this; they opened with some paragraphs from Entertainment Weekly writer Mark Harris’ takedown, in GQ, of “Top Gun” (which he later referred to as an “artificial villain”) and the movie-marketing culture that produces films like “Transformers 3” and is forced to make “Green Lantern 2” a hit. (I believe it was Slate’s Dana Stevens who referred to the latter franchise as “like the banks — too big to fail,” even though the first installment tanked pretty splashily.)
That said, just because I’m feeling extra chipper, here are some highlights for me of this movie season:
- “Bridesmaids” and its success. I have already paid to see this movie twice, and may yet go a 3rd time.
- Subsidiary to that, the announcement soon after of new projects for “Bridesmaids” cowriter Annie Mumolo (Scared Plane Woman if you’ve seen the film) and costar Melissa McCarthy (who played Megan) — because it doesn’t move anything forward just to have one big box-office success.
- The risk of oversaturation by Jason Bateman.
- Those major comic-book blockbusters that flopped didn’t linger around to poison the national discussion. Prior to last night I hadn’t thought about “Green Lantern” in weeks, and that was a sorely needed break.
- “Super 8,” a sweet little monster movie with more than a hint of scare, but good enough to take the whole family.
- While it didn’t completely work for me, the last installment of the “Harry Potter” series wrapped it up with grace without losing any of its 3 leads (or any of the major players, with the exception of Richard Harris [R.I.P.] as Dumbledore).
- Michael Fassbender, from British character actor to major franchise player.
- The August promise of ensemble comedies like “Crazy Stupid Love” and “My Idiot Brother.”
- That the failure, or at least disappointing performance of, Olivia Wilde’s major projects (“Cowboys & Aliens” and “The Change-Up”) means she will soon fade into obscurity. Okay, I’m reaching, but a lady has to dream!
Results of a straw poll I took on Twitter reveal a four-way tie for the summer’s worst movie between “Bad Teacher,” “Cars 2,” “The Hangover 2” and “Transformers 3.” My pick would probably be “Bore,” I mean “Thor.”
Here’s Anderson Cooper throwing away a career’s worth of credibility and gravitas to talk about how much he loves the Onion at the Paley Center in New York last night. Warms your heart. (He was later confronted with “Afghan Warlord Takes Anderson Cooper As 43rd Wife” on that screen. Doth the man blush? Oh, he doth blush.)
If you like reading about super-religious people and/or you liked Nixonland, Darren Dochuk’s From Bible Belt to Sunbelt is right up your alley. As for David Vann’s Caribou Island, the bleakness is right in tune with how the cold this year in New York has broken me and I will be in these wool socks until June. (My Pilgrim forebears are way upset.)
Happy 2011! This was actually the last review I wrote in 2010, so I maintain that I was just ending one year on a down note, not dooming my 2011 reading list to mediocrity.
A commenter pointed out that the book follows the plot of a Czech opera called “The Makropulos Affair,” which indeed I hadn’t heard of before reading. Here’s a description of a 2009 performance on a blog called OperaChic (awesomely aggro tag line: “I’m a young American woman living in Milan, and you’re not. I go to La Scala a lot, and you don’t.”) I stand informed, but not corrected.
That’s right, we’re outsourcing… but this is too good:
bad bad bad. low-point has got to be “where’s my sex,” just because it brings up vestiges of the ironically whiny weezer of days past but unfortunately we are just left with an awkward whine.
Crucial context, my sister was THREE when Weezer’s debut album was released.
Filed under music
See sidebar, referring to this review for the A.V. Club. I reviewed all three Larsson books (…so far?) for them, and this was the only one I disliked, for the record.
Joke album cover I made today while answering a question about the appeal of Matt Berninger.
Original photo: Okko Pyykkö
misterdisco:
Look, it’s no big secret that I love Foursquare. Hell, I was even featured in a Metromix article for scoring the semi-elusive Pizzaiolo badge. But it’s my belief that some people don’t have a lot of restraint, and a feel a need to lame it up on FourSquare.
Take this, a recent feed of someone on my friends list. Yeah, s/he’s a nice person, but GOOD LORD. All of your recent check-ins are are SUBWAY STATIONS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
What does checking into a subway station actually tell anybody? In a few minutes, you’ll be on a moving car headed toward another destination. In theory, nobody can really meet up with you at a subway station unless they meet you within 5 to 7 minutes of your check-in. Does anybody really need to know that you’re about to board a Q train?
Furthermore, most of these are UNDERGROUND, which makes this display of annoyance even more impressive. Can you imagine coming up from subterranean New York City, and the only thing you can think about is checking in on Foursquare to all the subway stops you’ve hit on your journey? UGH.
Ultimately, I think it sucks - because people who are annoying on new services like this are detrimental to potential new users. Because they don’t want to become as annoying as that guy.
This isn’t my #1 reason for not using Foursquare, but it is sort of pointless. And I can’t think of a station of which I’d really want to be mayor. (Also not my #1 reason.)
