Can you believe that someone is accusing the writers of This Means War of being… lazy? “The fact remains, though, that most people don’t launch into film-studies lectures on a first date, not unless they’re in the movie business. When they do so in a romantic comedy it’s a giveaway that the screenwriter was too lazy and unimaginative to give their characters any hobbies that they don’t have themselves. It shifts the story even further away from reality.” Seriously! It’s getting bad. Someone start a human rights petition. [The Economist via The Awl]
Full Story »You’ve heard about Bully, right? The anti-bullying documentary featuring real video of real teenage bullies tormenting real peers, interspersed with experts and victims alike expounding on our ongoing bullying epidemic? Of course you have, because when The Weinstein Company wasn’t shoving its 2012 Oscar crop down your throat, it was protesting way too much about a ratings “controversy” that would require youngsters under 17 to attend the doc with a parent or guardian. God forbid! Because the last thing we want is parents and teens watching and ideally discussing a film about bullying, right?
I privately vowed not to succumb to this most ironic of Weinsteinian pursuits: The most legendary bully of the modern Hollywood era releasing a movie about bullies, and then publicly bullying the MPAA over the last week with his outraged! Campaign! To overturn Bully’s R rating for language! For the children! No, really: “I have been compelled by the filmmakers and the children to fight for an exception,” Weinstein said in a statement. “[...] I want every child, parent, and educator in America to see Bully, so it is imperative for us to gain a PG-13 rating.” That was followed by a riotous threat to take “a leave of absence from the MPAA” after the rating was upheld on appeal (by reportedly one vote, which was awfully convenient for the press-release narrative, but hey). Such altruism, Harvey, seriously.
But what do we do when commentators as smart and influential as Andrew Sullivan are taking Harvey’s bait not once, not twice but three times, or when the tired, transparent King’s Speech/Blue Valentine-esque gambits that evoke Harvey’s singular…
Full Story »
