BY LINDSAY ROBERTSON |
This Week's Best Online Film Writing: The 'No Haters' Debate
A round-up of this week's best discussions, discoveries, provocations, backlashes, calls to arms and all-out wars about film on the Internet.
- This week's must-read: Tom Scocca's novella-length Gawker essay "On Smarm" defends snark against a "no haters" world that blindly (and, he argues, cynically) advocates for relentless positivity, taking on subjects as far-ranging as presidential elections, 9/11, Buzzfeed, UpWorthy, JP Morgan Chase, Dave Eggers' claim that only someone who has made a movie can critique one, and many more, punctuated by illustrations of Thumper from Disney's Bambi.
- To cleanse the palate, re-read our Adam Epstein's Why I Can't Be a Hater, in which the SNL editor confesses/bemoans his inability to judge even the lowest of reality-TV fodder now that he's seen how much work goes on behind the scenes. (One can appreciate both essays without the burden of cognitive dissonance simply by reminding onesself that creators and critics have different roles and we need both.)
- "His son asked why he couldn’t be with him every night, and Mandela told him that millions of other South African children needed him too. So many people have said to me over the years, It’s amazing that he was not bitter. I’ve always smiled at that. With enormous self-control, he learned to hide his bitterness." - Nelson Mandela's biographer Richard Stengel writes beautifully in Time Magazine about the leader's many legacies.
- Our co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro remember Nelson Mandela.
- The top two movies at the box office feature female protagonists in action/adventure roles, something the New York Times thinks has silenced once and for all those who believed in the curse of Sucker Punch.
- In this week's Racking Focus, Zach Wigon asks Should You Join the Conversation Around Your Own Film?
- Amazing stained glass art based on familiar '80s movie posters. (Big!!)
- Quora: Who's Your Favorite Female Film Director and Why?
- 4 Reasons the Future of Filmmaking is Online
- Twitter hashtag game of the week: describe a movie plot in the most sinister way possible with #DARKRECAPS
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And finally, this was the best Tweet about last night's Live Twitter Television Musical Event, NBC's The Sound of Music Live:
This is the most disconcerting TV-G rating in history. #TheSoundOfMusicLive pic.twitter.com/5cAi1SsIBQ
— Ben Greenman (@bengreenman) December 6, 2013
