Columbia Pictures
The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere.
There will be a quiz later. Just leave a tab open for us, will ya?
“The Shawshank Residuals” – Russell Adams at The Wall Street Journal profiles a sleeper hit from 1994 that woke up and ran a marathon.
“On cable, Shawshank is at an age when the licensing value of many films diminishes, but its strength hasn’t wavered. Shawshank and other films are now being licensed for shorter periods to a bigger and hungrier universe of distributors. Shawshank has aired on 15 basic cable networks since 1997, including six in the most recent season, according to Warner Bros. Last year, it filled 151 hours of airtime on basic cable, tied with Scarface and behind only Mrs. Doubtfire, according to research firm IHS. Shawshank, despite its virtually all-male cast, was the most-watched movie on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network in the latest season and in the top 15% of movies among adults 18–49 on Spike, Up, Sundance and Lifetime.”
“Why Screenwriter Garry Whitta’s Rant Proves He’s Perfect For Star Wars” – Rob Bricken at io9 points out that if crazed, passionate fans were looking for one of their own to shape the new universe, they scored big with Whitta.
“Alejandro Jodorowsky on His Friendship with Nicholas Winding Refn and Trying to be a Non-Manipulative Director” – Simon Abrams at Vulture interviews the Dance of Reality director about his lengthy evolution.
“The violence in El Topo is humorous. Because when you see violence in American industrial pictures, or in Chinese pictures, there’s joy in that violence. They like that violence! Me, when I show violence, I am critiquing violence. It’s different. I make the violence non-real. I’m encouraging people to have feelings about what they’re seeing, but I also want them to know that it’s art, that it’s not real. I don’t hypnotize you. The commercial hypnotizes you, and makes you into a violent person. You start to want to kick somebody, to be Superman, something like that, no?”