Required Reading: Lauren Bacall and Learning to Whistle

By  · Published on August 14th, 2014

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“Remembering Lauren Bacall” – Daniel McDermon at the New York Times examines the artistic sine wave created by a phenom.

“Lauren Bacall’s Greatest Role: Herself” – Tim Gray at Variety notes that she crafted a public persona that often outshone her strong supporting characters.

“Lauren Bacall and ‘Sex? What Sex?’ Kind of Movie Sex” – Linda Holmes at NPR celebrates a smoky, incredibly hot scene where the actors are across the room from each other and the clothes stay on.

“There is nothing coy about Lauren Bacall in this sequence. This is not really flirtation as we commonly would talk about it. There is a frank eyeball conversation going on from the minute she and Bogart’s Steve – who will soon nickname her character “Slim” – encounter each other as she stands in that doorway. And despite the fact that he also suspects her of lifting a wallet, it is largely a frank eyeball conversation about whether and when they are going to have sex. (And maybe how, although the implied answer seems to be “pretty well.”) At the same time, if asked to defend it against charges that he was selling lust, director Howard Hawks could very easily have simply said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just had a girl light a match. Why, doyou think it’s sexy?” It underscores the fact that the feeling that a scene is sexy comes from the viewer, from her natural ability to infer. To accuse it of being arousing is to acknowledge being aroused, because it’s not on the screen; it’s all happening in your naturally dirty mind.”

“Film Critics Have Failed LGBT Cinema By Misreading The Dog” – Daniel Walber at Nonfics argues that film reviewers have detrimentally bought into the bravado of the man whose story would be told in Dog Day Afternoon.

“The Expendables 3: Embarrassment Rankings” – Nick Schager at Screen Crush reviews the new omnibus action flick by seeing what fading star comes out looking the best.

“Here’s Why Superhero Movie Romances Suck” – Rob Bricken at io9 explains a painful distraction.

“The REAL Reason Why Superhero Romances are Always Doomed” – And Charlie Jane Anders at io9 piles on.

“What they ‘don’t make ’em like’ anymore” – Noel Murray at The Dissolve looks into the narrowing field of vision provided by the studios. Fortunately indie filmmakers and foreign studios are filling the gaps.

“Every Dumb Movie Should Be 90 Minutes Long” – Kyle Buchanan at Vulture articulates what we’re all thinking and offers some guidance to filmmakers on how to figure out if their movie is a candidate.

“When you’ve spent more time on special effects than the screenplay, you should wrap your movie up in 90 minutes.

When your plot relies on the overused-yet-still-inane plot device of “miracle blood,” you should wrap your movie up in 90 minutes.

When your computer-generated characters are more expressive than your female lead, you should wrap your movie up in 90 minutes.”

“Flipping the Script” – Lauren Tabach-Bank at the New York Times Magazine profiles Sam Taylor-Johnson, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Ava DuVernay, Sarah Polley, Lisa Cholodenko and Lana Wachowski in an effort to look at how they’re redefining being a woman filmmaker in Hollywood.

“SeaWorld stock falls 33% as orca controversy hurts attendance” – Well, whadaya know? Hugo Martin at the Los Angeles Times has the story on something the company has been denying for months.

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.