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“Robert De Niro and the origin of ‘The Face’” – Scott Tobias at The Dissolve winces to remember a time when his heroes let him down, but takes comfort in knowing that a cliche was born as a sincere comic move.
“The 7 Eras of Al Pacino” – Stephen Marchie at Esquire subdivides a career by loudness.
“The Death of Adulthood in American Culture” – A.O. Scott at The New York Times Magazine adds to the conversation about maturity in our popular art (while opening up some fresh thought-wounds). He also makes me want to see Don Draper star in a new adaptation of “Huckleberry Finn.”
“Maybe nobody grows up anymore, but everyone gets older. What happens to the boy rebels when the dream of perpetual childhood fades and the traditional prerogatives of manhood are unavailable? There are two options: They become irrelevant or they turn into Louis C. K. (fig. 5). Every white American male under the age of 50 is some version of the character he plays on Louie, a show almost entirely devoted to the absurdity of being a pale, doughy heterosexual man with children in a post-patriarchal age. Or, if you prefer, a loser.”
“’Strong Women Characters’ Who Made Mistakes (And Learned From Them)” – The crew at io9 recognizes the beauty in imperfection. Full dimensionality means fucking up sometimes.
“Fritz Lang, Film History and Fate” – Aaron Cutler at Fandor takes the God’s-eye view on the Expressionist.
“How Marvel’s Success Will Help Star Wars” – Marc Graser at Variety transmits comments from Disney’s CFO to explain how the studio is creating synergy in space.
“Andrew Garfield on the Evils of Capitalism, the Hacking Scandal, and Criticism of Spider-Man 2” – Marlow Stern at The Daily Beast speaks with the actor about a broad range of topics, including the level-headed view on his faulty blockbuster.
“It’s a discernment thing. What are the people actually saying? What’s underneath the complaint, and how can we learn from that? We can’t go, ‘Oh God, we fucked up because all these people are saying all these things. It’s shit.’ We have to ask ourselves, ‘What do we believe to be true?’ Is it that this is the fifth Spider-Man movie in however many years, and there’s a bit of fatigue? Is it that there was too much in there? Is it that it didn’t link? If it linked seamlessly, would that be too much? Were there tonal issues? What is it? I think all that is valuable. Constructive criticism is different from people just being dicks, and I love constructive criticism. Hopefully, we can get underneath what the criticism was about, and if we missed anything.”
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