Criticwire’s Daily Reads brings today’s essential
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1. Your Childhood Entertainment Isn’t Sacred. Upset that “Ghostbusters” is getting a remake? Less than thrilled that there was a new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie? Lighten up, says The Dissolve’s Nathan Rabin:
There’s an unmistakable element of generational chauvinism to these complaints as well. I want my son, who is now just under four months old, to watch and love “Ghostbusters” the way I did when I was eight years old. But I’m also excited about him growing up with a “Ghostbusters” franchise where women are front and center in heroic, central roles, rather than limited to supporting roles as secretaries and love interests inhabited by demons at key moments. Old isn’t necessarily good, just as new isn’t necessarily bad. Read more.
2. “The French Connection” Paradox. “The French Connection” revolutionized the cop movie, but modern cop movies don’t much feel like “The French Connection.” Writing for Decider, Glenn Kenny wrote about “The French Connection” paradox.
And Friedkin’s doc tendencies are also what make the movie so odd and one-of-a-kind. This is movie that seemingly spends reels of film just observing Popeye and Sonny doing a very unglamorous job. When they’re tailing the criminals, it’s an endless, slow chain of what seems like stale cigarettes and stale coffee, standing out in the cold while the bad guys eat at fancy French restaurants. Today’s cop pictures almost never spend so much non-quality time, such as it is, with their characters. Read more.
3. Lena Dunham on the Autobiography in “Girls.” How close is “Girls'” Hannah Horvath to Lena Dunham? The writer/director/actress spoke to Laurie Winer of the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Do you consider “Girls” an ongoing autobiography of a slightly younger self?
That is the perfect way to put it and I’ll steal that, thank you. Basically Hannah is walking three feet behind me and I am dragging her by the hand, begging her to make the right decisions and knowing she just won’t. In many ways she is the part of me incapable of reaching for joy, for satisfaction or peace or an Eastern religion attitude. She is the part of us all that is just kicking and screaming our way into adulthood. I wish I didn’t have to answer calls or emails or pay bills, but here I am. She just doesn’t do it. Read more.
4. “The Fall’s” Ending Was Horrible. “The Fall’s” second season has ended, and it was less than impressive. Margaret Lyons of Vulture takes the show down.
5. Breakout Actors of Sundance. Terrence Howard, Mark Ruffalo and Amy Adams got their start at Sundance, and Yahoo! Movies’ Logan Hill wrote about this year’s breakout actors.
Shameik Moore. Cast this kid in everything: Handsome, funny, dramatic, and a damn good dancer, 19-year old Moore does a little bit of everything in Rick Famuyiwa’s “Dope.” Moore plays Malcolm, a nerdy lnglewood teen who gets sucked into the drug-dealing of his neighborhood, even as he sets his sights on Harvard. His character may be obsessed with ’90s hip-hop, but Moore’s open-hearted, every-teen performance feels like a shout-out to ’80s hip-to-be-square nerds like Matthew Broderick and John Cusack. Read more.
Tweet of the Day:
The SuperBowl is a lot like Sundance: crowded, trying to get into parties & most people there don’t even care about what they’re watching
— Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) January 31, 2015
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