Good morning, darlings! Lots of good stuff this week, from Chinese movie stars to cult directors…

On the 24th, Matt Wedge at the Daily Grindhouse celebrated Larry Cohen:
“I do not mourn Larry Cohen. I celebrate him. I celebrate his work as one of the greatest independent filmmakers of all time. I celebrate the audacious way he marched into crowded Manhattan streets with a camera, a few actors, and no shooting permits like he owned the city. I celebrate his imagination that gave us an ancient Aztec god that feasted on New Yorkers, mutant babies that kill everyone in sight when threatened, and a frozen dessert product that literally ate the people who ate it. I celebrate the fact that he turned his pulpy, outlandish premises into angry, probing looks at everything from ingrained racism to corporate indifference to public safety in pursuit of profits. I celebrate him.”

Alan Sepinwall discussed how Netflix has started following traditional TV business models on for Rolling Stone on the 25th:
“But you can only be an unconventional outsider for so long. Netflix’s journey from plucky underdog to the dominant force in the medium has forced disruption to take a back seat to business realities the service once positioned itself against. And lately, Netflix has been making decisions that are indistinguishable from the networks to which it was supposed to present a glorious alternative.”

Also on the 25th, Kendall Cromartie explored the history of politics of superheroes over at Film School Rejects:
“Not only is the superhero genre rooted in politics, but these stories being so politically motivated is deeply important. Audiences want and need such issues explored in popular media, especially today. While it’s true that comic book films are meant as entertainment by definition, they are also responsible for being a vehicle for critical socio-political issues which may not be seen in other media or discussed as openly by our government.”

On the 26th, May Jong of Vanity Fair talked about the disappearance of Fan Bingbing, the most famous actress in the world:
“Fan Bingbing has been mostly staying at home these days, sending messages on WeChat (the Chinese WhatsApp), working on her English, receiving guests, doing charity work ‘to wash away her sins,’ and otherwise ‘trying to stay positive,’ according to a producer who knows her well. But before the events of last spring, when she abruptly disappeared from public view for three months, she was busy being the most famous actress in China, which is to say, the most famous actress in the world.”

Garin Pirnia of Mental Floss gave us 16 facts about Quantum Leap in honor of the show’s 30th anniversary on the 27th:
“For five seasons between 1989 and 1993, physicist Dr. Sam Beckett “leaped” from person to person to right epic wrongs and change the course of world history in Quantum Leap. Scott Bakula starred as Beckett, and in each episode he ended up inside a different person, ranging from a pregnant woman to Lee Harvey Oswald. Beckett’s snarky hologram sidekick, Al (Dean Stockwell), helped the doctor navigate the historical sequences. The show highlighted social issues and occasionally aired divisive episodes.”

Also on the 27th, Christopher Small wrote about the Poverty Row and the filmmakers keeping its spirit alive today for Filmmaker:
“Studying a historical phenomenon like Poverty Row cannot help but stir errant thoughts of an analogous ‘independent’ spirit alive today. Who is making movies in the PRC or Monogram mould in 2019? Movies today are globally stratified in the extreme, yet hegemonic power hubs exist in all sectors of film production, from arthouse to studio to the Humbert Bals Fund. The Poverty Row philosophy can only exist outside of that. The Korean director Hong Sang-soo once told me that, circa 2015, his movies cost $50,000 to produce, with an additional $50,000 on top of that for post-production costs and the salaries of his production house’s regular employees. Hong eschews the international funding hubs that increasingly dominate the international festival scene and which transparently influence its make-up. He makes enough of a profit on each pugnacious, miniscule digital movie to turn out another soon afterward, tunneling forward in whatever direction takes his fancy. Since 2010, he has released fourteen feature films.”

Another from the 27th is, this article by Travis Woods discussing how The Last Seduction stood out among the many erotic thrillers of 1995 for Bright Wall/Dark Room:
“Somehow using so many of the same genre devices popularized by Basic Instinct yet which hobbled Disclosure and, at the very least, confused the hell out of Color of Night, The Last Seduction transmuted the same masculine panic about female strength, sexuality, and the sexual assault that drowned those films into a genuinely gripping, artful slice of both high and low art. Unlike Disclosure, it managed to be sexy without being sexist; unlike Color of Night, it managed to be intentionally convoluted and hilarious. And unlike both of those films, The Last Seduction successfully interrogated modern gender roles in a post-Year of the Woman world by playfully mixing and matching accepted norms, rather than angrily lamenting the prospect of their loss. It allowed for a femme fatale to decimate and take advantage of toxic weaknesses and fears (rather than act as a justification for them), it created a darkly screwball world of neo-noir capers and fall guys and dirty detectives, and it inserted racy and provocative sex scenes with an ease that both satisfied the requirements of the erotic thriller and yet remained integral to the plot and character development. As such, The Last Seduction is not only one of the best erotic thrillers ever made, but in this, the year of 1994, the Year of the Buffalo Girl, it is one of the best films, period.”

Cullen Fleetwood mourned the end of Supernatural at Bloody Disgusting on the 27th:
“The fact that for a decade and a half we have had horror on a major network, during primetime, should carry weight within our community. It should be humbling and endearing to know that it is imperfect, like so many other things we love. It is imperfect like us. And like us, it loves and celebrates all things horror.”

Finally, on the 28th, Matthew Dessem at Slate criticized Disney for trying to satirize itself with Dumbo (2019):
“If anyone was going to make a live-action reboot of Dumbo seem like a deeply personal project rather than simply the latest scheme to wring more cash from a beloved piece of intellectual property, it was going to be Tim Burton. The original Dumbo seems almost tailor-made for a Burton remake. Like Edward Scissorhands, Dumbo is about someone who is exiled for being a freak. Like Ed Wood, its protagonist finds a way to overcome that rejection through showmanship. And like Big Eyes, Dumbo has plenty of big eyes. Most of all, Dumbo is a circus movie, which is something Burton seems to have been itching to make for decades, loading up everything from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to both his Batman films to Big Fish with clowns and circus performers. And yet there’s not a single second in Dumbo when the audience can forget it’s participating in one of the Walt Disney Company’s many, many multimillion-dollar business ventures, primarily because the new Dumbo features a Walt Disney stand-in whose only purpose is to remind them. It’s supposed to be a joke, but who is it on?”

Enjoy!