Good morning, dearies! Here’s what I found for the week….
On the 7th, Jessica Mason talked about the results of the annual “Boxed In” survey, over at The Mary Sue:
“Things aren’t equal for women in Hollywood, but at least they’re getting better. According to the latest annual ‘Boxed In’ study by the San Diego University Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, which was released last week, women are making definite inroads behind and in front of the camera, but there’s still a long way to go. The study, in its 22nd year, analyzed the numbers of women both onscreen and behind the scenes across broadcast, cable, and streaming. Some of the results are promising, and some are sadly predictable.”
Cady Drell, Amanda Mitchell and Ineye Komonibo of Marie Claire shared a list of classic movie recommendations for lovers of romcoms:
“Most classic movies involve some kind of love story that’s central to the plot. Heck, even Hitchcock movies had their fair share of smoochin’. But after a long cinematic dry spell, it’s safe to say the resurgence of rom-coms upon us, thanks to films like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Crazy Rich Asians. With so much love on the brain, we decided to investigate which classic films hold up as the most quintessentially romantic of them all.”
Also on the 9th, Anna Swanson looked at the career of my boyfriend Matt Dillon, for Film School Rejects:
“What Drugstore Cowboy captures so deftly is that Dillon, while capable of projecting undeniable confidence and possessing swagger with just a pinch of smarm, has a soulfulness that makes the audience want to save him. While the 1990s saw no shortage of handsome, bad boy heartthrobs, Dillon can’t fit into any established mold. His appeal is not quite the same as the Johnny Depp type whose persona is built around being helplessly odd. Nor is it a babyfaced Leonardo Dicaprio kind of endearment — even in his earliest roles, Dillon had a maturity that prevented this. His appeal is the heartbreak of a homecoming king who feels too deeply for his own good. He’s so endlessly watchable because he’s as classically handsome as they come and yet also an eternal outsider.”
On the 10th, Rachel Charlene Lewis of bitch media, interviewed BriAnne Wills, the woman behind the Instagram account@girlsandtheircats, and the author of the forthcoming book, Girls and Their Cats:
“The ‘cat lady’ stereotype started [during] the Salem witch trials. Women who were considered witches often had familiars, which [tended to be] cats. There was a lot of abuse against those women and their cats, and because it was so ingrained in our society that these women were bad, the cats [had to also be] bad. And cats and women together? Even worse. It takes a long time for society to change its collective mind, and we still haven’t moved away from the stereotype.”
Bryan O’Donnell talked about the wonderful, but short-lived Terriers, for 25 Years Later, on the 11th:
“But deep down, Terriers is a show about a man who has basically lost everything and will do whatever it takes to get it back. As the show opens, we learn that Hank has lost his job and his wife (for reasons initially unexplained). He is in AA and trying to make things right, all while solving undesirable cases as a private detective. But Hank isn’t ready to let go of his past yet. He still interacts with his former partner at the police department, Gustafson, who offers a piece of advice: ‘You’re not a cop anymore. And for good reason. So stop pretending to be one.’ He still loves Gretchen, his ex-wife. He even decides to purchase the house they shared together when Gretchen puts it up for sale and announces she’s getting remarried. He feels a need to keep protecting her through cringe-worthy antics, which include running a background check on Gretchen’s new fiancé.”
On the 12th, Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone, contrasted the legacy and influence of Freaks & Geeks and The West Wing:
“Both these shows debuted on a network that still had world-shaking hits like Friends and ER, entering into a programming landscape where the goal was still to attract the largest possible audience by turning off the smallest number of potential viewers. Twenty years later, some shows still operate under that philosophy. But thanks to changes in technology and the boom in programming that The Sopranos and Sex and the City inspired, the audience has become so fragmented that the path to success these days is often to be the viewers’ absolute favorite show ever, even if there are relatively few of those viewers to be found. Passion and engagement can now matter as much as raw numbers (though raw numbers are nice). Even if Feig and Apatow didn’t know how the business was going to change around them, they understood the value of getting people to care a lot about what would happen to these weird, anxious kids.”
Finally, Evan Minsker paid tribute to Daniel Johnson, on Pitchfork, also on the 12th:
“Johnston wrote so many iconic songs that the rough, home-recorded quality of his tapes couldn’t get in the way of his undeniable enthusiasm. It’s easy to see why so many artists looked to him as a template for how to create art without the support or infrastructure of the music industry. Before being a bedroom auteur was a viable way to record music, he did everything himself. He was endlessly creative with the little that he had, and because he got his songs in front of local musicians and journalists and audiences, he made building a career in music feel possible.”
Enjoy!