1. “People of the Internet: 1, Cable Industry: 0.” A year ago, the fight for net neutrality seemed all but lost. Then, a remarkable reversal began.
“The crisis: The broadband industry wanted to establish a fast lane and a slow lane for the Internet. Companies would have to pay for access to the ’fast lane’—potentially preventing startups from competing with extant tech behemoths. Such a plan threatened ’net neutrality,’ a core tenet of the Internet, which held that net providers didn’t care about whose content they fed through their proverbial pipes.”
2. ”Selma and the State of the Black Auteur.” Andre Seewood on how easily prestige can be bestowed upon the works of white auteurs and how easily said prestige can be denied to black auteurs.
“The ongoing controversy and dismay swirling around Ava DuVernay’s masterful and triumphant historical film Selma highlights several salient issues regarding the separate and unequal status of Black filmmakers working within and outside of the White controlled American Entertainment Complex. I’d like to use these alleged controversies regarding the film and the dismay over DuVernay’s Oscar nomination snub for Best Director as illustrative of both the inherent pitfall of judging the quality of a Black film solely by its box office performance and how Black auteurs who seek prestige within the industry are forced to adhere to one unwritten cardinal rule to attain that prestige regardless to how this cardinal rule affects the historical accuracy of a film or diminishes the intrinsic dramatic and representational nature of a Black film.”
3. “The Unloved, Part Fourteen: Joe vs. the Volcano.” Paired with a video essay on the film by Scout Tafoya is Matt Zoller Seitz’s interview with John Patrick Shanley.
“I just wrote whatever came into my head, whatever I wanted to write next. I wrote it on spec. I wanted to write the story of Joe Versus the Volcano, and when I was done with it, I said to my agent, ’You know, I think this is something Steven Spielberg might like.’ And she sent it to him, and I was in Los Angeles at a hotel doing something, and the phone rang, and it was Spielberg. And he said, ’I read your script and I really like it.’ I said, ’thanks,’ and he said, ’I understand that you want to direct it,’ which I don’t remember saying, and I said, ’Yes.’ And he said, ’Well I think that’s a great idea.’ And that’s how I got the directing job of Joe Versus the Volcano! And then the movie may seem unlike other movies because…it’s what I wanted to make. It’s not a movie about other movies. It’s a movie about what I saw and what I felt around me, and what I found attractive and interesting to depict on screen. One of my rules of thumb was, I didn’t want to do anything I didn’t find beautiful. So we actually were looking for ways that I could [elevate] it, because I also knew I was doing something that wasn’t realism.”
4. “Why Are Female Directors Never Viewed as Part of a ’Scene’?” Flavorwire’s Elisabeth Donnelly answers the question.
“I think a lot of times this kind of critical fawning is well intentioned and generally the result of economics, with either selling a piece about ’the new hip things’ or selling a piece on a ’hip woman, who is like another woman.’ Critics and arts journalists need work too, especially these days. But the sort of press that came out of mumblecore means that all the directors who made these films are still working (heck, half of them were at Sundance 2015). [Desiree] Akhavan, on the other hand… I really, really want her to have a career, to be able to make a film every two-to-four years, but I wonder about whether she can get the funding in film if she’s not seen as a crucial part of a ’scene.’”
5. “Kodak and Hollywood finalize deals to save movie film.” ’Film has long been—and will remain—a vital part of our culture.’
“Following a high-profile period of lobbying by directors such as Christoper Nolan and Quentin Tarantino, Kodak has secured agreements with movie studios to keep supplying them with motion picture film. Sony Pictures, Paramount, NBC Universal, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Disney will all continue as major customers of Kodak’s film stock, guaranteeing the technology’s future at the storied imaging company.”
Video of the Day: Magic Mike XXL gets a trailer:
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
