It’s clear to me now. The point of some Hollywood movie and TV production is to give the staff at Entertainment Weekly something to write about. The movies and TV shows don’t really matter. The reviews, these are the point of all those deal making, casting, shooting, producing, agenting. The movie or TV show is really just an accident of the process. Really, all this takes place to occasion EW coverage. (It’s an expensive way to go about it, but that’s American culture for you.)
Listen as Lisa Schwarzbaum damns the latest effort by Halle Barry with feigned excitement and sly criticism:
Something awful happened to young Frankie back in 1950s Georgia to make her so broken; it’s just a matter of time, flashbacks, many costume and accent changes, some more jazz and a triggering tune on the radio before the truth can set Frankie, and the audience, free.
Owen Gleiberman:
Darren Aronofsky’s backstage ballet thriller, Black Swan, is lurid, voluptuous, pulp fun, with a sensationalistic fairy-tale allure.
Ken Tucker on Men of A Certain Age:
[T]he achievement of this series is that it makes middle-aged failure so energetically entertaining.
Leah Greenblatt.
No other major pop diva seems to enjoy surrendering her vanity to the pure fun of video-making quite like Pink does (or, really, at all).
And then there are the anonymous writers of the magazine. They write with a knowing air, as if to say, "surely, popular culture makes insiders of us all." There is something familiar about their tone. And I guess we should take this as an anthropological miracle, because they don’t know us and of course we don’t know them. Perhaps not so miraculous. After all, we and then have popular culture in common, and that’s a lot to have in common because popular culture is our culture, plain and simple.
Ditch the adjective and let’s get on with it.
Wahlberg and Co were one of the biggest boy bands ever. And NKOTB are currently prepping for a summer North American concert tour that would totally make us hyperventilate…if this were 1989.
References
Anonymous. 2010. They’re with the band. Entertainment Weekly. December 10, p. 96.
Greenblatt, Leah. 2010. Pink "Raise your glass." Entertainment Weekly. December 10, p. 105
Schwarzbaum, Lisa. 2010. Frankie and Alice. Entertainment Weekly. December 10. p. 90.
Tucker, Ken. 2010. Men of a Certain Age. Entertainment Weekly. December 10, p. 95.
Apologies
I am on the road and don’t have time enough to find an image or links.
Entertainment Weekly really does try to criticize ever little detail about a show or movie or anything. It is very entertaining reading the smart comments that they come up with but what gets me is whether or not those comments are actually originally their own or whether or not there is some guy in the back that all he does all day is think of random things to say about something he saw on television last night. Its also funny how if any actor or if any show is not up to par then they are the first to jump all over it but we as the people and as a culture encourage the criticizing. It is like we want to know what all the celebrities are doing when they are not making movies or doing whatever they do. Americans are very nosy and always want to be up to date with who looks like what and who is with who and it should all be none of our business. I am not saying that I don’t do this but I am saying we are making the magazine happen by buying it and keeping it in business. If people did not buy it then there would be no Entertainment Weekly.