The Link Is Not Yet Rated
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 10:30AM Vulture features a fascinating memoir about a troubled 70s childhood and the not-optimistic catharsis of TV's 70s superhero show The Incredible Hulk
Awards Daily Sasha never misses a beat with director David Fincher and his new muse Rooney Mara. Have you seen their Calvin Klein ad? What's most shocking about the ad (to me) is that Rooney SMILES in it. Can you imagine? Not the smiling sort at the cinema, you know.
Variety Halle Berry developing an indie comedy called Mother. Her frequent producer is directing but his filmography is suspect!
Zap2It "Giant Colin Firth statue emerges from lake in London's Hyde Park" a most clickable headline, don't you agree?
Awards Circuit wonders where we're not looking for Oscar contenders for this year's race. Any under the radar guesses?
Salon's description of US Weekly in this article about their "zoom-in" interactivity with paparazzi photos of Angelina Jolie's cleavage made me LOL
My New Plaid Pants "do, dump or marry" with the men of Pacific Rim: Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnan and Rob Kazinsky
Salon speaks about and to Guillermo del Toro as Pacific Rim, his first film in 5 years if you can believe it given how ubiquitous his name has been in that time frame, nears release
Finally have you heard that Los Angeles banned this Project Runway ad from appearing on billboards? I don't get it.
This nudity is so safe. This is only side cheek nudity. The models aren't even in sexually suggestive poses. But hey, Project Runway has got to do something to get people talking now that it's 12 seasons old. (I hated "TEAMS" so much, I can't even. It really turned me against the show). I think this would have been a much braver funnier and more successful ad if they had all of the new contestants naked and worshipping the hosts. It would have also been more controversial since imperfect regular-person bodies really alarm people. Partially because you don't see them in the media very often. But, tell me, why was this ad banned? I've seen much worse on public display. I didn't even feel the need to hide it "after the jump". But sex, like violence, is a terribly inconsistent thing when it comes to public policy and censorship. TV has adopted film's extremely forgiving and casual relationship with violence now (they'll regularly show things you couldn't see in an anything other than an R rated movie just a couple of decades ago) and I can't any longer get a hold on what you can or can't say in terms of profanity on the small screen. But sex -- it's always sex -- still manages to get people flustered and "that's obscene!" even when it isn't. A few nights ago while channel surfing I chanced upon some sort of reality show wherein the contestants were dropped naked onto deserted islands - like an "Extreme!" riff on Survivor. They even had "Naked" in the title. And the nakedness was blurred out.
Reader Comments (14)
Re the Project Runway ad: Maybe what irritated people was the degrees of whiteness, not the nudity. The nudity is pretty standard, but having the white guys clothed and on a pedestal, while all the people of color play the faceless hordes, is Eeww.
off topic: but did anyone see the trailer for LOVELACE is out?
Could Amanda Seyfried be a Best Actress contender?
http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/lovelace-trailer/
Do Rob,
Marry Idris,
Do, Marry and then Dump Charlie
On the idea of "Under the Radar Guesses", the article doesn't bring up The World's End as a "Black Swan" of the season.
Much ado about nothing (re: the Project Runway ad), and yet...why make the subjects nude in the first place? Still, I've seen more provocative ads hanging 10 stories high on buildings off Sunset for decades (including the Showgirls movie poster, come to that). Civic leaders probably figured it might further snarl L.A.'s already legendary, horrific traffic.
Nothing in the print campaign for Showgirls was objectionable. It was a fairly classy campaign and sold the movie as a serious provocation.
Speaking of the Colin Firth statue, I'm trying to double fist both Pride and Prejudice and Austenland the books before the latter comes out. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, go to it. I need Jennifer Coolidge in my life!
I don't understand why some movie stars (Mara, Kidman, Clooney, Roberts, Watts, Banderas, etc) feel the need to do commercials. They get big paychecks already, does a commercial mean financing a vacation in a remote island, or new Italian marble floor, for instance? The prestigious directors might be the alibi, but to me is just greediness which I think may in the long run hurt their credibility as people committed to their craft.
Anon- That makes no sense, unless you're being sarcastic, in which case just ignore my comment. There is only one person of color in that ad anyway and several white people are on the same level as her. They can't just create a black host out of nowhere to fit a politically correct expectation, and if they left out all minorities from their posters, we'd be complaining about that too.
iggy you're obviously unfamiliar with how internationally known superstars do business overseas. This has been going on for decades and they're promoting a brand, themselves to whatever foreign market requires this of them. Nothing to do with chasing cash as much as being hired for a movie that'll open in the ass-ends of the world.
Amir: Um...I think he's right. "One person of colour"? Really? On that ad, there's at least three VERY dark skinned guys (left, middle, far right) and everyone else could, plausibly, be viewed as "not white or asian."
@3rtful
I'm actually overseas, if I am to understand overseas as the Americancentric term to refer to ... the rest of the world.
What you say sounds as a very nice argument for a PR team or even a studio. I'll give you that Mara may need to make herself a household name overseas, but even my 93-year-old aunt can tell you who Clooney, Pitt or Roberts are and she's lived most of her life in a remote tiny village. Not to mention Banderas doing commercials in Spain, a place where I'd say he's a big recognizable name. I'd buy that argument if they gave the paychecks they get to charity, or even if they did the commercials for the minimum wages set by the unions, but they don't. Magazine covers or appearances on TV shows do the same in terms of publicity.
@Volvagia - that was the first thing I noticed as well, that it had got banned because of the two white people up on the pedestal and the "darker" bodies down on the floor. It's pretty damn blatant if you ask me, not egregiously so, but still.
re: nudity on TV. My favorite example of this is the series Hannibal, which I liked quite a bit, but which also featured people murdered and displayed in horrible, grusome, elaborate ways, frequently nude and positioned juuuuust so their nipples weren't visible.