I Wanna Link With Somebody
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 6:00PM • Vanity Fair Jamie Lee Curtis answers the Proust questionnaire
• Esquire Candid interview with Josh Charles who talks his HBO show We Own This City as well as delivering Aaron Sorkin's dialogue in the past
• EW Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead got married over the weekend
• Slate on the sexual landscape of TV at the moment. interesting take
Viola Davis, Singin' in the Rain, The Northman, CinemaCon and more after the jump...
• BBC Viola Davis is upset with the critical reaction to her performance in The First Lady. Hits back saying critics "serve no purpose" Um... except drawing attention to amazing actors like yourself before you were famous, Viola! (It's always disheartening when name stars do this)
• Pajiba an excellent piece by Alison Lanier on the feminine monsters of Robert Eggers movies (The Witch and The Northman)
• AV Club talks to Gene Kelly's widow about Singin' in the Rain
• The Daily Beast wonders if a dip in quality and not just mounting competition is what's most hurt Netflix's numbers
• Awards Daily Seattle International Film Festival award winners named
CinemaCon Reactions from Vegas
• Deadline CinemaCon declares that the theatrical window is returning and Hollywood's experiment is mostly over now that the pandemic is waning
• THR video report on the CinemaCon highlights
• Gizmodo reaction to the first 15 minutes of Across the Spider-Verse
• The Root reaction to footage from I Wanna Dance With Somebody and The Woman King
• /Film reaction to first footage from the upcoming Bowie doc Moonage Daydream
Tony Season
• Playbill Outer Critics Circle Nominations announced for Broadway and Off Broadway shows
• Theater Mania full cast announced for revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson (remember this is the production which was going to go straight to a film adaptation afterwards though we don't know if that's still the case)
Reader Comments (8)
I think Viola's got a case of the uppities,it's fine to criticise.it opens up debate as long as it's not mean.
JLC maybe out first contender for supporting actress next year.
Dear Viola, blame your team not the critics. They should have never let you do that show.
I guess Lea Michele showing her vagina with to Jonathan Groff is getting a separate piece.
Viola Davis has a valid argument against film critics. However, I think Meryl Streep was far more eloquent and exacting while addressing the issue in 2015 in a speech at the London Film Festival.
“I went deep, deep, deep, deep into Rotten Tomatoes, and I counted how many contributors there were — critics and bloggers and writers,” Streep said. “And of those allowed to rate on the Tomatometer, there are 168 women. And I thought, ‘that’s absolutely fantastic.’ And then, if there were 168 men, it would be balanced. If there were 268 men, it would unfair but I’d get used to it. If there were 368, 468, 568 … Actually there are 760 men who weight in on the Tomatometer.”
I agree that cinema that explores women’s perspectives suffers in a flurry of film criticism dominated by patriarchal values.
“The word isn’t ‘disheartening,’ it’s ‘infuriating,’ ” Streep said. “I submit to you that men and women are not the same. They like different things. Sometimes they like the same things, but their tastes diverge. If the Tomatometer is slided so completely to one set of tastes, that drives box office in the U.S., absolutely.”
Right before I saw that Davis quote yesterday, I listened to a wonderful interview with Melanie Lynskey on Little Gold Men. She discussed how much she respects critics, particularly when they call her out for a sub-par performance that she knew wasn't very good. I was amazed at her healthy and self-actualized perspective. It made me roll my eyes at Davis's defensiveness that much more.
Yeah, I'm really disappointed in Viola Davis. Her performance in The First Lady just feels all wrong, and yeah, it's the facial contortions that are the main problem. It's just off-putting. But you know, even great actors like her are entitled to screw up every now and then. She'll bounce back and be brilliant in something else before too long, I just know it. And I bet a lot of critics will be behind her, trumpeting her work.
My first thought was, "Well, is Viola Davis going to return her XYZ critics awards?"
And then looked it up, and saw that she has not won any of the major critics awards.
So, half-joking, I think we have our answer.
Viola Davis has been insufferable for several years now.
Oh please viola…can’t you take criticism? It just goes to show how highly you think of yourself. Pfff!