Gay X-Men

25 May

The Guardian

“Do you have gay X-Men?”

I must admit, it sounded a little strange coming out of my mouth. I was at my favorite local comic book shop. I’ve been a comic nerd going back to reading my older brothers’ copies of Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Detective Comics. And now Northstar, one of the X-Men, was going to propose to his boyfriend and have a gay wedding. At the same time, DC comics, the main rival to X-Men publisher Marvel Comics, has announced that one of its main characters is going to come out as homosexual. Among the dudes in the comic store this week, the money was on Jimmy Olsen being that character. Continue reading →

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The Daily Pop Culture Scene

25 May

by Emily Esfahani Smith

http://www.flicksandbits.com/

Wes Anderson’s Runaway Charm–WSJ

Wes Anderson’s beguiling and endearing “Moonrise Kingdom,” set on a mythical island off the coast of New England in 1965, starts with kids in what appears to be an overgrown doll house, listening to Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” What’s going on here?

The Illustrious History of NYC’s West 44th Street–Vanity Fair

The ghosts of Frank Crowninshield, William Shawn, Dorothy Parker, and Harry Houdini linger. From the Algonquin to the Harvard Club, to the ever morphing Royalton, Alex Shoumatoff savors the madeleines of the life he left behind.

Are Conservatives More In Love With Fifty Shades of Grey?–NYDN

The highest ratings for the book were to be found in Midwestern and Southern states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Watch: Dance Music Gets Classy–Huffington Post

In his new music video for “Golden Era,” dance music legend David Morales looks to turn back the clock to a time when a night out meant looking good and engaging in some very dignified fun.

Art & Exorcism on So You Think You Can Dance–Speakeasy

The judges are on their feet. Mary’s crying, and so are some of the audience.  “You are an artist. I think you could be a genius,” Nigel says. He says whether the judges say yes or no, Hampton is going to Vegas, “because I’ll pay for it myself.”  Mary can barely speak and says she feels like she’s been exorcised.

Hustler Magazine Goes Too Far in S.E. Cupp “Satire”–Salon

But when Hustler recently ran a photo of conservative writer S.E. Cupp Photoshopped to look like she was performing oral sex, that was something altogether different.

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The Power of Pushcarts

24 May

by Eve Tushnet

Amazon.com

Jean Merrill’s 1964 children’s novel The Pushcart War is a reminder that “old-fashioned” doesn’t have to mean stodgy. This story of a (mostly nonviolent) “war” between pushcarts and trucks has colorful mayhem for the kids and surprisingly prescient satire for the adults—the role of the media in the war, especially, feels very up-to-date. It’s a postcard from Old New York, a global city made up of a hundred interlocking little villages, populated by people with names like Frank the Flower and Old Anna: a city of Morrises and Solomons. This is the New York of George Selden’s charming animal tale Irma and Jerry, or the American stories from Deborah Brodie’s Jewish children’s collection, Stories My Grandfather Should Have Told Me. Merrill creates a ramshackle and rambunctious world, homemade and downmarket, where the heroes are cleaning women taking night classes and men who sleep in public parks. It’s easy to imagine an early Muppet movie taking place in this world. Continue reading →

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YouTube’s Kevin Allocca on Why Videos Go Viral

24 May

by Emily Esfahani Smith

Kevin Allocca via api.ning.com

Did you know that in a single minute, there are over forty-eight hours worth of videos that get uploaded on YouTube? In a talk that was originally taped last November at a TED conference, Kevin Allocca explains that only a tiny percentage of these many, many clips go viral (i.e, get more than one million views).  Allocca, the trends manager at YouTube whose job it is to watch these videos, asks why do some video go viral and others not, and what does it mean?

Many of us, as children, fantasize about being famous: famous athletes, famous comedians, famous politicians, famous movie stars. We all want to be great at something (sports, acting, singing, writing, etc) and be rewarded for it (fame, money). In the twentieth century, the world of celebritydom was distant and inaccessible to most of us. But in the twenty-first century, the landscape of mass culture has changed dramatically. As Allocca says, “Web video has made it so that any of us or any of the creative things that we do can become completely famous and part of our world’s culture.” Though Allocca is talking about viral videos specifically, his point stands when you consider the Internet more broadly and its nonvideo memes that go viral online. Also, reality television shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance have radically democratized our ability to achieve greatness and fame. Continue reading →

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The Daily Pop Culture Scene

24 May

by Emily Esfahani Smith

The Hollywood Reporter

Conan O’Brien: The Revenge of the Nerd–THR

“Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism; for the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

American Idol Winner Cloaks His Chops in Modesty–NYT

Throughout the season, Phillip Phillips was shy and humble, even as his fingers, as applied to his guitar, displayed serious dexterity, and his voice, scratchy and earthy, showed real range and power.

Kristen Stewart’s Sexual Revolution at Cannes–Vulture

“As long as you’re being really honest, there’s nothing ever to be ashamed of”–really?

Bridal Gowns: What’s Hot and Why–WSJ

One in three U.S. brides walks down the aisle in a gown from David’s Bridal.

When Stars Overshare on Twitter–Daily Beast

Sometimes 140 characters is 140 characters too much–as we learn from Ashton Kutcher (and others): “Stomach flu, Be gone! Who can say that they’ve thrown up and had diarrhea at their rabbi’s house? 2 pts for me.”

The Lowest Rated Show in Broadcast History is Actually Great–Slate

The L.A. Complex, a sexy drama about Canadians making it in Hollywood.

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Would Fitzgerald Have Liked Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby Trailer?

23 May

by Emily Esfahani Smith

The first trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby has just been released, and there’s already been a lot of buzz and speculation that Fitzgerald lovers, purists, and traditionalists will be less than pleased with it.

The Huffington Post tweeted this morning that “The first trailer for ‘Great Gatsby’ has arrived. Avert your eyes, Fitzgerald fanatics!”

Further:

“The Great Gatsby” trailer has arrived with the familiar and era-appropriate tones of the Jay-Z and Kanye West collaboration, “No Church in the Wild.” You crazy for this one, Baz Luhrmann!

Based on the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, Luhrmann’s adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular great one, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan and Joel Edgerton as her husband, Tom.

If you needed further proof that this isn’t your father’s “Gatsby,” — beyond the anachronistic music cue, of course — try this on for size: Luhrmann’s film will get released in 3D, since nothing needs an extra dimension like classic 1925 prose.

WSJ’s Speakeasy blog chimes in to make a similar point: Continue reading →

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The Daily Pop Culture Scene

23 May

by Emily Esfahani Smith

Great Gatsby trailer

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby: Lush, Decadent, Sexy–NYDN Page Views

Not your high school teacher’s Gatsby. Or is it?

“It All Circles Back to Our Discomfort With the Mysterious and Unknowable”–Brain Pickings

On storytelling and the search for meaning.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Reviewed–James Bowman

Both films treat the initiation of extramarital sexual congress in the same way Victorian novelists treated marriage, that is as a synecdoche for happiness and the reward of virtue.

How Parents Can Enable Creativity in the Young–WSJ

Parents have long worried about how kids, as they get older, spend more time with videogames, cellphones and computers and less time tinkering. Now, Ms. Budnitz and a growing number of like-minded parents are fighting back by encouraging unstructured, hands-on creativity.

Is SNL Stuck in the Past?–The Atlantic

Its sketches lampoon decades-old talk shows while barely acknowledging the Internet’s existence.

 How to Resurrect a Comic Book–Salon

Should revived comics be made to look new or faded? Two releases explore both approaches


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