We’re back with your daily reminder of cool events happening tonight across the Flavorpillaverse. If you’d rather have this information delivered straight to your inbox each Tuesday, sign up for our Flavorpill City Guides.
• If you’re in New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts a screening of Douglas Keeve and Isaac Mizrahi’s Unzipped tonight, to accompany its fashion exhibit, The Model as Muse. • If you’re in Los Angeles: Head over to retro, Def Poetry Jam-style Flypoet, a monthly music show/poetry slam/performance art exhibition, and check out featured artists Steve Connell, Sekou tha Misfit, and Norton Wisdom. • If you’re in San Francisco: Nick Laird will be giving a reading from his new book, Glover’s Mistake, a brutal comedy of manners about a 30-something academic who accidentally initiates a romance between his roommate and former professor.
• If you’re in Chicago: Get outside and enjoy the summer weather while watching an outdoor screening of Wall-E, everyone’s favorite robot, take on the world. Literally.
This week marks the 55th iteration of I.D. magazine’s Annual Design Review, a competition presenting the best and brightest of the past year’s design goodies, from the iconic to the obscure. The jury is comprised of I.D.‘s editorial staff along with leading practitioners in the fields of product, furniture, graphic, and environment design. The 2009 winners, also profiled in the July/August issue and shot by photographer Noah Kalina, are on exhibition until August 9 at Material ConneXion near Madison Square Park. After the jump, pictures of our favorite objets. Read More »
Pixar movies are so excellent that it takes some creativity to rag on them (why does everything need to be ragged on? A question for another day). Flavorwire addressed the charge that Pixar movies are sexist a few months ago, but now that Pixar has released its schedule up to 2012, the topic is relevant once again. DoubleX enthusiastically pointed out that 2011′s The Bear and The Bow will feature a female main character, voiced by Reese Witherspoon. We have to hand it to Pixar for making a girl-centered movie, even if she is a princess rather than a normal kid (a la Lilo in Lilo in Stitch). Is it possible that Hollywood is actually listening to filmgoers who care about sex and gender representations? That would certainly be refreshing. Read More »
Kottke pointed this thesis out to us earlier in the week, and we can’t seem to stop debating it with friends: should it trouble us that Pixar doesn’t seem to have any good women characters? The blog that Kottke linked to, while a few months old, makes a still-relevant argument: from Toy Story to Ratatouille and Finding Nemo to A Bug’s Life, there are simply no strong female leads that stand out. But we think this is just a superficial reading of the films, and a too-easy feminist critique that misses out on the more complex gender relations in Pixar works.
We immediately thought of Eve, who, even though she is not the film’s namesake, is the epitome of the strong feminist woman. She puts her career above her love life, and teams up with Wall-E to save the world before she even has time to notice she’s in love with him. Sure, at first glance it may seem like she’s another example of the girl only being the “love interest,” but that’s ignoring all the other aspects of her character. For Pixar to have a gender “problem,” it would have to systematically place women in subservient roles and make the male superior — something which none of the films actually do.
In order to wind up as one of Stephen King’s favorite films of the year, all a movie needs to do is be seen by Stephen King. The legendary horror author recently revealed his top ten to Entertainment Weekly, and his choices are bound to scare any serious movie lover into, well, deciding against ever going to the movies with Stephen King. EW should hobble the novelist for handing in something like this and make him start all over again.
His top choices seem appropriate (if only a smidge fanboy-ish), as King picked The Dark Knight for his number one spot (calling it “the best superhero movie ever”). From there he strings together three more fan favorites – Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E and Tropic Thunder — before launching a Hail Mary at the 2008 movie slate to see what sticks (or should we say, sucks?).
The American Film Institute just announced their top ten movies of 2008 — a year that in spite of the economic apocalypse that plagued certain industries (can we get a “Big 3″?) seemed recession-proof for Hollywood, proving that it is in fact a magical place. After the jump we decided to break down AFI’s list by the numbers (production budgets vs. award nods) in an effort to uncover the most wallet-friendly critical successes for producers this year. What did we discover? Spending $200 million is definitely the way to go if you’re interested in scoring an MTV Movie Award.
This year’s award picks by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association are in, and while there aren’t any huge shockers to reveal, we think that the subtle differences between the two lists offers an interesting portrait of the coastal divide. Example: As subversive as it might be, can you imagine New Yorkers voting a heartwarming animated flick like Wall-E as Best Picture? Fuggedabouit.
Our stereotype-reinforcing analysis after the jump.
Andrew O’Hehir’s recent column for Salon that asks what’s behind the Wall-E cult got us thinking. In many ways the character of Wall-E — a brave outsider with an unshakable belief system and an uncanny obsession with sacrifice — isn’t so unlike another of our country’s current obsessions, Barack Obama.
Think about it. As the last functioning robot on earth, Wall-E is our planet’s only hope. There are many who would say the same thing about Obama.
Ok, so maybe you think we’re making a crazy leap, but admit, it’s a fun one. After the jump we’ve started a list of current film character equivalents for a few boldfaced politicos. Chime in with your own in the comments.
