Read On is a regular feature in which The Dissolve’s staff recommends recent film pieces. Because there’s always someone writing something notable about the movies somewhere on the Internet.
The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson stands up to the claims of inauthenticity that have dogged Selma:
“The next source of offense is the film’s suggestion that Johnson at least abetted J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I., in his vicious campaign against King. Perhaps it is fair to give Johnson a pass when it comes to Hoover’s dealings; Hoover may have technically worked for him, but he was Hoover. At the same time, a recording of another phone call between Johnson and Nicholas Katzenbach, his attorney general, makes it clear that Johnson knew that Hoover was tapping King—‘that must be where the evidence comes from … with some of the women, and that kind of stuff.’ Katzenbach tells the President that the King wiretap was one that his predecessor, Robert Kennedy, had authorized, and ‘which I’ve been ambivalent about taking off.’ DuVernay artificially, and somewhat clumsily, crams a decade’s worth of murkiness into the narrow time frame of the Selma campaign. The character most compromised, though, is not Johnson but King. The film is fairly merciless when it comes to his infidelities, which harmed both his family and his work. Selma is neither a demonization nor a hagiography of either man.”
Grantland’s Steve Hyden wonders why Oscar Isaac isn’t the biggest movie star in the world:
“Let’s assume for a moment that the Oscars are strictly about recognizing the best and brightest: We’re talking here about a young Dustin Hoffman with the looks of a young Al Pacino. In Inside Llewyn Davis, Isaac got to show off more of his tools—when he plays “Fare Thee Well” at the Gorfeins’ dinner table, it’s up there with Keith Carradine strumming “I’m Easy” to Lily Tomlin in Nashville in the annals of ‘I’m acting my ass off while also singing my ass off’ movie performances. But A Most Violent Year should have cinched Isaac his ‘leading man with gravitas’ status. Let’s be real: Channing Tatum can’t be Clooney or Denzel. But Oscar Isaac has those chops. All that’s missing is a coronation, which is why the lack of Oscar Isaac love at the Oscars—do the Academy Awards people not see the obvious cross-branding potential?—is a little mystifying.”
Movie Mezzanine’s Tina Hassania talks to Desiree Akhavan about Appropriate Behavior:
“It’s funny, one article I read about me referred to me as a bisexual in quotes…‘Akhavan identifies as a quote-unquote bisexual.’ Bisexuality is like the Diet Coke of gay. You don’t fit in. You’re weird to people. I feel like the mainstream tries to wrap their brains around what it means to be gay. There’s a very clear straightforward idea with Ellen and Portia, or Mitch and Cam from Modern Family. They’re so adorable and desexualized, but really cute because they’re gay and in love with each other and we can make sense of that. But if I feel that way about potentially any person I meet, it just depends if they have these qualities I find attractive…Automatically [if you feel that way,] it means you’re a slut and also that you’re disingenuous, that you must be lying.”
IndieWire’s Christopher Bell talks to Peter Strickland about the films that influenced the singular look of The Duke of Burgundy:
“Belle De Jour has a scene that, in hindsight, I realized is the seed for Duke: It’s when the client playing the butler in the bordello is getting told off by the madame. She gets a line wrong and he asks her to do it again...I realized that's the whole Duke in the whole scene. That level of artifice and theatricality was incredible.”
Plus, the rest of today’s biz-ness:
- Tribeca Film has acquired Kevin Pollak’s Misery Loves Comedy at Sundance
- Watch the new trailer for Peter Bogdanovich’s She's Funny That Way
- There’s a Mrs. Doubtfire musical in the works
- A24 has acquired James Ponsoldt’s End Of The Tour before its Sundance premiere
- The Belgium Film Festival has been canceled after a terrorist threat