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.
Movie Mezzanine’s Tina Hassannia on the Backstreet Boys’ new doc:
“The new documentary Backstreet Boys: Show ’Em What You’re Made Of follows the 20-year-old group as they record their first independent album and prepare to go on tour for the first time in years, a little rusty from the wear and tear of life. In many respects, the documentary proved an excruciating viewing experience, nearly as traumatic as Brian Littrell’s trying vocal-therapy session shown early in the film, a scene that exposes a singer desperate to retune his vocal cords and able to figure out why he can’t. From the get-go, the film asked me to judge it, to judge Brian for his New Age-y therapy of choice, the horrible and hilarious guttural sounds he’s asked to make that are apparently supposed to loosen up his throat. There’s the group’s sartorial penchant for ugly man-shorts, their seeming persistent naïveté in feeling betrayed by their previous manager’s decision to start N’Sync and form their own competition, and many other moments that will make you facepalm. The film forced me to listen to those songs all over again and to accept the fact that these boys—now men—still think they’re worth talking about.”
Dazed’s Sam Ashurst profiles Paul Thomas Anderson:
“Four years later, Anderson is 29 years old, and he’s just made Magnolia, a tribute to his father with as many key characters and difficult plot lines as a Pynchon novel. ‘It absolutely poured out of me, fuck if I could do that again. It’s something you probably only try to do when you’re that age, you have just enough confidence, maybe a little talent, but mostly just drive and energy.’ In the Magnolia video diaries, you can see how much energy Anderson had on that set. But making Inherent Vice he was older, and wiser. ‘The energy’s different now. There’s been so many times where I’ve started a day firing on all cylinders, and by lunchtime everyone is just completely spent and you’re fucked. I think I’ve learned how to pace myself a bit better in terms of expending energy.’ ”
Grantland’s Matt Patches on how Robert Eggers made the horrifying, historically accurate Sundance hit The Witch:
“Eggers spent five years researching, developing, and writing the script for The Witch. To forge his authentic colonial setting, the writer-director pored over historical documents at Smithsonian’s Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. According to Taylor-Joy, Eggers absorbed exhaustive tomes and primary source diaries, reaching encyclopedic knowledge levels. Eggers uncovered architectural notes to appropriately construct Ye Olde Cabin in the Woods and taught his crew era-appropriate farming techniques, just in case his characters’ farms ever needed to become fully operational. And then there was the damned topic of witchcraft, bubbling and brewing 60 years before the Salem trials.”
Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri talks to Room 237 director Rodney Ascher about his new sleep-paralysis doc The Nightmare:
“ ‘What about the jump scares and other more overtly “horror” elements in the film? Was that something you had always planned?’
‘At the beginning, I wasn’t necessarily sure I was going to do that. Certainly I wanted it to be evocative of a horror movie itself. Because this experience is akin to a horror movie, but there may be sort of a two-way relationship with horror movies. These experiences might inspire horror movies, then the people who see them might have nightmares based on those horror movies. These are all intertwined. And I wanted the audience to be scared the way the subjects of the film were. When Forrest in the interview talked about the thing that came out of the closet, I thought, Well, I guess we’re making a horror movie, and we’re just going to go for it.’ ”
Plus, the rest of today’s biz-ness:
- Here’s The Avengers’ Super Bowl spot
- Watch the trailer for Israel’s Oscar submission, Gett: The Trial Of Vivian Amsalem
- …and the trailer for A Perfect Day, Tim Robbins’ conflict-zone comedy
- Spike Jonze directed Kanye’s Only One video
- IndieWire has trailers for Oscar-nominated shorts
- The UK’s Soda Pictures has picked up Slow West at Sundance
- A24 acquired Mississippi Grind at Sundance
- Richard Linklater will receive the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award