What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the coolest movie column of the year. Most nights, at least.
Coolest Person of the Year – It’s a fascinating thing, for Time’s Joel Stein to name someone like Lena Dunham as the “Coolest Person of the Year” for 2012. Here on the Internet, she’s been the subject of much derision. Her creation, the HBO series Girls, has been the subject of heated discussion. Is it terrible? Is it a gift from a place where more is expected from comedy? Or is it just awkward? No matter your take, it is interesting. And her bold sensibilities combined with the network shield of Judd Apatow has created something culturally relevant. She even lost her virginity to President Obama, or something like that. Either way, TIME is right. She is pretty cool.
An Unexpected Masterclass – There’s been plenty to say about where The Hobbit fails, mostly directed at Peter Jackson and his desire to move the world of cinema toward higher frame rates. The lesson we’ve learned all at once is that HFR, or 48fps, is not exactly ready for primetime. Gizmodo takes the tech-nerdiest angle and explores.
Quentin’s own genre – With Django Unchained on the horizon (and warm in our hearts, as you’ll see in my mini-review on Friday), people are talking about the master of visual fanfic, Quentin Tarantino. In this NYT feature, Charles Mcgrath explores the genre that Quentin has carved out for himself, in which he’s the only (and by far best) player.
Zero Dark Thirty and Torture - In my own forthcoming review of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, I found it difficult not to address the visceral nature of the torture at work as the CIA gathers information in the War on Terror. As Bigelow is wont to do, it’s done fiercely and without care for your delicate sensibilities. So it’s not surprising that torture is a big part of the discussion. What is surprising, as Devin Faraci points out in a new essay, is that some pundits are placing the entire film in the pro-torture category, which just isn’t so.
Star Wars Then and Now – Huffpo’s Jason Apuzzo takes a long look back to the 1970s, exploring the great sci-fi era that gave the world Star Wars and a number of other projects that live on to this day as upper-echelon science fiction, tying it in wonderfully with what may come of LucasFilm and its new home at Disney.
Why do we fall? – On a less serious note, here’s a great reader-submitted poster found via /Film for Star Wars Episode VII. It’s filled with hilarity and sadness.
Breaking. Art. – This Breaking Bad poster, found via Tweet-master Dustin Sandoval, does two things for me: (1) makes me yearn for new episodes of the show and (2) makes me want this as the cover to the ultimate Breaking Bad Blu-ray box set that will undoubtedly exist in the not entirely distant future.
The Best Action of 2012 – The folks at Movies.com have put together this featurette/supercut of the best action scenes of 2012. There are plenty of good ones in there, including The Raid and Looper, along with the big summer movies (The Avengers, TDKR, etc.) Which scene would you consider to be the best action sequence of 2012?