Tag / Robert Downey Jr.

by Nerdy Spice

Links We Loved This Week — 9/23/16

Joss Whedon got basically his whole stable of actors to film an irreverent PSA on exercising your civic rights to vote. (This should hardly need saying, but don’t read the comments.)

“Do we want to just be the white male anti-hero network? We need to try to broaden out.”
–an FX exec, on turning down Breaking Bad

At Hitfix, Alan Sepinwall writes about the ascendancy of FX, which is apparently due in large part to the creative direction of the network head, John Landgraf. (via Longform.org)

AV Club wrote a great review of This Is Us, but it paled in comparison to this delightful Gilmore Girls-related exchange in the comments:

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Elliott Holt writes on the return of omniscient narrators in contemporary fiction, comparing them not to God, but to a smartphone (via the NYTimes)

by Nerdy Spice

Eight Reasons You Should Watch Wonder Boys, Like, Right Now

I was very sad to learn today that Curtis Hanson had died. He is known for LA Confidential and 8 Mile much better than this little-known gem, which grossed $33 million at the box office (with a budget of $55 million… ouch).

In Wonder Boys, Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a writing professor with a never-ending novel manuscript, a pregnant mistress, and a suspicious editor. It’s in that category of intellectual indie-style movies that don’t seem to have a plot and yet are chock-full of events (this one has a murder and a car chase, among others, that have very little to do with the actual meat of the story). And it’s based on a novel—Michael Chabon’s of the same name, also extremely good—which means that it was always inherently in danger of plotlessness.

Am I not making it sound great? Trust me, it is. Yeah, it’s quirky; yeah, it’s got Tobey Maguire in it and he’s kind of annoying sometimes; yeah, a lot of us are kind of over that quirky-indie-movie-that-goes-nowhere genre. But—especially if you’re a writer, but even if you’re not—you should Totally. Watch. This.

Here are eight reasons why.

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by Nerdy Spice

Links We Loved This Week — 6/26/16

For those in NYC, happy Pride! Check out these photos from NYC Pride through the years at AMNY. It’s definitely cool to see the early days of the march, but 2013 is my favorite.

Probably the best-titled book list we’ve seen in awhile: the Millions has “A Summer Reading List for Wretched Assholes Who Prefer to Wallow in Someone Else’s Misery.”

The Times’s fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham, passed away recently and the Times has a moving obit.

And finally, Robert Downey Jr. shared this amazing wedding cake on his Facebook page.