November Reading and Viewing

Loads of interesting reads this month so am just posting highlights:

Kim Morgan of Sunset Gun writes a beautiful piece on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Jack Patrick Rogers at The House Next Door looks at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars and Glee and how they present web culture.

Anne Billson asks Why aren't there more roles like Séraphine for British women? in the Guardian.

Jess McCabe interviews Jan Chapman and reviews Bright Star for The F-Word.

In terms of cinema it has been an ace month with An Education and Bright Star both thrilling. I also attended the Women and Silent Britain study day at the BFI which enthused me about silent films and reintroducing these "dehistoricized" women into film history. There have been lots of other films released recently by female directors (Amelia, Nativity, Nowhere Boy) but it is difficult to see everything. I'll be posting a review of Cracks shortly.

Coen Bros Trailers

I worked for a cinema around a decade ago. During that year lots of films came and went but what I remember watching most was the trailer for The Big Lebowski. We played it for a couple of months and would drop what we were doing in order to bask in its trippy, slacker beauty. After stirring ourselves up into a frenzy of excitement about the film it was never actually shown there, we had to pay (pah) to see it at another cinema. But The Big Lebowski trailer was something to delight in when a job was otherwise dreary and monotonous.

Now, when I go to a cinema I have higher expectations. I am paying to see a film not working for minimum wage. So why is it that I am feeling tormented by the Coens when they have satisfied so well in the past? In the last few weeks I've had the displeasure to see the trailer for A Serious Man several times and it is making me mad. As the character's head is shoved rhythmically into a blackboard we the viewers get the feeling of being smacked about. It's not funny, it's not interesting and is the complete antithesis of The Dude's hallucinations. Without the trailer I may have gone to see the film. But now? I want to shove someone's head repeatedly into a blackboard.