Will McAvoy, you’re so smart!

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:30:00 +0000

There’s a moment about halfway through the pilot of "The Newsroom," Aaron Sorkin’s frustrating HBO series about a fictional cable news program, in which the show seems on the verge of delivering the kind of great story it wants so desperately to tell. Up to this point, it has been close to unwatchable, with its attempt to re-create the rhythms of classic journalism movies coming off as alternately sanctimonious and hysterical. Then, at a rare pause in the action, Jim Harper, a news producer played by John Gallagher Jr., hears a soft beep from the computer beside him. Glancing around uncertainly, he leans over to check the breaking news alert, then announces to the rest of the room: “There’s been an explosion off the coast of Louisiana.”

New Yorker profile? No, thanks

Sun, 13 May 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Last year, The New Yorker ran a long, flattering profile of the director Andrew Stanton, the Pixar veteran who was engaged at the time in reshoots for the troubled "John Carter." The article, by Tad Friend, noted some of the studio’s concerns about the initial cut of the film, which was Stanton’s debut in live action, but for the most part, its tone was highly positive, portraying Stanton as nothing less than Pixar’s resident storyteller: “Among all the top talent here,” an executive is quoted as saying, “Andrew is the one with a genius for story structure.”

Six months later, "John Carter" became one of the costliest flops in Hollywood history, and while the film may have its redeeming qualities, story structure isn’t among them. Read in retrospect, the Stanton profile now seems laden with irony, and it isn’t alone: A striking number of recent New Yorker features on movie directors and actors have been followed by embarrassing setbacks for the artists in question, usually involving the very projects that the articles are extolling.

Salon.com > Alec Nevala-Lee

Will McAvoy, you’re so smart!

New Yorker profile? No, thanks