News & Notes Inside the Week in Film

Amanda Bynes is… Sane?

There is a real market for stories about ‘troubled starlets’ ala Lindsay Lohan.  What is a media to do when the well of human train wrecks dries up?  One solution is to simply create your own.  Amanda Bynes is learning about this the hard way.

by Chris Neumer

When I first began writing about the entertainment world, as one might suspect, there was a lot I didn’t know.  Over the course of the last 15 years, I’ve acquired a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of Hollywood; some might argue, too much information.  The thing that probably surprised me the most to learn was that certain television sit-coms had joke counters.  A show-runner friend of mine told me that the networks often want a certain number of jokes per minute and that they’d have someone specifically around to count the number that were delivered each minute.

This situation could leave writers in an uncomfortable predicament if they weren’t aware of the joke count they were expected to deliver.  Getting notes to ‘be more funny’ is never easy and adding jokes after the plot material has been settled and written is a difficult beast indeed.  So, in these situations, writers would occasionally leave space for a joke.  There will write the set up for the joke and write the aftermath of the joke, but leave the actual joke writing until later.  Such is the creativity beauty of the formula.  Simply insert joke here.

If time ran out on the writing process and some of the empty joke spaces hadn’t yet been filled in, the writers would just take whatever jokes they had lying around, regardless of whether they were actually any good or not, and put them in.  And this is how you end up with a studio audience acting as if something is funny and the characters behaving as if something is funny when the material is not, in fact, funny.  There was supposed to be a joke there, we just didn’t have time to put one in, so we made due with what we had available to us.

I’ve had this phenomenon running through my head for the better part of the last few days thanks to, of all people, actress Amanda Bynes.

Bynes has been catching the attention of the American public and making headlines this year for being Lindsay Lohan-lite; she’s better for you and has half the calories of actual Lindsay Lohan.  The internet and tabloids have been having an absolute field day with Bynes.  Seemingly each new week brings more stories of Bynesian craziness; it’s only going to be a matter of time before she eclipses Lohan as a bigger train wreck.  It’s gotten to the point where each new tweet Bynes posts is cause for news outlets everywhere to wring their hands in consternation and write about it.  Earlier this week, HuffingtonPost Live did nearly five minutes on the bizarre sadness of Bynes’ twitter feed alone!

I dutifully started searching out stories on Bynes’ craziness in order to write a short piece about the woman whom most pundits and entertainment journalists state is challenging Lohan for the mantle of 2013’s Most Insane Hollywood Starlet.  As I read more and more of the articles on Bynes, I began to feel confused: none of what Bynes was doing or saying seemed that particularly abnormal.  I mean, a 26-year old actress tweeting about feeling fat or wanting to sleep with an incredibly good looking R&B singer?  Neighbors reporting that she has red mood lightbulbs in her apartment? This is something worthy of a headline reading, “Amanda Bynes’ Weird Behavior Reaching Legendary Status”?  And that’s when it hit me.  Troubled starlets sell papers and generate page views; in the absence of more legitimate troubled starlets to write about, why not simply manufacture one?

In this respect, Bynes is a perfect target for people looking to manufacture problems.  She has been in the public eye for about a decade, has had a couple of run-ins with the law—she was charged with a DUI last year and driving with a suspended license—is a tad eccentric and, best of all, is on the outs with Hollywood.  Since she is now officially retired from acting (for a second time), Bynes no longer has a team of publicists and agents out there to shine a positive light on her transgressions, nor does she have the might of the studios behind her to help things disappear; she is totally and completely on her own.

There are probably a hundred twenty-something actresses out there that would fill the generic role of ‘troubled starlet’.  All that’s needed is a smidge of controversy and an outspoken twitter feed.

When the lead of Criminal Minds, Thomas Gibson, was arrested on suspicion of DUI, the LA Times gave it a three sentence write-up with just the facts being presented.

When Bynes was arrested on suspicion of DUI, the LA Times not only reported the story, but included it in their gossip pages as well, throwing in snarky comments such as, “Yes, we did say ‘actress,’ though it’s hard to tell sometimes…”

Earlier this year, the following two tweets were posted, one by Bynes, one by fellow 27-year old actress, Anna Kendrick.  One of the tweets was deemed offensive, disgusting, raunchy and vulgar, the other puckish, loving, hilarious and funny.

“I want @drake to murder my vagina.”

“Ugh – NEVER going to a Ryan Gosling movie in a theater again. Apparently masturbating in the back row is still considered “inappropriate””

The first is Bynes’, the second Kendrick’s.

I’m not going to argue that Bynes’ statement isn’t weird, but offensive and disgusting?  Like so many other things in life, her tweet is only offensive and disgusting if you’re looking to be offended and disgusted.

Frankly, at this point in time, it’s easy to pick on Bynes.  I mean, even Lohan has called Bynes out on twitter, wondering why the media gives Bynes a pass for driving on a suspended while she does not.”  But the real question is whether the focus on Bynes is deserved or merely something for entertainment outlets to play up to garner extra page views.

Let’s see what E! has to say about things.  Amongst others in their list of “bizarro” tweets from Bynes are the following:

• Don’t read my mind read my lips

• When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.  You know that your name is safe in their mouth.

• You are you who date

• Socks  (complete with a picture of socks)

I see.

What does Fox News say about Bynes?

“The actress’ tweet about [Drake] wasn’t her first attention-grabbing message of the week. She also mused online about baby corn, tofu and socks.”

Uh huh.

Huffington Post?

“Since moving to New York from L.A., Bynes has been acting strangely, posting weird pictures on Twitter [of her new piercings] as well as raunchy and inappropriate tweets… Considering her recent run-ins with police and out-of-control solo outings, it appears it’s time [for her family] to intervene.”

Given that Rihanna, Janet Jackson and Nicole Ritchie have their nipples pierced and that Lady Gaga was photographed with her clit pierced, people have decided to get up in arms about Bynes’ cheek piercings?  Kendrick’s tweet about masturbating in the back of a theater was funny and cute, but Bynes’ tweet about Drake murdering her vagina is vulgar and disgusting?

The media has a need for troubled starlets and enough phony outrage to propel their stories forward.  In this case, Bynes appears to have given people just enough tantalizing material to be plugged into a spot she might not otherwise be destined for.

It Has A Very Short Running Time Too…

Due to a unique programming choice, movie goers are able to rate and comment on the statement ‘No Films Showing Today’.  And would you believe that it has a higher rating than Argo?

by Chris Neumer

I am very entertained by everyday people subtly giving it to The Man.  It’s one thing to go to the G20 meetings and throw stones or spend a lot of time listening to The Shins and talking about the way capitalism is suppressing the middle-class.  It’s a completely different thing to lightly poke at the powers-that-be as you go about your daily routine.

One of my favorite news story of the last few years is about the man in Phoenix who has started donning a variety of animal masks while driving so that, should he get photographed speeding by speed cameras, the state won’t be able to prove that it’s him behind the wheel.  He’s not saying that he’s not behind the wheel, he’s not denying that he’s speeding, he’s simply telling the state of Arizona the burden of proof is on them to prove it.  It’s a truly entertaining read about one man legally making The Man’s life a little bit more difficult.

I stumbled onto another feel-good example of a few people taking full advantage of an unusual situation to gently stick it to The Man.  And since this example involves sticking it to the Hollywood studios, it is all the more entertaining.

There’s a recently renovated art theater on Chicago’s north side, The Portage.  (See picture to the right).  The theater harkens back to the 1920s and with more than 1,200 seats, is an absolutely enormous motion picture theater.  Since re-opening in 2006, The Portage has taken to showing a myriad different movies.  During this time, I’ve seen a handful of forties romantic comedies, monster movies, Jaws 2 and, most scarily, Point Break.  Since the theater doesn’t often programming on every day of the week, there are days where there are no films shown.  When the owners of The Portage submit their calendars to different web-sites, the days where no films are shown get listed as though there is a movie playing.  A movie called “No Films Showing Today”.

Since metromix.com and other similar web-sites allow people to rate movies and leave comments about them, this produced an interesting scenario where readers were able to rate and leave comments about nothing.  And so they did.  Three people gave “No Films Showing Today” the highest, 5-star rating possible.  One person left the following comment, “Possibly the best choice we’ve made for movie-going in years.  I wish every theatre would show this movie instead of most of the others offered…”

Well played, sirs.  Well played.

The Photo of the Week

This Must Be the Place #3

This is Sean Penn in white face, wearing a CC DeVille like wig and driving with an old guy in This Must Be the Place.  As I mentioned during each of the last two weeks, Penn’s emo-ed up glam rocker will continue to be the Photo of the Week until we run out of worthwhile photos of him to print.  I’m guessing this will happen in mid-June.

The 5 Things I Learned This Week

Fascinatingly true things to broaden your mind

1) ‘Wet’ is slang for getting stabbed.

2) It costs $3.00 to get a glass of Coke with dinner in the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.  $3.00.

3) Vice President Joe Biden has hair plugs.

4) Porn star Jenna Jameson had a chin implant.

5) Former celebrity chef and super spy, Julia Child, was 6’2″.