Editor’s Note: Projecting features a selection of great film and television focused writing from around the internet.
Corey Atad delves into the necessity of time in the appreciation of film, for Pajiba:
Esteem for a film doesn’t always go in the positive direction for me. Often the visceral impact of a film exceeds its thoughtfulness, and the more distance I get from it, the less I appreciate it on the whole. When it does go in the positive direction, though, I cherish that. It took a several months and numerous viewings before I realized just how deeply I loved Inside Llewyn Davis, for example. There’s a film that was so simply constructed, and yet inscrutable at its surface. It required thought and time, and with both of those, its beauty unfolded before me.
Mark Whitaker recounts how Bill Cosby helped get Joan Rivers her big break, for Splitsider:
By the summer of 1963, Cosby had also acquired Roy Silver as his manager, and Silver had brought Sheldon Schultz, the booker for The Tonight Show, to the Bitter End to catch his act. Schultz put Cosby on the next week, on a night when folk satirist Allan Sherman was filling in for Johnny Carson, and he was an instant hit. Within weeks Cosby had a contract with Warner Bros. records that would lead to a string of wildly successful comedy albums. By 1965, he too was guest hosting for Carson, and a comic on the show bombed. Afterward, he said to Schultz: “Joan Rivers couldn’t be any worse than this guy. Why don’t you use her?”
Sam Adams has some issues with comparing Lena Dunham to Woody Allen and J.D. Salinger, for Criticwire:
But it’s worth pointing out that at 28, which is Dunham’s age now, Woody Allen was a successful but not widely known comedy writer and standup comic who had yet to release his first album, and J.D. Salinger was still four years away from publishing “The Catcher in the Rye.” Try and imagine where Dunham might be when she’s 32, which is how old Salinger was when “Catcher” was published, or 35, Allen’s age the year “Bananas” was released.
Christian Galacar ruminates on his writing process when first starting out, for The Honest Scrivener:
The divine flash never comes—it never has and never will. If I’ve learned anything since I began writing, it is this: Writers are not mediums. They do not channel inspiration; they find it and excavate it. They are creators and determined hard workers. The successful ones are willing to show up every day and put in the hours. That’s it. So I will start, as I always do, the only way I know how: one key at a time, which turns into one word, which becomes a sentence. A few of those and we’re in business. Hey, this ain’t so bad, after all. But I forget we’re just getting started.
