Editor’s Note: Projecting features a selection of great film and television focused writing from around the internet.
Joshua Rivera flirts with blasphemy in his examination of how Angel might be better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for Entertainment Weekly:
Unlike Sunnydale, Los Angeles actually exists, and the real-world setting completely changes the subtext of Angel’s fight against the demonic. In Sunnydale, demons are outward manifestations of universal anxieties and fears, preying on the vulnerable but otherwise remaining hidden. In Los Angeles, they walk among us, smiling as they take what’s ours and lure the opportunistic and amoral into their service.
Brian Byrd explains just how difficult cutting the cable cord actually is from direct experience, for Pajiba:
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime all have massive content libraries. Most TV series, however, aren’t made available for weeks or months after a season concludes. If you want to watch the final season of “Justified” as it airs without a cable subscription, you have to cough up two bucks for an episode on iTunes or Google Play. All 13 episodes will set you back around $25. Multiply that by 10 or 12 shows, and cord cutters are shelling out several hundred dollars annually.
Tasha Robinson digs into the history of film pre-reaction and argues for a change, for The Dissolve:
Because the demand for details about upcoming movies—even wrong or fake details—is so vast, it pushes outlets to report on the faintest rumor or wildest speculation, blowing theories out of a single set photo, or an anonymous tip dating back to an outdated story meeting, or a celebrity’s flippant, “Sure, why not?” response to a highly leading question. When the movie in question comes out, and the rumors are all proven false, the invective moves on to the next target with no apparent sense of irony—or betrayal at having been fed a thin gruel of half-invented facts and thin-skinned moral superiority.
Matt Schimkowitz looks back on the origins of the sitcom laugh track and its continued relevancy, for Indiewire:
Decade after decade, the chuckles kept coming from one source or another, and those who attempt to stand in their way tend to get heckled off the stage. Today, shows like “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men” and a slew of other Chuck Lorre originals trounce on the supposedly sophisticated, and proudly laugh track-free, self-reflexive sitcoms of the modern age. But ratings don’t lie: the laugh track is as big as ever.
