Coffee and Irony

So cute.

The New York Times on inbuilt poverty – “Critics note that if a person manages to get through high school and avoid drugs, crime and parenting outside of marriage, it’s often possible to escape poverty. Fair enough. But if you’re one of the one-fifth of children in West Virginia born with drugs or alcohol in your system, if you ingest lead from peeling paint as a toddler, if your hearing or vision impairments aren’t detected, if you live in a home with no books in a gang-ridden neighborhood with terrible schools — in all these cases, you’re programmed for failure as surely as children of professionals are programmed for success.” RT

William Dafoe via Indiewire on the differences between working with Lars von Trier and Wes Anderson – “There are similarities, but there are probably more differences. You know, their interests, they have a different kind of cinema, but they both have very clear visions, their ways of working are very different. Wes likes to shoot a lot, he’s very obsessive, and he works things out ahead of time. Lars prohibits rehearsal, because he wants the actor off-balance and he wants the actor to be fresh, he doesn’t want them to be able to deliver a performance, he wants the performance to happen. I mean that’s my interpretation of it, but he really doesn’t want them to rehearse. Also, the camera is more fluid, some shots are very designed but they’re huge signs.

In the sequences in Lars’ work where the camera moves, you don’t even know where it is, and he really believes you can cut anything to anything so he doesn’t shoot conventionally. Wes doesn’t shoot conventionally but he does shoot in a very formal way. He really knows the frame, while he may have these wildly athletic camera shots, it’s quite built. He plays very little with chance.” RT

EW has 10 pilot season trends for fall. “IN: Spin-Offs: SO many this year, plus a copycat bonus: Two are set in New Orleans. CBS is yet again expanding its acronym-based cop-show empire with a Big Easy edition of NCIS starring Quantum Leap‘s Scott Bakula plus a Virgina-based CSI set in the FBI Cyber Crimes Division starring ex-Medium Patricia Arquette. Also: The CW’sSupernatural has its spin-off Tribes starring Lucien Laviscount and Nathaniel Buzolic while Arrow has The Flashstarring Grant Gustin. CBS’ How I Met Your Mother spin-off pilot How I Met Your Dad, a female-view twist on the departing hit sitcom starring Greta Gerwig, which is considered a lock for a fall series.” RT

Really, really great interview with Gillian Anderson on choosing a career in the UK, and her work. “Despite her full slate, Anderson keeps busy away from acting. She recently announced “A Vision of Fire,” the first book in a co-authored science fiction series with writer Jeff Rovin, who approached Anderson with the idea, as well as narration for the Emma Thompson–produced film “Sold,” about the child slavery and sex trade industry. “I’ve got so much to say about that,” she says. “Hopefully [the film’s] presence will shine a light on the situation, because the sale of children is becoming the No. 1 industry in the world.” RT