Coffee and Irony

Lily James and Matt Smith are, adorably, dating. Cheers for British acting royalty coming together! RT

Japanese lifestyle writer Marie Kondo’s book the life-changing magic of tidying up unfolds her philosophy on owning and discarding your possessions. “Kondo’s philosophy is that you should only own things that you love, that everything else is just wasting both physical and emotional space. Although some of her advice can be eyebrow-raising (you’ll see), I decided to commit, following her advice to the letter one Saturday in January.” RT The Millions

EW’s Chris Nashawaty on the Oscar Boyhood loss- “More than anything, I think we’ll remember the movies. 2014 was a great year for them—and the Academy obviously thought so too, judging from the way it spread the love around to several deserving films. That said, while I don’t think anyone will look back years from now and consider Best Picture winner Birdman an embarrassment on par with Crash or Forrest Gump, I do think we’ll all still be wondering how in the hell Boyhood didn’t take it.” RT

But it’s Slate who nailed it. “By nominating Boyhood, the academy gave itself the chance to recognize a movie that is not just good but revolutionary—a film that reconsiders, in surprising and rewarding ways, the medium’s relationship with time, with storytelling, and with its audience. It’s both a singular work—no one but Richard Linklater could have made it—and a universal one, reflecting the elemental formative experiences of nearly every viewer, even those who don’t, on the surface, have a lot in common with Mason or Samantha or Olivia or Mason Sr. It’s the crowning work of a crucial American filmmaker and a profound statement about the lives we live. But the academy gave Best Picture to a movie about an actor’s identity crisis—a movie about, in Mark Harris’ perfect turn of phrase, “someone who hopes to create something as good asBoyhood.”  RT

Fellow Sound on Sight writer Mallory Andrews has a wonderful piece on being a woman and loving Stars Wars – “Holding Out for a Heroine”. “My Leias had one important difference: my versions always included a lightsaber (often stolen from one of my brother’s three Luke Skywalkers). My logic behind this character embellishment was airtight: she was the “other Skywalker,” the sister of the galaxy’s greatest Jedi hero, whose latent Force powers were surely awaiting discovery after the events of the Return of the Jedi. Why wouldn’t she have a lightsaber? The worst unfulfilled promise of Star Wars has always been Yoda’s proclamation that “there is another Skywalker” and the eventual reveal that Leia was this new hope. Her potential is teased (“You have that power too. In time you’ll learn to use it as I have”) but it is never followed through.” RT

Joss Whedon gave Digital Spy a great interview. “Fox’s X-Men property came up, as its home to many notable A-List female heroes — Storm, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Jean Grey, Mystique — that Marvel Studios cannot use. “The X-Men was the next evolution of the Marvel paradigm back when I was reading it,” said Whedon. “And, you know, because of the metaphor [of] they were dealing with these oppressed people … there really wasn’t a gender bias in the books. As soon as Marvel [Girl, aka Jean Grey] became Phoenix, the most powerful person in the universe, everything was on the table. It was all multicultural and there was no real question of gender in the book. Now, you can look at it and say, ‘Well, this attitude is dated.’ I’m sure that’s the case if I went back to them. But the fact is it was kind of a utopia. I didn’t know it at the time, because I just assumed that’s how things should be done.” RT

“The idea that police use the good cop, bad cop routine is “very Hollywood,” he says. In fact, it’s standard procedure to record interrogations either using video or audio, he says, preventing fishy business. Plus, the police have just as much interest as the public in nabbing the real criminal, Esparza says. “No department wants the image of locking up innocent people.” RT She Can Convince You That You Committed a Crime