Saturday Hot Links
Time for yet another installment of Saturday Hot Links!
Today: The Jump The Sharknado Edition!
Grantland does Sharknado.
Actress Cassie Scerbo’s thoughts on her role in Sharknado.
How many victims were there in Sharknado.
The 5 most groan-inducing lines of dialogue in Sharknado.
The director of Sharknado speaks: “I’m sitting here kind of numb.”
A tornado of Hollywood tweets about Sharknado.
10 SyFy Channel movies that are just as ridiculous as Sharknado.
10 things created over a couple of beers [such as Southwest Airlines].
FilmSchoolRejects: 13 spechless scene stealers we love.
The many failures of ‘I before E except after C’ rule.
Women and Hollywood: Girls are more than just princesses.
22 odd ads in National Geographic circa 1910.
The Dissolve’s Movie of the Weeke: Repo Man.
Do breasts impede athletic performance.
TotalFilm takes a tour of Pixar [video].
Why typewriters are all the rage in Moscow.
Slashfilm: 5 ways Pacific Rim succeeds where other summer blockbusters failed.
11 web toys and generators to waste your time.
Do they ever make movies about women? A mathematical analysis from 1989–2013.
11 places where wonderful things are happening.
Interview: New Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” creator Jenji Kohan.
Illustrations of female superheroes dressed as hipsters.
1988 letter from Harvey Weinstein to director Errol Morris about his movie The Thin Blue Line: “You’re boring.”
The 15 best “This American Life” episodes.
Extended excerpt from new book “Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad”.
11 things banned in other countries, but legal in the U.S.
20th Century Fox getting into the films-into-Broadway-plays business.
Your cat’s poop is even more dangerous than you thought.
Flavorwire: The 50 essential movie musicals.
The last words and final moments of 38 Presidents.
Ava DuVernay to direct Selma.
Stream 23 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winners here.
Full guide to 2013 Comic-Con parties here.
Latino site launches film project as Latinos flex box office muscle.
A secret society of cells runs your brain.
Will Warner Bros. stabilize after disastrous corporate shuffle.
76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
Sam Raimi on The Treasure of Sierra Madre.
Why a bunch of dead bees is terrible news for the economy.
How all those script changes save (sort of) World War Z.
The decline and fall of the English major.
The 10 best unproduced comic book movie scripts.
Are you happy or horny? A new brain scan can tell.
Jim Carrey denounces violence in Kick-Ass 2.
A brief history of the wiffle ball.
10 movie trailers that use and abuse the Inception BRAAAM!
10 questions still baffling scientists.
50 funniest movie deaths.
Why wonder is the most human of all emotions.
Why are there so few female antiheroes on film.
The most effective ways to make it right when you screw up.
Has Hollywood ignited an intern uprising.
Speaking of which, Amanda P: What kind of internships do I need.
How much is a tweet really worth.
China box office up 36% the first half of 2013.
A brief history of astronauts peeing in space.
6 filmmaking tips from Guillermo del Toro.
The Tesla vs. Edison feud.
25 Die Hard knockoffs for Die Hard’s 25th anniversary.
11 sounds your kids have probably never heard before.
10 things you should know about Indian cinema.
8 drugs that exist in nature.
How screenwriters can survive the movie landscape.
How spiderwebs use electricity to catch prey.
Legendary Entertainment moves to NBCUniversal.
The first robot, created in 400 BCE, was a steam-powered pigeon.
10 inexplicably overlong movies.
7 year-old kid writes to NASA… and NASA writes back.
The Lone Ranger vs. The Mask of Zorro: Plot similarities examined.
Great moments in drunk television.
A film history of the President as action hero.
Rolling Stone: 13 dumb band names.
Dear Hollywood: Hiring women directors could rescue the superhero movie.
What is talent, and can science spot what we will be best at.
50 coolest fictional movie companies.
6 unconventional uses for a tennis ball.
The 10 best Arab films.
Finally 24 filmmaking Twitter accounts you should follow. And guess who’s on the list!
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the Week: For those of you interested in writing for television, Tom Benedek teaches a number of classes including one that starts on July 15 called TV: Pilot Creation Workshop. Tom’s comments:
An original half-hour or one-hour pilot script (or a half-hour script) can be a great calling card for a screenwriter to open many doors in TV and in features. Those 30 or 60 pages have to be potentially great television — a well-structured script with strong characters and a compelling story that could unfold over many episodes.
For more information, go here.
Also starting August 26th, I will be teaching all eight 1-week Core classes.
You may also elect to sign up for The Core Package, enabling you to take all eight classes at almost 50% off the regular price and start the learning process right now.
Plus those who sign up for The Core Package, you have these options:
* Go through the entire Core content in a self-paced fashion.
* Take each 1-week class as it appears on the schedule.
* Do both: Go through the content on your own time and participate in each live class session.
If you are looking for a comprehensive, coherent, character-based approach to screenwriting, a deep immersion into screenwriting theory grounded in 25+ years of my professional experience, I highly recommend enrolling in The Core Package.
As a bonus, I will do a one-on-one teleconference with each person who signs up for this round of The Core Package to discuss anything related to screenwriting as well as their stories.
The Core Package represents the same screenwriting theory participants in The Quest get, so here is your chance.
Enroll now in this unique online screenwriting program. For more information, go here.