Zachary Pincus-Roth.com

2010 National Entertainment Journalism Awards Finalist

I am a finalist in the 2010 National Entertainment Journalism Awards for my piece in Slate, "Best Weekend Never." I'm very excited. Check out the full list of finalists by clicking here.

NPR appearance: TV Tropes

This weekend I will be appearing on the National Public Radio show "On the Media" to discuss my recent Los Angeles Times article about TV Tropes.

Here are some air times for "On the Media":

Los Angeles
KPCC 89.3 FM Sunday 4 PM - 5 PM

New York City
WNYC 820 AM Saturday 7 AM - 8 AM
WNYC 820 AM Sunday 3 PM - 4 PM
WNYC 93.9 FM Sunday 10 AM - 11 AM

Washington, DC
WAMU 88.5 PM Saturday 4 PM - 5 PM

For listings in other cities, click here. My interview is in the final ten minutes of the show.

The interview is pre-taped, so you can also listen to it right now by clicking below:

For a transcript of the interview, click here.

Top Movies of 2009

This year, my opinions of films tended to be swayed by my expectations. I thought many of the best picture nominations were solid and entertaining but still a bit disappointing. A few movies gained several notches on my list merely because they were the opposite — surprisingly good.

In the past, I’ve been a bit skeptical of this kind of thinking. I’ve felt that that if we are really aware of how we are experiencing a movie, then we would view the experience in absolute terms, and not in relation to our expectations. I’ve learned to appreciate how expectations can matter.

My top movies of 2009, in order:

1. District 9
I wasn’t even going to see this, as it seemed too science fiction-y for me, but I love the way it grounded the science fiction in real life. I very much enjoyed watching the flawed but sympathetic protagonist, Wikus, a government bureaucrat who is appointed to head up the effort of evicting the aliens from Johannesburg. He’s like a South African Michael Scott. The political allegory managed to be completely obvious but also, somehow, still smart and nuanced — an area where “Avatar” could have used a lesson.

Mumbling Wins Oscars!

Published in The Daily Beast

Jeff Bridges will almost certainly win a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar Sunday for Crazy Heart, as the performance caps a fruitful but underappreciated career and manages to find sympathy and humor in a washed-up, alcoholic country singer. But there's another factor that may contribute to his victory: It's hard to understand what he's saying.

In recent years, a number of Oscar-nominated performances have involved some form of low-talking, be it mumbling, muttering, slurring, or a lack of volume, either because of the actor's choice or the requirements of the role. It's not that they're completely unintelligible—it's that on the spectrum that runs from Laurence Olivier in Richard III to the Olsen twins in Full House, they're a few standard deviations toward the latter.

Every year, there are at least one or two acting nominees who are in this category, and this year it's Bridges and the tight-lipped Gabourey Sidibe in Precious. Last year, it was Frank Langella's gravelly former president in Frost/Nixon and Robert Downey, Jr.'s white actor pretending to be black in Tropic Thunder.

To continue reading, click here.