Greetings and salutations! Here’s what I have for you this week….

On the 15th, Dan Hopper listed the ways that Hollywood gets sex wrong over at Cracked:
“Portraying sex in movies and TV has come a long way since The Dick Van Dyke Show era, when married couples had to sleep in separate beds, couldn’t say the word “pregnant,” and were forced to wear shame-activated groin-shockers. Weirdly, though, we’ve replaced “pretending sex isn’t a thing” with “tons of sex, portrayed in a ridiculously inaccurate way.” This probably messes up our attitudes about sex just as badly as censorship.”

Chad Perman at Bright Wall/Dark Room explored how Springsteen on Broadway made him embrace The Boss, on the 18th:
“So Bruce Springsteen—or who I thought he was—never really appealed to me. Over time, I came to respect Bruce, both for his longevity and his basic human decency, but I still didn’t voluntarily listen to his music; as far as I was concerned, it was the least interesting thing about him. For a period of time in my early 20s, I listened to Nebraska rather obsessively, but only because it was essentially the antithesis of what I thought a Bruce Springsteen record was—stripped-down, acoustic, raw, wounded, vulnerable. But outside of that, and despite being married to a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, I could never really connect to him.”

Jake Kring-Schreifels gave us an oral history of Office Space on the 19th on The Ringer:
“But turning Judge’s semiautobiographical and hyperspecific vision into a collaborative medium didn’t come without its challenges, battles, and mistakes. Below is the story of how one of the best creators of his generation produced an endlessly relevant world of annoying colleagues, lurking bosses, broken printers, red staplers, “flair,” and the desire to burn it all down.”

Also on the 19th, Hubert Adjei-Kontoh talked about how Amy Sedaris, and her brand of comedy found a home on At Home with Amy Sedaris at The Guardian:
“It took time for her to creep back into centre stage, spouting lines that she herself had written yet again. Superficially, At Home with Amy Sedaris is a gonzo critique of domestic television, but underneath the surface, it’s more of a loving parody of housewives who calmly weather the storm of the outside world by creating a haven inside the home. Described as “Martha Stewart on crack” by the New York Times, the more operative drug in At Home with Amy Sedaris might be ketamine. Each episode in the series starts with a craft, and ends in chaos. Her world is dissociative, as are her attempts to turn away from the fractious political climate, aided by a list of celebrity guests, such as Michael Shannon, Matthew Broderick and Rose Byrne. There’s deep affection for hosts such as Julia Child and Stewart (whose show Sedaris has featured on many times) yet her earnest facade is pierced by often surrealist outside forces. An episode might start with an innocuous subject – like women’s hats – and will end with Sedaris being quite literally fridged, slang for when a female character is maimed in order to advance the plot.”

Finally, on the 20th Scott Feinberg shared an oral history of the 1999 Academy Awards on The Hollywood Reporter:
“It’s considered by many the greatest upset in Academy Awards history, a heist in which rom-com ‘Shakespeare in Love’ shocked war drama ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ Now, 20 years later (with Weinstein awaiting trial), the key players open up about the oddest, most brilliant and, yes, dirtiest campaign ever staged.”

Enjoy!