tom moody

Salon Precog Reviews Fame Remake

Comments Off on Salon Precog Reviews Fame Remake

Who knew that artist Joe McKay's "preReview" site from a few years back, which reviewed movies that hadn't come out yet (and was meant to be a joke), would be the model for a new type of writing by presumably more serious media? Here is a resident psychic of Salon online magazine telling us that the remake of the 1980 movie Fame will be badly dated:

"Fame": It's not gonna live forever

Why the classic '80s musical won't translate in an era of instant celebrity, YouTube and "American Idol"

By Julie Klausner

In a scene from the new "Fame," opening Friday, an acting teacher addresses a crop of aspiring adolescents trying out for a coveted slot at the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts.

"You wanna be famous?" he asks from the seats of the theater. "Then you gotta earn it."

That may be an acting teacher's party line. But that advice blaringly ignores the reality of today's instant celebrity, when YouTube stars like Chris "Leave Britney Alone!" Crocker and the sixth runner-up on "American Idol" are more likely to enjoy name recognition than a kid who learned how to play the oboe at a performing arts school. "Fame" (which was not screened prior to its release) tips its hat to the way things are, to an extent. In the best line from the trailer, an excessively jazzed student exclaims, "The casting director found me on YouTube!" Not, "The casting director liked the monologue I spent ages rehearsing!" Being good at what you do has never been a lock for any actor hoping to land roles in the laughably competitive world of entertainment. But as Tila Tequila can tell you, being famous in 2009 has precious little to do with talent or hard work.

[...]

More psychic criticism. Psychic news story.

"The Frogs"

Comments Off on "The Frogs"

"The Frogs" [mp3 removed]

This was going to be "Analog_Sketch_a7b" (as in, more heavily filtered LFO pulsing) but then I added some electronic frogs and beats. Then it needed a middle section so I borrowed some bass and percussion from an earlier piece, "RMV Study No. 2." Then some pretty pads over the top that come in towards the end. Thus, "The Frogs."

Blade Runner in San Francisco

Comments Off on Blade Runner in San Francisco

A smart, IMG MGMT style essay where the writer/curator uses existing social media to make an argument:

Blade Runner in San Francisco by dreamyshade (aka Britta Gustafson)

Other people's flickr photos of San Francisco landmarks provide the visuals for a discussion of the movie Blade Runner (which had Los Angeles locations) and the Philip K. Dick book on which it is based, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (set in San Francisco). The essay is "a mix of imaginary locations for the book and movie" and works in some trenchant commentary about the differences, e.g.:

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Deckard and Rachael get it on at the St. Francis hotel.

Unlike the passive and scared Rachael in the movie, the book's Rachael tricks Deckard into thinking she cares about him as an attempt to defuse his pursuit of her fellow androids.

The text "defuse his pursuit of her fellow androids" links to a Google Books version of Androids (surprised that's online in full text) where Rachael and Rick have a post-conjugal discussion of Rick's future bounty hunting (he avows he won't do it anymore). The accompanying tourist-y photo of the St. Francis hotel is shot at night and all lit up like the Douglas Trumbull city exteriors in the movie. The rest of the essay makes similar, ingenious use of textual and geographic cross-cutting.

Update (forgot to write a conclusion): Using Dick's locations as a form of interrogation of the film's, Gustafson restores some of the moods and mores of the original text literally "lost to Hollywood."