Today’s Music and Film posts are going to cover a lot of ground — its more a round up than a specific rant (you can see Lefsetz’ industry takedown for that).
Music: File-sharing continues at colleges — whats surprising about this is that file sharing remains active even at schools that offer free versions of Ruckus, Cdigix, Napster and RealNetworks.
Why? ‘Cause none of the all-you-can-eat-buffet services allow you to transfer your music to your iPods. Is it any surprise that Yahoo’s! Music Unlimited — which is similarly tethered to a PC with no provision for moving it to iPod — has no traction. None.
How clueless are these companies?Movies: Our prior discussion as to Why movie theatre attendance was declining paid scant focus to the quality of the films. Theater owners disagree, making the Hey Hollywood! Make Better Movies to Lure Crowds! See also,
Summer’s Flops Spur Movie Studios To Reassess TV Ads.Long tail:
New on Amazon- Short Stories For 49 Cents (WSJ)
‘Telenovelas’ Become A Vibrant New Niche In the DVD Market (WSJ)
RIAA: Wired takes down the RIAA fabrication that the Mafia are music pirates in Mob Pirates: Menace or Myth?
Bring ’em on: a Mom refuses to knuckle under to RIAA litigation threats, and says "Lets go to court."
Tech: The iPod is why Apple is able to beat Sony’s music service, even on their home turf.
The first sign of improvement for the Japanese giant are the Sony beans; While they don’t look like iPod killers, they are certainly are improvements over Sony’s old offerings.
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for the WSJ sub req’d; email me if you want the entire article — put the title in the subject line
recently, my lover who has never watched and experienced an alfred hitchcock film, and myself sat down to watch rear window and to catch a thief, starring jimmy stewart and grace kelly and starring cary grant and grace kelly respectively.
afterwards, her and i discussed the beauty of grace kelly as an actor and as a woman. when comparing her to the current top female actors, no female actor blonde or non-blonde came close to matching her work in the two films that we watched as directed by alfred hitchcock….
the problem with hollywood then goes into artifically creating movies as window dressing for pre-movie television commericals. like the musick ‘biz’, that jabba the hut-like archonic entity, hollywood has grown fascinated with creating commodities that can spin-off into licensed merchandise and product tie-ins.
for all of the drum beating about george lucas’ star wars, the movie was a ponderous conception of special affects acting as a script and acting as characters to care about. the same can be applied to spielberg’s war of the worlds: a special affect smorgasburg for tom cruise and his fellow scientologists to care about and dare to consider an enduring piece of art…
there seems to exist a significant correlation between exposing viewers to shit garbage and the following outcomes:
a_ rude and obnoxious movie-goers not caring about film as an art form but movies as an eye candy distracting stimulus
b_ film-seekers tired of wasting monies on shit garbage on the big screen, and tired of rude and obnoxious movie-goers looking for reasons to be moronic and distracted by eye candy distracting stimulus
the wonderous film lecture that martin scorsese did for the british film institution entitled a personal journey with martin scorsese through american movies, which comes as a two dvd set, remains a favorite documentary for me to watch and learn from as scorsese provides the viewer with an insight into the golden era of hollywood when the studios ran the boatshow. the films and the directors that ushered into american film vision and the visceral experience of creating enduring and powerful films have all been betrayed by the power barons that have used the hollywood logos as a means to create profits from creating shit garbage.
alfred hitchcock understood his medium endlessly well. grace kelly embraced her craft and art as an actor, as did cary grant and jimmy stewart. at best, both lucas and spielberg have learned how to use the tools of a master such as hitchcock to create pop-films that gathers the attention of the masses but doesn’t deliver that enduring and visceral experience.
for all of the kudos spielberg and lucas has received throughout their careers, their works have become more and more low denominator lacking the verve and the balls to press the parameters as their earlier works attempted to do. instead, we are led to a special affects orgy with little in the way of enduring characters and powerful resonating tones involving the drama built upon tensions that resolve and unresolve throughout their works….
this becomes the hollywood formula: this becoms the musick ‘biz’s formula. give the masses and public enough filler, and they will keep returning to the theatres because they are manipulated and told to come back to the theatres. and when profits and attendances are down and slumping, blame the internet and take the position of being in some cold war battle with an ‘evil empire’.
why not relearn the forgotten paths of masters such as hitchcock and krubrick to revive the hollywood shit garbage disease, as well as returning to the understanding that the audience comes willingly to experience great films created with great expectations and greater standards? i refuse to be a member of the demographic society that believes in being told what it wants from hollywood. i want and i demand films that challenges me, i want and i demand films that stays within me, months and years from this moment.
mel gibson’s the passion was a snuff film successfully marketed as a religious film. martin scorsese’s beautiful and aching the last temptation of christ continues to inform and inspire me. shit garbage may smell like apple pie from a relative distance created by marketing and research, but when seen up close and personally, remains shit garbage.
i don’t need a cult of marketing research telling me why i should go and watch the wedding crashers when i do not find own wilson and vince vaughan talented or important as actors and as comedians.
i seek the experience of film as an art form that influences and inspires, and informs the imagination of the possiblities. this i seek, and this i am compelled to demand. if not found in the cineplexes, then i will take the long tail approach and watch the films that still matters and challenges me.