Friday, February 24, 2006
I forgot the real point of yesterday's post
the thing boogie nights really got me thinking about was whether every recent past period piece has to ultimately reject that social system in favor of the current one? the big picture of boogie nights was "it was fun, but it wasn't really a good way to live." This darkness is underscored by all the violence and sadness and emotional underdevelopment. "Blow" had very much the same message as did "Almost Famous" which undermined all the fun they had with mysogyny and dangerous drug abuse. I haven't seen any of the "Dogtown" movies that all came out together, but I woudl imagine they would fit nicely into this framework, unless it is clouded by personal nostalgia (one of the Z-boys produced one of the movies) I am struggling to think of other examples from the 80s; input is welcome.
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 10:45 AM 
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Is it a matter of social system or just the decadant phase of any movement/industry/fad? I don't remember it very well, but I didn't think that Boogie Nights went out of its way to say that the late 20th century is really better and more mature. The timeline is more personal: anything glamorous has its underside, which you discover once you've been in it for a while.
Yes, Boogie Nights is good. And yes, Heather Graham can't act. Both Boogie Nights and her role at the end of Swingers, which probably fulfills the fantasy of the rest of the population whose wasn't fulfilled by Rollergirl, involved very little talking and lots of looking hot. Oh, and don't forget Philip Seymour Hoffman's small part.
I don't think to reject a time period's social system implicitly says the current is any better. It's more just an undermining of nostaligia.
I disagree about Almost Famous, though. I think that despite the main character's illusions being shattered, that the movie still seems to champion the music industry and culture of the Almost Famous period over today's. Cameron Crowe seemed to really value the music writer's role in how a band's image is determined. Today, I don't think that kind of access is possible at all and the image is already created by the musicians' agents, PR staff, and handlers before the writer is even allowed in the room, then force-fed to the writer. While Almost Famous makes the clear that the band is not your friend, it still romanticizes the interaction.
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I don't think to reject a time period's social system implicitly says the current is any better. It's more just an undermining of nostaligia.
I disagree about Almost Famous, though. I think that despite the main character's illusions being shattered, that the movie still seems to champion the music industry and culture of the Almost Famous period over today's. Cameron Crowe seemed to really value the music writer's role in how a band's image is determined. Today, I don't think that kind of access is possible at all and the image is already created by the musicians' agents, PR staff, and handlers before the writer is even allowed in the room, then force-fed to the writer. While Almost Famous makes the clear that the band is not your friend, it still romanticizes the interaction.
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