avatar and tik tok
i posted this on twitter and fb earlier, but thought i’d share with you guys, too.
it’s a comical npr blog about how the number one movie in the world and the number one song in the world. rightt now.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122261912
Comments
Same comment I made over there (there being FB): Very little that is hugely popular is bold, new, or original and not highly derivative. People don’t want original, or bold, or daring, or new. Most people (at least the number needed for something to be wildly successful) want comfortable, safe, and familiar. Shit, even most (to reference another Scrabbled/FB discussion) “good art” is pretty goddamned derivative.
i read this article as a funny answer to the comment, “damn…you thought we were getting somewhere with this ‘art’ thing.”
but yeah, most of it is derivative. as i said on facebook, i see it as a poke at the number one movie in the world right now, compared to the number one song in the world right now.
now, during most years, you can randomly select a week and this type of nonsense would come up, but listen to the song, watch that movie, both are so overly produced in two completely different ways that you have to laugh at it and shake your heads.
I would say it would be rarer to pick a week and have this NOT be the case with both the #1 song and the #1 movie. In fact now I’m racking my brain trying to think of a recent example where this wasn’t the case.
i think we are saying the same thing?
you are saying it’s rare to pick a week where the no. 1 movie and no. 1 song weren’t in fact overly produced or shitty nonsense?
cos that’s what i’m saying!
Undoubtedly, sometime in the 90’s. At least as far as the songs were concerned. I mean, all things are derivative, but I think there’s a specific threshold that gets crossed where you can’t help but go “OH COME ON.”
Like Titanic, I am determined to hate Avatar with all of my being without having ever seen it.
i used to write for the teen section of the burlington county times while i was in high school and there was this one kid – who i WILL find on some social networking site – who said that “castaway” was his favorite movie of all time.
he based this entirely on reading the script and never seeing the movie.
christina said:
he based this entirely on reading the script and never seeing the movie.
If he was only going to read it, why not just go with Robinson Crusoe?
Yes, we are saying the same thing Christina. I was just wording it poorly (or differently).
I just find it odd that this person decided to do this piece with Avatar, which I haven’t seen (nor for that matter do I actually have any desire to see) but by all accounts is at least technologically and visually original and engaging. Which is more than you can probably say for every other #1 movie out there. I mean why didn’t he pick The Proposal, or Madea Goes to Jail or whatever. Yes, Avatar is making a lot more money than those, but probably at least from a cinematic experience is also probably at least slightly better than those.
And John, I think you could say the 90’s were the last time where the #1, wildly popular movies or music was not derivative only if you add the caveat “of other things that have already been famous”. Yeah stuff like Tarantino’s movies and a lot of the music and bunch of other things were fresh and exciting as mainstream fare that new people were discovering. But as great as it was, that stuff still wasn’t actually original, just newly popular and pulling from more artistically credible source material. Which is good, and better than a lot of what we have now, but still hardly original or non derivative. But yeah, probably since then every famous, popular thing is simply pulling from other famous popular things.
Google never fails. My ad on the right column right now is for Ke$ha’s new album, while the ones directly underneath the post are for Avatar.
I just love how a lot of reviewers compare this movie to Disney’s Pocahontas, like it’s a classic everyone’s seen and always talks about.
By the way, does anyone care what the number one song or album is anymore? Do one hit wonder pop stars make any money? I mean, I know the HUGE stars make a ton, but I wonder how much lasting cash a girl like Ke$ha can make. I’m saying this with out ever hearing her music though, so maybe it’s great and I’m talking shit, but I’m not gonna click on that link to the right and find out. That way lies madness.
I too am going to change my name, so that some of the letters are dollar signs.
I now present my new name:
$$$$
I actually woke up from a deep sleep last night just as she was performing on Conan or Fallon or whatever time it was. It was pretty frightening waking up to that and I had trouble falling back to sleep afterward.
Steve said:Google never fails. My ad on the right column right now is for Ke$ha’s new album, while the ones directly underneath the post are for Avatar.
she’s got these weird freckles and orange lipstick. god, what an awful advert.
oh and i saw that she was on conan but i couldn’t bring myself to watch.