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Omniculture

Film Critics Under Fire

August 15, 2006

An article in today’s Los Angeles Times observes that the reputation of the American film critic appears to be at an all-time low: The new trailer for Paramount’s upcoming numskull comedy "Jackass: Number Two" is full of quotes from reviews of the first movie. There’s just one tiny twist: The studio uses the vitriolic reviews attacking the first film ("A disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle" says an aghast Richard Roeper) to promote the new picture. With a sly, leering note of triumph, the narrator intones: "Unfortunately for them, we just made ‘Number Two.’ " All in all, it’s been a rotten tomato of a summer for America’s embattled film critics. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest" broke box-office records left and right, despite a yowling chorus of negative reviews. M. Night Shyamalan cast Bob Balaban as a persnickety film critic in "Lady in the Water," then gleefully killed him off, allowing a snarling jackal-like creature to do the dirty deed. . . . It’s no secret that critics have lost influence in recent years. A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that among 18- to 24-year-olds, only 3% said reviews were the most important factor in their movie-going decision making.

Theft or Canny Marketing Ploy: You Decide

August 14, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

Forthcoming TV programs are increasingly appearing on peer-to-peer networks, evidently without the owners’ permission. Pretty much everything ends up on these file-sharing networks, so it’s no great surprise that yet-to-be-aired TV programs are turning up, but the downloads, and the underground publicity surrounding the programs, are actually affecting TV networks’ programming decisions, the Wall Street Journal reports: A new television show called "Jericho" has a small but dedicated group of fans, who’ve been buzzing about the show online. The reaction has been surprising — considering that CBS won’t air "Jericho" until late September. Viewers are responding to a leaked video of the pilot that’s been flying around the Internet. Networks have increasingly been experimenting with giving viewers early looks at coming shows on their official Web sites, as well as on iTunes and through DVD rentals. But recently at least 10 unaired pilots have been leaked — apparently without the networks’ permission — to so-called peer-to-peer networks that allow users to download files stored on each others’ computers. In many cases, the pilots appear to have been "ripped" from official DVDs made for reviewers and company executives. It’s unclear whether the leaks resulted from security breaches or quiet efforts to

Thomas Kinkade Moves In

August 14, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

The Thomas Kinkade company reports that a new development in Columbia, Missouri, will feature homes modeled on the popular artists’ paintings: Thomas Kinkade- inspired homes will be featured in a new master-planned community in Columbia, MO, announced HST Group, LLC, the Northwest-based real estate development firm in charge of the project. About 100 luxury homes will feature architectural designs inspired by the artwork of Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light(TM)" and world-renowned artist. "The homes will be reminiscent of Thomas Kinkade’s charming cottages that are found in many of his works," stated Rann Haight, Director of Architectural Design for HST Group. "We will also be concentrating our efforts on creating a village atmosphere and neighborhood streetscapes such as those found in Thomas Kinkade’s painting, Lamplight Lane." The 85-acre community, named "The Gates at Old Hawthorne," will be the second in the country to feature the Thomas Kinkade – Masterpiece Homes brand of design. The finished homes are anticipated to be valued between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Construction is targeted to begin in the fall of 2006 with the first home complete in July 2007. HST Group will design, build, and sell the homes in The Gates at Old Hawthorne. Those are

NYC Fringe Festival

August 11, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

The New York International Fringe Festival opens today in the city that never sleeps, kicking off 16 days of theater in 20 venues. It’s an offshoot of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which I wrote about recently in these pages. As I’ve noted earlier on this site (here and here), an interesting and essential aspect of the Omniculture is that "the counterculture continuously becomes the culture. If you want to know what is going to surround you tomorrow in American culture, look at what is on the fringes today." Confirming this tendency of the counterculture to become the culture, the New York Daily News reports that "the Fringe Festival didn’t start out as a breeding ground for the Great White Way. The Present Company, a nonprofit Off-Off-Broadway organization, began hosting festivals in Scotland in 1966 in order to showcase unspoken talent." But the fringe has become increasingly absorbed into the mainstream: Since then, the Fringe has exploded into a world-famous phenomenon, much to its founders’ surprise. "To last 10 years as a cultural institution in this city is very impressive," says Lasko. An important element of that absorption has been the effect on the Festival’s content. With big theatrical producers, critics,

Culture and Population

August 8, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

The eminent poet and philosopher Frederick Turner provides some big-picture, civilization-level cultural commentary in an excellent article in TCS Daily today, thinking about why some societies die out and others manage to hang on or even thrive. Turner’s thesis: that people who have a sense of life beyond themselves tend to have children and build for a future they will probably not live to share. After demonstrating that birth rates, not environmental or social catastrophes, best explain population declines such as those of ancient Rome and contemporary Europe, Turner writes, If we eliminate all external causes for population collapse, what is left is people’s own reproductive choices. The reason people stop replacing themselves is, I would argue, cultural. What, basically, persuades people not to have babies even when they have the political, social and economic stability to do so? Among the eras and nations where this phenomenon occurs or occurred one basic characteristic stands out: the loss of a transcendent future. What I mean by "transcendent" is some ideal or love or hope or faith that rises above the interests of the self, the practicalities of expected income, the security of predictable outcomes, and the lifetime of the individual. What

A Program I Will Never See….

August 8, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

As I’ve pointed out before, in the Omniculture, everything happens. A particularly vivid current proof of that is the Fuse Network television program Pants-Off Dance-Off, "the only naked dancing game show on television," as Fuse describes it. The content is exactly what you might expect, given the title: "ordinary" people strip off their clothes, to the accompaniment of rock music, before the hungry cameras of an obscure music video channel. The participants are nonprofessional, and their naughty bits are tastefully covered with video "towels" when the ecdysiasm is complete The venture doesn’t sound particularly constructive or even interesting, but the reality is that whatever one might choose to put on TV or the net, somebody will watch. Of course, a good sophist could make the case that a program like Pants-Off Dance-Off does good by breaking down unfair socially constructed ideas of beauty, but a good sophist can make a case for anything. The fact remains that in the Omniculture, everything is permitted, but not everything is good.

Fringe Phenomena in the Omniculture

August 6, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

Another hugely successful "fringe" phenomenon (see my Lollapalooza post immediately below) is the Edinburgh Fringe, which Reuters characterizes as "the world’s largest and most irreverent arts festival." According to the Reuters story, this "fringe" phenomenon is a big business and highly influential on the culture. The festival’s director "said the Fringe has sold about 20 million tickets over the past six decades ‘and we hope this year to top the million mark again which we have done for the last three years.’ " A common theme in this year’s program reflects some current concerns, but with a typically quirky approach. As the Reuters story reports, the Edinburgh Fringe . . . celebrated its 60th birthday on Sunday with religion the big theme being tackled this year by playwrights and comedians. Fringe performers revel in controversy and 2006 should be no exception with "We Don’t Know Shi’ite" about British ignorance of Islam and "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years." "It is the most amazing barometer of world politics," said The Scotsman newspaper’s theater critic Joyce McMillan, reflecting on the Fringe which last year tackled the subject of terrorism head on after the London suicide bombings. Fringe director Paul Gudgin, overseeing 17,000

Lollapalooza in the Omniculture

August 6, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

The Lollapalooza festival of "alternative" music is drawing huge crowds in Chicago this weekend. Reuters reports: Thousands of concert-goers, mostly in their 20s, returned to Chicago’s lakefront Grant Park on Saturday as the three-day music festival Lollapalooza resumed after drawing more than 50,000 people on Friday night. Billed as one of the city’s largest music events ever, the festival is expected to draw about 150,000 people by the time it ends on Sunday. I put quotes around the word alternative because the very popularity of the music indicates that it is a mainstream part of the culture, no longer—if it ever was—some sort of fringe phenomenon. Scheduled performers such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, and Manu Chao are anything but obscue, and 130 music acts in total are scheduled to perform at the festival. It’s a great example of what happens in what I call the Omniculture, where the counterculture continuously becomes the culture. If you want to know what is going to surround you tomorrow in American culture, look at what is on the fringes today.

MTV Turns 25, World Continues Turning

August 4, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

MTV turned 25 this week, and your intrepid correspondent has contributed a few thoughts to a National Review Online symposium on the deeper meaning of it all. Most of the comments in the symposium are fairly light, but there are some interesting facts to be gleaned and ideas to be pondered. It’s certainly interesting to see this group of right-wingers’ rather amused and unworried reaction to MTV, widely considered to be a powerful force of cultural change. Perhaps American conservatism is not so conservative after all. For those newly visiting from NRO and looking for additional commentary on the state of popular music, I suggest my post, from earlier this week, on the rise of gloom, doom, and general depressingness in popular music. In addition, the category entries at the right side of the page offer full lineups of articles in various subject areas, including quite a few on music.

A Musical Depression

August 1, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

Those who have read my music criticism in the past know that I prefer compositions that are melodic and musically logical. I like music to sound good, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask, thank you very much. I like a wide variety of types of music, from Haydn and Bruckner to Clarence Williams, Frank Sinatra, Fats Domino, the Beach Boys, the Rev. Gary Davis, Deep Purple, Bill Monroe, King Crimson, Badfinger, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Wood, Hank WIlliams (Sr. and Jr.), Sly and the Family Stone, Neal Morse, and dozens upon dozens of other composers and popular artists. If it sounds good to me, I like it. Unfortunately for souls such as myself, popular music has become increasingly charmless and depressing in the past couple of decades. Writing in the excellent All Music Guide in an article titled, "Is Rock & Roll Really Dying? A Case Against Rock Dourism," AMG critic Thom Jurek laments the rise of gloom and doom in popular music: Listening to rock & roll radio has become a chore. It’s not the ten minutes of commercials or the narrowing of formats. CD stores and online music retail sites have the same problem — though,

Mass-Marketing Good Taste

July 26, 2006

By S. T. Karnick

The Reebok shoe company has announced that it has signed young actress Scarlett Johansson to sponsor a new line of "retro-chic" footwear and clothing, Scarlett "Hearts" Rbk, E! Online reports. The shoes will reportedly take advantage of the starlet’s "Old Hollywood-style glamour," as E! breathlessly puts it. A respect for stylishness seems to me a very nice thing, although mass-marketing such a thing would seem a sure means of defeating the purpose, given that originality and expression of a strong, interesting personality were the hallmarks of that old-style Hollywood glamour. That is the sort of thing money cannot buy. That said, a move from the Britney/Christina Desperate Slut look to a more stylish, presentable look based on Ms. Johansson’s more tasteful approach would be a welcome change indeed.

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Omniculture

Film Critics Under Fire

Theft or Canny Marketing Ploy: You Decide

Thomas Kinkade Moves In

NYC Fringe Festival

Culture and Population

A Program I Will Never See….

Fringe Phenomena in the Omniculture

Lollapalooza in the Omniculture

MTV Turns 25, World Continues Turning

A Musical Depression

Mass-Marketing Good Taste

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