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Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Starry Eyes
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's weekly e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the horror film Starry Eyes.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Clarence:
Sarah is a young woman living in Hollywood and hoping to make it to the big time as an actress. She spends her days working a crappy day job as a waitress while squeezing in auditions and hanging out with her like-minded social circle of wannabe film-makers.
One day, Sarah lands an audition for what sounds like a low-rent horror movie flick. It turns out to be the most intense experience of her life, and it could lead to bigger things...if she’s willing to pay the price. Soon, she will have to decide how willing she is to undertake the physical and mental transformation asked of her, and also what to do about the “friends” who might be holding her back.
Partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign, Starry Eyes was a hit at South-by-Southwest in 2014. It’s got an indie-film sheen with a slasher-movie soul. I thought Alex Essoe did a wonderful job in the lead role, transmuting her ambition into frustration and rage that fuels her character through a (to put it mildly) drastic transformation. The supporting cast is also good, and the makeup and effects are disturbingly realistic.
But this film struck me as more than just a well-crafted exercise in horror. I thought the film also did a very good job of allegorizing both the idea of “making it” in Hollywood as well as the economic outlook faced by many Millennials in the US in the 21st century.
I finished watching the FX miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan a couple of weeks ago. That series was advertised as a campy send-up of the animosity between legendary actors Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but it ended up being a sharp, detailed portrait of the underbelly of celebrity.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writes@CHIRPRADIO (Week of July 24)
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Layne Lindroth writes2017 Pitchfork Music Festival: Day 3
photos by Layne Lindroth
Early afternoon clouds gave way to a gorgeous summer afternoon for Day 3 of the 2017 Pitchfork Music Festival. A fantastic lineup of artists wrapped up the weekend just as it started, treating the audience to a non-stop experience of great music.
Layne Lindroth writes2017 Pitchfork Music Festival: Day 2
photos by Layne Lindroth
Day 2 of Pitchfork 2017 continued the previous day’s good vibes and great music. A full slate of artists and bands kept the crowd moving and grooving all day long.
Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writesRediscovering Our Record Collections: “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye
by Josh Friedberg
I don’t know I’ve ever been so wrong about an album in my life.
When I was younger, there were a lot of albums I called “overrated” after one casual listen because I didn’t understand the hype around them. It’s true, as I thought in the early 2000s, that Marvin Gaye’s 1971 soul masterpiece, What’s Going On, is a sacred cow, often treated with such reverence as if it is immune to criticism. It shouldn’t be, but perhaps it needs to be put in a fuller social context (the Vietnam War, African American freedom struggles, environmental degradation, youth movements, etc.) to be most appreciated.
That said, Smokey Robinson was right when he said around 2000 that the album makes more sense today than it did when it was released—deindustrialization and the growth of the prison-industrial complex, among other factors, have disastrously impacted communities of color in this country, and today Gaye’s opus continues to resonate amid the turmoil that spawned Black Lives Matter.
What’s Going On is also the most acclaimed album ever by an African American artist, according to statistical aggregate acclaimedmusic.net. White rock critics have loved this album since it came out, with Dave Marsh calling it the greatest black pop album ever, though African American critics have also lauded this album. For example, Cornel West called it something like the greatest musical achievement created by an African American.
So one could be forgiven for having unusually high expectations for such an album. When I first heard the album on CD, I was very familiar with the title track, widely hailed as one of the greatest songs ever recorded, but I was unprepared to deal with an album that was conceived as an album, rather than a collection of songs. There are some relative fragments on What’s Going On that don’t stand out like the singles do, and I was merciless in my response. At one point in the first half of the 2000s, I guested on a music talk show talking about overrated albums, calling out What’s Going On for inconsistency—as if consistency of quality across tracks should be the goal of every album.