Outside Review: Diary of a Political Tourist
by kmikeym
Flow, an online journal of television and media studies, has a long analysis/review of Diary of a Political Tourist: "Diary of a Political Tourist is a follow up to the 2000 video diary Journeys With George in which Pelosi joined the media correspondents assigned to George W. Bush's campaign. There were some good moments in Journeys with George. Pelosi's first person camera captured how the dreary monotony of bad catering, sleepless nights, cramped flights, and monotonous hotel rooms tests the stamina of candidates and correspondents. Diary of a Political Tourist, like most tourism, is an experience in which we mostly get the feeling we've seen it all before."
It goes downhill from there, but it's a good piece.
Posted on October 14, 2004 | Comments (0)
Upcoming: Leisurama home from 1959
by kmikeym
Here's a page about an upcoming documentary about the Raymond Loewy-designed Leisurama prototype home from the '50s.
Nikita [Khrushchev] pointed at the kitchen in an American display behind him, and made it clear to Nixon that he was not going to be made a fool of; "Don't you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down? Many things you've shown us are interesting but they are not needed in life... We have a saying, if you have bedbugs you have to catch one and pour boiling water into the ear." Nixon responded by saying, "What we want to do is make easier the life of our housewives."
[reblogged from boingboing.net]
Posted on October 12, 2004 | Comments (2)
Moog Review
by kmikeym
I liked Moog. But that comes from enjoying seeing something that I think I could do, or even do better. Hans Fjellestad pulls a bit of a bait and switch on the audience. He has some really pro looking intro credits but then the quality of the filming doesn't quite live up to that. I don't want to rip on this film, but I think it was certainly flawed, and personally I find those flaws more interesting than the documentary itself, which was an unnecessary 72 minutes. Basically, Bob Moog created a synthesizer that had a huge influence on musicians and culture. It's not a revolutionary concept or even really an argument, but I felt like Fjellestad was playing things very defensively, and I wonder if this is a reaction of his own fight as an electronic musician.
I wonder how much they are making on the soundtrack?
Posted on October 8, 2004 | Comments (1)