Serena Epstein produced a magical mashup re-contextualizing The Little Mermaid by setting it to the soundtrack of the Risky Business trailer for professor Anand Rao’s Visual Rhetoric course. Behold the magic of this brilliant mashup; Ariel is framed in a whole new light!












Geez, Reverend, what’s next, revelations that my childhood hero Captain Kangaroo was a transvestite? Accusations that John Hughes isn’t the brilliant director we all know him to be? (You think you’re the only one who can bait?
Funny you should mention John Hughes. I love his his stuff, and have been mulling over a post on him for months. I think he may be one of the film directors that catches the strange spirit of the 80s better than most others. So no argument there, I pick my battles
(BTW, just finished The Wire on your recommendation and it is the best thing that has happened to me in a decade or so, so thank you, thank you, thank you.)
As for Risky Business, I’m with you in the getting old department, and it is a strange position we are in as cultural torch bearers for a questionable period of film and culture, though I still think it kicks the 90s ass in this regard. Now Risky Business, like John Hughes’ films, really is a landmark film, and while I agree with CogDog that Cruise can;t act, it is this film where he shines like no other, he is perfect slimey 80s prep ho gets ahead by using the flesh of others. Whoring and pimping rewarding, certainly the predominant logic of the economic scene of the Reagan 8os, yet another post.
I’m sorry about Sean Penn, you know, I am a huge fan of his, but I have to draw the line at his films. As for Captain kangaroo, you’ll be relieved to know he wasn’t a transvestite, but he was a secret CIA op during the 80s in El Salvador who ran drugs for guns, sorry to break it to you like this
I actually agree with that. Sorry, it just took me by surprise, that I was agreeing
That said, I had to give him some credit for his recent self-parody in “Tropic Thunder” - his portrayal of the rapacious film producer was one of the funnier parts of that film (albeit a cartoonish parody in a film with at best a sophmoric sense of humour.) I warn you though - approach that film with extreme caution, as it may take hours of therapy to remove from your mind the image of Cruise ‘riding the pony.’ Ugh!
I await your Hughes post with bated breath, as I struggle to get out of my acid wash jeans, Ochestral Manouvers in the Dark playing on the Walkman that sits beside my framed commerative A-Team membership certificate. Did I mention I’m wearing a leather tie? And people wonder where GenX’s sense of disenchanment stems from…