When I heard that Vanessa Hudgens was putting out a second album I expected more of the same. Listening to the end result I would say that in certain aspects that fits and in others it doesn’t. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Vanessa Hudgens’
Review: Identified
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008Edition 39: The Strike
Friday, February 8th, 2008The WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike seems to be coming to an end now (it all seems to depend on a WGA meeting tomorrow), or who knows; once you read this it might be already over. But what kind of damage has it actually caused? Three months of strike don’t really go without consequence. We hear daily reports on how much money the movie industry has already lost this year.
I have to make clear that I support the writers (I’m trying to be one myself so I have to really), though I also understand the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). The main point of argument is the compensation for online content, so when they’ve made a TV show or movie and it’s also streamed on the internet. Of course the writers want to be paid for this but no one knows how the internet market will develop.
It’s a time where developments go really quickly, you can’t actually know how much money the internet content will make over the years. So it’s understandable that the studios were very hesitant, though pretty much paying them nothing at all is a bad idea when going into talks. At some times the strike got a bit silly though, there were some AMPTP and WGA mud slinging matches. (more…)
Edition 36: Blowing things out of proportion
Friday, January 11th, 2008The thing with the internet is that things seem to leak far easier than in the pre-internet age; all the sorts of sex videos are probably the best examples. That in itself isn’t a strange thing, it’s just far more accessible. What me bugs me lately is that leaked things get blown out of proportion to the extreme.
Best known example of the year probably are the naked pictures of Vanessa Hudgens; to a lot of people it seemed to be a big deal. A lot of people seemed to think that she would get fired by Disney for no longer reflecting the Disney image. This of course didn’t happen because Disney is a business and in the long run a business won’t care about something that will only be a vague memory a year from now.
Of course the images were never supposed to see the light of day; they’re personal. So why does it make a scandal if they’re leaked? Just because she works for Disney? There probably are naked pictures of hundreds of celebrities out there we just don’t see them. It’s not like no one has never seen a naked person before. (more…)
Edition 35: Overnight sensation? Not really
Friday, December 14th, 2007In a lot of cases with child actors people and the media call them overnight successes, that they did one thing and it made them successful right away. Even though that’s true in some cases like Natalie Portman who became a recognised actress overnight with the movie Léon it’s not true for a lot of other child actors.
It can be funny sometimes if you look at filmographies and it turns out that you’ve seen them in movies before without even realising it. I’m not counting tiny guest spots on TV shows right now; if I did that I could be going on forever seeing that’s pretty much how every actor gets started.
The first time I really had that was when I was looking at the filmography of Jena Malone. Granted, she’s not really a superstar but she still gets a fair amount of movies done. At some point I did check out her filmography because I didn’t really know her, turns out I have a on DVD with the woman; Contact in this case which she made when she was twelve years old. Her role in that movie is better known for a difficult special effect (It’s extensively mentioned in the extras; Jena is running towards a mirror but you can’t see the camera. In 1997 that was a lot more difficult than it would be these days.). She plays the younger version of Jodie Foster in the movie. (more…)
Edition 31: The problem with pop music
Friday, November 16th, 2007I’ve written about the singers amongst the starlets featured on this page before. Now that I’ve listened to more of their music in total I see a problem; not with their singing abilities but with pop music in general; it really has become a mass product.
What I mean by that is that 90% of pop music just lacks an identity of its own; you wouldn’t even notice if someone else was singing the song. In the past you could tell what band or artist was doing a song by listening to a song for about thirty seconds, that’s something rare these days. The explanation for this is quite simple looking at the singing actresses; they don’t write their own music. The music is written for them and in some cases even by the same people. I’m not judging the singing ability in this editorial; all of the girls mentioned can sing (or can be enhanced electronically enough). I’m just looking at the music itself.
Just look at the discography of Kara DioGuardi there are dozens of artists she’s written for on it. For this site the two main examples are Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan for who she took care of the bulk of the writing for all their albums. Kara is an incredibly talented woman, I doubt anyone manages to write that many successful songs but her success is also the problem. All songs might be different but most of the songs have a similar style which is just noticeable at times. (more…)
