There is a layered depth to the creation of the Freddy Kruger character from A Nightmare on Elm Street that goes beyond the subplot of his villainy and Robert Englund's amplified characterization (not excluding Jackie Earle Hayley's more understated approach in the 2010 reboot, image above).
Aside from the beaten, brown fedora and the his trademark, man-made claw, Wes Craven's choice of Kruger's attire--a red and green striped sweater--was not accidental. It seems like an odd, presumably distracting exterior for a grotesque, supernaturally murderous figure such as Kruger (kinda like like putting Michael Meyers in a Cosby sweater). However, what Craven intended was by communicated a visual contrast with Kruger's appearance, featuring the contrasting colors of red and green, two of the hardest colors for the human eye to process.
Here, Wes Craven discusses his approach to Kruger's iconic look:
It's clearly a busy season for Bruce Willis...an apparent fact based on the many film campaigns banking on his iconic mug.
Following the success of TriStar's Looper, the promotional prints for Paramount's G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Twentieth Century Fox's A Good Day to Die Hard have been released, proving there will not be any shortage of Willis-driven vehicles in 2013.
What's incredible about the featured posters below is the evolving minimalism of the artwork paired with its superstar subject, showing the monumental level of anticipated, worldwide appeal Willis' likeness still carries throughout the film market.
While Tod Browning's 1931 version of Dracula remains to be a signature classic in the American horror archive, the film has developed with age a distinct dissonance that reflects not only on the era of its creation but subtly highlights the evolution of music throughout the horror genre.
In the opening credits of Dracula, the tone is set with the melodic score of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Swans" from "Swan Lake" (NOTE: Universal Studios, the studio behind "Dracula", recycled the same excerpt from "Swan Lake" in the opening credits of their subsequent horror feature, Karl Freund's 1932 version of "The Mummy"). However, as the film begins, there is a dense, silent lull from scene to scene that accentuates a stirring discomfort for the viewer. This discomfort is the impulsive, sensory response to the fact that the film does not have a musical score. For the modern horror viewer, this can trigger an inconclusive discordance to the film's fear-inducing intent, making it ineffectively frightening.
While such artists as Lady Gaga and Kanye West attempt to salvage the artistic merit of the music video industry to the point of pop culture martyrdom, the music video's once influential imagery has unfortunately faded away from today's mainstream, post-"TRL" interest. As the platform for the pop-driven video scales back from the once prevalent television programming to today's ever-accessible web, the hyper-stylized, dreamy surrealism of pop video has seemingly taken refuge in the medium of film.
Richard Coyle in Pusher (2012)
In Luis Prieto's remake of Nicolas Winding Refn's 1996 film, Pusher, the film's highly designed photography and sound is a definite product of the instant gratification of the early 80s music video. Through this defined influence, the film features bright, florescent lights garnished with hues of faded pinks, yellows and steely, metallic grays, fast cut sequences and an unrelenting pop soundtrack, all whirling around the circumstances of a hapless, antihero. With a soundtrack composed by electronic duo Orbital, featuring the Still Going remix of Austra's "Beat and Pulse", the film thematically falls in line with the aggressively, pop-inspired visuals featured in Refn's (who acts as Executive Producer behind this 2012 reboot) most recent slate of films, including Bronson (2009) and Drive (2011). Although the film is Preito's vision, Refn's eye is distinctly present.
When you really get down to the core of the film, peeling back its layers of flashy, uber-hip ambiance and noise, there's really nothing new to discover. The overall plot (a middleman drug dealer has a week to relieve a hefty debt to his mobster supplier after a deal goes horribly wrong) struggles to carry effective prevalence and ultimately shows its age, paralleling the dated movement of the European underworld portrayed throughout the initial Pusher franchise of the late 90s, along with Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn's interpretation of the criminal delinquents of East London throughout the early 2000s (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Layer Cake).
This is where the influence of the music video ultimately seeps in, defusing the necessity of plot/concept/character and wholly indulging the senses with image and sound. Although this cinematic trend could be the succeeding savior for the music video aesthetic, it's a creative negligence that can prove to be crippling to the interest and cinematic understanding of the modern film audience.
Go here to see the trailer for Luis Prieto's Pusher (2012).
Go here to see the trailer for Nicolas Winding Refn's original Dutch version of Pusher (1996).
It's an interesting oddity how the word "queue" has evolved into mainstream familiarity, especially in relation to stateside pop culture and throughout the lexicon of American English.
The word has seemingly been reinvented as a culturally-inspired product of Netflix, representing our own online film "collection", carefully designed and scheduled, providing an outlet of enthusiasm and sophistication to our practice of pop culture and entertainment. It's ultimately one of the current media-based sources that steadily siphons and satisfies our passions for cultural reflection, innovation and intrigue.
In the art of media collecting, disciplined boundaries have been set and quality--often identified based on technology (i.e. Blu-Ray, Downloadable Files, etc) or brand (i.e. ITunes, Kindle, The Criterion Collection, etc)--has completely overrun the appeal of quantity. While technology has allowed us to be much more minimal in our possessions, it has also influenced a more stylized and showy approach to how we curate our cultural identity through our collections of accessible pop art and media. Gone are the days of the careless accumulation of clunky DVDs, CDs and disposable paperback books.
Through these modern movements, there is a universal sense of pride when refining a collection of books, films, albums or shows (which can all be defined simply as "experiences"), checking them off as we notate each film we see, each song we hear or each book we read. Whether worthy of our time or not, each experience is a new strand in the muscle of our cultural perspective, becoming our "own" as well as becoming another connecting element to our social relationships. While we define our identity through our interests, passions and personal connections, we laterally carry a boundless attraction to see, hear and acquire new experiences, fueling our senses and our expanding ideals.
Leading onto the purpose of THE QUEUE, I hope to provide a simple, streaming source that feeds such interests and curiosity as well as inspires the ongoing maintenance of your own, personal pop culture "queues".
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