Originally posted by Gwendri From what I've read on these forums everyone is great.
*sigh* the poor innocent dear
I actually think Jennifer Lopez is the exception, there was a 3 month period where Out of Sight had just been made and she released a good single as well... after that period her abilities in both careers became the same level it is now.
I think part of the problem is that famous people think they are good at everything, there are no people around them saying, hmmm maybe you aren't a good singer, all their peers are also their friends and they have no stable objective people to put them on the right track.
I'd have to get drunk every night and talk about virility...And those Pink elephants I'd see.
Originally posted by Tybaltus Exactly! Dont you think that since its pushed so hard, people grow tired, and I mean very tired, of it very very quick? I think its a catalyst to the ending of their careers.
In general, yes. Unless the entertainer in question can continue to sway the audience with new cheap tricks. Brittney Spears, for example: bad singer, cutesy-poo looks, appealed to young teens. Got herself a few implants when she aged a bit, and now stands in tight jeans and latex in front of dancers, being carefully filmed so nobody can see that she barely knows she's completely untrained. Still can't sing. But now, she sells sex to older teenage boys.
I guess what I don't like is the way all this mass-marketing of garbage talents creates a single, low plateau for the measurement of everybody, past and present. Like rap: simplistic rhythms an eight-year-old can program into a synthesizer, with bad rhymes--and we're told it's practicioners are "cultural icons." So blacks think of someone like Eminem as a talent instead of as an industrial product, and real talents to be culturally proud of (Dexter Gordon, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Parker, the Heath Brothers, Dizzy Gilespie, etc) are forgotten. We're being jived to death by overweight LA producers, disguised as gangsta rap artists.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
At least in the current situation we have a wide variety, there is a huge selection of really good music that doesn't get a great deal of air time, but that is quite often how the artists in question like it. Let the stars be stars and let the artists be artistic, Britney Spears isn't going to be making a double album of innovative prog rock any time soon The underground quite often fosters some brilliant music.
I agree with your last point, althoguh Aretha Franklin was heavily produced much the same as many of the other songstresses of that era. Not that that was a bad thing at the time.
I'd have to get drunk every night and talk about virility...And those Pink elephants I'd see.
Originally posted by Mr Sleep Let the stars be stars and let the artists be artistic, Britney Spears isn't going to be making a double album of innovative prog rock any time soon The underground quite often fosters some brilliant music.
I guess my beef with it is that some really great talent ends up working for the post office, or doing party gigs, or going unemployed (and yes, I'm thinking of specific artists, and plenty of 'em), while the Brittneys of the world are multi-millionaires. Problem is, artists can't be artists (who are also, btw, entertainers) when the overwhelming advertising blitz pushes only the latest fad. It's an exclusive thing. People are told what to like, told what's real, and it swamps everything else. That's not cynicism. That's knowing the way the music industry operates.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tybaltus
So what do other people think of singers going into movies, and if there were any good films with a singer in it, which film was it?
I haven't read any of the other posts, so pardon my repetition, if any.
Lessee... Wil Smith, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg, Cher, Prince (Purple Rain), and Barbra Streisand, to name a few of the more successful transitions from music to film. Eminem seems likely to join the list, if he can prove himself capable of adopting a character other than himself.
There have also been a number of movie stars who have attempted to break into music, but ratio of success has been minimal (and thrice as embarrasing) in comparision.
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Originally posted by Koveras They want more money.
Yeah, save that the industry owners want the most money, not simply more. Reminds me (to jump to the computer gaming field) of Interplay's reaction to making good but not great money on Planescape: Torment--cut off any successor. It's not enough to do simply well. You have to lead the field, and commit your resources to make the biggest hit, so you can grow, in turn, bigger.
I saw too many instances of this when I ran a record store down in Dallas, Texas, back in the late 1970s, and subsequently worked for public radio. It was at first pretty astonishing how many really fine artists couldn't even record a single record for a good label at pretty modest rates, but the producers were simply not interested in that. They would pay the flashiest no-talents enormous sums of money, however, to record, because they figured on making the biggest return. After a while, this stopped surprising me, but it never stopped bothering me a bit that great talent continually goes unrecorded.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
Isn't 8 Mile a remake of another movie made in the early 90s? I think it was called Cool as Ice . . .
Add Whitney (The Preacher's Wife, Waiting to Exhale) Houston to the list of singers who make pretty good movies (when she's not in trouble with the law).
I think everyone wants to be a movie star, regardless of their profession, and the movie studios count on the star's name recognition to bring out a crowd, no matter how good or bad the movie actually is. Consider not just musicians going into movies, but professional athletes. In the past few years, we've seen Shaq get his own movie, Dennis Rodman attempt a career in film and even The Rock get star credit on a movie. I hear that Michelle Kwan has been taking acting lessons and that she is reputed to have the chops for the movie business, but we'll have to wait and see how successful she will be.
Anything that has a name or brand recognition brings with it a certain audience and guaranteed success. We also see this not only with people but also with franchise movies like the Star Wars and Star Trek movies, and video game movies (Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Mortal Kombat, etc.).
I don't think that singers make a greater proportion of bad movies than other actors, but because they have the name recognition that brings an audience, it also brings jeers when the movie is bad. Consider a movie like Glitter; how many other bad movies were made in 2001? Does that mean that Mariah Carey is necessarily a worse actress than anyone who was in a grade C movie? No, but because we know her name and not the struggling anonymous actors in a low-budget T&A action movie, we put her in the singers-who-are-wannabe-actresses category.
We also have to consider cases where the line between someone being an actor and being a singer is really too close to call. Grease and The Blues Brothers fall into this category, as do the movies made by Elvis and The Beatles. In these cases, the movie is really just a 90+ minute music video that showcases the artist, and isn't really about quality acting or production.
I don't think that singers should necessarily stay away from acting; in fact, many popular artists have a lot of success on television (ie-Marc Anthony, David Hasslehoff, Rick Springfield, etc.). Conversely, there are many actors who should stay away from singing (ie-Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Bacon, etc.), so success in one arena doesn't guarantee success in another, but I think the lure of a multi-dimensional career is too much for people to pass up (especially with studio/recording/television execs stroking the egos involved).
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Originally posted by HighLordDave I don't think that singers should necessarily stay away from acting; in fact, many popular artists have a lot of success on television (ie-Marc Anthony, David Hasslehoff, Rick Springfield, etc.). Conversely, there are many actors who should stay away from singing (ie-Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Bacon, etc.), so success in one arena doesn't guarantee success in another, but I think the lure of a multi-dimensional career is too much for people to pass up (especially with studio/recording/television execs stroking the egos involved).
Other names that have put a top 40 hit:
Vicky Lawrence
Mel Brooks
The Fraggles
Will Smith
I must say that I liked none of those songs that they got hits with. And I also hated all the music in Grease and The Blues Brothers. I just dont think acting and singing go hand in hand very easily, though I know there are a few exceptions. But I find the ratio is noticeably low.
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