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When released in 2003, The Room, an obscure, self-financed
relationship drama by an eccentric self-taught filmmaker named
Tommy Wiseau, should have been completely forgotten. Yet nearly two
decades later, "the worst movie ever made"—as many a critic would
have it—has become the most popular cult film since The Rocky
Horror Picture Show. In You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!,
contributors explore this priceless cultural artifact, offering
fans and film buffs critical insight into the movie's various
meanings, historical context, and place in the cult canon. Even if
by complete accident, The Room touches on many issues of modern
concern, including sincerity, authenticity, badness, artistic
value, gender relations, Americanness, Hollywood conventions,
masculinity, and even the meaning of life. Revealing the timeless,
infamous power of Wiseau's The Room, You Are Tearing Me Apart,
Lisa! is a deeply entertaining deconstruction of an original work
of all-American failure.
When released in 2003, The Room, an obscure, self-financed
relationship drama by an eccentric self-taught filmmaker named
Tommy Wiseau, should have been completely forgotten. Yet nearly two
decades later, "the worst movie ever made"—as many a critic would
have it—has become the most popular cult film since The Rocky
Horror Picture Show. In You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!,
contributors explore this priceless cultural artifact, offering
fans and film buffs critical insight into the movie's various
meanings, historical context, and place in the cult canon. Even if
by complete accident, The Room touches on many issues of modern
concern, including sincerity, authenticity, badness, artistic
value, gender relations, Americanness, Hollywood conventions,
masculinity, and even the meaning of life. Revealing the timeless,
infamous power of Wiseau's The Room, You Are Tearing Me Apart,
Lisa! is a deeply entertaining deconstruction of an original work
of all-American failure.
During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to
compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain
producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that
showcased performances by rock 'n' roll stars. Rock stars
eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their
creative practices, and the motion picture and recording industries
increasingly saw cinematic rock stardom as a profitable means to
connect multiple media properties. Indeed, casting rock stars for
film provided a tool for bridging new relationships across media
industries and practices. From Elvis Presley to Madonna, this book
examines the casting rock stars in films. In so doing, Rock
Star/Movie Star offers a new perspective on the role of stardom
within the convergence of media industries. While hardly the first
popular music culture to see its stars making the transition to
screen, the timing of rock's emergence and its staying power within
popular culture proved fortuitous for a motion picture business
searching for its place in the face of continuous technological and
cultural change. At the same time, a post-star-system film industry
provided a welcoming context for rock stars who have valued
authenticity, creative autonomy, and personal expression. This book
uses illuminating archival resources to demonstrate how rock stars
have often proven themselves to be prominent film workers exploring
this terrain of platforms old and new - ideal media laborers whose
power lies in the fact that they are rarely recognized as such.
Combining star studies with media industry studies, this book
proposes an integrated methodology for writing media history that
combines the actions of individuals and the practices of
industries. It demonstrates how stars have operated as both the
gravitational center of media production as well as social actors
who have taken on a decisive role in the purposes to which their
images are used.
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