line dancing blows
q. what is the equivalent of wearing a sandwich board with a triple-sized courier new font that declares, “i’m a lazy asshole poser choreographer with no balls.”
a. that’s right.
paula abdul and janet jackson deserve a hotter place in hell for making permanent an unfortunate blip that previously rarely made it into movies or whatever. there’s base putridity in falling back on the synchro-bullshit “watch us all move together with smirks on our mugs” spectacle. embarrassing.
yeah, i’m talking about the new jessica simpson video for the dukes of hazzard movie. what a piece of crap. i can’t dance a lick, but i could have choreographed and directed a far more artful and sexy version. pretty much anybody with inner strength could. same old nonsense from the hollywood sappers.
some immediate points of direction:
- no willie nelson. jeez, give it a rest. why is he in that video? “hey, let’s have willie act like he’s important here. yeah, get him to stare at the camera and air sing as if this is a good cover.”
- no line dancing!
- totally re-record that obliga-BS version of “boots”, ditching the already dated pre-2003 obliga-boring sound.
- fuck the constant boom camera movement, circa 1987 ratt videos
- zappo the plastic set and lighting
- dock $500 from any crew dipstick who suggests an average cut rate of greater than one every 5 seconds.
- shoot the damned thing myself hand-held, maybe a little bit of steadicam, and a dab o’ old school dolly. crane shots only where it’s not painfully crane-ish.
- screw the fake boars nest [sic]. shoot almost entirely at the ratty old duke farm. bedroom daisy shots — an homage to the famous daisy duke commando (pantyless) scene from the “witness for the persecution” episode (3.09). add an almost invisibly smooth catherine bach cameo; daisy working on the general lee (nice tight shots of her hands with socket wrenches, etc.); lotta tight, moving shots of pursed and puckery lips; more duke cousin shots… you can easily think of 100 things that woulda blown away the disposable, tame, rehashed baloney they came up with, though they were dead on with the general lee car wash shots.
- never show a general lee with a functioning door.
- chill out on the daisy dukes a little. catherine bach wore tons of great stuff besides shorts. one of the hottest outfits was at the end of the second episode (“daisy’s song”). they totally hosed the girl-next-door aspect of the original (i.e., real) daisy duke. some believable subject/viewer intimacy is the crucial icing.
- a music video for a song about boots does not have to be about boots, fer crying out loud. are people dead inside?
- no goddamned line dancing. bleh!
a far better video could’ve been done for under $150,000, below the line. pisses me off to see these career formulaic slackers bullshitting everybody from the top to the bottom. you can’t buy a soul, and you can’t fake art. yes, there is art to kitsch when it’s done right — something the original dukes of hazzard knew and honored from the start. piss on soulless creeps firing budget blaster cannons. it is possible to make something good that the lemmings will still salivate over on cue.
and, referring to the film, damn to hell whoever thought it was a good idea for uncle jesse to tell dirty jokes. ben jones is right. fuck you for participating, socialist whore willie nelson.
August 1st, 2005 at 22:01
My Pop drove me past a place in GA when I was a kid that had near a dozen picture perfect “Generals” on the lot. Roughly half had already had their big yeehaw scene across the creek and were being cannibalized for future episodes. I was like, WTF is going on with all the General Lee copies?! It was similar to the moment I knew something wasn’t kosher with the whole Santa thing. Though I haven’t seen it, I’d imagine that watching the remake of the Dukes would be like listening to Faith Hill slaughter J. Joplin’s “take another piece of my heart.” I don’t even like the episodes that tried to foist off the “other than original” Duke boys on us…… But I still watch ‘em. yeeeehaw, fp
August 2nd, 2005 at 09:12
I grew up in rural Georgia and was a little bit of a motorhead myself, so I identified with the Duke boys and followed their exploits. In reality, though, the corrupt sherriff of my county would just have you killed if you inconvenienced him. Hazzard County seemed like a paradise to me in comparison to Whitfield County with the almost lovable Boss Hogg and inept law men that the Duke boys messed with. My sherriff would have just gone to their house and wiped out the whole clan. He would say he was breaking up a drug ring or something, and nobody would ask any questions. Daisy and the car were the main attractions of the show, not the idiotic story lines.
Meanwhile, line dancing can be fun to do, but it is not fun to watch.
August 5th, 2005 at 14:23
fp, i’m so sorry to hear of your disillusionment! LOL haven’t seen any of the fake dukes since they first aired. don’t think i could bear it.
vache, that sounds like most small town lawmen. they do what they want. what a great job.