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The most underrated and overrated cultural events of the year
From Prospect (UK), here is a long list, my picks were:
Overrated
Hollywood movies. US ticket sales recovered this year, but to what end? This was a year for microculture, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The bigger visual productions of the year won't much stand the test of time. On the bright side, television drama continues to rise in quality.
Underrated
The iPhone. The world really did change on 29th June 2007. We now have handheld personal computers and personal entertainment centres, yet they are no larger than a thin pack of cards. And no, I’m not a techie, a gadget freak or an Apple lover. The device itself is beautiful as well.
Going meta on you again, the most frequently cited overrated event was the movie version of Atonement, then the new Philip Roth book (the latter received one pick for underrated as well). Receiving one or more underrated picks were (I think) the new Hugh Brogan book on Tocqueville (which is excellent), the new Adam Thirlwell novel (no US edition yet), and Nicola Barker's Darkman.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 20, 2007 at 05:15 PM in The Arts | Permalink
Comments
I might add that US ticket sales now look worse than when I originally wrote this.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Dec 20, 2007 5:19:55 PM
This was the best year for domestic film since 1999. Many popular mainstream comedies and action movies were passable to good instead of dreadful to middling. The great movies of the year are diverse and interesting instead of tarted up costume dramas. Facebook and twitter as cultural high water marks? There Will Be Blood > There will be Andre' brand sparkling wine at Cody's NYE Party!!
Posted by: Michael Foody at Dec 20, 2007 8:10:38 PM
My God! Whatever happened to Paul Thomas Anderson?? Hard Eight and Boogie Nights were a blast but it's been straight downhill since. This latest "tarted up costume drama" (judging from the trailer) seems like the bottom of the barrel for him.
Posted by: angus at Dec 20, 2007 8:42:00 PM
Hugh Brogan is a wonderful guy and a great speaker. His teaching style (I knew him at Essex a long time ago) was amazingly engaging, a little over-the-top, and left you with the impression he was talking to you, even when you were sitting with dozens of other people. I'm not surprised the book on de Tocqueville is good. He was working on Kipling when I met him and he wrote with style and wit then as well.
Posted by: The other Eric at Dec 20, 2007 8:49:41 PM
What about the Efficient Cultural Market Hypothesis?
Posted by: at Dec 20, 2007 11:07:39 PM
Why do people insist on crediting the iPhone with starting a technology revolution? There are other phones that do what it does.
Posted by: chrisare at Dec 21, 2007 12:31:26 AM
I am an Apple fan, an iPhone owner, gadget freak, and techie, and I don't even think the iPhone was revolutionary.
What Apple does best is taking technology that exists and making it really usable and friendly.
There are blackberry phones that do everything that the iPhone does, they just arent nearly as much fun to use.
Posted by: DT at Dec 21, 2007 12:38:59 AM
I'm with Chrisare - except style iPhone not even the best gadget (by price/quality) in it's group. What revolution we are talking about?
Posted by: An78 at Dec 21, 2007 4:08:26 AM
> Nicola Barker's Darkman
Should be "Darkmans" with an "s", and the link is broken.
Posted by: Aaron Brown at Dec 21, 2007 12:37:50 PM
An78, Chrisare: I have never so much as held one in my hands, and would be reluctant to throw around words like "revolutionary," but I think the iPhone's popularity is a sign of the times. Whether or not it is the best, it's a fairly powerful gadget that is no longer only accessible to techies, if only because it's user friendly and aesthetically appealing (my girlfriend wants one because it "looks cute," I kid you not).
I actually thought this year was pretty good for movies. Like every year it had its share of duds, but also some very good ones.
Posted by: d.cous. at Dec 21, 2007 2:36:52 PM
I loved Atonement, the book and the movie, which I thought was a remarkably faithful adaptation. The only major changes occurred in the last section, and this was not to change the substance of the story so much as to avoid use of voiceover narration. I think people tend to be excessively hard in judging adaptations of beloved books.
Also, on what planet was the iphone underrated? It was everywhere when it came out, and everyone I know wants one.
Posted by: Katie at Dec 21, 2007 3:44:12 PM
What about Amazon's Kindle? Any comments? Seems like having 200 books in a light pad might be pretty handy, and the beginning of something big for how we read and carry around books.
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