http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000005RSU.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
(This is consciously started on ILE!)
This was my absolute favorite movie as a kid, but the more I look at it, movie, front cover of VHS tape, DVD, album cover, soundtrack, actors, actresses, everything, it's not only truly something of its own, but it's in a more distant WTF planet than I ever realized.
So let's start with the front cover. OK, obviously since "the computer" is the pivotal character in the movie, the art design has to reflect something synthesized, for obvious reasons. But still:
* Why bathroom tile background?
* Touch pad keyboard keys, some of them colored.
* Only the "QWERTY" row of the keyboard?
Otherwise, the cover is a perfect artifact of its time.
I love the movie snapshot they used to impose inside the monitor. Virginia Madsen = hawteness, and that was her best expression in the movie, maybe of her career.
I love the movie title font. Yes, even the heart-dot for the "I".
I like the inexplicable vertical blue bar at the end of the movie title that's supposed to look like a blocky cursor but ends up not looking like anything close to one.
I like the really wide wirey font below used for everything.
Dare I say I like this cover better than Kraftwerk's Computerworld album cover, although that one is classic too, and it likely influenced this one.
I haven't even gotten to the movie yet.
"MOLES"!
― Mackro Mackro, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:24 (eighteen years ago)
The artists they picked for the soundtrack turned out to be enduring as the movie itself. Culture Club AND Helen Terry individually, probably so it looked like they had more people; same with billing 'Giorgio Moroder' and 'Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey' separately. Jeff Lynne's contributions are hilario. And who's P P Arnold again?
― Autumn Almanac, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:48 (eighteen years ago)
pp arnold sang first cut is the deepest dude (didn't she??)! she's pretty cool!
love the soundtrack, and (with reservations) the movie. bud cort was the computer!!
― stevie, Thursday, 31 January 2008 20:51 (eighteen years ago)
Jeff Lynne's "Let It Run" would have been the best ELO song had Lynne done it with ELO.
-- Mackro Mackro, Friday, 1 February 2008 08:58 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
Compared to contemporaneous output, absolutely. Secret Messages is 90% wtf.
I can't even remember what Let it Run sounds like. That's the impact it had on me.
― Autumn Almanac, Thursday, 31 January 2008 22:07 (eighteen years ago)