Hollywood has its message VERY wrong when portraying what architects and designers do in a day. starchitects:the podcast explores fact versus fiction with the professionals. How many interior designers (shoulder pads included) should work from the residential office of a sole proprietor? Would you pay for the services of an architect who signed off on a building where not only the electrical wiring is shot but the sprinklers won’t work unless you explode the water tanks on the roof (?!) using C4 (Paul Newman, I’m looking at you…)? Do you trust your developer moved the headstones AND the bodies?
A&D (architecture and design) professionals Jeff Wolinski, Vince Galea, and Roberta Pennington are joined each episode with a hand-selected “starchitect” in our amazing basement studio in Portland, Oregon and try to tear down what the entertainment industry has built up.
The Tower is the story of a smart office building that’s mad about Paul Reiser. This high Reiser is the latest in smart technology (beside Paul’s hair plugs) that really hates musicians (especially keyboard players).
When Die Hard meets Seinfeld that meets Robin Concord from Cheers in a sauna you have a feature film…a tv movie…a TV show…oh god we don’t know what this is!
We watched The Tower!
Richard Branson brought his unique production talents to what is a seemingly banal movie about a young architect learning the ins and outs of becoming computer literate for the sake of his job and personal organization. Any scene becomes active when you can turn major plot points into a music video. Just nailed the girl of your dreams for the first time? Music montage at Alcatraz. Not sure how to say “I love you?” Call on Culture Club to get your emotions smash cut to a head. Are you a computer who has recently become sentient and stuck in a love triangle with your owner and the woman upstairs? Might I suggest a little Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder (“Together in Electric Dreams”) to shake your virtual booty into a more upbeat mood?
Life lessons abound in this 1984 classic:
Lesson #1: Don’t download your boss’s hard drive over a telephone modem.
Lesson #2: Don’t put out an electrical fire in your hard drive with a bottle of champagne.
Lesson #3: When your conscious computer takes over all functions of your apartment, unplug it. No, really, you can unplug it despite the warning tag on the cord! UNPLUG IT!!
starchitect: Matt Carter