Leaving Las Vegas Research Articles

Screen Circuits: Fear and Paranoia in the Sprawl (circa 1995)

The 1990s was a strange time to be alive: a saxophone playing U.S. president waltzed into a Cold War vacuum left behind by the crumbling of the Soviet Eastern Bloc, while Gulf War 1.0 was the first mediated war, yet one lacking any meaningful optics - Baudrillard's so-called weak event. Meanwhile, technology, culture and information was rapidly beginning to coalesce in unexpected ways. The 1990s was more of a feeling than a knowing, there was certainly change afoot and the clock was ticking on a century of acceleration and shrinking horizons. Zygmunt Bauman (Liquid Modernity, 2000) and Paul Virilio (Open Sky, 1997) capture this time from the perspective of the machine's lens and big data's gathering torrents. We were only just beginning to stockpile our algorithmic future. There is of course a strong human element to all of this as well, as domesticity was about to be transformed in ways not seen since the automation of white goods in the 1950s. Installing a telephone line in a new rental was a priority as this was not just a communication device but a gateway to a new digital epoch (chat rooms, conspiracy theories, gaming mods and a seemingly limitless archive of music). Australians, who would become the new suitors of the boom in computer peripherals and digital gadgetry, turned the latent ability to send short text messages from their mobile phones into a new form of digital dialectics. Meanwhile, the cinema was signalling a grave warning of what all of this might mean if we could indeed become virtual, if the machine was in fact alive and information networks consciousness itself. From James Bond confronting a Rupert Murdock/Conrad Black-type media demigod in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), to the digital psychedelics of the millennial rush in Strange Days (1995) to Henry Rollins raging against reality in the William Gibson penned Johnny Mnemonic (1995). These mid-nineties films tapped a rich vein of paranoia around the new vanguard of networked information and computer-generated image making while also expressing - in often garish terms - a deep anxiety about a not-to-distant future crackling into view beyond the millennial divide.

Nicolas Cage – good or bad? Stardom, performance, and memes in the age of the Internet

ABSTRACTUsing Nicolas Cage as a case study, this article discusses the complex meanings – and contradictions – that can develop within a film star’s persona in the digital age. Cage has been venerated by the academy, most notably winning the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), as well as receiving a nomination in the same category for Adaptation. (2002). Throughout the early 2000s, he additionally enjoyed a privileged position as one of the highest-grossing box-office stars. However, many of Cage’s recent films have underperformed both critically and commercially, with several bypassing cinemas entirely. Failing stardom has traditionally been viewed as a relatively linear path towards obscurity, save for any carefully-staged comebacks or salacious moments of scandal that revive interest. In the Internet era, however, this trajectory can be more complicated. Over the last decade, Cage’s star image has inadvertently become a prominent subject for online memes. New technology has permitted such instances of ‘textual poaching’ (to coin Henry Jenkins’ term) to reach a much larger audience than ever before. This article will consider whether such an approach should always be considered progressive, as an empowerment of the audience. Cage is often lampooned online for perceived excess – a reading arguably heightened when fragmented clips are presented in fan edits without their original contexts. Is this fair criticism of an objectively bad actor, or does this reaffirm the primacy of naturalism within American film acting?

Replication of leaving Las Vegas in the #2 travel destination, Orlando, Florida. A commentary on Wray, Miller, Gurvey, Carroll and Kawachi (2008)

Replication of leaving Las Vegas in the #2 travel destination, Orlando, Florida. A commentary on Wray, Miller, Gurvey, Carroll and Kawachi (2008)

Leaving Las Vegas May Reduce Odds of Suicide

Leaving Las Vegas May Reduce Odds of Suicide

Leaving Las Vegas: Exposure to Las Vegas and risk of suicide

Residents of Las Vegas, Nevada have much higher suicide rates than residents of other metropolitan counties in the USA. Whether the risk of suicide among visitors to Las Vegas is also significantly elevated has been difficult to assess because person-time denominator information is not available. We used a case–control design to examine the association between exposure to Las Vegas and risk of suicide expressed as mortality odds ratios. We conceptualized four different types of potential suicide risk with respect to Las Vegas: (1) risk of suicide among usual residents of Las Vegas (“chronic risk”), (2) risk of suicide among temporary visitors to Las Vegas (“acute risk”), (3) risk of suicide among Las Vegas residents visiting elsewhere (“leaving Las Vegas risk”), and (4) risk of suicide among travelers in general (“traveler risk”). Controlling for age, gender, marital status, and year effects, the odds of suicide among Las Vegas residents was at least 50% greater than among residents elsewhere in each of the three decades we observed. Visitors to Las Vegas were at double the risk compared to those who stayed in their home county. Leaving Las Vegas was associated with a greater than 20% reduction in risk for suicide. Traveling to Las Vegas is associated with a twofold increase in risk compared to traveling elsewhere. We discuss three possible theoretical frameworks to help explain our observed results: ecological effects, whereby social factors unique to Las Vegas, or uniquely amplified in Las Vegas, result in increased risk to both residents and visitors; selection effects whereby those predisposed to suicide disproportionately choose Las Vegas to reside in and visit; and contagion effects, whereby high numbers of suicides tend to lead to even greater numbers over time, as people emulate the suicides of others. We compare our empirical evidence for each of the effects with existing sociological and historical scholarship on Las Vegas.

Feature Films with Alcohol Concerns Identified by Upper-Division College Students

The purpose of this descriptive study was to utilize the most frequently identified feature movies by college students, whose main characters have alcohol problems, to assist these students in addressing their knowledge and beliefs about alcohol abuse and recovery. A sample of 280 registered nursing (RN) to bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) and other upper-division college students, mostly female and white, at one university commuter campus submitted the names of feature films having major characters with alcohol problems. One hundred and seventy-three feature movies were identified, with three movies comprising 35.7% of the 574 submissions: When a Man Loves a Woman (1994), Leaving Las Vegas (1995), and 28 Days (2000). Five additional movies resulted in another 14.5% of the responses: Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Arthur (1981), Clean and Sober (1988), Animal House (1978), and Barfly (1987). These eight movies are briefly reviewed and information is provided about incorporating movies into course work...

Styron Leaves Las Vegas

This essay examines the relationship between wording authorship, depression and addiction. Styron's own experience was of tumbling into acute depression, following the withdrawal of his habitual low-level alcohol habit. The paper examines the way in which such depressions may be described as emptinesses of being congruent with a philosophical (Sartrean) perspective: it compares them with the wild excesses and hyperactivities associated with alcoholism in Leaving Las Vegas and The Great Gatsby. The paper makes several theoretical association between alcoholic behavior and the act of writing itself.

Treatment Decisions for Young Children Who Stutter

Treatment Decisions for Young Children Who Stutter

Review: Leaving Las Vegas by Mike Figgis, Lila Cazès, Annie Stewart

Book Review| July 01 1996 Review: Leaving Las Vegas by Mike Figgis, Lila Cazès, Annie Stewart Leaving Las VegasMike FiggisLila CazèsAnnie Stewart Albert Johnson Albert Johnson Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (1996) 49 (4): 38–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/1213557 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Albert Johnson; Review: Leaving Las Vegas by Mike Figgis, Lila Cazès, Annie Stewart. Film Quarterly 1 July 1996; 49 (4): 38–40. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1213557 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1996 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.