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Article: Stardust memories. (changes in Las Vegas, Nevada)
- Article from:
- Artforum International
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Artforum International Magazine, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Is it just a coincidence that Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, Mike Figgis' Leaving Las Vegas, and Martin Scorsese's Casino, three would-be down-and-dirty 1995 Hollywood tributes to lost Vegas, all went into production at more or less the moment when, led by the refurbished MGM Grand Hotel, America's fastest-growing metropolis began promoting itself as the new Orlando? Lost Vegas became Vegasland, a wholesome middle-American theme-park resort or, as Nick Tosches calls it in his intro to the recently published, elegiac anthology Literary Las Vegas, "a corporate-run nightmare draped in the cotton candy of family values." Though pols may squawk about our unraveling moral fabric, ...