I've been going into "Daily Show" withdrawal ever since the WGA strike started, so I took to the 'Tube and searched for any clips of Jon Stewart. I was surprised to find someone had uploaded a speech Stewart gave on the first episode of "The Daily Show" since the attacks on September 11th. Keep in mind I didn't start watching "The Daily Show" on a regular basis until my senior year of high school, so this entire segment was new to me.
It's a startling nine-minute monologue with Stewart laying it out and telling it like it is. No sugar-coated diatribe on how we're all gonna move on with our lives, no phony sentimentality. Just straight from the heart honesty and compassion. I've always said that I love Stephen Colbert but his character on "The Colbert Report" is just that: a character. When Jon Stewart does his thing, it honestly feels like he's speaking his mind and telling you what he thinks is wrong with the world. Sure, he has roughly 14 writers working behind-the-scenes, making sure he gets that everyman tone just right, but it's humbling to see that, at least for nine minutes, he was able to speak his peace and move on:
I know it seems weird to post this at this time, but I just saw it and wanted to write a post about it. I hope everyone out there has a Happy Thanksgiving!
UPDATE: Use this playlist to view these videos plus eleven others! Click the playlist button at the bottom of the video to choose the videos listed on this page.
One of the most frequently linked-to blog posts I ever wrote was one in which I listed my top five favorite scary music videos. Well, I've recently fixed some of the YouTube links that have gone stale and I got to thinkin...it being Halloween and all, why not showcase a few more of these creepy vids?
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Y Control" (dir. Spike Jonze) Spike Jonze is generally well-known for his lighthearted videos for Fatboy Slim, featuring either Christopher Walken flying around a hotel lobby, or Jonze himself breakdancing in front of a movie theater. But did you know he made this creepy little promo for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Deranged children flicking off the camera while a wild-eyed Karen O dances around them is a good way to start, but pretty soon, Jonze has the little kiddies drag a dead dog around a barren room, chop off each others hands, and slice open their stomachs, all done in a decidedly low-budget grindhouse fashion. This is Bizarro Sesame Street! UPDATE: The link broke, so I found a version on YouTube that includes a goofy intro Jonze recorded with one of the kids.
Daft Punk, "Prime Time of Your Life" (dir. Tony Gardner) You'd think Daft Punk would be the last band to do a unsettling music video, but they've got two! "Technologic" made my list last year and I even picked this one for Most Disturbing Vid in my 2006 Hall of Awesome. The message is that the girl in the video suffers from a poor self-image that makes everyone around her seem skinny (or, in this case, skeletal). But it's really just a pretense for director and effects wizard Tony Gardner to dole out some shocking and graphic imagery. The mechanical droning of the song doesn't make the video any less creepy.
TV on the Radio, "Wolf Like Me" (dir. Jon Watts) So, my affinity for the videos of Jon Watts are well-documented, but rarely does he get under your skin as effectively as he does here, with this vid for indie darlings TV on the Radio. A combination of factors help make this video work, such as the gritty quality of the film stock, the silent movie title cards, and the rigid stop-motion animation of the werewolves. Watts' website has a higher-quality version of this vid, along with many more that are worth watching.
Röyksopp, "What Else is There" (dir. Martin De Thurah) Electronic duo Röyksopp's video library is pretty well-rounded. They've got the fun and surprisingly informative "Remind Me," the endangered species escape film in "Poor Leno," and the animated postcards of "Eple," but this one caught me by surprise. We can go ahead and establish that Karin Dreijer of Scandanavian electronic group The Knife is a pretty creepy individual, but even though that's her voice singing, the woman floating around in the video is actually a model named Marianne Schröder. (Dreijer makes an appearance at the end.) It's still a weird-ass vid, with flying houses, dripping milk, smoking trees, and general apocalyptic visions. It's Lynchian symbolism at its darkest.
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, "The Owl" (dir. Emmanuel Ho) Who would've guessed that a two-minute instrumental would make for such an effectively grim music video? Ho's sparse animation style fits the stark visual of a crow tethered to...something, as it tries in futility to reach the light billowing through a window, all while the title character sinisterly watches from afar, its harsh white eyes glaring directly at the camera. Poetic, minimalist, and downright creepy. If you aren't afraid of owls, you just might be after watching this video.
I just might start making this a yearly feature, so if you know any other scary music videos I have yet to mention, send me an e-mail! I leave you with a humorous look at the life of a pumpkin, by Waverly Films, the production group Jon Watts is a part of:
If you don't know by now, here are a few headlines:
1. Radiohead has a new album out, In Rainbows. It will be available digitally on October 10 (in ten days!) and in physical form on December 3.
2. The physical form is a "discbox," consisting of the album on CD and two 12" records, a bonus CD of outtakes, and tons of cool artwork, all wrapped up in a box. Each "discbox" is £40, or roughly $81, and the price includes shipping and handling to anywhere on Earth. Everyone who pre-orders the discbox will get a download key for the album on Oct. 10.
3. If you choose to get just the download, you can name your own price, and since Radiohead will not be sending out promos of the album, everyone will get the music on the same day at the same time. No leaks, no illegal downloads, nothing until the 10th.
4. A CD version of the album will be released in early 2008.
Update: In response to people wondering if you can pay nothing for the new album...
Don't worry; I already pre-ordered the album last night and offered up the adequate price of $5 (roughly £2.45). This was just an experiment to see if it would work.
I'd tell you the new Darjeeling Limited prequel, Hotel Chevalier, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman, and directed by Wes Anderson, is available for free on iTunes, but you probably already knew that.
50099I usually don't get political on this site, but I was very impressed by Amnesty International'snew website asking people to pledge to help tear down Guantánamo Bay. Cruel, inhuman treatment of prisoners by Americans is something we can not and should not allow, and pledging your support is one way we can help end illegal torture. I also really like the design of the website, which removes a pixel from the image of Guantánamo detainees every time someone pledges their support.
Doug Savage proves his worth in this stop-motion animated video featuring a song by Laura Veirs and everybody's favorite online post-it cartoon chickens!
2007 is slowly turning out to be the year to score some classic movies on new fully-loaded special edition DVDs. Here's just a sample:
Warner Bros. Video has announced that they will be releasing a Director's Series: Stanley Kubrick Collection box set on 10/23. The set will include brand-new, two-disc, remastered special editions of 2001: A Space Odyssey (my constant pick for greatest movie of all-time), The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut and single-disc editions of Full Metal Jacket and the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. The Shining has been restored to its original widescreen version, and Eyes Wide Shut will finally be released uncut. Documentaries and making-of featurettes abound. In addition, bare-bones but remastered versions of Lolita and Barry Lyndon will be available separately. (Source: DVDActive)
The Criterion Collection has revamped their website, turning it into an online store where you can buy their über-awesome special edition DVDs directly from the source, at a discount price, no less! This October, they will release a new 2-disc edition of Jean-Luc Godard's landmark film Breathless, which will include video interviews with cast and crew, an 80-min. French documentary on the making of the film, and tons more. Other noteworthy releases include Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, a 2-disc re-release of Alfred Hitckcock's The Lady Vanishes (featuring audio from François Truffaut's famous interview with Hitchcock), and new movies by Criterion regulars Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman.
If crazy TV is more your style, you'll be happy to know that David Lynch's groundbreaking series Twin Peaks will finally be available, pilot episode and all, in a new Gold Box Edition on 10/30.
Pixar will finally release all of their beloved (and often award-winning) short films in one collection, Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1, on 11/6, which will include every single short film since 1984's The Adventures of André and Wally B. (Also, Ratatouille will be out the same day.)
And, of course, unless you've been avoiding the Internet for the last year or so, you probably already know about the 5-disc Ultimate Edition of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which will include the highly-anticipated "Final Cut" of the movie, with new scenes, effects, and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound, as well as three other versions of the film (theatrical and international versions, as well as the first director's cut), a three-hour documentary, and the never-before-seen "workprint version" of the film. Fortunately, if you don't have the greenbacks for the 5-disc edition (which comes in a f**king suitcase!), there are tons of other versions available to purchase, from a 2-disc edition that just features the final cut and the documentary, to a 4-disc edition that includes everything but the workprint.
There's been a trailer circulating YouTube for P.T. Anderson's new movie for quite some time, but here's the new, more official-looking trailer that just debuted:
If I wasn't already excited about this movie, I am now. Daniel Day-Lewis looks positively villainous, Paul Dano (of Little Miss Sunshine fame) seems poised to be the next big thing, and an original score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood? Holy crap!
There Will Be Blood gets unleashed on the unsuspecting masses 11/21.
The two-disc DVD for the Aqua Teen movie, as per Williams Street standards, piles on the extras, though they might not be the extras die-hard ATHF fans were hoping for. Disc one has a commentary track with musician Patti Smith, Onion editor Todd Hanson, SNL's Fred Armisen (who also provides the voice of Time Lincoln), and Dana Snyder, the voice of Master Shake. Like most Adult Swim commentary tracks, it's just for shits 'n giggles and doesn't really provide any insight on the making of the film, but it's still fun to listen to. Plus, I now know a lot more about Patti Smith than I ever cared to know. For those who actually care about how the movie was made, there's a short behind-the-scenes documentary featuring the cast and crew, storyboards, and a pretty funny foley artist session including, in a bout of Mythbusters-inspired lunacy, the firing of a real-life potato cannon.
The selling point of the second disc is Colon, an 80-minute "deleted movie," which is essentially an early 2005 workprint version, before the addition of the Egypt opening, the Walter Melon subplot and before the special guests signed on (except for Bruce Campbell). Most of the deleted scenes that appear in Colon already appeared in finished form in the Aqua Teen "Star Studded Xmas Spectacular," which is also included on the disc. Most worth your while, however, are the music videos, which consist of either recording sessions or live performances at the movie's Atlanta premiere. The best of these are the ones featuring a quartet of radio jingle singers recording the opening song, "Groovy Time for a Movie Time," and Mastadon recording their death-metal response, "Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife." There's just something about a group of middle-aged men and women collectively singing "Don't pull your penis out unless you really need to!" that puts a smile on your face. All of Dana Snyder's "man-on-the-street" promos are here, as well as the mock-interview he did with Bob Odenkirk, playing the obnoxious film critic Danny Mothers.
Overall, some pretty nice extras to complement a downright hilarious movie. My only complaint is that there aren't a lot of tidbits on how the movie got made exactly. How did they get all their special guests (other than by offering a fat paycheck)? Who came up with the idea for that ridiculous opening sequence? And how did the Boston bomb scare affect the marketing of the film? Other than a brief mention during the commentary that the Mooninites are the "Bin Ladens of the cartoon world," the subject is never brought up.
Thanks to Film Ick for the scoop. You can now download the trailer to Michel Gondry's latest flick, Be Kind, Rewind, in which two hapless video store clerks (Jack Black and Mos Def) are forced to stage their own versions of popular movies after Black mistakenly erases all of their videos. The film also features Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz, and Sigourney Weaver, not to mention some hilarious send-ups of movies like Driving Miss Daisy, Ghostbusters, RoboCop, and tons more.
How may we be of service? From left to right: Diaz, Black, Def.
"The Salmon Dance" was one of the most unusual tracks to appear on the Chemical Brothers latest album, We Are The Night, or to appear on any of their albums for that matter. It features underground hip-hop legend Fatlip rapping about the ubiquitous fish and the strange dance it inspires. Also featured is a disembodied voice (known to Fatlip as "Sammy the Salmon") who relays various factoids about salmon throughout the song.
Anyway, in typical Chemical Brothers fashion, the accompanying video features a stoned-out slacker hallucinating a rave-up in his apartment aquarium, complete with a beatboxingblowfish. Here's the vid in Windows Media and RealPlayer formats. Look for the Chemical Brothers in an unusual cameo appearance at the end of the video.
Now is the perfect time to join the Apple Students Group on Facebook, 'cause now when you join, they'll send you a code to redeem a free episode of Human Giant, the MTV sketch comedy show. You'll also get free episodes of My Super Sweet 16, Engaged & Underage, Rob & Big, and The Hills, but I'm sure you'll find space for them in your trash can. The free Human Giant episode contains some classic sketches, with special guest appearances by Patton Oswalt, H. Jon Benjamin, and Mr. Show alumni Jay Johnston and Brian Posehn.
So, it looks like Planet Terror and Death Proof will be released separately on 2-disc DVD sets, with Tarantino's film getting the earlier release date (Sept. 18) and Rodriguez' released on Oct. 16. In my humble opinion, this is a bad idea, seeing as how I loved Grindhouse as a whole entity, but I just can't see myself spending $60 to relive that experience (each 2-disc set will cost $29.95), regardless of how much extra stuff they add. They've even replaced the "missing reels" in both films, which seems to be missing the point. It would make more sense if they were included as deleted scenes. Also, which release is getting the brilliant fake trailers by Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright, and Eli Roth (not to mention the one Rodriguez did himself)? All I can hope is that Bob and Harvey Weinstein will realize that people liked both films together and release the original, three-hour theatrical version (scratches and pops intact).
Oh, and in other news, it looks like J.J. Abrams' crazy-secret monster movie is to be called Overnight.
Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law: Volume 3 (Warner Bros. Home Video/Adult Swim; $20.99 at Amazon)
As Adult Swim continues its slow descent into crude potty humor and bland concepts with the likes of Tim and Eric Awesome Show and Saul of the Mole Men, the late night programming block also took the liberty of ending one of their best programs, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. The two-disc set skimps on the special features (no commentaries this time around), but all 12 episodes are essential viewing, and include non-stop laughs from the show’s stellar cast, including Gary Cole (as Birdman), Stephen Colbert (as Phil Ken Sebben and Reducto), John Michael Higgins (as Mentok, the Mind Taker), and Paget Brewster (as the perky and suggestive Birdgirl). Special guest Lewis Black portrays the Deadly Duplicator, who runs the shop Birdman gets his copies from, and Turner Classic Movies’ Robert Osborne stops by to premiere an classic Hanna-Barbera “Birdman” cartoon, which has been skillfully redubbed by the show’s cast. Overall, the set is worth owning simply for the inclusion of the “Sebben & Sebben Employee Orientation” episode, as well as the half-hour final episode, “The Death of Birdman.”
Zodiac (d. David Fincher; Paramount Home Video; $17.99 at Amazon)
Every time David Fincher gets another film of his released on DVD, it’s always a bare-bones version the first time through. Then, a few months later, a fully loaded 2-disc (or, in the case of Panic Room, a 3-disc set) will emerge, and used DVD stores will soon become flooded with single-disc editions of Fight Club and Se7en. The same goes for Zodiac, which doesn’t even bother to put the usual, fake special features on the back like “Scene Selections” or “Animated Menus.” In fact, its only special feature is a handful of previews for movies that have been out for a while and (get this) a commercial for the 2-disc director’s cut of Zodiac, which will be released sometime next year! It’s sad, really, because Zodiac is David Fincher’s finest effort, and the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, and really doesn’t deserve this “bait and switch” marketing ploy.
Wes Anderson is one of the few American filmmakers who can seriously be considered an auteur (others include Fincher, Jonze, Russell, Tarantino, the Coens, and the other Anderson, P.T.), so whenever a new movie of his is announced, it's big news, at least in my book. Well, here's the trailer for his latest endeavor, The Darjeeling Limited, which promises heartfelt comedy, beautiful scenery, and awesome music. Oh, and Owen Wilson. Pretty much everything you've come to expect from Mr. Anderson. Did I mention it was shot in India?
The guy over at Nedroid.com recently accepted the challenge of drawing 200 bad comics, and while I haven't made it through all 200, a lot of them are pretty darn funny.
Sorry I haven't been updating as frequently as usual, but there simply hasn't been much to report. Well, I'm off to buy the Zodiac DVD!
Michael Bay delivers one of the best excuses to sit in a dark room for three hours on July 4th and that excuse is titled Transformers. I’ve always considered Michael Bay to be one of the best directors of “disposable cinema,” that is, movies that you don’t need to see more than once. But this one just may end up changing my mind. You can’t help but enjoy a movie that dishes out not just the most incredible special effects ever seen, but also takes the time for characters to utter hilariously ‘80s-style dialogue like “You protect the weak. That is why you lose!”
The dialogue belongs to the sinister Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving, who is required by law to appear in every Hollywood blockbuster), and the character he is directing the statement towards is the noble Optimus Prime, voiced by Peter Cullen, who has been voicing the giant Autobot ever since I was born, a casting choice I commend the filmmakers for making. He’s the only guy I can take seriously with lines like “Before time began, there was... the cube.” Oh, that’s right; the reason all this mayhem starts in the first place is ‘cause there’s this cube called the Allspark and…you know what? It really doesn’t matter.
What does matter are the utterly mind-boggling special effects that take place within Transformers’ generous 144-minute running time. All of the transformers are given well-animated human characteristics, and their comedic value is put to good use in a sequence where lead actor Shia LeBeouf makes the Autobots hide in his backyard to keep his parents from seeing them. Robots transform seamlessly into various forms of Chevy vehicles, GPX boomboxes, Nokia cellphones, and even a Mountain Dew machine. As you can surmise, the only thing that is more prominent than the special effects is the product placement. I'd hate to ask Julian Casablancas how much he and the guys shelled out to have LeBeouf wear a Strokes t-shirt for most of the film’s first half.
But while the film’s generous screentime to car companies and cellphone manufacturers does make good fodder for critics to poke fun at, it hardly takes away from the entertainment value of this movie. All of the actors, LeBeouf especially, deliver quality performances, something of a challenge when you’re constantly being upstaged by giant machinery. The action flows pretty evenly throughout the film, and for the most part, Bay does a good job spacing the intense battle scenes with comic relief courtesy of Bernie Mac (as a used car salesman), Anthony Anderson (as a hyperactive computer geek), and John Turturro (as the eccentric head of the top-secret government organization Sector Seven). It all adds up to a great time at the movies and one killer sci-fi epic that will surely set the standard for all that come after it.
P.S.: I have to give J.J. Abrams credit for creating a trailer that almost upstages the movie it precedes. The trailer for his new film should be considered one of the best examples on how to whet the appetite of an audience without giving away any information, not even a freakin' title!
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