Video – Page 2 – The Red Pen of Doom

What you need to know before seeing AVENGERS 2: AGE OF ULTRON

April 28, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 3 Tinseltown TuesdayTagged avengers, avengers 2: age of ultron, batman, Captain America, comic books, dc, infinity stones, Iron Man, loki, marvel, meta-story, Movies, Superman, thanos, Thor, trailers2 Comments

Unless you live in an ice cave, you know that AVENGERS 2 opens on May 1.

When it does open, all your friends will go see it, then ask what you thought about it, and What This Movie Means for the next 10 Marvel movies. Those films will feature Thor, Iron Man, Loki, and 16 other characters, and they will make $18 billion dollars.

Let’s get you educated on the whole Marvel shebang, then talk about why Marvel, against all odds, has taken over movie theaters for the next century.

Before you spend $42 on Imax tickets, 5800 calories worth of popcorn with fake butter drizzled on it and 72 ounces of Diet Coke, watch this video to refresh your knowledge of all things Marvel:

And now I’ll get serious for a moment.

Why have the Marvel movies rocked the box office so hard? Continue reading →

Four killer trailers for the best movies of 2015

April 21, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 3 Tinseltown TuesdayTagged 007, avengers 2: age of ultron, avengers: age of ultron, Film, James Bond, Mad Max, max mad: fury road, spectre, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS2 Comments

Never have I been this stoked about so many monstrous movies coming at us in a single year.

And I’m skipping a few that look good.

Here are the four biggest films that I would crawl through glass to see three different times.

May 1 = AVENGERS 2: AGE OF ULTRON

May 15 = MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

November 6 = SPECTRE

December 18 = STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

YOU SPIN ME ROUND by Dead or Alive is the best of the ’80s worst

April 20, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 2 Music Video MondayTagged dead or alive, MTV, Music, Music video, you spin me round4 Comments

When you take a popular song and add an insanely bad video, you get ’80s gold.

I think it was Larry the Clark who spotted this gem. There’s no creativity here, no story, no theme.

This is my theory of what happened: the band showed up and the video’s director said, “Hey, we’ve got a picture frame and five acres of blue fabric. Just do weird stuff and I’ll keep the cameras rolling.”

Is there anything from the ’90s, 2000’s or today that even compares? (Note: videos by Adam Ant do not count, because that’s too easy.)

Why TITANIUM by David Guetta + Sia is a hidden gem

April 6, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 2 Music Video MondayTagged david guetta, Music, music videos, sia, x-men2 Comments

Do you remember this song, maybe on the radio?

A good little song, long before Sia went wild with CHANDELIAR and the little dancing girl who looks like an extra from BLADE RUNNER.

So this music video isn’t famous at all. Yet it should be.

It’s a short film with an actual plot and production values. They don’t do the usual trick of “let’s show the lead singer and the band 16 times, interrupting the thin story.” Not even once.

This little snippet of film could be the hook for an X-Men movie, with a lead character everybody can relate to and an actual plot.

Top 3 reasons why YOUR LOVE by The Outfield epitomizes classic ’80s videos

March 23, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 2 Music Video MondayTagged feathered hair, hair bands, MTV, mullets, Music, Music video, punk rock, reunion, sting, the outfield, the police, your love5 Comments

So I’ve been MIA for eons, (a) working hard at the work, (b) injuring myself and going to PT–deadlifts are evil, do not do them–and (c) at home, madly finishing & rewriting a new novel, which is crazy fun. Sometime soon, I’ll need to do laundry. Maybe even the dishes. I AM A DANGEROUS MAN.

Happy to say I can walk again without looking like it’s torture, or being asked by little old ladies if they can carry my stuff.

Today’s music video is a classic I heard on the radio and had to find on the interwebs. Because it’s interesting and a great microcosm of the ’80s, and the entire genre of music videos.

Have a listen and a look, then we’ll talk smack.

Reason # 3: Single Dangly Earring

Everybody had one. Punk rockers, lead singers, crooners, country singers.

A single earring sent many messages. On a male rocker, it told the world you were a rebel. Combine it with a tiny cross for irony: rebellious believer.

Single earring on a female singer? Rebellion, sure, but also, “Couldn’t find the other earring and hey, I don’t care.” Not caring, by coincidence, is the essence of cool.

Reason # 2: Sincere Imitation of Sting

For a long time, one rock band stood atop the musical world: The Police.

After they broke up, and Sting went solo, I heard this exact song on the radio and thought, “Huh, that’s cool, The Police got back together. I should see them in concert before they split up again.”

This song is the best imitation of The Police, ever. It’s not even close. Sorry, Bruno Mars.

Also: I saw The Police in concert when they actually did get back together, and it was beautiful. Sting’s son has a band and opened for them. Sounds a lot like his dad. Maybe he could join The Outfield if they ever do a reunion tour. I WOULD LOVE THIS.

Reason # 1: Epic Feathered Hair

Everybody has it: the lead singer, the drummer, even the random set girl who makes goo-goo eyes right back at Flirty McFlirty Pants.

You can’t be an ’80s rock story without feathered hair. If record label executives looking to sign new acts had a checklist, Feathered Hair was the first thing on it.

In fact, I can classify any band from the ’80s simply by the length of their feathered hair:

a) Modest Bleached Feathery Goodness = punk rocker

b) Feathery MacGyver Mullet = pop crooner (Richard Marx!) or mainstream country star

c) Long Feathered Hair + Mall Bangs = pop starlet

d) Bleach Job + Crazy Long Hair + Spandex = metal band.

Golden retriever destroys obedience course, wins Interwebs

November 21, 2014August 3, 2021Posted in 6 Friendly FridayTagged benny hill, dogs, Film, funny, golden retrievers, obedience courses, setups and payoffs, video, weird news1 Comment

This is funny, sure. But the Series of Tubes is packed with funny little things involving dogs, cats and kids with painted faces at county fairs who like turtles.

Let’s dissect this little piece of film to see what makes it work.

First, there are no words getting in the way of the images. This isn’t a PowerPoint slideshow. Nobody has to explain the joke, and it actually works better than English speakers like me have no idea what the announcer or anybody is saying, though it would not shock me if this is Scandanavian, if not Swedish, and make me have a sad for not speaking Swedish.

Second, there’s actually a structure to it, despite being so short. There are two setups before we get to the payoff, two different dogs doing the right thing, and ignoring all the food and chew toys, before the last dog decides obedience courses are a free buffet.

Third, the Benny Hill music makes it all work. Right when the setups are over and we get our payoff, the music puts you right there, and the golden retriever rewards us, not once or twice, but again and again, going after every treat in sight and ignoring all commands.

This snippet of moving pictures gives us the biggest possible gap between expectation (obedience) and result (chaos).

Sam Smith makes a sweet short film out of I KNOW I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE

November 17, 2014August 3, 2021Posted in 2 Music Video MondayTagged Arts, i know i'm not the only one, MTV, Music, Music video, sam smith2 Comments

Well shot. Well acted. It’s an itty bitty movie, people.

Your typical music video about a man stepping out on his wife has the woman scorned (a) trashing that cheater’s Beemer after (b) she gives away all his Armani suits to Goodwill and (c) the ending has her slapping him while he (d) sadly spots the FOR SALE sign next to all his other worldly possession currently being burned in the front yard.

Sam the Smith avoids the Hollywood ending and gives us ambiguity. Will she stay or leave? How long will the masquerade last?

Now, there are little things to nitpick. Sam is a man with a great deep voice, and this is shot with the female actress being the one cheated on, so that does start out a little odd. Also, Sam’s rocking a haircut that’s very, I don’t know, British. HOWEVER: you can always scratch at itty bitty details.

Overall, this music video stands out for great cinematography, which most bands can’t even spell, with great acting and the guts to avoid a Hollywood ending, even if they hired all kinds of Hollywood talent to pull this off.

I tip my hat to Sam the Smith and pray to the music gods that he makes more like this, if only to counter the effects of new One Direction videos.

Why TOO MANY COOKS blew up the interwebs

November 13, 2014August 3, 2021Posted in 5 Random ThursdayTagged airwolf, funny, parody, Saturday Night Live, sitcom, too many cooks, video, weird1 Comment

There is no shortage of funny or strange videos on the Series of Tubes, and it takes no great talent to find them.

HOWEVER: It takes some talent to make something as long, and interesting, as TOO MANY COOKS.

Before you watch it, listen: this thing starts out slow, and if you’ve never watched bad TV shows from the ’80s and ’90s, because you weren’t born yet, or have a rule about never watching the Glowing Tube, some of these parodies will fly over your head like a B-2 bomber.

I don’t believe there are any bad words or anything other than cartoonish violence and creepiness, but be warned that it does get weird, though I think in an interesting way. This really is something for people who grew up watching reruns of The Brady Brunch, TJ Hooker, Airwolf, Battlestar Galactica, Wonder Woman and about seventeen other shows. Funny stuff. Watch, then we’ll dissect it.

So: there’s no way to name every single genre and show that video just parodied. The list is ginormous.

From a big picture, though, the secret seems to be how this is different from Saturday Night Live skits from the bad old days, where writers took one funny idea and beat that dead horse all the way to the glue factory.

TOO MANY COOKS is the opposite. Despite repeating the opening song again and again (though they twist it), they’re actually cramming five metric tons of funny ideas into one parody skit, constantly changing their target to different genres and specific Bad TV Shows We All Used to Love.

Love is a big part of this. You can’t film a video of this breadth and style without loving those shows, and knowing them incredibly well. I could write a pretty good fake Airwolf script, and completely skewer it, because as a pookie, I watched that show religiously and adored the thing. Jan Michael Vincent FTW! And yeah, that thing was terrible when you fire up an old episode on YouTube now. But we loved our TV trash, and part of us will always love it.

Here’s why: entertaining trash, however trashy, is still entertaining, while pretentious nonsense, however well done, is still pretentious.

Well done, crazy makers of this parody.