I have somewhat of a collection of crazy videos on Youtube I keep showing people to convince them of my insanity. So I thought that it would be fun to put them on here as well. Some of it's going to be pretty, some of it's going to be funny, nearly all is going to be incredibly weird.
I will try to update this every week along with my review and Pulling Rabbits, but if I run out of cool videos I won't settle for half-assed stuff.
Let's kick off with both one of the strangest and coolest music videos I know: Heaven Can Wait as preformed by Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg and directed by the magnificent Keith Schofield.
Turn the your resolution up to 480p when the video starts,
There are only two things you really need to know about The Social Network: it's really good, and it's not real.
The news that David Fincher, the maker of films such as Se7en and Fight Club would be making a movie about Facebook turned quite some heads. Wasn't Facebook something that pretty much embodied everything Tyler Durden was against? How the hell was that going to work? But it all worked out fine.
This is probably because the movie is hardly about Facebook: it's about people making something. And judging by the movie, you'd be surprised that that something is all about social interaction. Mark Zuckerberg is shown royally screwing multiple people over and he isn't the only one who seems to not be completely right in the social department. Be it not being able to connect to people or being just a little too good at it. The title of the movie is deeply ironic: this story shows things are anything but social behind the scenes of everybody's favorite distraction from work.
The movie is about the kind of people who basically run our daily lives. It is a sign of the times that one of the most powerful people of the world right now is a 26 year old dude with an alarmingly big brain. And if there is one thing the movie makes clear, it's that his kind of person definitely has some other pitfalls then the elderly, elitist men who have basically run our shit for all of human history. Two of the supporting characters, the Winkelvoss brothers (two identical twins of blue blood and quite the manners) seem to represent this old class, and their outrage over the fact that Zukerberg stole their idea (although the movie never really condemns him as such) might be taken as a very clear example of the current dispute between traditionalist, closed-source intellectual property advocates and their fast-moving, anynomous hacker opponents. But I might be reading a bit too much in it now.
Our future leaders will walk around like this all day
Every critic and their dog has already been screaming about the virtues of the movie, and it's not hard to see why. The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the acting of each three of the leading men, one scene in the beginning when Zuckerberg gets hammered and builds a website that would eventually lead to Facebook: they are all things that would make any other movie worth seeing on their own, and The Social Network has all of these things and more. And even though I was a little disappointed that their wasn't really any hard-biting critique against the website (who better to deliver this then the man who made Fight Club, after all) this is easily one of the best movies of the year.
Which brings me to the second thing you ought to know: it's not real. It's not even "based on a true story". The screenplay of the movie is based on a book called The Accidental Billionaires which was quite controversial and quite some more facts have been lost on their way to the big screen. This is not a bad thing (it has lead to a good movie, after all), but be on your guard when watching the movie. If you really want to find out what happened, do some research. Don't let this film become your only source of information on the matter.
What's left to say? Just go see the damn movie. Everybody's going to be talking about it within a few days, and it's going to end on every "Best of 2010" list in existence at the end of the year. It sure as hell will be on mine. Oh, and get the soundtrack when you get home. It's one of those rare ones that hold up on their own as well.
Alias
I only break my "no soundtrack" policy if the soundtrack has something better to offer then anything I can think of. This is one of those moments. Turn up your speakers before you press play.
Toy Story 3 is set about 10 years after the event of part 2. Andy is now 17 years old and getting ready to leave for college. The toys haven't been played with for years, and he decides to put them in the attic. Through a mix-up (you know how these things go when you're moving) the toys end up at a daycare instead. And although it at first seems to be a heaven compared to all those years in Andy's toy box, it soon becomes evident that the daycare is run with an iron fist by a dictatorial pink teddybear called Lots-a-Huggin', who seems to have taken crib notes from both Don Vito Corleone and Blofeld. The toys soon find themselves imprisoned, and decide to escape
Okay, so that's the story. I shall use the rest of this review to list everything that is amazing about the film.
No. 1: the sweet merchandise
No. 2: it is amazing with how much attention to detail Pixar has worked out their premise. They squeeze almost every logical consequence out the simple fact that their main characters are toys. This ranges from philosophizing on what it exactly means to be a toy (and trust me, this goes deep) to a constant awareness that these characters are not more then 10 centimeters tall, yet they still have to use stuff that was made for people who are about 20 times as tall as them. Imagine you having to do this.
No. 3: It's amazing how much depth Pixar has put in their films without sacrificing the fun. I will now list the themes in this very entertaining film:
- The thin line between true commitment to a cause and becoming delusional in your importance in the matter,
- The corrupting effect of power,
- The pursuit of ones purpose in life,
- The ruthless passing of time,
- The struggle of combining a youthful approach to the world while still growing up,
- And, most importantly, mortality and the acceptance of this.
I shit you not. Pixar movies always have had an enormous thematic richness, but this movie surpasses every single one of them. Maybe it's because the main characters have already been established in the previous two films (although Buzz still has some surprises up his sleeve) and the cast can now be put up against external forces, so to say, but whatever the case, it's rather staggering.
No. 4: the beautiful character models and the buttery smooth animation
Speaking of characters: No. 5: it's amazing how well each everyone gets characterized, even if they have only 2 minutes of screentime. There is this one hedgehog doll, who is called mr. Pricklepants (heh) and who is voiced by Timothy Dalton (heh heh). He fancies himself somewhat of a Shakespearean actor, complete with an utmost devotion to staying in character. He has virtually no importance to the story and has maybe like 10 lines, but you still get the feeling you know exactly whom your dealing with. He even manages to get a few jokes in. This is quite something for such a bitpart, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone outside maybe Robert Altman using all his characters so vividly.
But all of that is basically just filmnerd babble. I think the most convincing argument I can give in favor of the movie is this: at one point, I stopped the movie to think about what was happening and what it meant. At one point, I stopped the movie because I was laughing so hard I was afraid I would miss something. And near the end, I didn't stop the movie because I was almost crying. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking this is a kiddy movie: this is, by any standard, a great movie, simple as that. Pixar have outdone themselves once more, and that is really saying something.
Alias
At first I just liked this song for here, but it turns out the music video is totally awesome as well!
