Whenever I watch this video, I was tempted to compare it to The Belko Experiment but, actually, the video came out before the movie. So, perhaps The Belko Experiment should be compared to this.
Of course, the suggestion in this video is that the office riot is a scheduled daily event, one that — like The Purge — is designed to keep people in their place.
Big Data is probably best known for Dangerous. Personally, I think Big Data is responsible for some of the most important music of the decade. You’re free to agree or disagree as long as you understand that I’m right.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Last night, if you were in a hotel room in Alabama and you discover that you couldn’t get to sleep despite having a busy day ahead of you, you could have always turned on the TV and watched the 1996 musical extravaganza, Evita.
That’s what I did!
Evita, of course, is based on the award-winning musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Opening in 1952, with Argentina being thrown into mourning and chaos by the death of Eva Peron (Madonna), the film then flashes back to follow Eva as she goes from being a child of poverty to a well-known actress to eventually the wife of Argentina’s president, Juan Peron (Jonathan Pryce). The majority of her story is told to us by Che (Antonio Banderas), a cynical observer who pops up in various disguises and who is always quick to accuse Eva of selling out the poor while, at the same time, professing to be as obsessed with her as everyone else. Much as they did with the story of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, Rice and Lloyd Weber use the story of Eva Peron to explore what it means to be a celebrity in an unstable world.
(If anyone ever decides to produce a musical about the Kardashians, they would be fools not to approach Rice and Lloyd Webber to write it.)
Evita is kind of a strange film. On the one hand, it’s a wonderful spectacle. Director Alan Parker does a wonderful job visually interpreting the music. The sets are huge and ornate. The costumes are to die for. There’s never a moment when you don’t want to look at the screen. Parker keeps the action moving and, regardless of how cynical one may be about politics, it’s hard not to be impressed by the army of extras that march through the film, chanting “Peron.” While both the musical and film undoubtedly took liberties with the actual story (and don’t watch this film expecting to see any acknowledgment of the countless number of Nazi war criminals that Peron welcomed to Argentina after the fall of the Third Reich), it still does a great job of capturing the sweep of change and revolution. You watch the film and you understand why the citizens of an unstable country would put their faith in messianic leaders like the Perons. Jonathan Pryce does a good job playing Peron and Antonio Banderas is absolutely on fire as Che.
(In some stage productions, Che is specifically portrayed as being a young Che Guevara. Guevara, of course, was a racist mass murderer who became an icon because he was photogenic. Fortunately, the film is content to portray Che as simply being a politically active citizen of Argentina.)
And yet, there is an emptiness at the center of this adaptation of Evita and that emptiness is named Madonna. Strangely, for someone who has been a star longer than I’ve been alive, Madonna has absolutely zero screen presence. She looks glamorous enough for the part and she’s got a good enough voice for the songs but, whenever she actually has to act, Madonna’s performance feels awkward and forced. Her performance is too obviously calculated, and, as a result, there’s nothing natural about her or her interpretation of Evita. To put it simply, she tries too hard. She comes across as the type of performer who doesn’t so much smile as she acts the process of smiling. When Madonna performs opposite Pryce and Banderas, they’re both good enough to carry her through their shared scenes. But whenever Madonna has to hold the screen on her own, the film falls strangely flat.
The end result is a strangely uneven film, one that leaves little doubt that Eva Person was loved while, at the same time, never seeming to understand why.
So, originally, the plan was to share music videos about Alabama today and tomorrow but guess what? It turns out that there really aren’t that many good Alabama-centered music videos. There isn’t a music video for Sweet Home Alabama.All Summer Long is actually about Michigan. It is true that there’s a lot of country songs (and videos) about Alabama but picking one of them would mean sorting through a lot more country music than I’m really comfortable dealing with, especially when I’m just on a 2-day business trip.
(No offense meant, Alabama. You’re a lovely state.)
So, instead, today, I’m going to share this little gem from Elle King. I like the retro feel. It reminds me not so much of a James Bond film as much as one of the James Bond rip-offs that came out of Italy and Germany in the late 60s.
I’m going to be in Alabama for the next three days so, naturally, I decided that today’s music video should be Sweet Home Alabama. Since the song was recorded before music videos were really a big thing, Lynyrd Skynyrd never did a video for their original recording. However, I was able to find a video for Keenan West’s soulful cover version.
Sweet Home Alabama was originally recorded in 1973, as a response to a song by Neil Yong that was called Southern Man. In that song, Neil Young looked down on the South from the safety of Canada and basically damned everything he saw. In response, Ronnie Van Zant wrote:
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down Well, I hope Neil Young will remember A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow
Not surprisingly, Sweet Home Alabama has been a popular but controversial song in the past. Over the years, several critics — mostly folks from up north who don’t really get nuance — have assumed that Sweet Home Alabama was meant to be some sort of right-wing political track. What they miss is that the song is openly critical of Alabama’s segregationist governor. (There’s a reason why there’s a chorus of “boo! boo! boo!” after the governor is mentioned.) Sweet Home Alabama was less about defending the South and more about calling out the self-righteousness of northern activists who attacked the South while either ignoring or rationalizing the racism in their own back yard.
(And if you want argue with me about that interpretation, I’m going to need you to first read Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas. Don’t come at me unless you’re willing to discuss what happened in the early 70s when Boston attempted to integrate its schools.)
Anyway, this is a good cover version and nicely heartfelt video.
Some youtube commenters are already predicting that this will be the theme song of Trainspotting 3. Personally, I have my doubts as to whether there will ever be a Trainspotting 3 (if just because it took 20 years to get the 1st sequel and you have to wonder just how much long Sick Boy’s going to be able avoid either getting murdered or sent to prison) but still, I love this song and I love this video and therefore, it’s our music video of the day!
This is off the upcoming Teatime Dub Encounters.
Here are the credits for the video, as listed on YouTube:
I always have such mixed feelings about July. I hate the heat but I enjoy writing about Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog. I also love celebrating the 4th of July and this year, there was actually a nice breeze blowing on the 4th. The 4th brought together two things that I love: family and illegal fireworks.
It doesn’t matter how bloody or gory a film is. It doesn’t matter how creative the filmmakers gets when it comes to creating their monster or plotting out their haunting. It doesn’t matter how meta the dialogue is or how many references are tossed in to other horror movies. It all starts with atmosphere.
The right atmosphere keeps us, the viewers, off-balance throughout the entire film. The right atmosphere leaves us wondering what’s lurking behind every corner and it makes us jump at every unexpected sound. The right atmosphere tells us that something terrifying could happen at any minute. The right atmosphere makes us feel as if we’re watching a filmed nightmare. The right atmosphere keeps us watching even when we might want to look away.
The Howling is full of atmosphere.
Now, before anyone asks, this British film is not a remake of the classic American werewolf movie. Instead, it deals with the legend of Dr. Rathbone (Jon-Paul Gates). Rathbone, it’s said, was a scientist who lived in a mansion outside of a small English village. Everyone suspected that, inside of his mansion, Rathbone was performing horrific experiments on both animals and humans. When Rathbone mysteriously disappeared, no one regretted his absence. In fact, many people suspected that perhaps Rathbone had been killed by one of his experiments and, if so, good riddance! Of course, the only problem was that, with Rathbone gone, no one was quite what had actually happened to his experiments. Were they now living in the woods or was the whole thing just an urban legend?
Dr. Rathbone, at work
As Halloween approaches, three teenagers — Jason (Erik Knutsvik), his girlfriend Kristy (Tiffany-Ellen Robinson), and their friend Sophia (Maria Austin) — camp in the woods, hoping to discover the truth. After all, there’s a lot of online clicks and youtube views to be captured by hunting the paranormal. One need only watch Mystery, Uncovered with Ben Tramer (Matthew Fitzthomas Rogers) to understand that!
(I assume that Ben Tramer was named after Laurie’s unfortunate crush in the first two Halloweenfilms.)
When it starts storming and their car disappears, Jason, Kristy, and Sophia are forced to seek refuge in what appears to be some sort of decrepit asylum. They’re met by the caretaker, Shelley (Hans Hernke), who says he works for the Master and who, when an inmate suddenly makes an appearance, says, “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.”
Of course, no one that they’ll meet that night is harmless…
The Howling plays out like a filmed dream, full of strange characters and nicely surreal images. The film starts with a series of overhead shots, all of which suggest that not only the main characters but the entire world is being watched and stalked by some ominous and unknown force. With the exception of a few key scenes, the majority of the film is in black-and-white and some of the images captures, especially in the doctor’s lab, are striking in their starkness. (There are also a few brief scenes where the asylum is so dark that it’s hard to visually make out what’s happening. Instead, we only hear voices in the blackness, an effective reminder of why so many people sleep with at least one light on.) The few times when color does intrude on the film, like when Shelley lights a candle or when we see an episode of Mystery, Uncovered, the effect is a disquieting one. In perhaps the film’s strongest sequence, several of Rathbone’s “patients’ suddenly appear in full, vibrant color, a nightmarish montage that seems to literally explode from the film. There’s also a nicely down black-and-white scene involving a rather haunting dance.
Lest I give you the wrong idea, The Howling definitely has a sense of humor about itself. In many ways it’s an homage to the gloriously over-the-top horror films of the past. It’s a film that obviously was made for horror fans by horror fans and, as a result, the 83 minute running time is full of references to other classic horror films. Shelley, for instance, will be a familiar character to anyone who has ever seen a haunted house film from the 40s or 50s. There’s always a mysterious caretaker. As for the Asylum itself, it feels like it could have been transported in from the twisted, psychological landscape of German Expressionism.
I liked The Howling. It’s a low-budget horror film that makes pays homage to some of my favorite horror films and makes good use of a dream-like atmosphere. And, as I said before, atmosphere is everything….
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
RIP, the great cinematography Robby Müller .
4 Shots From 4 Robby Müller Films
Paris, Texas (1984, dir by Wim Wenders)
Dead Man (1995, dir by Jim Jarmusch)
Breaking the Waves (1996, dir by Lars Von Trier)
24 Hour Party People (2002, dir by Michael Winterbottom)
