New York City has inspired many great songs and movies. Maybe not as many as Paris, or even London for that matter, but still, out of the cities that can be visited on the North American continent, New York City is definitely one of the cultural leaders. After all, it’s got more of a history than Los Angeles and it’s less corrupt than Chicago. ALL HAIL NEW YORK!
Of course, I live in Texas and we tend to make a lot of jokes about New York down here. But we do it out of love. Or, at the very least, I do. Of course, the main thing that I love about New York is that everyone’s in a hurry and you don’t have to waste a lot of time being polite. I like that. The whole avoiding eye contact thing is a part of what makes New York great, in my honest opinion.
Anyway, this video from Kyle Minogue has a 1970s New York-on-cocaine feel to it. At least, that’s what I assume New York was like in the disco era. I’ve only got the movies to go on and Saturday Night Fever always seems like it’s just a few seconds away from showing someone doing a line of coke while John Travolta’s on the dance floor.
What I’m saying here is that there’s a lot that I don’t know for sure. But I do like New York and I do like dancing and I probably would have had fun in the 70s.
I love this song. It’s simple but it’s profound and I think the video works for the exact same reason. Sometimes, you don’t need to be flashy. You don’t need to show off. Sometimes, you just have to let the music do its thing.
Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Bajofondo, a band made up of musicians from Argentina and Uruguay. Bajofondo’s goal is to create and popularize a more contemporary version of tango and the other musical styles of the Rio de la Plata region.
This is an enjoyable video. Watching it causes me to flash back to the summer I spent in Europe and especially riding the train into Venice. Of course, nobody was actually dancing in the aisles on that train but it always seemed like they should have been.
Like yesterday’s music video of the day, I was introduced to this band, song, and video by twitter user @WarrenPeas64.
Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Hrdza, a band from Slovakia. It’s an adaptation of an old folk song and it’s a nicely energetic and fun little video, I think. I have to admit that as I was watching it, I saw a lot that reminded me of my own family. I think it’s kind of nice that I can relate a song and a music video from Slovakia to my own big Irish-Italian-Spanish family. Some things are universal!
The story that began in the video for In This World continues in the video for Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday). The aliens are back! This time, they have a little bit more success getting noticed. In fact, you could almost say that they have too much success. Can you blame them for deciding to go back to their home?
As for the song, I’ve always thought it was one of Moby’s best. It’s also one of his saddest songs, full of regret and melancholy. The fact that Moby was born on September 11th, 1965 undoubtedly has something to do with that. It’s interesting that such a sad song could inspire such an enjoyable video.
Just keep in mind that this video, featuring aliens getting their own television series, was released long before Keeping Up With The Kardashians. So, you can consider this to be a prophetic video, if you are so inclined.
In case you’ve ever wondered what it will be like when the aliens finally arrive on Earth, it’ll probably be a lot like this video. You do have to give the aliens credit for trying though. They made signs and everything. Maybe they’re mistake was landing in New York. New York is a very busy city and most people don’t really have time to look for tiny aliens. That said, you have to love their refusal to give in. They’re not going to surrender to despair. They’re just going to make a bigger sign.
One thing I always enjoy about the videos that Moby made in the early aughts is that the songs were often somber and tinged with sadness but the videos frequently weren’t.
Early on in the new Netflix film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, there’s a scene in which Liz Kendall (Lily Collins) and her sister, Joanna (Angela Sarafyan) go to a bar. Through some rather heavy-handed dialogue, we learn that Liz has just broken up with her boyfriend, that she has next to zero self-confidence, and that she’s a single mother. She doesn’t think that there’s a man anywhere who would be interested in her. Joanna responds by pointing out that there’s one man who appears to be very interested. In fact, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of Liz since they entered the bar.
That man’s name is Ted (Zac Efron) and, at first, he seems like he’s too good to be true. He’s charming. He’s a law student. He appears to love spending time with Liz’s daughter. He looks like Zac Efron. Perfect, right?
Of course, we know something that Liz doesn’t. We know that Ted is Ted Bundy and that, eventually, he’s going to become one of America’s notorious serial killers, a symbol of evil so potent that, more than 30 years after he was executed by the state of Florida, he continues to get movies made about him.
Because we know who and what Ted is, we spend the first fourth of the movie cringing at everything that makes Liz happy. For instance, Liz is shocked to discover that Ted apparently loves her daughter but we’re just like, “Oh my God, that’s Ted Bundy! GET YOUR DAUGHTER AWAY FROM TED BUNDY!” Liz thinks it’s romantic when Ted makes breakfast for her but we’re just staring at the big kitchen knife in his hand. When Liz and Ted make love, only we notice the blank look on Ted’s face as he looks down at Liz and we find ourselves wondering what’s happening in his mind.
The film is told largely through Liz’s eyes and, with one exception, we never see Bundy actually committing any of his crimes. (That’s a good thing, by the way. We already know who Ted Bundy was and what he did. There’s no need to sensationalize the very real pain that he caused.) Like Liz, we find out about Bundy’s crimes through news reports and arrest records. For instance, when Bundy is arrested for attempted kidnapping in Utah, Liz doesn’t find out about it until a story appears in the local Seattle newspaper. When Liz demands to know why he didn’t tell her what was happening, Bundy gives her a bullshit story about how he’s being framed and how his lawyer is going to get the case thrown out. We know that Ted’s lying but Liz believes him because …. what else is she going to do? Is she going to believe that this perfect man who seems to love both her and her daughter is actually a sociopathic monster?
The film follows Bundy from one trial to another, as he’s charged with crimes across country. It shows how this superficially charming law student became something of a media celebrity. (When a reporter asks him if he’s guilty, Bundy grins and asks if the reporter is referring to a comic book that he stole when he was in the fifth grade.) Bundy escapes. Bundy is arrested. Bundy escapes again. Bundy eventually ends up being tried in Florida, where he revels in the attention. When Liz loses faith in him, Bundy replaces her with an unstable woman named Carole Ann (Kayla Scodelario). However, even while Carole Ann is dutifully delivering statements from Bundy to the press, Bundy is still calling Liz and begging her to believe that he’s innocent and he’ll soon be freed from prison.
Why is it so important to Bundy that Liz believe in him? Is he just entertaining himself by manipulating her or, in his relationship with her, does he see the type of normalcy that he desires but knows he’s incapable of ever achieving? Towards the end of the film, Liz comes close to asking Bundy if he was planning on killing her the first night that they met. She doesn’t and it’s doubtful that Bundy would have given an honest answer but it’s still a question that hangs over every minute of this film (as does Liz’s physical resemblance to the majority of Bundy’s victims).
Though the film may be told from Liz’s point of view, she’s often comes across as just being a meek bystander, watching as the darkness of Ted Bundy envelops her world. The film itself seems to be far more interested in Ted Bundy and his twisted celebrity. Zac Efron plays Bundy as someone who knows how to be charming and who is good enough at imitating human emotions that he’s managed to keep the world from noticing that he’s essentially hollow on the inside. Bundy has gotten so used to acting out a role that, even when he’s on trial for his life, he can’t resist the temptation to turn the courtroom into his own stage. He demands to defend himself and, though he initially proves himself to be a good lawyer, his demands and his questions become progressively more flamboyant and self-destructive. It’s as if he’s gotten so caught up in playing his role that he’s incapable of recognizing the reality of his situation. He performs for the jury, the judge, and the television audience, treating the whole thing as if he’s just a character in a movie. It’s only when he has no choice but to accept that he’s been caught and he’s never going to escape that Bundy finally shows some human emotion. He cries but his tears are only for himself. It’s a chilling performance and Zac Efron deserves every bit of praise that he’s received.
Unfortunately, the film itself doesn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know. Director Joe Berlinger is best-known as a documentarian and he talks a “just the facts” approach to the story. We don’t really get any insight into how a monster like Ted Bundy could come to exist. Outside of Efron’s revelatory performance, there’s not much here that couldn’t be found in any of the other films that have been made about Ted Bundy.
(Interestingly enough, as I watched the film, it occurred to me that Ted Bundy was a monster who could have only thrived in a pre-Internet age. For all the books and movies that portray him as being some sort of cunning genius, Bundy actually wasn’t that smart. He approached two of early his victims in a public place and introduce himself as being “Ted,” usually within earshot of a handful of witnesses. He was so brazen that the police even ended up with a sketch that pretty much looked exactly like him. In all probability, the only way that Ted Bundy avoided getting arrested in Seattle was that he moved to Utah, where his crimes were unknown and the sketch wasn’t readily available. Today, of course, that sketch and Ted’s name would be on Twitter and Facebook as soon as they were released by the police. My friend Holly would probably retweet the sketch and say, “Do your thing, twitter!” He would have been identified and arrested in just a matter of time. Instead, Bundy committed his crimes at a time when news traveled slower and law enforcement agencies were not in constant communication with each other.)
The good news is that Extremely Wicked is not, as some feared, a glorification of Ted Bundy. He’s a monster throughout the entire film. Zac Efron proves himself to be a far better actor than anyone’s ever really given him credit for being. It’s a flawed film but, at the very least, it’s also a disturbing reminder that sometimes, darkness hides behind the greatest charm.
I was so impressed with Paul Rudd’s performance in Avengers: Endgame that, last night, I decided to watch another Paul Rudd film, 2018’s The Catcher Was A Spy.
Based on a true story, The Catcher Was A Spy tells the tale of Moe Berg (Paul Rudd). When we first meet Moe, it’s towards the end of World War II and Moe has been sent behind enemy lines to investigate just how close the Nazis are to building an atomic bomb. Intelligence suggests that physicist Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong) is leading the Nazi effort and, if the intelligence turns out to be true, Moe has been ordered to assassinate Heisenberg. As Moe considers whether or not he’s actually capable of killing a man, we get flashbacks to how Moe eventually ended up working as a spy.
What we learn is that, in the 1930s, Moe Berg was a major league baseball player. He was a catcher and, though he was never a great player, he was famous for being far more educated than the average professional athlete. At a time when open anti-Semitism was socially acceptable among America’s upper classes, Moe Berg managed to get an Ivy League education. Not only does he keep up with current events but he can also speak several languages. The other players aren’t quite sure what to make of Moe, nor does Moe ever seem to make much of an effort to open up to anyone, including his girlfriend, Estella (Sienna Miller, playing yet another girlfriend in yet another biopic).
Because he can speak Japanese, Moe is selected to be a part of a delegation of players who will be sent to Japan. While the rest of the players hang out around the hotel, Moe hangs out with an intellectual named Kawabata (Hiroyuki Sanada), discusses inevitably of war, and — for reasons that the film deliberately leaves unclear — decides to shoot a film of Tokyo Harbor.
Five years later, with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, it’s that film that leads to Moe getting a meeting with the head of the Office of Strategic Services, Bill Donovan (Jeff Daniels). No longer a baseball player and apparently bored with coaching, Moe wants to become a spy. Donovan notes that Moe has never married and asks him flat out if he’s gay. Moe smiles slightly and says, “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
And indeed, he is! Unfortunately, Moe is so good at keeping secrets that we never quite get into his head. It’s hard not to compare this film to the superficially similar The Imitation Game. But whereas that film made you feel as if you were seeing the world through Alan Turing’s eyes, The Catcher Was A Spy always seems to be standing outside of Moe Berg. In the film’s final title cards, it refers to Moe as being an “enigma” and that’s pretty much the way he is throughout the entire film. We like him because he’s played by Paul Rudd but we never really feel like we know him. The closest the film comes to suggesting what’s going on inside the head of its main character is when Moe — who has described himself as non-religious — attends a Kol Nidrel service at a Zurich synagogue and, for a few minutes, Moe lets his guard down. But, for the majority of the film, Moe remains unknowable.
With the exception of one battle scene, it’s also a rather low-key spy film, one that’s more in the style of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy than SPECTRE. Again, that may be true to the actual story but, considering that it’s a film about a possibly gay Jew working to take down a homophobic, anti-Semitic war machine, it’s still hard not to regret the film’s lack of big “stand up and cheer” moments. Clocking in at a rather brisk 97 minutes, it’s hard not to feel that there’s some big pieces missing from the film’s story.
Here’s the good news: Paul Rudd proves himself to be a thoroughly charismatic leading man in this film, showing that he can hold the audience’s attention even without special effects or a punch line. Rudd does an excellent job playing a character who, to be honest, has very little in common with what we may think of as being a typical Paul Rudd role. Rudd is always watchable, even while Moe Berg remains an enigma. Hopefully, Rudd will get more opportunities in the future to show us what he’s truly capable of doing as an actor.
This is a pretty good song but it’s impossible for me to hear it without thinking about those damn jeep commercials that were pretty much on all the channels all the time last year. Obviously, having your song (or a part of your song) heard several times a day is a good thing and it certainly explains why so many bands are willing to have their music used to sell unrelated products. Still, hearing a song in commercial always seems to dilute its power.
(It’s kind of like when I see that commercial for WGU that features that terrible, overwrought cover of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changin‘. And I’m just like, “I hope Bob Dylan’s making some money off of this.”)
Anyway, this video was directed by Joel Pront while the choreography was done by Matthew Peacock. Both the song and the video deal with the difficulty that comes with trying to maintain any sort of real, human connection in a world that seems to be designed to turn us all into social media-obsessed recluses. Of course, the jeep commercials left out most of the downbeat parts of the song and just focused on the chorus, as if the point of the song was that the best way to connect with people is to drive them around in a new jeep. The video, however, is more to the point.
Through the Shattered Lens