Seriously, I love Blanck Mass. Blanck Mass is responsible for some of my favorite writing music. (And, by that, I mean that I often have Chernobyl playing in the background whenever I’m writing.) Songs like this are all about creating and capturing a mood. And really, I guess how you react to or interpret the song will probably depend on what’s going on in your life when you listen to it. Right now, I’m giving a lot of thought to the circle of life so, when I hear this song, I think about the inevitably of death.
And then I watch this video, where is pretty much permeated with doom. Everything is going to die, even the plants. That’s just the cycle of life. New things will ride to replace the old. Sometimes, those new things aren’t going to be good things but, fortunately, they’ll eventually become old things and then die. And they’ll be replaced by something else. And I guess that’ll keep happening until the sun goes supernova or the Earth gets sucked into black hole or whatever it is that all the fatalists are predicting this week. Myself, I think the world will end someday but it won’t be for at least a century or two so I’m not too worried about it.
(Of course, what would suck would be to discover that reincarnation is a real thing and, as a result, we’re all destined to continually be reborn until we all experience the end of the world firsthand. That would be a really cruel joke on the part of the universe. However, I do not believe in reincarnation. I mean, I know at least half a dozen people who all claim that they were Cleopatra in a past life so they can’t all be right. Can they? If I did believe in reincarnation, I would say that I was probably once Edie Sedgwick. Or maybe Clara Bow.)
Anyway, it’s all about cycle of life. Don’t start singing that Lion King song at me, either. I’m just stating a fact.
(Actually, it could just as well be taking a dig at the infamous David Icke. At least, I hope it’s taking a dig. If Benjamin Power is a follower of David Icke’s, I’m going to be depressed.)
I’ve actually had several dreams that are just like this music video.
Now, I’m sure that someone out there is probably saying, “CUE THE BIRD? Is that really the director’s name?” Well, actually, CUE THE BIRD is the name use by the creative duo of JP Stiles and Harrison Mack. According to their bio over on Vimeo, “CTB specializes in creating and curating content for the short attention generation.” That may be one reason why I like this video because, as any regular reader of this site should know by now, I’ve only got a four-minute attention span.
Well, to be honest, I love trains in Europe. One of my fondest memories of Italy was riding the train to Venice. And, when Jeff and I were in the UK last year, I discovered that I absolutely loved the London underground. Everyone told me that I wouldn’t but I did. Of course, I also usually took a Dramamine or two before boarding so I was often kind of out of it.
Outside of the DART train in Dallas, I’ve never really spent any time on any trains in the United States. To be honest, I’m always a little bit shocked to discover that Amtrak is actually a thing. A few years ago, I read an article where someone was complaining that people in the South and the Midwest don’t ever use Amtrak and, as a result, we don’t ever elect politicians who understand the importance of funding the trains. To be honest, down here, we really don’t care about Amtrak. We all own cars and we know where the highways are so we don’t need the trains.
As for this video, Michel Gondry put it together from footage that he shot while riding ten different trains across France. Gondry carefully edited the footage so that, while appearing like a seamless journey, the landscape changes in time to the music. It creates a wonderfully dream-lie and surreal atmosphere, one that reminds me of Gondry’s later work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Way back in 2009, this music video premiered during my favorite episode of Flight of the Conchords,The Tough Brets. That’s the episode where Bret performs a controversial rap, in which he attacks several other rappers. (“Snoop Dogg is not very good. Ice Cube in not very good….”) When Murray suggests that Bret may have hurt the feelings of the rappers that he called out, Bret forms a gang for protection.
Or, at very least, Bret tries to form a gang. It doesn’t go particularly well, though character actor Seymour Cassel does join up at the one point.)
However, before forming the gang, Bret and Jermaine perform an entire song about hurt feelings. This song is also known as Tears of a Rapper and there’s actually several different versions of it floating around. For instance, in a more recent version, the Maid in Manhattan reference is replaced with a joke about how much Bret loves Zac Efron. One thing that always remains the same is that Jermaine’s family forgot to wish him a happy birthday. Poor Jermaine!
Anyway, I like this music video. I like the fact that when Bret sees that his friends have gone to see Maid in Manhattan without him, Jermaine just happens to be there, trying to hide his face. For the record, Maid in Manhattan is actually a perfect reference because it’s the type of bland film that you would be embarrassed to discover someone had specifically gone out of their way not to see with you. It’s the one where Jennifer Lopez plays a maid and Ralph Fiennes plays a politician. At one point, Jennifer Lopez nearly sits down on a magazine that’s got a picture of Ralph Fiennes on the cover and she tells him, “Whoops, I nearly sat on your face.”
Add to that, everyone’s had hurt feelings at some point in their life and therefore, everyone can relate to this song. For instance, I’ve recently been making an effort to obey all posted traffic laws. Would it kill someone to say, “Wow, Lisa, you actually stopped for that red light! We’re proud of you!?”
There’s a lot of good things to say about this video. Beyond the fact that I like the song, I also enjoy seeing all of the different people who run off with the camera. This video has a lot of energy and it’s just a lot of fun to watch. Visually, it’s a perfect fit for the music.
But, honestly, the main reason that I love this video is that Calvin and Ellie are just amazingly, incredibly adorable together! Usually, whenever I see a video about a couple in love, I always assume that one of them has died and the survivor is now remembering all of the good times. But, in this case, I chose to believe that Calvin and Ellie’s characters not only survived the video but that they stayed together.
(Of course, in real life, Calvin Harris was dating Rita Ora when this video came out.)
From everything that I had heard and seen over the past few years, I was under the impression that this 1982 film was the ultimate in mindless action. I figured that the film was basically just two hours of Sylvester Stallone hiding in the woods, firing a machine gun, riding a motorcycle, and eventually blowing up a small, bigoted town. It wasn’t a film that I was in any particular hurry to experience but I knew it was one that I would have to watch eventually, if just because of how many filmmakers have cited the film as an influence. On Sunday night, First Blood aired on the Sundance Channel and, for the first time, I watched it all the way through. What I discovered is that there’s a lot more to First Blood than I had been led to believe.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely an action film. Stallone spends a lot of time hiding in the woods, firing a machine gun, riding a motorcycle, and blowing up a town. Somewhat improbably, only one character actually dies over the course of the film, though quite a few end up getting maimed and wounded. There’s even a close-up of Stallone stitching up a nasty gash on his arm, which totally made me cringe. But, even with all the gunfire and explosions, First Blood has more on its mind than just carnage. It’s a brooding film, one that angrily takes America to task for its treatment of its veterans and outsiders. In its way, it’s an action film with a heart.
Sylvester Stallone plays John Rambo, a troubled drifter who is still haunted by not only his experiences in Vietnam but also by the feeling that his own country doesn’t want him around. When Rambo, with his unkempt hair and wearing a jacket with an American flag patch prominently displayed, shows up in the town of Hope, Washington, it’s not to cause trouble. He just wants to see an old friend, a man with whom he served. Unfortunately, his friend has died. The man’s bitter mother says that he got cancer from “that orange stuff they were spraying around.” Even though the war is over, it’s still killing the only people who can possibly understand how Rambo feels about both his service and his uncertain place in American society.
As Rambo walks through the town, he’s spotted by Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). Rambo just wants to get a cup of coffee and relax. Teasle, however, views Rambo as being a stranger and, therefore, a possible threat to his town. Teasle wants Rambo to leave. Rambo wants to know why, after everything that he’s sacrificed for his country, he’s being told that he needs to get a haircut. From this simple conflict — a misunderstanding really, as Teasle doesn’t know that Rambo is mourning the death of his friend and instead interprets Rambo’s sullen silence as being a threat — an undeclared and unwinnable war soon breaks out.
Technically, Teasle is the film’s villain. He’s the one who arrests Rambo for vagrancy. It’s his abusive deputies who cause Rambo to have the flashbacks that lead to him breaking out of jail. It’s Teasle’s arrogance that leads to him ignore the warnings of Rambo’s former commanding office, Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna). And yet, Teasle himself is never portrayed as being an evil man. Instead, Dennehy plays Teasle as being well-meaning but stubborn. It’s been written that the most compelling villains are the ones who don’t realize that they’re the villain and that’s certainly true in Teasle’s case. Teasle’s job is to protect the town and its citizens and that’s what he’s determined to do. If his actions become extreme, it has less to do with any deliberate cruelty on his part and everything to do with the fact that, towards the end of the film, he finally figures out that he’s in way over his head.
Once Rambo has disappeared into the woods and maimed (but not killed) all of Teasle’s deputies, he only has one request and that’s to be left alone. He simply wants to stay in the woods, hunting for food and free from a society that has nothing to offer him during peacetime. What’s interesting is that, at the start of the film, everyone wants Rambo to just disappear. He’s a reminder of not just the turmoil of the Vietnam era but also the fact that Vietnam was the first war that America lost. Rambo’s presence is viewed as being like an ugly scar that you wish would just fade away. However, once Rambo does actually vanish, people won’t stop looking for him. As opposed to the later films in the franchise, the Rambo of First Blood doesn’t want to fight anyone. Rambo just wants to be left alone in solitude and considering the way that he’s treated by the town of Hope, it’s hard to blame him.
And so, you end up sympathizing with this John Rambo. Even thought he’s blowing up a town during the Christmas season and there’s a few scenes where he’s kind of scary, it’s impossible not to feel that he has a right to his anger. You find yourself wishing that the Sheriff had just left him alone or that maybe Rambo had just taken Teasle’s earlier advice and left town. Because, as you watch the film, you know that 1) there was no good reason why any of this had to happen and 2) things probably aren’t going to end well for either John Rambo or Will Teasle.
First Blood was based on a novel that was first published in 1972. The film spent nearly a decade in development, as various directors, screenwriters, and actors circled around the project. At one point, First Blood was envisioned as an anti-war film that would have been directed by Sidney Lumet and which would have featured a bearded Al Pacino lurking through the wilderness and killing not only Teasle but also several deputies and national guardsmen. When Stallone agreed to star in the film, he also rewrote the script, transforming Rambo into a sympathetic outsider who goes out of his way not to kill anyone. The end result was an underdog story that audiences could embrace.
Seen today, it’s interesting to see how many familiar faces pop up in First Blood. For instance, a young and really goofy-looking David Caruso pops up and totally overacts in the role of the only sympathetic deputy. A less sympathetic deputy is played by Chris Mulkey, who would go on to play other unsympathetic characters in a huge number of movies and TV shows. Interestingly enough, the most sadistic of the deputies was played by Jack Starrett, who directed a several classic B-moves in the 70s. (One of Starrett’s films was The Losers, in which a bunch of bikers were sent to Vietnam to rescue an American diplomat.)
As opposed to many of the films that it subsequently inspired, First Blood holds up surprisingly well. It may be violent but it’s violence with a heart.
The 1985 film, Red Sonja, invites us to take a journey to a forgotten age, a time of a mythical kingdoms, evil sorcery, epic sword fights, and annoying little child kings who spent a lot of time shouting. It’s a time of wonder, danger, heroism, and, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Reportedly, the once and future governor of California has frequently named Red Sonja as being the worst film in which he ever appeared. When you consider some of the other films that have featured Gov. Schwarzenegger, that’s indeed a bold statement. In Red Sonja, Schwarzenegger plays Lord Kalidor. Interestingly enough, Lord Kalidor is absent for the majority of the film. He shows up briefly at the beginning of the film and then he vanishes for quite a bit of Red Sonja‘s 89-minute running time. Whenever Schwarzenegger does show up, he wears the smirk of a man who knows that he’s going to get paid a lot of money for doing very little actual work.
The majority of the film focuses on Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen), a warrior who lives in one of those vanished ages, perhaps after the War of the Rings but before the sinking of Atlantis. When we first see her, she’s being spoken to by what appears to be a puff of smoke, which is apparently meant to be some sort of warrior goddess. The puff of smoke fills tells Sonja about everything that happened to her before the start of the movie, though we never do learn why Sonja needs to be told her own backstory. After rejecting the sexual advances of the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Begman), Sonja was forced to watch as her parents and brother were murdered and then she was raped and left for the dead by the Gedren’s soldiers. The Goddess promises to make Sonja into a superior warrior, on the condition that Sonja agree to never have sex with a man unless that man can first beat her in fair combat. Sonja agrees and is sent off to get trained by the Grand Master. It’s kinda like Kill Bill, if Bill was a puff of smoke.
Jump forward to …. well, I’m not sure how many years pass. To be honest, it’s next to impossible to really discern any sort of coherent logic to the film’s narrative progression so let’s just give up on that. What’s important is that there’s this temple and, inside the temple, there’s a glowing green talisman. Apparently, the talisman created the world but now it needs to be carefully watched over before being destroyed. Only women are allowed to handle the talisman (Yay!) but they’re not allowed to destroy it unless directed by a man. (Booooo!) The temple priestesses are waiting for Lord Kalidor to arrive so that they can get rid of the talisman. However, Queen Gedren shows up first. Not only does she steal the talisman but she kills the priestesses as well.
One of the priestesses was Varna (Janet Agren, who you might recognize from Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead). Varna just happens to be the sister of Sonja. (Sonja is now known as Red Sonja, because she had red hair. From now on, I want to be known as Red Lisa.) Now, Sonja has yet another reason to want to kill Gedren! Rejecting Kalidor’s help, Sonja heads off for revenge. Along the way, she meets an annoying child king named Tarn (Ernie Reyes, Jr.), who is upset that Gedren previously destroyed his kingdom. Despite hating him, Sonja allows Tarn and his guardian, Falkon (Paul L. Smith), to tag along with her. Despite not being an official member of the revenge party, Kalidor decides to follow after them because he wants to beat Red Sonja in fair combat, if you get what I mean.
Red Sonja is a spectacularly silly film. The dialogue is stilted. Even by the standards of the 1980s ,the special effects are poorly executed. This the type of film where the evil Queen nearly destroys the world not because she has any sort of grand scheme but instead, just because she’s evil and that’s what evil people do. Brigitte Nielsen delivers her lines with a forced solemnity while Schwarzenegger, Bergman, and the great Paul L. Smith seem to be struggling not to start laughing.
And yet, there’s a sneaky charm to be found in all of the silliness. For instance, when Sonja does finally reach the queen’s castle, she has to cross a bridge that appears to basically be the skeleton of giant rhinoceros. No none in the film seems to be surprised to come across a skeleton a giant rhinoceros and, to be honest, there’s no reason for it to be there. It’s just there and it’s so wonderfully out-of-place that it becomes rather fascinating. Add to that, while the portrayal of the evil lesbian queen is problematic in all sorts of ways, this is a film about a strong female warrior who doesn’t need a man to rescue her and that was probably even more rare in 1985 than it is today!
Watching Red Sonja, you get the feeling that nobody involved in the film took it all that seriously and that perhaps the best way to handle the movie is to just sit back and have a laugh. It’s dumb, it’s campy, it often makes no sense but, at the same time, it’s still a lot easier to follow than Game of Thrones. Like many bad films, it’s only bad if you watch it alone. Watch it with a group of your snarkiest friends and you’ll have a totally different experience.
This video kind of starts out with this vibe that basically says, “The world’s about to end so we might as well have the greatest party ever before we all cease to exist!” However, it then quickly turns into something much different. The party is so wonderful and the music so powerful that people start to spontaneously turn into Yetis. Have you ever wondered where the Sasquatch came from? Well, now you know. No longer will I fear running into the Boggy Creek Monster whenever I head up to Arkansas.
Personally, I love to dance and I certainly love Tiesto but I don’t know if I’d be willing to allow myself to be transformed into a Sasquatch. I may be alone in that, though. Everyone in the video certainly does appear to be happy about it.
Through the Shattered Lens 