How about a little Muse for today’s music video of the day?
I’ve always found it ironic that this band is named Muse because I’m usually at my most productive whenever I’ve got them playing in the background. There are just certain groups that help to get me in the mood to write. The Chemicals Brothers is one. So is Jakalope. Sleigh Bells, definitely. And then there’s Muse.
Starlight is a favorite of mine. According to my BFF, I once stayed up for six days straight, listening to this song over and over again. I think she’s exaggerating but it is a song that I listen to frequently.
Starlight was directed by Paul Manor. The band is performing on the deck of the MS Ocean Chie, which Wikipedia describes as being a “handysize bulk carrier.” I have no idea what that description means, beyond the fact that the boat’s deck was big enough for Muse to perform. According to Matt Bellamy, there is a deeper symbolism behind them performing on the boat. The video is about a band that is lost at sea because, at the time, Muse felt they were “outside what’s happening in the music scene.”
Hi! Lisa here with today’s music video of the day!
I love this song and this video. I still know some people who are convinced that this song is called “Sell Me Weed” but no, it’s called Set Me Free and this video proves it by showing that Dillon and Martin can not only be released from prison but also from your PC.
Hi, everyone! Lisa here, with today’s song of the day.
Why did I pick Heroes for today’s music video of the day, beyond the fact that it’s a really good song and a simple video that doesn’t require too much interpretation? Some of it is because today is the international Day of the Imprisoned Writer and Heroes is a song about two lovers living in the shadow of oppression. Technically, Heroes tells the story of two lovers in Berlin who meet everyday under the shadow of the Berlin Wall. According to Songfacts:
Bowie, who was living in Berlin at the time, was inspired by an affair between his producer Tony Visconti and backup singer Antonia Maass, who would kiss “by the wall” in front of Bowie as he looked out of the Hansa Studio window.
The other reason that I picked Heroes is because I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Christiane F. Both Bowie and this song play very important roles in that harrowing film.
As for the video, it’s simple but that’s why it works. The starkness of the video matches nicely with raw emotion of Bowie’s voice.
Hi! Lisa here, with today’s music video of the day.
Today’s video comes to us from singer-songwriter David Strange, who has played in several bands and who had a stint as Courtney Love’s guitarist. Titled Cocaine, the song and the video are about exactly what you would think they would be about and both feature a surrealistic edge that I absolutely love.
This video was directed by Strange’s frequent collaborator, Charlotte Kemp Muhl. A talented musician herself, Muhl is also the longtime partner of Sean Lennon. Both Muhl and Lennon played on Strange’s EP dAVID sTRANGE (which Muhl also produced.)
Does this seem familiar? It’s because Val already shared her thoughts about this video. This is a song that means a lot to me, especially on this day, so that’s why I’m sharing my thoughts now. It’s either that or else I forgot to check on whether this video had been previous shared before I wrote and scheduled this post.
Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony this life Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die. I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. No change, I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change, but I’m here in my mold, I am here in my mold. But I’m a million different people from one day to the next I can’t change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Bitter Sweet Symphony. It’s a beautiful song that, on days like today, means a lot to me. The lyrics were written by Richard Ashcroft, the lead singer of The Verve. That’s him in the video, lurching Frankenstein-like down Hoxton Street in London.
The famous orchestral riff, which has been heard in so many movies and commercials, was lifted from a 1965 song by The Rolling Stones, The Last Time. When the band tried to get permission to use the sample, there was a lot of confusion about who actually owned the rights. You can read all the details on Songfacts. It’s a bit too complicated for me to even try to put my mind around.
Well I never pray, But tonight I’m on my knees, yeah. I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah. I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now. But the airwaves are clean and there’s nobody singing to me now.
The video,I assume, was very carefully orchestrated. Personally, I’d love to imagine that Ashcroft just started walking down the street, intentionally crashing into anyone or anything that got in his way. I especially relate to the woman who gets in Ashcroft’s face after he walks over her car. That would be me.
The video was directed by Walter Stern, who has sixteen credits listed on the imvdb. Supposedly the video was inspired by another music video, this one for Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. I’ve never seen the Massive Attack video but apparently it also features a lead singer lurching down a street. Though Walter Stern didn’t direct Unfinished Sympathy, he did do a different video for Massive Attack (Tear Drop) shortly before doing Bitter Sweet Symphony.
No change, I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change, But I’m here in my mold, I am here in my mold. And I’m a million different people from one day to the next I can’t change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
(Well have you ever been down?) (I can’t change, I can’t change)
When I rewatched this video for this post, I was struck by just how tall Richard Ashcroft is. Honestly, I would probably get out of his way. Unless he walked across my car, of course. Then I’d get in his face and start yelling.
Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony this life. Trying to make ends meet, trying to find some money then you die. I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. No change, I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change, but I’m here in my mold, I am here in my mold. But I’m a million different people from one day to the next I can’t change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I can’t change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I can’t change my mold, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Despite the fact that The Verve was opposed to having their music appear in commercials, they didn’t control the rights. As such, Bitter Sweet Symphony was used in a campaign for Nike. The Verve donated the money that they made to the Red Cross Land Mine Appeal. Of course, the song’s appeared in a lot of commercials and movies since then.
It’s just sex and violence melody and silence It’s just sex and violence melody and silence (I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down) It’s just sex and violence melody and silence It’s just sex and violence melody and silence It’s just sex and violence melody and silence (I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down) (It’s just sex and violence melody and silence)Been down (Ever been down) (Ever been down) (Ever been down) (Ever been down) (Ever been down)
It’s funny. If Ezekiel had been the one to die, I don’t think it would have upset me as much. If Carol had died, I would have been sad but tears would not have sprung to my eyes. Rick? Hey, Rick should have died a long time ago. I wouldn’t have gotten upset. I would have said, “That’s life. No one’s safe.”
Instead, Shiva died and now my heart is broken.
What’s funny is that TSL co-founder and editor-in-chief Arleigh Sandoc warned me that Shiva was probably not going to survive. Based on what he had seen in the comic, he told me exactly what was going to happen to her. So, I can’t say that I was totally surprised. Even if Arleigh hadn’t warned me, I remember the walkers eating that horse during the first season. I know that animals aren’t safe in the world of The Walking Dead.
Still, it broke my heart.
Maybe it’s because I’m a cat person. Maybe it’s because Shiva died protecting her master, which is not exactly typical cat behavior. Ezekiel was at his weakest when Shiva sacrificed her life for him. And now that Shiva’s gone, Ezekiel is going to have to learn how to be a leader without her help. Before she died, he was shouting that he wasn’t a king. He shouted that he was just some guy who found a cat. The cat’s gone. Can Ezekiel prove that he deserves to be known as “your majesty?”
If not, maybe Jerry can step up and lead The Kingdom. Tonight, I was really impressed with Jerry and the actor who plays him, Cooper Andrews. They both did a great job. I know some people would say that Ezekiel should give the keys of the kingdom to Carol but I wouldn’t suggest that. Carol’s a badass but I still get the feeling that she’s just a day or two from snapping and killing everyone she sees.
As for the rest of tonight’s episode … who cares? Shiva’s dead…
Okay, okay, I know. I’m a semi-professional blogger! I need to get through this post and mourn later. Okay, just a few observations:
Does everyone just have an unlimited supply of bullets all of the sudden? One of the few things that I liked about the previous season is that the show did try to realistically deal with the fact that there aren’t many supplies in the post-apocalyptic world. But this season, everyone just seems to be shooting guns for the Hell of it. I’m not an expert on firearms but I do know that bullets aren’t like knives or arrows. They can only be used once.
So, I guess Rick is suddenly an action hero! I’m not complaining. A Rick who can suddenly jump into a speeding jeep is still preferable to a mopey, indecisive Rick who can’t bring himself to fight back.
Let’s give it up for Khary Payton, who did a great job tonight! Ezekiel is a character who I’ve sometimes found to be annoying but Payton did a great job. I think one reason why it was so unsettling to see Ezekiel acting so desperate was because The Kingdom has always provided the grim world of The Walking Dead with a little bit of fantasy. It’s always served as an escape from all the terrible things going on in the rest of the world. It’s very existence is a tribute to the power and importance of imagination. Seeing the fantasy shattered was not easy and that’s something Payton wonderfully captured in his performance.
This season’s flashback structure actually paid off tonight. I’m occasionally skeptical of shows that do the whole nonlinear timeline thing because I often feel that it’s just a gimmick, as opposed to really necessary storytelling device. But tonight, seeing the contrast between the confident Ezekiel and the nearly defeated Ezekiel was undeniably powerful.
Speaking of nearly defeated Ezekiel, what about that Savior asshole who was holding him prisoner? Oh my God, that guy had to be the most annoying bad guy ever! I was so happy when Jerry split him in two.
Tonight’s episode was not bad. It was exciting. The pace didn’t drag. And it made me cry.
Hi, everyone! Lisa here with today’s music video of the day! It’s an old one, one that comes to us all the way from 1967! I present to you: Smashed Blocked by John’s Children!
John’s Children were an English band who were together for about two years, from 1966 to 1968. By most accounts, they didn’t make much of an immediate impact, despite Smashed Blocked finding some popularity in the States. (However, they would later receive some retroactive recognition as one of the major influences on early punk rock.) Perhaps unfairly, they were better known for their antics on and off the stage than for their music. For instance, they opened for The Who until they were got kicked off the tour for being too wild. They frequently posed naked for the press. They named their first album Orgasm, which was a sure way to generate controversy in the 60s. Marc Bolan, who would later find fame as the frontman for T. Rex, was briefly a member of the group, though he wasn’t involved with the recording of Smashed Blocked.
Anyway, this video for Smashed Blocked was apparently filmed in 1967, in the basement of the Establishment, a popular London nightclub. That’s ainger Andy Ellison, drummer Chris Townson, and bass guitarist John Hewlett in the video. According to some comments that Ellison posted on YouTube, the song’s title comes from “mod” slang — Smashed meaning to be drunk and Blocked meaning to be high on amphetamines. That’s certainly the feeling that I get from this song, which really does seem to scream out “1967!” in every way that it can.
Interestingly enough, there’s a second video for Smashed Blocked on YouTube. This one was not an official release. Instead, it’s made up of footage that was left on the cutting room floor after the first video was put together. Here it is:
The latest Lifetime “true crime” movie goes a little something like this:
We start with a clip from a South African news program. The anchorman talks about how much everyone loves Oscar Pistorius, the man who lost his legs when he was 11 months old and then went to compete in both the Paralympics and the Olympics. In both his home country and abroad, Oscar is known as the Blade Runner.
Cut to:
Oscar Pistorius (played by Andreas Damm) running across South Africa. A man in a pickup truck honks at him. Oscar holds up his hand in greeting. A group of children stop playing soccer long enough to watch Oscar run by. No matter what, Oscar never stops running.
Cut to:
Oscar in his kitchen, on the day before Thanksgiving. A title card tell us that we are seeing “the day before Reeva’s death.” Reeva Steenkamp (Toni Garrn) is Oscar’s girlfriend and a model. They talk, they laugh, they make love on a kitchen counter. It seems like the perfect relationship.
Cut to:
Night. The outside of Oscar’s house. There are gunshots. Reeva screams for help. Oscar shouts “No!”
Cut to:
The morning after Reeva’s death and Oscar telling the police how he accidentally killed his girlfriend.
Cut to:
A few months before Reeva’s death. Reeva tells her mother that she wants to move in with Oscar.
Cut to:
A few more months before Reeva’s death. Reeva meets Oscar Pistorius and, for Oscar, it’s obsession at first sight.
And so the movie goes from there, hopping back and forth through time and telling the story of Oscar and Reeva’s ill-fated relationship. Oscar turns out to be jealous and controlling. Reeva is always a bit too quick to accept the blame for all of Oscar’s tantrums. Oscar confesses to her that he’s always felt like he’s been alone in the world. Reeva’s friends tell her that they think Oscar is creepy. Reeva says that they don’t know him the way that she does. Reeva mentions that she smoked weed while doing a shoot in Jamaica. Oscar totally freaks out, as if he simply cannot believe that someone would smoke weed while in Jamaica. (I mean, wouldn’t it be rude not to?)
And eventually, it all leads to Oscar shooting Reeva and the trial that captivated the world. Did Oscar intentionally shoot her while in a jealous rage or, as he claimed, did he accidentally shoot her? The film refuses to give us a definitive answer, leaving it up to the viewer to decide. That seems to be a bit of a cop-out but then again, that’s the way it usually is with these true crime films. They never definitely validate one side or the other. It’s just like how last week’s Robert Durst movie couldn’t come right out and show Durst killing his wife even though everyone knows that’s probably what happened. Ambiguity can be good but sometimes, you just want the movie to have the courage to offer up an answer.
Anyway, as for the rest of Blade Runner Killer, it was a bit too slow and disjointed to really work. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but feel that, unlike the Durst case, there really wasn’t enough to the Pistorius case to justify an entire, 90-minute movie. Though the script never really dug far beneath the surface, both Andreas Damm and Toni Garrn did a good job as Oscar and Reeva. Otherwise, this one was pretty forgettable.
(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 205 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only two months to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Off The Rails off of the Lifetime Movie Network on March 26th!)
Oh, poor Nicole (Hannah Barefoot)!
When we first meet her, Nicole is recovering from amnesia. She knows that she was injured in a catastrophic train derailment. She knows that she’s married to Mark (Thomas Beaudoin), who seems like the perfect husband. She knows that her therapist is Dr. Teres (Andrea Cirie). She knows that she’s oddly obsessed with maps and that she teaches at the local college. However, she is still not totally sure what her life was like before the accident. And sometimes, she wonders if she can actually trust Mark. For instance, she suspects that, while she was in her coma, Mark added onto the deck in the back yard. Mark swears that it was her idea but why would she want to do that?
Nicole is also convinced that she has never had a Facebook account. She swears that she’s never been on Twitter. She doesn’t even know what Instagram is! “You call me a Luddite!” she says to one of her friends, “I do remember that!” But, if that’s true, why do all of her friends swear that they’ve talked to her on Facebook? And why are all sorts of sleazy men approaching her, all claiming that they met her online?
That’s not all Nicole has to worry about. There’s also the weird visions that she’s having, many of them involving being watched by a menacing-looking raven. And then there’s the French Canadian photographer (Andreas Damm). Nicole is not sure who he is but she sure did take a lot of happy pictures with him. Could it be that she wasn’t as happy in her marriage as both Mark and her therapist insist?
There were some parts of Off The Rails that I really liked. The story was, at times, genuinely intriguing and I always appreciate it whenever Lifetime films mix a little surrealism in with the melodrama. The first part of the film does a very good of creating a properly ominous atmosphere and Hannah Barefoot does a good job portraying Nicole’s confusion and paranoia. Obviously, it demanded a considerable suspension of disbelief to buy into the idea that Nicole could possibly be so ignorant of social media in 2017 but then again, that’s Lifetime for you. Social media is always the source of all evil in the world of Lifetime.
Unfortunately, there’s a twist at the end of Off The Rails that simply does not work and it actually cheapens the film a bit. I understand that it’s a Lifetime film and that, therefore, things can never end on too dark of a note but, in this case, the movie’s story demanded and deserved an ending that was just a bit more bittersweet.
Still, I’d recommend Off the Rails. Up until that final shot, it’s a nicely done Lifetime mystery. You’ll probably figure out the solution early but it’s still entertainingly melodramatic and just weird enough to be worthwhile.
(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 205 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only two months to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Secrets in Suburbia off of Lifetime on April 15th!)
Welcome to the Hell that is Lifetime suburbia!
Seriously, whenever you come across a Lifetime movie that has the word “suburbia” in the title, you know exactly what you’re getting: nice houses, nice clothes, beautiful people, adulterous affairs, and usually a little bit of murder. Secrets in Suburbia features all of that and it’s an enjoyably over the top little movie.
We open with a nice house in a nice neighborhood on a nice night. A party’s being thrown. It’s a divorce party! (Divorce parties, by the way, are super fun! I’ve been encouraging all of my married friends to get divorced, just so we can all get together for the party afterward.) The recently divorced wife gives a long and sarcastic speech. Suddenly, her ex-husband shows up. He’s waving a gun and rambling incoherently. Then he shoots himself, which totally ruins the party.
(Choice dialogue: “I don’t need a dead body in my house!”)
We return to the party four more times over the course of the film, each time from the perspective of a different character and each time, we learn a little bit more about what happened on that night. It’s a nicely done technique, one that forces us to pay close attention to the action unfolding on screen. It certainly adds a layer of narrative complexity that one might not usually expect to find in a Lifetime film.
The majority of the film deals with Gloria (Brianna Brown) and her husband, Phil (Joe Williamson). Gloria has a nice house, nice children, and a nice dog. Phil has a lot of charm and a massive chip on his shoulder about the fact that, unlike most of his friends and neighbors, he wasn’t born rich. Phil, it quickly turns out, has more than a little trouble being a faithful husband. No need to be shocked by that. It’s Lifetime and it’s suburbia.
One day, Gloria comes home to discover that her dog has been poisoned. While she rushes the dog to the vet, she gets into a serious car accident. It’s hard not to notice that, underneath all of his charm, Phil doesn’t seem to be that concerned about his wife. Maybe it’s the fact that he keeps ignoring the doctor’s advice. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t seem to care about the dead dog. Or maybe it has something to do with the antifreeze that he keeps putting in her drinks…
This is a movie that’s all about revenge, especially after Gloria learns that Phil has been cheating with her friends. To be honest, the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Things get pretty crazy towards the end of the film. That’s not a complaint, of course. In general, the more melodramatic and crazy a movie like this gets, the better. Secrets in Suburbia goes totally batshit crazy, which is exactly what it needed to do. It’s all terrifically entertaining and in the end, that’s all that really matters.
Through the Shattered Lens 