Tomorrow my mom goes in for surgery and it’s being done by a robot! Sort of. In a strange coincidence she told me about this DaVinci machine (not the telecine one, you tv folks) that’s going to assist in the surgery and it had just been featured on Grey’s Anatomy a couple of days prior…I told her I’d post the clips for her, so here they are…
As a kid I remember certain VHS tapes that my sister and I almost wore out from viewing so much:
– The Court Jester recorded off the UK’s Channel 4
– a marathon of Gallagher borrowed from Aunt Helen and Uncle Bill (kids love the watermelon smashing)
– a holiday Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast special
– a marathon of Kids in the Hall taped off a Comedy Central KITH Mother’s Day special
Watching this KITH clip, I was surprised by the fact that I could almost do this entire monolgue from memory…even now there are certain KITH bits that I use in my day-to-day conversations ("Time moves forwards! Not backwards!") that I’m sure people aren’t picking up on, that I’m doing just to amuse myself. This clip is still great.
Is the Canadian plural of beer, "beer"?
When I saw this it timed out really well ‘cuz I’m reading the 33 & 1/3 about Murmur (which is soso, maybe 3 out of 5?), but I never really knew that REM were on a major label when they started? At least, the same label as The Police, so that’s major, right? That was kind of a big surprise to me ‘cuz Murmur sounds so unlike anything in the early 80’s.
Or so I thought.
I’m ready to re-evaluate now that I’ve seen this American Bandstand featuring Radio Free Europe. The kids love it!!!! The dancing is fr3sh!!!!
So real it almost seems fake. But also so real it’s gotta be real..
[via]
Love this. First of all, the intro is so great, sincere and patronizing at the same time…crying out to be sampled in a mix bit…something about her use of the word "specialist", she just lets it drip off her tongue…
Second, this stuff is proto-proto-punk, right? Buddy Holly’s Billy-Idol-esque sneer, the defiant stance, the rip-roaring pace of the song. The drums are just a constant drum roll throughout, and Buddy Holly is just so weird. So gangly and rubbery, the glasses, the voice. Such an amazing track.
First of all, Johnny Rotten has done a commercial for butter. It’s below, so you can check it out, and yeah, it’s a fine advert I guess, but damn it feels tough to have those sell-out feelings about Johnny Rotten. Granted, I guess the Pistols were a manufactured band to a certain extent, so they were always about selling out, and I guess JR is all about pushing people’s buttons and showing them that they’re never as free-thinking as they think they are, but still, damn, a commercial for butter. [via]
The youtube comments are as divisive as possible, with people condemning and defending on both sides. My favorite though, is this filmed response. I can really feel what this guy is saying! He means it! I love that filmed responses can happen, and so quickly, and so well done.
I don’t know what I like more — what a hoot this clip is, the fact that my mom(!) sent it to me (with the major point of how proud she is to know how to forward things now), or that the star of this piece is acting like my mom would act if confronted with this situation.
for some reason I love the part where she says "Is this my new TV?"…cracks me up every time…
Adding to the list of US celebs who make weird Japanese ads because they don’t think anyone in the Western world will see them: Tommy Lee Jones. According to the synopsis on mefi:
"Tommy Lee Jones plays extraterrestrial ‘Alien Jones’, who has taken the form of a man to check on the world of humans, all the while drinking a Japanese brand of coffee named BOSS."
While not as loopy as I want them to be, these ads have kind of a quiet, TLJones intense brand of odd.
This one takes place in a "host club", a place where young women and pay trendy young men to entertain them. There used to be this great doc about host clubs on google vid, but it looks like it was sold so they’ve pulled it (good for them). Looks like it just aired on Sundance…some info about it here…) Here’s the ad…
the last shot takes the whole thing to a new level, doesn’t it?
class culture remix internet stylee.
"what’re u doin in a cave?!"
I know there’s some kind of meta-point to be made here about culture and how the methods used by authority to control it are the same methods that artists will use to comment on it, or something, but I don’t feel like explicating…
instead, just enjoy this:
[via]
I’m stoked for OB and excited for a black president, but wow I totally forgot we had a black president in 1977…thank goodness for the reminder that is youtube…
some of it still seems so relevant…some hopelessly (thankfully) dated…
It looks like MTV has put a big chunk of their music vid library online, with embedding capabilities…neat…and it looks like there are a fair few obscure vids on there too, like this random example, one of my favorite vids of all time, Yo La Tengo’s "Sugarcube" (they don’t have "Tom Courtney" yet, and I KNOW I saw that on 120 Minutes!)…
If I could do a poll, I’d do "do you like trip hop: yes, no maybe".
hopefully my olde VHS dubs of videos from 120 minutes will soon be obsolete! [via]
The last half hour of SNL is normally full of the dregs of sketch comedy. But sometimes it knocks one out of the park. I would never think that Sandberg could pull off a Marky Mark impression, but he nails it — the voice, the swagger, the seriousness — and then throws a bunch of absurdity on top to make it comedy gold.
JG supplied me with this great link to a supposed "leak" of a bit of The Simpsons Halloween special for this year…which will air right before election day…lots of great gags in here, writing is top notch…
so rare that the Norse gods are invoked, let alone on network tv in 2003…
via Kottke, a link to a list of commercials directed by film directors…great stuff in there…
to whet your appetite for it, here’s a Guiness ad that was pretty big in the UK but we never saw here…it’s so good, and directed by Sexy Beast’s Jonathan Glazer…audio takes a moment to kick in, so don’t adjust your set…
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