Why They Love Monty Python

How can I follow up that awesome Christmas gift I gave you guys? Well, I thought you might find this interesting:



Thanks to Norm over at Onegoodmove.org!

Bigger and Better

As Wil often says, we're living in the future and thanks to this guy the future is bigger and better:



Thanks to Danny Choo for pointing this out.

TRON v. Depeche Mode

I found this video while cleaning up my backlog of unread posts at io9 and thought it was worth sharing with those of you who might not read io9.

Torchwood: Children of Earth Trailer

I am pretty excited about this! Hopefully the series will maintain the tone of the trailer, which many have pointed out is more X-Files than Dr. Who. In my humble opinion that is one of the best things about the trailer. I always felt that Torchwood wanted to be The X-Files with incidental Who, and there are some episodes which rise to that level. Hopefully this series will mark the coming of age of Torchwood which, of course, means we won't get any more Torchwood after this.

Animated Videos 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Thanks to Katy C and VH1 I have a couple of updates to my Animated Videos post from the 19th!

First up is Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks back in February of 1990 and then went on to win a Grammy. Featuring an animated cat, MC Skat Kat, who was voiced by Bruce DeShazer and Marv Gunn, the song is about how despite their differences Paula and Mr. Kat are perfect for each other:



I have to admit that hearing this song brings back some memories as I was in high school at the time. For some reason I STRONGLY associate the first Paula Abdul song I can recall hearing, "Straight Up," with riding the bus to school in the mornings. Boy isn't that a pleasant memory? And even though the video is not animated, I thought I would go ahead and share it here just because I can and lets face it, if you were a teenage boy at the time odds are you had a thing for Paula:



Of course I was more of a Samantha Fox boy myself. I mean how could you be in the throes of puberty and NOT find this inspiring:



After all we have chains, dodgy dance moves, a lingerie clad female, suit pants that are too short; what's not to like?

Okay, back to the subject at hand: animated videos!

Katy C also reminded me of Dire Straits' immortal song "Money for Nothing." This is the one that I could not believe I forgot about! I do not really think anything else needs to be said about this classic:


Watch Dire Straits - Money for Nothing in Music Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

This brings us to the video I only saw this past week when I made it in to the gym and was able to workout during the five minutes a day when VH1 is playing music videos rather than crapping up the universe with more quasi-reality TV shows. The video for Kanye West's "Heartless":

Kanye West - Heartless (New Video) SubtitlesLyrics
Uploaded by ShanouMusik13

The rotoscoped character animation calls to mind Ralph Bakshi's work, in particular American Pop:



Of course whenever I think of Ralph Bakshi I think of his 1978 adaptation of the first half of The Lord of the Rings. One of the earliest memories I have is of my dad taking me to see that movie when we lived in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Oh well, I hope you enjoyed this rather meandering trip through some music videos. Let me know if you think of any other animated videos which are worth sharing.

Go Forth and Waste Time

Looks like I am in for a busy week both at the office and at the casa so here are some links to keep you occupied until I can get back to writing something of substance:

Now I have heard of mash-ups in the music scene (speaking of which the Best of Bootie 2008 CD is available for download here) and with movie trailers and the like, however I have NEVER heard of taking, oh, for example, a classic video game and a classic rock band, throwing them in the proverbial blender and seeing what comes out the other side but that is EXACTLY what the kids over at Shitbagz.com did. Taking the awesome that is Asteroids, a video game which I can still spend hours sucking at, and the awesome that is Van Halen, and I mean Dave "I'm Just a Gigolo" Lee Roth Van Halen and not the crap fest that was Sammy Hagar Van Halen, they have come up with Assteroidz - The Diamond Dave edition. There is really nothing else to say except go forth and play before, as Wil says, some asshat with no sense of humor serves the creators with a cease and desist.

Meanwhile over on the east coast Kevin has been experimenting with what the kids call user-generated content. First he asks his readers to come up with one-sentence pitches for existing franchises. Then he asks his readers to create a solicitation for a trade paperback collection which fills a void in the current crop of trades. Both of these comment threads are well worth reading and contain some comedy gold. And for the record I would shell out my hard earned shekels for the Hitman Omnibus, Essential Shang-Chi, and this Inspector Gadget series. Oh, and this.

While we are on the comics tip, check out this promotional clip for the soon to be taking over the world Watchmen:



I will cop to being far more excited about this movie than I should be considering I only JUST got around to reading the comics last year. So far everything I have seen and heard coming from the production crew on this movie does nothing but make me more excited to see this movie. As for it being THE unfilmable comic book? Well personally I do not buy the idea of a work being unfilmable since the very act of adapting a novel/comic/doodle in to a movie transforms the work in to something completely different. Of course there are going to be people who think Zack Snyder has failed or has done something wrong, however I am looking forward to seeing this movie and my desire to see it is divorced from whether I like the comic or not.

Now back to the salt mines!

Animated Videos

After I posted the stop-motion animation video this past Saturday I was trying to think of different music videos which were either animated or in which animation plays a big part. The first two that spring to mind are the videos for Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" and A-ha's "Take On Me."

Despite being slightly more obscure, for some reason the video for Matthew Sweet's 1991 hit "Girlfriend," from the album by the same name, was the first song to occur to me when I thought up this little project.



I suspect this has to do with the animation used for the video itself; that is to say due to my love for anime, this video's use of animation from Space Adventure Cobra is more significant to me and thus more memorable. We were still four years away from the domestic release of Sailor Moon, which I consider the watershed moment for anime in the United States, and while one could find anime if one knew where to look in 1991, it was still very unusual to see anime or anime-influenced materials out in the wild that were not already familiar shows such as Robotech, Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, and so on. On top of that, it is around this time period that I started to pay more attention to popular music, having been forbidden to listen to "the Devil's music," a restriction that seems kind of strange considering how big a fan of ABBA my mother happens to be, and Matthew Sweet's sound was distinctive enough to stand out from the other crap being played on the Top 40 radio stations to which I was listening. Hell, I still love that album almost twenty years later.

I do not know what to say about the A-ha video that has not already been said by people far more knowledgable than I. The amalgation of animation and live-action was groundbreaking in 1985 and, aside from the TRAGIC style choices, is still a very cool video today.

Ah Ha - Take On Me @ Yahoo! Video

After ruminating on this for a couple of hours, the only other animated video I could think of is the video for "Fell In Love With a Girl" by the White Stripes. I do not know why this did not occur to me sooner as it combines a pretty decent song, which is now stuck in my head, with Lego and I LOVE Lego.



And that is it, kids. I am SURE there are some animated music videos out there that I am missing. Probably some REALLY obvious ones. If you guys can think of videos I missed, leave 'em in the comments and I will do a follow-up post here in a week or two.

Random Linkbloggery and YouTubing

Here is some random stuff I have stumbled across in the past week that I thought you kids might find interesting.

Wil pointed us all to the FLICKR group Growing Up Star Wars where one can add their pictures of Star Wars related shenanigans. Original triology only, please. The person who posts the first Jar Jar Binks will be summarily executed.

One of the cats over at the Star Trek Phase 2 forum pointed out these Trek motivational posters. While on the whole they are not as amusing as these motivational posters and a bit flatulence-centric even for my tastes (and that is saying something), this one, this one, and this one had me laughing till I cried. Of course here is my entry in to the realm of Star Trek motivational posters:

Then there is this bit of genius from Terry over at Bent Objects. I keep meaning to write about how much I LOVE his art but thing like YouTube and the Google machine keep distracting me. Bastards! Personally I am looking forward to his forthcoming book and have a no longer secret desire to commission the topper for my wedding cake from this guy.

Nikki shared this bit from YouTube which, I feel, truly demonstrates how I approach humor. About two minutes in this thing gets old but then by the end of the clip I found myself laughing so hard I almost peed myself:

And then, courtesy of Kevin, there is this video from Rex The Dog:


Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

I really like the low tech approach to what a song which is some where on the borderlands of electronica. This also reminded me of what a friend once told me when I was pitching a stop-motion animation idea his way: "Stop-motion is something you do when your girlfriend has dropped your ass and all you can do is lock yourself in a room for six months. Normal people can't do it."

An item which is completely unrelated to anything else here. It just came to my attention that South Korea has a Ministry of Knowledge Economy. I cannot decide whether this sounds deliciously Orwellian or deliciously Stalinist, however I love the name and this it is tasty either way.

Someone should buy me this to go with my little Takeda Shingen helmet I bought when I was in Japan. Ever since I read The Samurai's Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard I have been fascinated by Japan, samurai culture, and specifically the rise and fall of Takeda Shingen. Heck, my favorite Kurosawa film, Kagemusha, deals with the aftermath of Takeda Shingen's death. If you have even the tiniest of desires to check out either the book or the movie, I can unreservedly recommend both of them and I'll let you in on a little secret; they both make me cry.

A couple of weeks ago Danny Choo of Tokyo Dance Trooper fame made a post titled "Tokyo Photo Walk 3" to his blog however since his blog is blocked by the Websense firewall at work, I only just got around to reading this post. While I love the pictures and am jealous of his mad night-photog skillz, it is the text which really spoke to me. In the text he talks about fear and not letting fear limit you, something that I struggle with every day. You ought to bop on over there and check it out. Of course clearly the guy who can do this has no fear:



Okay, I have watched this more than once since it popped up on the net and I just noticed something. After the Shibuya 109 title, right at the 1:10 mark of the video, watch the couple entering from the right of the screen. On one foot the guy has a normal shoe and but WTF is on his right foot? Also I have totally been to Hachiko crossing!

Thanks for the encouraging words and dance moves Danny!

An A Cappella Tribute to John Williams

Since I am going to spend this evening at Murder By the Book checking out the talk and signing by Tim Maleeny, whose debut novel Stealing the Dragon I HIGHLY recommend, I thought I would leave you kids with this:

I do not know how in the Hell I have not posted this before now, however for the one person who reads the Opiate who might not have seen this (Hi Mom!) here it is in all of its nerd-tastic glory.

Most Honorable and Ancient Star Wars

I haven't got the words, really, just watch and be amazed:

Found at AltJapan. Thanks Matt!

High Kick Girl Trailer

This has been making the rounds on the internet for a little while now however it is too perfect not to share:



I will pose to you the same question Chris Sims, noted face kickery expert, posed to me:

Best movie ever?

God Goes in to a Pub

Thanks to Norm over at onegoodmove.com.

"Enemy: Starfleet" Teaser

Here is a quick teaser scene from the forthcoming Phase 2 episode "Enemy: Starfleet"



This is the episode I was fortunate enough to work on this past June and I am SOOO looking forward to seeing the final product!

In this bit Alersa is played by BarBara Luna. While I was on-set I had the unique privilege of being Luna's (she insists we call her Luna) assistant for the duration of her stay. One of the very first things I did after I was assigned as Luna's PA was run lines with her. This was the scene we were reading through and it was very difficult for me to keep a straight face when I came to the line, "Call me...Jim." I also had to fight the urge to Shatner the line up. Doesn't it just beg for a Shatner-esque delivery?

Super Drunken Christmas

Honestly, I can not think of many better ways to spend it!



This is from Rocket K, a Japanese punk band I recently discovered due to their cover of The Buggles new wave hit "Video Killed the Radio Star." Sadly the only place I can find their video for that is on their MySpace page and I am having trouble accessing MySpace at the moment. In stead of that let me offer you these:

First, the original video in all of its circa 1979 glory:



Second, a video from the Ethermusic festival in 2005 of Jon Bernhardt performing "Video Killed the Radio Star" on a theremin:



Mmmmm. Theremins are the musical equivalent of bacon; they make everything better!

I hope you're having a Merry Christmas and enjoying whatever makes you happy!

Chrsitmas Gifts from Me to You

Look! I got you a couple of things for Christmas!

Now what could possibly top an entire CHANNEL on YouTube dedicated to all the crunchy goodness that is Monty Python, you ask?

Well, my friends, only this:


That's right! George Lucas' magnum opus is now available to view FOR FREE on Hulu. Isn't this the bestest Christmas EVER!

Old Negro Space Program

This is a brilliant little production was produced for a Nebula in 2006 however was disqualified as it was not professionally produced. It is definitely worth a look. Beware the harsh language:

Star Trek + White Rabbit

Blame Brian. I find doing that is usually safe.