My Awkward Video of the Day Collection

Ok, this was something I did on Facebook a few years ago, I'm going to repost them here just so I can keep them, since they are a pain to try to find again on FB, and here they can be all in one place.

November Rain- Guns 'n' Roses- A classic song with the most overproduced melodramatic video ever filmed. Oh Axl, you silly drama queen. Oh Slash you comedic genius, have you misplaced the ring, oh Duff that's so cute, YOU have the ring. Slash are you really w...alking out of the middle of the wedding? Kinda RUDE, don't you think? Although i guess you did wear your HAT to the thing. Who's going to that church Slash solos in front of? There's nothing for miles around. Ugh, who invited that tool Riki Ractman to the reception? It's just RAIN people, who's the ass that felt the need to do the flying body press on the wedding cake? Really? Really? Then the bride's dead? Not enough information, Axl. Thanks.

Estranged-Guns 'n' Roses-  OK another G n'R video for AVD. This one might actually be even MORE ridiculous than November Rain. This is one of my favorite songs on Use Your Illusion, but after seeing this video again, i don't know why. Ok the worst police force ...is showing up for some reason to Axl's mansion, but can't find him sleeping in his hiding place. There's a part where some future Rock of Love rejects are watching monitors of Axl waiting for their rose, or does Bret give them a lock of hair from his bandanawig? The live footage just depresses me, reminding me how that many people at one time DID like G n' R. Axl, just because you wear a shirt that says DEEP, doesn't mean your nonsensical videos ARE. Boy that backstage party where the girls and the band are watching dolphin footage looks off the hook!! Best part... at 8:09 Slash rises from the ocean like the Kraken to do his solo. 2nd best part...Axl saves himself from drowning by riding a freaking dolphin!!!

A World Without Heroes-Kiss-   Ok Kiss, you shaped my childhood, then destroyed my teenage years. This video, falls somewhere in between. Gene's sporting his new 'do from Supercuts, then looks like he's looking around trying to find Bob Ezri...n, for making him do this dumbass song. Oh and Paul Stanley sports a purple headband emulating Mike Reno at about 1:35 and comes off looking like a lady at the mall with that poof he's sporting on top. Gene are you crying at the end?!?!?!!?! There's no crying in rock and roll!!

Holiday Road-Lindsey Buckingham- This might be the most awkward of all the videos I've posted. Never have I seen a more depressing video for one of the most cheerful songs ever recorded. I feel like the song should have been in the beginning of Joe Vs. the Volcano instead of Vacation. Boy Lindsey, you're really confusing me on the message of this song, I feel like taking the family on a vacation and driving us all off a cliff.

I Know You're Out There Somewhere-The Moody Blues OK Awkward video of the day, suggested by my brother, 1980's Moody Blues is not pretty. First off, does that drummer really need two bass drums? You're in the freaking Moody Blues, not Anthrax. 2nd, how hard is that guy going to hit that tamborine? Psst, we still can't hear it. Nice shot of the woman smacking the kid in the head, call Child Protective Services! This whole video makes me feel awkward.

Hot Rockin'-Judas Priest Ok, here's a video of a band that I actually like, even like the song...the video....W...T...F?!? Ok it starts out with some footage in the gym, which is awkward enough 4 guys with their shirts off but still rocking the leather pants or black jeans, I can't tell from the footage. Then we have them singing the chorus in the shower, well the first two guys are, the bass player in stall number 3 must have forgotten the lyrics to that difficult chorus, understandable. And apparently Rob Halford is shooting that video footage in the shower, which, years later, now makes sense. After Rob somehow makes it to the concert even with some douchebag blinding him in the eyes with a flashlight the entire drive, they play with their instruments on fire....except apparently for that pussy of a bass player. Nice one Ian, man up!!

Lovin' Every Minute Of It-Loverboy- This is one of the worst 80's songs ever to torture a human being. For starters, it was our Senior Prom theme song. Ok, someone tell Robert John "Mutt" Lange that Loverboy is NOT Def Leppard, no matter how hard he wants them to be.  Right off the bat, what the hell is the significance of Mike Reno answering the phone? He doesn't talk to anyone, is it some sort of Manchurian Candidate code word to set him off to be in a shitty 80's video? Why is there one old granny at this party? And why is Mike Reno shoving a tip down Cindy from Three's Company's top? Oh hey, it looks like you just got done painting that guitar, it's dry enough, pick it up and they cruise the hallways of this rathole hotel our manager got us rooms at. Please tell me the capacity is reached in that elevator and we get to see them plummet 30 floors to the lobby. no? damn it.  And lastly Mike Reno, i don't care how much you repeat it ad nauseum, i assure you, no one is "Lovin' Every Minute Of It"!

Sussudio-Phil Collins-

AVD-Awkward video of the day. Ok first off, right off the bat, being a drummer i HATE computer drums used in song but the video shows someone playing an acoustic set. Phil Collins of all people should know better. Like we're not supposed to notice. Ok now that that's out of the way. Pause that video at :56 sec. Hey is that Quentin Tarantino!! Whatever they are using for the rythym track is obnoxious, and is that Grizzly Adams or Father Time playing the bass? I guess it doesn't even matter, I don't hear a bass guitar in this song anyway. The best part of the video is the beginning where Mike Rutherford is letting his dog take a shit in front of the bar after he hears the crap Phil's playing for his solo career.

Sweet Freedom-Michael McDonald-

Here's today's awkward video. Starts off innocently enough, showing clips from the movie Running Scared, mixed with some low key Michael McDonald vocals. At the :58 mark, however, some extras start trying a little too hard to show they're having a good time, one girl about falls off a chair cackling in some old guy's face. At the 2:15 min mark, Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines show up for the video shoot and thus begins the cheesiest, hammiest 2 minutes ever put to video. At 2:20 i even think Melanie Griffith in her Body Double hairdo is there dancing with Billy Crystal. Love the movie, HATE this video.

Dancing In The Street-David Bowie and Mick Jagger-
Ok here's the awkward video of the day, perhaps one of the biggest abominations of the 80s. First of all, how these two didn't get instantly mugged skipping and prancing down that dark alley at the 1 minute mark is a mystery to me. I think a kiss might have happened right after that strategically placed freeze frame at 1:22. Also, did Mick just put some product placement of Pepsi at 1:32 or did he just pick up and drink out of some filthy can he found in that alley? And funniest of all, it took Bowie 2:18 min to give Mick that look? Really? Had you not been paying attention the whole video? oh and at 2:49, no...just no.

Rock Me Tonite-Billy Squier-
Ok this one is really awkward, the "dancing" that begins at the 1:17 mark and continues the rest of the song is bad enough, but Billy, that T-shirt you start off in, why wouldn't you tear the rest of that damn sleeve off before you put it on? It really just looks like laziness on your part. But then, after you tear that shirt off "Hulk Hogan style" you put on a worse shirt that Richard Simmons is probably STILL looking for in his closet. Oh and accessorizing that shirt with the handkerchief in the last third of the song, didn't really "butch" that outfit up. I'm just saying.

You're a Friend of Mine- Clarence Clemons and Jackson Browne-

The Video that started the whole AVD thing.  This video starts us off with the immortal question: Will Clarence Clemons and Jackson Browne passionately kiss one another in the middle of this video? You'll have to find out for yourself. Oh and don't miss the worst freaking hi-five, handshake, whatever the hell they tried to do in the last shot of the video and failed hilariously.

 
Pac Man Fever-Buckner and Garcia-

Not the official video, because there isn't one, but this performance on Solid Gold will suffice.

"ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PAC-MAN?!?!?" You can put on a baseball cap all you want, Hank Williams Jr. i can see you. What's up with the other guy's facial hair? That might be the world's only 8-bit mustache next to Mario's. Also, is that an Intellivison on top of that keyboard? And those old people in the audience are sure reacting how I expect them to, with them two whippersnappers singing about those newfangled thingamajig veedeo games.

My picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 2

Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 25-21.

25. Eagle Eye-(2008) A fast paced action thriller about the information age and a information gathering supercomputer owned by the government that decides that they are a threat to themselves and need to be wiped out.   The computer (voiced by an uncredited Julianne Moore) is always one step ahead of everyone since she can hack into to any phone, security camera, basically anything electronic.  She forces two civilians to help her in her plan.     I really enjoyed the fast pace and the story to this.   It stars Michelle Monaghan and Shia Lebeouf, (who isn't one of my favorite actors, but I have liked him in a few select things) as the two innocent civilians who are forced to help the computer carry through with her plan.   Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson play the FBI agents pursuing them, trying to figure out how these two seemingly ordinary people who have become criminals keep escaping capture.   Very well done, good script and action scenes.



24. Death Sentence-(2007) Kevin Bacon stars in this dark psychological thriller from the director of the original SAW.   Kevin Bacon and his son stop at a gas station in a bad part of town after his son's hockey game.  While his son is inside the store, he is killed as part of a gang member's initiation.  Kevin Bacon tries to stop the killer, but he breaks free, although Kevin sees his face. As the killer runs away, he is left behind by his gang and is hit by another car while standing in the street.  The killer is hospitalized and arrested.
When the case goes to trial, Bacon's character learns the killer is going to only get 3-5 years, which is unacceptable to him, so he decides that he's not going to identify him as the killer and let him walk, so he can get his own revenge.   Bacon plans to kill his son's murderer and get some justice. 

Unfortunately through a turn of events, he causes a chain reaction, making it worse and worse with disastrous results until it makes its way to its Taxi Driver-ish ending.    I really liked this movie, I loved the haunting soundtrack, which was one of the things I noticed right away while watching it.  A lot of times soundtracks are just kind of there for me, unless they're actual songs, of course.   But I really thought this was a very haunting and well done soundtrack for the material.    This is not an easy movie to watch, it's violent, dark, and nearly caused my brother to get divorced when I recommended it to him and his wife.  LOL.  It really was an emotional, gripping movie.   Regardless, one of my favorite Kevin Bacon performances.  Garrett Hedlund is also great as the crazed gang leader.   Very well directed by James Wan.  Great tracking shot through a parking garage as Kevin Bacon is trying to get away from gang members trying to kill him.


23. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-(2005) Unfortunately I can probably count on one hand the people I know who have seen this movie.   Robert Downey Jr. is everywhere nowadays after his stints in the Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes films, but this movie was the beginning of his comeback.
Hilarious movie that is a riff on the film-noir/hard boiled pulp novels of old, complete with noir narration.  Written and directed by probably my favorite screenwriter Shane Black(Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and others), it is a darkly funny, brilliantly written movie with great performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer.  Short synopsis as to not ruin anything:  Downey, as a small time criminal in New York who, during a botched robbery, in which his partner is killed, runs inside a building to get away from the cops.   He stumbles upon a casting call for some crime film being made in Hollywood and acts as if he's auditioning.   He gets emotional thinking about his partner, goes off script, the agents think he's acting and is brilliant so they immediately send him to Hollywood, to follow Kilmer's gay private eye character around to prepare for the role.   I will not say any more, but I will say this movie has one of the most clever, darkly humorous scripts with twists and turns galore.   Highly recommended.  


22. Four Brothers-(2005) A modern day urban homage to the John Wayne film, The Sons of Katie Elder.  This film details the story of four adopted brothers, who were unable to find a foster family when they were kids because of their troubled pasts.   They were raised by the woman who originally took them in until they were adopted and instead raised them on her own.   She is murdered at the beginning of the film and the title characters come for the funeral.   They begin to realize something isn't right about the convenience store robbery that their mother was killed during, supposedly as collateral damage.   Beautifully shot by John Singleton in Detroit and Ontario, one sequence featuring a car chase during a blizzard on snowy/icy roads, I especially enjoyed. I also did really enjoy the camaraderie between the 4 actors playing the brothers, however a scene with one actor on the toilet while another is in the shower, is maybe a little too much brotherly closeness for my taste. lol  I really enjoyed Mark Wahlberg in this and the supreme asshole bad guy played by Chiwetel Ejiofor was great too.



21. Cloverfield-(2008)  A found footage film that is basically JJ Abrams' take on Godzilla.  I know that this movie was not everyone's cup of tea, including some of my friends. As is the case with most found footage movies, you either love them or hate them it seems,  but this one grabbed me and didn't let go.  

The movie tells the story about a guy getting ready to leave for Japan for a new job, mainly to get away from a girl he's in love with and somehow ruined their relationship. Told from the viewpoint of a guy talked into filming during the going away party, the main character's ex shows up with a guy, he pisses her off and she goes home.   While out on the fire escape talking about it with his friends there's an explosion and the building shakes like there's an earthquake.  They run down to the street and explosions are being heard all over the place, when suddenly, the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty comes flying down the street.   The rest of the movie is the main character trying to get to his ex girlfriend's apartment to rescue her because he hears her in trouble on the phone.  The likeable schlub filming supposedly keeps shooting because "people are going to want to see what happened when it all went down"    I thought the movie was pretty intense showing the chaos going throughout the city, with snippets of the monster here and there, and very creepy scenes in the dark when the characters decide to take a shortcut through the subway tunnel.

Yes, I realize that the camera would have probably quit functioning after the few times it was dropped, the battery would have most definitely died (which I wish, they'd just thrown a line in there about having extra batteries.) and that I'm not sure how realistic it is, if you were running for your life how long you would keep filming.   But hey, it's a movie, get over it.  I was on the edge of my seat through the entire thing.   Which is what these kind of movies are supposed to do.  The movie, despite being shot on a handheld HD camera, looks great and the special effects are amazing for a movie that "only" cost $25 million dollars to make.  It grossed $170 million, so I'm not sure how that long rumored sequel never got made, but in a way, I'm glad it didn't.

p.s. The first time you get a good shot of the monster(which only lasts a few seconds) when they are running down to the subway entrance, gives me chills even to this day.


OK, that's my next 5, tune in tomorrow to see what gems I have in store for #20-16.

My picks for the top 30 movies from 2000-2012

Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012.  It's going to take me longer than I thought, so I decided to maybe do 5 a day, so I can type up some stuff to go along with it.

So today, picks #30-26.   These are not in an official order.  Enjoy

30. Anchorman-(2004)  A movie I saw in the theater right after seeing Dodgeball (another comedy classic), it was a great day at the movies!.   This was the first of the big screen collaborations of Adam McKay/Will Ferrell, and at the time it was so out of left field hilarious, it quickly became a classic to me.  McKay and Ferrell would team up for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys, all classics to me, but the one that started it off is my favorite.  So many hilarious quotes in this film.  An absolute classic.


29. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?-(2000)  Joel and Ethan Coen's masterpiece. In a career filled with classics, such as Fargo, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple, No Country For Old Men, this retelling of the Homer's "The Odyssey", is my favorite.   Set in the depression era, featuring 3 escaped convicts led by George Clooney.  This movie has great music, great cinematography, and some of my favorite dialogue of any movie.  George Clooney has never been better or funnier than he is in this movie.  Perfect movie to me.



28. There Will Be Blood-(2007)- Paul Thomas Anderson had made two of my all-time favorite movies with Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, when this had come out, I thought it was going to be the dullest movie ever, a period piece about an oil baron? Wth?? I couldn't have been more wrong.  I should have just trusted PTA.  This movie starts off with no dialogue for almost 5 minutes and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.   Daniel Day Lewis blew me away with this performance and definitely deserved to win the Academy Award for his portrayal of a deranged oil tycoon consumed by greed.   Amazing Academy Award winning cinematography by Robert Elswit. great soundtrack, great movie. A running time of 2hr 48min, and I was enthralled the entire time.



27. Snatch-(2000)  Guy Ritchie's crime masterpiece, with it's frenetic pacing and edits, grabbed me from the get-go.  So many interesting camera tricks in the movie, I ABSOLUTELY loved it.  Crazy colorful characters all doing their own thing and a storyline that features an 86 karat diamond, gypsys, bareknuckle brawling, a hitman, a mob boss, and a Russian that just won't die.  Everything seems disconnected until toward the end of the movie when every character intertwines with one another.  Very funny, ingenious, violent script.  Great performances by Jason Statham, Dennis Farina, Vinnie Jones and Brad Pitt as a gypsy bareknuckle fighter.



26. The Royal Tenenbaums-(2001) My favorite Wes Anderson movie.  I really love his visual style and song choices in all of his movies.  The movie is basically about the dysfunctional family to end ALL dysfunctional families.  Gene Hackman plays the patriarch of 3 child prodigies who become damaged adults shortly after their father leaves their mother (played by Angelica Huston) when they are children.   I really enjoyed Gene Hackman's performance in this as Royal Tenenbaum,  and also Luke Wilson's playing of the favorite sibling of Hackman's character, Richie Tenenbaum.   However, everyone in the ensemble cast has their moments to shine as well. 




Stay tuned for the next 5 picks!