There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form so here they are courtesy of YouTube. I advise you to watch them before you read my reviews if you don’t want me to spoil things. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
This is the story of two Kelly Clarkson’s. You have the Clarkson in white, who is definitely serviceable. Then there is the creepy Clarkson who makes you realize why the dude in the song would drop her for somewhere else. The video oddly reminds me of Owner of a Lonely Heart without the animals and unfortunately she doesn’t force the dude to jump off a building. And as I said before, the song is no Since U Been Gone (or Behind These Hazel Eyes for that matter) but there is something I like about the lyric, “Give me that Sunday school answer.”
Rihanna is good for at least one good song per album. Okay she is good for only one good song per album. But Umbrella definitely isn’t going to be that one for her upcoming release. And you really have to blame Jay-Z, ever since he unretired, everything he has touched has been sub par; Déjà vu with Beyonce was a cheap rip off of Crazy in Love; Kingdom Come was a massive flop, and this song just plain sucks. And as much as I like moderately attractive chicks naked, that body paint made me feel like I was watching some creepy soft-core robot porn.
I would much rather Tom Morello to focus more on continuing the Rage Against the Machine reunion, as his Nightwatchman isn’t nearly as good, but this video is a good watch.
Do we really need a serious song and accompanying video from Bowling for Soup? Probably not. The video is a little too soap opera-y, but effective nonetheless.
With the major project deadline still looming, I don’t have time to give a full write of the latest episode of Veronica Mars but here is a list of some of my favorite parts from last night’s episode. If you missed Un-American Graffiti, you can stream the episode over at CWTV.com, or download it through iTunes or Amazon Unbox.
- Really, any episode with Dick and Ronnie interaction is a great episode in my book. Ronnie’s comment about rather riding in a space elevator with Dick than going to Parker’s party was a great shout out to the alterna-prom episode. And Dick calling having his zipper down a “party ritual” may be the greatest Dick-ism ever.
- Second favorite part of the episode was the Van Clemmons sighting.
- Loved that Logan mocked the worst show in the history of television, My Super Sweet 16 and deliver the best line of the night: That reminds me, you don't know where I can get a dozen eunuchs do you?
- Vee giving the smackdown to a Middle School kid: classic
- Not sure what pop culture reference I liked more, Ronnie calling random stoner “Towelie” or the over exaggerated Tarintinoesque super slow-mo during the drive by.
- Loved Mac referencing cheesy 90’s movies, but her chumming it up with Logan was a little weird.
- The Mac-Max introduction may be the greatest introduction since Uma met Oprah. And poor guy know has to ask every girl he meets if his friends bought her.
- Much preferred the Keith case opposed to Ronnie’s. But how exactly did Keith know Piz’s first name? But the Biggie Smalls ID was great. I have a feeling that it will be just Keith and Sachs at the sheriff’s office next week.
- It was great seeing Chief Reilly in the episode. I wonder if this is part of some great television exchange program. Is Dick going to show up on Rescue Me next season in return?
There was an article in that latest Newsweek (5/7/07) totally ripping on The CW and how the first year is a failure. The first paragraph is dedicated to Veronica Mars and is the show that gets the most mention. Check your local newstands if you want to check that out.
In an unrelated story, a melancholy happy trails to Tom Poston who died last night. He was a little before my time, but I do remember seeing a few episodes of Newhart. It is good to remember a time in comedy where everyone didn’t go straight to raunchy in order to get a laugh.
It is the first of the month and that means it time for a new induction to the Scooter Hall of Fame. In honor of the band reuniting this weekend at Coachella, Rage Against the Machine, and their best album Evil Emipre will be this month's induction. The only problem is I with the semester coming to a close and a major project due Thursday, I just do not have time to do a right up. I will most likely have that ready later this week. Until then, here is my favorite Rage song, Bulls on Parade, from the Coachella set (which really is not that safe for work):
You know that the MTV Movie Awards have become a complete skill for the movie industry if you check out the category they stuck in at the end Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet. Then the movie that garnished the most nominations, along with 300, was a movie that everyone panned, but who’s third installment in the series is also coming this summer. With that said, I’ll still be tuning in June 3rd mostly because for the first time in what seems like forever, an MTV awards show may actually have a host that may be funny in Sarah Silverman. Here are the nominations and you can always head over to MTV.com to cast your vote or Yahoo.com to vote for your favorite fan submitted spoofs:
Maybe it is a generational thing, but I have never understood the whole Borat phenomenon. Same with Will Ferrell, someone really needs to tell explain how they actually find them funny. But with that said, I have a feeling there will be a Borat sweep. Personally as a big fan of homoerotic history, 300 was the best movie here.
Who Will Win: Will Smith Who I Voted For: Gerard Butler
You can trace the point when the Movie Awards started to suck to when they started nominated the same actors that the academy awards did and here you have four actors nominated for the characters they have played. What ever happened to Most Desirable Female? But anyways. Even though he was great in the first, Depp seemed to be mailing it in with the second, so I go with Butler. But I got to wonder what was his gayer role, 300 or Phantom of the Opera.
Breakthrough Performance Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine Lena Headey, 300 Columbus Short, Stomp the Yard Jaden Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness Justin Timberlake, Alpha Dog
Who Will Win: Abigail Breslin Who I Voted For: Columbus Short
Justin Timberlake’s inclusion here begs the question how can you actually have a breakout performance in a movie no one saw? Not that it matter, Breslin will runaway with it because all the future stars of To Catch a Predator most likely liked her stripper routine a little to me. Since I’m against the exploitation of eight year olds, I went with Short not for Stop the Yard per say, but I loved his performance on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Best Comedic Performance Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Will Ferrell, Blades of Glory Adam Sandler, Click Ben Stiller, Night at the Museum
Who Will Win: Sacha Baron Cohen Who I Voted For: Adam Sandler
Well Click was the only movie on this list that I actually saw so that is the easy choice. For further reasons why I would vote for Sandler, take a look at the name of this blog.
Who Will Win: Tobin Bell Who I Voted For: Bill Nighy
If I’m not mistake, Bell won last year and that will most likely continue not just this year but next. Hopefully there may be some Saw fatigue so Nighy wins as he was the lone bright spot in an otherwise bland movie. Although if he does end up winning, the award should also go to the CGI people that created his tentacle beard.
Best Fight Jack Black & Héctor Jiménez vs. Los Duendes (Wrestling Match), Nacho Libre Gerard Butler vs. The Uber Immortal (The Spartan/Persian Battle), 300 Sacha Baron Cohen vs. Ken Davitian (Naked Wrestle Fight), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Will Ferrell vs. Jon Heder (Ice Rink Fight), Blades of Glory Uma Thurman vs. Anna Faris (Super Girl Fight), My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Who Will Win: Sacha Baron Cohen vs. Ken Davitian Who I Voted For: Gerard Butler vs. The Uber Immortal
Who would have though that Best Fight would be the gayest category ever? They might as while send these montages to the Secretary of Defense in hopes of overturning their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet Evan Almighty (June 22) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (June 15) Hairspray (July 20) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13) Rush Hour 3 (August 10) Transformers (July 4)
Who Will Win: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Who I Voted For: Transformers
Yeah, this was pretty worthless. And where’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry?
Big News of the Week: May Sweeps in Full Swing: It’s is may and the networks are bringing out the big guns: Barney appears on The Price Is Right (How I Met Your Mother), the Heroes fast forward five years, Veronica Mars returns, My Name Is Earl has Smell-a-Vision (check the latest issue of TV Guide for your sniff card), Smallville goes noir, Tyra Collette returns to Supernatural, and next Sunday NBC gives us Saturday Night Live in the ‘90s: Pop Culture Nation. With all that, there will be only one Pick of the Week which you will have to wait until the end of this post.
One thing you won’t be seeing during May Sweeps is Drive which Fox pulled. I believe I called that before it ever aired. So you can add that show to The Lone Gunmen, Undeclared, Firefly, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Keen Eddie, Wonderfalls, The Jury, The Inside, Point Pleasant, Reunion. But anyways. And the 9th Green may even get into the sweeps fever with an upcoming contest. I haven’t gotten the prize(s) yet so I don’t want to jinx it by telling you what it is, but be sure to keep a look out for it. As a hint, even though the name may fool you, the prize has nothing to do with the dude who sang 3 AM. (Scooter's Note: If the deal falls through, I will disavow that the last sentence ever happened)
Heroes: Well that sucked massively. Yeah I knew from the moment the shard of glass entered Peter’s head he wasn’t actually going to be dead, but a fan of good acting can hope that he was actually killed of the show. Then the episode ended with a potential jump the shark moment when Hiro came face to face with Future Hiro. Anyone who has seen Back to the Future if you were to meet your future self it would rip a hole in the time/space continuum. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.
RW/RR Challenge: The Inferno III: I probably laughed a little to long after Rachel lost to Jenn. Really, how can you lose three straight after being up 2-0? She was definitely right to leave in shame without saying goodbye to anyone. Check out the latest episode over at MTV.com or download at iTunes.
Lost: Yawn. Have Sun and Jin ever had an interesting flashback? But that’s not to say the episode was a complete wash with the return of Eyepatch dude. I theorized a couple weeks ago that Miss Cleo was a little to eager to commit suicide and that that they knew they would come back. Even as far back as season one I theorized that Boone, Ethan, and the Federal Marshall would be what was down in the hatch. But I backed off those theories realizing that then they couldn’t possibly bring everyone back. But there was Eyepatch dude and I really doubt he just so happened to have an eyepatch over the same eye.
The other big news was random chick from the skies’ reveal that the flight was already recovered with no survivors which brought back all the purgatory rumors. My theory is that whoever wanted the plane to crash in the first place staged a fake crash so no one would keep searching foe them. Check out the latest episodes over at ABC.com.
Survivor: These have got to be some of the dumbest contestants in the history of Survivor. Which is a good thing because you never know what they are going to do leading to many unpredictable episodes this season. First you had the Alex/ Mookie braintrust who, upon finding Yau-Man’s immunity idol, come up with a plan to out Yau instead of just stealing it for themselves. That may have been the dumbest move ever.
Then you have the weakest alliance ever. Yau and Earl are tight. Then you have Cassandra who is loosly ties to the Earl/Yau tandem and to Dreamz. Then there is Stacy and Boo who are complete outsiders. It should be interesting next week to see if they stick together or someone aligns with Alex to gain control of the game. Check out the latest episode on Innertube.
My Name Is Earl: Certainly there was going to be a drop off after the hilarious Norm MacDonald episode last week, but not by much. It was great to see Earl issue out his own brand of karma this week including inadvertently helping the teachers blow up a student’s care. And as grating as Randy sometimes gets, him pouring out some chocolate milk in memory of a fallen teacher was classic. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com or download at iTunes.
Next Week’s Pick: Veronica Mars, 9:00 Tuesday, The CW: The latest talentless female with a name no one knows has been added to a group that won’t be around in two to three years so that means it is time for the best show on television to finally comeback. If you have yet to check out the show, there is no better time than this week to give it a try (you can always download the whole season on iTunes). It has been eight weeks since Ronnie has solved the Dean’s murder and Parker and Logan looked like they were becoming more than friends. And we will get are first taste of a standalone episode of the show. All leading up to the season finale which some who have\ seen it are calling the best episode in the history of the show which is high praise considering the two previous five star season finales, as well as A Trip to the Dentist and Donut Run and this years gold standards, Spit and Eggs and Mars Bars. Naturally Vee and crew are also the Promo of the Week:
.
