titles: beginners (2011)

When I first heard of the film, I mistook the title for, 'Beginnings.' Ever since, it's always been 'Beginnings' rather than 'Beginners': a good title for the start of 2012.

leningrad cowboys go america (1989): just wanna be a rockstar baby

Closing off 2011 with Leningrad Cowboys Go America--if not belated since I watched this before I went to England. Finnish director, Aki Kaurismäki introduces a bizarrely wonderful crossover between cold war Eastern European culture and western pop culture, in the form of fictitious band, The Leningrad Cowboys. With their obtusely exaggerated pompadours, ridiculous pointy shoes, ill-fitting suits, over-the-top oompah folk music turned to versatile blues-rock-country-ska-you-name-it-they-play-it scene; they were a great resurrection parody nod to the American rock o'roll scene of the fifties. They move to the US, following their shady manager in dreams of becoming as big as their pompadours, only to find out that Mexico is their destination for "their kind of music." Hopping from roadhouse to biker saloon, the film takes us on a surreal, quirky adventure through the US, through old-time rock o'roll and a droll sense of deadpan humor.

The Leningrad Cowboys were actually the Sleepy Sleepers in real life--that is until they became the Leningrad Cowboys after the movie took off.

boy bands in space: the sci-fi obsession

Backstreet Boys - Larger than Life (1999) and g.o.d - Observation (2000)
(Note: Youtube doesn't have the music video for Larger Than Life; wonder why?)
What was up with the sci-fi theme? Was it an overgrown post-obsession from the 80s in which the world was fascinated with galaxy adventure and universe expansion discovery? Or was it just the ideal staple for all things laughable, crazy, and unexplainable?

Take Korean boy band, g.o.d's video (acronym for Groove Over Dose) for Observation, which is definitely a low-cost production. It starts with all of the boys hopping and bopping in space with a mission to take down some anonymous villain who may or may not be after a beautiful anonymous woman. They pop into the Earth's ozone and hop and bop around to save beautiful anonymous woman (includes a great mannequin scene that reminded me of N'SYNC in It's Gotta Be Me...) After some stalking and obtuse spying, the boys discover that the anonymous villain was just a crossdresser! Oh my! Devastated, the boys return to their spaceship, which promptly runs into Santa Claus and his host of reindeers and explodes, leaving their wiggly bodies floating in the wide expanse.

Larger than Life in comparison, was more of a high-cost production with all of the insanely intricate yet ugly robot suits, huge spaceship model, detailed tech gadgets imitating an early protocol of Tony Spark's work interface, and hover boards. Everybody in the group starts out in their little sleep pods and then float around in their own sphere (Ken in the control pod, Nick with his army of dancing robots, Brian playing racquet ball with a virtual person on the hover board, AJ in a dark room connected to pipes, and Howie, the only one not in a spacesuit of some sort) until the dance ensemble. In which AJ rocks out the tiniest midriff cut-off. Then Kevin is fighting off missiles that is coming from a woman invader but all are successfully avoided and the boys all return to their sleep pods.

It's not about the possibility of comprehension and belief in any of these videos--only and purely all-out crazy fun shenanigans, super catchy music, great funky dance moves, and the excuse to 'be' in the wide expanse of the universe, the unknown frontier, the unmarked territory, doing whatever you want with hardly any consequences. Unless you happen to run into Santa Claus that is. :)

If anybody has any other space/sci-fi music video with another boy or girl band, please let me know. Britney Spears not including.

the good, the bad and the ugly (1966): cowboys twirling them guns

What makes a western, a western:

• Deserts, never-ending stretch of deserts, and the one or two random saloon towns or adobe hut
• Bullets of sweat, grit, dust, and dirt, which can never be washed off even with an hour of scrubbing
• Guns, cannons, explosives
• Horses and horsebackriding
• Attire of tattered wide-rim hats, ponchos, cowboy boots with spurs, holsters, and the most important of all: a water pouch
• Buckets of money buried somewhere
• Twangy, dramatic soundtrack (an extra star if Ennio Morricone happens to be your soundtrack composer!)
• Fantastic intertitles
• Great character names
• Super close ups to insinuate first-person perspectives
• A pink sun umbrella (an extra star for frills)
• Bandit cowboys, sheriffs, and a very obvious villain
• Cigars and alcohol (you don't need food when you have these!)
• Clint Eastwood, squinting into the sun with his mouth in a perpetual grimace

That pretty much wraps up Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, which as the title implies, follows three men: a good-esque fellow named Blondie (Clint Eastwood), a very bad man named Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), and a particularly ugly one named Tuco (Eli Wallach). I especially loved seeing Tuco, twirling his pink sun umbrella with frills, and the way he enunciated, 'I'll killll youuuu!!" Also, it is always fantastic to see Eastwood do what he does best: squint, grimace, and chew on a cigar while shooting away in the endless desert.

Semi-related trivia: DJ erb made a great mashup of Ennio Morricone (Ecstasy of Gold) versus Naz (One Mic). It was the first mashup I was introduced to and it is still one of the greatest mashups I've ever heard.

something about fall

Unfortunate relaxing Tuesday: woke up at 5 am nauseous and spent the rest of the day at home recuperating.
The last day of warm toasty autumn--creepy baby pumpkins, trees shedding, the nostalgic crunch of leaves against my shoes.