6/21/2001 09:08:08 PM
Dave Raposa just reproached me for liking Blink 182, but I remain unbowed. However…MTV’s Becoming Blink 182 is just plain wrong. It involves frat boys (of course) actually going and recreating the “What’s My Age?” video down to the tats and the nakedness and the guitars…there’s even a shot of all the paddles on the ceiling…gawd.
6/21/2001 09:00:18 PM
I have a suggestion to the guy in the MTV bumpers who’s having all that trouble trying to rip the plastic off the CD covers: download everything from Gnutella. You’ll have a plastic-free experience, I swear.
6/21/2001 08:57:21 PM
I’m sure people will think I’m crazy for saying this, but I’m somewhat amazed how unenjoyable MTV has been, by and large. There are few pleasures to even feel guilty about (not like I even believe in the concept of the guilty pleasure…)
6/21/2001 08:50:54 PM
You know what’s even grosser than Janet Jackson rebranding herself as a sex kitten? Mariah Carey rebranding herself as one. She even pops out of a cake in her new video.
6/21/2001 08:49:21 PM
Fuck. Blogger logged me out before I could post this…well…I was about to say that the warming thing about City High’s “What Would You Do?” is that it moralizes but empathizes. It stands firm in the belief that selling your body is wrong, demeaning and degrading, but also realizes that sometimes people don’t have anything remotely resembling a choice in the matter, that sometimes other moral considerations have come into play…
6/21/2001 08:40:22 PM
They’re so pop. I may actually have to buy the record.
6/21/2001 08:38:43 PM
And Blink 182, again. Some people’s faces are blanked out, and others aren’t. What rules does MTV (or the video production company) follow to do that kind of thing?
6/21/2001 08:31:19 PM
…and what kind of jackoff band starts its MTV career with a cover?
6/21/2001 08:30:25 PM
It’s Alien Ant Farm again. One cannot say enough mean things about them. They’re from Orange County, right? Even if they’re not from Orange County, they’re still from Orange County, you know? You don’t?
6/21/2001 08:27:03 PM
Oh. The Sugar Ray video is supposed to be a video-within-a-video-within-a-video. See what you miss when you don’t pay attention?
6/21/2001 08:23:45 PM
Sumo wrestlers, again:
kortbein: Maybe the ‘I’ve got my ass wide’ part has something to do with it.
kortbein: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/062101/mus.weezer.shtml
kortbein: (from Maura)
Epicharmus: Ass-wide sounds more like uh, ah…anal sex reference. Or something.
kortbein: Well, yes, but combine that with sumo wrestlers, and, well.
kortbein: Something’s gotta happen.
Epicharmus: Two to three years in prison, Josh. That’s what happens.
kortbein: Like I said, Rivers needs help.
6/21/2001 08:19:22 PM
Especially since the Redman track in question is such a thiggish, ugly one. It’s total brain penetration, maaan…
6/21/2001 08:16:41 PM
Having Redman on prime time is one reason to love MTV.
6/21/2001 08:15:55 PM
Epicharmus: So Josh…you’re a Weezer fan. Why sumo wrestlers? Any insight?
kortbein: Where’s this? The H— Pipe video which I have not seen?
Epicharmus: Right.
kortbein: Weezer 2001 defies logic. Rivers needs to get some real help so he can write another good record.
kortbein: Maybe sumo wrestlers are supposed to be ‘fun’.
6/21/2001 08:14:17 PM
And it’s N’Sync’s “Pop” again, and then Drowning Pool. This band is unafraid of physical ugliness, and that’s not a cheap shot at the lead singer’s portly bod. The centerpiece is an old, crazy guy who mouths out the lyrics. He has to be old and senile, see, ’cause his presence gives the video that perfect post-Se7en aura of degeneracy and decay.
Well, let me clarify something — it’s an actor playing an old senile guy. Given MTV’s tendency towards voyeurism, that’s an important distinction.
6/21/2001 08:03:40 PM
Mom bought me Taco Bell, just in time for prime time videos!
6/21/2001 08:01:06 PM
keithusc: you have yet to mention that bootylicious is edited within an inch of its life. try focusing on any one of the male dancers at the end. you can’t. the video refuses to let you follow any person for more than two seconds
Epicharmus: You could say that about ANY video.
keithusc: Not the Train video. Or, as I like to call it, the “TELL ME! Did you blah blalhaalkdflkh, blah blah blah, blah blahblahhhhhh.”
Epicharmus: I’m not convinced that, for example, Janet Jackson is really dancing throughout most of “All For You.”
keithusc: Of course she isn’t. and notice how in all for you, the camera doesn’t move.
Epicharmus: I think it’s another dancer with her head digitally superimposed on it.
keithusc: they just go from close up, mid, to far.
keithusc: and the lighting is tres Anjelica Huston in Addams Family.
Epicharmus: Mais oui.
6/21/2001 07:57:00 PM
I just want to say that I think Keith Caufield is totally bootylicious. Sorry, I’m allowed my inside jokes, I’m bored.
6/21/2001 07:53:07 PM
I suppose my complete disinterest in this docu is due to my complete disinterest in the Lara Croft movie. Hell, most movies completely disinterest me. Now if it was about Sarah Michelle Gellar…that would be different.
6/21/2001 07:48:48 PM
Oh, bullshit. Lara Croft is not anywhere near as popular with women as it is with men. Only a guy would come up with that particular canard.
6/21/2001 07:43:45 PM
So the squirrel is gay in the Snapple Elements…never mind, I won’t bother. I’ll just sound petty.
6/21/2001 07:42:17 PM
They’re playing Daft Punk’s “One More Time” over interview footage of some reporter asking Angelina and Billy Bob what the craziest thing they ever did in a car. (They fucked, duh. What the FUCK did they think they were gonna say? “We killed two babies and drank their blood on our way over here”?) I would so much rather be listening to Daft Punk right now.
6/21/2001 07:39:01 PM
This documentary on Angelina Jolie starts with the title “news:docs” or something like that. If that’s MTV’s version of what’s news, then what’s their version of news that stays news?
6/21/2001 07:31:30 PM
Somebody steals a Rolex from a corpse. That’s about as tacky as it gets. Apart from the clothing store some of the characters work at…shades of The Facts of Life. Oh, and somebody gets a heart attack in the middle of a funeral elegy.
6/21/2001 07:28:05 PM
I’d really like to say that I’m outraged, absolutely outraged at Volkswagon’s use of Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” in a car commercial…but it’s an awfully pretty video. It glistens. It’s not a total travesty, even if the song is in fact clearly about the end of the world.
6/21/2001 07:26:10 PM
And there’s another installment of Spyder Games later at 11:00. The show bookends prime time.
6/21/2001 07:24:14 PM
I’d like to say that this show’s dialogue is all boners, but it’s not, actually. You’d think a youf-oriented show like this might overdo the street talk and the trendy lingo, but no. It’s just very bland. Little real trash. I don’t think there’s anything here that’ll really seriously embarrass the actors or screenwriters ten years from now…but there’s nothing to be proud of, either. It’s just something to fill up time.
6/21/2001 07:18:50 PM
“I know it’ll take a lot more than baked goods to cheer you up.”
6/21/2001 07:11:49 PM
“So, I’ll call you about dinner, then?”
“Good, because I’m getting pretty hungry.”
[big toungey kiss]
6/21/2001 07:09:18 PM
Who on earth decided that a soap opera was exactly what MTV lacked?
As long as I can remember, MTV hashed and trashed original programming at an alarming rate; programs with no discernible mass OR cult appeal, like Spygroove or The Jukka Brothers, rise up on a wave of hype then fade away in late-night nothingness before completely disappearing, unloved and unmissed, ensuring that the latest, most anonymous versions of The Real World will be what fill-up your pot-filled post-college weekends.
6/21/2001 07:06:14 PM
But I’ve been wrong before. I thought the Tom Green Show was gonna sink like a stone…though it is refreshing to know that Tom Green can’t carry a movie very far in terms of box office. (And if Tom Green can’t, is there any hope for Johnny Knoxville?)
6/21/2001 07:04:33 PM
From the Real World, a fake real soap opera to Spyder Games, a real fake soap opera. I can’t imagine this show lasting.
6/21/2001 07:00:49 PM
Thank God that’s over. Uh…spoke too soon. The painful montage has yet to finish.
6/21/2001 06:57:10 PM
Eric Nies: “I stay in the entertainment business ’cause that’s the only thing I know how to do.” That’s heartbreaking. His manager robbed him of a quarter-million. That’s totally VH1: Behind The Music.
6/21/2001 06:53:28 PM
The number one moment? Nude Jacuzzi and multi-partner shower action on some Real World season I missed. Puts all the quasi-liberal social advocacy bunk in perspective, doesn’t it? We don’t care what you do or what you stand for…just do it on camera.
6/21/2001 06:50:33 PM
Oh yeah, I’m suspicious that the call the slap the #2 all-time greatest Real World moment. That practically borders on advocacy.
6/21/2001 06:49:13 PM
Well, I’m more than half-way through and I’m not as loquacious as I was earlier. I feel like I should say something about the on-camera slap featured in Real World Seattle — boy and girl break-up, girl calls boy a homo, boy executes a startlingly accurate facial slap at girl in moving car, girl is so startled she laughs. The is so well-executed you’d almost suspect it was practiced (choreographed, even) as just about any dance move on the channel.