January 22, 2007 at 1:42 pm · Filed under Misc & Random
Hands up, who doesn’t know the surname Scorsese?
If you are part of the 10% of the human population who does not know this filmmaking legend or has not seen any of his films, either you have been living under a rock for all your life or you have no interest in movies whatsoever.
Movie genius Martin Scorsese has been captivating audiences since the early 1970’s with films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Colour of Money. For the younger generation films such as Goodfellas, Cape Fear and his most recent masterpiece, The Departed should ring a clear bell
Following his trademark no holds barred style of ultra violence, The Departed is a gut wrenching, blood curdling account of two very different Boston cops (Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon) and how they play their part in trying to bring a legendary gangster (played by the brilliant Jack Nicholson) to his knees.
The storyline is both fast paced and well developed, taking you into the psyche of each character whilst managing to stick to its plot. Although the movie (as per Scorsese’s style) revolves around gangsterism don’t expect too many clichès. The Departed is in your face realism, to the point where you know that characters like these are indeed walking the streets.
So before the mad awards season starts and you feel left out, not being able to predict the winners. Grab youself a popcorn and slushy and head to your nearest cinema to catch this piece of cinematic brilliance.
We found these nice little photos online, showcasing a bathroom, completely based on legendary arcade game, Pac-Man. The design is very clean and we quite like - not that we would design our bathroom like that. But maybe for like a bathroom in the arcade - that would be very appropriate and clever and innovative (read: wondering whether these photos are from an arcade’s bathroom…).
And in other totally unrelated news - Hilary Clinton yesterday announced that she too was running to be elected the new president of the awesome USA in 2008. Yes, Hilary Clinton is indeed the wife of the two-timing Bill Clinton, ex-president that had oral relations with Monica Whatisherface. This is awesome news to the world. Oh, and apparently she’s in the presidential race to win, according to an e-mail she sent out to her supporters - heck, I’d hope that every presidential candidate is in it to win…
I got the new video for Fall Out Boy’s latest single, “This ain’t a scene, it’s an arms race”, which will be the first single to be released from their new album, “Infinity on High”, to be released on 6 February 2007.
First impressions, when I heard the single playing on the radio, was that it is definitely a lot different than their previous offerings and you could hear that they tried to experiment with a lot of different influences. Problem however for FOB is, that My Chemcial Romance successfully pulled that stunt off in December with their Black Parade album. So FOB, at this stage still and until I hear the full album, are a bit of copy-cats to me.
But anyway, I’ll wait for 6 Feb to pass complete and final judgement on “Infinity on High”, but until then, here’s the music video…
I was watching an interview with one of my favourite South African bands the other day and one of the questions posed during the interview was if the band “after doing two cover songs would ever go back do doing something original or if they were stuck on the covers?”.
I started thinking about this. Does doing a cover make you a bad artist? Does it mean that you have nothing original left to say? I discovered that this was too complex to be answered by a simple `yes` or `no`.
I dug into my own CD collection and realised (with a shock) that most of my favourite bands/artists (some of which have been declared as rock/grunge/metal/pop legends) covered quite a few songs during their careers.
But what is a cover song? It’s taking a classic, existing song (those songs we sing in the shower; play air guitar to, drum on the steering wheels of our cars) and re-creating it in a new context.
Taking the big hits of yesterday and revamping it for today.
Some notable examples:
· Nirvana’s `The Man Who Sold The World` (originally done by David Bowie)
· Pearl Jam’s `Tearjerker: Last Kiss` (originally done by Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers – bet you didn’t know that)
· A Perfect Circle’s `Imagine` (The John Lennon classic which is probably one of the most covered songs in music history.)
Why bands/artists do cover versions, is a separate discussion altogether.
Sometimes bands produce cover versions for artistic reasons. Performing songs that would normally be completely out of character for them to record, but which give them the chance to prove their versatility. A perfect example is The Narrow’s take on A-Ha’s `Living Daylights`. Pop, twisted to a kick-ass track with a rock-edge. Another is Marilyn Manson’s nu-metal rendition of the Eurythmics pop classic, Sweet Dreams. It’s a damn catchy tune…
Then there’s the tribute. When established artists pay homage to the artists or songs that influenced/inspired them.
January 20, 2007 at 12:02 am · Filed under Misc & Random
So we were browsing about the internet and found this post on Mashable! regarding the decision for all commercial ads on YouTube to also adhere to the same guidelines as normal TV ads. And then just as a sub-note to the all post, the author points us to this piece of real estate on YouTube…
I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was going to find on YouTube user, Blendtec’s, profile page - quite an interesting and new experience just there. The profile page is being run from the Blender / Smoothie Maker manufacturer, Blendtec, and all the videos shows them trying to blend out-of-the-ordinary objects - stuff you would never even dream about blending.
And to prove the strangeness, here’s a quick vid to show how they would go about the blending of a few TDK 90 minute casette tapes (yes they are antiques too, but that’s a totally different matter altogether…).
