VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Imaginaerum (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Imaginaerum (2012)

Clio & Carolyn: 2.8/5 stars, 6.4/10.
Native ratings: 5.7/10 IMDB. Not available on Netflix.

This will be the 2nd time we watch a movie based on a concept album we’ve never listened to, performed by a band we’ve never listened to. The last one was Marillion:Brave, by Richard Stanley, director of the movie Hardware (1990). This one is based on an album by the Finnish metal band, NightWish. We mostly watched it for the visuals, which were pretty cool, but we were not as impressed as we were hoping.

The story was a bit lacking. The sound mix was surprisingly bad (though that is a distribution problem). It was overly-dramatic and kind of full of itself. But of course, it’s a video for an album, and music videos are sorta-kinda SUPPOSED to be like that — all grandiose and shit. So I might be faulting the genre for its own self-definition here. It also got a lot less exciting (and a lot more depressing) near the end. The acting wasn’t the greatest, but this also wasn’t a movie with very much acting in it.

In the end, this was style over substance. Some pretty awesome visuals. Definitely a great movie to watch — not as great to listen to, or think about. But visually, it was an 8/10.

Directed by: Stobe Harju (who directed Nightwish’s “The Islander” music video).
Written by: Stobe Harju & Mikko Rautalahti (Alan Wake video game), and Richard Jackson.
Story written by Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish songwriter and band member) & Stobe Harju.

Starring Marianne Farley (Undressed, 2001: A Space Travesty, 6 eps of Vampire High) as Gem Whitman.
Quinn Lord (young boy in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus–is he now typecast to only be in movies with Imaginae?rium in their title?, 2 eps of Smallville) as Tom Whitman – age 10.
Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish song writer and band member) as Tom Whitman – age 47.
Francis X. McCarthy (BASEketball, 7 eps of Melrose Place, 4 eps of the original 21 Jump Street, Alien Nation, 2 eps of The Greatest American Hero, 1 ep of Smallville, 1 ep of Cheers, 1 ep of ALF, 1 ep of The A-Team, 1 ep of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) as Tom Whitman – age 70.
Joanna Noyes (Grandma Thora Read in Arthur) as Ann – age 73.
Anette Olzon (Nightwish band member) as Ann.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959409/combined

 

LINK: MUSIC VIDEO: MC Chris – Discord

MUSIC VIDEO: MC Chris – Discord

Yet another unexpected “collaboration” – MC Chris has released a song all about My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic.  Fear the Brony movement!

LINK URL: http://bronies.memebase.com/2012/04/02/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-mc-chris-discord/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MyLittleBrony+%28My+Little+Brony%29

 

VIDEO: List of TV shows watched in 2010

Yes, I keep track of this stuff!

We watched over 174 movies in 2010. This was a 28% drop from 2009 (241 movies), so our TV-series viewing was up in 2010. We watched 69 series, 12 pilots, 4 specials, 5 one-offs, and 2 documentaries.

Note that I try to list the more obscure stuff first, to the extent it’s possible. NOTE!!! Most links point to reviews I’ve written.

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AWARDS:

MOST FUCKED UP SHOW OF THE YEAR: Still Food Party and Tim And Eric Awesome Show,Great Job! — just like last year. HONORABLE MENTION: South Park, Kevin Spencer, Check It Out With Steve Brule.
BEST NEW ADULT CARTOONS ADDITIONS: Archer, Neighbors From Hell, Ugly Americans, Where My Dogs At?
BEST COMEDY CARTOON: Metalocalypse / South Park / American Dad / Robot Chicken / Family Guy. Really hard to choose one!
BEST ANIME: Higurashi (honorable mention: Planetes)
BEST PSYCHEDELIC CARTOON: Adventure Time, but it’s very subtle.
BEST LIVE-ACTION COMEDY: Food Party, Sarah Silverman Program, The Office
BEST LIVE-ACTION, OVERALL: The Walking Dead, 24, Weeds
BEST SUPERHERO CARTOON: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
MOST IMPROVED SERIES, COMPARED TO LAST YEAR: Batman:The Brave And The Bold
WORST COMEDY CARTOON: Muddle Earth
WORST LIVE-ACTION COMEDY: Shit My Dad Says
WATCHED THE MOST TIMES IN 2011: PILOT: Totally For Teens – watched three times
MOST DISAGREED ON:  Horribly Slow Murderer With The Extremely Inefficient Weapon, The: Clint: 5/5 stars, 8.4/10. Carolyn: 2/5 stars, 6/10

Series Genres: (comedy=69/78%, superhero/scifi=11/12%, anime: 4/4%, drama 2/2%, horror: 2/2%, action 1/1%):

Cartoons (61/69%) Vs. Live (28/31%):

Quality: 45% in HD this year:

Ratings (includes all rated videos, even shorts): (5-star=39/43%, 4-star=28/30%, 3-star=20/22%, 2-star=4/4%, 1-star=0%):

Read on for the full list.

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“+” indicates series watched in HD.
Netflix ratings (out of 5) are based on: 1=hate,2=didn’t like,3=like,4=really like,5= love.
IMDB ratings (out of 10) are based on: 0=nothing enjoyable, 5=neutral, 6=generic pass, 10=perfect.

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VIDEO: List of TV shows watched in 2009

Yes, I keep track of this stuff!

We watched over 241 movies in 2009 (up 25% from the 193 we watched last year), so our TV-series viewing was down in 2009. Still, our list of TV shows watched was quite sizable. Read on for the full list.

I try to list the more obscure stuff first, as it’s probably no surprise that I watch Heroes.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM CLINT AND CAROLYN!!

Now, I command you to be touched, with The Cat Carol, performed by my favorite anti-man-who-then-became-a-man vocal performer Meryn Cadell, and written by Bruce Evans:

Are you crying yet? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (That warning was also issued on Twitter and Facebook.)

If you liked that, buy it at CatCarol.com. I did. For real.

 

MUSIC VIDEO: Chemlab: Codine, Glue, & You [Industrial / Coldwave]

Just posting this because there are some AWFUL crap quality versions of this Chemlab video out there. Me & Carolyn wathced an FLV version I’d downloaded and you could barely even see details… Jared’s arm would be like 2 pixels. Horrible.

But I found it in 720p! Though I doubt the source was that high quality…

 

COMEDY: funny videos… most of which we watched last night

clumsy best man ruins the wedding:

Jon Lajoie: 2 Girls 1 Cup Song … Amazing:

Jon Lajoie: High As Fuck … it gets better toward the end. Better as in WTF INSANE!:

But my favorite was probably the Slap Chop rap… We have one of these, actually, from Pampered Chef. They’re good products. But remixing an infomercial into a “rap” music video? Pretty damn funny!!:

Show Me Your Gentiles was pretty funny:

…and it reminded me of another classic — I Just Want Bang Bang Bang:

Parthena likes Jesus videos?
1) Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter:

2) Jesus 2000:

Ass-licking Smurfs video — I’d seen this before:

Kermit The Frog covers Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (a classic):

And while on the subject of classics, neither Parthena nor Erin had seen Chocolate Rain!!!

I mean.. there was a whole South Park about this guy! :)


The South Park episode is called Canada On Strike [wiki link].

While I’m here, here’s Obama promising something that never happened… Ran into this on Facebook while posting these other videos:

When Bush sent us to war using false assumptions (chemical weapons, 911 connection), everyone whined that “Bush Lied, People Died”. But Obama promised to send the troops home and didn’t too… So “Obama Lied, People Died” too. Both parties cause innocent people AND American soldiers to be killed.

 

Star Wars Galaxies – M.C. Chris Fett’s Vette

A remix of the famed MC Chris song set to animation from Star Wars Galaxies.

 

MUSIC VIDEO: D.O.A. – Police Brutality – from their 2009 album Northern Avenger

Not only is D.O.A. one of my favorite punk bands… But their latest album has a song, Police Brutality, that is relevant to what I frequently post about!

Buy their new album, Northern Avenger, at Sudden Death Records.

And D.O.A.: Please get over your fear of touring on the east cost! We need to see you here! Stop touring in Canada in California only! I want to go!!

 

COMEDY: Literal Music Videos

Anyone remember the Microsoft Songsmith videos? (Just click that to see what I’m talking about.) They were “reverse karaokes”, with original vocals but new, automatically-generated, shitty music.

Well, hot off the heels of that trend is a new trend in mangling our favorite classics: The LITERAL Music Video.

It is basically a cover of the song, where they sing about what is happening in the video.

A-Ha’s “Take On Me” (hilarious, but unfortunately excerpted from some other show, so it gets cut off):

Red Hot Chili Peppers’s “Under The Bridge“:

(The ending particularly had us laughing… like when they joke that he’s running too slow to escape the nuclear explosion.)

Billy Idol’s White Wedding — “Goth Wedding” as they call it in this version:

And, although I don’t know the original song, “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” by Bonnie Tyler was the first Literal Music Video I ever saw, and it was particularly funny (due to how weird the video is). This is what got me hooked on the phenomenon:

The “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears one had us both laughing a lot!

This one isn’t as good, but if you’re a They Might Be Giants fan, it’s still worth watching (“Birdhouse In Your Soul”):

The 60s aren’t immune either. Here’s “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. Not quite as funny, but it’s nice how they make fun of how ridiculous the original video is:

To search for more of these, click HERE. Or just search for “literal” on youtube — though doing it that way gets a lot of unrelated crap in the results.

 

MUSIC: my favorite Theatre Of Tragedy songs – Der Tanz Der Schatten, etc

John The Canadien recently posted a Theatre Of Tragedy fanmade anime music video to his Facebook. I thought I’d respond by posting another Theatre Of Tragedy YouTube video, which is really just a compilation of gothic photos.

This is “Der Tanz Der Schatten”, pretty much my favorite Theatre Of Tragedy song ever. It’s in our party playlist. Such daulity/disparity between the two vocalists. It’s beautiful to me. The genre is “gothic metal” or “black metal“:

And no. Their songs aren’t normally in German.

If you’re really curious, here’s a live version:
[youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeHX2AkqiX4]

And here’s “Seraphic Deviltry”, which I consider the song most similar to Der Tanz Der Schatten:

Unfortunately, they ultimately ditched the 2nd (low growly) singer, become more industrial metal instead of gothic metal, then became a more dancy/clubby/poppy no-guitar band, and are pretty terrible these days. You gotta stick to their first 2 albums or so.

One more! “A Fair And Guiling Copesmate Death”:

Okay! I can’t stop! Here is “Dying – I Only Feel Apathy”. Another one full of gothic photos. This one has lyrics, if you click through to the YouTube page:

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here’s the song that we end up hearing several times by New Year’s Eve, and then always listen to again NYE and New Year’s Day… It’s by Spike Jones, and it’s considerably older than we’d realized. First heard it via Dr. Demento. Was hoping to find a true video of it, but YouTube as an audio delivery mechanism works well. And as it turns out, I hear plenty of Spike Jones video is on the famous bittorrent tracker that starts with “demon”… Anyway, we like it because of it’s cartoony qualities, but never realized that Spike Jones influenced Frank Zappa, Weird Al Yankovic, and such. And yea, it’s a bit out of character for us to listen to something so old, which explains our ignorance :)

 

VIDEO: List of shows watched in 2008

When people suggest shows for us to watch, I often say that our plate is full in terms of watching stuff. The list below is what we watched in 2008, but the list of shows that we own and still need to watch is even longer. And meanwhile we’re watching a TON of movies. We watched 193 in 2008 (42% comedy, 20% high def, 10% animated). We also watched dvd-extras during every dinner we ate. So this list of shows is just what we watched in-between the 193 movies and 365+ meals worth of dvd extras we watched. :)

 

MUSIC: Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails talks about his respect for Atari Teenage Riot

Trent Reznor takes 2 minutes to introduce the video for Revolution Action — which happens to be my favorite song. Ever. And since my 3 favorite bands are The Misfits, Ween, and Atari Teenage Riot — I just had to share this. It looks like Reznor likes ATR for some of the same reasons I do:

And of course, I invite everyone to check out the extremely cool and creative video for “Revolution Action”. This is the banned version:

Of course, no mention of Atari Teenage Riot is complete without mentioning the actual riot that they started with their song “Start The Riot” (and “Into The Death”) in Berlin, Germany, complete with police brutality. They were arrested. Here are highlights (3 minutes):

I love how Alec Empire yells “We will never die!” as they are put into the police van. Too bad he was wrong, with Carl Crack dying of an overdose in the week before 9/11.

 

VIDEO: List of shows watched in 2003

We started keeping our watching lists long before we started blogging them. Periodically, I will post an old, un-posted watching list. Here are all the shows we watched in 2003. Yes, this is a tad late. :)

 

MUSIC: Live video from NoMeansNo “Live & Cuddly” album surfaces

NoMeansNo is a GREAT band. Among the Top 10 for both Carolyn & I, and we’ve both listened since late 1991. This live album started it all for us and a great many of our friends, and our freinds’ friends. After 16 years, this finally exists… so I must post it. So here are two songs of theirs, “Two Lips Two Lungs And One Tongue”, and “Rags & Bones”:

Arthur C. Clarke’s corpse isn’t even cold yet, and I’ve already bumped my R.I.P. article about him off the top. Sigh.

 

MUSIC: Ministry coming to Ram’s Head, Baltimore, 4/26/2008 – check out the video for “Revenge”, 1983

Here’s a song they will never play, and have probably not played live for over 20 years: “Revenge”. It’s from their 1983 pop/new wave album “With Sympathy”. They burned the originals a few years later, and went into the industrial direction instead, ultimately becoming a hard metal-industrial fusion. So anyway, this video is very funny to a Ministry fan who hasn’t been exposed to their super-early stuff. So here it is, the best song from their worst album:

 

MUSIC/COMEDY: “You sound like a dying cow in the begginning [sic].” Worst cover of “Hey” by the Pixies ever, or hilarious entertainment?

Okay, I didn’t even listen to Pixies a year ago, and still only know 1 album, but I have to say that “Hey” is a damn good song, like my favorite song for the past few months. So I was watching a different cover of the song on YouTube every day, and… Well, you just have to experience it for yourself. Listen for the dying cow after “been tryin’ to meet you”:

Please find the comment that says “you sound like a dying cow in the beginning” (2nd page) and click the thumbs up. Carolyn can never hear this song again without imagining a cow. Best comment ever.

 

MUSIC: 1980s: Steve Winwood – Valerie … What’s the fuss?

Remember the song “Valerie?” (Valeriiieeeeee… Call on meeeeee…. Call on meeeeee.. Valeriiieeee.) You’d think it was about a specific Valerie, right? His lyrics claim “I’m the same boy I used to be”, but Valerie isn’t even the same girl she is right now! Does this make Steve Winwood a fucking liar? The “Valerie” in the music videos is different in the American version and the European version! What the fuck! Is this some corporate interference? I had remembered the lyrics incorrectly, thinking they were “She’s the same girl she used to be”, and I was irate. I’ve calmed down now. Observe:

American Valerie

 

LINKS: Best Buy sucks, Microsoft maps don’t (!), Shakira Vs. Danzig, Vinyl Vs. CD, 3rd Grader Vs. Steve Jobs, Comcast Vs. Google — This is starting to sound like an episode of celebrity deathmatch…

Also: This Website will tell you who to vote for, with Clint-approved precision (I’ve tested it).  Arrange your top 10 issues in 4 areas in the order you care about them, and watch it graph all currently running politicians in relation to you.