Hoodie Allen is making all sorts of movies in this genre-hopping video, ranging from Film Noir to The Shining to The Royal Tenenbaums and even some Michael Bay action.
A Chinese Gang Boss can kick the crap out of anything he wants — especially when that thing is held back by his minions — but a seriously cloudy chest x-ray calls for a different sort of assault. No, not cancer treatment, but something more like the Western hereos he previously watched in the limo. And so, he saddles up for his final confrontation in this strange and beautiful homage to Westerns and Yakuzas. And perhaps strangest of all, the video gains even more odd resonance by dint of the song itself, which you'd more expect to encounter in an elevator than in a short film like this.
Usher channels Michael Jackson in this performance/party clip — featuring Nicki Minaj and Pharrell Williams — that comes to an end when his world gets turned upside-down by a woman.
Charli seems to have found the jackpot lane lately, singing or guesting on songs aimed straight for high-school-aged (American?) girls. That vibe still is in effect on this one, an ode to Jawbreaker complete with a Rose McGowan cameo.
If it works for The Avengers, why can't work for the Universal stable of pop stars. Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj come together to electrify a hot city and show off some great teamwork/synergy.
Objects in this video may be much larger than they appear in real life. And once you see the huge dangers lurking in this foreboding city, you'll understand why the main character is on such a frantic run.
We don't cover too many Spanish language video aqui, but this is an ambitious and stylish video in any language/genre. Singer Natalia Jiménez makes her way through a wrecked city, that seems on the verge of rebellion if not total annihilation.
Call it The Dentist Dilemma. Getting poked, prodded and worse? Terrible. Getting a halluinatory buzz from laughing gas? Awesome. Or frightening, as is the case in this Elliphant video.
There's crappy gigs and then there's pricelessly crappy gigs. Playing to a sparse crowd of interested drunks? Crappy. Turning into Zombie mid-performance? Priceless.
If you're going to critique the new Taylor Swift music video, you shouldn't start off by saying "haven't watched the taylor swift video and I don't need to watch it"... especially if you're Earl Sweatshirt and the director is Mark Romanek.
The Odd Future rapper took offense to the "twerking" component as another sign of "white girls" hiding their prejudice by perpetuating black stereotypes — a provocative comment that of course went wild.
Thing is, Romanek is an Earl Sweatshirt fan, and saw the comment. And, addressed the "controversy" in an interview with Vulture:
"I'm a fan of his and I think he's a really interesting artist. (I posted a Vine to one of his tracks once.) But he stated clearly that he hadn't seen the video and didn't even intend to watch it. So, respectfully, that sort of invalidates his observations from the get-go. And it's this one uninformed tweet that got reported on and rehashed, which started this whole "controversy." We simply choose styles of dance that we thought would be popular and amusing and cast the best dancers that were presented to us without much regard to race or ethnicity. If you look at it carefully, it's a massively inclusive piece. It's very, very innocently and positively intentioned. And — let's remember — it's a satirical piece. It's playing with a whole range of music-video tropes and clichés and stereotypes."
Not as much drama as most Twitter wars, but maybe that's because he had more than 140 characters to respond.
PS: if you want a good music video directing philosophy, the one Romanek presents in the interview is one I'd recommend:
I kind of pride myself on being able to tailor a bespoke style for just about any artist or genre — whatever's called for, really. In this case, the assignment was to create a purely fun, upbeat pop video. I'd never really done that, so it was a new challenge.
Damn you, Dave Grohl. Taking something as simple as the Ice Bucket Challenge and doing it absolutely perfectly.... and thinking of the Carrie connection before Stephen King.
Now if only Stephen King had thought of it first...
