This is trademark Weezer, so distinctive it’s almost unbelievable. There are soooo many identical bands doing what Weezer do, yet they just whip these little bands kicking and screaming out of the water and straight into the dirt. All this and it’s not even a great bonafide classic Weezer song. This is the kind of song that does really well commercially but the fans find other beauties in the back catalogue to worship, as do I but you just can’t beat Pinkerton, just pick any song its amazing. But you can’t have it all, and as this ‘commercial’ gem shows Rivers has not lost any song writing skills whilst studying down at Harvard. How can you fault a super uber geek who records music videos inthe playboy mansion? Good stuff from Rivers & co. always ones to play on their success with a stunning vid. This is a simple song (as most compositions of Weezer’s are) basic yet undeniably strong to the ear, picking most lyrics up on first listen and defiantly a tune to drive to.
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Pork and Beans Music Video
Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” video brought together most of the elements of my childhood. The chunky guitars echoed seventies rock from bands like the Raspberries. Weezer embraced their inner geek by casting themselves within a homage to the sitcom, “Happy Days.” For a kid who grew up on Richie, Potsie and The Fonz, it was the ultimate trip, a delicious embrace of disposable pop culture. It put director Spike Jonze on the map, winning MTV’s 1995 Breakthrough Video award. “Buddy Holly” made music videos a respectable, cut-and-paste art form.
With their new video for “Pork and Beans,” Weezer has buried the MTV era and embraced the network that matters most, YouTube. The first single on their red album is classic power pop: short, sweet, and anthemic. But the “Pork and Beans” video takes the song to another level by embracing the absurdity of instant Internet celebrities. It is a massive, viral video test. The humor will be completely lost upon those who ignore those forward emails with links to strange outtakes. But for people who can’t get enough stupid human tricks, Weezer creates a wondrous chance to play name that meme.
For those who can’t name the meme (because they don’t know what a meme is!), Richard Dawkins coined the word thirty years ago in his book, THE SELFISH GENE. A meme is a thought, catch-phrase, or in the Internet era, a link, that is passed from one person to another in rapid fashion. Whenever we choose to forward a joke, a video, an article, we are engaging in a form of natural selection. Some may argue with Dawkins’ theories, but he offered a viable explanation for why the funniest, craziest and most memorable videos rise to the top on YouTube. And Weezer put all of YouTube’s most useless bits into one slamming stew of “Pork and Beans.”
2009 VMA Nominees
Lady Gaga is also leading the pack with nine nominations combined for “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi”
Latest ‘New Moon’ Trailer: A Shot-By-Shot Analysis You saw it at the Video Music Awards, and now we go over it with a fine-tooth comb.
You may remember an article we ran after the last “New Moon” trailer that listed all the various characters and subplots from Stephenie Meyer’s novel that were being omitted from the film’s advance advertising, seemingly replaced by extra shots of Taylor Lautner’s six-pack. Well, rejoice, “Twilight” fans, because another “New Moon” trailer was just unveiled during the MTV Video Music Awards, and it brings both the sexiness and the substance.
As always, we honor such occasions with our patented shot-by-shot analysis. Read on for the details you may have missed among all that awesomeness.
0:00 – 0:02: We see the Volturi chambers in Volterra, Italy, as Jane (Dakota Fanning) opens the door.
0:02 – 0:04: Aro (Michael Sheen) and his fellow vamps look to be passing judgment on some ill-fated, long-haired individual. Note that this appears to be a different scene than the one Jane just walked in on. “The Voturi are the closest thing my world has to royalty,” we can hear Edward say. “They enforce the law.”
0:04 – 0:05: Our first good glimpse at Dakota Fanning as Jane. With those contacts in and the wicked smile beneath them, she sure is a long way from “Dreamer.”
0:06 – 0:08: “Vampires have laws?” Bella asks Edward.
0:09: Now we get to see the verdict. As the long-haired man opens his mouth in fright, Aro approaches and snaps his neck. Is it just me, or does Sheen look a bit more like Count Dracula than we might expect from the “Twilight” franchise?
0:11 – 0:15: We see Bella’s familiar truck pulling up in front of her house. “You’re a human who knows entirely too much about us,” explains a concerned-looking Alice. “They could kill us all.”
0:16: The Summit Entertainment logo.
0:17 – 0:18: The beautiful aerial shot we’ve seen a few times now.
0:19 – 0:20: “You just don’t belong in my world, Bella,” Edward tells her when they’re in the woods, moments before he leaves her.
0:20 – 0:21: “I belong with you,” she replies.
0:22 – 0:27: “This is the last time you’ll ever see me,” Edward tells his soon-to-be-heartbroken girl. “Please just promise me you won’t do anything reckless.” Oh, RPattz, if only you knew.
0:29 – 0:35: While Jessica, Mike, Angela and Eric obliviously play in the background of the cafeteria, Bella glances over toward the now-empty table where the Cullens once sat. “The absence of him is everywhere I look,” she explains. “It’s like a huge hole has been punched through my chest.”
Frame-By-Frame: “New Moon” Trailer 3
0:36: A cool shot of Edward and his car disappearing. Is that supposed to be the Forks High parking lot? If so, it sure does look a lot different than the first film.
0:37 – 0:40: “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”? How’d that get in here? Oh, no, it’s just Bella, spazzing out as she has a nightmare in her bed.
0:41 – 0:45: Bring on the beefcake! “I know what he did to you,” says Jacob as he straddles Bella on her bike, making a pass like the wolf he is. “But Bella, I would never — ever — do that.”
0:46: Flirting with disaster, Bella goes for her infamous bike ride, speeding past Edward apparitions as though they were the most hunk-tastic billboards ever made. “There’s only one way I know to see him,” she explains, before wiping out. Those who attended Comic-Con have already seen this sequence in full.
0:54 – 0:56: Anna Kendrick sighting! One of our favorite under-utilized “Twilight” actors (and star of the buzz-heavy upcoming flick “Up in the Air”) walks with Bella. “So, you’re an adrenaline junkie now?” she asks.
0:57 – 1:06: OME! We asked for the cliff-diving scene in our previous article, so we’ll humbly take full credit for its inclusion here. “If a rush of danger is what it takes to see him,” Bella says, looking down at the choppy water, “then that’s what I’ll find.” Only problem: We wanna see the actual CGI dive, damnit!
1:07: While underwater, Bella finds herself floating next to an upside-down Edward. Cool!
1:08 – 1:10: Jacob’s massive biceps pull her out of the water, and Bella’s hand erases the apparition. Nice touch.
1:10 – 1:15: Now short-haired, a waterlogged Taylor Lautner asks, “What the hell were you thinking?” and strokes her hair.
1:16 – 1:17: Title card: “From the Worldwide Bestseller”
1:17: “Bella, it’s Edward,” Alice panics, running into her kitchen. “He thinks you’re dead!”
1:18 – 1:19: “What?” KStew replies. As Stephenie Meyer fans know, there’s far more to this mistaken moment, which fuels much of the end of the movie.
1:20 – 1:22: We see Edward in Italy. “He’s going to the Volturi,” Alice explains as we see the centuries-old vampires looking upon the glittery one. “He wants to die too.”
1:23 – 1:27: Bella runs away from Jacob, who grabs her arm. “He left you, Bella. He didn’t want you anymore.”
1:29: Bella makes her big decision. “Please, stay here with me,” Jacob begs her. She responds, “I have to go.”
1:32: A beautiful shot of Volterra.
1:33 -1:36: How strongly are you opposed to grand theft auto? For more than a year, Ashley Greene has been telling us about how eager she was to hop behind the wheel of the yellow Porsche and shoot this scene. Drive it like you stole it, girl!
1:36: “He’s going to make a scene,” Alice explains.
1:37 – 1:42: Here comes the big finale! “The Volturi will kill him if he reveals himself in the sunlight,” Alice explains as we see Bella rushing through the crowd. It’s a very beautiful sequence, only slightly more exposed than what fans saw at Comic-Con in July.
1:43: “The girl comes with us.” As Scooby-Doo would say: ruh-roh.
1:44 – 1:46: Jane’s eyes glow with anger as Edward stands between the Volturi and Bella and barks, “You can go to hell!”
1:47: “Edward, I’m scared,” Bella whispers.
1:48: Tarzan? What’s he doing in here? Oh wait, it’s just Jacob hulking out as he leaps to the ground.
1:49: Title card: “On November 20″
1:50 – 1:51: The now-famous shot of shirtless Taylor, followed by footage of Charlie and his armed cops heading into the woods. Watch out behind you!
1:52: Title card: “The Next Chapter”
1:53 – 1:56: Quick shots of the Volturi, Edi Gathegi as Laurent, and his battle to the death with the wolf pack.
1:57: Title card: “Begins”
1:58: Bella holds on tight on the back of a motorcycle. But is that Kellan Lutz doing the driving?
1:59: The wolf pack are back in all their shirtlessness.
2:00: Bella appears to slap Sam Uley (Chaske Spencer) in the face, unleashing his inner wolf.
2:01: A concerned Edward looks in on Bella while she sleeps.
2:03 – 2:05: Tarzan Jacob swings through the trees and into Bella’s bedroom.
2:06: Back to Italy, where Felix (Daniel Cudmore) is beating Edward like a dusty area rug.
2:09 -2:13: Edward fights back, protecting Bella.
2:14: Title card: “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”
2:18: Jane, looking at the camera. “This may hurt just a little.”
2:19 – 2:23: “No, please, please!” Bella screams while Felix tosses Edward onto some marble steps. Aro, Caius and Marcus look on with glee.
2:24: Title card: “11.20.09″ It can’t come soon enough, can it?
What Will Lady Gaga Do At The VMAs Tonight? Perez Hilton, VMA creative director Lee Lodge give hints about singer’s awards-show debut.
It’s the question on everyone’s lips: What will Lady Gaga do when she takes the stage at Radio City Music Hall for the VMAs? But since the native New Yorker’s performance is top-secret and hush-hush until it actually goes down, MTV News has gotten some people close to the singer to dish about what Perez Hilton promises to be “next-level.” And, he should know—he is her bestie.
“I think, without a doubt, Gaga’s gonna be that big star of the night, just because her performance really is next-level,” he told MTV News. “That’s the thing about her: She’s always trying to top herself, and I think she’s going to.”
He added that she revealed some details of the performance while the two were hanging out in the far East. “I was with Gaga in Japan recently, and we absolutely talked about the VMAs,” Hilton said. “I’m going to be Gaga’s date. Well, I’m not going to be on the carpet with Gaga, because Gaga might be having some special guests with her — that’s all I can say. I can’t reveal too much. Special guests!”
We also caught up with VMA creative director Lee Lodge to get the scoop on the singer’s performance. He couldn’t reveal too much, but he did say that at the end of the night, people will be making comparisons to another iconic VMA debut: Madonna in 1984.
“There’s one other look, which is fantastic, which is Gaga. The Gaga performance could be a classic VMA performance,” Lodge said. “There are some other great looks in the show — Beyoncé is fabulous — but I think the Gaga look … this could be a classic, Madonna-like performance. But if I was to tell you [any details], the Haus of Gaga would ninja-kill me with lace and fingernails.”
If you want to see Lady Gaga leave her mark on VMA history, don’t miss the big show!
Watch the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards Preshow this Sunday, September 13, at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the big event, live at 9 p.m. Check out our interactive map of New York to see how the city is celebrating the VMAs all week long, and stay tuned for party coverage, concert reports, behind-the-scenes updates and more.
