14 posts tagged “clip of the week”

In honor of our great day at Rock the Bells, the music video for "Drop" by The Pharcyde is this week's second clip. When I was a kid it was my favorite music video, and even now it's impressive to look back on how clever underground hip hop acts, and their video directors, were to make up for having such a small budget.

This week's clip, as if they actually come every week these days, is from the film Superbad.

Enjoy, as Mr. Awkward. also known as Michael Cera, has to sing to avoid pissing off a group of aimless drug addicts... it's the perfect situation for the wonderful songster to unleash his vocal talent. It's so touching, your eyes might never be dry again.

Brilliant actor offers some acting advice for us novices.

This week's clip, after I missed last week completely, is a brand new trailer for Pixar's Wall-E, coming in June.

This week I've posted an assortment of the G.I. Joe PSA parodies. This goes out to all the friends from undergrad who used to enjoy these with me.

Since it is about time to bring some of my former weekly posts back into practice it stands to reason that the easiest to do so with would be Clip of the Week. Next I plan to finally restart the Why I Love Seattle Posts, but baby steps is the name of the game.

Today's clip is a response to the horrible and tragic news of Heath Ledger's passing. Another rising talent cut short, and most tragic is the young daughter he leaves behind. Perhaps it is because he is so close in age to myself and my peers, but of all the deaths that happen to celebrities from time to time this was by far the one that led to the most texts, G-Chat messages, phone calls, etc., from friends and family to see if I'd heard the news.

So, since Heath is part of the upcoming movie this year that I anticipate as much as any other in recent memory, this week's clip is the trailer for that, although as my friend Ryan pointed out to me, it will certainly be less enjoyable now in light of these events. This trailer in no way intends to make light of Ledger's death, but simply honors what will turn out to be his final role as it seems he brought a brilliant performance to the role of The Joker.

Last Tuesday marked the release of two huge CDs that would, due to their perceived genre similarities, go head to head to see who would be the king of said perceived genre. The two CDs, for those who don't know, were Graduation by Kanye West, and Curtis by 50 Cent. Now I would argue for an understanding of the difference between the genre of the two, but for the sake of clarity I'll forgo that at the moment.

In leading up to the release of the two CDs some inevitable verbal sparring began between the two 'emcees.' 50 Cent went so far as to proclaim that if Kanye sold more albums than him on September 11th he, 50 Cent, would retire from releasing his own material forever. Originally 50's remarks seemed to indicate that if he was outsold by Kanye on opening day he would retire, then he changed his tune to indicate overall sales of the two CDs, and now that Kanye's sales lead has moved into 6 figures 50 Cent has stepped back from the ledge altogether. The meaning is that we will inevitably be afflicted with more socially irresponsible, creatively lacking tripe from rap's favorite waste of space.

Many are tired of Kanye as well. He was once the genius who inspired Hip Hop fans with the hope that artists like Common, Talib Kweli and Mos Def would hit the mainstream with more force and replace the trash that fills the airwaves with original, creative, positive messages that also have legitimate musical merit. Kanye fulfilled these hopes to a large degree, but at a high cost. His tantrums upon losing awards are now the stuff of legend, his contradictions that once pointed toward the genius of paradox and the contradictions that exist in all of us have now seemed to degenerate into what often looks like blatant hypocrisy, and we can only hope that he just has some growing up to do (no small feat when you're on top of the world). While I still pull for Kanye, especially as a producer (he is largely responsible for the brilliance of Common's latest album), I relate to the frustrations held by many. Yet regardless of the frustration, the comparison between Kan and 50 is still heavily favorable toward Kanye. With this in mind I urge everyone on the fence to head out and buy Graduation. While sadly I can no longer urge such on the grounds that we might rid the world once and for all of 50 Cent, at least we can add to the humiliation he so rightly deserves for the damage he's done to African American culture, Hip Hop culture, and larger American culture, just to name a few. Not to mention, for all his personal foibles Kanye's creative talent is still widely acknowledged as he breaks down walls between race, class, and genre (for more on this there are many articles to read, most recently the cover story for the most recent issue of Paste Magazine).

It is with all of that in mind that I decided to offer up another late installment of Clip of the Week with the music video for Kanye's 'Stronger' off of Graduation. Enjoy:

Two posts in one day!

I decided to resurrect Clip of the Week, and I'll keep it on Fridays for a while. So, here is a lovely clip from the amazing HBO show Flight of the Conchords. Enjoy!!

 Well, it is Wednesday in New York, so I am going to go ahead and do this week's clip of the week now. I'm not sure I'll be able to break the packing momentum tomorrow to get the post in, and since I already knew what I wanted to do I figured I'd just do it now.

So, here you go, in honor of Hot Fuzz, I offer you what will hopefully be the next installment of genius:

Enjoy!