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Reviews, previews and chuckling and snorting...
You absolutely MUST see this...

Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal Lean

Kids my own age grew up with Michael Jackson being the dancer to end all dancers; the moonwalk, the zombie dance, the crazy Smooth Criminal tilt - we sat around for ages trying to replicate his moves.

"Smooth Criminal"
was a big favourite... combining a wonderfully rich world, with slick editing and impressive costumes. The image of Jackson in that white suit has been firmly ingrained in our minds as the ultimate Michael Jackson video.

The style of the video was further immortalized in the video game "Moonwalker", which, apparently, used Jackson's hat as a weapon. Our not to reason why.

Unknown to me, but making a lot of sense is the idea that Jackson was heavily influenced by Fred Astaire, the Hollywood dance legend.

A Fred Astaire fan put together this brilliant music video of Jackson's "Smooth Criminal", synced to Fred Astaire's "The Band Wagon", a 1953 movie that shows exactly where the style of "Smooth Criminal" came from. Absolutely incredible:



Astaire's dance partner in red is Cyd Charisse... those glorious legs, those arms, the effortless grace with which she moves. Women in these old movies captured an otherworldly sense of elegance that seemed to lift them above the realm of mere mortals.

Oh, those legs! Oh my, those legs!

This video is one of the best that I've ever seen, I think, edited to match the video, Fred Astaire seems perfectly at home with that syncopated Jackson beat, and you can see the moves that Jackson ripped off. Slick stuff, worth watching over and over...

(found on BoingBoing)



*this image is from this Swedish girl's blog
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"21 Accents" - by Amy Walker

May 19th 2008 22:54


"21 Accents" is a short video featuring Amy Walker
, imitating 21 different English accents. Pay close attention and it's obvious that she did a lot of study on this project.

Unfortunately, the video is heavily skewed towards European accents; if Walker had the time to integrate accents from Asia and Africa, how long would this video be?

I'm fascinated by accents, as I'm sure Walker is; to me, the idea that colonial English, which is a relatively young language, could diverge so quickly in the New World, over just a few hundred years, is remarkable. It's easy to see how, in European countries, the accents are almost unintelligible from one part of the country to the next, and how, in Asia, dialects have become entire language families.

There's two Aussie accents and one Kiwi accents in there... they sound spot on to me, but I'm not a native. How does Amy Walker do?

If you're interested in accents, there's an archive of audio samples of different English speakers reading a paragraph. Here's the Sydney accent - is it so different from the other Australian accents?

When it comes to imitation, does anyone pull it off as well as Peter Sellers, though? In this short video, he effortlessly breezes through various UK accents, sounding so remarkably genuine that it's awe-striking.



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Lasse Gjertsen does London

May 7th 2008 23:09
Lasse Gjertsen Hyperactive Amateur
Lasse Gjertsen is Norwegian multimedia artist that came to prominence with his wonderfully edited music clips, "Amateur" and "Hyperactive" (both videos down below).

His latest piece, "Lasse does London", is short, but hits the point very quickly, taking sampled sounds from London, along with their footage, and mixing it all into one noisy, boiling cauldron. The shocking thing is realizing that there's actually a musical progression, and it sounds damn good


[ Click here to read more ]
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New Kids in the Hall sketch

April 24th 2008 22:16
Kids in the Hall wrapped in plastic

Big bam! The Kids in the Hall are getting back for a reunion tour, which has Canadian comedy lover, such as myself, up in a tizzy about getting more of that absurdist humour.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Sydney Street Stylin'

April 13th 2008 22:25
Longtime Orble blogger Trina sent me a message today - she's all connected in Sydney's hiphop/bboy scene and her boyfriend, a young filmmaker and bboy, made this fantastic short film illustrating the high-flying, dangerous-driving moves that these young cats flaunt with grace and style.

Using notorious Sydney landmarks, the QVB and the Pyrmont Bridge, the images are fast and frenetic, the lighting soft enough to obscure the sense of sleepy abandonment and vicious aggression that fills the CBD at night


[ Click here to read more ]
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This short by Screaming Frog Productions is a delightfully satirical look at how the US economy is going to cause some tough times.

It depicts a world so ravaged by recession, especially in white-collar jobs, that executives and accountants are forced to dress up and line-up for potential work


[ Click here to read more ]
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Full House cast Olsen twins
Yeah, I used to watch Full House. I blame inner-city crime and a failing education system for pushing me down that dark alleyway.

Now, of course, I feel nothing but remorse.... remorse like an Atkins dieter, found passed out on the floor, mashed potatoes smeared all over their face


[ Click here to read more ]
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Whoa - this actually sounds like a real song... some clever masher mixed The Beatles performing 'Drive My Car' with David Lee Roth's 'Runnin' with the Devil'.

It's an interesting mash, though it's purely academic... the Roth vocals are too evident in front of the Beatles, making it unworthy for a roadtrip mixtape


[ Click here to read more ]
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Saul Bass-style Star Wars intro

March 4th 2008 22:04
Saul Bass Vertigo movie poster

Well, I didn't end up talking to Charles Ross, the One Man Star Wars Trilogy guy, today.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor sketch

February 1st 2008 21:51
This video reminds us why Richard Pryor was the king, and that Chevy Chase used to be a pretty funny guy.

It's got offensive language, but it's all done in good humour, and I think Pryor must have knocked himself out laughing at this. The commenters are suggesting that the sketch was written by Paul Mooney, one of the original comedy writers who wrote for Pryor, In Living Colour and Chappelle's Show


[ Click here to read more ]
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A dance lesson by James Brown

January 24th 2008 21:26
Whew - I don't know where they dug this up from. A time capsule, launched into space, then returning to Earth in a fiery blaze?

James Brown used to be a major dancer, but, when I started listening to his music, his best years had flown by, leaving him angry and drug-addled. We've all seen interviews with James mumbling away incoherently, and that was part of the charm


[ Click here to read more ]
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Update: The UK Telegraph has a series of stunning pictures, showing the Great Whites working real hard to get their sealy dinners.

Great White Shark leaping in the air eating a seal

[ Click here to read more ]
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Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft

January 7th 2008 23:12
Bill Gates arrested mug shot jail picture
This is hilarious... Bill Gates gave the keynote speech this week at CES 2008, announcing that he was retiring as Chairman of Microsoft (but he'll still be on the board).

In addition to the speech, there was a skit played on the screen that showed Bill's last day at Microsoft, poking fun at Gates... it's an unusually funny side of Gates, self-deprecating, using a lot of star cameos to poke fun. We're talking Jay-Z, Bono, George Clooney and more


[ Click here to read more ]
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Indian version of Sweet Child O' Mine

January 7th 2008 05:43
Erin Everly and Axl Rose get married
It's the ubiquitous party song from the late 80s/early 90s - Guns N' Roses put out this song, Sweet Child O' Mine, and it lit up the radio, with the screeching of Axl Rose and that liquidy guitar playing from Slash.

It was written about Axl's then-wife, Erin Everly, niece of one of the Everly Brothers, and the signature opening guitar riff was played by Slash as a joke. Who knew


[ Click here to read more ]
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