Today's soundtrack...

The Bee Gees -
 Album: "Main Course"
Song: "Nights on Broadway"
Video: From an episode of "The Midnight Special" featuring a COKED OUT Natalie Cole

Anatomy of a Music Video - Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's "Lost in Emotion"

Let's analyze this gem, shall we?

1. A few words about the clothes just to get them out of the way. There are TWO people wearing Hammer-style harem pants with reeeeeeally long zippers sewn into them. One is a man and the other is Lisa Lisa herself. The purpose of these 14 inch zippers is lost to time.
2. Speaking of zippers...wow, I forgot how popular it was in the mid 1980s to have multiple zippers (that again, served no purpose) on everything! Pants, jackets, shirts, SOCKS. This video has them all.
3. It also has men wearing multilple, colored skinny leather belts wrapped around the legs of their pants. Was this a style?
4. One of the main guys in the video is sporting a Civil War era inspired Confederacy hat. Charming. Maybe that's why Lisa Lisa gives him the stink eye.
5. I hated this shit back then when I was living it - Shoulder Pads in every single blouse, jacket, and T-shirt. Both men and women; young and old.
6. And so many headbands.
7. One of the dudes working at the carnival is wearing what can only be called a "tropical shant suit". "Shant", for the uninitiated, stands for "Short Pant". Take a gander around minute 2:00.

• One of the plot points at the beginning of this video, which is set at some kind of carnival or as the sign says - "New Street Fair", involves one of Lisa's homegirls not being able to get ketchup to come out of the bottle onto her burger.
• I guess Lisa Lisa is looking for love, but isn't interested in any of the guys who are trying to pick up on her and her friends?
• And then there's a bit about Lisa climbing on stage because there's a carnival sign that says "COME - Sing with the Street Fair Band". WTF? Weak plot.
• Finally everyone does a synchronized dance to the last verse of the song, that Lisa Lisa has been singing by herself for over 3 minutes.
• Did she actually go by Lisa Lisa in real life?

Que sera, que sera.

Anatomy of a music video - Bee Gees Edition Volumes 1 and 2

The music videos made in the late 1970s for two of the hits by the Bee Gees off of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack are a study in contrasts.
Let's examine the contrasts between the videos for "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Staying Alive".

We'll start with "Staying Alive" -

• I dare you to pull your eyes away from the moose knuckle that Barry Gibb is sporting in those TIGHT white pants of his. You can't do it can you? His junk is mesmerizing.
• Umm, where was this filmed? The words on the old train car looks like it says Cork? But would there really have been an area in that part of England that was that run-down and abandoned looking?
• Can we just all agree that Barry Gibb had fucking fabulous hair? Feathered, bouncin' and behavin' perfection.
• Maurice and Robin on the other hand...no. Those twins definitely got the raw end of that deal.
• Actually Maurice had a nice face, and his beard is neat and trimmed here, unlike some people, Barry.
• When I was 11 my two friends and I would imitate the moves the Gibbs make when they pop into the open window and door frames during the "ah ha ah ha stayling alive" part.
• What is with Barry's silver jacket? And does he really need a gold necklace and a larger chain with a medalion? Or his cuban-heeled ankle boots? He's a tall dude. All this is still not enough to distract me from looking at his crotch.
• I think my dad had the same shirt as the one Maurice is wearing.
• Seriously, where was this filmed? Were there still war-torn parts of Eastern Europe in the 70s? What is with all of the empty and destroyed houses?

Now comparatively the video for "How Deep Is Your Love" is on a whole other level. And it's not necessarily a better one.

• The budget was considerably lower for this one obviously. They're on some studio soundstage with random lights set up and the camera is following the Gibb brothers as they alternately walk around in a circle, or stand in a circle as the camera pans around them.
• Seriously, more than half of the video is them WALKING AROUND IN A CIRCLE. They could've filmed this in my garage.
• And who are those random handful of faceless people standing around in the center of the circle? Party guests? Electricians and best boys that work at the studio who didn't realize they were in the shot?
• Robin Gibb really is unfortunate looking, isn't he.
• Barry on the other hand is looking his most fantastic. His hair was never more lustrous and his beard is neat this time around. Also, while I'm sure he's wearing the tightest possible trousers, the camera never pans down past his mid chest until the end of the video, and then it's only his butt that we see  so we're not nearly as distracted.
• BTdubs, check out the top of the comment thread from the link above for a gem from some dude named serq199113. I admire his sentiment.

Some thoughts on "Abduction"

Or should I say ABduction, because Taylor Lautner's chest was out of control in this movie. I know it's cliche and totally pervy for someone my age, old enough to be his mother, to have inappropriate lustful thoughts about Taylor Lautner, but damn he truly is a beautiful specimen of man.

I saw this film on Sunday with a 15 year old teenage girl who appropriately gushed all over Lautner and the movie. She loved it, and if that's the producers' target audience I think they should do well.
And while I was entertained for the 90 minutes, I did have SERIOUS issues with the ridiculous timeline it followed, and I had a hard time ignoring the inconsistencies.So allow me to rant a little.

The folks in this movie live in nice suburban Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh. I was actually really excited to see a movie set in this part of the country; I've got family in that area and it really is a great place to live and it was nice to see Pittsburgh get exposure, instead of NYC or even Philadelphia.
Without getting too spoilerish, here's the sequence of events that set off our story of two teens on the run from the CIA and Russian terrorists:

• Sometime around 6 or 7 in the evening (assumed because it's after school and around dinner time but only sort of dark out) Lautner and Lily Collins' characters fight Russians and watch Lautner's house blow up. They take off on a motorcycle to a hospital to have a cut on Lily's arm patched up.
• Shenanigans ensue at the hospital, but they were there long enough to get her arm fixed, for him to call 911 and get freaked out by the CIA and then Sigourney Weaver hustles our teens out in her BMW (which by the way was a HUGE sponsor of this movie). I'll be generous and say that this whole post-house explosion hospital stuff only took an hour but either way, when Sigourney drives off with our teens, it's at least 8pm. As she drives them towards the edge of town Weaver instructs them to get their asses to a secret apartment in Arlington, VA and lay low. 
• Sigourney's car is followed and attacked but the kids jump out in time and start running through the woods. They camp and sleep at the base of a tree. They wake the next morning. Even if we're supposed to believe it's early, at least 9 hours has passed. 
• The kids then hitch a ride in a 18-wheeler to Arlington; which is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and even if that truck was hauling ass, there's no way that they're making that drive in under 4 hours. So we're now talking a minimum of them being on the run for 13 hours.A minimum.
• Once in VA they take time to shop for new clothes, shower and change in the apartment and Lautner finds clues about his parents. Again, there's no way they could have done all of this in less than 2 hours, but I'll suspend my disbelief and give them only an hour. But we're definitely talking about the middle of day 2 at this point.
• The kids find a clue and have to go to a cemetery. Here's where my young companion and I disagreed; I said that the film infers that they drove (in a BMW natch) back to Pittsburgh to go to this cemetery; the teen thinks that the grave was somewhere in Arlington. Either way, afterwards they figure out they have to ditch the car and get to Nebraska, so they arrange a meeting with their high school friend back in Pittsburgh, who gives them fake IDs so that they can continue their journey. Now, either way these kids drove back to damn Pittsburgh from Virginia. Even if Taylor drove 90 mph in the BMW the whole way, it's still taking them a couple of hours at least.
• The kids then get on an Amtrak train that's magically leaving right away from Pittsburgh to Omaha. Uh huh. One of the Russian bad dudes gets on the train too, and they only manage to make it to Cincinnati before the Russian tries to kill them and instead gets thrown off the train by Taylor, which alerts the CIA and they stop the train and capture Taylor and Lily. Here's one of the main ways the makers of this movie messed up. The train scenes are made to look like they've only been on the train a short time. It would've made more sense for them to have made it to Cleveland, which is near Pittsburgh, rather than Cincinnati which is clear across Ohio in the SW corner, hours away by train.

Once the CIA captures our teen heroes, head agent Alfred Molina utters the line that sent me in a tizzy in the first place - "You guys have been on the run for 22 hours". WHAT?!! Seriously? No fucking way all of this running around and traveling on trains and in automobiles has only taken 22 damn hours! WTF?!
Gah! and don't get me started about the fact that Taylor and Lily then steal a truck and drive BACK TO PITTSBURGH (It would've taken a good 5 hours to drive this!), meet up again with their friend who gets them (last minute VIP) tickets to a Pirates game, where they pull off the climax battle with the head Russian dude, all before dusk. I was seething in my chair.
Of course my teen niece thought I was being ridiculous and told me to "take a chill pill" (um, do they still say this outside of 1987?) but I can't let it go.

Whatever, did I mention that Taylor Lautner and Lily Collins are very pretty?

Music Video Dissection - Xmas Edition

Wham!'s Last Christmas:

• Oh 80s George Michael, how I've missed you.
• Andrew Ridgely really was sort of a non-entity in the band at this point wasn't he? It's a shame. He has a really good voice actually and wrote a bunch of their songs.
• Okay, just where in Europe are they? Where they seem to have private ski lifts that just let you out in front of your huge 40 room "cabin".
• 1 min 10 sec mark - What kind of ski house/cabin doesn't have a walk way to the front door? These people have to schlep all of their luggage (filled with hair spray and mousse) over a wood fence and through the back yard.
• Have you ever seen so many shoulder pads and pleated trousers in one place? (Men and women included)
• So the premise here is that George was dating the girl that Andrew's currently boinking "last Christmas". uh huh, I think George might have been hooking up with the dude that brings in the firewood at the 1 min 35 sec mark.
• I think my mom owned the white and blue window-pane checked jacket that Andrew Ridgely is wearing at 1 min 43 sec. 
• George Michael looks so pretty (and is wearing so much make up) wearing that fur-hooded coat at 1 min 54 sec. Also, with the fence climbing again. Ever hear of a gate?
• 2 min 20 sec mark - Oooh Sparkler Cake!
• 2 min 29 sec/3 min 15 sec - Let me get this straight. George gave this chick a "diamond" brooch the Xmas before and she has now regifted it to ANDREW?! That is so messed up on so many levels.
• 3 min 23 sec mark - There they go, having to climb over the fence again with all of their luggage and crap. A huge oversight in the design of this million dollar ski chalet.
• 4 min 17 sec mark - I love how only one guy brought skis, but the black lady is wearing ski goggles as like regular sunglasses.
• And that's it. It just ends. There's absolutely no resolution. George's old girlfriend seems to be flirting with him and seems to regret her decision to move on to Andrew. George seems forlorn (hence the lyrics in the song) but in the end I guess realizes that he's better off with his new blond piece, then with someone who just takes perfectly ugly but thoughtful gifts of jewelry and gives them to her new boyfriend (who is also a friend).

Wow. Merry Christmas y'all!