Entries Tagged 'Pop Culture' ↓

Go ahead, Elastigirl: Look behind the door….

Here’s more proof, as if you needed it, that you can make anything look like anything else with a skilled-enough editor. On this trailer, a 22-year-old film student named Breanne (YouTube member name: forensicator8) decapitates director Brad Bird’s 2004 Oscar-winning masterpiece, The Incredibles, changing it from a high-spirited romp into a fever dream of dread.

Think of it as a meta-reversal on Rob Ryang’s 2005 Shining trailer, which reframed the terror of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, giving it back as a cheesy-but-tender father-son dramedy. Now, I’m just waiting to see if some Gandalf out there can turn Last Year at Marienbad into a high-speed action movie. Impress me.

Somebody’s selling their entire music collection—3 million records, 300,000 CDs—on Ebay. (Those are just some of the 1,500,000 45s, above.)

Says the page

Organized and cataloged, the collection is meticulously maintained and housed in a climate-controlled warehouse. Every recording in this amazing collection has been personally acquired by the collection’s owner over the past fifty years and represents a lifetime of work and his desire to see the music preserved for future generations. Deteriorating health and related financial concerns are forcing the owner to sell the collection at far less than its true value. The estimated value of the collection, on a per-item basis, is in excess of $50 million.

Opening bid: $3 million. You’ve got 5 days.

Gorgeous 6″ Iron Man bobblehead on the way, priced at $12.99, for sale at the best movie-toy fan-site, Entertainment Earth.

It’s only 4 seconds, but this would have been a geek-o-gasmic ending to one of the greatest movie fight scenes—and, when you really think of it, dance sequences—of all time.

It was getting ugly there, for a second, with the, “you’d make a good vice-president” stuff, and dusty Geraldine Ferraro talkin’ that talk!

But since Hillary Clinton has said she’s sorry “to Black voters,” we can take up right were we left off: Pointing out what this race is really about on a certain level, thanks to the clip.

In truth, it’s more twistedness from political mashup theorist Michael Stevens, right, the brain behind CamPain 2008. Some of the piece looks creepy, e.g., the smooch itself, and Chelsea’s wink at the end. But favorite details abound: Hillary’s “thought balloons,” clearly taken from the audiobook of her autobio, Living History; Wolf Blitzer’s discomfort; the close-ups of approving Hollywood tag-alongs.

In fact, since you’ve been good, also gander at Mike’s other amazing spectacles: a happy-go-lucky rip on the thankfully dead campaign of Rudy Giluiani; Hillary killing crowds with her passion for change; a John Edwards promo that should stop any still-remaining “Obama running mate” chatter; John McCain’s vain attempt to connect with younger voters; and what comes off to me as a Jack Nicholson-styled endorsement of Ron Paul by R. Kelly, if you can get your head halfway around that. Collect the whole set.

One very happy smiley face: del Rio shows her considerable talents

Count on the impossibly design-consistent Taschen to come up with something like this: Not only does their foot-square, 396-page, 1,500 numbered copies, $700 Vanessa del Rio—a retrospective book on the life and career of the ’70s porn star—arrive signed by her, in a slipcase, with an original 140-minute DVD documentary. As well, one buyer, and only one, is going to find something even more amazing, below: A Willy Wonka-like “Golden Ticket good for an all-expenses paid evening with Vanessa, to be documented by a world famous-photographer”:

I’m presuming “an all-expenses paid evening with Vanessa” merely means dinner. However, clicking on her ticket here will get you the next best thing to that meal: a short, but aurally NSFW Taschen video clip of del Rio riffing on her life and history as, not only the first Latina porn star but, “the first woman to do a DP.” Don’t ask. My favorite part: Toward the end, del Rio displaying two fellatic black & white 8x10s…after having put on her granny glasses.

Congratulations to Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff of Gamble & Huff, for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night.

The architects of the so-called “Philly Sound,” the duo, as songwriters, arrangers, and producers, were responsible for such hits as the O’Jays’ “Backstabbers”and “Love Train,” Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” and a list as long as you are tall of everything you and your parents love in ’70s soul music.

I’ve met Kenny Gamble, and hosted him on a producer’s panel at the VIBE Music Seminar, about 10 years ago, where we listened to and discussed the O’Jays’ “For The Love of Money”; still, in my opinion, one of the greatest record productions ever; almost hallucinogenic in its intensity.

For your morning commute, consider one the most lovely records to come out of the Philly Sound: The Three Degrees’s “When Will I See You Again,” presented both in a live version, and a kinda strange/yet still kinda cool German TV lip sync version.

This Skittles “Midas Touch” commercial is a thing of perverse beauty, but you’ve gotta watch the 45-second version, here, with the brief monologue in the center, to glom the true art of it.

Thanks to Public Enemy bassist Brian Hardgroove for this hour-long interview with William “Bootsy” Collins.

Truly one of my cultural heroes, Collins played bass on such great James Brown records as “Sex Machine,” beginning at the age of 17, then moved on to working with Parliament-Funkadelic, before ultimately forming his own Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

I first heard him, and of him, in 9th grade, with the release of his 1978 Warner Bros. album, Bootsy? Player of the Year, above, and the single “Bootzilla.” That record, which, somehow, ended up on the end of this interview, kinda scared me when I listened to it the first time…but in a good kind of way.

I later met Bootsy, and got to interview him, around 2000, when I was working on an unfinished radio doc—that I kinda wanna get back into—about the history of the bass guitar in popular music. He was a warm and gentle guy, natural, absent of ego, which is amazing when you consider his tremendous talent.

Perhaps because they’re both bassists, Hardgroove and Bootsy talk not a whit about technique, or fundamentals, or advanced theory when playing their instrument. They know how, so why talk about it? I’d have liked to hear some of that, but there’s probably a lot I’d like to ask Collins.

What’s here is very rich, like when Bootsy talks about playing on his first Brown record: “The Grunt.: That’s the same record P.E. pulled samples off for tracks like “Night of the Living Baseheads” and, most uniquely, “Rebel Without a Pause.”

So, listen, and, when you’re done, or whenever, shoot over here and check out this 4:26 clip, possibly from 1978, of Bootsy in concert, performing a Space Bass solo. (Is that “(You’re a Fish & I’m a) Water Sign”?) Remember to pick up any leftover pieces of your mind after it’s blown.

Look at the following list:

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

N.W.A, Straight Outta Compton

Slick Rick, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick

EPMD, Strictly Business

Boogie Down Productions, By All Means Necessary

Big Daddy Kane, Long Live the Kane

Ultramagnetic MC’s, Critical Beatdown

Eazy E, Eazy-Duz-It

Eric B. & Rakim, Follow the Leader

Biz Markie, Goin’ Off

Salt-N-Pepa, A Salt with a Deadly Pepa

DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper

Jungle Brothers, Straight Out the Jungle

Now, consider this: All of these albums were released in one twelve-month period, in 1988.

I could keep going. Marley Marl, In Control, Vol. 1. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Road to the Riches. King Tee, Act a Fool. Ice-T, Power. 2 Live Crew, Move Somethin’. Too Short, Life is…Too Short.

What, exactly, happened twenty years ago that enabled so many artists to release so many albums of such high quality is such a short period of time? What created hip-hop’s annus mirabilis; “year of miracles”?

Today, Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 2 pm ET, I’ll be on WNYC/93.9 FM’s Soundcheck, with John Shaefer, talking to John and RS.com (Rolling Stone) editor Kyle Anderson, attempting to address this very question. (Later on, I’ll also be talking about with John about my VIBE piece on Palestinian hip-hop.) RS.com has their own analysis, here, and Soundcheck has a link, in case you missed the live broadcast. Let’s see if we can move somethin’.