Yesterday I had occasion to be near a TV in the middle of the day (I wont tell you where I was… but it’s a doozy!) and caught most of Tyra Banks' talk show (I was mostly flicking between that, Date my Mom on MTV and WonderPets on Nickelodeon)
Tyra had some guest who is apparently a real-life HITCH, coaching guys in the art of meeting and attracting women. There was a lot of time spent following this guy (leather jacket, whispy blond hair) was going through some of his best techniques with a couple of dudes in a park (one of these guys looked just like Justin Beiber will look when he goes through puberty).
After doing the basic greet-a-girl-make-a-joke-be-cocky-but-not-arrogant-don’t-hang-around-too-long teacher and pupil went onto an advanced technique that left me baffled. Basically it goes as follows:
(1) Walk around and wait until a woman you like the look of is walking towards you
(2) Reach out and gently grab her arm as she walks towards you and say "Excuse me"
(3) When she has your attention say something along the lines of "I just had to get your attention because if I didn’t I would have kicked myself later"
(4) Before she has a chance to say anything, compliment her. Not compliment her subtly… say "You're drop-dead gorgeous"
(5) After 30 seconds or so of dialogue, say you'd like to hang out with her sometime and ask for her number
(6) Try not to do a victory whoop as you leave
I watched this with disbelief. Surely this doesn’t work? Right?
I don’t have a lot of experience trying to pick up American girls, but if somebody tried that in New Zealand they would either get scowled, or laughed at, or kicked in the nads. I'm not trying to pick up (being happily married and all) but if I were female and some dork tried that with me, I'm certain that I wouldn’t fall for it.
Or have I got it completely wrong? Would this work and its just that the cultural constraints of New Zealand don’t allow for males to be so forward without feeling either retarded or sleazy?
EDIT - I just remembered that a while ago I was talking to a friend who spent some time in Canada and had pretty much the same thing happen to her (if I remember correctly some guy crossed the street to tell her she was gorgeous). This further cements my theory that this technique is one that would only work in Northern America.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Derty Videos
In further controversial music video news, local "rapper" Derty Sesh has sparked outrage over his video Forever.
The video, which has today been taken down from youtube, depicts the Sesh-meister as a hulking, hoodie-clad killer, stalking and violently stabbing a female victim.
According to Rape Crisis and other women's groups, the video is "violent, misogynist pornography" and should be banned.
Two versions of the video exist, an edited version currently doing the rounds on TV and paid for with a NZ on Air grant and an extended version which features the more graphic version which is (or rather, was) only available online.
I watched the uncut version a couple of days ago and found it not shocking, but tedious. The producers seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like a horror film and defend the allegations of misogyny by likening the clip to shows like CSI and DEXTER.
The problem with the Forever clip, however, is that it does not reflect these shows, or horror movie conventions in any interesting way. I've been watching quite a bit of DEXTER lately (three-and-a-half seasons worth) and Derty Sesh's clip doesn’t harness any of the restraint or morbid humour of the show. It doesn’t even play with the tropes of horror cinema in general apart from some of the more obvious clichés.
Contrast this with some recent examples from the international film world that have also had the adjectives "violent", "misogynist" and "pornography" hurled at them by various commentators.
Von Trier's ANTICHRIST is one of the more obvious examples, but French film MARTYRS is just as good at illustrating the point. Both of these works are controversial because of the extreme violence, often inflicted upon women (MARTYRS set a benchmark for onscreen violence, being the first French film in it's native France to get 16+ censorship rating… a surprising feat given France's ultra-liberal stance on violence censorship) but both differ from the Sesh video for one big reason. They are both utterly, utterly compelling. Both ANTICHRIST and MARTYRS use their extreme violence as a means of exploring deep philosophical and even religious themes and are executed with breath-taking, jaw-dropping conviction. Even Wes Craven's notorious LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (banned in this country for about 30 years) has more substance in it's weaker moments, than the Forever clip.
Today it was revealed that the Department of Internal Affairs has referred the Forever video to the Office of Film and Literature Classification for the censors to classify. Good news for the clip's detractors, but ultimately I don’t think this action will have any kind of impact.
While the violence in the video is graphic by contemporary music video standards, it is not of a level that would deem it "objectionable" in my opinion. Recent mainstream films that have been banned in this country due to violence, HOSTEL PART II and IMPRINT had a sexual nature to the violence which is particular warning-bell for censors. There is little, if any, references to sex or sexual gratification in the Forever clip and it is for this reason that I believe the video will not be banned outright. It may be restricted (I'm putting my money on an R16 rating) but I don’t think anything in the clip warrants a full ban.
The other issue that this whole thing raises is one that is raised every time a questionable film or publication is scrutinized in public - it inevitably leads to a wider audience. However good the intentions of the Forever clip's detractors, if they hadn't have said anything there's a good chance that by this time next year, Derty Sesh would have faded into the lost-sock obscurity of NZ's music scene… and probably be hanging out with Dai Hamo.
The video, which has today been taken down from youtube, depicts the Sesh-meister as a hulking, hoodie-clad killer, stalking and violently stabbing a female victim.
According to Rape Crisis and other women's groups, the video is "violent, misogynist pornography" and should be banned.
Two versions of the video exist, an edited version currently doing the rounds on TV and paid for with a NZ on Air grant and an extended version which features the more graphic version which is (or rather, was) only available online.
I watched the uncut version a couple of days ago and found it not shocking, but tedious. The producers seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like a horror film and defend the allegations of misogyny by likening the clip to shows like CSI and DEXTER.
The problem with the Forever clip, however, is that it does not reflect these shows, or horror movie conventions in any interesting way. I've been watching quite a bit of DEXTER lately (three-and-a-half seasons worth) and Derty Sesh's clip doesn’t harness any of the restraint or morbid humour of the show. It doesn’t even play with the tropes of horror cinema in general apart from some of the more obvious clichés.
Contrast this with some recent examples from the international film world that have also had the adjectives "violent", "misogynist" and "pornography" hurled at them by various commentators.
Von Trier's ANTICHRIST is one of the more obvious examples, but French film MARTYRS is just as good at illustrating the point. Both of these works are controversial because of the extreme violence, often inflicted upon women (MARTYRS set a benchmark for onscreen violence, being the first French film in it's native France to get 16+ censorship rating… a surprising feat given France's ultra-liberal stance on violence censorship) but both differ from the Sesh video for one big reason. They are both utterly, utterly compelling. Both ANTICHRIST and MARTYRS use their extreme violence as a means of exploring deep philosophical and even religious themes and are executed with breath-taking, jaw-dropping conviction. Even Wes Craven's notorious LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (banned in this country for about 30 years) has more substance in it's weaker moments, than the Forever clip.
Today it was revealed that the Department of Internal Affairs has referred the Forever video to the Office of Film and Literature Classification for the censors to classify. Good news for the clip's detractors, but ultimately I don’t think this action will have any kind of impact.
While the violence in the video is graphic by contemporary music video standards, it is not of a level that would deem it "objectionable" in my opinion. Recent mainstream films that have been banned in this country due to violence, HOSTEL PART II and IMPRINT had a sexual nature to the violence which is particular warning-bell for censors. There is little, if any, references to sex or sexual gratification in the Forever clip and it is for this reason that I believe the video will not be banned outright. It may be restricted (I'm putting my money on an R16 rating) but I don’t think anything in the clip warrants a full ban.
The other issue that this whole thing raises is one that is raised every time a questionable film or publication is scrutinized in public - it inevitably leads to a wider audience. However good the intentions of the Forever clip's detractors, if they hadn't have said anything there's a good chance that by this time next year, Derty Sesh would have faded into the lost-sock obscurity of NZ's music scene… and probably be hanging out with Dai Hamo.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Gagablahblahblah
A lot has been made of the "controversial" new Lady Gaga/Beyonce (Beyaga? Lady Geyonce?) and I thought I would throw my three cents (idiom adjusted for inflation) into the discourse.
First things first, the full "explicit" version of the video is here for the six people who haven't seen it yet.
Now, I'm not a Lady Gaga fan by any stretch of the imagination - and this latest video firmly cements my utter indifference towards her. At best, she makes fun pop music that make 19 year old girls yell "WOOOOO! I LOVE THIS SOOOONG!" before chugging the last of their RTD and hitting the dance floor. She isn't now, or never has been, either an avant-garde experiment in mainstream surrealism or the next step in the evolution of feminist theory. Shes what Maddonna was 30 years ago. End of story.
Let me just say, I generally dislike extended music videos that pretend to be short films. I agree that certain videos can tell a story (see the videos for Radiohead's Just or High and Dry) but I hate it when the song is interrupted for a sequence of dialogue or exposition. If you cant tell the story during the duration of the song, don't bother trying.
At a whopping nine-minutes-something more than half of Telephone's running time is narrative. This overstays its welcome really quickly.
The video is very cinematic and has been labelled as a homage to the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino. Looking at the video as a whole, I can see superficial similarities (and anyone who knows me can confirm that I am a pageboy in the Church of Tarantino) but overall the structure, pacing, editing and mise-en-scene reminds me more of an Oliver Stone production (in particular Natural Born Killers) whilst the ending is clearly lifted from Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise. The only obvious Tarantino reference is the use of the yellow "Pussy Wagon".
Despite the video's obviously high production values and inherent cinematic quality, it just does not quite gel for me. Could this be perhaps that Telephone is an awful, AWFUL song? Absolutely it could.
Have you listened to the lyrics for this song? On the surface, its about getting pissed off that its hard to hear somebody who is calling you when you're out drinking. The subtext for the song is... well, non-existent. The lyrics are about as deep as Rob Schnieder's performance in The Hot Chick. And the line "Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Sta-TION" makes me cringe. Because of this, the over-produced video seems utterly innocuous.
Compare the Just Dance video with the one she made for Bad Romance (here and here respectively) Just Dance is a song about binge drinking and features LG in some kind of club. Hardly thematically creative, but it works.
On a similar note, Paparazzi a song about the perils of fame and being in the limelight features a video in which that Swedish Vampire pushes LG off a balcony so that the photographers can do a snuff photoshoot. Again, this works as a music video.
Now look at Bad Romance. Here is a song with more surreal lyrics and a less obvious subtext and a video that is... more surreal and with a less obvious subtext. It seems like Gaga is striving to "push-the-envelope" with each subsequent video, and it's a pity that the time and effort expended in the production of the Telephone video was wasted on such a terrible, asinine song.
One last thing, feminists also hate this video for the none-too-subtle shades of S&M, girl-on-girl fetishisation and sequences of pure male-gazery that make the video look like it was made by a sleazy Scandinavian pervert for masturbatory purposes... oh wait...
Nah... give me Video Phone any day of the week.
First things first, the full "explicit" version of the video is here for the six people who haven't seen it yet.
Now, I'm not a Lady Gaga fan by any stretch of the imagination - and this latest video firmly cements my utter indifference towards her. At best, she makes fun pop music that make 19 year old girls yell "WOOOOO! I LOVE THIS SOOOONG!" before chugging the last of their RTD and hitting the dance floor. She isn't now, or never has been, either an avant-garde experiment in mainstream surrealism or the next step in the evolution of feminist theory. Shes what Maddonna was 30 years ago. End of story.
Let me just say, I generally dislike extended music videos that pretend to be short films. I agree that certain videos can tell a story (see the videos for Radiohead's Just or High and Dry) but I hate it when the song is interrupted for a sequence of dialogue or exposition. If you cant tell the story during the duration of the song, don't bother trying.
At a whopping nine-minutes-something more than half of Telephone's running time is narrative. This overstays its welcome really quickly.
The video is very cinematic and has been labelled as a homage to the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino. Looking at the video as a whole, I can see superficial similarities (and anyone who knows me can confirm that I am a pageboy in the Church of Tarantino) but overall the structure, pacing, editing and mise-en-scene reminds me more of an Oliver Stone production (in particular Natural Born Killers) whilst the ending is clearly lifted from Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise. The only obvious Tarantino reference is the use of the yellow "Pussy Wagon".
Despite the video's obviously high production values and inherent cinematic quality, it just does not quite gel for me. Could this be perhaps that Telephone is an awful, AWFUL song? Absolutely it could.
Have you listened to the lyrics for this song? On the surface, its about getting pissed off that its hard to hear somebody who is calling you when you're out drinking. The subtext for the song is... well, non-existent. The lyrics are about as deep as Rob Schnieder's performance in The Hot Chick. And the line "Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Sta-TION" makes me cringe. Because of this, the over-produced video seems utterly innocuous.
Compare the Just Dance video with the one she made for Bad Romance (here and here respectively) Just Dance is a song about binge drinking and features LG in some kind of club. Hardly thematically creative, but it works.
On a similar note, Paparazzi a song about the perils of fame and being in the limelight features a video in which that Swedish Vampire pushes LG off a balcony so that the photographers can do a snuff photoshoot. Again, this works as a music video.
Now look at Bad Romance. Here is a song with more surreal lyrics and a less obvious subtext and a video that is... more surreal and with a less obvious subtext. It seems like Gaga is striving to "push-the-envelope" with each subsequent video, and it's a pity that the time and effort expended in the production of the Telephone video was wasted on such a terrible, asinine song.
One last thing, feminists also hate this video for the none-too-subtle shades of S&M, girl-on-girl fetishisation and sequences of pure male-gazery that make the video look like it was made by a sleazy Scandinavian pervert for masturbatory purposes... oh wait...
Nah... give me Video Phone any day of the week.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I'm saddened to learn of the passing of He Pingping on 13 March.
He was, at the time of his death at age 21, the world's shortest man. According to Guiness, he measured a puny 73cm (or 2'5"). He passed away in Rome of aparent heart failure after complaining of chest pains.
What I want to know, however, is why did wikipedia editors feel it was necessary to include the fact that He was a chain smoker? Did they really not have enough verifiable facts to pad out his biography? Or did they want people to form their own cringe-worthy "cigarettes-stunting-growth" jokes by themselves?
RIP little dude.
Monday, March 15, 2010
My new hero
Have you ever heard of H.H. Wilson of Timaru? Neither had I.
During the course of my work I get to read newspapers from all over the country. From the prestigious Dominion Post to the dense-as-treacle National Business Review to the laughable Gore Ensign. One of the cringingly best parts of this role is reading some of the inane drivel spouted by people in po-dunk rural New Zealand towns. Today I found something that took WTF?!-style incoherence to a whole new level - all courtesy of the Timaru Herald.
Some years ago I wrote to the [Timaru] Herald suggesting that maybe Jesus was from another planet around another sun in our vast universe...
Sorry, what?! You wrote to a newspaper to suggest... what?!
...Richard Gunther replied there was no hope for me, because I was not altogether stupid, or words to that effect...
Not only is this a poorly-constructed sentence (even I can recognise that) it makes me want to side with Richard Gunther (whoever the hell he is)
...Now Richard you are writing letters about a film you have not seen. I think that is rather more stupid...
Now, I agree that criticising a film (I assume Richard was criticisin') without watching it is retarded... but when did this go from extra-terrestrial theology to a film review???
... Avatar is a little too long for an oldie like me and the battle scenes are prolonged, but in all my 80 years no film has ever gripped me more.
Okay... so you're a geriatric Avatar fan... I have literally nothing to say to this.
There is a message there for all of us.
Huh? THATS where you're going to end this?! I wanna know more about Alien-Jesus!
Well done H.H! You've made my year.
(I have used the news archives to research more of H.H's diatribes... stay tuned!)
During the course of my work I get to read newspapers from all over the country. From the prestigious Dominion Post to the dense-as-treacle National Business Review to the laughable Gore Ensign. One of the cringingly best parts of this role is reading some of the inane drivel spouted by people in po-dunk rural New Zealand towns. Today I found something that took WTF?!-style incoherence to a whole new level - all courtesy of the Timaru Herald.
Some years ago I wrote to the [Timaru] Herald suggesting that maybe Jesus was from another planet around another sun in our vast universe...
Sorry, what?! You wrote to a newspaper to suggest... what?!
...Richard Gunther replied there was no hope for me, because I was not altogether stupid, or words to that effect...
Not only is this a poorly-constructed sentence (even I can recognise that) it makes me want to side with Richard Gunther (whoever the hell he is)
...Now Richard you are writing letters about a film you have not seen. I think that is rather more stupid...
Now, I agree that criticising a film (I assume Richard was criticisin') without watching it is retarded... but when did this go from extra-terrestrial theology to a film review???
... Avatar is a little too long for an oldie like me and the battle scenes are prolonged, but in all my 80 years no film has ever gripped me more.
Okay... so you're a geriatric Avatar fan... I have literally nothing to say to this.
There is a message there for all of us.
Huh? THATS where you're going to end this?! I wanna know more about Alien-Jesus!
Well done H.H! You've made my year.
(I have used the news archives to research more of H.H's diatribes... stay tuned!)
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