Here’s the 11 minute short film of Drew Barrymore’s Supervideo for Best Coast — “Crazy For You”
Archive for the 'Mean Blog' Category
It’s that time again! Check out our latest and greatest Supervideo in this Sneak Peek by MTV Style.
In case you have been living under a rock, our latest Supervideo for the band Cults, starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco has been blasting through the internet(s) and on rotation on MTV, MTV2, MTVU & Palladia. Check out the below clip for a behind the scenes peek with Emma and Dave (and keep watching after the interview for the video). Stay tuned here and at supervideo.mtv.com for announcements and updates!
So where the hell have we been? We’ve been working on a fresh batch of music video mash ups for MTV. The first one we did was with the cast of Kick Ass with a tune from The Soft Pack — “Answer To Yourself”. Down below for you all to view. Be back soon!
Yesterday, we received some very sad news from former Minutemen, current bass playing extraordinaire, Mike Watt. We had just purchased the excellent book, “Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley”, a few weeks ago and were all nostalgic about L.A. hardcore and its glory days. I’m not sure it would have left the same imprint if The Masque and Brendan Mullen never existed — it would have certainly been different. Maybe The Go-Go’s wouldn’t have even existed and definitely no Germs. Red Hots? X? The Zeros? Circle Jerks? Black Flag? The Minutemen? SST? It goes on. Or even worse, it would have been different. Unimaginable. Sheesh. You will be missed. Better yet, thank you for living.
From Watt:
dear friends,
brendan mullen was always very kind to me… in the old days, always a kindness and interest. when the band before the minutemen made two cassettes of a prac (only recording of them), I gave one to brendan – he was only person to get cuz the other got kept in a drawer. ever since old days we’d have huge spiels together, lots. intelligent man.
helpful man. drummerman too. he’d call me w/ideas all the time… more recent was to make album… now there’s no time. fuck. he was great cat, great cat! big love always to him from mike watt. he touched many folks’ lives…
Isabella Rossellini has written, directed and produced a delightfully unusual series for the Sundance Channel entitled “Green Porno”. It’s a comical presentation of the unusual mating habits of animals and insects. They are funny. You should watch them and laugh. You should not deconstruct them and draw unconscionable conclusions like I have. Watch these in their simplicity or suffer an existential apocalypse as I did. Watch. Laugh. Enjoy. Simple.
Do you feel that male bees are hopeless romantics since their exploding penises act as a plug, deterring other male bees from sexual solicitation? Am I over thinking it?
IR: I think you’re over thinking it. I just told a story in a funny way – I don’t know if it’s romantic or not – this might be what you think, and that’s fine. I wasn’t trying to find the most romantic story. There are 18 different animals that all mate differently and we wanted it to be a little comical series. I wasn’t attributing any values, sentimental or dramatic.
I guess I found it romantic how a male can make their penis explode for one female – that’s pretty passionate. Maybe that says something about me more than what your intent was. Sorry.
IR: That’s okay! When you do a film you always do think that people react differently. You find it romantic, some people find it comical, other people find it scandalous, so I don’t think you should deny your reaction.
Okay, I find it romantic then. Exploding male bee penises are romantic to me. Okay, but you can’t deny that snails are sadomasochistic. Clearly, the snails poke each other for sexual gratification. Do you think they’re conscious of it?
IR: We don’t know if animals think or feel or have the same kind of senses we do. My intent was much more simple – it was to make a comical series on animals because it was interesting to explore short films that relate to the environment. Most of the things we see on the environment is much more serious and is about the desperate situation that the habitat or planet is in.
Don’t humans find humor through association though? There’s got to be an emotional connection for humans to find something funny correct?
IR: This is a very unusual interview. I don’t know what to say. I’m not trying to make a connection. I feel like you’re projecting on me.
No, I’m not projecting, at least I hope not. If I’m offending you, I’m sorry. I love the series Isabella. Seriously…
IR: No, no, you’re not offending me. When I write, I come from a different point of view. You are saying I am referencing humans and yes I am (a human) and dress up like one of these animals but it was for comical effect. If I’m (dressed up) like a bug, it’s not a comment on sadomasochistic behavior in humans. I just read this information in scientific books and I transform myself in costume and imagine myself as this animal. The intention was not to speculate on human behavior or do something philosophical or profound. I wanted people to laugh and for people’s curiosity to be aroused. It was much simpler and not as sophisticated as that.
Forget about humans then. As a viewer when I watched the shorts, I couldn’t help but ask myself, WHY? I found it funny, but at the same time it taught me a lot. I didn’t know that snails mated like that. I didn’t know that bees mated like that. That was very interesting to me and I couldn’t help myself from reacting…
IR: … in that way, I know, but besides that I wanted to solicit the reaction of funny and then to say, Oh I didn’t know that. Beyond that I didn’t want to make it anything else. I wanted it to be funny.
I think it is funny. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m going in circles. I love the shorts. They are funny and I learned a lot.
UPDATED: Hilarious new video promo for Jimmy Kimmel Live with T-Pain and Obama battling about health care. Check it out …
Were Jack and Meg White married? Are they brother and sister? If you know the answer, suspend your disbelief for The White Stripes Under Great Northern Lights, the mesmerizing new documentary by Emmet Malloy.
It all begins in the summer of 2007, on their 10th anniversary, as the White Stripes tour Canada for the very first time. True to form, they whiz through the country’s every single province playing a one-note show (see below), an impromptu performance in a transit bus and even one on a boat. No town is too small, none too big, hitting the Yukon’s Art Centre (capacity 428) to Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre (capacity 16,000) for a country of fans that eagerly waited a full decade to see them live.
Shortly thereafter, they cancelled all their upcoming US tour dates due to Meg’s “acute anxiety” cited by a band representative.
The culmination and unraveling of this is all captured beautifully in the subtext of the documentary. The mystery that is Meg White is elegantly captured by Malloy, whose intimate portrait of the band was facilitated by the shorthand relationship he formed by directing their music videos. In one scene, Jack flips the back of his guitar to reveal a picture of Greta Garbo. One can’t help but infer the symbolism to Meg, who similarly possesses the elusive beauty of the silent movie star. Meg’s silence is even addressed in the documentary as Jack rampantly explains it’s not a result of him being wildly vocal. Meg responds shyly she’s simply quiet with heartbreaking honesty.
In many ways, that push/pull relationship, and the yin and yang of their emblematic red and white band colors, is even represented in their music. Take the song “Little Acorns”, for instance, as Jack hammers his axe in the song’s bridge while Meg adjusts the tempo back by pausing on her drum beat before pounding it back with ferocity.
The White Stripes Under Great Northern Lights plays more cinema verite, less like a run of the mill rock documentary, and explores the band’s relationship, emotions and insecurities.
The common misperception by media is that they’re a novelty act. It’s attributed deceptively to their two-tone red and white colored wardrobe, inspired by the De Stijl movement, and heavily influenced sound of blues masters Robert Johnson and Son House, the latter of which wrote Jack’s favorite song, “Grinnin’ In Your Face”, which is revealed in the recently released documentary that teams him up with Jimmy Page and The Edge, It Might Get Loud. The subject is examined well in both documentaries, but its resonance is on full display here. Jack despondingly quotes an early Spin magazine article that famously once wrote “Everything about the White Stripes is a lie,” reminiscent of Rolling Stone magazine’s assessment that Led Zeppelin possesses “little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didn’t say as well or better three months ago”.
As the documentary seamlessly drifts from this subject into the end of the third act, Meg leans her head on Jack’s shoulder as he performs “White Moon” on the piano bringing her to tears. It’s reminiscent to the final scene in Lost In Translation as Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray say goodbye to one another as she whispers inaudibly in his ears. In both cases, the mystical nature of what we don’t see or know is what makes it so potent. In the case of the White Stripes, you have to ask yourself if the nature of their relationship really even mattered in the first place. Love can mean many things and it’s almost as inexplicable as it is magical.
White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 18th.
Earlier this week, we posted a trailer for the new Timbaland/Rockstar Games collaboration, Beaterator, which will be downloadable on Iphones this fall. Now comes a video that has what the future of hip hop will look like, which I’m oddly very into. Hip hop has fallen off, even Nas declared Hip Hop Is Dead, so can it be saved by 8 year old kids in Washington Square Park? See below and judge for yourself!
In 1982, GM premiered its first ever Chevrolet “Celebrity” in an attempt to sell the Hollywood HIGHlife to Americans in an affordable “aerodynamic” car.
Can’t afford to move out to Hollywood and buy into the life? Not to worry. Buy a Chevrolet “Celebrity” and you’ll be hobnobbing with the A-List in no time.
If you’re curious about how GM has misappropriated and wasted your tax dollars on useless advertising and marketing, which should have been spent on research and development on the actual vehicle, we’ve gone ahead and placed the advertising campaign for the Chevrolet “Celebrity” and its many re-branded missteps in chronological order along with brand tags. “Celebrity” managed to go Hollywood to Family to Middle America all in a span of seven years. Chevrolet “Celebrity” was discontinued months after the “Middle America” commercial aired, a last ditch attempt to connect with its core buyers.
HOLLYWOOD (1982)
FAMILY (1984)
MIDDLE AMERICA (1989)
From the great minds that brought you “Grand Theft Auto” and legendary hip hop producer Timbaland comes a wish fulfillment like no other: The power to produce hip hop tracks from your iPhone.
In and of itself, a revolutionary idea, but the announcement this morning that the game/software, “Beaterator”, will be made available to the thrones that have abandoned their PSPs makes this announcement all the more appetizing. Check out the trailer below and be sure to download when it’s made available this fall.
In 1984, Apple’s Steve Jobs, advertising giant TBWA/Chiat Day and Alien director Ridley Scott joined forces to release the most revolutionary commercial of its time: an adaptation of George Orwell’s 1949 sci-fi novel “1984″ about government totalitarianism in a TV spot during Super Bowl XVII.
In this case, Steve Job’s used creative as a nod to IBM’s domination over the industry, but hindsight being what it is, that’s irrelevant. Yes, he was calling IBM fascists, which in itself is quite a stroke, but its unfathomable that such commentary about government during the Reagan era could be used as a platform for advertising a computer, what we now perceive as ordinary, but at the time was extraordinary.
In their version, they have an Olympic style pole vaulter launching an iron hammer (wink, wink) which crashes into a video address being given by the dictator while a group of homogenized citizens sit glued to his words. Check it out below:
Doug Pray’s Art and Copy briefly touches up on this and much more that’s happened in advertising in the last few decades. His documentary, similar to his earlier Hype! and Scratch , takes a deep look at cultural innovators and how/why they broke the mold. The highlight of the doc was the legendary George Lois’s blowhard commentary on how he changed the game with his “I Want My MTV” commercials as well his Tommy Hilfiger campaign. Check out the trailer below and don’t miss it:
Acclaimed photographer/director and Mean contributor, Patrick Hoelck, (pictured below, top/center with Terry Richardson) settles down with Mean for a refresher on his new venture, Pilfered, a magazine “for the people, by the people”.
Tell me about the inception of Pilfered.
It is the first truly provocative, interactive, sign of the times magazine for artists and the visually inspired. You either get it or you don’t and are pissed by it. Our team believes Pilfered is web democracy at its best. I was late night web browsing and came across a blog that this English kid put together. It had amazing images but his tone was really cocky. He was saying things like “look no further” and “this is the best blog in existence.” As a joke, I screen grabbed a lot of the images and slapped “Pilfered Magazine-Coming Soon” on it and sent it back to him– just to get him going. I also ended up liking it so I put it on my blog. A few days later, I got invited to some bouzhy dinner, and a guy that had a big influence on web communities said he saw it on my blog and thought it was a genius idea. The next day I ended up driving to Venice to meet up with RUDJ. We went back and forth and had a creative discussion of how we would create a ballsier, visual Wikipedia of images that would contribute and add to what is going on in media. I asked him to join me and a few weeks later we had our first issue.
Was it made as a reaction to the restrictive, inhibitive nature of how most magazines publish photographers’ work?
I guess everything I do could fall under that description.It was as simple as sitting down with a friend of mine that I had done some really good ad jobs with, and we put our skills and network together and made it happen. You almost always know the people you can work with and the ones you can’t. The process of making Pilfered was really organic.
Will you continue to have guest editors (such as former Vibe editor George Pitts) ?
Tons. This model will make it so the magazine never gets boring and everyone stays inspired, including our team at Pilfered. They’re going to range from a journalist to an architect to a philanthropist to someone in finance, etc….
Which guest editors can we expect in the future? Will you delve outside of the art world and allow someone like a social worker to do it as well? A tweener? A homeless man from St. Julien?
The guest editors have to stay a surprise – the lineup is exciting – I am amazed by the people that were able to contribute thus far…they all just got the concept and wanted to be part of it. We’ve also created The Annex. Its aim is to expand our reach and explore a focused group whose work reflect and reveal our current times. This is where Veronica Rafael, our newest member and curator, can choose the social worker and the tweener and the homeless man from St. Julien to be guest editors. We also got a call in to Kashy Khaledi but we haven’t heard anything back yet.
Count him in! Where can I find Pilfered?
http://pilferedmagazine.com
By the people, for the people.