There Are No Walls in the House of Jearl - Mystery DVD #149
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Mystery DVD #149
Pure '80s DVD: Totally New Wave
More music videos! I'm not going to question my fate this time, let's just get to it. I will say that this is probably the sweet spot for music videos of the 80s - interesting narratives, wacky special effects, Blondie...
"Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles - The band dresses as mad scientists and traps the Radio Star in a plexigass tube, and then in a television set, in which she vogues. Then she flies off of a large stylized pile of consumer technology debris. It's pretty awesome.
"Whip It" by Devo - who even dares try to explain this one. The band is at a ranch. The sky is blue. Ranchers enact social dramas while servants look on stoically.
"Rapture" by Blondie - an aspect of Baron Samedi prances down the alley outside Debbie Harry's house, where she is holding a Masque of the Red Death themed party. Watch it, I am not kidding. Then she does a rap and dances with the Baron. Oh, that vixen. At the end the band is revealed to be sorcerers. I assume the Baron gets all the guests.
"Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran - post-colonial tristesse. The singer obsessively pursues a wereleopard while his bandmates desperately try to intervene. They are too late to stop him becoming a lycanthrope himself, though the transformation is never actually shown. Bravo for restraint, Duran Duran.
"Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson - a domestic worker dreams of a glamorous night out, while in a confusing parallel dream some dude pines for her.
"Tainted Love" by Soft Cell - Space succubi menace a young man. The singer manifests as a cosmic entity and mocks him.
"A Million Miles Away" by The Plimsoles - The band performs poolside while a man has a dissociative psychotic episode. Then someone takes a long road trip, I'm not totally sure who. Later, a woman witnesses an apparition of the man, but he is dead at the pool. I think.
"One Thing Leads to Another" by the Fixx - The singer sings, dances, and experiences symbolic tableaux in a tunnel. The tunnel makes him look very tall.
"Our House" by Madness - The band rocks out in a small but charming house. Then they have some hijinks in several much larger houses. It's fun.
"Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats - There's a renaissance fair, and the singer vigorously teaches all and sundry a spastic S-shaped arm motion. It's trying real hard and it's nice to see some sunlight, but I still don't really get it.
"In a Big Country" by Big Country - it's a good thing I really like this song, because I watched this video five times and I still don't know what's going on. The band faces off against a strapping goth girl for possession of a black and gold portfolio. OR - The goth girl flirts with the singer by way of luring the band to an island by stealing their treasure map. I don't know, maybe it's a third narrative I'm just not seeing. It's a great video, either way. The goth girl is really cute and she can beat up a whole rock band, so she is my new unsung video hero. She dislodges the saxophonist from Quarterflash, who could bilocate, so it's really saying something.
"Cruel Summer" by Bananarama - The band runs a renegade service station and endures a tough New York summer, but they have each other, so it's all good. The police come to bust their service station but they run off with a friendly truck driver and then throw a roof party.
"Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood - I was emotionally prepared for this because I just saw it randomly a few days ago, but still, what the HELL. The singer visits a club where he is made to fight a baby tiger by a fat man dressed as a Roman senator. There is a ton of symbolism going on I am really not prepared to unpack. Go search Youtube for it or something. Anyway, he befriends the tiger and then an incomprehensible riot/orgy breaks out. They seem to be having fun by the end, which I guess is all that really matters.
"Take On Me" by Aha - a woman falls in love with a haunted comic book about motorcycle racers. I think this video singlehandedly kept rotoscoping alive for the year it was made.
"When Smokey Sings" by ABC - the band really, really likes Smokey Robinson and does not care who knows it. There's also a lonely man with a somewhat creepy Smokey Robinson shrine. He offers it a flower and a pretty girl comes over and dances with him, so I guess Smokey Robinson really is pretty awesome.
Tags: dvd review
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| | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jearl |
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| Date: | January 5th, 2009 05:59 pm (UTC) |
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I am speechless from the awesome. But the Digg guy cut it off before I could see the interpretation of the creepy Altered States ending!
You know, I think I've believed all along that the Fixx guy was extremely tall.
Now I really want to see what would be created if the bands were given these descriptions and told to make videos that fit them. Would the results be more, or less, comprehensible than the original videos?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/16370630/1357451) | | | all of these clearly form one long altmanesque hypernarrative | (Link) |
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I forgot how Blondie partied with death. At the time we were convinced for some reason that the Safety Dance video reflected a post-apocalyptic environment -- some kind of agrarian future after the bomb like the " village of water mills" that would rise up after the dark prophetic vision of Frankie's "Two Tribes." Now of course we know there was no bomb but the unintentional AIDS subtext is even more poignant. As it happens we were just watching that Duran Duran vid a few days ago ourselves. Good call on the lycanthropy angle.
| | From: | jearl |
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| Date: | January 5th, 2009 05:49 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: all of these clearly form one long altmanesque hypernarrative | (Link) |
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you can see the subtle alignment change from Lawful Evil to Neutral Evil in his expression on the last chorus.
| | | kill asmodeus, take his million-geepee rod | (Link) |
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So by "going native" with that girl in the mud he renounces the law of the dukes of hell the urbane rest of Duran Duran live by? Typical Simon! |
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