Year in Review: Music Videos a.k.a. Short Movie Musicals

I couldn't be happier that the music video has regained its cultural capital in the age of YouTube. There's something about the form that is just magical. Or maybe it's just that it's been the most reliable fix for movie-musical lovers during the past 30 years. You can pretend these 3 to 5 minute show stoppers are but one scene in a larger movie musical, can't you? At least that's what I do with my favorite videos.

So herewith, several favorites in no particular order. If you're wondering what music videos have to do with The Film Experience remember that they're short films and that this year's most celebrated director David Fincher (The Social Network) started that mammoth career by making mammoth music videos for Madonna (among others).

Please to enjoy. And let me know your favorite(s) in the comments.

8 FAV MUSIC VIDEOS OF '10
Why only 8? I ran out of steam. You don't have time to watch 10 anyway.

Brandon Flowers "Crossfire"

In which Charlize Theron kicks much ninja ass. I love the self-effacing helplessness of your rock star hero who just can't stop getting into predicaments from which his hot girl (Charlize) must rescue him. Movie stars slumming in music videos is one of the best things in the world though this video does bring up my constant worry about Charlize: Why is she so awesome without making any movies worth caring about?

Janelle Monáe (feat. Big Boi) "Tightrope"

Those feet. The way they slide, spin, shuffle, dance. It's quite a feat.

Cosmo Jarvis "Gay Pirate".

I heart this so hard. That "Yo Ho" chorus is to die. Plus, it's lit and choreographed cleverly for one take (joy) and it's easily enjoyable both on the surface -- gay pirates!  -- and moreso if you want to dig deeper (think don't ask don't tell) which is the best kind of artistic trick.

But there's more: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gaga, and more one-take madness coming...

...

Lady Gaga (feat. Beyoncé) "Telephone"

I mostly love this one for the costumes, the Amazon aggression and the Kill Bill and Thelma & Louise shout outs. True story: I was playing charades the other night at a Christmas party and I had to act out this dance. HIGHLY EMBARRASSING.

Cazwell "Ice Cream Truck" [NSFW]

Because it's raunchy/hilarious (NSFW). Cazwell's songs sometimes have good laughs (I Saw Beyoncé at Burger King -lol) but this is the first video to match/surpass the fun embedded in the song.

Vampire Weekend "Giving Up the Gun"

Four things we love in different contexts entirely: tennis, Vampire Weekend, funny Jake Gyllenhaal, people battling with themselves through the magic of movie editing. These four things together = quadruple happiness.

Cee-Lo "F*** You"

A musical biopic (of sorts) that's actually entertaining. The only thing that would make this video better is if Cristal, Ronnette & Chiffon were playing the doo-wop chorus behind the counter.

Ok Go "This Too Shall Pass"
[Rube Goldberg Machine Version]

Ingenuity, humor, and one take which continually ups the ante. It's for anyone who has ever marvelled at How Things Work. The ending is so great. The one take thing is an addiction we too rarely get a fix of -- we love it within feature films even more; over there it's an endangered species known as "the long take."  I couldn't find much statistical data about ASL (average shot length) on the web -- most of it is really random studies of singular movies but everyone knows it's been decreasing steadily for years. It's definitely under 4 seconds now, maybe closer to 2 with action films, which are even more shard fragment-like coming in under that.

Now it's your turn. Which music videos did you love this year?

Exit Music: This last one isn't an all time great music video, but it's my absofavorite song this year so I have to end with it.

Lady Gaga's Alejandro: The Fun & Folly of Appropriation

Madonna was once both adored and reviled as "The Great Appropriator" so I suppose it's only fair that Lady Gaga borrows from her. When I first heard "Alejandro" I kept thinking 'Oh, Ok. Gaga has to have her own "La Isla Bonita," too.' And then she went and collaborated with frequent Madonna iconographer Steven Klein for the music video.



So even though Klein is shamelessly borrowing from his own past work here, the wonderful thing about Gaga is that, like her spiritual pop empress predecessor, she's her own artist, too. This makes the appropriation palatable as well as fun... until crazed fans start giving her credit for everything. [But that's another funny subject matter entirely.] I mean even Madonna didn't invent the chameleon approach to pop stardom, though her fans, like Gagas, also tried to give her credit for it at the time.

Doesn't that "what on earth will they wear/look like next?" thing go directly back to Bowie? Or is it earlier than that. Paging pop historians???

Blond helmet bobs and flare pants forevah!

So mark my words. Someday soon -- let's say within the next 3 years -- Gaga is going to have her Madonna "Live to Tell" moment wherein she totally shocks the world, not with a new provocative look but by showing up with a demure, classic one. It'll get everyone talking as much as any diet coke can hair rollers ever did.

The Madonna / Steven Klein collaboration from 2003
One might call the stylings Gaga-esque but for the year in question

So, my point is this: Clumsy homage/ripoff like the kind that Christina Aguilera does in "Not Myself Tonight" when she plagiarizes both Madonna and Gaga *shudder* is not fun at all and should be looked down upon. But riffing on the work of others in a new context or with a fresh twist is totally fun and what many great artists do.

We see this in feature films all the time, too. Both of the best shots in Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces are arguably inspired by other work: There's that white sheet shrouded sex scene (Margritte) and that moving emotional climax with the hands caressing the static image (which I'm hearing is a Godard reference... but it totally works in the Almodóvarian context). A couple weeks ago we chatted briefly about the various A grade riffs on Ingmar Bergman's Persona (Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Altman's Three Women). And everyone knows that the wildly popular Quentin Tarantino is all about referencing other movies. But whether or not we recognize the references --I often don't with Tarantino since the genres he loves most are weak spots for me -- great artists reference past work only in the service of making their own fresh visions.

The only real issue with doing this is when the new artist acts as if it's completely and 100% their invention. Which is why it was a shame that Beyonce's otherwise awesome and awesomely ubiquitous "Single Ladies" video didn't have a "thank you Bob Fosse" attached to it, for example.

Madonna & Gaga. They're both "tops"

So, I can't help but think about Madonna the entire way through"Alejandro" maybe because of the Catholic imagery. I see "Alejandro" like so: Madonna's men in cone bras helping hot blond divas masturbate (Like a Virgin, Blonde Ambition Tour), women topping men suggestively in dance choreography (Express Yourself, Blonde Ambition Tour) and catholic girls obsessing over funerals and death in snowy black and white ("Oh Father") plus a couple choreographed bits from "Human Nature" and "Express Yourself" all get tossed into the Gaga/Klein blender and come out the other end as an angry military puree. Here the woman isn't topping men with a flirtatious feminism but actually appears to be penetrating them rather more subversively like a man would. And instead of just obsessing at the coffin and weeping for her dead loved one, the girl is actually leading the funereal procession. And the cone bras become guns. Bang Bang.

I'm not sure I've ever fully registered the sheer amount of aggression in Gaga's art before. But after the mass murder of "Telephone", the crispy end-gag in "Bad Romance" and the poisoned Skarsgaard in "Paparazzi," and this, it's abundantly clear. Suddenly those silly rumors about Tarantino wanting to work with her that sprung up when she used Kill Bill imagery for "Telephone" make more popcultural sense. Gaga is out for blood!

Unfortunately this new video is too effortfully mounted and grave to be half as fun as her previous outings and it also feels more derivative. Will she ever top the exquisite aesthetic control, hilarious sight gags and awesome choreography of "Bad Romance"? That said, even though I'm unmoved by this new work, I really love Lady Gaga and remain thrilled that someone is taking the music video format so very seriously again and has the fanbase to back up that particular passion. It had been a long while since each music video premiere felt so "NEW SHORT FILM!" headline worthy.

Three final errant thoughts...


On a shallow film referencing note, can I just say that I absolutely hate beautiful men with perfect bodies. It's entirely unfair that anyone can stay "hot like Mexico" while sporting Moe's Three Stooges 'do. Entirely unfair.

How much do you love that lyric "you know that I love you, boy | hot like Mexico"? Well, I love it more than you do. Genius.

This final image is thrilling and for some reason it makes me desperate to shove Lady Gaga into a time machine and make her do a video with James Bidgood or Ken Russell in the 70s, Almodóvar in the 80s or maybe Pierre et Gilles or Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the 90s.