A Dying Art: The Music Video

My all-time favorite music videos in no particular order:

"Linger" - The Cranberries
Great send-up to the French New Wave and filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard and most specifically the film ALPHAVILLE, which is one of my all-time favorite Science Fiction films.

"The Universal" - Blur
Awesome homage to the late, great Stanley Kubrick with obvious references to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Awesome song that really makes me happy.

"I'm Afraid of Americans" - David Bowie and Trent Reznor
Super concept that involves two highly creative individuals that both understand the power of images with the right musical vibe. Has some interesting post-9/11 impletations.

"Home" - Depeche Mode
Highly unseen, underrated, underappreciated music video from a band that has endured over the last 3 decades despite people in America not really knowing what this band has been doing, but their popularity has never declined elsewhere in the world.

"Around the World" - Daft Punk
A must-see music video that is both creative and poignant at the same time, just phenominally directed.

"Devil's Haircut" - Beck
Another send-up video to a seldom talked about film these days - MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Beck is just great.

"All is Full of Love" - Bjork
Amazing music video that is superbly clever and emboddies the whole 'can artifical intelligence love', which has been a topic often seen in films, note that the robots look like the ones in I, ROBOT.

"Running" - No Doubt
Great collage-piece that really sums up the relationship of this band with it's own members, fans, and a snap shot of their challenges.

"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
A very obvious choice here, but this song never gets old and the video is just great!

"33" - The Smashing Pumpkins
Shot entirely with a still camera and then rapidly pieced together with every frame comprising of hundred and thousands of stills in order to create a jerky one-of-a-kind music video.

"Sledgehammer" - Peter Gabriel
Just a highly creative music video that came out in a time when music videos were at the peak of their popularity, but were starting to decline in their originality.

DVD vs. HD: raising the bar.

Often when people overhear me talk about how inferior DVD is or how limiting DVD is they are typically surprised. That is, most people still feel that DVD offers the most stunning picture and sound quality available at home. However, this is starting to quickly change as more and more people are 1. buying HDTV's and 2. obtaining HD programming. Both of which quickly lead people down a path that demonstrates to them just how good HD can look, but with that comes a new bar. Once that bar is raised, DVD by comparison, doesn't hold up. It just can't. DVD is limited to just standard definition with MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 technologies only able to up to 720X 576. In comparison, HD programming and or HD-DVD/Blu-ray can do 1920X1080, which means that the lines of resolution are doubled. Not only can DVD not handle the resolution, but the compression needed to fit the movie onto a DVD is a great factor in the poorer picture as well. A DVD, even a dual layered DVD is under 10GB of space, whereas a Blu-ray disc currently comes in a 25GB and 50GB size. This means that the video and audio can be uncompressed, typically you will see the audio say something like 5.1 uncompressed PCM audio on a Blu-ray disc. This enables high resolution audio, plus great picture quality and STILL have room for supplements without jeopardizing performance, at least to a certain degree.

It won't be long with more people having HD programming before DVD will begin to seem like VHS quality by comparison, this doesn't mean that it will go away, just think VHS lasted over 20 years even when a superior format like the 12" laserdisc was around in conjunction.

Got the Blu(es)...

After the demise of the Pittsburgh Penguins I figured I must jump-start this blog a bit with other information. Recently acquiring a Sony Playstation 3 I have been able to enjoy the full benefits of the HD format known as Blu-ray, which I must say it's making me reconsider my entire DVD collection, which is or was nearly 1200 strong. Since obtaining several Blu-ray discs I have decided to scale back my DVD collection and make some trades bring my Blu-ray collection to 35 discs as of right now, they are:

300
BLACK HAWK DOWN
BRAM STOKERS DRACULA
BONNIE AND CLYDE
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
BLADE RUNNER
THE SHINING
EYES WIDE SHUT
APOCALYPTO
GOODFELLAS
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
FULL METAL JACKET
PEARL HARBOR
THE BRAVE ONE
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
GALAPOGOS
OLD BOY
FROM HELL
V FOR VENDETTA
STEP INTO LIQUID
FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX
FANTASTIC FOUR
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
TERMINATOR 2
PATTON
CARS
RATATOUILLE
SUNSHINE
THE PUNISHER
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
QUEEN ROCK MONTREAL
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS

Needless to say these are all superior in some way to their DVD beginnings, but some really stand out. The Kubrick discs are definitely superior to the DVD and remastered DVD's that were issued years ago, in fact they are the best that I've seen those films and that includes seeing them in theatrical representations and restortions over the years. 2001 finally has the color that it deserves, but EYES WIDE SHUT also has a few scenes (in particular the city shots) that are just jaw-dropping. Equally impressive though is the restortion on PATTON, which on top of being a masterpiece of filmmaking, also makes for one of the early demo discs on what Blu-ray can offer to a restored film and when it's done correctly, the results are stunning. PATTON was shot in 70mm in a process called Dimension-150 and the Blu-ray definitely shows how spectacular the cinematography was on that film.

One can only hope that this great trend continues and more people hop onto the Blu-ray train. That however can be tricky as it's taken quite awhile for everyone to convert to DVD and while DVD just turned 11 years old it would seem that no one wants to jump ship just yet. But that doesn't mean that DVD is dead. Since you can view DVD's on a Blu-ray player it would seem (especially since it upscales) that it will also improve your DVD quality and certain titles will take quite some time to finally arrive on Blu-ray to begin with. For movie purists, enthusiasts, collectors, and videophiles though this is just the type of fresh air that was needed, espcially since DVD was never meant to be the final word in home video. In fact it was only meant to get people on the disc format, but was always limited in some way. DVD could never handle the storage space to accomodate the best that home video has to offer. Blu-ray takes DVD to the cleaners by offering full 1080p presentation of movies in true High Definition, plus takes the audio to a whole new level as well with formats like Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1 and DTS-HD Losslesss audio, which finally gives full uncompressed surround sound in ways that you can enjoy at home with the proper receiver via HDMI.

If you are interested in getting into the Blu-ray format there are a few key titles that won't disappoint, the first film that really delivers in all performance aspects is FROM HELL, which is featured in 7.1 DTS-HD lossless audio and is phenomenal, plus the 1080p picture is stunning with great depth and clarity for a film that is very dark with loads of contrast and color. Plus, it's a truly good film that often gets overlooked as just another retelling of Jack the Ripper.

Another great title would be the BLADE RUNNER 5-disc Blu-ray set that gives all 5 versions of the film including the Final Cut, the theatrical cut, the international cut, the directors cut, and the workprint. All 5 look stunning, but it's great to see the variety of versions of this film, plus there are tons of extras on the other 2 discs and since this film is one of the most imitated Science Fiction of the last 30 years, it only seems appropriate to give it all the attention that this classic deserves and hopefully find a new audience to acknowledge it's genius.

Other stunning discs for picture are of course the Pixar films, which look sublime and finally show what digital animation can look like when there is no generation loss between production and process.