15. Smashing Pumpkins
Tonight, Tonight
The Smashing Pumpkins were one of the best alternative rock bands to come out of the nineties and couldn’t be lumped in with everyone else simply for their sheer originality and odd appearance, but their music was great from songs like “1979” to “Bullets with Butterfly Wings”, no two songs ever really sounded alike, especially when talking about “Tonight, tonight”. This impressive rock song backed with an orchestra and sometimes sounding like Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”, about growing up and losing your precious youth recalls the classic silent films “From the Earth to the Moon” shot by shot with the young couple being marooned on the moon with aliens as the husband kills the aliens with his umbrella, meanwhile they fall into the sea and are greeted by Poseidon and his mermaids. Meanwhile, Billy Corgan and his band sing atop clouds like angelic ghosts. “Tonight, Tonight” is their best video and an ode to classic silent films with a bittersweet but memorable song.
Our 25 Favorite Music Videos Of All Time
The best made music videos, The best songs, the coolest of the cream of the crop. Music videos are a tool, a tool that can be used to improve a song, and many times it doesn’t help matters for the artist. These are videos so chaotic, so beautiful, so cool, so original, so conceptual, and so innovative. This is the best of the best.
Undiscovered (2005)
So by the logic present here, if you take a picture with a huge star, you will, in effect, become one yourself. Wondering what the hell this movie is? You’re not alone. It’s not a big coincidence “Undiscovered” has been undiscovered by almost every movie goer in America. It’s a piece of crap. Pure and simple. I mean, can you really expect quality from a film that’s relied on a steady campaign of “It stars Ashlee Simpson” to get the word out about the production? Yes, “Undiscovered” is a horrible movie, and for many reasons. But one of the reasons is that it’s so utterly insulting, even as a fairytale of stardom.
Stan Lee Presents: The Condor (2007)
What Stan Lee has basically done here is create his very own Spider-Man. With the Condor, we have a basically privileged young man whose life is really in need of a boost. When his parents die, he is rendered basically crippled after being attacked, and becomes a superhero. One that talks the villains to death to piss them off. The Condor is basically the equivalent of the Spider-Man rogue Rocket Racer with a mixture of that lame superhero from the nineties: MANTIS.
The Grudge 2 (2006)
The curse gathers in the next place of death, says the opening subtitles. You just have to love how such a nice house is considered a place of death. Give me a nice house with a ghost over my current apartment any day of the week. Now that’s a horror movie. While “Ju-On” was a pleasant horror flick, I am one of many who thought “The Grudge” was simply a horrible movie. Void of any atmosphere, and completely missing the point of the original, turning Kayako into a run of the mill monster, as opposed to her actual purpose in the original. Well, here’s the sequel, and it’s actually no different. It’s repetitive, it feels like three hours, and there’s really no character you can root for.
Prison-A-Go-Go! (2003)
I have no aversion to women in prison movies. No, sir, I do not. I happen to enjoy good schlock when it’s done well, and I happen to enjoy flicks like “Cellblock Sisters.” When I caught wind of “Prison A-Go-Go!”, I was utterly intrigued. It’s not often you get a movie that’s intended to be schlock these days. Some directors just make bad movies and pretend its schlock, and many attempt schlock but fail miserably. “Prison A-Go-Go!” gets it right most of the time. “
Brick (2005)
Like much of the neo-noir that has graced our screens both in a contemporary, and period setting, “Brick” begins at the end. As we’ve seen in the device exemplified in “Sunset Boulevard,” we begin right at the tail end of the mystery. Where is Brendan’s ex-girlfriend Emily (Emile DeRavin is both unlikable, and heartbreaking)? What I can tell you is that most audiences for this film won’t even realize that Johnson is paying homage to some of the greatest noir films ever made. From outright nods to Humphrey Bogart, and films like “The Maltese Falcon,” there are many elements with the same basic premise. Johnson never fills his audience in, but they’re watching noir set in modern times.