Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The TV Listings (6)

A fair old blizzard of YouTube posting in the last few weeks reminds me that it's time once again for a roundup of my video postings from the last quarter.




The Comedy/Movie Channel

Panda fury  -  the latest viral sensation on the Internet, a very funny but also rather unsettling ad campaign for 'Panda' brand cheese products from the Arab Dairy Co. in Cairo: "Never say NO to a panda!"

Renaissance  -  a collection of musings on the notion of "Time's arrow reversed" prompts me to dig out this rare stop-motion short from maverick Polish film-maker Walerian Borowczyk (and leads me to YouTube user The Motion Brigades, specialising in this kind of animation).

Don't try this at home!  -  a collection of stupidly dangerous 'stunts' from the Jackass crew, accompanied by the 'deathpunk' anthem All my friends are dead! (see below).

Something for the ladies...  -  video for the very funny song Ladies of the World, by Kiwi comedy duo Flight of the Conchords (also listed below, under Music).

Short animation festival  -   I went a bit crazy this weekend, with embedded videos of 5 great animated shorts: Jérémy Clapin's Skhizein, John Lasseter's Knickknack, Dony Permedi's Pony, anonymous marijuana parable The Flower, and Paul Berry's 1992 classic The Sandman; there were also links to Permedi's Kiwi, Berry's The Devil Went Down To Georgia, and a superb Chinese computer-generated animation, See Through.

The Gloatiol to end them all  -  during the football World Cup, I invent a word to describe an extravagantly gloating goal celebration; and illustrate it, of course, with over-excitable Norwegian commentator Bjørge Lillelien's litany of great figures from British history who had just been shamed by his country's unexpected 2-1 victory over England in a World Cup qualifying game in 1981 (a moment so hilarious that it rather took the sting out of the defeat for us).

'Fighting' beer  -  Nelson Mandela as you've never seen him before!  (An irreverently daft impersonation from Harry Enfield.)

Jumpers for goalposts  - two classic bits of Ron Manager, the often incoherent but engagingly nostalgic football pundit created by Paul Whitehouse for The Fast Show; and Paul doing a modern Premiership football manager's polyglot half-time team talk, from his more recent Harry & Paul series with Harry Enfield.


The Music Channel

Don't Get Me Wrong  -  the video for the classic Pretenders hit.

Blues for Jimi  -  I commemorate the 40th anniversary of the tragic death of guitar maestro Jimi Hendrix with a marvellous clip of him and The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing his blues song Red House at a concert in Stockholm in January 1969.

All my friends are dead!  -  Norwegian "deathpunk" band Turbonegro's ranty anthem had become a great favourite at the regular Monday Nights With Nigel down at the pub.  Here it is accompanied by a video montage of the infamous Bam Margera (and others of the Jackass team) attempting suicidally ridiculous stunts.

Something for the ladies...  -  video for the very funny song Ladies of the World, by Kiwi comedy duo Flight of the Conchords (also listed above, under Comedy), from their HBO TV series.

These foolish things  -  the marvellous love song in three versions, by Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Jane Birkin (from Bertrand Tavernier's haunting film Daddy Nostalgie).

Happy Bastille Day!  -  a reprint of my 2008 post celebrating the French National Day with a clip of the great Mireille Mathieu singing their rousing national anthem La Marseillaise in front of the Eiffel Tower.


The Sports Channel

Er, no, nothing this time.  A few sports-related things - like Ron Manager, above - but no actual sport.  Maybe I was exhausted by the World Cup...

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