May the Farce be with you. I think I've heard that somewhere before...maybe Spaceballs? Two of my all time favorite TV shows are cartoons: Family Guy and The Simpsons. Both cartoons have recently released DVDs of movies or special episodes that I watched last weekend. With the dearth of new episodes (particularly Family Guy, not so much the Simpsons) due to the writers strike these DVDs were sorely needed. To kick things off, let's talk about Family Guy.
Family Guy's Blue Harvest is a DVD version of the season premiere episode that took on Star Wars. The show has always had an affinity for Star Wars jokes, but this time they were able to milk it for a full 45 minutes. Fam Guy's crude humor and irreverent approach are unleashed with full force on what's the equivalent of modern mythology. These guys are clearly Star Wars geeks as they make inside references (Blue Harvest was the title to one of the Star Wars movies when they wanted to hide what they were making) and show real attention to detail (they had Peter Griffin/Han Solo shoot first). They shoot up the plot holes from Episode IV with gusto and find a way to effectively blend Family Guy's world with the Star Wars universe. The DVD extras are crappy and be careful about the price if you choose to get it (Borders had it for $24, I bought it at Best Buy for $13.00. This is just the regular version, not the deluxe boxed version).
The Simpson's movie seems almost like an afterthought after the decade plus run it's had on TV. After all these years, is there really anything they can do on the silver screen they couldn't do on Fox? After watching the Simpsons movie, the answer is no, not really. The movie plays like a long episode, the animation is slightly upgraded but for the most part it looks like the TV show. That's not to say there aren't any differences, one noticeable tweak was a greater range of emotions at play (mainly sadness, there are a few heavy moments in the movie that hardly ever show in the series). Artistically, this probably would have been better showing on TV as a special episode but hey, everyone's gotta cash in at some point right? Overall, The Simpson's movie is entertaining but lacks the ROTFL moments that Family Guy had and can't quite live up to the high expectations I had going in.
It wouldn't be Mr Mike's if music didn't come into the picture. While surfing You Tube I was surprised to find many shot-by-shot remakes of Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" video. As big a fan as I am of Journey and despite this being one of my favorite songs by anyone anywhere at anytime, I always thought this particular video was a little silly. It was meant to look cool with the disappearing/reappearing instruments and the carefully lined up group shots. Did I mention slo mo? Still, it's Journey and I do like the video despite it's dorky tendencies. Somehow, people have picked up on this video 25 years later and are making their own video literally following the old video down to the second. I'm including the original video and the funniest of the remakes I saw. The remake was made by someone called Seven Oh Five.
2 comments:
That remake was terrific! Thanks for putting it up. I always thought this song was a little too... um.... emphatic. And once you get it in your head, you can't get it out. So... not so much thanks for that. HA!
Emphatic, I like that word! I guess it is, like ONE-DAY, LOVE-WILL-FIND-YOU/BREAK-THOSE, CHAINS-THAT-BIND-YOU!!! You're right, it is emphatic. Cool!
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