Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope visitors to my blogs will be my Valentines!

(I wonder if there will be earthquakes, what with all the women being immodest today.)

Madonna, not sucking

First, here's a young Madonna with "Like A Prayer" from the Golden Age of the Music Video. Click on this link to watch the full uncut original version of the video. (Warner has disabled embedding.)

And here's an older Madonna, still not sucking, and in another great video. This one is for the title song of "Die Another Day".

Hotel California revisited....

I've said that "Hotel California" is a great song that has never properly been captured in a music video. That still holds true, although the one you can watch below comes close.

It's just a shame it was made to support fairly weak cover by an performer who goes by the name TQ... and that it is a bit under-produced in spots. (Some shots look like they were designed for special effects to be tricked in, yet none are present.)

Still, it warrants a 5/10 rating, which is better than most you'll come across.

Eleven months to go!

Well... January 2012 is behind us, and we're still here.

The ancient Mayans, those wise people who, between brutal and gory human sacrifices, found time to supposedly determine that the world will end this year (even if they couldn't narrow it down to a specific month or year. However, they have eleven more months to be proven right!

Or maybe there are eleven more months to prove that the Mayan Calendar no more predicted the End of the World than my 2005 Art of Masamune Shirow Calendar did when it ran out of pages. And eleven more months to prove that those who believe otherwise are idiots.

Whatever the case ends up being, here's a song celebrating that the End of the World has been delayed by at least one month.

High point (and en pointe) of Numa-Numa craze?

The Numa-Numa craze mostly passed me by a few years ago, but recently I've been delving into the creations that came out of it every now and then.

Out of all the "Numa=Numa" clips I've looked at, I think this one--featuring a ballet dancer performing a hilarious "Numa-Numa" routine--might be the most impressive of them all.

It's worth watching for the en pointe Moon-Walk alone. :)

Occupy Sundance!

Every so often, someone has to step up and remind me not to be an arrogant prick. I need that reminder, because being an arrogant prick comes oh-so-easily to me!

The most recent reminder was provided yesterday after I made a comment about a film's title (“Occupy Wall St: The Revolution Is Inspiring” by Tim Schwartz), which I find anything but inspiring. I overstepped when I then commented negatively on the film itself, which was unfair and uncalled for, because I've not seen it.

A representative for the Occupy Sundance Film Festival, where the short film in question is slated to be screened Jan. 21 - Jan. 24, stepped up and politely called me on my film-reviewing misdeed. Not only that, but the person provided me with the link to the Occupy Sundance Film Festival website, so I could see the movie I had slammed.

As it turned out, not only was my pre-judgement of "Occupy Wall St: The Revolution is Inspiring" uncalled for, but it was unfair in the extreme. This is actually a very well done short-form documentary.

Unlike the garbage produced by the likes of Michael Moore and Newt Gingrinch's Super PAC, Tim Schwartz has actually made a real documentary that presents scenes as they unfolded, without distortion and editing together unrelated clips to make things appear as something other than they weren't. Schwartz presents Occupy Wall Street scenes honestly and without distortion. People like me, who found the whole Occupy Movement a hollow joke, will keep shaking their heads... and those who found it inspiring will be inspired; it's not a film that will change minds, but it will convey the atmosphere present.

That said, I found the whole film amusing and, despite my contempt for the subject matter, the 30 seconds or so were quite moving. And that is why I feel grateful for the anonymous publicist who stepped up and showed me I was being a jerk.

"Occupy Wall St: The Revolution is Inspiring" is a well-done bit of film-making. (Next, I shall have to watch "Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street," another of the scheduled offerings. THAT is an effective title... and I hope the film lives up to it!)

For more information about the Occupy Sundance alternative film festival, click here. To watch the movies online, click the blue "movies playing" button and then on the film titles.

Stop SOPA/PiPA

I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary on the Cinema Steve blogs for this "black-out day" in protest over the disgustingly ignorant and anti-Constitutional censorship bills making their way through Congress and the Senate, because I've been speaking out against both such things (and similar censorship efforts) AND online piracy for years. That, and I'd hate to be mistaken as a fellow traveler to at least one hypocrite I've seen who likes to post lovingly about the notion of the Fairness Doctrine, yet is "blacked out" today.

That said... I sincerely hope that ANYONE who is against these bills will vote against EVERY SINGLE senator and representative who voiced support for and/or put their names to these atrocities. You can as cute as you want with your blogs and website today, but it means nothing if you don't follow through the next time these assholes are put for re-election.

Here are the 30 sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R.3261) who need to be thrown out of office ASAP:

Rep. Lamar Smith [R-TX]
Mark Amodei [R-NV]
Joe Baca [D-CA]
John Barrow [D-GA]
Karen Bass [D-CA]
Howard Berman [D-CA]
Marsha Blackburn [R-TN]
Mary Bono Mack [R-CA]
John Carter [R-TX]
Steven Chabot [R-OH]
Judy Chu [D-CA]
John Conyers [D-MI]
Jim Cooper [D-TN]
Ted Deutch [D-FL1]
Elton Gallegly [R-CA]
Robert Goodlatte [R-VA]
Tim Griffin [R-AR]
Tim Holden [D-PA]
Peter King [R-NY]
John Larson [D-CT]
Ben Luján [D-NM]
Thomas Marino [R-PA]
Alan Nunnelee [R-MS]
William Owens [D-NY]
Dennis Ross [R-FL]
Steve Scalise [R-LA]
Adam Schiff [D-CA]
Brad Sherman [D-CA]
Lee Terry [R-NE]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz [D-FL]
Melvin Watt [D-NC]


Here are the 40 sponsors of Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PiPA, S.968) who likewise need to be forced out of Washington D.C. ASAP:

Sen. Patrick Leahy [D, VT]
Lamar Alexander [R, TN]
Kelly Ayotte [R, NH]
Michael Bennet [D, CO]
Jeff Bingaman [D, NM]
Richard Blumenthal [D, CT]
Roy Blunt [R, MO]
John Boozman [R, AR]
Sherrod Brown [D, OH]
Benjamin Cardin [D, MD]
Robert Casey [D, PA]
Saxby Chambliss [R, GA]
Thad Cochran [R, MS]
Chris Coons [D, DE]
Bob Corker [R,TN]
Richard Durbin [D, IL]
Michael Enzi [R, WY]
Dianne Feinstein [D, CA]
Al Franken [D, MN]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY]
Lindsey Graham [R, SC]
Charles Grassley [R, IA]
Kay Hagan [D, NC]
Orrin Hatch [R, UT]
John Isakson [R, GA]
Tim Johnson [D, SD]
Amy Klobuchar [D, MN]
Herbert Kohl [D, WI]
Mary Landrieu [D, LA]
Joseph Lieberman [I, CT]
John McCain [R, AZ]
Robert Menéndez [D, NJ]
Bill Nelson [D, FL]
James Risch [R, ID]
Marco Rubio [R, FL]
Charles Schumer [D, NY]
Jeanne Shaheen [D, NH]
Tom Udall [D, NM]
David Vitter [R, LA]
Sheldon Whitehouse [D, RI]


Remember these names and what they support. Otherwise any cute "protest" you're stating today will mean absolutely nothing. Vote against them next time you have the chance. Get rid of them if you value your rights as an American citizen.

For more info, or to write your representative, click here. (That said, I am of the opinion that anyone who would put their name to bills like this doesn't care what you or I think. And I'm already seeing evidence of it, such as Lamar Smith stating that he's removed some of the more objectionable provisions of his bill... but if you read closer, you see that it HASN'T really removed then; he's just taking them out for "further study." Trust me... once the heat is off, they're going back in, and he and his fellow censors and would-be oppressors will represent the bill exactly as they wanted it to be in the first place. The only solution here is to GET RID OF EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.)