The Legend of Stan Smith

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

A bit of genius. Right here…. (via)

Suntory Whisky – Sammy Davis Jr.

Forget through-the-line, interactive, in-game, real-time, socially-enabled, immersive digital experiences. This is how to advertise whisky…

Pumping Iron (1977)

Pumping Iron is a cult classic. A perfect piece of kitsch pop culture. Watching it again recently reminded me why.  It is brash, theatrical, surreal, horribly over-the-top, sometimes tender, (un)intentionally comic…in other words, an absolute treat.

Bodybuilding has always been an unusual sport. A bizarre marriage of unfettered testosterone and peculiar, obscured femininity. But it is also one that requires superhuman dedication, sacrifice and ambition. Pumping Iron captures this alternative world at is vainglorious, preening peak, as its “star”, the incomparable Arnold Schwarzenegger, lifts, boasts, bullies, taunts and struts his way to the 1975 Mr. Olympia title.

You either love or loathe Arnie, but on whichever side of the fence you fall (and there is much to dislike) he is a remarkable character. Watching him here is an enormous guilty pleasure as he crushes his friends and foes alike, exploiting physical and psychological weaknesses wherever he finds them, imposing his extraordinary, relentless will on everyone and everything.  He is cruel, charismatic, intelligent, and desperate for attention…for all the attention. He is an enormous, pompous, muscular slab of peacock. The king. And this is his court. It is absolutely captivating.

Others come into his orbit – Franco Columbo, the hugely likeable but slightly tragic Lou Ferrigno (and his overbearing Brooklynite father who pushes and parades his son like demented ringmaster), the quiet family-man Mike Katz, Ken Waller, Serge Nubret – but however close they may have been to Arnold (Columbo was a longstanding friend) if they are not useful, they are ultimately useless. The ego drives everything and nothing else matters except victory. His mental dismantling of Ferrigno is equal parts heart-breaking and thrilling.

Pumping Iron launched Arnold’s career, and watching him here you are aware that his star is in its ascendancy – as, you feel, is he as his swaggers his way to triumph. But without his arrogance and absurdity, Pumping Iron goes from being a fantastic study of human nature to a merely interesting exploration of a weird and wonderful underworld that few of us would ever glimpse.

It is one of those rare documentaries that by both luck and design captured perfectly a place and time. It is completely bonkers and utterly brilliant.

The full documentary is on YouTube. Here is part 1 of 12:

Woodkid “Run Boy Run”

Another amazing video from the French Indie rocker, Woodkid (dir. Yoaan Lemoine).

Iron (2011), also directed by Lemoine, is below, too.

Junior Wells – Hoodo Man Blues

“Now I buzzed your bell this morning / You had your elevator running slow / I buzzed your bell, little woman / To take me on the third floor”

Junior Wells is one of greatest blues vocalists and harmonica players and an icon of Chicago blues. Like many of the greats he drew influence from Sonny Boy Williamson. Wells recorded with, among others, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones and the great Buddy Guy. He died in 1998.

This is Wells and Guy performing Hoodo Man Blues. It’s  a little out of sync, but who cares?

Sounds of Aronofsky

Exactly what it says. Sounds from the films of Darren Aronofsky.

Henri 2, Paw de Deux

There is so, so much to love about this.

(via somewhere really good, but I can’t remember where….)

Supercuts

noun \ˈsü-pər-kət\ — A fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase, or cliche from film and TV.

They are intriguing, brilliantly obsessive, often surprising and fun.

Andy Baio’s Supercut.org collects every known example of the video remix meme. The latest, Three Point Landing, from San Francisco-based animator, Duncan Robson, is the 400^th hundred to be uploaded.

(via The Atlantic)