Episode 42: “Why does my heart cry”

I’ve been a bit lax with my “A Video A Day” posts lately and to be honest I’m finding it difficult to keep it up every single day. The last week has been extremely busy (great strides forward in my research, though) and the couple of weeks are only going to get worse (Monday wisdom tooth removal, brrr). I’m going to try to keep posting these videos, but it will be a whole lot less and certainly not every day.

As it is Valentine’s Day, I thought I should do a themed post: so I here are my favourite romantic movies. Enjoy:

Moulin Rouge
I love Moulin Rouge. It’s one of the few films that I’ll actually watch at least once a year (meaning I’ve seen it at least 7 times now). The scene with Christian singing “Come What May” in the final act still gives me goosebumps. I couldn’t find that video, so here is my second favourite song:

Amelie
For some weird reason, at first I didn’t want to see this movie. Somehow without even knowing what it was about I just didn’t want to see it. Then when I actually did (pushed into by Cristiano), I loved it. The music in this movie is superb. It never fails to sweep me away into faraway lands and fairytale settings.

Fantaghiro
Anybody else know this movie? I’ll be doing a post about it soon, but it’s a fairytale about a princess who wants to be a knight and falls in love with the prince of an enemy country. It’s a bit corny (there’s even a talking duck), but it remains one of my favourite fairy tale movies.

Ever After
A take on the Cinderella story, but with Leonardo da Vinci as the Fairy Godmother.

Episode 41: “Even if nobody else sings along”

Tonight I finally finished watching the third season of Lost after starting it about a week ago. I had seen Season 2 in a similar manner back in the summer of 2006 and never got into Season 3 at the time. While I love the show, it’s somehow not one of those series that I’ll sit down for and watch every week. I have the exact same problem with 24 and it’s got to do with the timespan of both series. With each of them one season translates to a much lesser amount of time, as in: one season of 24 spans 24 hours and one season of Lost is about 30 days. When watching it once a week on TV over a period of 5-7 months, the story seems to move so slow and the full realization of the amount of time that passes in the show feels off. I find it’s way more fun to watch those type of series in one go.

My favourite scene of the series has to be the opening of Season 2 (with the opening of Season 3 a strong second). It’s a perfect blend of music, mystery and clues for those who can figure it out (you know what I mean if you’ve seen it). I love the rush/high you get when you realize something before the TV show or movie shows it to you (the reason why I love The Others and The Prestige so much; I “conquered” the movie). I had that with this scene:

Episode 40: “No name, no other alias”

The Dark Knight trailer redone in Lego. I don’t think more explanation is required:

Episode 39: “Take anything you want”

These videos are just weird. They are from a Japanese TV show called Zuiikin’ English that aired in Japan in 1992, meant to teach English and gymnastic exercises at the same time. The complete collection of 55 videos can be found here.

Various Phrases:

What To Do If Your Husband Comes Home Drunk:

What To Do When You’re Robbed:

Let’s Go Dutch:

Episode 38: “We will be in the hall and then let the ass-kicking commence”

A couple of days ago Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brian did a great cross-over into each others shows. It was the final act in an ongoing feud between the three. In previous shows Colbert claimed that he made Mike Huckabee, which led to O’Brian claiming he made Huckabee, because O’Brian made Colbert. This again led to Stewart claiming that because he once interviewed O’Brian, he made him and thus made Huckabee.The three all made appearances in each other shows, filming it in such a way that it seemed as if all studios were connected by the same hallway. In reality the shows aren’t even recorded in the same building! If you don’t want to see all the videos, watch at least the last one, containing the ultimate fight scene.Here’s the first one during The Daily Show:

During The Colbert Report:

And here’s the final one during Conan O’Brian’s show:

Episode 37: “Moo…”

Yesterday evening Cristiano organized the first Werewolf night of 2008 and as usual it was a couple of hours of great fun, including a lot of accusing, lynching and mooing the Star Wars theme. There was a great round where Ian basically gave himself away as the werewolf and another round where I tried to be the seer while I was the werewolf, but failed miserably.

Sadly we didn’t video it, which would have been a lot of fun. I realised though that I never posted the videos from the evening of the first time I played (thanks Guy for posting them!). The first is an explanation of the rules, which were explained specially for me and and the camera. The second is of one of the games we played, where I unfortunately am killed during the first night. Damn you werewolves!

Here’s the Werewolf Wiki, if you want some more information. We’ll try to organize another Werewolf night somewhere beginning March, but this time with a little more time notice beforehand. If you’re in London around that time, you should definitely come and join us; it’s a fun game and very easy to learn.

Episode 36: “Since you really have no chance of winning the Academy Award”

Here’s a video of a bunch of middle school kids interviewing Jason Reitman, the director of Juno. I’m pretty certain it’s staged, but it still remains funny.

Episode 35: “Gonna help him put asunder, Bad guys who like to loot and plunder”

One of my favourite cartoons from when I was a kid was Captain Planet and The Planeteers (I was 7 when it first aired). Besides a catchy theme song, the cartoon had some great easy-to-hate villains and lovable main characters, each with their own special magic ring. Theme Song! Villains! Magic powers! What more do you need from a tv show as a kid?

The show revolved around 5 kids, the Planeteers, with the task of defending Earth against disasters and pollution. They were chosen by Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, who gave them magic rings, with which they each can control an element. Kwame from Africa controls Earth, Wheeler from the US controls Fire, Linka from the Soviet Union controls Wind, Gi from Asia controls Water and Ma-Ti from South America controls Heart (telepathy). When needed, they can combine their powers and summon Captain Planet, a Green terrestrial Superman (Green as in environmentally friendly, not as in skin color).

I was always Linka when I was a kid, despite her being blonde and me brunette (if you don’t know what I mean here check out my next post). For some weird reason though, in my mind I remember her being from Sweden. Don’t ask me why, I just know that I have that memory “Linka is from Sweden”. Maybe I somehow made a faulty link as a kid that Sweden = Soviet Union, and, while I now know that that isn’t true, the memory of Linka was never updated.

Fun Facts: Most people know that Gaia was voiced by Whoopi Goldberg and Kuwame by LeVar Burton (the blind/visor guy in Star Trek: The Next Generation). But did you know most villains were voiced by well known actors?

Hoggish Greedly – Ed Asner
Dr. Blight – Meg Ryan (1990-1991)
Sly Sludge – Martin Sheen (1990-1993)
Duke Nukem – Dean Stockwell (1990-1992)
Verminous Skumm – Jeff Goldblum (1990)
Zarm – Sting (Season 1-2), David Warner (Season 3), Malcolm McDowell (Season 4)
Rigger (Hoggish Greedly’s henchman) – John Ratzenberger
MAL (Dr. Blight’s evil high-intellectual supercomputer) – Tim Curry

So as the video for today, here are the fantastic end credits of Captain Planet and The Planeteers:

I’ve even got the lyrics here for those of you who want to sing-a-long:

Captain Planet, he’s our hero
Gonna take pollution down to zero
He’s our powers magnified
And he’s fighting on the planet’s side

Captain Planet, he’s our hero
Gonna take pollution down to zero
Gonna help him put asunder
Bad guys who like to loot and plunder

“You’ll pay for this Captain Planet!”

We’re the Planeteers, You can be one too
‘Cause saving our planet is the thing to do!
Looting and polluting is not the way
Hear what Captain Planet has to say!
The Power is Yours!

Here’s also the opening sequence of Captain Planet and The Planeteers:

Episode 34: “Wow. yoo hoo”

Wall-E is just the cutest robot ever! I’ve been dying to see this movie ever since the first trailer came out and this new clip only makes me want to see it more. [Via /Film]

Episode 33: “Oh, fabuleux”

I wonder how many takes it took to get this perfect shot:

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