Bruno Mars – “Locked Out Of Heaven”

  We start out with the video all blurry and jerky, making you think your internet signal is jacked again and you’ll have to spend three hours explaining to someone in India what your issue is. Then things settle down a bit, and we get quick shots of Bruno smoking a cigarette, a bunch of guys drinking beer and rolling dice in an alley, and two women about to suck face. I’m guessing they won’t be showing this video on the Disney Family channel, unless there’s a redemptive section later on where Katie Couric shows up and gets these young uns back on the right track.

  But first we get to see Bruno and his band performing on a small stage somewhere. It’s possibly outside, maybe even on a bar patio, but they keep up the fuzzy thing with the video quality so things aren’t especially clear. Wherever they are, it must be kind of hot, because everyone is sweating. It might just be hormones. Or maybe they all got food poisoning at the same time. Something is causing these people to glisten in the night.

  Despite the heat and/or possible dysentery, the audience appears to be having a swell time, bopping around to the beat as much as their tight clothing will allow them to do. Bruno seems to be the one most invested in the bopping, boinging all over the stage with startling intensity. The rest of the band doesn’t seem as interested in a good cardio workout, but it’s not their name on the record album so they really don’t care.

  Another sprinkling of the two women hot for each other. I’m not sure what theme Bruno is trying to develop here. Is it trendy now for otherwise straight women to say hello by giving each other some tongue and breathing heavily? I haven’t been to the clubs in a while, my bad.

  Anyway, Bruno continues to sing and bop. This does get a tad boring after a bit, so we pan the audience to see who is wearing the trashiest outfit. It’s kind of hard to get the full spectacle of anyone’s ensemble, though, because the dance that apparently goes along with this song mainly involves bending over and whipping your hair around. It’s like we walked into a squadron of low-flying helicopters. We may have to wait for them to land before we can award the Trash Trophy.

  More shots of the stage, and I finally notice two women with really aggressive hairdos have joined the show at some point. They don’t seem to have any instruments and they aren’t singing, so their purpose in life is a little unclear. Oh wait, one of them just bent over backwards in reaction to some of the lyrics, which causes her peaches to really shake in their tree. Okay, got it.

  And I guess most of the audience gets it as well, because after they see Georgia try to touch the sky without using her hands, they all want some of that action as well. So we go from hairy helicopters to gymnasts hitting the Big O while doing a backbend. No wonder these people are so sweaty up in here.

  We check back in on Bruno, and he’s still essentially doing the same thing, but it’s only polite that we watch him for a while since it’s his gig and all. Oh look, the other band members are finally getting into the physical swing of things, and everyone is pinballing around the stage with an enthusiasm that surely has nothing to do with alcohol or medicinal herbs. Bruno even shows Georgia some love by hugging her tight with one arm. (Or maybe he’s just trying to keep her from doing that back thing again because it’s not covered by his insurance.)

  At 1:25, there’s a quick shot of Daryl Hannah wearing a dark wig and dancing in slo-mo in the audience. No explanation is given for this development.

  We also get a couple close-ups of some guy playing the machine that makes those quick-scratch noises in the song. Apparently you no longer have to manipulate vinyl records to get those interesting effects. You just a push a button and the machine does it for you. This makes me a little sad, because the live scratching was fun back in the day. It makes me sadder to realize that most of the people watching this video would scratch their heads at the phrase “vinyl records”, thinking it must be a drag name or a housing complex.

  Suddenly, we’re out of the club and somewhere on the street. Bruno and the guys are posing for a photo shoot, with the pictures being taken by a woman that might be Georgia. (People always look different in the light of day, yes? I’ve had many shocking morning-after experiences that fully document this scenario. I’m still in therapy about some of them.) Then the menfolk run off to finish that dice game we glimpsed earlier, with more drinking and smoking and the breaking of at least 7 of the 10 commandments and possibly some zoning laws.

  Then we head back to the nightclub/open-air sauna for more of the same as before. Singing and dancing and bouncing. (At 2:24, Alannah Currie from “The Thompson Twins” makes a cameo by running across the stage, trying to get away from her hair. No explanation is given for this development.) We get another round of the lusty women grasping each other in a steamy manner, with this series of images making them look like Wendy and Lisa from Prince’s band back in the day when he ruled the world with “Purple Rain”.

  Speaking of doves crying, has Bruno considered the possibility that he’s been locked out of heaven because he’s been trying to date lesbians? That would certainly make things a little messy.

  We jump around again, and now we’re in a place where really happy people are guzzling alcohol like there’s some kind of prize and then playing spin-the-bottle. This doesn’t last very long, so some fool must have called the po-po, and we head back to the nightclub/Turkish baths. Georgia and Alannah are having an energetic dance-off, probably to determine who has the better hair-altitude, which somehow triggers a shot of Wendy and Lisa finally sealing the deal with their lips. (Love is very complicated. That’s why they invented pop songs and therapists.)

  As the video and the final chorus rolls to an end, with more sweat and hormones flying, we start getting images of Bruno wearing a special hat and looking vaguely like a cast member of The Sopranos. He appears to be at a press conference, where he might be answering questions about various charges filed against him or announcing that his next album will be entitled Holy Crap It Was Hot up in That Joint We Played Last Night. Then the camera zooms in for a close-up of Bruno and we freeze frame.

  Meanwhile, Melissa Etheridge drives up on a Harley and leaves a toaster oven in the club parking lot for Wendy and Lisa…

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Bruno Mars - “Grenade”

  We start out with Bruno sitting in what is presumably his bedroom, with rain pouring down outside and splashing against the window. (I’m going to guess the rain is symbolic of the money that Bruno is now making.) But despite his wealth, Bruno’s a little blue, staring at a picture of a couple with sadness and non-dancing. Perhaps he should just put the picture down since it’s so traumatizing.

  Cut to Bruno and his fancy shoes fiddling with some rope. It’s not immediately clear what he’s doing, but judging by his strained expression we’ll assume that it’s not fun. He struggles for a while, then we see that he’s actually using the rope to drag a piano down the street. We have no idea why he’s doing this. He has the cash. Can’t he just hire some movers?

  The dragging continues, with passing motorists not even slowing down to help him, so he must be in L.A., because people never get out of their cars there, let alone offer roadside assistance. We also see a homeless man, who seems to be staring in amazement at the vision of Bruno toiling, but I think he’s lying. He lives on the streets, so you know he’s seen much worse, like Lindsay Lohan not wearing panties while she staggers home from an after-party.

  Okay, some of the motorists are honking, which is a bit rude. Can they not see that this man is trying to make a video here? Sheesh. Anyway, we cut back to Bruno in his sad bedroom. It’s still raining, in case you’re keeping track, and Bruno is touching the window with despondent little fingers, but at least he’s tossed aside that picture that started this whole mess. It’s really amazing how often photography can lead to misfortune and lyrics about loss.

  Now Piano Bruno appears to be schlepping his furniture through a part of the Barrio, because we have men with dogs comparing tattoos. (This is probably not the best place for Bruno to be lugging a piano while wearing pretty shoes, but I didn’t write the script.) Naturally, because the street thugs are bored waiting for a drive-by to happen, they mess with Bruno and his friend. One of the guys is super aggressive, and tears up Bruno’s picture, so he’s probably heard about the evils of photographs as well.

  The thugs finally get distracted by something else, and they let Bruno pass. Oh look, there’s that homeless guy again, scrounging for dinner in a dumpster until he spots Bruno. Homeless tries to tell Bruno something really important, but Bruno doesn’t care, so Homeless runs off to think about the last time he might have changed his underwear.

  Now Bruno is going downhill, still sweating and tugging on the rope, and I don’t really understand that. It’s a hill, people. Shouldn’t the piano be running him over now? But I guess it’s not important, since Bruno soon arrives outside some house, and he drops the rope. Bruno spies his girl in an upstairs open window, and his face lights up. Then we learn that Girl is a tramp, because some stud boy walks up and starts using his tongue to dig for buried treasure in Girl’s ear.

  How sad. Bruno stupidly but sweetly dragged furniture across town to win his woman back, and she done found another chew toy. Maybe Bruno should have called first.

  So dejected little Bruno picks up the hateful rope and drags his piano away from the house. Slut Girl watches him do so for a bit, then she runs off to play squat tag with her new beau. And now poor Bruno has to push the piano up the hill that it should have rolled down. (It really might be time for Bruno to look at playing some other type of instrument, especially if there’s going to be any more emotional breakups in his future. Just sayin.)

  Okay, where did this big-ass bridge come from, with the steep slope? We didn’t encounter that on the way over. Why would Bruno go back home a different way, especially a way that has more serious hills? And it would probably be a lot easier to push the piano if Bruno didn’t insist on singing while he was doing it. Slut Girl can’t hear you any more, so it’s kind of pointless to be vocalizing. Perhaps you should just hum until you get over this damn bridge.

  Bruno meanders for a bit more, passing a priest and a nun who look at him with barely-disguised disdain. (Bruno must have missed confession again, probably because he was working out so he could move the piano that didn’t need to be moved after all.) Now he’s at a railroad crossing and it’s completely dark outside, so either I fell asleep and missed something or night falls really fast in this town. As a train approaches, Bruno pauses to play a little ditty on the piano, mainly because the flashing-red warning lights look really pretty splashing on the ivory keys.

  Then the train hits the piano and the video ends.

  Um. What?


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Bruno Mars - “Just The Way You Are”

  Well, this one’s going to be a little tough to review, because there’s a whole lot of nothing going on, but I’ll give it a run. (At least, for a change, the video is NOT set in a dance club, although that might confuse some of the teenyboppers out there.) Anyway, here goes…

  We start with a very pretty woman with cute headphones, listening to some song and minding her own business. In walks Bruno, and I guess he’s got an attitude, because he picks up her cassette player and turns it off. (Yes, cassette player, even though no one buys cassettes anymore. Because the rest of the video wouldn’t work if she was listening to a CD like any normal person would.)

  Bruno pops out the cassette with an impish grin, while Pretty Woman pretends to be upset with his actions, even though she’s really not, because actual stress marks on her face might detract from her cuteness. Bruno snags the magnetic tape inside and then yanks out a big chunk of it. He then sits at the coffee table, which just happens to have a convenient area that has already been cleared off. While the music starts, Bruno takes the tape and spells out his name, because narcissism always starts at home. Then he spells out the name of the song, because we’re apparently a little slow and have already forgotten what we were watching when we pushed play 20 seconds ago.

  And really, that’s about it for the rest of the video. Bruno draws things with the magnetic tape, Pretty Baby gazes upon him adoringly because she likes spontaneous art, and Bruno gazes back with his practiced grin, smirking in a way that indicates sexual activity is somewhere on the horizon.

  First he draws Pretty Baby's face, and it looks JUST like her, if she were actually made out of magnetic tape. Pretty Baby takes an exception to Bruno’s depiction of her hairstyle, and she makes some adjustments, even though nobody asked her to do so. Then she fiddles with her own hair, just in case the drawing is prettier and we can’t have that. Bruno purposely messes up the drawing’s hair, because he has control issues.

  For the chorus, Bruno draws himself on the table, and you can tell that he actually likes himself better than Pretty, because he gives himself an entire body instead of just a floating head. This allows his mini-me to do actual dance steps, and therefore get more screen time than Pretty Baby. (We get a close-up of Pretty Baby, and you can tell that’s she’s not pleased with the upstaging, but she smiles anyway, because that’s what she’s getting paid for after all.)

  Oh look, Pretty Baby must have psychic powers, because she makes the image on the table turn back into her. And then she makes the image stop smiling. (Note to Bruno: See, this is what married life will be like. It’s all about her, and she’s never happy.) Bruno reaches in and makes the image smile again, because she better be happy, damn it, after all the bling he’s been buying her lately.

  Well, Pretty Baby is not about to give in just yet. She stands up and let’s us see by her outfit that she really liked that movie “Flashdance” back in the day. Pretty approaches the couch where Bruno has been doing his artwork, and promptly snuggles up to him so that she can share the camera shot with Bruno and they will quit cutting away from her. In an astounding bit of trick photography, we can see the coffee table beyond the couple, and the image is moving all on its own! OMG!

  That gets boring, so we close in on the coffee table once more, and the image changes to a keyboard. Two hands reach in and start playing this piano, which is kind of fun to see, until we quickly cut back to the couple and Bruno’s hands are all over his future unhappy wife. Well, then, where the hell did those other hands come from? Is somebody under the table? Did this just turn into a slasher movie? “Last Piano on the Left”.

  While Bruno croons to her, never once taking off his hat, which is kind of rude, Pretty kisses her own finger because she tastes so good. Then the camera moves back a bit, and we can see that they both have their shoes on the couch, so these people are sloppy pigs. Just because he might be a pop star doesn’t mean they should wreck the upholstery with footwear.

  Time for more of the chorus, and another shot of Magnetic Bruno bopping around on the coffee table. Then the image changes to a bell, so those weird hands that don’t really belong to anybody that we’ve actually seen in the room can reach in and ring the bell. This is starting to get a little bit tired. So somebody has an interesting graphics program on their PC. Big deal. And really, didn’t “A-Ha” do the hand-drawing thing a couple decades ago? Been there.

  The image changes to Bruno playing the piano, while real Bruno continues to warble at Pretty while she hugs her own body in outright self-love. Then real Bruno is magically transported across the room, and is suddenly playing a real piano (Just like the one on the coffee table! Wow!) He turns to look back at her, and she has another fake smile, this one saying “dude, quit leaving me out of the camera shot”. He’s not impressed with insubordination, so he turns and just sings to the piano because it doesn’t talk back.

  Pretty Baby just sits there on the couch, continuing to scuff the fabric with her old-school cowboy boots and growing increasingly agitated that Bruno isn’t looking at her and is instead bellowing the song. The song and the video end with just Bruno and his instrument, but if you listen closely enough, you can hear those cowboy boots stomping out the door as Pretty goes to call her agent and a divorce lawyer. Because nobody puts Baby in a corner. Even if their coffee table is a giant Etch-a-Sketch.


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Travie McCoy, Bruno Mars - “Billionaire”

  We start out with Bruno (I think) sitting by the seashore, playing his cute little guitar and wailing about wanting to have lots of money. (Um, who doesn’t?) Seagulls are wheeling about in the sky. I don’t know if this means Bruno loves nature and wildlife, or if there is a landfill nearby.

  Quick shot of Travie hangin’ at one of those skateboard parks, then a shot of some hitchhiker holding the typical cardboard sign. The street he’s on is deserted, so I’m thinking he’s not a smart hitchhiker. (Am I being stereotypical? My bad.) Then we have some guy, wearing headphones in a crowded outdoor market. This seems anti-social to me.

  As Bruno continues to emote the words of the song, we see Travie raise his hand to the sky like he just found the Lord or at least needs a hall pass from the teacher so he can go to the bathroom. More shots of the untalented hitchhiker being unsuccessful. Then we have a graffiti artist on the beach, fiddling with his cans of spray paint. He seems upset that most of his cans are empty. (Symbolism for the Bush-legacy economy?) He turns and throws one of the cans in the ocean, because THAT’S a green thing to do and all.

Then Travie and Bruno are in a very nice sports car, one that none of the real people could ever afford, driving along in the sun. Travie starts rapping about wanting to have lots of money that he can give to people, adoption agencies, and other social causes. But he’s wearing an annoying stocking cap and I really can’t take him seriously. Bruno just nods his head to the beat and waits for his turn to sing.

  More shots of the skateboard park, where some unseen person commits vandalism for no apparent reason (symbolism for the Republican party?) while people ride skateboards through the concrete jungle and our boys sit on the lip of one of the curves, rapping and high-fiving each other because they don’t have to work in an office.

  Back to the outdoor market, with the headphone guy offering his equipment to Travie. Travie seems to enjoy whatever is playing on the phones, but we can’t hear it, so the whole scene is kind of pointless. But Travie gives the guy some money, so I guess we’re supposed to learn “if strangers offer music, give them cash.” Okay, got it.

  Then the boys are suddenly riding some Vespa-like scooters, which even with my gay sensibilities I know this is something that straight guys shouldn’t ride. But they happy and all, cruising the streets, laughing, and slapping at each other’s helmets. Travie starts rapping again, and he’s all over the place. In the fancy car, on the beach, walking on a nameless sidewalk, skateboard park again, and some place where he’s inspired to shove his face in the camera repeatedly. (I’m still not a fan of those giant discs inserted into your ear lobe. Doesn’t that jack with your sense of balance?)

  Back to the feeble hitchhiker. He’s just sitting down, not even bothering to wave his sign or motion with his thumb. Travie drives up in the fancy car, and tosses the keys to the hitchhiker before wandering off on the beach. That’s nice and all. But Travie dude. The guy has no money. How’s he going to put gas in that car?

  Then we have some editing issues, with more shots of the skateboard park and our boys driving the fancy car that they no longer own. Oopsie. To distract us from this illogical mess, we cut to the beach at night, where a crowd of partiers is despondent because their keg has run dry. No worries. Travie and Bruno show up with an endless supply of bottled brewskis. The crowd instantly worships them, so our boys decide to give a concert, with drunken people waving their hands in the air and considering random sex among the dunes.

  Brief shot of Travie leaning into the camera again, screaming “What up, Oprah!” and making a barnyard noise. What is it with that subset of cocky young men who think being obnoxious is somehow appealing to anybody? (Except other cocky young men.) Do they really think that a supermodel wandering by is going to hear that mess and instantly want to bump uglies with them?

  More drunken dancing on the sand.

  Cut to Travie the next morning, walking up to the angry, spray-can-depleted graffiti person on the beach. Travie hands over a bag full of fresh cans ready to go. They do the bro hand-clench thing and the graffiti dude gets back to work. Hold up, Travie. One of your goals for social betterment is to provide endless supplies to people who deface public property? John Lennon is cursing your name as I type. (Note to Travie: John Lennon was way before your time. Look him up on Google.)

  Oh look, we’re back at the beach party that happened the night BEFORE. (Who edited this? Sarah Palin?) People are still dancing and waving their hands, and we see that the guy from the outdoor market is now playing keyboards. So THAT’S how you get in a band? Wear headphones in public places until someone offers you a J-O-B?

  We wind things down on the same beach, with people still gyrating like they just discovered the solution for Universal Health Care, but since they’re all still young and un-decayed, they don’t really care. We end with Travie laughing smugly, and then wandering off…

  And people wonder why scores on achievement tests are plummeting in this country.


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