Hoobastank - “The Reason”

  We start out with one of the band members standing across the street from some crappy-looking establishment named “Monte Carlo Restaurant”. As we wonder why anyone would ever want to eat there, we notice that one of the people in the crowd walking past the eatery is slowing down. She gazes at our boy, and our boy grins back, in that “aw shucks” way that has led many a teenager to lose her virginity. The girl steps into the street and is immediately hit by a car.

  Well, then. 14 seconds into the video and somebody is already dead. This looks fun.

  Quick shot of the girl not moving, then a shot of birds flying overhead. This is either symbolic of her passing on to a higher plane, or we’ve rudely interrupted some type of migration. Cut to the mean car that took the life of an innocent supermodel, and inside we see the lead singer. He starts singing the song, then grabs at the rearview mirror so he can make sure his eyebrows have been plucked correctly. Apparently he’s satisfied with what he sees, so he hops out of the car.

  Lots of folks are milling around the sprawled supermodel, so you know we’re not in New York City because none of those people even blink when bodies appear in the streets. The lead singer (I believe his name is Doug) shoves a few people out of the way so we can see that the supermodel (Let’s call her Gertrude. She won’t care; she’s dead.) is kind of bloody, so there’s going to be some stain issues with the laundry later in the day. The people standing in a circle around Gertrude all look tragic and pale, with one of the extras really getting into her acting craft by slightly clawing at her face and making her eyes widen in shock.

  Brief glimpse of Gertrude and Doug (I think) lying on a floor somewhere else and gazing at each other with silly grins on their faces. What’s that all about?

  Oh, look, Gertrude is walking down that same evil street again, just before the bump and grind, but this time we get to see her shoes really close-up. They’re ugly and pointy, so this might be why she had to die. We see her get hit again, from a few new angles, so someone clearly went to film school and wanted to prove it. The guy working in the “Lucky Loans” place behind our first guy (let’s call him Hector, shall we?) comes rushing out with his phone. Hopefully, he’s going to use that phone to call someone for assistance and not just make an intrusive video that will get a million hits on YouTube.

  Wait, Hector, upon seeing the Lucky Loans Guy go stomping off to be a hero or at least a viral sensation, turns and slips into Lucky Loans, locking the door behind him. Is this whole thing a setup? Or just a primer in how to take advantage of every business opportunity that you see, even if a supermodel had to give up a life on the catwalk?

  Hector cuts the alarm to this place, then opens the back door to let one of his equally-unkempt buddies join the party in the pawn shop. Dude Number Three grabs his little tool case thing, which probably contains ultra-secret theft technology and a rocket launcher, and runs inside. Cut to Unkempt Dude Number Four, fiddling with one of those old-school overhead projectors your fifth-grade teacher would use to present you with spelling words that you would never use again the rest of your life. Number Four seems to be studying a map of the pawn shop, but I can’t really tell because I’m looking at his hair and wondering how much peroxide it took to do THAT.

  Back to the pawn shop, where Hector and Three start breaking into the safe, although Three might be a little confused about his actual duties, because he’s wearing headgear that Thomas Dolby would sport in one of his artsy but head-scratching music videos.

  Now we’re back on the street outside, where everybody is still pale and tragic over Gertrude’s final time on the runway. Lead Singer Doug is still there, not looking the least bit guilty about having narrowed the field of contestants for the next Vogue cover. He sings some more, then we get to see the accident one more time from another angle, apparently taken by a mini-cam attached to Gertrude’s crotch. (No idea why we needed that.)

  Wait, very quick shot of the supermodel’s face, and there’s not any blood. And she opens her eyes. Oh? (See, it’s just not fair. Ugly people have to die when hit by a car, but the beautiful people just take a short nap and then they’re ready to head to Bimini for the swimsuit edition. ) Lead Singer Doug, since he didn’t really care about his actions in the first place, hops in his car and takes off. The shocked bystanders run to tell the cop in a squad car that just pulled up, which is totally unrealistic. Normally, when the po-po arrive, people throw their bongs out a window and run.

  But the policeman must be a rookie, believing the crowd’s story, so he slaps on his police lights and gives chase to Doug. (Shot of Hector and Dude Three finally getting the safe open. Shot of Dude Four making a giant red “X” on his overhead projector thing, so he might have decided to do some bowling until his little friends got back from cracking safes and not brushing their hair.)

  Dude Three goes through a few nifty compartments in the safe, until he finds a secret spot where a large jewel sits all alone in some sort of precious-stone timeout. (Well, I’m assuming we’re supposed to think it’s an expensive gem. It really looks like something you would get out of a gumball machine, or maybe some crafty pre-schooler made it out of jello and a cookie cutter.) Dude Three snatches it up and goes to look for some whip cream to spoon on top of it.

  Cut back to Doug, still eluding the police, even though he’s driving a nasty, broke-down hoopty compared to the squad car. Then we see an extra from “Hogan’s Heroes” receiving a phone call, with the caller instructing him to hop on a motorcycle and drive really fast down an alley. Back to the supposed crime scene, where a sad EMT is starting to work on Gertrude. She’s not really interested in his ministrations, so she hops to her feet, then hops on the back of Hogan’s motorbike as he conveniently putters up right at that time.

  This leads to a montage of all the apparent duplicity that we’ve seen so far, with the Pawn Shop Guy finally figuring out the gig and racing back inside to see that his jello jewel has gone AWOL. We see Doug, Gertrude and Hogan all racing off to wherever they are going, and shots of the band performing in the lobby of an older hotel where everyone checked out a long time ago. The bystanders wander away from the accident scene, a little pissed that no one actually died, and considering writing their congress people about this injustice.

  The final scenes are at what we’ll assume is the gang’s hideout, where they are all grinning dopily and using the jewel to make red-tinted refractions flash about the room.

  That’s right, folks. They staged an accident, burgled a pawn shop, and ruined a perfectly-good blouse, just so they could lie on the floor and watch pretty shapes dance on the ceiling. Great…


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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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Black Eyed Peas - “The Time (Dirty Bit)”

  We start off in outer space (which is where we usually start with the Black Eyed Peas, but I digress), with meteors or something flying about and exploding. It doesn’t look healthy at all. Then we whiz past some planets and zoom in on one that happens to have streets and buildings just like ours. Yay! The camera whizzes down these streets at an amazing rate, so we really don’t have time to determine if we like this place or not.

  We finally end up in some somewhat-trashy alley, where will.i.am is standing, wearing funky space gear or maybe a futuristic jogging suit. He puts on some headphones and starts singing, and it doesn’t take long to realize his digitized voice is bellowing lyrics from one of the songs in that movie where they tried to put Baby in a corner and Patrick Swayze didn’t really care for that.

  Then some Film School graduate starts jacking with the pixels of the video, making will.i.am’s face turn into little cubes. The cubes keep getting bigger until they turn into just one box with Fergie’s face in it, and she picks up the lyrics. I have no idea why we had to do that, but we did.

  While Fergie BoxHead continues to warble, the camera pulls back so we can get another gander at the weird jogging suit, then the camera zooms back in on Fergie just as her vocal track starts skipping and she gets an evil expression like she just ate a Chihuahua.

  Now we’re flying through some digital outer-space mess like a Galaga game is short-circuiting back in the day, and then we arrive in a nightclub. Lots of people are dancing around with their requisite hands in the air and proving that none of them really know a whole lot of dance moves. The camera maneuvers through the crowd, which takes a little bit because it’s hard to get that much hair product out of the way quickly.

  Eventually we make it to will.i.am on stage, where he’s messing with turntables while skanky go-go dancers gyrate in front of fake giant computers. And here we go with more of the pixels and cubes business, making everyone look futuristic but still skanky. The pixels are fun at first, but it only takes about three seconds and you’ve seen enough. Sadly, somebody thinks we haven’t, so we keep seeing it.

  And here comes Fergie, doing one of her trademark entrances where she rap-sings while strutting in high heels and touching every reachable body part with far more self-pleasure than is really necessary. Fergie works her way through the bouncing throngs of people, happily shoving extras out of the way when they stupidly step into her dance patch. I’m surprised to learn that we actually can’t see her panties with this outfit. Maybe she was tired during this part of the shoot.

  Quick bit with Taboo leading the crowd in some shout-out to having a good time, then back to will.i.am, doing more of the BoxHead thing while he stands on another street. He uses his Blackberry to point at a billboard, making an animated version of will.i.am come to life and drop to the street. Then mini-Will climbs back up to the billboard and tries to look all ghetto and shifty. (I have no idea how I’m supposed to interpret this.)

  Fergie starts singing again, and somebody makes a mini-Fergie pop off another billboard and start sashaying on top of a building. Great. Just what this country needs, an army of tiny Black Eyed Peas terrorizing the neighborhoods and sampling songs from the 80’s. Then the BoxHead thing is back, with everybody’s face flashing across the screenhead while Fergie’s vocal track gets stuck again. (You’d think somebody would figure out what’s wrong with that thing and fix it.)

  Back to the nightclub again, where some woman is supposedly dancing but looking more like she snagged her hoo-hoo on some barbed wire. (Fergie briefly tries to keep up with her, then decides it’s safer to just snap her fingers and make her curls bounce.) Suddenly, apl.de.ap joins Hoo-Hoo Girl for a quick dance routine, then he shoves her out of the way so the camera can focus on him while he raps and shows us his Mohawk. (While he’s doing that, we see an image of someone throwing up pixilated yuck, and I bite my tongue not to make a comparison.)

  And the BoxHead guy once more, releasing mini’s of apl.de.ap and Taboo, so they can run be tiny together with Fergie and will.i.am. (There’s so many exciting things to do when you’re little, like walk under doors and go on a float trip using croutons.) Nightclub again, with the music slowing down a little bit and somebody digitizing somebody’s voice so that it’s really deep. (Um, have we EVER heard any of these folks’ real voices? Just curious.) Taboo leads another group cheer, then the huddle breaks so people can go score touchdowns.

  And we have more dancing, with lots and lots of pixel jackery, so that it looks like a bunch of drunken Lego People at a frat party. Fergie seems to be really enjoying this part of the song, jiggling about and thrusting her arms like she spilled hot sauce on her panty shield. In fact, everybody in the room seems to be having misplaced condiment issues, jumping and cavorting with a frenzy that will most likely lead to regret in the morning.

  Brief shot of the camera dangerously close to some nymphet’s two-moon junction. It’s just not a Black Eyed Peas video unless there’s butt crack.

  The song winds down and we zip away from BoxHead in the alley, traveling backwards through the streets and back out into space. The BEP’s are probably headed to the Intergalactic Music Awards, because they’re already won everything on this planet. And they might finally find someone who can fix Fergie’s vocal track…


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