2x16: Colony, Harry Potter - Goblet of Fire (Part 1), Music Video Reviews (Marilyn Manson)
FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEOS REVIEW: MARILYN MANSON
MARILYN MANSON - TAINTED LOVE
MARILYN MANSON - SWEET DREAMS
MARILYN MANSON - THE DOPE SHOW
MARILYN MANSON - (S)AIN'T
MARILYN MANSON - LONG ROAD OUT OF HELL
Since I don't have any new movies to review, I figured I would write reviews of my favorite music videos. I have collected about a hundred or so music videos on and off over the last few years, and it's not a particularly diverse collection. But music videos are a big part of how I experience music. Why? I have a hard time listening to music by itself, just because I don't work well with it. I like quiet, and I need a quiet environment to study or read or contemplate. The only times when I do listen to music, it is in combination with doing art, particularly painting. Music videos also stimulate me visually as well as musically. I have a hard time hearing the lyrics of songs, and so I listen to the sounds and music as a whole, kind of in an abstract manner. I enjoy the conceptual experience of music videos, and how it enhances or builds upon the themes in the music.
Why Marilyn Manson?
It shocks people in real life to know that I enjoy heavy metal. I guess I just don't look the type. I guess it's unusual to have New Age, classical, ...and Marilyn Manson, in my music folder. To me, Marilyn Manson is not a shock rocker but a concept artist. Contrary to what many people think, he is very intelligent, well-read, introspective, and contemplative. Most of his music videos are partially directed by himself (as he supplies the concepts and art direction), and many of his symbols allude to literature and film. I cannot claim to understand all of the allusions.
His recent projects include directing and starring in "Phantasmagoria," a movie about Lewis Caroll, a new album, and a newly opened art gallery in Hollywood, featuring his and other artists' works.
NOTE ABOUT VIEWING & DOWNLOADING VIDEOS: I am providing a YouTube link to each video. You may download the YouTube copy by copying and pasting the link here. If you would like to download a medium to high quality version (about 20-50 MB) of the video, let me know, and I'll upload a copy of it for you this weekend.
Also, I have written up warnings for some of these videos, so if you think you might be offended by nudity, drug use, and/or sex, please read my notes/warnings before viewing.
MARILYN MANSON - "SWEET DREAMS"
YouTube
I believe this was the first Marilyn Manson video I ever watched, and I was immediately enthralled. It is no secret that I am a lover of grunge and grotesque, and this video encapsulates everything I love about the dark underworld of decay. His cover of "Sweet Dreams" is exactly that -- a grisly decayed version of the original, sweet, melodic "Sweet Dreams." His cover as represented by this video seeps at the edges of reality, oozing and distorting. Marilyn Manson, the singer and band, was thrust into stardom with this song and video. The video, as with most Marilyn Manson videos, are largely directed by MM himself.
There are iconic moments in this video, which I screencapped here. The man on stilts at the end of a deep dark tunnel is something that nightmares are made of, something absurd and horrifying at the same time. As the coal black man in cowboy boots and hat, riding a pig, it is a reenvisioning of the pristine cowboy myth, and distorted here as something nightmarish and not quite alive. His skin is burnt, peeling at the edges, a skeleton in this underworld. Again, I am reminded of the theatre of the absurd, as much as the scenes of his gangly legs and ripped hosiery, wearing a tutu. There is something exalted about the way he descends the staircase with his arms wide, draped in white and wearing the virginal veil of a bride. It is juxtaposed against the peeling walls and his clown-like skeleton face. It looks like artwork from the Mexican Day of the Dead.
MARILYN MANSON - "TAINTED LOVE"
YouTube
I think this video is my most-watched. The cover of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" was used in "Not Another Teen Movie." I remember being half-awake, watching that movie with my rugby player friends, and starting up when I heard the repetition of the first beats of this song. I was very appealed to it, and it was before I discovered MM.
I love the premise of this movie: the ghetto goths and their posse crash a conventional teen party. The concept of "ghetto goth" is genius in its comedy. The tricked out car in the beginning? GENIUS. I love it. MM's ghetto dance moves? It's so unlike him that it's shocking that he pulls it off.
My only complaint with this video is the second half. MM's rendezvous with lingerie-clad stuffed rabbits is ridiculous in that it does not seem to fit with the rest of the video. I did not care for the ending of the video, how he disappears from the locked bedroom. It does not add to or enhance the "story" of the video.
NOTES: This video is the censored version, so there are no topless girls. However, I highly recommend the uncensored version, just because the topless girl? Is hot.
MARILYN MANSON - "THE DOPE SHOW"
YouTube
There is so much to say about this video. Before I really got into Marilyn Manson, I always pictured him as the white-skinned, red-eyed, transvestite extraterrestrial that he embodies in this music video. It is one of his signature videos, and the attention paid to the props, the decor, the costumes really makes this something incredible.
There are so many iconic moments in this video which I've screencapped here. The scene of the lone, white-cloaked alien, wandering naively around in the fields, and being captured, is strangely beautiful and has a kind of white-washed horror to it. He is a stranger in a strange world. The "hospital" and "observation" scenes feature clean, round lines, and monochrome and metallic colors. The occasional bright colors, such as the pink latex gloves, are shocking and unreal. I absolutely love the limosine scene. The green is very acidic and filtered. The end of the video, featuring MM as the alien-turned-rockstar is one of my very favorite parts. The use of red against monochrome silver and ash is just stunning. The dancing, pink-attired policemen are perfect.
I feel I haven't done this video justice, but you must see it for yourself.
MARILYN MANSON - "(S)AIN'T"
YouTube
I admit, I don't watch this video very often, but I don't consider it a "favorite" in terms of aesthetic pleasure. However, I do consider it one of the best music videos of its kind. It is autobiographical, revisiting MM in his darkest, lowest times. It is realistic, graphic, nasty, and raw, and many people will not find this video easy to watch. For this reason, the music industry has banned this video. The filming style is very voyeuristic and choppy, and imparts upon the viewer of a sense of the deep depression that leads to this kind of self-destruction, and isolation. Angelina Jolie, upon viewing this video, described it as "beautiful." I guess if "beauty" were to describe its unapologetic realism, then yes, I can understand that sentiment.
WARNING: This video contains nudity, explicit drug use, self-mutilation (cutting), and sexual content.
MARILYN MANSON, "LONG ROAD OUT OF HELL"
YouTube
Perhaps the "strangest" of the videos I'm reviewing here, just because I do not understand a lot of it. I'm very attracted to the editing style, with the fade-in and fade-outs that really work well with this kind of almost hallucinatory video. I am also very appealed to the storybook narration quality of the still figures that the camera rotates around. I'm having a lot of trouble even conjuring an interpretation of this video. The suspension of movement, and yet the "living" quality of the sculpture-like figures is very provocative, as well as the repetition of "Mary" and the sculptural religious figures. There is a kind of horror about the way these figures are "trapped" within their stillness. It reminds me of Greek sculptural philosophies that emphasize the sculpture as the capturing of a moment in a moving figure.
ICONING THE GOBLET OF FIRE
I am obsessed about iconing this movie. Despite being the darkest of the Harry Potter movies, it also has an incredible richness in the coloring that is just beneath the surface of the shadows. This is a kind of "color check," actually mostly for my benefit and pleasure. (And I added some descriptions of what I'm looking for, maybe to make this part of the entry more meaningful to you). I like to see how I "got to" the warm coloring of the icons. For me, it is very much like washing pots and pans in my two-year-long stint in the Co-op kitchen: there is something very fulfilling about scrubbing off the grime, and revealing something beautiful underneath. Now, I don't know how "beautiful" our Co-op pots and pans are, but GoF certainly is.
I absolutely adore this scene. Hermione's candle throws off a gorgeous warmth to the dark room, and there is something very caring and beautiful about the way she leans over Harry, concerned about her friend, in a completely platonic way, of course. (Gee, I feel I have to modify almost everything I say about the Harry Potter characters here, to make sure there is no remote hint of subtext.) As you can see, in the original coloring, you can see the hints of blue, and the rich oranges, yellows, and reds. It's a very warm, comforting scene, and I wanted to convey that same warmth in the icons.
This scene was very hard to color, only because I felt challenged by the murky green of the forest. In the end, I'm not completely satisfied because the green is a bit too brownish. I like Ginny's coloring a bit more.
Ah, the apple of my eye, the star of this batch. This scene really blew me away when I watched it in theatres. I was like, "wow, I MUST icon that!" But really, the cinematography of this scene was really stunning, the way the camera moves along their feet, sweeping through the tall grasses to pan upward at the three figures walking out towards the sunrise. It's just gorgeous. The original coloring of the sky is very rich in turquoise, with hints of yellows and pinks. When I was iconing this batch, I thought, "I MUST get to the sunrise scene by the end of this batch." When I was coloring it, I wanted to bring out the warmth of the sunrise, which meant that I was deviating from the original colors. I played with multiple variations of the colors, and the resulting icons were what I thought to be best interpretations of that sunrise scene.
REQUEST
I am interested in starting to read Harry Potter fanfic. I want my very first story to be something classic, epic, and very canon, i.e. not something based in the future or Marauder's Era. Any specific recommendations?
ABOUT THE ICONS
I am extraordinarily proud of myself for this batch. In fact, I think this might be one of my best overall batches yet. I am very satisfied with 2x16 - Colony, experimenting with graffiti and brighter colors, and I am ESCTATIC about my HP icons. With Goblet of Fire, I'm really doing something I have never completely allowed myself to do, and that is to choose caps purely for iconing, and not as a kind of dutiful "review" of the events. Therefore, I will not be iconing every moment of the movie, as I am more or less wont to do in the XF icons. (And as you can tell from the HP icons, I am disturbingly interested in Harry!torture)
Preview
2x16: Colony
Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire (Part 1)
2x16: Colony
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire (Part 1)
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
MARILYN MANSON - TAINTED LOVE
MARILYN MANSON - SWEET DREAMS
MARILYN MANSON - THE DOPE SHOW
MARILYN MANSON - (S)AIN'T
MARILYN MANSON - LONG ROAD OUT OF HELL
Since I don't have any new movies to review, I figured I would write reviews of my favorite music videos. I have collected about a hundred or so music videos on and off over the last few years, and it's not a particularly diverse collection. But music videos are a big part of how I experience music. Why? I have a hard time listening to music by itself, just because I don't work well with it. I like quiet, and I need a quiet environment to study or read or contemplate. The only times when I do listen to music, it is in combination with doing art, particularly painting. Music videos also stimulate me visually as well as musically. I have a hard time hearing the lyrics of songs, and so I listen to the sounds and music as a whole, kind of in an abstract manner. I enjoy the conceptual experience of music videos, and how it enhances or builds upon the themes in the music.
Why Marilyn Manson?
It shocks people in real life to know that I enjoy heavy metal. I guess I just don't look the type. I guess it's unusual to have New Age, classical, ...and Marilyn Manson, in my music folder. To me, Marilyn Manson is not a shock rocker but a concept artist. Contrary to what many people think, he is very intelligent, well-read, introspective, and contemplative. Most of his music videos are partially directed by himself (as he supplies the concepts and art direction), and many of his symbols allude to literature and film. I cannot claim to understand all of the allusions.
His recent projects include directing and starring in "Phantasmagoria," a movie about Lewis Caroll, a new album, and a newly opened art gallery in Hollywood, featuring his and other artists' works.
NOTE ABOUT VIEWING & DOWNLOADING VIDEOS: I am providing a YouTube link to each video. You may download the YouTube copy by copying and pasting the link here. If you would like to download a medium to high quality version (about 20-50 MB) of the video, let me know, and I'll upload a copy of it for you this weekend.
Also, I have written up warnings for some of these videos, so if you think you might be offended by nudity, drug use, and/or sex, please read my notes/warnings before viewing.
MARILYN MANSON - "SWEET DREAMS"
YouTube
I believe this was the first Marilyn Manson video I ever watched, and I was immediately enthralled. It is no secret that I am a lover of grunge and grotesque, and this video encapsulates everything I love about the dark underworld of decay. His cover of "Sweet Dreams" is exactly that -- a grisly decayed version of the original, sweet, melodic "Sweet Dreams." His cover as represented by this video seeps at the edges of reality, oozing and distorting. Marilyn Manson, the singer and band, was thrust into stardom with this song and video. The video, as with most Marilyn Manson videos, are largely directed by MM himself.
There are iconic moments in this video, which I screencapped here. The man on stilts at the end of a deep dark tunnel is something that nightmares are made of, something absurd and horrifying at the same time. As the coal black man in cowboy boots and hat, riding a pig, it is a reenvisioning of the pristine cowboy myth, and distorted here as something nightmarish and not quite alive. His skin is burnt, peeling at the edges, a skeleton in this underworld. Again, I am reminded of the theatre of the absurd, as much as the scenes of his gangly legs and ripped hosiery, wearing a tutu. There is something exalted about the way he descends the staircase with his arms wide, draped in white and wearing the virginal veil of a bride. It is juxtaposed against the peeling walls and his clown-like skeleton face. It looks like artwork from the Mexican Day of the Dead.
MARILYN MANSON - "TAINTED LOVE"
YouTube
I think this video is my most-watched. The cover of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" was used in "Not Another Teen Movie." I remember being half-awake, watching that movie with my rugby player friends, and starting up when I heard the repetition of the first beats of this song. I was very appealed to it, and it was before I discovered MM.
I love the premise of this movie: the ghetto goths and their posse crash a conventional teen party. The concept of "ghetto goth" is genius in its comedy. The tricked out car in the beginning? GENIUS. I love it. MM's ghetto dance moves? It's so unlike him that it's shocking that he pulls it off.
My only complaint with this video is the second half. MM's rendezvous with lingerie-clad stuffed rabbits is ridiculous in that it does not seem to fit with the rest of the video. I did not care for the ending of the video, how he disappears from the locked bedroom. It does not add to or enhance the "story" of the video.
NOTES: This video is the censored version, so there are no topless girls. However, I highly recommend the uncensored version, just because the topless girl? Is hot.
MARILYN MANSON - "THE DOPE SHOW"
YouTube
There is so much to say about this video. Before I really got into Marilyn Manson, I always pictured him as the white-skinned, red-eyed, transvestite extraterrestrial that he embodies in this music video. It is one of his signature videos, and the attention paid to the props, the decor, the costumes really makes this something incredible.
There are so many iconic moments in this video which I've screencapped here. The scene of the lone, white-cloaked alien, wandering naively around in the fields, and being captured, is strangely beautiful and has a kind of white-washed horror to it. He is a stranger in a strange world. The "hospital" and "observation" scenes feature clean, round lines, and monochrome and metallic colors. The occasional bright colors, such as the pink latex gloves, are shocking and unreal. I absolutely love the limosine scene. The green is very acidic and filtered. The end of the video, featuring MM as the alien-turned-rockstar is one of my very favorite parts. The use of red against monochrome silver and ash is just stunning. The dancing, pink-attired policemen are perfect.
I feel I haven't done this video justice, but you must see it for yourself.
MARILYN MANSON - "(S)AIN'T"
YouTube
I admit, I don't watch this video very often, but I don't consider it a "favorite" in terms of aesthetic pleasure. However, I do consider it one of the best music videos of its kind. It is autobiographical, revisiting MM in his darkest, lowest times. It is realistic, graphic, nasty, and raw, and many people will not find this video easy to watch. For this reason, the music industry has banned this video. The filming style is very voyeuristic and choppy, and imparts upon the viewer of a sense of the deep depression that leads to this kind of self-destruction, and isolation. Angelina Jolie, upon viewing this video, described it as "beautiful." I guess if "beauty" were to describe its unapologetic realism, then yes, I can understand that sentiment.
WARNING: This video contains nudity, explicit drug use, self-mutilation (cutting), and sexual content.
MARILYN MANSON, "LONG ROAD OUT OF HELL"
YouTube
Perhaps the "strangest" of the videos I'm reviewing here, just because I do not understand a lot of it. I'm very attracted to the editing style, with the fade-in and fade-outs that really work well with this kind of almost hallucinatory video. I am also very appealed to the storybook narration quality of the still figures that the camera rotates around. I'm having a lot of trouble even conjuring an interpretation of this video. The suspension of movement, and yet the "living" quality of the sculpture-like figures is very provocative, as well as the repetition of "Mary" and the sculptural religious figures. There is a kind of horror about the way these figures are "trapped" within their stillness. It reminds me of Greek sculptural philosophies that emphasize the sculpture as the capturing of a moment in a moving figure.
ICONING THE GOBLET OF FIRE
I am obsessed about iconing this movie. Despite being the darkest of the Harry Potter movies, it also has an incredible richness in the coloring that is just beneath the surface of the shadows. This is a kind of "color check," actually mostly for my benefit and pleasure. (And I added some descriptions of what I'm looking for, maybe to make this part of the entry more meaningful to you). I like to see how I "got to" the warm coloring of the icons. For me, it is very much like washing pots and pans in my two-year-long stint in the Co-op kitchen: there is something very fulfilling about scrubbing off the grime, and revealing something beautiful underneath. Now, I don't know how "beautiful" our Co-op pots and pans are, but GoF certainly is.
I absolutely adore this scene. Hermione's candle throws off a gorgeous warmth to the dark room, and there is something very caring and beautiful about the way she leans over Harry, concerned about her friend, in a completely platonic way, of course. (Gee, I feel I have to modify almost everything I say about the Harry Potter characters here, to make sure there is no remote hint of subtext.) As you can see, in the original coloring, you can see the hints of blue, and the rich oranges, yellows, and reds. It's a very warm, comforting scene, and I wanted to convey that same warmth in the icons.
This scene was very hard to color, only because I felt challenged by the murky green of the forest. In the end, I'm not completely satisfied because the green is a bit too brownish. I like Ginny's coloring a bit more.
Ah, the apple of my eye, the star of this batch. This scene really blew me away when I watched it in theatres. I was like, "wow, I MUST icon that!" But really, the cinematography of this scene was really stunning, the way the camera moves along their feet, sweeping through the tall grasses to pan upward at the three figures walking out towards the sunrise. It's just gorgeous. The original coloring of the sky is very rich in turquoise, with hints of yellows and pinks. When I was iconing this batch, I thought, "I MUST get to the sunrise scene by the end of this batch." When I was coloring it, I wanted to bring out the warmth of the sunrise, which meant that I was deviating from the original colors. I played with multiple variations of the colors, and the resulting icons were what I thought to be best interpretations of that sunrise scene.
REQUEST
I am interested in starting to read Harry Potter fanfic. I want my very first story to be something classic, epic, and very canon, i.e. not something based in the future or Marauder's Era. Any specific recommendations?
ABOUT THE ICONS
I am extraordinarily proud of myself for this batch. In fact, I think this might be one of my best overall batches yet. I am very satisfied with 2x16 - Colony, experimenting with graffiti and brighter colors, and I am ESCTATIC about my HP icons. With Goblet of Fire, I'm really doing something I have never completely allowed myself to do, and that is to choose caps purely for iconing, and not as a kind of dutiful "review" of the events. Therefore, I will not be iconing every moment of the movie, as I am more or less wont to do in the XF icons. (And as you can tell from the HP icons, I am disturbingly interested in Harry!torture)
Preview
2x16: Colony
Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire (Part 1)
2x16: Colony
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire (Part 1)
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74