Microreview: "Blurred Lines" Music Video

Star Trak/Interscope

There are few songs which I consider genuine earworm. "Blurred Lines" is one. I tend to listen to earworms over and over, for days─even weeks─on end.

I believe that if the Unrated video wasn't taken down by YouTube (due to nudity), this might've surpassed "Gangnam Style" as the most viewed video ever.

Anyway, SPIN already did a post way back in March about the 15 Most Hilarious Parts of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" Video. We're doing something similar. Here are my five favorite parts, in ascending order.

5. The #THICKE hashtag

Star Trak/Interscope

Just the right amount of distracting.

Review: The Lone Ranger

If you mix the ingredients of Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp, and Walt Disney Pictures, you'd think that you would always end up with a Pirates of the Caribbean movie blockbuster.

They obviously had no Helena Bonham Carter inserted here.

But you're wrong!

Let's play "Spot the Pirate".

Review: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Let's get two things out of the way first: I am a huge fan of the books, and no, I don't expect movie adaptations to be 100% faithful.

That being said, this movie was terrible. I don't understand how you can screw this up.

You've got great source material and a great cast (Nathan Fillion, Stanley Tucci, that guy who played Giles in Buffy, and the voice of Ron Perlman), so how?

Review: The Act of Killing

Wikipedia

The Act of Killing is a documentary filmed by Joshua Oppenheimer and executive produced by Werner Herzog. It follows the sunset years of Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry, who started as young gangsters sponsored by the Suharto regime to hunt down, torture, and kill communists from the Sukarno rule. The same regime holds strong in Indonesia today.

In their sunset years, the two shoot a movie about their youth as gang members. We learn that the Indonesian word for "gangster" is derivative of the English "free man." That movie's plot moves from gritty black and white reenactments of the killings to surreal scenes in which the gangsters wear sequined gowns and have dead communists thank them for sending them to heaven. This film should be viewed for the added perspective on discussions on impunity, which we see some incidents of in the Philippines today. I believe the film is insightful because of these key points:

Review: Three Reasons Some People Didn't Like The Wolverine

It seems a lot of people eagerly awaited the new Wolverine movie. It also seems that a lot of those people left the theaters quite disappointed. And I can think of three reasons why.

G4TV

One reason for each claw.

Urbanized by Gary Hustwits

Because of typhoon Ketsana in 2009, local and national governments have started imposing new laws related to disaster preparedness, environmental sustainability, and urban planning. Ordinary people, too, have started talking.

There was that backlash against an SM Mall cutting down trees in Baguio. There are now plastic-free days─in some parts, everyday─in some business establishments.There's the more recent dispute with the squatters in Quezon City and the housing offered to them.

Review: Ramin Djawadi. Pacific Rim Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. (Yes, I Still Have a Hangover)

Download Soundtracks

The title track "Pacific Rim", from the original soundtrack of the movie of the same title, is a great example of a part representing a whole (or to literary hipsters, "synecdoche"). An analysis of its elements will give you everything about the movie in just under five minutes of music. These elements are:

Facebook

"When HBO turned me down for the role of Robert Baratheon, I decided to steal Mr. Djawadi here." ─Guillermo Del Toro