If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiJ4T3E-NM8

It’s one of those beautiful bits of film that makes you cross your fingers and pray that the punchline won’t let it down.

And then the punchline doesn’t let it down.

Brilliant direction; brilliantly simple idea.

Thanks, 101.

I was born in 1973, so by the time I got to the end of the Eighties, the Seventies seemed like a strange, dirty-brown mixture of flares, funk, Floyd and three-day weeks.

I remember having a conversation about that decade in the early Nineties: I thought it was ten years of such unrepeatable coolness that I expressed a wish to have been born in the early fifties; the person I was talking to thought it was a decade of shit clothes and daft haircuts. Chacun a son gout and all that.

Anyway, it recently occurred to me that people born around the time I had that conversation would now be able to regard the Nineties from the same distance that I had then observed the Seventies.

Perhaps it’s a symptom of being older and having life speed along a little faster, but I can’t help thinking that the Nineties don’t seem as remote to us now as the Seventies did to me then. The difference between the two decades in many of their facets – politics, music, film, clothing, advertising – felt far greater than the separation of 2011 to 1991 does now. But is that really the case? I can only tell  by asking someone born in the Nineties (or thereabouts). What does the decade of your birth now feel like to you? And what do the Seventies look like? Do they seem as quaint and distant as the fifties seemed to me? Or did I feel that way because the progression from then to the Nineties included many more substantial societal changes?

To me the early Nineties feel like a riot of tasteless colour and the questionable entry of hip hop into the mainstream. Despite the emergence of rock acts such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the overall impression in my memory is summed up by videos like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ask_sedxu0o

It was all Fresh Prince and Kriss Kross – a cheery mess that took its time getting the hell out of the way so that Seattle and Britpop could take over. Obviously that recollection is particular to me, but it seemed to have a kind of pre-ironic optimism that allowed people to enjoy things without the permanent raised eyebrow of postmodernism that turned up a few years later.

So I’m curious: what are your impressions of the decades gone by? If you’re in your early twenties can you tell us what the Eighties and Nineties look like to you? And if you are a child of the Seventies, how do you look back on the last thirty years?

Amusing Nandos Ad (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1EX–vdxh4&feature=youtu.be

Pepper-spray pig meme (thanks, P).

Best NFL commentary EVER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U0GXdQdDLKM#!

How to treat a lady, the Gordon Ramsay way (thanks, M).

Excellent MGMT video (thanks, P):

Rappers doing normal shit (thanks, J).

Happy Thanksgiving (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY-BUUvrr30&feature=youtu.be

And for those of you who have seven minutes to kill, here’s some insane Indian talent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S2SUaoVy_iU

Arnie gives the greatest DVD commentary ever (thanks, J).

Trailer for the new Charlie Brooker thing on Channel 4 (Thanks, P. By the way, I worked on the brief for this at 4 Creative then left before it happened. I think they’ve done an excellent job):

The N*****head comedy festival:

Werner Herzog interview (thanks, P):

Shall we watch MTV The Show?

Every Life cover (thanks, P).

Movie trailer from Ghana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GXtOnRbNcmc#!

Jesus Christ on a dog’s arse (thanks, P).

Great Screenwriters’ Roundtable.

Errol Morris interviews Stephen King.

What news anchors get up to in the commercial break (thanks, J):

Saul Bass title archive.

The incredible National Geographic Photography contest (thanks, J).

Bookshelf porn.

Aerochrome shots of The Congo (thanks, K).

24 hours of Flickr photos (thanks, J).

A-Z Herbs (thanks, J).

Shit club promotion (thanks, C).

Amazing views of Earth from space (thanks, G):

Rappers’ catchphrases as handy buttons (thanks, M).

Rate everything out of 10 (thanks, J).

When I was getting into advertising one of the biggest directors in the world was an Indian man, enigmatically named Tarsem.

He shot classics like this:

Then he seemed to disappear, occasionally popping up to make less good ads and visually stunning but narratively flawed movies like The Cell:

But he’s still got something. Check out these tiles for his 2009 movie, The Fall:

Beautiful, but do they just prove that his limit is the two-minute stunner?

His latest project is the illegitimate child of 300, Immortals.

It’s been a massive hit that Roger Ebert has called ‘The best looking awful movie you will ever see’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VdONYkKFmQ

So should Tarsem stick to what he does best or continue to try to spread his wings?

Should any of us?

Is it better to accept your limitations and be the best at what you’re best at, or always strive for greater, further, better in areas where you might never go beyond mediocre?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. I say hats all the way off to Tarsem for making great ads, great title sequences and movies that Roger Eberts isn’t too keen on. So he can’t string a coherent narrative together? He still contributes far more to people’s happiness than 99.9999865% of the planet does.

And I secretly wouldn’t mind watching Immortals (on a plane).

It just depends what it’s for…

(Thanks, B.)