If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Nicolas Cage losing his shit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8&feature=player_embedded

Not sure about this child’s drinking cup.

Blomkamp’s teaser for District 9 follow-up:

How bacon is made (I think this is supposed to be disgusting but worryingly I didn’t mind it. Thanks, K):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0DbcUUO-hI&feature=player_embedded

(If you liked that, here’s a whole load more, including pianos, Coke, bubble gum and cymbals.)

Generate your own rave (thanks, L).

Make your laptop transparent (Thanks, K).

(Thanks, G.)

Although it did make me wonder what the same agency would do for other charities.

Perhaps they would pour piss down your leg for MS.

Or take you to another country and force you to become a prostitute for The Helen Bamber Foundation.

Maybe starve you to death and cover you in flies for Oxfam.

I think any of those would win Best Ambient at any award show in the world.

The failure of England in this year’s World Cup was the latest example of how product and personality can go hand-in-hand.

Before the squad of arrogant grannywhore-banging, lazy, boozing, diving, millionaire arseholes who piss in the street (actually, that’s just Wayne Rooney) popped over to South Africa I had already lost interest in how well they would do. This is because I find the behaviour of people like Gerrard, Terry, Cole etc. so unpleasant that I can’t take any pleasure in their success. They are a bunch of utter wankers, and I feel that supporting them is somehow endorsing or ignoring this fact.

So even if they had produced some great football (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!), I’d still have found my enjoyment of it tempered by the fact that I would not like to spend even a minute in the company of any of them (by the way, this extends to my enjoyment of the Nike ad of this summer. It’s a great piece of film, but the celebration of Ronaldo, Rooney and Ribery sets the wrong example to children everywhere).

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it really difficult to dissociate the actions from the person, no matter what the field.

The fact that Michelangelo was a bit of a cunt makes me like his Pieta, David and Sistine Chapel a little less.

John Lennon was a nasty shitbag. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been inclined to explore his solo music.

I find I’ve enjoyed Roald Dahl’s books less since I found out what an incredible arsehole he was.

And Christian Bale’s non-stop wankerfication makes me dislike almost all his movies.

I’m not sure why I bind the artist and the art together so tightly. Perhaps it’s because I feel there should be consequences to people’s bad behaviour so that they and others might be discouraged from it. It feels somehow that some of the arseholes of this world are getting a big tick to just carry on as they are, receiving pats on the back or tons of cash as they fuck people over.

Then again, there’s the other side of the argument that says the negative sides of their personalities are inextricably intertwined with their brilliance, that one would not be possible without the other.

Well, I think that’s horseshit. Examples such as Bobby Moore, David Hockney, Alan Bennett, Thom Yorke, Michael Frayn etc. (why is this all about men?) show that you can be a good bloke and a genius.

Would Gerrard be a worse player if he never dived? Would Sean Connery’s acting have suffered if he hadn’t been a wife-beater? Would Tiger Woods be any less of a golfer without all those STD-packed nights with porn stars and hookers?

Somehow I doubt it.

The cast of The Hangover 2 recently rebelled against the decision to give the alcoholic racist Mel Gibson a cameo, ultimately causing him to be removed from the film. I was heartened by this until I read that he was being replaced by the lying adulterer Bill Clinton.

I give up.

I saw this on TV the other day.

It reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnABZM83hqg

Coincidences aside, shall we have a sweepstake on when Stella with make another ad that is anywhere near as good as the work they produced at Lowe?

I’ll guess February 2014.

I’ve been out of the country for a while, but now that I’m back I note that in my absence the square root of fuck-all has happened in the world of advertising.

The only real ‘story’ I can find seems to be something to do with a department store showing some sort of snuff video of a kid killing a dog (check the comments):

Very weak joking aside, this is another interesting example of many intelligent people crossing the hell out of the Ts, dotting the fuck out of the Is and still not noticing the explosion of diahorrea on the duvet cover.

Odd, isn’t it?

I’m not saying for a moment that I’m surprised the agency and client let it through (I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have noticed it – I don’t like dogs very much, so if one freezes to death in a kennel, well, shit happens), but it amazes me the number of checks and balances you can put an ad through and yet still miss something the general public finds both obvious and really rather offensive.

I’ll bet many, many discussions were had about the United Nations make up of the cast, the age of the kids, how fat the office worker should be, the type of varnish used on the wooden stairs, the number of raindrops on the windscreen etc…

I bet they even sent at least a dozen emails back and forth about the specific breed of canine to be left in the snow to die.

But the doggycide scene stayed in.

Ah well.

We’re all human, even when we’re inhuman.

PS: have you read the legal that says ‘Toys featured range from £10 to £199’? Apparently someone thought that a vague approximation of the costs of some of the goods in the ad had to be specified in type along the bottom of the screen. Why? Do Vodaphone ads say ‘Calls featured range from £1.23 to 16.33’? Should McDonalds ads say ‘Comestibles featured range from 69p to £2.17? No. That would be fucking insane, but lets give a ballpark for the toys in case the viewing public can’t go to the shop and read the price tags.

No Classics.

But there was COI ‘Breathe‘, T Mobile ‘Dance‘, McDonald’s ‘Poem‘, Barnado’s ‘Turnaround‘ and Coke ‘Organist‘.

Any suggestions for 2010 (so far)?

I’d go with John Lewis, Nike and Match.com

Maybe there are others.

I have jetlag.

I am staring at the screen like a mong.

Goodnight.

Oh.

No Classics.

But we do have Cycle Safety ‘Awareness Test‘, Some Government Body’s ‘Binge Drinking Boy‘, Cadbury’s ‘Eyebrows‘, HSBC ‘Lumberjack‘, Levi’s ‘Secrets and Lies‘, VW ‘Everyday‘, Shelter ‘House of Cards‘ and Toshiba ‘Time Sculpture‘.

I think this is the beginning of the current malaise. By the law of averages there ought to be a few classics and ten good ads a year. If there aren’t, there might be something more fundamental that’s not quite right.

Pop back on Monday to see how 2009 fared (spoiler: it was also pretty shit).

Funniest bootleg DVD covers.

Don Draper says what (thanks, J):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9DCafQqHJA&feature=player_embedded

Sissons on Anne Robinson (thanks, A):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHXwqLqeZuU&feature=share

Royal wedding fun:

And I’m sure you’ve all seen this, but here it is for the record (and for the record, I think it’s good, partly because it works well whether you’ve seen the original or not):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LGW8urTOs

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

In addition, we have the lovely ‘Bob Monkhouse‘ for The Prostate Cancer Research Foundation, Levi’s ‘Dangerous Liaisons‘, VW ‘Toy Story‘, Big Yellow Storage ‘Wave‘, VW ‘Night Drive‘, Carling ‘Space‘, Sony ‘Play-Doh‘, Lurpak ‘Bread‘, Vodaphone ‘Time Theft‘ and Brylcreem ‘Effortless‘.

Sorry. Missed this year. Disneyland really takes it out of you…

DETR ‘The one where the teenagers get run over while messing about on a mobile’ (not online), Think! ‘Run Over Girl‘, Honda ‘Thought Bubbles’ (can’t find online), Orange ‘Dance‘, Orange ‘Blackout‘, AOL ‘Internet Good‘, AOL ‘Internet Bad‘, 3 ‘Tupperzik‘, Vodaphone ‘Mayfly‘, Lastminute.com ‘A Life and a Half’ (can’t find), VW ‘School‘, VW ‘Boot‘, Orange ‘Rio‘, Stella ‘Priests‘ and Skoda ‘Gymnast‘.