Lots to watch today, so get started!

These days, most of music videos are really, really bad: trivial and overly sexualized, they only serve to prolong the agony of music televisions, relics of a bygone era. Even if you put them on willingly on Youtube, you probably only care about the music anyway. But there's this one guy who still them esthetically pleasing, smart and entertaining. Also, it really seems like he has so much fun making them!

This one's probably my favourite: William's a guardian angel, acompanying a young girl who either can't see him or does not pay any attention to him. He's getting hurt to protect her time and time again as she's walking and texting. Finally, he gets so enraged punching pidgeons that he catches on fire! Tha video's absurd, and so is part of the lyrics ("Father tricked the system by moving bricks to Brixton and learning how to fix them" is just a lovely alliteration). Also, it has Kaya Scodelario starring in it. Need I say more?

Let's go back in time to early 2000's, when Robbie Williams decided it would be great to play a race driver in the '60 who would be called Bob Williams (yeah, the man's little to no shame). Mixing racing scenes and newspaper frontpages and a really haunting chorus (come on, imagine what it must have been like to hear "This new century is bringing me down" in 2001).

The last one is an amazing result of a reunion between Robbie and his former Take That pal, Gary Barlow. From the very beginning you can see the inspiration with Brokeback Mountain: two tough guys wearing denim? Check. Allusive gazes and homosexual tension? Check. Even the bar were they perform their final vocal duo has a confederate flag, so without doubt they wanted you to think about southern USA, a place not so friendly towards two men in love with each other.

Postapocalypse now

In my last post, I've talked about Star Wars, a Sci-Fi franchise set in the distant past (suprised? Thay actually say in the beginning of each episode, that it takes place "a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...", making reference to the traditional introduction to tales). This time, I'll stick to science fiction, to talk about it's subgenre that's quite different: The postapocalypse (or, to abbreviate, the post-apo).

Post apocalyptic movies, games and books show a world destroyed by some kind of horrible disaster: usually atomic war, as these works of culture tend to be fruits of cold-war paranoia.One of them is the movie that jump-started Mel Gibson's career, Mad Max, telling a story of a cop who's trying to bring justice to a mob of homicidal bikers in a world where all the order is long forgotten:

While it might not seem too deep, it was really ahead of it's times and is probably the best known post-apocalyptic movie. Fun fact: the American distributor decided that Mel Gibson needs to be dubbed for the Americans to understand him.

While Post-Apo might originate from the cold-war era fear of nuclear holocaust, it does not end with the fall of the Soviet Union. One of the better known representatives of this genre from the later period is Water World, which shows our planet flooded entirely after the melting of the icecaps. It does a better job than Mad Max in showing a panorama of a broken society, and is surely more esthetically pleasing.

Obviously, cinema is not the only branch of entertainment making good use this esthetic. The most famous depction of a destroyed civilization in a video game is, without doubt, Fallout, which won the hearts of fans and critics alike. It has the player having to make many tough, moral choices, which are usually far from obvious, and creates a world full of interesting, well-developed characters. It is also inspired deeply in the 50s and 60s  design, so the nuclear wasteland is full of jukeboxes, characteristic cars and Mad Men - era ads.

The Force Awakens

Nearly everybody is getting excited for the new episode of Star Wars, and I surely am one of them! It's due in a month and a half, but I already have my ticket reserved for the midnight premiere. There are great expectations to be met by the new installment directed by J.J. Abrams - the guy who, a few years ago, gave you an opportunity to actually see Star Trek, a space opera that had so many episodes it was impossible to find your way around it.

There have been two trailers released, the first one (the one I'm linking here) being more of a teaser perhaps, but I find it much, much better than the other one. It has all there should be in a Star Wars movie: the iconic music, a droid (BB-8, the little white and orange guy you see rolling through the sands, is not a CGI creation, but a real thing that you can actually buy, if you're nerdy enough), a mysterious, lightsaber-wielding antagonist and space ships. 

It also seems that J.J. Abrams is creating images that are much more refined than what we've seen in episodes I through III. Just think of how picturesque that snow-covered forest, or the X-wings' flight over the lake is!

Luckily, this very long month and a half waiting time will be sweetened by a new Star Wars game, Battlefront, released on November 19th.