December 2006

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a shite-load (which is precisely 101) of covers of Stairway to Heaven, ranging from comical (the Little Roger and the Goosebumps version, where they substitute the lyrics to the Gilligan’s Island Theme) to the horrifying (Australian yodel queen Mary Schneider) to the just bizarrely effective (the Leningrad Cowboys version with the Red Army Choir).

Little Roger And The Goosebumps - Stairway To Gilligans Island

Mary- Schneider Yodels - Stairway To Heaven

Leningrad Cowboys And Red Army Chorus - Stairway To Heaven

This last one really draws me in for some reason. I think it’s the Choir chiming in with “It makes me vonder, it makes me vonder”. Or the fact that Leningrad Cowboys are actually from Finland, and they typically cover classic rock songs. Or that they sound vaguely like Scorpions (Here I am. Rock you like a hurricane!) . Or that they look like this:

This now concludes Commie New Year at Pop Culture Will Eat Itself. Y’all have a Happy New Year.

via B4NG

So someone known only as Celarent has made a brilliant animation of what Mario would have been like in communist Russia. Wish I had more info on this, but here’s the link anyway. Anyone know the deal? Leave it in the comments.

Apparently Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the genius deviants behind South Park, were contracted by Shockwave.com to do an online cartoon. They were contracted to do 64 episodes, but apparently Shockwave.com wasn’t happy with what they were getting, so only two were produced. They’re pretty funny, and really, really filthy.

Very, very NSFW Links: Part 1 and Part 2

So I just watched the trailer for Zach Snyder‘s 300, and I’m not sure if it looked completely awesome or totally terrible. Snyder’s track record is nothing for me to go on, since I haven’t seen his remake of Dawn of the Dead, which is his only film to be released thus far. The trailer seems like an MTV-inspired update of Gladiator or Troy and there’s a big difference between the two. Gladiator was a very good film, combining excellent action sequences with real heart, while Troy was pure drivel, combining action sequences with badly done emotion with, well, badly done action sequences. It also doesn’t feature any actors or actresses that I know, so there’s nothing to go on there (and wow, do I hate the recent trend of referring to actresses as “actors”, implying that the word is gender neutral. Female actors are “actresses”, just like female waiters are “waitresses”, and female flight attendants are “stewardesses”. There’s nothing derogatory about the terms; they are simply gender-descriptive).

300 is based on Frank Miller‘s graphic novel, which is itself based on the historical tale of the battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartans took on Xerses’ massive Persian army. Recently Miller’s Sin City was adapted for the screen, to mixed reviews. I happened to like, but not love, Sin City, so I’m not quite sure what to think. So basically I’m as wishy-washy as you could be going into 300. Meh. It’s expected to be released in March 2007.

George “I Really Don’t Know When to Stop” Lucas has announced that he will start filming the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series in 2007, to be released in May 2008. This will be the first entry in the series since 1989′s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Harrison Ford is on board to reprise the role of Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr (“we called the dog Indiana”), the Nazi-fighting, snake-hating, whip-wielding archaeologist.

Now I love the first three Indy movies as much as anyone. But come on. Do we really need another one?

Reasons Not To Make Indiana Jones 4

• Harrison Ford’s getting old. Real old. He’s freaking 64. As in “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”. What’s this going to be called? Indiana Jones Breaks a Hip?
• Last Crusade was a perfectly fine ending to the series. Sean Connery was great as Indy’s dad. Let’s just leave it at that.
• George Lucas‘ recent work has been, to put it nicely, disappointing. He seems to have completely lost touch with reality. I mean, come on, Jar Jar? Are we going to get an overly stereotypical character that tags along with Indy? Cause that’s not cool. Unless it’s Short Round. “Hey Dr Jones, no time for love!”

Am I the only person that is disturbed by the recent trend of old celebrities dusting off their famous roles for one more go around (I’m look at you Sylvester…)? Is Hollywood really having that hard of a time coming up with ideas? Or is it just safer to throw money at a proven commodity than to take a chance on something original and different? Probably a little of both.

Link to Yahoo! News coverage of this disturbing announcement.

So even if you have the most limited knowledge of Classical Music it’s a safe bet that one of the few pieces you probably know is “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel. Well here is a modern “take” on the piece, though it may be safer to call this a “Rant on Canon in D” by comedian and musician Rob Paravonian. As the folks over at Mashuptown.com wrote “this may be the original mash-up”. Enjoy!

I found this on CollegeHumor.com this afternoon and well lets just say the folks that make Legos should really market this “set”. Talk about a whole new sales demographic. Yes folks it’s the Lego automated bottle cap remover, need I say more…

Watch, enjoy, build one yourself…

Now if I could only find the bin in my storage unit that has my legos…

From CNN.…

A German Tourist planning and a 4 week vacation in Sydney, Australia accidentally booked his trip to Sidney, Montana. You would think that once he landed in Portland, Oregon that he might have figured this out, but no he had to land in Billings, Montana to realize the mistake. Now I haven’t been to Australia but I’ve been to Billings, MT quite a few times and I think it’s safe to say that neither place looks remotely like the other.

Sure people make directional & traveling mistakes all the time but the magnitude of this mistake is amazing! We’re not even talking the same hemisphere here! According to the article the tourists thinking they were going to Australia where it is currently summer only packed warm weather gear. Something tells me they weren’t prepared for beautiful wintry eastern Montana where the average temperature in December and January is in the high 30s.

Billings, Montana (note the lack of water)

Sidney, Montana (note the lack of a famous Opera House)

Sydney, Australia…..

Not even close.

RetroCrush has posted their Top 100 Cover Songs list. They did a great job (though I’m ashamed to admit there’s an awful lot of these I haven’t heard). The highlights are the video links for most of the songs. This must have taken FOREVER to put together. It’s nice to see The Man in Black get so many nods, but the highlight for me is:

#34 “The Man Who Sold The World”
by Nirvana
ORIGINAL ARTIST: David Bowie
Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance of this song is beautiful, and one of the few covers where the original artist is actually acknowledged during the performance of the song. MTV played this about 80 million times in the weeks that followed Cobain’s suicide, and rightfully so ’cause it’s so damn good. Lulu recorded a version of this in 1974, too.