Best commercial

Truly the greatest commercial I've ever seen. (Though there's a close contender, which will be saved for a future post.)

This was directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Shinya Tsukamoto, and features music by one of my favorite bands, Nine Inch Nails. The latter needs no introduction nor explanation, but let me tell you a bit about Tsukamoto.

He's crazy. He's insanely gifted. He did this little black and white independent film in the late '80s called Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It's my favorite of his films, and one of my absolute favorite movies ever. Go see it. It's available to watch on YouTube.

The MTV Japan advert above was done in the same hyperkinetic weird-out style as the first Tetsuo film. Wild stop-motion, body horror, clangy sounds, all with a strong punk/cyberpunk attitude. Tetsuo, this commercial, and the short film Denchu Kozo no boken (which translates to The Adventure of the Young Electricity Pole Priest or something absurd like that, and can be viewed on YouTube—I recommend it) are the only films of Tsukamoto's, to my knowledge, which are done in this style—though other films, like Sogo "Dragon" Ishii's superb(ly noisy) Electric Dragon 80000V (trailer) capture the same kind of look and feel as these.

Right. Buncha shaznat nobody else really cares about, but at least I get to pour my heart out.

Also, whether or not Rick posts between then and now, I'll probably make a holiday-themed post on Christmas Eve or Day, possibly breaking the "Ricky-Chris-Ricky-Chris-Ricky-Chris" post sequence we've got going on. But it's Christmas! Something must be posted! So here's to hoping Ricky posts a Christmas-themed somethingorother before I post my garbage crapola.