Bet you didn’t know Psy’s world wide surprise hit Gangnam Style had a parallel recording, called Oppa Is Just My Style. It features the actress/singer Hyuna, who was also in his video, just like he is in hers of this same song. If you are a fan of energetic dancing, you should check out the rest of Psy’s videos; the man is an absolute maniac on the dance floor, at least in the majority of his music videos. My favorite parody is still Klingon Style, of course. The second video was one he put together to honor the Korean competitors for this years Olympics, and it is both kick ass and shows you a completely different side of his musical talents. I wanted to add a third MV of his here, We Are The One, but could not find the original studio video version on line to embed. They are running it several times this week as part of the Psy Music Block on M-Net, so you still have a chance to see it. BTW, Psy is the primary judge on Superstar K4 so expect lots of aspiring artists there to do versions of Gangnam Style. Another more serious song you can watch online but which I could not embed is Urbanite, it is quite nicely done.
I have only seen two episodes so far, but Arrow grabbed my attention right away, pretty much from the opening sequence of the first episode. I don’t know if they are going to be able to sustain the tempo and evolve the story the way it should be, but I already care about several of the characters and can’t wait to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the revival of George R. R. Martin’s Beauty and the Beast also started nicely if at a somewhat slower pace, much as the original did. I have only seen one episode of that so far, but Kristin Kreuk has already made the Catherin roll her own. I am less impressed so far with Vincent, but Jay Ryan made a strong enough first showing in the roll that there is hope for him to grow fully into the part (or maybe, just for me to get used to him in it). Of course, it is hard to imagine anyone outdoing Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman as Vincent and Catherin, but I am going to enjoy watching this updated version.
The Firefly Reunion Special will be airing on November 11th at 10PM (except no one is willing to state in which time zone that is: EST? PST? GMT?) on the Science Channel, and I for one intend to be watching! But they recorded 3 hours of footage for this one hour special, so for the Firefly 10th Anniversary: Browncoats Unite special they are releasing another 30 second or so clip online for every 5,000 tweets they get using the hashtag #FireflyNov11. Which means we only need to send out 600,000 tweets to see all of it, as long as you also watch the special on the TV channel. I am ready!
While some folks might scratch their heads wondering why I am posting this, the answer is very simple. We need to nurture that sense of wonder at the earliest possible age if we want to see the next generation take us to the stars, and before we can do that, we need to nurture the children of that generation grow into the best possible version of themselves they can be. Nobody understood this the way Fred Rogers did, or understood all the implications of treating a child with love and respect so they would learn how to give as well as receive it. He also understood the need for producing children’s television with a desired end result of something much more important than selling the most number of boxes of sugared cereal without any regard of what that programs content would end up teaching the child. The children really are our future, and Fred was willing to go up before congress to get the funding needed to do the right thing.
Another wonderful music-based animation from the folks at Esme Movies. I don’t know where these folks get their inspiration from, but the music is always quality and the animations are always quite well done. If you have the time, you might want to sample their entire collection.
Steampunk Japan style comes to US screens this Friday when Tai Chi Zero finally gets released here. The basic plot is Kung Fu vs. the evil railroad barons, and as you can see from the trailer it should be quite entertaining. Of course, it may be a bit of a challenge to find a place showing it if you do not live in or near a major city this being a foreign film and all, but I suspect it will be worth it.