Category Archives: Video

My favorite music video of the year

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This rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” is one of my favorite music videos of all time.  It comes from the award-winning documentary “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music.”  What’s so great about it is that it splices together all different kinds of people from around the world singing the song with their own voices and instruments.

Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world.

It’s just so cool how it all fits together; it sounds like all the musicians sat down in a recording studio together!  There is this sensation of peace and unity that overcomes you when you listen to the music and watch the videos.  And there’s more where this came from.  Playing Through Change the album is available on iTunes; the deluxe version includes videos for “Don’t Worry,” “One Love,” “War/No More Trouble” and others.  I urge you to download a copy of this album, listen to the music, and watch the videos.  This international collaboration showcases the transformative power of music in a way you have likely never seen before.

Note: I am aware this video was published in 2008.  In fact the project itself began in 2004.  However, the album was released this year and that is when I (and I’m sure many others) discovered it.

[Via PlayingForChange]

DJ Earworm is back with the ultimate 2009 mashup

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From the Black Eyed Peas to Lady Gaga to Kings of Leon, 2009 proved to be a big year for music.  DJ Earworm is back with what he does best–mashing together the top 25 Billboard hits of the past year.  Watch “The United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It On the Pop)” above and download it for free here.  Oh, and look after the break for the full listing of songs used in it.  It’s been one wild year for music, indeed!

[Via EW-MusicMix]

Continue reading DJ Earworm is back with the ultimate 2009 mashup →

Remembering MJ

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Watch this posthumous music video for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It.”  It’s a Spike Lee joint, so don’t miss out.  It highlights MJ’s journey from childhood to worldwide fame.  Instead of mourning the loss celebrate the inspiration that MJ brought to us all.  Director Spike Lee did not have any footage of MJ singing this song for the video, and he did a great job of putting together a thoughtful and touching remembrance piece.  Enjoy.

[Via EW-MusicMix]

Avatar success results in record numbers, “The Bootleg”

Hilarity, Movies, News, Video, , , , , ,

Avatar is a good movie and a breakthrough in 3D cinema.  We know that.  But how did it fare in the box office?  By the numbers it made (so far)…

  • $77 million on opening weekend
  • $75 million during Christmas weekend
  • $250.4 million in its first twelve days of release (that’s #6 fastest all-time and #1 non-sequel all-time)
  • $726,612,776 (worldwide) in its first twelve days of release
  • $39 million from 249 IMAX screens in just 10 days
  • #3 spot in the Box Office Mojo chart of the biggest Tuesday box-office earnings ever
  • Total gross: Domestic: $268,886,074 (36.1%) + Foreign: $476,192,825 (63.9%) = Worldwide: $745,078,899 (as of today, 12/31)
  • The Hot Blog speculates that “there is a very real chance that the film will break $1 billion worldwide before it’s fourth weekend starts. If not, it seems pretty sure to happen in that fourth weekend.”

Sounds like Cameron and crew will make bank off this massively successful movie.  And do they deserve it.  Avatar was in many aspects an experimental film for James Cameron and he took a big risk in making it.  (It cost around $500 million to make.)  It all paid off, so to speak; critics praised it, movie-goers flocked to it, and the 3D and IMAX integration successfully added to the immersive experience.  Job well done all around.

Update: Avatar hits $1 billion in seventeen days, reaching that milestone faster than any other movie in history.  Right now it remains the third largest grossing movie, behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Cameron’s other hit Titanic.

Then there’s this: “Free Love Forum takes you behind the scenes of the revolutionary new bootleg of the revolutionary new movie.”  Please sit back and enjoy this comedy mockumentary of “Avatar: The Bootleg.”

[Via TheHotBlog; BoxOfficeMojo; Slashfilm; AC; Collider; TechCrunch; The Inquirer]

Man cures blindness with stem cells

News, science, Technology, Video, , , ,

Russell Turnbull lost eyesight in his right eye when a squirt of ammonia shot into it as he intervened in a fight between two men.  The chemical caused significant damage to his right eye and was diagnosed with a condition called Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency (LSCD).  LSCD is very painful and requires many trips to the hospital for care.  Because he had this rare condition, doctors used him as a guinea pig in stem cell trials.  Fifteen years after the frightful incident, Turnbull was miraculously cured of blindness thanks to the stem cells.  The treatment involved taking small samples of stem cells from his healthy eye’s cornea, growing it in the lab, and implanting them into his damaged eye.  Only eight weeks after the operation, Turnbull regained full eyesight in his right eye.  He was cured of blindness.  He remains “one of eight patients with impaired vision who have been treated successfully by surgeons at the North East England Stem Cell Institute.”

Though this treatment surely won’t cure all blind people, it is a huge step in the right direction for science and health.  Stem cell research is a controversial topic in today’s heated political and religious debates.  No matter what side you stand on, you cannot deny that this miraculous story of Turnbull and the advances in science and technology are pointing to a brighter future where incurable diseases become curable ones.

[Via Gizmodo; Channel 4]

The Burj Dubai in 2.3 GIGApixels!

Architecture, Image cache, photography, Video, , , ,

As we inch closer to the official grand opening of the largest skyscraper in the world, the Burj Dubai, I share with you a 2.3 gigapixel photo of the massive 2,684 foot tall structure.  Well technically the image you see above is just the antenna that sticks out at the very top tip of the structure.  (But what detail!)  The image file is so large it would “break the Internet” if it were to be sent through the pipes.  In fact, if this image was printed out at 150 pixels per inch, it would be over 37 feet high!  Because of this, photographer Gerald Donovan has created a video “tour” of the photograph where he zooms in and out of detail:

The Burj Dubai opens January 4, 2010.

[Via Gizmodo]

Elephant takes on travel bags in the name of durability

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Watch in awe as this 10,300-pound elephant takes on a series of selected name brand travel bags to test their durability.  It took 14 minutes to crack open a $545 Tumi; eight minutes to open a $218 Delsey; one minute to open a legendary $240 Samsonite, and twenty minutes to open a $99 American Tourister; and the $320 Victorinox was found to be uncrackable.  Though this is by no means a scientific way of testing a bag’s durability, it is interesting to find that some of the lesser expensive luggage bags survived longer than the expensive ones.

[Via Gizmodo]

Music video: Owl City – “Fireflies”

Music, Video, , , ,

Yeah I know this song has been out in the wild for some time now.  In fact, it’s been sitting in the upper half of the iTunes top ten chart for weeks now.  As of this writing it sits at #3 and the Ocean Eyes, the album it resides on, is at the #1 spot.  But for those of you who have not yet experienced Adam Young’s music video for the popular tune, do yourself a favor and watch it right now.  The kid’s a brilliant song writer and artist.  The music video holds an air of tranquility and chaos and best represents the conception and meaning behind the song.  Enjoy.