Obligatory Gaga joke: How Do You Annoy Lady Gaga?POKERFACE.
[HOLD FOR APPLAUSE]
Simply put, one of the craziest 'women in prison' movies ever made. If Takashi Miike were to direct music videos, they very likely would resemble Lady Gaga and Beyonce's Telephone. It's just a shame that it only lasts 10 minutes, since this is a fucking brilliant piece of moviemaking. I'm not joking, either*. I'm an unapologetic fan of The Gaga, and her videos stand up well as quality bits of horror/exploitation entertainment. Telephone might not be quite as scary or as mental as Bad Romance, but it's still pretty fun. And it has Beyonce saying what might be the twelve sexiest words ever uttered by anyone, ever.
The actual singing (term used loosely, since this is by far the most tuneless of her songs) doesn't kick in until the 3 minute mark, and up til' then the action resembles a particularly sleazy, somewhat surreal prison flick. It opens with Gaga being stripped by transvestite prison guards and locked up in a cell. And no, the guards note, she doesn't have a cock. We can all see this, since she thrusts her lady-garden at the camera for all to see. There's then a bit in the yard where Gaga wears glasses made from cigarettes and locks tongues with a butch lady-con. Cue some singing, underwear dancing and mummified warning tape dancing. Then Beyonce shows up, eats a sandwich and says: "You've been a very bad girl. A very, very bad girl, Gaga." It's like they wrote a script using excerpts from my wet dreams. "Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger." Well, maybe not that bit.
Then they drive to a diner out in the desert and murder a rapper and a whole bunch of other people, before proceeding to dance around in their underwear. Yes, bizarre. Maybe I ate too much cheese and viagra, causing me to dream the whole thing up. You should watch the youtube clip below, just to make sure.
Quite possibly one of the daftest music videos I've ever seen, Telephone is simultaneously brilliant, shit, funny, scary, sexy and repulsive. A bit like Gaga herself, I suppose. The whole thing is styled like a Grindhouse movie, and is particularly reminiscent of the Rodriguez/Tarantino project of the same name. And like that movie, this is sure to be a divisive little video. All I know is this: I'll never look at sandwiches in the same way again.
* Well, I am a bit.
I thought this video was kind of a neat idea, at first, except for the fact that it quickly becomes apparent that the song it accompanies is so goddamn shallow & mundane that it does NOT warrant a ten minute mini-movie. And the squishy, syrupy "breakfast porn" noises @ the 7:30 mark and forward really fucking grossed me out.
ReplyDeleteLady GaGa has lately appeared to me to be something like the creepy 'Silent Hill' version of a pop-star, and I respect her uniqueness and the slight edge of the macabre she sometimes brings to her visuals. But this video is just an unnecessary mess.
I love this video. Most notable, I think is Akerlund's brilliant wedding of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction aesthetic with his equally over-the-top Kill Bill visual style. I'm not just talking about the Pussy Wagon, either. Moreover, the video is actually a road movie in the vein of Thelma and Louise. It's just freaking amazing, is what I'm saying. This is what music television was meant for.
ReplyDeleteYes yes, I do love this video. Although I agree with Astro about the song, which is itself pretty poor. Shame, since I usually really like her stuff, music-ways.
ReplyDeleteI want those cigarette glasses!!!
ReplyDeleteThis video is fucking amazing! Yeah, while I'm not a Beyonce fan at all I'm totally down with creepy Gaga. Her vids are always badass.
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