Fast Forward Revue Rating: FFF (3 out of 5)

Craig Robinson aka Daryll from The Office (US) – The ultimate serenading host! WOW. Take your panties off for this talented man on the keyboard… he is naturally hilarious, calls often for audience participation, and is musically inclined. Somehow he is able to figure out any song on his tiny keyboard by listening to it once. Incredibly charming guy.
The Sketchersons - Not my favourite. I felt that it was hard to connect with the number of people in the troupe in such a short time. Some of the acting seemed robotic and scenes were a bit mundane with lots of unoriginal lines and situations. Though, one sketch was quite hilarious with a repeated Sarah Maclachlin song.
The Imponderables – Four guys with amazing chemistry who are inventive and take risks… nothing is inappropriate between them. For real. Check out their YouTube!
The Williamson Playboys – Wonderful! What a delightful musical duo… Doug Morency and Paul Bates. They are like Flight of the Conchords as senior citizens with a ukulele and a tuba. Their songs are a riot and are original to the bone. Their 100% commitment led me to think they WERE over 100 years old (which is what they claim to be).
Keilly & Roeters – Takes a bit of time to adjust to their refreshingly crude humour but it ends up being a great laugh. Their continuous bickering and bizarre banters are so natural… I wondered while I was watching if they were improvising their elaborate threats. They’re on YouTube!

Memorable tune from the Keilly & Roeters act:
Kanye Mahna by Luke Enlow – SUPER catchy. A mashup of the Muppets’ infamous doo doooooo doo doo doo mahna mahna and Kanye West’s Gold Digger.

I apologize for the lack of linguistic flow in this review as it is written entirely with dashes, ellipses and colons – with the exception of this se…. god damnit. More Just For Laughs reviews coming!

-jax

(testing still, or maybe that’s my excuse for having nothing new and exciting to say… sigh.)

Recently, while doing visual research for a photoshoot (cats in suits at a picnic) I have planned for the all-too-near future, I spent a few hours revisiting several music videos, websites, and photos from my own collection (from art shows I’ve documented). And what I found was very interesting, as I followed my little heart’s desire through tangents and hyper-links.

Do you dare to follow?

Good.

Well, I began with the old standby, Radiohead’s haunting video for “There There”, which is creepy as anything, and has been imprinted on my mind since the very first time I saw it, like one of those haunted houses you simply cannot keep out of… (or maybe no one else shares this problem with me..) The video is directed by Chris Hopewell, and is said to be inspired by the British television show “Bagpuss”, a similarly eerie television show constructed from old photographs, some random live clips, and a lot of stop-animation, all narrated by Oliver Postgate, the show’s English-accented creator/writer. But really, “There There” has always reminded me more of “The Wind in the Willows”, the 1984 television version.

Anyway, from there I remembered about Bat For Lashes‘ video for their 2008 single “What’s A Girl To Do?”, a similarly dark (literally, it’s nighttime) and disquieting video, directed by Dougal Wilson, featuring animals in clothes performing bike tricks behind the charmingly beautiful bike-riding singer. Interestingly enough, Bat For Lashes recently opened for Radiohead for roughly a month (June) of their recent 2008 tour. Probably not connected… but maybe…

Next stop on my weird and wonderful internet-indigenous animals tour was this crazy fan-created video for Boards Of Canada’s “Everything You Do is a Balloon”, based on Dale Jennings’ 1963 bicycle safety video entitled “One Got Fat”. I think this video is an exercise in awesomeness… but it is a little bit creepy.

Though creepy is nothing compared to this next clip I found (or, rather, remembered, since none of these clips I’m sharing I discovered on my journey, only revisited), from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 epic “The Shining”. Now don’t feel bad if you’ve seen the movie but for one reason or another (ex. trauma) have forgotten about this clip. Yeah…

Something else I found years ago (and who knows how, or why I remembered it and saved it in my Bookmarks files…) was this crazy site, Bunnylicious,  full of various photoshoots featuring rabbits. Oh no wait, nevermind, I remember how I found it: singer Alison Goldfrapp’s rabbit phase…

Alright, well I’m going to bed… I’ve been at this for over an hour…

And by bed I mean I’m going to keep getting ready for the aforementioned fast-approaching photoshoot…

I shall leave you with this, as a final example of animal-creepery: David Lynch’s “Rabbits”. Made as a series of stand-alone shorts in 2002, some of the clips can be seen in his movie “Inland Empire” (my favorite movie of all time, or something like that). Their tagline is “In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain… three rabbits live with a fearful mystery”…

And one of them’s Naomi Watts.

G’night, all.