Monday, November 21, 2005

r+j w00t

This has been around for a few years, but that doesn't mean it's not worth watching again. Chris Coutts' version of Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite flash animations and I had forgotten about it until today when my brother reminded me of it. The version of Hamlet is pretty enjoyable too.

Not to detract from these animations, but while watching them I started wondering: how bad can a revised version of Shakespeare be? I mean, you're starting with dynamite material (unless you aim for Troilus and Cressida) and you know you shouldn't change the story in any way because you'll just make it worse. (cf. Romeo Must Die: in this version the star-crossed lovers do not die; instead, Romeo kicks everyone's ass and leaves with his girl. Not surprisingly, this ending is less satisfying than the original.) Anyway, my point is, even if you execute it poorly, your revised version of Shakespeare should still be pretty good, as long as you stick to the script.

On the topic of internetty things that have been around for several years, just yesterday I watched Peanut Butter Jelly Time for the first time ever, and that's only because I saw it on Family Guy and wondered what it was from. I have since mentioned this to several people, and their stunned reactions ("you'd never seen it?") made me feel like I'd been living under the sea for the past three years. Surely anyone who posts links to random junk on the internet would be aware of Peanut Butter Jelly Time; it's tantamount to never having heard of the Beatles. Anyway, notwithstanding my mild shame, of course I loved it, although to be honest I probably wouldn't have loved it as much if I hadn't just died laughing when it appeared on Family Guy.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

nissin

More commercials. Even better ones.

The first time I ever saw The World's Best Commercials movie was in 1996 at the Bookshelf Cinema in Guelph. In that year's version, there were two ads for Nissin Cup o' Noodle, which at the time were my second and third favorite spots (out of 100) of the movie. I hadn't seen them again, until now. I finally found them again, plus seven more by the same company.

So here are nine Nissin Cup o' Noodle commercials -- click on the link immediately below the thumbnail to watch each one. I am so happy right now.

1. Unitatherium.
2. Moa.
3. Quetzalcoatlus.
4. Synthetoceras.
5. Hunter moa.
6. Hunter cave.
7. Hunter hook.
8. Hunter tree.
9. Hunter stealth.

P.S. My favorite commercial from the 1996 movie was a French ad for something called Fraiche Toilette, in which a seal (a real seal) jumped out of the ocean and hopped all the way to Paris yelling "Fraiche Toilette!" I haven't seen it since. If you find it anywhere, please let me know.

P.P.S. As long as we're talking about Nissin, it's fair to post here an old (1992) commercial for Cup o' Noodle starring our governor. It's not so much funny as weird.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

goldmine

I'm a little worried that this blog is turning into a site where I only post links to commercials.

I found this website that has a bunch of commercials from the 2003 Cannes festival, many of them very good, and many of them worth linking to. Too many, in fact. I spent several hours here. Anyway, I've narrowed it down to my top ten, which I've listed here from good to best. (I want to list about five more for honorable mention, but I haven't because this is a top 10 list, not a top 15 list, and top 15 lists always annoy me because they feel too long and they make me feel like the author copped out of doing the difficult work to pare it down to 10. Anyway...)

10. Fox Sports Hockey
9. Volkswagen
8. Ikea
7. Stella Artois
6. John Smith's Beer
5. Xbox
4. Matsudaira
3. Familiprix
2. Familiprix
1. Inlingua

P.S. If anyone has QuickTime Pro for PC, please let me know so I can save these...