Rhythm Hunger Nation

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Sex in Recent Music Videos

For The Lusty Month of May, we're looking at sex scene each night. Here's Sebastian...

While there is obviously plenty of great sex to be found in film and on TV, another medium has jumped forward lately in interesting and innovative portrayals of the act: the music video. There have always been noteworthy music videos, but ever since YouTube and other video platforms \liberated the form from the restrictive environments of MTV and its descendants, there's been a renaissance of sorts.

After the jump three videos (increasingly NSFW) with fascinating approaches towards filmed sex.

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Bad Blood: How many film references did you catch?

Manuel, PhD here (it's official as of yesterday people!) and while I should bring you some high brow news to commemorate the occasion - maybe about Cannes or the feminist box office weekend we had - I want to chat about Taylor Swift's Bad Blood video instead. I mean, the credits read "A Joseph Kahn film" so we should obviously pencil it in for Best Animated Live Action Short Film, yes? After plenty of Sin City-style posters, we finally got to see the full video last night at the Billboard Music Awards (which also featured a bunch of dancing Umas!):

It's a smorgasbord of filmic references: Tron bikes! Hunger Games-ey costumes! Leeloo-lookalikes! Academy Award nominee Hailee Stanfield! Minority Report-esque art direction! Sucker Punch-ean lineup! Mad Max: Fury Road color palette finish! Aeon Flux and Ultraviolet echoes! 

I'm sure I missed plenty, but I'm also curious to see if I was the only one who kept thinking of that amazing Battlestar Galactica episode ("Unfinished Business") during those boxing scenes? And more importantly, do you agree that bandaids don't fix bullet holes?

(the video is after the jump because it likes to just start playing randomly)

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"Ghosttown"

Today's watch is directed by Jonas Åkerlund of "Ray of Light" fame who also helmed a couple of movies in the Aughts.

Madonna gets her Stevie on in this apocalyptic moody new video for "Ghosttown" which is her best single in forevs. Oscar nominated Empire patriarch Terrence Howard co-stars because it takes two to tango. You will be relieved to know that after the apocalypse, able cinematographers and stylists are still gainfully employed.

Finally, I can't beat this quip from Louis Virtel at HitFix

The apocalypse is, apparently, a lot like Madonna's recent Billboard fight with the "Empire" soundtrack. (The "Empire" soundtrack beat Madonna's "Rebel Heart" for the #1 spot on the Billboard 200.) Seriously, it's just Madonna and Terrence Howard after the world ends. The only person alive in the video to appreciate that irony is some little boy, who better be gay. 

Related
ICYMI: We suggest auteurs for future Madge collaborations

Rebel Assignments: Film Directors + Madonna

David Fincher winning an MTV Movie Award for Se7en (1995) he was already an MTV darling at the Music Video AwardsA reader by the name of David recently asked which direct we wished would do a video from Madonna's "Rebel Heart". Given that David Fincher, now a reknowned auteur, came to fame via some of Madonna's best, it's a great question. More movie directors really ought to moonlight with music videos intead of just graduating from them. It's a unique form, basically both a musical and a short, that gives directors the chance to work faster and looser and play with ideas that they maybe couldn't risk in a feature without a test run.

Successful directors ought to donate their services at least once to either an upcoming band they want every to haer or a legendary artist whose work has meant a lot to them. So we're assigning a director to each Madonna song on her terrific new record "Rebel Heart" in order to pretend we've been gifted a video album specifically for Madonna fans and cinephiles alike.

It's a Venn Diagram niche, sure, but go with it.

Since the first track and first single "Living for Love" already got a fine toreador and minotaur themed music video -- and it's good if minimalist --  we should leave it be.

No no no. Scratch that.

"LIVING FOR LOVE"
Recreated by Gus Van Sant
We're completists. So we gotta try for the whole album. Gus Van Sant likes a good experiment and he can't just do a traditional "remake" so how about a shot-for-shot reinterpretation with a few inserts as he is prone to do. Madonna likes a good rolling cloud as much as the next Guy Gus (see Frozen/Ray of Light)

"DEVIL PRAY"
Assigned to Lee Daniels
This song sounds conservative but its lyrics are straight up messy mixing drowning metaphors, spiritual yearning, religiosity, the devil and a list of hallucinogenic drugs. So I think the only proper guide is the current king of absolutely fascinating messes, Lee Daniels. Look at the performances he got from Mo'Nique, Kidman, Oprah, and Taraji. Please get your hands on Madonna, you crazy beautiful man, and shake her up!

more assignments follow...

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