Sundance Channel

This week’s top 5 trending viral videos

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:03:03 +0000

If you're completely sick of all the coverage leading up to the Super Bowl, I'm here to provide you with some relief (9 out of 10 bloggers recommend it) with this week's YouTube videos that seem to be gaining steam on the viral Internet train. 5. From the hilarious minds of one of my favorite channels on YouTube is this catchy and easy-to-sing song "Hapi Berth Dey." It's "about an Egyptian river god who finds a place to sleep atop two sheep" that also possibly doubles as an expression of his outrage of the misappropriation of copyright laws which legally also applies to a popular song traditionally sung to celebrate birthdays. Feel free to sing this new song coincidentally at your next birthday party!

“Bounce That Dick,” feminist or not?

Em and Lo — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:00:22 +0000

When we were sent a link to the new YouTube video "Bounce That Dick" on the Jenna Marbles channel, we didn't know what to expect: some kind of safe-for-work sexual technique advice video by a porn star turned educator? Then, during the first 30 seconds, our hopes were raised, as the young "blogger and entertainer" began a rap parody, stating with much braggadocio, "I've been told since the day I started growing pubes to shake my ass. Well, guess what, my ass is fucking tired as shit. This time it's your turn to wiggle your man junk for me. I wanna see you shake your muthafuckin penis, bitch."

How to defeat zombies using sex toys

Em and Lo — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:00:52 +0000

One of our favorite sex toy retailers across the pond, Love Honey, really knows how to have fun with holidays. A few Halloweens ago they sent us a bunch of "Death by Orgasm" bullet vibes packaged in cute little coffins that we gave out to our Halloween Haiku contest winners (Lo also awarded one to the best costume winner at her annual Halloween party). This Halloween, they're doing it again with a video series entitled "How to Defeat Zombies Using Sex Toys." The production value is almost as good as...

Stop-motion trip of a lifetime

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:00:28 +0000

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Australian auteur Rick Mereki and Tim White created this wonderful travel video titled MOVE, commissioned by STA Australia, that has rapidly gone viral around the tubes of the Internet. Starring one lucky dude Andrew Lees, these guys traveled a total of 38,000 miles to 11 countries over the course of 44 days. I recommend just clicking on the play button above and watching it for the first time without any spoiler explanation. That said, I love the way their editing rapidly stitched together Andrew's time in various locales around the world, some familiar and others not, into one coherent movement that underscores our shared connectivity despite our vast differences.

Beyonce, who run the world? Not girls.

Em and Lo — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:00:22 +0000

Beyonce's latest hit "Run the World" is a girl-power anthem, sort of: "Who run the world? Girls" over and over. Maybe it's aspirational. Eh, probably not

Best 3-minute argument for gay marriage ever

Em and Lo — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:00:32 +0000

Passionate, eloquent, convincing, short and to the point — this is a defense of gay marriage made for the Internet. Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa engineering student, spoke out before the Iowa House of Representatives last week against a resolution which would end civil unions in that state by describing his life with [...]

EuroPopped, for all your crazy European music video needs

Em and Lo — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:00:58 +0000

Our L.A. writer friend Charlie Amter recently launched a labor-of-love blog called EUROPOPPED, what he describes as “a little epic sideblog” to “turn on more people to the crazy Euro music vids” he finds every day. And they ARE crazy. Or just foreign. Or maybe something is just getting lost in translation. Whatever the reason, [...]

Can best friends be sex friends?

Em and Lo — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:00:54 +0000

You gotta love a movie trailer with lots of swear words, nudity, sex scenes and menstruation references. We don’t think we’ve looked forward to an Ashton Kucher vehicle since “Dude, Where’s My Car,” but the “restricted” trailer (NOT one of the many sanitized-for-tv versions) for his next flick, “No Strings Attached,” co-starring the ever-present Natalie [...]

Love is binary, and other parenting myths

Em and Lo — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:00:42 +0000

If you’re a faithful reader of SUNfiltered, then you know we love us a good Ted Talk. So we were thrilled to discover that the two of us were in one! Well, just a fleeting picture of us, but we’ll take what we can get. Our old boss, Nerve.com-founder Rufus Griscom, went on to found [...]

Genesis finally makes sense

Em and Lo — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:00:09 +0000

Writer/performer/artist Merrill Markoe visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky last year and absorbed all the “proof” there that the world was created just 6,000 years ago and that dinosaurs walked among humans. As if through divine intervention, it suddenly, recently dawned on Markoe how to help the museum make their case. So she created this [...]

Bed Intruder costume

Em and Lo — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:00:54 +0000

A few weeks ago we fondly wrote about the Know Your Meme podcast, and specifically highlighted their coverage of the loveable Antoine Dodson of “Bed Intruder” fame. Well, now he’s got what he (at least) is calling the # 1 Halloween get-up of 2010: The official Bed Intruder Costume! And good for him — why [...]

New season of Craigslist TV

Em and Lo — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:00:40 +0000

A few weeks ago, Craigslist TV (on YouTube) launched their second season of mini-documentaries based on real Craigslist ads. (Watch the trailer for the series here.) If you think reading the ads is great entertainment for inducing second-hand embarrassment, try watching them. There’s “Charity’s Casting Call for a Husband” and “Hollywood Superheroes Unite” and “Michael [...]

A better way to channel our outrage: “It Gets Better”

Em and Lo — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:00:38 +0000

A great article in the NYTimes this past weekend about cyberbullying -- and in particular cyberbullying over sexual orientation -- included this line which really made us stop and think: "the punishment must fit the crime, not the sense of outrage over it." It's wise and it's true, but we'd forgotten that -- and it doesn't answer the question, what do you do with all the outrage you feel? The outraged part of us feels that Tyler Clementi's college roommate -- who secretly filmed Clementi hooking up with another guy then posted it online, leading to Clementi's suicide -- deserves to go to jail for a long, long time. Same goes for the assholes who bullied 13-year-old Seth Walsh about his sexual orientation -- Walsh hanged himself from a tree in his backyard last month and died after more than a week on life support. And countless other gay teen suicides across the country -- often as a direct result of peer bullying.

OK Go does it again (sort of)

Em and Lo — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:00:04 +0000

OK Go just released their new video for White Knuckles. It’s not quite as cool or intricate as some of their other videos, plus all the dogs make it a little precious (maybe you have to be a dog lover to really appreciate it). But if we try to be objective, than we realize our [...]

Know Your Meme

Em and Lo — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:00:42 +0000

We’ve been long-time fans (well, long-time in terms of Internet years) of the website and podcast “Know Your Meme,” a “web series and online database dedicated to documenting Internet culture, one scientismic investigation at a time.” They give you information on the back-story, viral development and spin-offs of every crazy contemporary meme out there, from [...]

Old Spice Guy, how do we love thee? Let us count the 183 ways.

Em and Lo — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:00:25 +0000

He captured our hearts this past winter with his first breakthrough ad that had him going from shower to ship to white steed all in one take. At the end of June, he was back with another ingeniously absurd one-shot commercial, an awesome upping of the stakes of the first (log rolling? check! jacuzzi busting? check! flying? check!). And just last week, Old Spice Guy launched 183 -- yes, 183! -- individual video responses (all available on YouTube) to various Tweets he'd received from both big names and no names alike (e.g. Ellen DeGeneres, Starbucks, Alyssa Milano, Huffington Post, George Stephanopoulos, Demi Moore, Gillette, the list goes on and on and on). In just three days, the series had received 11 million views! The marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy has created a perfect storm of viral media for Proctor & Gamble using a beloved character (played superbly by Isaiah Mustafa), humor, interactivity and social networks. It's hard to get worked up over being manipulated into giving away free advertising for a major corporation when it's so damn entertaining!

Dating advice for the Giving Tree’s abusive relationship

Em and Lo — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:00:39 +0000

How did we manage to miss this totally awesome quote from Ryan Gosling? In an interview with New York magazine about his upcoming movie BLUE VALENTINE (opening later this year, it's a portrait of a marriage, co-starring Michelle Williams), he's asked about his character's tattoo of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree on his arm, and replies: "That book is so fucked up; that story’s the worst. I mean, at the end the tree is a stump and the old guy just sitting on him -- he’s just used him to death, and you’re supposed to want to be the tree? Fuck you. You be the tree. I don’t want to be the tree." Now we can't decide which we love more -- Silverstein's book or Gosling's quote about it.

The Bechdel Test*

Em and Lo — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:00:22 +0000

Thanks in large part to a video made last December by Anita Sarkeesian of FeministFrequency.com that’s been making the rounds recently on the Internet, more of the world knows about the Bechdel Test.* Back in 1985, Alison Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to Watch Out For” mentioned “The Rule,” one character’s three simple requirements for whether or [...]

New crazy-awesome video from Ok Go

Em and Lo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Ok Go is an indie band that has mastered viral marketing with clever, innovative one-shot vids for their songs. First there was "A Million Ways," in which they did an awesome little dance routine in someone's backyard. Then they upped the ante with a choreographed number on a set of treadmills for "Here I Go Again." Then came "WTF?" -- its psychedonkulous colors and patterns made you go WTF when you watch it (here's how they did that one). Now, for the song "This Too Shall Pass" from their new album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky," they've done it again -- even better! It's a giant Rube Goldberg machine in a two-story warehouse that moves along in perfect freakin' synch with the song, all captured in one glorious take (after more than 60s tries over two days). You can read all about how they did it in this Wired article. Or, after the jump, check out the four video installments of "The Making of TTSP":

The Puma Hardchorus

Em and Lo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:00:50 +0000

“They want to be in your arms. You want to be in the stands. What do you do when Valentine’s Day falls on game day?” That’s the tagline for Puma’s genius ad campaign, The Puma Hardchorus, which allows hardcore soccer fans to dedicate and send a video of Savage Garden’s 1997 song “Truly Madly Deeply” [...]

Bad Romance, amazing video

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:51:34 +0000

I wrote an essay a few weeks back about Lady GaGa’s taking over from Madonna and becoming the numero uno gay pop icon. And any gay with a Facebook account can attest to this with a simple look at their status update bar from this week. The gays are going gaga over Bad Romance, the new [...]

Beautiful Agony, the o-face video website, turns 5!

Em and Lo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:00:50 +0000

BeautifulAgony.com launched in 2004 as a response to what the founders saw as a vacuum of real erotica on the Internet. It features videos of contributors' o-faces, i.e. orgasms from the neck up. Hundreds and hundreds of videos later -- they update each weekday -- the site is still going strong. It's heavy-breathing sexy without being obscene in the slightest -- quite an accomplishment. You have to pay to join ($14.95 a month) but there are plenty of free samples in case your sex life is on a recession-induced budget. We chatted with c0-founder Lauren Olney about the site: Do you post every video you receive? Unfortunately not all the videos we receive make the cut. Mostly it’s technical problems that prevent us from using a contribution: poor lighting, framing, or flashing a little too much flesh. Anything that’s obviously faked or exaggerated will also get politely declined we’re looking for authenticity, genuine emotion -- and believe me, after five years, we know how to spot a fake! We also require a Confessions interview with each Beautiful Agony submission, so if a contributor is not willing to speak openly and honestly about themselves and/or their experiences on camera, then we can’t really use their "o-face" video, no matter how sensational it might be.

This Must Be It: Röyksopp’s odd new video

Bradford Shellhammer — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:10:43 +0000

It is no secret that I adore Swedish electro-pop. I have since I first discovered ABBA. Then Roxette. Neneh Cherry. Robyn. And of course Röyksopp. Last month I posted a link to a free download for “This Must Be It,” their new single featuring the vocals of Karin Dreijer Andersson. The video for that song [...]

Depeche Mode remaining relevant with videos

Bradford Shellhammer — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Depeche Mode "Hole To Feed" from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

Depeche Mode, relics of techno-pop, survivors of the 1980s are still crafting fantastic, and relevant, music. While surfing, of all places, Kanye West's blog, I came across their video for "Hole To Feed" from their most recent album Sounds of the Universe. It says something that Kanye is citing the band as an inspiration.

Mike Birbiglia’s “Porno for Parents”

Em and Lo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:00:15 +0000

We mentioned comedian Mike Birbiglia in passing the other day, but failed to convey just how awesome he is. Someone who can appeal to both the audiences of Comedy Central and This American Life possesses a rare gift. He covers crass topics without ever crossing the line. He’s the boyfriend you love so much, but [...]

Viagra for your intellect

Em and Lo — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:00:38 +0000

Although the Internet has successfully reduced our collective attention span to the time it takes to watch "nunchucks pro" fall flat on his face, there are still some great online opportunities for enlightenment if you apply some patience and commitment. Fora.tv, for example, is a vast "collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences." Basically, the kind of fascinating stuff that's wasted on hungover college students.

Tampax — yes, Tampax — makes awesome little indie

Em and Lo — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:00:13 +0000

Okay, we know it's just one big commercial, but we don't care: "Zack 16" is a great little piece of movie-making. At the beginning of this 4-part series (which you can watch in one go), Zach wakes up to find his boy parts replaced by girl parts!

Eat your heart out, Naked Cowboy

Em and Lo — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:00:12 +0000

In case you missed mention of Matt and Kim's latest video in a recent post by fellow SUNfiltered blogger Matthew Rodriguez, we thought it deserved another look (at least from the Naked Love perspective):

SUNFiltered fave music videos

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:15:19 +0000

To end your work week on a musical note, each Friday we plan to bring you a roundup of some of our favorite and most creative music videos circulating around the Internets. Here's our first selection - more after the jump. Fight Like Apes - Tie Me up in Jackets from Eoghan Kidney on Vimeo. Over 1300 paintings were created for this video. [Via]