A Few Of My Favorite Things is a series that appears most weekends on Driven By Boredom. Each week I talk about three of my favorite things from a specific genre of film, music, or something else all together. Each favorite thing is accompanied by a video and a description of why it is one of my favorite things. Click here for more favorites.

Since I just wrote up Be Kind Rewind I decided it would be a good time to do a Favorite Things about one of my favorite directors, Michel Gondry. The first time I saw Eternal Sunshine I became obsessed with Gondry. I started trying to track down all his music videos. I got a big help when PALM released their Directors Label series which featured Gondry. It had a pretty good collection of his videos. When comparing it to the Spike Jonze DVD I realized that I was not as into the musicians Gondry worked with. I loved the videos though and I found myself watching Bjork videos despite hating her music. His videos got me into several bands and complete inspired me. I couldn’t come up with just three favorites, but I tried to do my best… so keep reading to see three of my favorite Michel Gondry videos.

1. The White Stripes – The Denial Twist
One of the bands I got into thanks to Gondry was The White Stripes. They have three videos on the Directors Label DVD and I just kept watching them over and over. I wasn’t really into the band, until I realized I just kept coming back to the White Stripes. I bought and album, and then another and now they are one of my favorite rock bands. The White Stripes video that gets all the attention is the Lego video, Fell In Love With A Girl, but I think my favorite on that DVD is Hardest Button To Button where The Stripes kept repeating over and over again with every beat. That being said, I chose to include their video for The Denial Twist because it is post-DVD and pretty mind-exploding. And it features Conan.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aDHdcLwvh4[/youtube]
White Stripes – The Denial Twist Lyrics

2. Daft Punk – Around The World
This video might be my favorite Gondry video of all time. Each dancer represents a different beat in the song. It is also totally spooky. This video completely got me into Daft Punk and after dancing to this song, and about three other Daft Punk songs over 100 times each in the last few years, I sort of never want to hear Around The World ever again. NOTE TO DJ’s: Buy A New Daft Punk CD. Jesus. Still… love this song… love this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBmXEO3yUU[/youtube]
Daft Punk – Around The World Lyric

3. The Rolling Stones – Like A Rolling Stone
I sort of wish The Rolling Stones stopped making music 30 years ago, but they are still one of my all time favorite bands and you have to give it to Keith Richards for still being able to stand up. There is a new Scorsese documentary about The Rolling Stones that I just saw a trailer for, and they are soooo old, but they just keep kicking ass. It is pretty amazing, if a bit creepy, to see them up there. This video is so inventive and incredible. This “bullet time” effect that was used in the Matrix film was pioneered by Gondry for a Smirnof Vodka commercial and used to amazing effects in this Stones video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuGjBNSRi1c[/youtube]
Like A Rolling Stone Lyrics

Comments (0)