Marilyn Manson recently admitted to The Observer that he came close to suicide following his break-up with Dita Von Teese, but if his new video is anything to go by, the goth icon is fully recovered and back to his shocking best.
Manson’s new squeeze is 19-year-old Hollywood starlet Evan Rachel Wood, who gives a rather arresting performance in the video for Manson’s comeback single, ‘Heart Shaped Glasses (When The Heart Guides The Hand)’.
The video, directed by Titanic and Terminator helmer James Cameron, opens with Manson and Wood simulating sex for a full two minutes, before cutting to the two lovers driving in a car on a darkened highway. They end up in a nightclub where Manson performs the song whilst Wood – wearing the heart-shaped glasses of the title (a nod to Kubrick’s Lolita) – gazes up adoringly at her boyfriend. The piece de resistance is a section in the middle of the clip where Wood and Manson simulate further nookie whilst drenched in blood.
Bearing a striking similarity to David Lynch’s neo-noir masterpiece Lost Highway (in which Manson had a cameo as a porn actor), ‘Heart Shaped Glasses’ is reportedly part of a 3-D horror movie which Manson and Cameron will continue filming at the start of 2008. The full clip is viewable at www.youtube.com/watch?v=14FxS5x8oFw.
Cameron has been known to thrown an on-set tantrum or two in his time, but it’s doubtful whether he has ever quite reached the level of hysteria exhibited by director David O. Russell in the clip viewable at www.youtube.com/watch?v=F86s4Vq59Ks. After previously clashing with George Clooney during the making of Three Kings, Russell also failed to see eye-to-eye with Lily Tomlin whilst filming his existential comedy I Heart Huckabees. The row is precipitated by Tomlin repeatedly questioning Russell’s directorial style, which eventually prompts the filmmaker to throw a bunch of props around, scream a string of obscenities and storm off set.
With Mr. T having resurfaced in that Snickers advert, Caught In The Net thought now would be an opportune time to check out some A-Team related humour. We highly recommend the Family Guy homage, which finds Peter Griffin and friends taking on the roles of everyone’s favourite crime fighting outfit.
The opening credit sequence in particular is a masterstroke, with the voiceover stating that “In 2005, a group of local misfits won a costume contest at an ’80s TV convention… these men promptly returned home and drank some beer.” We love it when a parody comes together. You can see the clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=y025CpuBfdQ&mode=related&search=.
All of which just leaves time for quick visits to www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCINtdumXlw (improvisational hi-jinks between Stephen Fry and Peter Cook on Whose Line Is It Anyway?), www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVynnbx1Xsc (Dubya gives a one-fingered salute) and www.guardian.co.uk/slideshow/page/0,,1985578,00.html (slideshow of drawings by Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell culled from different stages of the Blair era).