annie barrett website. Annie Barrett is a writer in New York City. Annie Barrett and Diminishing Returns.

James Frey A Million Little Pieces forum. James Frey talks about the Smoking Gun story on Larry King Live. Opinion blog. Sometimes i can't believe the influence Oprah has.



About Annie

Annie Barrett website


TV commentary

30 Something
(Dancing with the Stars,
Feb. 2)

Joint Custody
(The O.C., Jan. 26)

(more)

Past updates

Jan 2006
Dec 2005
Nov 2005
Oct 2005
Sep 2005
Aug 2005
July 2005
May 2005
Apr 2005
Mar 2005
Feb 2005
Jan 2005
Dec 2004

Nov 2004
Oct 2004
Sept 2004
Aug 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004


Features



Alert level: Cuddly

 



Blogs are so, like, stupid.

 



iCan't believe iHave one.

 



Misery loves danish

 



Subway: drink fresh



Can you believe I only know three people who have blogs? Lame.

Ask Why Not
Insomnia Haiku
Your Treat



  Annie Barrett is a writer living in New York City. Annie Barrett. Annie Barrett is probably insane. Annie Barrett doesn't care. TH

Thursday, February 9, 2006


11:30 am - There's more important things than hearing you speak...
Commentary on Madonna's new video from Confessions, "Sorry." Liveblogging

 

...Such as reading what I write! As if I needed another reason to love Madonna: last night, during her performance of "Hung Up" at the Grammys, she wore the exact type of outfit (some sort of cargo leotard featuring a corset and possibly a bulletproof vest) that she wears in her second Confessions on a Dance Floor video, "Sorry," which premiered at AOL Music hours later on the same night.

Just watch the video. "Hung Up" was amazing in its own right, I but already think "Sorry" is even better. The woman's a creative genius, and I'm sick of people not really getting this at all... or maybe they do get it but they refuse to admit it in hopes of keeping up their streed cred. These people need to get over themselves.

(Now I'm just going to talk about the video. If you didn't just watch it like I convincingly demanded, please move on to the next cool page on your bookmarks bar.)

Presumably after walking out of the nightclub from "Hung Up," Madonna and her gal pals decide to hop into some random van... except it's not random! It's driven by the awesome fat lady who danced in the train during "Hung Up"! She's a recurring character! The ladies ditch their guys and go cruising for new ones, all of whom they pick up off the street and proceed to torture with sensuous lip-synching and Madonna's sinewy, evil, platform-booted legs.

Interspersed among the more plot-driven scenes are cuts to Madonna by herself against a neon-dotted background that looks exactly like my absolute favorite 1980s toy, the Lite-Brite. My favorite parts of these: the one where Madonna slowly feels down the curves of a hypothetical person (presumably "His Humps") and when she flicks her thumb against the bottom edge of her top teeth -- you know, just to do it. Why not?

[Crash!] Now we're at the part of the video where Madonna's decided to face off in some sort of deathmatch cage fight. Fans/onlookers/possible villains are crawling up the chain-link fences like scary insects at high speed. It's incredible. And right at what I think sounds like a "crash," or the turning point in the song (2:43) at which things mildly slow down and Madonna gets to take a breather and speak foreign languages again, in the video she and the women just stare down the men in the cage, like "Just try and fuck with us. Really, try it." Look at her fucking outfit. Look at any of her outits lately. It's a gas, gas, gas.

Holy crap. She's writhing all over the floor, pulling her leg over her head and performing scissor kicks... and literally fighting each of the guys off with her ridiculous dance moves! Without ever actually touching a male dancer, she just kicked the shit out of maybe 15 of them.

To make the kung fu shit-kicking sequence even more enjoyable, it all starts right after she says "Forgive me" directly into the camera while removing an apparently cumbersome white sparkly jacket. In the single, she speaks three "Forgive mes," but in the video only the last one gets mouth time. It's a welcome dramatic difference.

Suddenly there's a random person roller skating through the cage, and... poof! Everyone's in a roller rink, line dancing. It's like what they do in the disco in Boogie Nights, when Roller Girl is actually on roller skates. Because she's Roller Girl. Get it? The best parts of this scene are when Madonna swings through the guy's legs at the beginning and does a sweeping disco point, and the fact that during this scene and the cage fight, she's wearing volleyball-esque knee pads!

At one point during the roller-rink sequence when she's getting spun around by a partner, you get the impression that at this point Madonna's gone completely insane. NOTE: Discussion of outfits, above. But seriously, who cares? This is hilarious.

The final shots of the colorful boom box hanging out alone on the street and Madonna's silhouette dancing against the Lite-Brite background should provide a good starting point for the video for "Jump." I can see her actually making a video for all 13 songs on the album and releasing them as a collector's DVD. The songs would obviously all blend into each other like they do on the CD, though it's unclear to me whether she'll then rearrange the videos to show in the original album order or leave them in the order the videos were released. I'm betting the latter, with all new between-songs transitions. Either way, this is huge for music videos as a genre.

Hmm. As an aside, you'd have to be an obsessive fiend to appreciate this (Dr. K I'm talking to you) but I really like this amazing cut between shots of her posing-then-singing. The exact seconds in the song are from 0:59 to 1:00, in between the words "care" and "of." Posing! Now, singing! Yesssss.

What do you think? Do I need to get a more interesting life? Because I'm kind of really enjoying this one.

 

 

 

© 2006 Annie Barrett and Diminishing Returns.

 

 

NYC writer and blogger. Annie Barrett is a writer in New York City. She does morning-after commentary for The O.C. and The Real World on EW.com


Annie Barrett ... when I was interning at Entertainment Weekly. Annie Barrett.
Madonna's video for "Sorry" debuted at AOL Music at midnight on February 9, 2006. This video is amazing. Diminishing Returns. Annie Barrett. Diminishing Returns. Annie Barrett and Diminishing Returns. Annie Barrett and Diminishing Returns. Annie Barrett and Diminishing Returns.
Annie Barrett. --Annie Barrett. Oh Annie Barrett, you're diminishing, Annie Barrett.∑

Annie Barrett is a graduate student and writer living in New York City. Nachos iPod danish entenmann's blog boston college