The 5 Best Videos Of The Week
Dolph Lundgren has a masters in chemical engineering and a third-degree black belt in karate. He dated Grace Jones when he was her bodyguard. He was in Rocky IV. He was in Johnny Mnemonic. He was in I Come In Peace and Masters Of The Universe and Showdown In Little Tokyo and The Punisher (the first one) and John Woo’s Blackjack, in which he played a revenge-driven assassin afraid of the color white. He was in Universal Soldier and Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning. And now he’s in the new Imagine Dragons video, beating up the guy from Imagine Dragons and getting paid for it. What a life! This week’s picks are below.
5. Chastity Belt – “Different Now” (Dir. Bobby McHugh)
Seattle grunge will never die.
4. Craig Finn – “God In Chicago” (Dir. Kris Merc)
A powerful song with a beautifully-told narrative gets a video that gives its story a literal telling, showing it in crisp indie-film naturalism. Not too many story-songs deserve that treatment, but this one does.
3. Moon Duo – “Lost In Light” (Dir. Micah Buzan)
The flipside of Buzan’s video for the band’s “Cold Fear,” with that same surreal animated universe turned beautiful instead of menacing. I preferred the nightmare vision, but this is cool, too.
2. Kevin Abstract – “Runner” (Dir. Kevin Abstract)
A teenage suburban tragedy, told with the sort of River’s Edge squalor that the form demands.
1. The Knocks – “Trouble” (Feat. Absofacto) (Dir. Kevin Eis)
We all deserve our own personal tiny dancing aliens.