The Residents - Commercial DVD

Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: "The Commerical Album" was brilliant in it's scope and wit. Taking all of those songs and making music videos for them sounds like a disaster, but it was really executed well.

There are a lot of different directors and video makers represented here. Each adds his or her own touch, which allows each video to have it's own identity and the dvd not feel too repititous.

Thankfully, since each video is only a minute long, even the really bad ones are over quickly. Watching the entire thing is like taking a rollercoaster ride at the amusement park. And while the good ones are also over quickly, there is something equally interesting just following it.

The maze feature is unique, though loses it's novelty after a while.

I definately recommend this DVD over Icky Flix or Demons Dance Alone. I keep going back to this one time after time because it's easy to just sit down for ten minutes and see ten different movies.

Rating:
Summary: Commercial indeed
Review: Overall, this dvd is nothing less than spectacular and deserving of accolades. The video clips range from:
(a) "mere" visual accompaniments to the music; that is, "trippy" splotches of colors and images mixed together to add to the music's feel.
(b) actual 1-minute long movies with plot and characters.(c) "standard" sweet rock music videos, kinda sorta typical of what you might have seen on MTV around 1 am on a weeknight in 1994. This makes up the majority.
(d) clips that seem to go literally with the "commercial" theme and actually are trite little tv-commercial-like sequences.

You can access videos by going through an elaborate maze of rooms, in which each room contains 2 videos (and a Resident for you to hang out with), or by going through artist info, or by playing them all, or by playing them all in sections, or by picking them from an alphabetical list. Suffice it to say, Residents fans (like myself) will most likely spend hours and hours trying to figure out where hidden stuff is located. (I found two hidden videos so far...still working.)

Every song from Commercial Album is made into a video by an outside artist, while 14 are also made by the Residents (not counting the Easter eggs) - leaving 10 new ones by the Residents.

Highlights are the "sweet, standard" videos that use stop motion animation, I think. But there is just so much coolness to choose from, it's hard to tell.

This is a good purchase for a Residents fan who wants to show friends why they are the best rock band ever, or for confirming to himself that they are. I would, however, say that this is NOT a standard awesome Residents release. Objectively, it's probably one of the best dvds money can buy. Nevertheless, the Residents certainly have stuck to the "commercial" concept here, and true fans who really really love the Residents may find it a bit too cute and fun for their taste. Buy it to have some fun here and there, and to show your Primus-fan friends. Otherwise it's not the same type of groundbreaking in-your-face awesome awesome awesome accomplishment as, say, God in Three Persons, Third Reich n' Roll, the Demons Dance Alone dvd, etc.