‘Blame It’ on Jamie Foxx

“Blame It”

Album: Intuition

(2008, J Records)

Jamie Foxx goes to an overtly red nightclub with pals Jake Gyllenhall, Forest Whitaker and… Ron Howard.   Samuel L. Jackson menacingly chomps on a cigar in a corner.   Bill Bellamy shows up for a paycheck.   Also: furries.   So, things that Jamie Foxx likes, perhaps?   I imagine director Hype Williams had an elaborate plot for this video at one point, so maybe there’s a ten minute director’s cut out there.     But even at five minutes, this is unbearable (Yes, even with Academy Award-nominated Howard sipping champagne while T-Pain does his magically spastic “Ah.   AH AH!“.)     And red.   It’s like a Dario Argento film set in a dance club (without the point-of-view kills, of course).   Did I mention the furry?

I would, however, like to play Gyllen-ball with Gyllenhall. That’s a video I’d watch. Of myself.   And Jake Gyllenhall.   Make it happen, Hype!

FINAL WORD: RED

Not a passage to India

“Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)”

Album: Jai Ho! – Single

(2009, A&M Records)

The Pussycat Dolls remix A.R. Rahman’s Academy Award-winning song “Jai Ho” (emphasis on the “Ho” here). Results are as you expect. This is the four minute high school remake of Slumdog with white people. The Schwerz wears a vaguely-Indian-but-not-really sari while the specter of A.R. Rahman chases her throughout a train station. The Schwerz mispronounces “Jai Ho” numerous times.   The Schwerz thinks this song represents “an extension of where the movie took off in the end,” so I wonder which version of “Slumdog Millionaire” she saw. I don’t recall the scene where Freida Pinto’s character is surrounded by exotic burlesque dancers from the West.

In summation: Freida Pinto > Nicole Schwerzinger.

FINAL WORD: NO.   JUST NO.