Friday, October 11, 2013

Corey Feldman Ascends the Millennium and Blows my Cranium.






6 Ridiculously Bizarre Things about the Most Ridiculous Video of the Summer:

If you think Miley Cyrus’ recent work is insulting to your sense of taste then you probably haven’t seen the video Corey Feldman released this summer that left me feeling like my brain had been twerked by a dancer in the Baby Got Back video.

Corey Feldman releasing a pop song in 2013 makes as much sense as Marty Feldman posing for a spread in Playgirl in 1973. "Ascension Millennium" makes David Hasselhoff’s “Looking For Freedom” sound like “Let it Be” in comparison. It will probably end up being used by the military to force terrorists and ousted dictators out of their compounds; or be embraced as a work of genius by the French. But, the song is the least memorable thing about the video. It’s the video that is so bizarrely ridiculous that it forces you to watch it for a second and third time like a child who can’t stop touching an electrical socket. In no particular order, here are six ridiculously bizarre things about Ascension Millennium (otherwise known as A Day in the Life of Ivan Hasbeenovich.) 

6. Corey’s pool is sponsored by an energy drink. 

Feldman’s pool area is sponsored by the energy drink Neon. In the world of the video, Corey is enjoying a typical day in Feldmandia, in which the camera follows him throughout his home after he wakes up next to a sexy woman in lingerie and struts his way along an existential journey of self discovery that takes him all the way to the pool area and back.
There are branded tents set up all over the pool scene with the Neon logo on it as if the brand is sponsoring Coachella and not Corey Feldman’s pool party. Signage at Corey’s pool during this video is probably a great way to reach the all-important Corey Feldman fan/ energy drink drinking demographic.

5. The Title: Ascension Millennium. 

It is possible that Ascension Millennium is an allegory representing man’s evolution into “Feld-man.”  It is possible that Feldman thinks it is 1999 and the millennium is a current topic but as evidence of his raiding Michael Jackson’s closet, it doesn’t seem likely.  It’s more likely that he just liked how the words Millennium and Ascension sort of rhyme when sung repeatedly and creepily, throughout the video.  It could be that he wrote this song thirteen years ago and had the foresight to realize that it wouldn’t be properly received until YouTube was created. Society probably has not ascended enough since the millennium to truly appreciate Ascension Millennium.

4.  Corey’s Angels. 


The video begins with Corey waking up next to Scantily Clad Hot Babe #1, who is in lingerie and we are to assume he just shared a sweet, sweet night of spooning with.  After he puts on a robe, ala Heff, she opens the shade to let in the light, exposing the fabulous playboy life of Corey Feldman. 


Corey then takes a quick shower to freshen up for his day of preening and prancing around his home and is escorted down the stairs by Scantily Clad Hot Babe #2 (I wonder if their agent told them they were doing a pilot for The Girls Next Door 2: The New Batch.) The two women have become angels but it’s unsure if they are stripper angels or angel strippers. The whole sequence in the video comes off more like a sweet dream from the Suite Life of Zach and Cody as opposed to a morning at Mick Jagger’s house.

3.  The Michael Jackson video dance sequence. 

Hopefully, this video was intended to be a goofy homage to Michael Jackson’s 1980's videos but the perpetual scowl on Corey Feldman’s face throughout the video is confusing, it appears that he might be taking it seriously. The actors hired to join an impromptu dance with Feldman move like they got the job by picking tabs off a flier in a Laundromat and no one seems to be in synch.
Feldman has obviously spent years awkwardly mimicking Michael Jackson’s moves from the Bad video and his dancing in Millennium Ascension is reminiscent of the “Josh Fenderman” dance from the classic sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David. That sketch was a parody of a Corey Feldmanesque child star that appeared in such classic films as The Goober Patrol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6fez3AHUzQ

2.  Corey Feldman’s appearance makes you want to shout Jamon.

In this video, Feldman looks like an If they Made it/ genetic clone of Michael Jackson and Crispin Glover (in the movie, A River’s Edge.)  Actually, he looks more like a cross between Blanket Jackson and Crispin Glover.  He also has a constant intense, almost constipated look on his face that brings to mind one of the Gremlins.   Although, When Feldman puts on that black hat and starts dancing, you are momentarily brought back to a time when it was ok for a skinny, pasty faced man to be dancing in a studded black jacket, wearing a white t-shirt and black leather pants. Unfortunately, that time was around 1987 and you had to actually be Michael Jackson to pull it off.

1. Celebrity cameo by Sean Astin. 

Yes Goonies fans, Sean Astin was somehow convinced to make an appearance in Millennium Ascension. Mr. Astin probably had some time off from living a normal life and made a special appearance in this video in which he seems to have dropped by the house for a visit. The fact that he hands Feldman a rolled up piece of paper that is supposed to be Chester Copperpot’s treasure map is definitely a WTF moment.  If you’re going to have a mini Goonies reunion, why not go all out and hire Jeff Cohen, the man who played Chunk as a boy, to put on a flowered shirt and do the Truffle Shuffle?

 There was one cute moment in the video when Feldman tosses an inhaler over his shoulder to Astin.  Sean Astin comes off as the only down-to-Earth guy in Feldman’s heavenly soft-core B-movie/rock star fantasy. You will have a hard time just watching Ascension Millennium one time as it is bizarrely entertaining at first but you might need an inhaler or an oxygen tank, or some medicinal marijuana to jump start your brain after multiple views as you temporary descend into delirium. 


 If only Corey Feldman’s creepy visage in Ascension Millennium could be melted from my mind as easily as Gremlins were destroyed by water.  There is a reason I only wrote six ridiculous things about this video because coming up with a more appropriate 44 more things would have meant watching it a few more times.  I felt like the guy sitting next to Ted Striker in Airplane, soaked in gasoline and holding a match, after compulsively watching it over and over like I had accidentally come across a porn tape of my 8th grade principal and Kris Jenner dressed up in furry costumes.   

 Listening to Ascension Millennium repeatedly again and again over a two or three-hour period  dissolved an all-important musical taste bud away from my Gene Simmons’ length rock-loving tongue.  The portion of my mind that appreciates music was temporarily fried like a car with an overheated radiator and It took some time before I could differentiate between Van Morrison and Rick Astley. 

The only ascension I want to be doing in the near future is getting ahead of the millennial girls on the line at my local bagel store making their complicated flagel orders. That's a typical beginning to a typical day in my life that I gladly embrace and that oddly enough doesn't involve high-fiving a12-year old Michael Jackson look-alike hanging out by the conveniently placed energy drink signage in my pool area. (Unfortunately, I don't even have a pool, much less a pool area. Living in Manhattan, I'd be happy with just the area.)   I will now gladly move on to my next story and enjoy every aspect of getting back to life, back to reality.



No comments:

Post a Comment