We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies
Junkee-endorsed bits and bobs, to make your weekend better. Including a photo app, the Only God Forgives soundtrack, and 37 versions of Miley Cyrus' 'We Can't Stop'.
Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week, to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.
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Mixtape: First Blood by Blood Bros
Recommended by: Cameron Tyeson (‘Seven Songs That Might Be Used During The Federal Election Campaign’)
This is a seamless, nigh on 40-minute compilation of action movie training montage music. It rules so much that I want to cry. If this doesn’t fire your weekend right up, you might want to check your pulse. Seriously. ‘The Final Countdown’ faded in and I felt like I was going to live forever.
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Video: ‘275,000 Dominoes’
Recommended by: Alex Vitlin
275,000 dominoes toppled for the world record is impressive on paper, but this video is actually crack. Watching it: crack. Listening to it: crack. The feeling when you see more heavy stuntin’ domino topples pop up: crack crack crack.
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Soundtrack: Only God Forgives by Cliff Martinez
Recommended by: Mel Campbell (‘In Defense Of Pacific Rim’)
In between experiencing more epic feels listening to the Pacific Rim soundtrack, I’ve made time to be completely blown away by Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Nicolas Winding Refn’s newly-released ultra-violent follow-up to Drive. It’s just incredible: an uncanny mash-up of sentimental Thai karaoke pop and menacing electronica.
If Drive‘s soundtrack was a crisp, anodyne thing — sad robots speeding through their lonely hometown at night — this is a delirious ramble on foot through a strange city. I have a theory that Only God Forgives is Refn’s homage to Italian giallo films — a theory that was basically cemented by the appearance on the soundtrack of an uncanny music box and gothic organ.
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App: CamMe
Recommended by: Alice Williams
So, not only did the mothercusser break up with you, but less than three weeks on there’s already some person with ‘cool hair’ quoting Eastbound & Down on their Facebook page and tagging their smiling mug in photos. And, because you were trying to play the long game by insisting that you could “Definitely still be friends, right! Right? RIGHT?”, you’re now stuck in an endless loop of checking their page approximately every 45 seconds. You’re posting passive-aggressive statuses about ‘trust’ and then deleting them. You’re posting YouTube links to ‘your’ songs, then deleting them. You’re liking photographs of the two of you from years ago at 3am and the only message in your inbox is from your mum, who’s sent you a video of a dog saying I LOVE YOU.
Dude, you need to get it together. You need to start acting with more dignity and less vodka. You need CamMe.
CamMe is a new hand gesture-driven camera app that lets you take great pictures from distance without even touching your phone. Meaning: you can have your iPhone across the room while you, perfectly arranged, look just off camera and laugh. Laugh at the hilarious, complimentary things your new lover (the ‘person’ taking the photograph) has just said. You in the park. You at the beach. You in your messed up bed with sex hair and eyes filled with sleep crumbs. Your ex will be driven mad trying to figure out who it is, and will be standing outside your window with their iPod dock playing ‘In Your Eyes’ by the end of next week.
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Mixtape: Hand Games Covers #12 by Hand Games
Recommended by: Jenny Noyes (‘Internship Exploitation Is Not A Gen-Y Attitude Problem’)
I love a good covers mix, especially a covers mix that enables me to listen to a few classic guilty pleasures with a look of smug superiority on my face cuz the band playing it is hip as fuck. This is one of those mixes, with the added value of containing some serious gems. There are some not-so-guilty pleasures in here too, but I can’t get past the dreamy instrumental version of Britney Spears’ ‘Everytime’. Sing along karaoke-style if you can recall the tragic words, and try not to shed a tear for poor ol’ Britters. Just try.
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TV show: The Big Reunion
Recommended by: Alasdair Duncan (‘Glee’s Fan Fiction Community Reacts To Cory Monteith’s Tragic Death’)
I’m not a big fan of British pop — in fact, I doubt I could pick even one member of Take That or Girls Aloud out of a lineup. Still, in spite if that, I can’t get enough of The Big Reunion. The first season, which aired in the UK last year, reunited six of the biggest bands of the turn-of-the-millennium British pop boom, so they could sort out their differences and put on one more big show. B*Witched, Liberty X, Five, Honeyz, 911 and Atomic Kitten all took part, and boy, did things get dramatic.
The surprising thing about the show is that most of the participants don’t come off as polished reality TV professionals – they seem like everyday people who have no idea what the bloody hell happened to them. Keavy and Edele, the twin sisters from Irish girl group B*Witched, fell out after the band broke up, and had barely spoken until The Big Reunion; their story is really sad, because the two of them are just so damn likable, and you find yourself really rooting for them to work it out.
Aside from having the best name of anybody ever, Abz Love of Five is also the most entertaining person on the show, with his ‘innit bruva?’ London accent and his preposterously tall tales of life in and out of the group. Boy band Blue are last-minute interlopers on the show, and quickly emerge as the villains, as does Kerry Katona of Atomic Kitten, who is… blurgh, I can’t even talk about her, I just hate her so much.
Some kind soul was nice enough to upload the entire first season of the show to YouTube. Each episode is around 45 minutes so it’s a bit of a time investment, but very entertaining, even it you have no idea who most of the participants are. Season Two is out later this year, and reportedly features Savage Garden among its participants. I literally cannot wait.
Compilation: 37 versions of Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Can’t Stop’
Recommended by: Fearghal Shannon (‘Featured Podcast: The Stack’)
Some pop songs just cut through and there’s nothing you can do but buy into the hype. All I’m thinking about now is Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Can’t Stop’. Just when you think you’re satisfied and ready to move on from the track, a free compilation pulling together 37 different versions of the song via Twitter is released on Bandcamp. 37 tracks is a lot to digest, so start with Dan Deacon’s ‘Straight Chop’ mix (13), ‘Can’t Stop’ by Cops (33), Beta Romeo’s Kanye mashup (14) or the Bubblegum Octopus version (37).
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Video: ‘Epic Turtle Jump’
Recommended by: Rob Moran
The dramatic pacing of this video is incredible. The turtle is pretty dumb.
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Outer space: Smile For Cassini
Recommended by: Cam Gilmour
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is currently in orbit around the planet Saturn. This Saturday, July 20, in a research project headed by planetary scientist and personal hero, Carolyn Porco, Cassini will tilt its lens Earth-ward and take photos of our planet alongside Saturn and its beautiful rings. This is a truly remarkable achievement for science and technology and everyone is encouraged to go outside, look up, smile and bask in the cosmic splendour and the momentary awareness of your significance within insignificance. The light will take about 80 minutes to travel from Earth to Cassini’s lens, but if that doesn’t blow your mind, here’s a video of Morgan Freeman bigging up the whole affair.
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