Beastie Boys Video Anthology

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­rion Col­lec­tion Spine #100: Beastie Boys Video Anthology.

I have a dis­tinct memory of danc­ing Inter­galac­tic stop-​motion style at some dance or other with my high school bud­dies senior year. I was never a huge Beastie Boys fan, though I cer­tainly got down to their music. For a person my age, it is pretty much impos­si­ble to quan­tify the many ways their impres­sive career has affected the pop­u­lar cul­ture I was exposed to in my teen years. That’s pretty much Criterion’s reason for putting this col­lec­tion together. The main sell­ing point for the Cri­te­rion edi­tion is the wealth of extras that come with it, mul­ti­ple angles, remixes, spin­offs and other accu­mu­la­tions of music video loose ends are all gath­ered here for a Beastie feast.

The videos them­selves sort of run the gamut, from pure stock footage to height of their power pro­duc­tions to hand­held base­ment hijinks. The trade­mark low-​angle fish­eye fronting is present in just about every video, and it is this, cou­pled with the fre­quent home-​movie aspect of many of the videos, that defines the tech­ni­cal side of their video con­ceits. This is a good thing, since the rough-​cut feel makes the Beastie’s seem like your friendly neigh­bor­hood MCs. Even their videos with higher pro­duc­tion values have an air of delib­er­ate whim­si­cal­ity to them. I’d never actu­ally seen the video to Body Movin’ so it was with great delight that I pegged it as a spoof of the ultra-​campy 60s spy flick Dia­bo­lik! which is prob­a­bly one of my favorite Mys­tery Sci­ence The­ater 3000 episodes as well. The hand-​painted ani­ma­tion of Shadrach was also a sur­prise, and reminded me of Gondry’s Lego-​animated White Stripes video.

My favorite video of the col­lec­tion was Three MCs and One DJ, mainly because of its effec­tive sim­plic­ity, it is a bit goofy, of course, but also prob­a­bly their most inti­mate as well, and you really get to see Mix Master Mike go nuts. I don’t really have a lot more to say about their videos, but the two-​disc anthol­ogy is a choose-your-own-adventure romp through Beastie cul­ture that is worth any audiophile’s time and money. Check out the links below, espe­cially the Paul’s Bou­tique one and their anno­tated lyrics. And don’t sleep ‘til B-lyn.

• Paul’s Bou­tique Sam­ples and Ref­er­ences List.
• Offi­cial Site.
• Beastie Museum.
• Beastie Mania.
• Mic to Mic weblog.
• Anno­tated Beastie Boys lyrics.
• Beastie Boys YouTube Group.