My real introduction to Spike Jonze came during my freshmen year in college.  Two doors down from my dorm room was the floor’s TV lounge, a magical place where I spent most of my first year in college.  I didn’t have cable TV when I was growing up, and I made up for lost time with a vengeance, absorbing USA, The Cartoon Network, and of course MTV (this was right before the channel made the transition from videos to crap).

At the time, there were a handful of music videos that had everyone on the floor talking.  Towards the top of that list were the videos for The Beastie Boys “Sabotage” and Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”.  People just couldn’t shut up about them.  And MTV’s VJs were raving about their director, a young maverick named Spike Jonze who had seemingly come out of nowhere.

Simply put, Jonze’s videos were a blast to watch (and still are, as this DVD reminded me).  Sometimes they made no sense (such as the video for Daft Punk’s “Da Funk”, in which a dog-man limps around New York at night with a ghetto blaster), but they perfectly captured the mood and energy of the song.  There’s no better example of this than “Sabotage”, the video that really put Jonze on the map, and arguably one of the greatest music videos of all time.

You’ve probably seen it a bajillion times already, but that doesn’t diminish its brilliance one bit.  Using the theme of an old 70s cop show (a la “Starsky & Hutch), the video follows the exploits of three maverick police officers—played to perfection by the Beastie Boys—as they rove their beat and take on all manner of scum.  Of course, The Beasties have always been known for their flamboyant videos (“Hey Ladies”, anyone?), but nothing tops “Sabotage”, even the Beasties’ own directorial efforts (i.e. “Body Movin’” and “Intergalactic”).

Continue reading…