Two years on YouTube

That's right, I signed up for my YouTube account two years ago. Since then I've watched 6,787 videos of which 509 are in my favourites (although the number should be bigger because a lot of them were deleted in the course of years — and it's now even reduced to 506 actually!), I have 223 subscribers and 11,444 people have visited my channel. That is mainly because I uploaded 69 videos which were seen by 3,078,989 people (at 10 am).

Here are my top eleven videos:

("Why top eleven? Because I like to go one step beyond" as would ThatGuyWithTheGlasses say.)

#1: Lou & Andy Swimming Pool
Views: 387,261

#2: Lou & Andy Chessington
Views: 206,456

#3: Andy & Lou -- Blind Date
Views: 145,351

#4: Lou & Andy Ice-Cream
Views: 132,612

#5: Star Wars III - Master Yoda vs Emperor Palpatine
Views: 127,804

#6: Lou & Andy at the Hospital
Views: 121,968

#7: Andy Lou - Bowling
Views: 119,308

#8: Lou & Andy at the Pub
Views: 108,886

#9: Andy and George Michael
Views: 105,121

#10: Andy & Lou -- Baby Jesus
Views: 98,613

#11: Andy & Lou - At the Petshop Buying a Snake
Views: 87,204

Revenge of the Shit

I wanted to show you this brilliant clip from Dumb and Dumber, definitely one of the best comedies ever made. It stars Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas and Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne, both being two jerks who travel through the States to find a certain Mary Swanson and give her a suitcase that she accidentally forgot at the airport. The fact is that Lloyd fell in love with her, but Harry didn't know that and dated her… When Lloyd heard about it, he decided to take a revenge on him



3:47 --> The best evil laugh in the movie history!

This scene was echoed in the film's prequel, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd:



"Om my God… He shit everywhere! DAMN IT! HE SHIT ALL OVER THE WALLS!"

"So uncivilized…"

Let's get back to the basics: editing Star Wars clips so as to make the movie end (a lot) differently. This time, General Grievous terminates Obi-Wan Kenobi — thanks to the legendary Casey Jones:

Episode III gets reviewed

I recently found a really good review of Star Wars Episode III and I thought it could be interesting to feature it on this blog, among the other piles of random stuff that I accumulate on a daily basis. (I hope some of you saw the film, at least…)



"Count Dracula shows up. The Chancellor says: 'Get help. You're no match for him. He's a Sith Lord.' Dude, where are they gonna get help?!?"

" … and what does this shithead ever do to make you fall in love with him? All he ever did was bitch everyone else including Ooba-Dooba, make blatantly treacherous remarks and — I wanna stress this again — he committed mass murder and Ooba-Dooba knows it."



"Obi-Wan must carefully sneak up to his position. So naturally, since he must be as covert as possible, he picks the biggest, loudest thing he can possibly find to ride up there. This thing makes noises like a dying giraffe: it's so loud the whole damn planet would be alarmed to its presence, and the damn thing even starts shouting right at the enemy's base!"

"The Emperor whips out a lightsaber and does some of that jumping around crap. The three Jedi Windu brought with him use an ancient Jedi defence technique known as 'Standing There And Letting Your Opponent Kill You', until it's soon just Windu vs. the Chancellor."



"'But wait, Obi-Wan! If Leia is my sister, then who was our mother?'
'Ow… she was the Queen of Naboo. But when things didn't work out between her and your father she lost the will to live and just up and died.'
'Ya know, she was having two kids… She didn't think it was worth living for us?'
'I guess not, Luke.'
'Oh, what a bitch!'"

The Clone Wars

The Clone Wars, this brand new computer-animated movie meant to take place between Episode II and Episode III sounds definitely promising. I'm looking forward to watching it!





If you liked the French version of the new trilogy, the following trailer shows us that the same voice actors (e.g. Roger Carel as C3PO, Emmanuel Garijo as Anakin, Jean Lescot as Yoda, Georges Claisse as Darth Sidious) were hired:

Tankman Begins

Watch this funny parody of Batman Begins for the introduction to the 2005 MTV Movie Awards ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Fallon:



Curse you, tank man!

The guy who played Batman is John Heder, aka Napoleon Dynamite.

Here's another parody that Fallon made on basis of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith:



I'm very good at backflips!

Happy Valentine!

Bail Bailey is not only a succesful British comedian (I refer you to what I told you about Black Books, but also a gifted singer. Listen to his love song:



Ok, the end is not so happy, but I like the tune, though. Here's my favourite love music, namely Across the Stars, the love theme written by John Williams for Star Wars Episode II and Episode III.



The following video is dedicated to all the Germanists from Namur who had to study some fragments from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for Bill Bailey is going to tell a joke in Middle English style, the "Pubbe Gagge":



That's a pretty good imitation of Chaucer's style and prosody, I think! If you want to watch a version in which he declaims much quicker, please click here — there's just a slight sound problem.

Had I time enough… (and money!)

I told you several months ago about my passion for Lego bricks and I featured a picture of the biggest set ever, containing not less than 5195 pieces: the Ultimate Collector's Millenium Falcom™ from the second Star Wars trilogy. This spacecraft specially designed for Star Wars and Lego freaks (this includes me, obviously) was released in November, with a limited edition with an "authenticity certificate" signed by some head of Lucasfilm licencing or something like that. Now, the set is still available on the Lego online shop, but without the card (who cares?) The point is that I wanted to show you what it's like to build such a huge thing in Lego bricks. Check this wonderful video:



We have nearly 6 minutes in stop-motion, and the video's maker says on the YouTube page that it took him 37 hours over 11 days! Had I time enough! And money, indeed: €550. And the most surprising is that the prizes vary considerably in countries that don't use the euro as currency:

• United Kingdom --> £350 ≈ €525
• Switzerland --> CHF780 ≈ €490
• United States --> $500 ≈ €340
• Belgium --> €550…!!! Outrageous!

Perhaps in another life.

Death Notice (2)

This title surely can't precede something good…

Several months ago, I told you about my grandfather's parrot, Coco, an African grey parrot. Well today my mother sent me an e-mail whose title was simply "Coco". My first reaction was that famous catchphrase from the Star Wars saga: "I have a bad feeling about this…". I was right: Coco died in the night. He (in fact: she, but we always used to refer to this parrot by "he") was 44. My uncle says he was born on 26 March 1963. (Hey, isn't that Shakespeare's birth date?)

He told me that he received this parrot from an old lady in 1982. Back then, my uncle was running a book shop in Huy, and the parrot would always greet the customers and utter many usual sounds, such as the bell or the telephone, which he perfectly imitated, being a parrot.

When I was a kid, we would often go to my uncle's shop to say hello and play a little bit with Coco, giving him Tiercé-notes to eat (!). He was really fond of that, but also of sunflower seeds. When my uncle closed his shop in 1998, Coco went to my grandparents', where he stayed until now. Whenever I went there, I would whistle and talk to him, and most of the time he replied, especially when you presented him with a chips or a piece of meat (even chicken, which is thus close to cannibalism), as shown in the picture below:


The whole essence of that creature was caught in this snapshot…

Here are some of the many pictures I took of Coco:

Just eating roast beef, as usual.

Just eating crisps, as usual.

Hasn't he something human in his look?

This is the way he used to go down to his woodlike area.

Don't believe he was trying to eat my finger!

Farewell, Coco!

Tonight, I came back from Namur with my uncle, and we stepped by at my grandparents' to fetch Coco's body, for we wanted to bury it in Aubel, at the back of the garden. (With a single light coming from the house, and Coco being wrapped in a black plastic bag, it was as if we were members of the Mafia secretly getting rid of a body in a cold night…) So, that's what we did: my father dug a hole and we put our old friend in it, while remembering some good moments we spend with him. After my father filled the hole, the emotion seized me and some tears fell on my cheeks — I hadn't cried for ages! I've already suffered the death of several pets, among which Poupoune, my rabbit, but I wasn't that sad. I had always known Coco: he was nearly as old as my mother!

Coco is dead, but life goes on.

All that story reminds me of that sketch about a dead parrot by the Monty Python:

It's bleedin' demised! It's not pining it's passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life it rests in peace, if you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies, its run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This... is an ex... parrot!

A last thing before I leave you till tomorrow: Coco died exactly 44 years after JFK. Unbelievable! At least, I won't forget the date.

Merrie Parodies

Our old pal thatguywiththeglasses posted a video mixing some bits of the cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th century with dialogues from Star Wars.

In itself, the original cartoon was a spoof on Buck Rogers in the 25th century, an old successful sci-fi series from the 1930s. Here Daffy Duck is Duck Dodgers and his assistant is Porky Pig. His opponent is Marvin the Martian. Actually, this cartoon is number 4 in the 50 greatest cartoons of all times.

Some bits of this cartoon are also to be seen in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the telly at Roy Neary's (Richard Dreyfuss).

Here's the new brilliant parody:

Impressive… Most impressive.

As clumsy as he is stupid
--> One of my favourite quotes (French version: "il est aussi maladroit que stupide").

Vader Has Problems

Not only has Darth Vader hearing problems…



— Can you hear me?
— Yes, master.
— Are you sure?
— No. --> BRILLIANT

… but also family problems:



— Damned Luke, I'm not your real father! ROFL

And apparently our old pal also suffers from flatulence:



This was just to end with a really silly video. More of Fart Wars tomorrow, hopefully!

The Empire Brokeback!

Droids have feelings: they can live a true love story:



Obi-Wan and Anakin were having an affair, too!



Even Han Solo and Chewie!



I love these parodies on the Brokeback Mountain theme! More tomorrow

He's Back!

At last, the one whose YouTube channel was guywiththeglasses is back on YouTube. I had already displayed some of his "5 second movies" on this blog. But this channel disappeared suddently in June due to a YouTube's policy on copyright. Fortunately, our guywiththeglasses won his fight and has a new page for his marvellous "5 second movies".

Let's hear what he has to say. Or to transmit, I guess:



In this video, he explain his view on his forced absence from YouTube:



And here are the three brand-new Star Wars episodes he was talking about:

— Episode I: The Phantom Menace


Yeah, Jar Jar Binks really destroyed the movie. I can't agree more with Han Solo.

— Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Yeah, the choice of Hayden Christensen to play Darth Vader wasn't the best choice at all. Most of the fans agree on that. This actor was too young. But the dialogues were crappy as well, so we can't blame him for everything.

— Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

"Boy did I bet on the wrong horse!" :p Obi-Wan is definitely the wisest.

Tribute to Georges Aminel

I'm sure nobody knows who Georges Aminel is. Or was. Because he died three month ago. He was 84. He was a French dramatic actor, mostly "known" as the dubbing voice of Sylvester in the Warner Bros. cartoons, the Looney Tunes, but also as Darth Vader's voice in Star Wars Episodes III, V and VI. (In Episode IV, Darth Vader [translated in Dark Vador for matters of pronunciation] was dubbed by another actor, the late François Chaumette.) He died, but I came to know it only two weeks ago, when I read it in Lucasfilm Magazine. Apparently, he didn't share the celebrity of guys like Michel Serrault (cf. my article "News From the Grave" below), and that's why the media didn't have a word about him, not even in the best French-speaking newspaper, Le Soir.

Several months ago, I posted on YouTube a video to pay him a tribute. In fact, it was just that scene from the end of Episode III, when the dark-suited Darth Vader comes to life, after his operation. This video is still the only one available on YouTube to feature Georges Aminel's voice. You'll find it below, and the original version as well.





And I'd just like to show you the French version made especially for Québec. This is awful, in my opinion. I've been posting videos for months on YouTube with a Canadian YouTube penpal, so that we can compare, for I'm pretty much interested in translation, and more precisely on the translation of Star Wars. (I know, it's really silly.) We both prefer the original version, then our "regional" version: he dispises the French version, and I despise the Canadian version, as fas as voices are concerned. I prefer several French-Canadian translations, though: they are more accurate. But the voice just suck. I hope you'll agree with me: