Summer isn’t showing any signs of cooling down, so we’re left with two options: hide away anywhere we can find good A/C, or get out there and play hard. This year, we’ve been more inspired to go with the latter, thanks to mike’s hard lemonade® and their mike’s® HARD SPORTS competition. To celebrate the backyard heroes and dedicated practitioners of all the games people play — from frisbee golf to badminton to wiffle ball — mike’s is giving away $10,000 to the person with the best video submission displaying their unique skills. There are plenty of other prizes up for grabs too, including sporting gear and a chance to appear in a mike’s hard lemonade® ad.
To give you some of that extra inspiration to upload a video of your own, we scoured the web for some of the most amazing left-of-center sporting feats we could find. Check out the clips after the jump, which include everyone from high-stepping hacky-sack pros to the King of Cornhole.
Since releasing their debut album in 2005, Brazilian dynamos CSS have proven themselves as one of the most entertaining live acts around, combining over-the-top onstage antics with their unique brand of party rock. Writing mostly in English with occasional bursts of Portuguese, the group — also known as Cansei de Ser Sexy — gained international attention with energetic anthems like “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” and “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex,” before moving into looser, dancier territory with sophomore album Donkey.
This month, CSS return with their third album, La Liberación, a hook-filled, song-focused collection heralded by a pop gem of a lead single, “Hits Me Like a Rock.” In our latest interactive video interview, frontwoman Lovefoxxx and guitarists Ana Rezende and Carol Parra join us to discuss the new record (which features contributions from Ratatat and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie), their love of Joan Jett, and why their band is the equivalent of a fantastic meal.
Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon have been known to a lot of people for a lot of things. To some, they’re cherished as members of cult-classic MTV sketch-comedy series The State. To others, they’re the faces behind Deputy Junior and Lt. Dangle from Comedy Central’s reality-cop show spoof Reno 911. What you may not realize is that they’re also extremely successful Hollywood screenwriters, having penned the scripts for commercial hits including Night at the Museum, and Herbie: Fully Loaded. And while they have no illusions about the artistic merit of those films, they also know they’re responsible for over $1 billion in box-office receipts. The two have just released a book, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!, which details their experiences and serves as a guide to budding mainstream screenwriters. In our latest interactive video interview, they give us a pitch for the worst movie of all time, reveal what Zac Efron is like in real life, and cover Joy Division, a cappella.
Last year, director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott teamed up for an ambitious, globe-spanning undertaking. They challenged people all over the world to film a video snapshot of their life on a specific day — July 24, 2010 — and submit it via YouTube for potential inclusion in what would become the feature-length Life in a Day. More than 80,000 clips were sent in for the documentary, with 1,125 chosen for inclusion in the final product.
The result is a breathtaking overview of existence on Earth in the 21st century, spanning cultures, countries, and individual outlooks. Following its Sundance premiere this January, the film is going into limited release in theaters starting July 29; but prior to that, it will receive a one-night only premiere in cinemas all over the country this Sunday, July 24. Click through to watch the trailer, learn more about the film, and find where Life in a Day is screening near you.
A little over a year ago, we posted an amazing vintage video of Patti Smith on a show called Kids Are People Too back in 1979. Today, Dangerous Minds has found an equally intriguing clip from a 1980 episode of the same program — which was evidently the Yo Gabba Gabba of its day — that features an appearance by Debbie Harry. Click through now to check it out. Could she be any more adorable?
Andrew WK is an undeniably singular artist. Since he first attracted international fame in 2001 with his passionate rock paean “Party Hard,” the Michigan-born, New York-based musician has been preaching the party way of life, while always bedecked in white. With a string of albums behind him (including a full record of J-Pop covers), he now owns his own NYC club (Santos Party House), hosts Cartoon Network’s explosive live-action game show Destroy Build Destroy, and even has a sideline in motivational speaking. Of course, he’s still making music too, with plans for everything from a book to a movie swirling around in his extremely overactive brain. For our latest interactive video interview, we talked to him about blowing things up on TV, responding to Chilly Gonzales’ latest request for a piano duel, and two of our favorite common online friends, Party Cat and Lil’ Andrew WK.
In the second installment of our original video series Stomping Grounds, presented by PUMA, we spend a night out with New York’s own musical merrymakers Freelance Whales. Tag along as drummer Jake Hyman and bassist Doris Cellar take us out to one of their favorite nightspots, East Village rock n’ roll hangout the HiFi Bar. While there, they school us in pool, get serious with CSI pinball, and pause just long enough to tell us about how they met and why their early shows weren’t that different from busking in the NYC subways. Click through to watch the video, and tell us who you’d like to spend a night on the town with next!
Things have been going well for Chiddy Bang. The Philadelphia hip-hop duo doesn’t even have a proper album yet, but Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Beresin have already developed a major following thanks to the success of their mixtapes, which build rap hits on indie-rock skeletons, sampling artists including MGMT, Passion Pit, Sufjan Stevens, and Matt & Kim. Their latest mixtape, Peanut Butter and Swelly, just dropped and is available to download for free; to celebrate its release, Chiddy did nothing less than break the world record for freestyling, rapping for over nine hours straight for MTV. As the duo preps for the release of its long-awaited debut album, Breakfast, we caught up with him for the latest in our interactive video series. Click through and control the questions yourself in our exclusive interview.
Self-described “jelly mongers” Sam Bompas and Harry Parr are just beginning their rise to cultural prominence in the US, but at home in England they’re veritable celebs. The absurdly creative culinary scientists have been pushing food and dining boundaries in the UK for years, from staging an overblown, tongue-in-cheek 12-course, 4,000-calorie Victorian breakfast at Warwick Castle to a scratch n’ sniff Valentine’s Day screening of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.
Beyond their over-the-top happenings, Bompas & Parr are most well known as the creators of innovative flavored gelatins (aka jellies), infusing their jelly with flavors both sublime and bizarre, molded in myriad shapes and sizes for all occasions (weddings, funerals, the sinking of the Titanic). For our latest interactive interview, we caught up with the pair to discuss their madcap adventures and their first book, Jelly Mongers, which features many of their most popular (and craziest) recipes, as well as tips, tricks, and stunning photos. Click through for the full interactive video interview, where you control the questions. Then, flip through our Bompas & Parr photo collection, including shots from the book and the personal collection of Sam Bompas himself.
It’s been a big year for Ellie Goulding. Never mind that last year saw the UK singer/songwriter win the BBC Sound of 2010 award, release her debut album to a No. 1 chart position in Great Britain, and basically become a household name across Europe. In 2011, she topped it all by staging a performance at the royal wedding, at the personal request of the world’s most talked about couple. With all that momentum, people Stateside are starting to perk up and take notice, as evidenced by Goulding’s recent appearance on Saturday Night Live. And it’s only a matter of time before Lights, the album driven by undeniable dance-pop hits like “Starry Eyed” and the title track, makes a similarly resounding impact in the US.
In our exclusive interactive interview, Goulding discusses performing for William and Kate, collaborating with Tinie Tempah, her surprise hit cover version of Elton John’s “Your Song,” and mixing music and marathons. Control the questions yourself by selecting any one you want in the video player, and get an instant response.
, a hook-filled, song-focused collection heralded by a pop gem of a lead single, “Hits Me Like a Rock.” In our latest interactive video interview, frontwoman Lovefoxxx and guitarists Ana Rezende and Carol Parra join us to discuss the new record (which features contributions from Ratatat and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie), their love of Joan Jett, and why their band is the equivalent of a fantastic meal.
, which features many of their most popular (and craziest) recipes, as well as tips, tricks, and stunning photos. Click through for the full interactive video interview, where you control the questions. Then, flip through our Bompas & Parr photo collection, including shots from the book and the personal collection of Sam Bompas himself.
