Search - Green Day - International Supervideos! on DVD

The Best Of Green Day's Videos!

Bab's Uvula Who? | 10/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a DVD of Green Day's greatest videos, dating back to 1994. (American Idiot videos not included, though.) It's got 15 music videos- well, 16 techincally, but Brain Stew/Jaded is counted as one.

Here's a list of all of the videos, with a description and a few tidbits as well:

1. Longview: First Green Day video ever made, it was filmed in the house where the guys were residing at the time. Great song, great video. It's as simple as that. I like the part at the end where Billie Joe completely loses it and stabs the couch...tee hee. There are feathers flying everywhere and everything.

2. Basket Case: Another one of Green Day's best songs, this video takes place in a mental hospital. I like it for the most part, except for the people with the masks...those are a bit creepy. The video was shot in black and white at first, and color was added afterword, which probably explains why the colors seem to be a little...out of sorts.

3. When I Come Around: One of their most well-known songs. The video is about people following people around. The only thing I don't like about it is the sweater that Billie is wearing...not a good color.

4. Geek Stink Breath: A great song, but I've never watched the entire video because I'm sort of afraid to...they pull someone's tooth out. I normally wouldn't mind something like that, but I got a few teeth pulled out recently, and it looks pretty painful.

5. Stuck With Me: Pretty good video; most of it is in black and white, and the rest is animations from the Insomniac cover. It sort of looks like Terry Gilliam animated it...maybe he did...

6. Brain Stew/Jaded: The two videos may be paired together, but they're pretty different. Brain Stew is in brown-and-white, and Billie Joe is really the only one doing anything in the video; Mike and Tre are just sitting on a couch, looking bored. After Brain Stew ends, it transitions into Jaded, which is basically just weird camera angles. Billie Joe got high right before he did the video so that he could relate to the song.

7. Walking Contradiction: My favorite Green Day video ever. The basic theme of the video is different from the song; basically, the guys (not just Billie Joe for once; Tre and Mike, too) walk past something and something bad happens and they don't even realize it, sort of like they're jinxed. It cost $150,000 to make, which, at the time, was a lot of money for them, especially since they weren't as well-known back in 1995. There's a part where Billie Joe walks through moving traffic while reading a newspaper. It's hilarious. He almost didn't do it at first, but Tre scared him into it. Just a little fun fact.

8. Hitchin' A Ride: Onto the Nimrod stuff! (In case you didn't guess already, the videos are in chronological order.) It takes place in a theater, and the set looks like it came right out of Guys and Dolls. The guys are all dressed up in suits and ties and polished shoes, then everything falls apart in the end.

9. Good Riddance: The video for Green Day's best-known song. It's a little repetative, and it's mostly just Billie Joe playing guitar and singing in this old, beat-up house, then there are some stills of people deep in thought. There's a shot of Mike Dirnt, though, just standing there, and towards the end there's a shot of Tre sitting against a building with blood dripping from his head (not in a disgusting way, though) and looking up at the paramedics. Probably the only time I've seen Tre Cool with a serious look on his face.

10. Redundant: I like the concept of this video; there are a bunch of people in the background doing the same thing over and over. Good song, too.

11. Nice Guys Finish Last: This is probably my second-favorite video, next to Walking Contradiction. It takes place on a football field, and Green Day's got their own cheerleaders and everything. There's even some dialouge at the beginning, and at the end Mike, Tre, and Billie Joe run into the locker room and completely trash it, and my favorite part: Billie Joe shouts "There is no 'I' in band." Ah, classic Green Day.

12. Last Ride In: This instrumental song isn't on International Superhits, but they put it on the DVD anyway. It's mostly just shots of them in concert, and there's a guy skateboarding.

13. Minority: The first video off of Warning:. It takes place on a parade float, and Green Day has balloons of themselves (which they should use in the Macy's Day Parade this year- that would be awesome). At the end they trash the float (they sure like to destroy stuff in their videos, don't they?) and Billie Joe runs around with a cape on and bumps into one of the hands doing the peace sign- if you look closely, when he bumps into it one of the fingers fly off and the hand is giving the middle finger.

14. Warning: The video doesn't really feature the band itself; it's more about a guy going through his day and breaking all of the rules (don't take candy from strangers, no running at pools, keep out of reach of children, etc.) It's pretty funny, I like it. Green Day is playing in his kitchen, though, and they're featured for part of it.

15. Waiting: My least favorite video on the DVD; it's a bit poppy and MTV-esque. It's basically just about waiting for something, and Billie Joe looks sort of old in it. It just doesn't seem very original to me.

Normally, I'd give the DVD 4 stars, but one thing I was impressed with was the menu. In order to choose a video to watch, you select a CD, and there's a list of them on each- sort of like sub-menus. Each of the sub-menus have their own little intro, too; the Dookie one has artwork from the CD cover, (mostly the dog flying the plane) and "Welcome To Paradise" plays in the background. The Insomniac menu has a "Brain Stew" intro, and flashes of artwork from the cover pop up every few seconds. I like the Nimrod menu the best; it starts off with the "Platypus (I Hate You)" guitar part, and there are all these ripped yearbook photes with faces scribbled out, etc. Then it goes into the actual menu, with pictures of Billie Joe, Mike, and Tre that have the yellow circle that says "Nimrod" on them. (They play Hitchin' A Ride for the Nimrod menu, though...if they had played the parts of Platypus that actually had lyrics, I think they'd get sued.) The Warning menu is basically just the black and white photos from Warning, and "Minority" plays in the background. The main menu is great, too. It starts off with silouhettes (I probably spelled that wrong, but oh well, I don't feel like getting out a dictionary at the moment) of the guys walking in, and then the "International Supervideos" words pop up, and it goes into the main menu, where "Geek Stink Breath" is playing, and there are moving silhouettes of Billie, Mike, and Tre on the side with their instruments. There are even a few "special features" if you'll call them that...there's a web link, a description of the "International Superhits" CD (which was new at the time), and a subtitles option.

The only thing I didn't like about this DVD was that it was edited. Not every single profanity, of course, but the F-word was replaced with a zipping sound (you could still tell it was the F-word, though, and the subtitles weren't edited, which kind of defeats the purpose), and the S-word was completely blanked out, except for in the Longview chorus, which would be kind of impossible. It's probably just because the videos were made for TV and they couldn't play that stuff on Vh1 or MTV, but still...they don't edit out the swears on International Superhits, so why edit the DVD?

Overall, a great buy for any Green Day fan. Well worth the money.

p.s.: don't buy any of the "Pogo Paradise" or "Suburbia Bomb" DVD's. Huge waste of money. Trust me, I learned the hard way."

A great companion to the CD.

H. Yu | 06/04/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you have the CD, but aren't sure whether or not to buy the DVD, GET IT! The videos (only 15 of them) are as every bit as entertaining as the songs representing them. Here you hear (and see) Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt, and Tre' Cool at their funniest and finest. Standouts: "Basket Case", "Brain Stew", "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)", "Nice Guys Finish Last", and "Warning". Again, BUY IT! Nuff said!"