Sunday, December 26, 2010

Backup Dancers From Hell: John Mayer featuring Taylor Swift - “Half Of My Heart”

We start out with John wandering into a cocktail bar, mixed with quick glimpses of what might be a church. While John presumably swigs a beverage, he fiddles with a boutonniere and then tosses it aside. (Maybe he doesn’t care for baby’s breath.) Quick shot of a tiny flower girl, and then suddenly John is in another room with strange décor, strumming his guitar that he apparently had in his back pocket.

John sings for a bit, with the camera showing that, yep, that’s really him playing. Another shot of the flower girl doing something, then back to John in the bar, singing to himself in the mirror. He may not like little flower buds in his buttonhole, but he sure doesn’t mind studying his reflection.

Back to this church, where it becomes clear that people are getting frustrated waiting for someone to show up at a wedding. We’ll have to assume it’s John, because everyone else seems to be there: a bride, a secretly-lustful bridesmaid, a best man, and at least two women who look like they could fill the role of bitter mother-in-law. Back to John singing and playing and not showing up.

Cut to somebody wiping “Just Married!” off of a car window, but not really doing a very good job because they’re just smearing the shoe polish around. John’s still in the bar, proving in one scene that he’s a ventriloquist, and in another scene that he can drink while either sitting down or standing up, whichever makes us more happy. More shots of disgruntled people leaving the church, possibly calling people named Guido to come put a cap in John’s self-indulgent ass.

John continues to play his guitar in that one room with the outer-space thing on the wall and the weirdly-carved wooden screen. These things are totally distracting and they really need to get rid of them. Does John not understand that if we’re looking at the props in confusion then we’re not looking at him?

People are still leaving the church, which is also starting to get a little old. Everyone’s very pretty, yes, but they’re still just people leaving a church. I think we all understand that nobody will be getting to throw rice. Let’s do something else for a bit, shall we? Wait. The best man just made a smirk that no one else could see. Interesting. Okay, which one of them is he sleeping with?

John’s not telling. He just wants to play his guitar in the poorly-decorated lobby of the Chinese buffet restaurant. Oh, and he wants to drink, too. We keep going back to that as well.

Now we have the bride packing up her wedding dress and shoving it back in a box, while the bridesmaid looks a little peevish, irritated that her friend got to wear something so sparkly and she didn’t. They’re both wearing rubber bracelets, so they probably really liked Madonna back in the day, before she got super-famous and started buying entire countries.

Cut to the best man showing up in the bar, so it’s apparently not the first time that John either drank or avoided a matrimonial procession. He spies his buddy and wanders over. (The other John is still playing a selection for the all-you-can-eat diners waiting for a table.) The best man doesn’t stay long or even order anything, instead patting John on the shoulder and preparing to leave.

Once the pointless visit from his friend is over, John pulls out a piece of paper with the words “I can’t stop loving you” scrawled on it. We aren’t sure who may have scribbled this (did John write it to his mirror image?) but it cues Taylor Swift to start singing her bit of the song. John then wanders out of the bar. We don’t see him leave a tip, so he’s one of those people.

He walks down the street for a while, singing, interspersed with images of someone dropping flower petals. Turns out that those hands belong to the petite flower girl. The wedding may have been cancelled, but she’s still going to perform her floral distribution duties, damn it. Nobody puts the baby in a corner!

John continues to sing to unknown pedestrians passing on the sidewalk, while other people put out wedding candles and look dispirited. Eventually, John hails a taxi and hops in. Final shot is of someone with enormous lips blowing out a candle, the smoke drifting upwards.

Meanwhile, a thoughtful and musically-appreciative couple waiting in line at the Chinese buffet throws some spare change into the hat at the other John’s feet. He looks in the mirror and thanks himself…

 

Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.

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