Jamie Foxx has cooler friends than you. No, they don’t dance. They seem to spend all of their time getting out of cars or holding, but not drinking, champagne. And they have Oscars (or at least nominations). Well, except for the suited man wearing the panda head. To be fair, though, the panda-man could actually be Joaquin Phoenix in subtle disguise.
Foxx claimed in an interview with MTV that he wanted to recreate the “experience” of Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance” remix video (which featured artists like Aaliyah, Queen Latifah and Sean Combs), but replace the musicians with “the most Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winners in one video that you ever seen.” Mission accomplished, but to what end? The actors play a marginal role, and their presence in such large numbers feels like a waste.
Putting aside the sunglasses-at-night and “Surprise, girls kissing each other!” antics, the video’s downfall is its editing. Every time the drum machine speeds up, it means quick flashes that look something like this: shot glass, Foxx rolling his head from side to side, shot glass, woman sliding down pole, bored-looking Samuel L. Jackson, shot glass. Newspapers reported in 1997 that in an episode of “Pokemon,” Pikachu’s lightning flash sent dozens of Japanese children into epileptic seizures. The video for “Blame It” is like that, only when people wake up they have the strong, inexplicable urge to put on red-tinted sunglasses and take shots.
When it comes right down to it, though, “Blame It” is worth watching — if only for Ron Howard’s slightly befuddled eyebrow raise in the opening minute.