PSA: New Zealanders are way tougher than us, but apparently not on their videos.

I've mentioned to many of you the amazing thing about the movie The World's Fastest Indian: that is, the promotional video for Southland included in the special features on the DVD.

The video is so bad it goes all the way back around to amazing again. I found myself thinking Wow, this place must be awesome if they can afford to make a promo video this bad about it. Seriously, this music over 80's-style footage of parasailing?? That is so rad.

I'm still in awe of my memory of the video, but I'd thought it was alone in its uber-badness...until today, when I stopped by Audiversity and noted that a post on NZ pop band Over The Atlantic's "Fly to the States" pronounced a youtube-able version "more New Order than hypnotically dubbed-out anchor" -- which, for those of you even less familiar with New Order than I am, is a pretty exciting thing to read.

I immediately went to the band's obligatory myspace page and listened to the tracks they've put up. (Not downloadable, I'm afraid.)

Then I went down to their video to "1994."

Go ahead and try it. Form your own opinion before you read mine; I'll wait.

Okay.

At first I was impressed -- here was an indie band, I told myself, in a country with more sheep than people*, that had managed some pretty decent production values for this music video.

But somehow, somewhere, things started to go awry. Was it the comical effect of the guitar player's cut-and-pastiness into the frame? Was it the maudlin storyline overwhelming the lyrics, which didn't really seem to relate? Was it, finally, the apparent death of the love interest?

I don't know what it was, exactly, but in the end, "1994" did exactly what the Southland promo video did for me -- came back around to Totally. Awesome.

I'm not saying it will do the same for you, or that it's an intentional satire. In fact, half my infatuation with this band and its video can be chalked up to my fair certitude that they aren't intending irony.

We're living in a post-post-cynical age, my friends. And I think it's great.

*One of the only facts I remember from watching the extras on LOTR. The other is that the cast got matching tattoos, and filming for the trilogy in NZ took 15 months.