Primetimely

One highlight of this May’s MTV Movie Awards was the music video starring Andy Samberg and “Neil Diamond,” with a special keyboard solo by J.J. Abrams. The video was an ode to the cinematic cliché in which the hero or villain walks away from a blast without so much as a backward glance. In case you haven’t seen it, check it out here:

And keyboardist J.J. Abrams should know: on multiple occasions, characters in his brainchild Alias (my favorite show, incidentally) don’t look at explosions. Take this scene, in which free-agent Anna Espinosa, disguised as Sydney herself, brazenly doesn’t watch as Sydney’s truck explodes behind her…

…or this scene, in which Peyton takes a bazooka to Sydney, Jack, and Irina’s only means of escape and then strides away with full badassery…

…or this scene, in which Sydney runs away from an explosion in a Taiwanese lab. (Okay, she has a reason to not look: she’s flat-out booking it. But still, my point remains!)

The song speaks the truth: the more you ignore it, the cooler you look.