Thirty Seconds To Mars' Jared Leto wraps his hands around Dita Von Teese's neck in "Up In The Air."
Thirty Seconds To Mars' "Up In The Air" short film (not a music video -- it's over eight minutes long and has its own credits) is finally here, it's real, and it's spectacular. And if you ever longed for a Thirty Seconds To Mars short film/ non-music video/ visual experience with Dita Von Teese riding a pink mechanical bull in all -sequined everything (albeit very little of it), the U.S. Olympic gymnasts McKayla Maroney and Jordyn Wieber, the artist Maxwell Snow (HOT DUDE ALERT!), models Ashley Smith and Anastasia Krevosheeva (ditto), an entire zoo's worth of animals, taiko drummers, the USC fencing team, Damien Hirst's spot paintings, and Jared Leto with his absolute best hair since his "My So-Called Life" days, then you should check your astrological chart, and call your mom and thank her, because you were born under a lucky sign.
Watch Thirty Seconds To Mars' "Up In The Air" short film after the jump!
"Up In The Air" was directed by the mysterious, baronial Bartholomew Cubbins, who raised the bar on "epic" to an all-time, insurmountable high (good luck topping this, Kanye) and created a surreal visual fantasia that feels like the cast of "Game Of Thrones" and "The Hunger Games" robbed a zoo and raided the MoMA. It's a living, breathing, spectacular art installation, replete with cryptic ciphers that only the Echelon will fully comprehend that captures each tenant of the band's upcoming LOVE LUST FAITH + DREAMS album (and comes with a side order of seizures). But beyond the hypnagogic imagery and expensive gallery pieces, the subtext of the highly conceptual video seems to be finding the beauty in the bizarre, the tension of power dynamics, and -- my interpretation of the rainbow army and their spray of paint instead of bullets -- a call to make art, not war.
