Well, that was certainly worth the wait. 
 
 On Thursday night (March 11), after months of anticipation, leaked on-set photos and rather excellent adventures in hairstyling, Lady Gaga's epic video for "Telephone" finally premiered during E! News, and, honestly, if there's something she didn't cram into the clip, well, then we missed it. 
 
 Part hyperkinetic pop-culture joyride — nods to everything from films like "Caged Heat" and "Kill Bill" to seizure-inducing Japanese television and the color-drenched photography of David LaChapelle — part electric dance extravaganza, "Telephone" is nine-plus minutes of everything you could possibly love about Gaga (and Beyoncé, who, we're sure you know by now, co-stars in the clip), only amped up to the Nth degree. 
 
 It's ambitious, funny and clever, playing much more like a short film than a music video. There are opening and closing credits — it's important to know that the video was written by Gaga and director Jonas Åkerlund, after all — elaborate, over-the-top (or barely there) costumes, and a whole lot of celebrity cameos. This cost money, this took time, this was a work of love and blood and sweat and tears (and a whole lot of hairspray). This was worth it. 
 
 Opening in an ominous women's prison, we first see Gaga being led to her cell by a pair of, well, let's just call them "beefy guards." She is stripped of her impossibly shoulder-padded dress and left nude, while the other inmates howl, and as the guards shut the door behind them, the one cracks to the other, "I told you she didn't have a di--" (a joking nod to those nasty hermaphrodite rumors, of course). 
 
 From there, we get glimpses of Gaga's life behind bars — make-out sessions in the exercise yard (where she is inexplicably wearing sunglasses made out of half-smoked cigarettes), the occasional catfight in the commissary — and then, after nearly three minutes of introduction, Gaga takes a phone call and the song finally begins, first with just some gentle electronic notes and LG's tender vocals, then morphing into a stuttering electro-pop stomper, complemented by a dance sequence (Gaga and her inmates strutting and climbing dressed only in studded underwear, fishnets and stiletto heels) that's sure to make the censors rather nervous. 
 
 Gaga is then bailed out, but not before she busts a Michael Jackson shuffle while one of the guards surfs around on the dating site PlentyOfFish.com (a scene which isn't even the strangest example of product placement in this video). Waiting for her outside the gates is none other than Beyoncé, driving the so-called "P---y Wagon" from "Kill Bill." The two engage in some seriously stilted dialogue — "You know what they say: Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger" — though Gaga's dead-eyed stares at the camera make it very clear that it's all intentionally bad (as the acting in all good "women in prison" flicks should be). They then go screaming off into the desert. 
 
 They pull into a diner, where Beyoncé pours herself into a booth opposite Tyrese Gibson, who is a total jerk — so much so that B poisons his coffee. We then cut to a delightfully campy sequence titled "Let's Make a Sandwich" featuring Gaga standing in a kitchen wearing a folded-up telephone on her head while dancers cavort behind her, wielding salad tongs and assorted cutlery. She then, well, makes a sandwich, being sure to show off the Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip logos (this is the strangest example of product placement), whips through a tightly choreographed — and, really, pretty clever — dance sequence and then chomps down on the sandwich. And when was the last time you got to see her do something like that? 
 
 It turns out she also makes poison, which she dumps into some honey and delivers to Beyoncé's booth, dressed as a towering waitress with a telephone dangling in her eye. Gibson smothers his breakfast in the stuff and dies. Unfortunately, everyone else in the joint — including Gaga's pals the Semi Precious Weapons — does the same, and they all suffer the same fate. Gaga and Beyoncé begin the video's third over-the-top dance number, popping and strutting while the dead bodies lay around them. It's sort of creepy, to be honest. 
 
 The two then pile back into the Wagon and head out onto the highway (not before Gaga does a solo performance in front of the vehicle while dressed in an ultra-tight leopard-print number), and as the video reaches its conclusion, they deliver some more of those cheesy lines, join hands and zoom toward the horizon, police sirens wailing in the background. The last thing we see onscreen is text, which promises us "To Be Continued ... " because, hey, why not? 
 
 So now that it's finally here, what else can really be said about the "Telephone" video? To be honest, I'm not sure. It is electric and excellent and alive. It is certainly the best big-budget clip since, well, Gaga's last big-budget clip and probably the best video you'll see all year (well, either that or OK Go's new one). It more than lived up to the hype, which, frankly, few thought it would. But, perhaps most notably, it is an event. You will remember where you were when you first saw it. And when was the last time you could say that about a music video? 
 
 With "Telephone," Gaga has entered the rarest of pop stratospheres, up there with the Madonnas and the, gasp, Michael Jacksons. I'm not comparing talent, just ability: ability to wow, to enthrall and put on a show — one I can only hope is continued sometime very soon. 
 
 What did you think of the "Telephone" video? Was it all you wanted and more? Sound off below! ||||| When one imagines a collaboration between Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Hype Williams, the mind reels with visions of outlandish costumes, hip-displacing dance moves, DayGlo flames, fish-eye lenses ... the list goes on and on. 
 
 Thus, it's a little surprising that the just-released clip for Beyoncé's "Video Phone" has nary a flame or fish-eye shot (there are, of course, plenty of outlandish costumes). However, don't make the mistake of thinking this video is by any means straightforward — it's plenty WTF! 
 
 Opening with a tracking shot that pays homage to Quentin Tarantino's 1992 flick "Reservoir Dogs" (and features Beyoncé wearing a Zorro mask) and closing with her firing an assault rifle while seated atop a motorcycle, it's a decidedly weird trip, a cartoonish fantasy brought to life. There's an extended sequence where Beyoncé dresses up as '50s pinup Bettie Page, and other parts where she handles more firearms than a Guns & Ammo editor. There are eyeball-popping colors and head-spinning edits, too. 
 
 But weirdest of all is Gaga's cameo — mostly because it's shockingly normal. She's not wearing some gravity-defying outfit or hairstyle: She sings a verse, fires a sidearm and then works her way through a chair-dance routine with B (which, it should be noted, is pretty great). And then she disappears. 
 
 (Gaga said last month that she told Beyoncé, "I don't want to show up in some frickin' hair bow and be fashion Gaga in your video.' I said, 'I want to do you,' " which offers some explanation.) 
 
 It's definitely not the Gaga we're used to seeing, but her appearance isn't exactly run-of-the-mill, either. And neither is this video, for that matter. Especially not when you're watching Beyoncé snap her gum and shake her hips and grope an AK-47 while the screen pops from electric green to Kool-Aid red. 
 
 If only all videos were this "normal" ...
– Lady Gaga lays to rest rumors that she's mixed gender and replaces them with visions of masochistic lesbian love in her latest eye-popping music video. "I told you she didn't have a dick," one buff female prison guard tells another after stripping Lady G in a cell in the video (watch it here) for Telephone. "Too bad," remarks the other. Gaga then struts her stuff in a barely-there thong (or just evidence tape) with little space to hide anything along with a chorus of cons and later Beyoncé, who kills off a male lover with the help of an über-vamped-up Gaga. MTV dubbed the high-budget, 9-minute extravaganza a "hyperkinetic pop-culture joyride" with homages to films like Caged Heat and Kill Bill. In fact, Bill director Quentin Tarantino acted as a kind of consultant on the video. "There certainly is a Tarantino-inspired quality in the video," Gaga explains to E! Online. "I was telling him about my concept for the video and he loved it so much he said, 'You gotta use the Pussy Wagon'"—which is what Beyoncé uses to whisk Gaga out of prison.