Lady Gaga's "Marry the Night" video is either sublimely brilliant or ridiculous

There is nothing silly and pretentious about Lady Gaga's recently leaked, fourteen-minute video for "Marry the Night." Except everything about it is silly and pretentious. Or maybe it isn't. Honestly, at this point in her career, trying to decide between the two is exhausting.

If you have fourteen minutes to spare, and the thought of seeing Gaga dressed as a post-apocalyptic version of Drea de Matteo's character from "The Sopranos" appeals to you, you should check out the clip for yourself, because there's way too much going on to sum up here. But basically, it opens with Gaga being wheeled into surgery by a nurse who calls her "morphine princess," while a ponderous voiceover about art and memory plays in the background. 

There's then a montage that somehow manages to quote from Fame, Girl, Interrupted, Black Swan, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, Cheerios, the video for Lita Ford's "Kiss Me Deadly" and possibly the third High School Musical movie, though that could just be wishful thinking on my part. The actual song (which is pretty sweet) kicks in at the 8 minute 48 second mark, somewhere in between Gaga speaking terrible French and taking a bath in cereal. 

The video marks Gaga's solo directorial debut, and Gaga says that the clip "provides insight into my creative process and the way that I do things." Whether or not it does that — or even if any of it makes sense —  is up for debate, but when you've got morphine, flaming cars, a naked Gaga, and lyrics like "love is the new denim or black," who the hell cares?