Artwork of the Day: The Sin of Nora Moran

Posted on September 9, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Alberto Vargas

The Alchemy Of The Mundane : Why Keiler Roberts’ “Sunburning” Is One Of The Best Autobio Comics You’ll Ever Read

Posted on September 9, 2017 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

I couldn’t do it, and not only because I can’t draw to save my life — nope, the whole notion of giving perfect strangers a warts-and-all look at my life is just something I’m not psychologically equipped for. And yet for decades now, “first-rate” cartoonists from Justin Green to Mary Fleener to Joe Matt to Chester Brown to Seth to Gabrielle Bell to Julie Doucet to both Crumbs have made the autobiographical strip an essential part of their repertoire, while for authors such as Harvey Pekar and Dennis Eichhorn, committing their lives to paper for “all-star” collections of artists to run with and illustrate was their bread and butter — and while there’s less autbio/memoir going on in the world of “alternative” comics than there was, say, 20 years ago, it’s still an active genre with some truly notable talents both working within and (crucially, in my view) redefining

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Music Video of the Day: Let There Be Rock by AC/DC (1977, dir. ???)

Posted on September 9, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

How did I let it happen? I went through 421 of these posts, and it took till now to do one for a song on Jeff’s hit list.

You remember Jeff from Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982), right? He’s the kid who had decent taste in music, but was then red-pilled by reading The Big Beat: A Rock Blast by Frank Garlock, which turned him into a raving homophobic bigot with a persecution complex who treated his friends like trash and gave an insane sermon condemning rock music. During that sermon he finally named names of what songs and groups were evil. Of course AC/DC was specially mentioned with a list of some of their hits. This was one of them.

While I’m sure Jeff never saw this video, I like to pair the following images and think that he was just envious that he couldn’t pull this off as well as Scott did.

Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982, dir. John Taylor)

The video features Bon Scott as a preacher who delivers the lyrics like a sermon. We get occasional cutaways to members of the group who are choirboys, because what else would you expect members of AC/DC to be dressed like. Eventually, Scott decides to take off clerical clothing after a video effect.

Then Scott takes a flying leap that according to the Young Brothers, injured Scott.

I didn’t need Wikipedia to tell me that something went wrong. You can see that he missed the mark and fell offstage. Credit to Scott and the band for not only leaving that in, but not appearing to react to it happening.

I really like this video. If I had one complaint, it’s that it appears that Scott is screwing up his lip-syncing. You can see the difference when you watch him perform the song live. I noticed the same issue when I watched the officially posted version of Highway To Hell. I refuse to believe that Scott was this bad at lip-syncing. I think I know what happened. It’s the only explanation that I have.

The song is supposed to introduce light before sound in the pre-chorus. That is the way it was done on both the album and in the video. They fixed that in live performances, like the one below:

I have a feeling they overlayed a slightly different studio recording onto the video in order to make it sound better. You see this done on unofficially posted music videos all the time. I can see this throwing off Scott’s timing just enough that it’s noticeable. You can still see that he is reacting and making the right lip movements. They just seems to miss the mark.

This video is a perfect example of why I put AC/DC right alongside the other 1970s music-video pioneers like ABBA, Sweet, Golden Earring, Kate Bush, Hall & Oates, Funkadelic, Alice Cooper, and other musicians from that period that I haven’t covered.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #243: The Joe Louis Story (1953, directed by Robert Gordon)

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Joe Louis, also known as the Brown Bomber, is generally agreed to have been one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Despite the barriers put up by both poverty and racism, Louis held the world heavyweight championship from 1937 to 1949 and successfully defended his title in 26 fights (ranking him second to only Julio Cesar Chavez, who had 27 title defenses). In 1938, he defeated German Max Schmelling, disproving Nazi claims that a black man could not defeat an Aryan and making Louis, along with Jesse Owens, one of the first African-American athletes to achieve nationwide hero status in America.

The Joe Louis Story, which was made and released shortly after Louis lost his final fight to Rocky Marciano and announced his retirement from boxing, tells an effective but sanitized version of Louis’s life story. Made on an obviously low budget, The Joe Louis Story hits all the highlights — Joe’s relationship with trainer Jack Blackburn (James Edwards), Joe’s marriage to Marva Trotter (Hilda Simms), Joe’s two fights against Max Schmelling, and Joe’s time in the army — while ignoring most of the lowlights. No mention is made of Joe’s financial troubles, Joe’s initial struggle to even get a match against the white heavyweights of the day, or the infidelity that led to Joe and Marva’s divorce. The Joe Louis Story does briefly touch on racism when Joe is told that, as a black man, he already has a strike against him as far as the boxing establishment is concerned.

The best thing about The Joe Louis Story is that it features footage from Louis’s actual fights. Coley Wallace, the boxer who was hired to play the title role, bore a remarkable resemblance to Joe and the footage of the real Joe Louis boxing is easily mixed in with scene of Wallace as Joe. Wallace was not much of an actor but, as a real-life boxer, he still brought enough authenticity to the role that his casting works.

One final note: In real life, Joe Louis ended his career after a brutal loss to Rocky Marciano. Before turning pro, Marciano lost four fights as an amueter. One of those losses came in 1948 when Marciano was defeated in the final round of the New York Golden Gloves tournament. The fighter who defeated Rocky Marciano? Coley Wallace.

Familiar Faces #6: The Law and Mr. Hinds

Posted on September 8, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I first became aware of actor Samuel S. Hinds watching those old Universal pictures that played frequently on my local channels. What I didn’t know about the stately, distinguished thespian is he had a secret past: Hinds was a successful, practicing attorney for over 30 years before the stock market crash of 1929 wiped him out, and he decided at age 54 to pursue his second love, acting. Hinds, born in Brooklyn in 1875, was a Harvard educated lawyer who had a long interest in amateur acting. When he made the decision to turn pro, he wrangled film parts large and small, credited and uncredited. His first talking picture was 1932’s all-star comedy drama IF I HAD A MILLION, in which he played…. you guessed it, a lawyer! (Hinds previously had a small role in the silent 1926 THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN starring Richard Barthelmess).

Hinds had a small role as…

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Artwork of the Day: The Opening Door

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Gerald Gregg

Music Video of the Day: Conociéndome, Conociéndote by ABBA (1980, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Every time I miss even a day, it feels like a lifetime. Since the last post I’ve seen Anna Paquin wander through what felt like an abandoned retread of The Shining (Darkness). Mark Wahlberg traveled through a desert so he could nearly get everyone killed were it not for a Deus Ex Ape showing up to save the day (Planet Of The Apes). I watched what someone on iCheckMovies termed “Moist Max” (Waterworld). Ben Affleck practiced to play Batman (Daredevil). I saw Renny Harlin’s version of Die Hard: With A Vengeance (12 Rounds). And finally, I got to see what would have happened if Data saved Picard from the Borg by playing Sabotage by Beastie Boys into the Borg Hive Mind (Star Trek Beyond).

If you go to mvdbase and IMDb, then you’ll find some videos that show up in one, but are absent from the other. This video is one that isn’t in mvdbase. However, it is in IMDb, and that’s good enough for me.

We’ve had the sailboat version.

We’ve had the snow version, which is a video to keep in mind when we get to the notorious one for Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), seeing as they repeat the shot below as well as other elements from ABBA music videos.

Finally, we have the Spanish-language version of Knowing Me, Knowing You.

I wasn’t even aware this was an actual video till I came across it on IMDb. I originally chalked it up to one of the several Spanish version’s of their songs that are available through their VEVO channel.

While I do like the other two versions, Knowing Me, Knowing You is one of those songs that lends itself well to a simple performance that draws all of your attention to the song.

There are a couple of video effects thrown in, but otherwise it’s just them and the audience (you). Still, there seems to have been some direction given that you would expect from an ABBA video, where they don’t just look at the camera.

I like that they included both guitars from the song, the acoustic one as well as the electric one.

That’s all I have for this one. There better not be any more versions of Knowing Me, Knowing You out there.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

A Movie A Day #242: Bruce Lee, the Legend (1984, directed by Leonard Ho)

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

From Golden Harvest comes this tribute to their biggest star, Bruce Lee.

Starting with Lee’s birth and early film career and ending with Lee’s mysterious death and posthumous fame, Bruce Lee, The Legend is a breezy documentary about the world’s greatest martial arts star. Since it was made by Golden Harvest and designed to serve as a tribute to both Bruce’s life and his continuing fame, do not expect to hear a negative word about Bruce in Bruce Lee, The Legend. Then again, I don’t think I have ever come across anything negative about Bruce Lee. While Bruce Lee probably was not as saintly as he’s portrayed in this documentary, every thing that I’ve read about Lee indicates that there was little difference between who Lee was in real life and who Lee was in the movies.

For fans of Bruce Lee, the most interesting part of this documentary will be the clips of Bruce as a young actor, often playing juvenile delinquents in films that were never widely released in the United States or Europe. Judging from the clips shown, Lee’s movie star charisma was present even when he was a teenager. The documentary also provides details about Bruce’s father, a stage actor who was well-known for his work in what the documentary describes as being Hong Kong’s “version of vaudeville.” Of course, this documentary also contains clips from Lee’s better-known films, like Enter the Dragon, Way of the Dragon, and The Big Boss. Even in brief and out-of-context clips, Lee is always exciting to watch.

Artwork of the Day: Cats Prowl At Night

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Gerald Gregg

Music Video of the Day: The Rat by Blanck Mass (2017, dir by John Marsden)

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi! Lisa here, with today’s music video of the day. The Rat is the latest video from Blanck Mass, the solo project of Fuck Buttons’s Benjamin John Power.

In this video, Benjamin John Power stares straight at the camera while riding through the It’s A Small World ride in Disneyland. He never blinks. He never betrays any emotion whatsoever. Around the 3:24 mark, there’s suddenly a brief shot of a bunch of maggots. All in all, it’s rather disconcerting but I really wouldn’t expect anything less from Blanck Mass.

I want to quote two possible interpretations that I’ve come across for this video. The first comes from Power himself. In a press release, Power stated:

“The video itself is a bit of fun and was filmed on a family vacation, but somehow I feel it represents discontent within a capitalist regime and a world full of sugar-coated shit.”

Meanwhile, on YouTube, Crimewaveddd offered up this reading of the video:

“we get it you’re attractive”

Personally, I think they both sound good!

Enjoy!