Star Vehicle: Burt Reynolds in WHITE LIGHTNING (United Artists 1973)

Posted on January 17, 2017 by gary loggins

Burt Reynolds labored for years in the Hollywood mines, starring in some ill-fated TV series (his biggest success on the small screen was a three-year run in a supporting role on GUNSMOKE) and movies (nonsense like SHARK! and SKULLDUGGERY) before hitting it big in John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE. Suddenly, the journeyman actor was a hot property (posing butt-naked as a centerfold for COSMOPOLITAN didn’t hurt, either!), and studios were scurrying to sign him on to their projects. WHITE LIGHTNING was geared to the Southern drive-in crowd, but Reynolds’ new-found popularity, along with the film’s anti-authority stance, made it a success across the nation.

WHITE LIGHTNING takes place in rural Arkansas, and Gator McKluskey (Burt) is doing a stretch in Federal prison for running moonshine. His cousin visits and tells Gator his younger brother Donnie was murdered by Sheriff J.C. Connors, the crooked boss of Bogan County. A raging Gator tries to escape, but is immediately caught, so he…

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Music Video of the Day: Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush (1985, dir. David Garfath)

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Diane Grey choreographed the video and Michael Hervieu is the other dancer. It’s pretty self-explanatory. It has do with relationships, exchanging places with your lover, etc. There are other blog entries out there that do good jobs talking about it–even in Kate’s own words. I will make special mention that it is not about exchanging places with God regardless of the crucifixion bit. Hopefully this blog entry is still up because it does a good job summarizing it.

I love it because it is simple, beautiful, and does a nice Twilight Zone type thing to have the lovers pulled apart near the end. Also, it stands out among other videos of the time. I’m not saying that it makes it any better, but sometimes it is nice to do something different, and I think that fits very well with Kate Bush.

The blog I linked to above says that MTV didn’t want to air this back then. That kind of surprises me. I get that it’s no Babooshka or Army Dreamers. However, Kate Bush is the first artist I’ve come across where when I recently bought two of her albums, I felt like I was only getting half the picture. The song Cloudbusting isn’t the same on its own. I would think that from MTV’s perspective, they would want something that people would come back to see rather than simply watch, buy the record, and move on. I know there are other circumstances, but I find it a little difficult to wrap my head around the idea that a lack of lip-syncing would be so much of an issue that they preferred to air a live performance of this song.

Director David Garfath has done camerawork on some notable films such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), An American Werewolf In London (1981), and Brazil (1985).

Enjoy!

Artwork of the Day: Killinger

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

Artist Unknown

A Movie A Day #16: Boycott (2001, directed by Clark Johnson)

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

boycott

Originally made for HBO, Boycott is one of the best and, unfortunately, least-known films made about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boycott tells the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, starting with the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to sit in the back of the bus to the eventual integration of the Montgomery public transportation system. Clark Johnson directs Boycott in a semi-documentary, handheld style, which adds an immediacy to the oft-told story.

Boycott focuses on the role that 24 year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. (played by Jeffrey Wright) played as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how the boycott’s success turned King into a national figure. Jeffrey Wright does a great job playing the young King and it’s interesting to watch as the initially uncertain King finds both his voice and his strength as a leader. Boycott works as a good companion piece to Selma, not the least because Carmen Ejogo plays Coretta Scott King in both of them.

Also giving a noteworthy performances are Terrence Howard as King’s second-in-command, Ralph Abernathy and Erik Dellums in the role of Bayard Rustin, who was one of King’s closest confidants but, because he was gay, was often left outside of the movement’s inner circle. Before they worked together on Boycott, Dellums, the son of former U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, co-starred with Clark Johnson on Homicide: Life on the Street.

Boycott is a tribute to not just Martin Luther King but also the entire civil rights movement.

Artist Profile: John Hilkert

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

I haven’t been able to find much information on illustrator John Hilkert but I like his work. Below are some pulp illustrations that he did in the 1940s for magazines like 10 Detective Aces, Surefire Detective, and 10 Story Detective.

Artwork of the Day: Spirit of a Leader

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

By David Blancas

Music Video of the Day: Them Heavy People by Kate Bush (1978, dir. Keith MacMillan)

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I was originally planning on doing five political music videos this week. Then I decided I’d feature some beautiful things rather than things that remind people of fear and uncertainty. They’ll be plenty of other days to spotlight things like America by Kurtis Blow and the obscure Schizophrenic Breakdown by Chainmale. With that in mind, I am doing a video from each decade of Kate Bush’s career from the 1970s to the 2010s.

I know that Wow and Wuthering Heights are more well-known early Kate Bush videos, but I thought this one was appropriate for MLK Jr. Day that also happens to be Religious Freedom Day since the song is about having a desire to learn as much as possible. Also, it’s a pretty good introduction to what you can expect from Kate Bush: beautiful music videos, meaningful/heavy lyrics, interpretive dance/dancing, and being goofy at times.

She’s also known for her live performances, which makes sense considering videos like this one. There’s a video for Wow that is made up of a compilation of live performances, and you can see the two dancers from this video all over it. I remember reading someone’s comment somewhere that she worked with the same dancers for decades. Don’t quote me on that. However, it wouldn’t surprise me.

A little Easter Egg to look for is that Kate didn’t have her armpits shaved in this video. I only bring that up since a few years later Nena would get written up in British tabloids when she didn’t have them shaved during a tour in the UK.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #15: Special Bulletin (1983, directed by Ed Zwick)

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

“We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a special report…”

Led by veteran anchor John Woodley, the RBS news team is providing continuing coverage of a developing crisis in Charleston, South Carolina, where terrorists are holding several members of the coast guard, a local new reporter, and his cameraman hostage on a small tugboat. These are not typical terrorists, though. Two of them are nuclear scientists. One of them is a social worker. Another one is a nationally-renowned poet. The final terrorist is a former banker robber who was just recently released from prison. This unlikely group has only two demands: that the U.S. government hand over every single nuclear trigger device at the U.S. Naval Base and that RBS give them a live television feed so that they can explain their actions to the nation. If either of those demands are not met, a nuclear bomb will be detonated and will destroy Charleston.

This made-for-TV movie was shot on video tape, to specifically make it look like an actual news broadcast. Though much of the movie seems dated when compared to today’s slick, 24-hour media circus, Special Bulletin was convincing enough that, when it was originally broadcast in 1983, it caused a mini-panic among viewers who missed the opening disclaimer:

Because the movie deals with the threat of nuclear terrorism instead of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war, it still feels relevant in a way that many of the atomic disaster films of the 1980s do not. Beyond making an anti-nuclear statement, Special Bulletin is also a critical look at how the news media sensationalizes every crisis, with the RBS news team going from smug complacency to outright horror as the situation continues to deteriorate. David Clennon and David Rasche are memorable as the two most outspoken of the terrorists and Ed Flanders is perfectly cast as a veteran news anchor struggling to maintain control in the middle of an uncontrollable situation. Special Bulletin won an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Special and can be currently be found on YouTube.

Keep an eye out for Michael Madsen, who shows up 57 minutes in and gets the movie’s best line: “That guy’s a total psycho ward.”