Yearly Archives: 2017

Music Video Of The Day: Acceptable in the 80s by Calvin Harris (2007, directed by Woof Wan-Bau)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Lisa here with today’s music video of the day!

Today’s video is Calvin Harris’s Acceptable In The 80s.  This song, which appeared on I Created Disco, was Calvin’s first hit, reaching the number 10 position on the UK Singles Chart.  I like the song and I like the video, which features big hair, bright colors, and some memorably weird imagery that I’m not even going to try to interpret.

“It was acceptable at the time…”

Hmmm, that’s something we’ve all been hearing a lot this year.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #316: 52 Pick-Up (1986, directed by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a businessman who has money, a beautiful wife named Barbara (Ann-Margaret), a sexy mistress named Cini (Kelly Preston), and a shitload of trouble.  He is approached by Alan Raimey (John Glover) and informed that there is a sex tape of him and his mistress.  Alan demands $105,000 to destroy the tape.  When Harry refuses to pay, Alan and his partners (Clarence Williams III and Robert Trebor) show up with a new tape, this one framing Harry for the murder of Cini.  They also make a new demand: $105,000 a year or else they will release the tape.  Can Harry beat Alan at his own game without harming his wife’s political ambitions?

Based on a novel by the great Elmore Leonard and directed by John Frankenheimer, 52 Pick-Up is one of the best films to ever come out of the Cannon Film Group.  Though it may not be as well-known as some of his other films (like The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds, Black Sunday, and Ronin), 52 Pick-Up shows why Frankenheimer was considered to be one of the masters of the thriller genre.  52 Pick-Up is a stylish, fast-paced, and violent thriller.  John Glover is memorably sleazy as the repellent Alan and the often underrated Roy Scheider does an excellent job of portraying Harry as a man who starts out smugly complacent and then becomes increasingly desperate as the story play out.

One final note: This movie was actually Cannon’s second attempt to turn Elmore Leonard’s novel to the big screen.  The first attempt was The Ambassador, which ultimately had little to do with Leonard’s original story.  Avoid The Ambassador but see 52 Pick-Up.

Artwork of the Day: The Bonnie Parker Story

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

This poster is for the 1958 film, The Bonnie Parker Story.  That’s right — this film predates the better known Bonnie and Clyde by about 9 years.  Dorothy Provine was cast in the title role and, judging from this poster, it looks like her Bonnie was even more dangerous than Faye Dunaway’s!  Apparently, in this film (which I haven’t seen yet), Clyde was renamed Guy.

(Bonnie and Guy doesn’t quite have the right ring to it, does it?)

Anyway, it’s a good poster, one that is direct and in your face.  That’s something I always appreciate about any film poster.  Plus, there’s that tag line!

Cigar smoking hellcat of the roaring twenties!

Hell yeah!  Now that’s a tag line!

Music Video of the Day: I Took A Pill In Ibiza (SeeB Remix) by Mike Posner (2016, directed by Jon Jon Augustavo)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What happens when you take a pill in Ibiza?  Well, to start with, you get a big head and you start to resemble papier-mâché…

There’s actually two videos of this song.  There’s a video for the original version, which is largely acoustic and kind of boring, as acoustic songs often are.  And then there’s this video, which is for SeeB’s remix of the song.  The remix is definitely the superior version, though many people refuse to admit it.

(There’s a tyranny of thought that the acoustic version of a song is going to superior to any other version.  It’s simply not true.  Acoustic often equals boring.  At the height of American Idol, there was a rival singing competition called The One, where the whole gimmick was that every performance was acoustic.  Only four episodes aired and every single one of them was painful to watch.)

Anyway, as for the song, it’s very much autobiographical.  Yes, Mike Posner actually did take a pill in Ibiza and yes, he actually was trying to impress Avicii.  In much the same way that Turkish tour guides still tell people that Midnight Express was not a fair representation of the Turkish legal system, tourism official in Ibiza have repeatedly complained that the song’s popularity has led everyone to assume that Ibiza is some place where you only go to get high.

Personally, I’ve never been to Ibiza but I did once take a pill in Capri and that was quite a night.

Anyway, enjoy!

Stranger Things, S2 Ep6- The Spy; Steve’s Redemption, Nancy is just terrible…again

Posted on by casewright

ST2

Cold Open: E-Will is in agony, Hop is getting a rough shower, and Steve becomes a hero (that can totally do better than Nancy- seriously Mullet-Guy)!

Steve enters the storm cellar and finds …. nothing but Dart’s skin.  It’s big now!

The Government shows up at Joyce’s Casa De Crazy and takes a bunch of polaroids.

Nancy and Creeper are prepping tapes of Reiser incriminating himself and they end up having sex.  Yep, they do it with the prodding of a creepy alcoholic in a bunker…. really.

Reiser shows Hop that the upside down has grown.

If you feel like this review is frenetic, it really reflects the story.  It was really terrible this episode.  It bounced around like a cocaine addicted superball, but with a ton of corny heart to heart moments that made me seriously root for the Demagorgon and the Upside Down to win.

E-Will has difficulty recognizing people or acting.  It really seems like both to me.  In any case, he emotes that burning the vines hurt “It” and made the Shadowmonster angry.  No one thinks that means Will has been compromised because like every episode this season the characters took stupid pills off camera.

Steve and Dustin have a long heart to heart on railroad tracks with meat to lure Dart to his death.  It’s like “Stand By Me”, but boring.  I’m being a little cruel here, but they deserve it.  Steve is showing some pretty good acting these scenes and his character moves to pure hero, which is great, but the entire flow of the episode needs a page 1 re-write.

Hop gets outside and tries to talk to El, but his voice is to any empty prison- I mean cabin.

Steve and Dustin prepare to set a trap for the Demagorgon and Lucas and Max show up to help.  When the night comes, the Demagorgon approaches, but isn’t enticed by the ground chuck.  Therefore, Steve uses himself as bait.  He’s officially a hero! I really thought they might kill him off here because he’d been humanized for so long.  Just as Steve is about to do battle, there are now THREE demagorgons!!! THREE!!! One last season was suspenseful and awesome, but this one we have a shadowboxer, I mean monster, I mean whatever.  Steve and the gang is about to be eaten, but the creatures are called off, why?

E-Will convinced the government to go after the “heart” of the vines in the evil caves, but IT’S A TRAP!!! Just as they get close, the demagorgons close in and we here the motion sensor sounds from Aliens….It’s kinda awesome and all the soldiers die.

Will tells Joyce that he’s sorry for laying a trap and that they should leave.  There are three demagorgons about to attack the government facility.  FADE TO BLACK.

See Below for a Hero:

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Finally, you may rest in peace

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Abigail Folger (1943-1969)

Wojciech Frykowski (1936-1969)

Gary Hinman (1934-1969)

Leno (1925-1969) and Rosemary (1930-1969) LaBianca

Steven Parent (1951-1969)

Jay Sebring (1933-1969)

Donald “Shorty” Shea (1933-1969)

Sharon Tate (1943-1969)

Paul Richard Polanski (unborn)

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A Movie A Day #315: That Championship Season (1982, directed by Jason Miller)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Four former high school basketball players and their coach gather for a reunion in Pennsylvania.  Twenty-five years ago, they were state champions.  Now, they are all still struggling with the legacy of that championship season.  George (Bruce Dern) is the mayor of Scranton and is in a fierce race for reelection.  Phil (Paul Sorvino) is a wealthy and corrupt businessman who is having an affair with George’s wife.  James (Stacy Keach) is a high school principal who is still struggling to come to terms with his abusive father.  James’s younger brother, Tom (Martin Sheen), is an alcoholic who can not hold down a steady job.  The Coach (Robert Mitchum) remains the Coach.  All four of the men still want his approval, even though they know that he is actually an old bigot who pushed them to cut too many corners on their way to the championship.

Though Cannon film may have been best known for producing action films with actors like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, and Michael Dudikoff, they occasionally tried to improve their image with a prestige picture like That Championship Season.  Not only is this film based on Jason Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play but Cannon also hired Miller himself to direct.  (Before Miller was brought in, That Championship Season was nearly directed by William Friedkin, who directed Miller in The Exorcist.)  While no one knew the text better than Miller, this was also his directorial debut and sometimes, his inexperience shows.  The first half of the movie does a good job of opening up the play but the second half takes place almost entirely in the Coach’s house and is very stagey, never escaping its theatrical origins.

One thing That Championship Season has going for it is an excellent cast. Dern, Sorvino, Keach, and even Sheen rarely got roles with as much depth as the ones that they got here and four of them make the best of the opportunity.  As for Robert Mitchum, he was known for being a mercurial actor but here, he gives one of the better performances of the latter half of his career.  Because of the efforts of the ensemble, That Championship Season is one of the better Cannon prestige pictures, though Chuck Norris is still missed.

Artwork of the Day: Pay or Die

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi everyone!  Usually, my sister — the Dazzling Erin Nicole — tracks down and selects the images that we feature in our Artwork of the Day feature.  However, Erin is taking the week off — and November 24th is not only the day after Thanksgiving but her birthday as well!, so be sure to wish her a happy one! — so, for the next few days, I’ll be selecting our artwork of the day! — Lisa Marie)

Look at those bricks fly!

Listen, I really can’t tell you a thing about whether or not Pay or Die is a good movie or not.  All I know is that the film was released in 1979, it was rated R, and this was the poster.  It’s a tremendously effective poster, though.  I don’t know if it’s a fair representation of what happens in the movie, of course.  But I hope it is.  I hope there’s at least one scene featuring two men and a woman kicking the Hell out of a brick wall.

Posters like this are actually a huge reason why I enjoy researching grindhouse films.  Just looking at it is enough to inspire you to create your own movie in your head.  Why are they kicking through the wall?  Why are they even working together?  Why is the movie called Pay or Die?  Do they own someone money?  Does someone owe them money?  Maybe they’re kicking through the wall of a bank.  The possibilities are endless!

I will say this, though.  If I ever did use my bare hands to smash through a brick wall, I’d probably try to make sure that my boobs were a little better protected when I did it.  Seriously, I imagine breaking through a wall, especially one made of bricks, is not as safe as they make it look in the movies.  Considering all of the kicking that appears to be involved, I would also probably not wear open-toed sandals while doing it either.  That just seems like common sense to me.

Music Video Of The Day: Porcelain by Moby (2000, dir by Jonas Åkerlund]

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi everyone!  Lisa here, with today’s music video of the day!

Ironically, when Moby first recorded Porcelain, he felt that it was such a weak song that he didn’t even want to release it.  According to an interview that he gave to Billboard, the song was inspired by a real-life relationship, one that did not end well.  Perhaps the subject matter was too personal for him to hear the song objectively but Moby had to literally be talked into including Porcelain on Play.

Of course, it went on to become one of his signature songs, perhaps the song for which he will always be remembered.

How many movies and advertisements have featured Porcelain?  I’ve lost track.  Danny Boyle made good use of it in The Beach.  I remember I once even heard it playing in the background of a commercial for a local jewelry store.

As for the video, it’s simple but effective. It was directed by Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund, who directed his first video in 1988 and is still directing them today.

Enjoy!

TV Review: The Walking Dead 8.5 “The Big Scary U” (dir by Michael Strazemis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Could it be that I just watched a Negan-centric episode of The Walking Dead that wasn’t terrible?

It’s true!  I’ll admit that I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw that tonight’s episode was going to be about Negan and the Saviors.  Last season, though there were a few exceptions (particularly the episode where Eugene was first taken to the Sanctuary), the Savior episodes were my least favorite.  But tonight’s episode was actually pretty good.

That doesn’t mean that it was great, of course.  To be honest, I’m not totally sure that you could ever have a truly great Savior episode.  Whenever I watch the Saviors, I always find myself thinking about The Others on Lost.  One reason why the Others were such a fascinating group was because they weren’t just one-dimensional villains.  Whenever one of the Others would say something like, “We’re the good guys,” you could actually see their point.  There’s never been that type of ambiguity when it comes to the Saviors.  Negan is an asshole.  He has chosen to surround himself with other assholes.  They were all probably assholes before the zombie apocalypse and they’ll continue to be assholes until Sanctuary is eventually overrun by walkers.

With all that in mind though, this was still a pretty good episode.  If nothing else, this episode made it a little bit clearer why people started following Negan in the first place.  Even when Negan was trapped in the trailer with Father Gabriel, he did not allow himself to show any fear.  Instead, he was actually able to persuade Gabriel to make a run with him for the Sanctuary.  Even his confession to Gabriel about his first wife mostly served to reveal that Negan is a master manipulator.  He shared just enough to keep Gabriel intrigued.  After spending almost all of previous season bellowing, Jeffrey Dean Morgan dialed things back just enough to make Negan interesting again.  For that matter, tonight’s episode finally gave Seth Gilliam to show what he’s capable of when he’s actually given a decent line or two.

In the trailer, Negan told Gabriel that the Saviors would undoubtedly end up killing each other if they thought he was dead.  That may have sounded arrogant at the time but it quickly turned out that Negan was correct.  I think that’s also going to be the Saviors’s downfall.  By literally setting himself up as the strongest man in the Sanctuary, Negan has also ensured that the Saviors are lost without his presence and direction.  While all of his lieutenants may go out of their way to imitate Negan’s style, none of them have his leadership skills.  It doesn’t matter how much Simon and Regina insist otherwise.  They may say “I am Negan,” but everyone know that they’re not.  That said, Negan’s sudden appearance after everyone had assumed he was dead will probably leave him in an even more powerful position.  All messiahs return from the dead and Negan even returned with a man of God!

As for the rest of the episode, I didn’t really get the whole point of Rick/Darryl fight.  (It did, of course, remind us of the difference between Rick and Negan.  Rick forgave Darryl, something Negan would view as being a sign of weakness.)  Josh McDermitt is obviously having a blast as Eugene.  Eugene may be a traitor but McDermitt’s performance still makes me smile every week.  And then there was weaselly Gregory, of course.  I think we’re all ready to see a bunch of walkers pounce on Gregory.

As I watched tonight’s episode, I found myself making a few more predictions about the rest of season 8:

  1. There’s no way that Gabriel is still going to be alive at the end of this season.  He is so being set up for martyrdom.
  2. If they get Dr. Carter back to Hilltop, does that mean that Maggie will finally have her baby?
  3. Judging from the flashback/flashforward structure of this season (and the fact that they’re going to have to explain why Carl no longer looks like he’s 13 years old), I’m going to guess that there will be a considerable time jump between season 8 and season 9.  Either that or Zombie Carl’s going to show at some point soon…

As always, we’ll see what happens!