Smile When You Say That: Randolph Scott in BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE (Columbia 1958)

Posted on August 22, 2018 by gary loggins

The usually stoic Randolph Scott gets to show a sense of humor in BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE, his fourth collaboration with director Budd Boetticher. The humor comes from Burt Kennedy’s script, who did an uncredited rewrite of Charles Lang’s original, foreshadowing his own, later comic Westerns. The result is a good (not great) little film that’s not up to other Scott/Boetticher teamings , but still a gun notch above average.

This one finds Scott as the title character, crossing the border from Mexico to the unfriendly Agry Town, where it seems everyone’s an Agry, and they don’t cotton to strangers. Buchanan just wants to make a pit stop on his way back to West Texas, get himself a nice steak, a bottle of whiskey, and a good night’s sleep. But he runs into trouble at the saloon with young Roy Agry, who is gunned down by Juan de la Vega. Apparently…

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Guilty Pleasure No. 38: Shipping Wars

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you remember Shipping Wars?

It’s okay if you don’t. I have to admit that, up until yesterday, I had pretty much forgotten about it. Shipping Wars was a reality show that aired, for three years, on A&E. From 2012 to 2015, the show followed independent contractors as they transported various weird things across America. It was produced by the same people who did Storage Wars and, like that show, a good deal of emphasis was put on the various contractors competing against each other to get the biggest contracts and secure the most profitable paydays. As I said, I had pretty much forgotten about the show until yesterday. That’s when I came across a Shipping Wars marathon on the FYI channel and I was immediately reminded of just how addictive this stupid show could be.

A typical episode of Shipping Wars would open with all of the shippers (as they were called) hanging out in their trucks and staring at their laptops. All of them competed for shipments in timed auctions held on uShip.com. (Basically, the entire show was a commercial for uShip but I’m too much of a capitalist to care.) Typically, each episode featured two auctions. Once the shipper had won their auction, it was then up to them to transport their cargo to a new location without destroying it or arriving late. That may sound simple enough but it was rare that anyone managed to pull of either one of those requirements. That can only mean that it’s either really difficult to transport stuff or that all of the shipper on Shipping Wars were amazingly incompetent.

Of course, the camera crew would follow each shipper as they made their journey. The shippers who did not win the auction would randomly pop up to offer up sarcastic commentary on how their rival was doing. The commentary was notable for how thoroughly petty it often got. For instance, if a shipper got caught in a rain storm, you could just bet that someone would remark, “It looks like your approval rating’s about to go underwater.” If a truck got a flat tire, the commentary would usually be something like, “Way to check your tires before getting out on the road, dumbass!” What they shippers lacked in wit, they made up for in pure spite.

Spite defined most episodes of Shipping Wars. One of the remarkable things about that show is that absolutely no one ever appeared to be in a good mood. It wasn’t just the shippers who seemed to be terminally annoyed. The people shipping the stuff often seemed to have an attitude. The people who received the stuff almost always turned out to be jerks who tried to get out of paying the full amount that they had agreed to pay. And the shippers themselves were always in a thoroughly crappy mood. Roy Gabler, one of the most prominent of the shippers, was infamous for referring to almost everyone he met as being an idiot. Shipping Wars presents a portrait of America where everyone has a chip on their shoulder and absolutely no one ever bothers to say thank you. Since I hate the forced sentimentality of most reality shows, I’ve always appreciated the fact that literally everyone in Shipping Wars was just out for themselves.

The other fun thing about Shipping Wars was seeing some of the things that needed to be transported. One of my favorite episodes featured a wedding cake that was driven across country in an unrefrigerated trailer. Needless to say, the cake did not survive the trip. The previously mentioned Roy Gabler had an affinity for transporting weird things, like classic movie props and, in one episode, a water tower. Nothing fazed Roy. No matter what he was transporting, he was always equally annoyed.

Unfortunately, Roy died shortly before the start of what would be the show’s last season. Shipping Wars never recovered from the loss of Roy’s perpetually annoyed tone of voice and it was canceled in 2015. As I discovered last night, you can see reruns on FYI. Or maybe you can just go on uShip and ask if anyone’s willing to move a cursed house from Texas to Vermont.

That should get their attention!

(For the record, the above clip is a parody but it still perfectly captures the feeling of Shipping Wars.)

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Artwork of the Day: Angel of Gaiety (by Robert Maguire)

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Dazzling Erin

by Robert Maguire

Music Video of the Day: Tainted by Neal Coty (1997, directed by ????)

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Like yesterday’s selection, today’s music video of the day was filmed on the Block, Baltimore’s notorious red light district.

Neal Coty, who hails from Thurmont, Maryland, makes good use of The Block in this video for his song, Tainted. Among the clubs highlighted are two mainstays of the Block, the Circus Bar and the 2 O’Clock Club.

Back in the day, both establishments were considered to be upscale gentlemen’s clubs. Blaze Starr got her starts dancing at the 2 O’Clock Club. Meanwhile, in 1961, the Circus Bar was featured in an episode of Route 66. Though both clubs have gone through several changes in management over the past few years, both the Circus and 2 O’Clock remain open to this day.

As for Neal Coty, he’s also still active. Along with performing his own music, Coty has also co-written songs for Mark Chesnutt , James Wesley, Craig Morgan, Blake Shelton, Flynnville Train, and Heartland.

Alex Graham’s “Angloid” : Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Wallflower

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Say what you will for Alex Graham — and it better be good, or you’ll answer to me — she’s nothing if not absolutely dedicated to her work.

Consider the single-minded determination with which she pursued getting her first long-form graphic novel, Angloid, recently unleashed on an undeserving world from Kilgore Books, to the point it’s at now : she serialized roughly half of the installments that make up the whole of the volume in her self-published comics ‘zine, the always-staggering Cosmic BE-ING; concurrently released the other half as a series of stand-alone comics; collected and published the entirety under her own auspices (not to mention out of her own pocket); and then got herself a “proper” publisher and re-released the whole thing complete with a snazzy photo cover of a clay sculpture she craeted just for the occasion.

Whew! Did you follow all that? Would you have the…

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Artwork of the Day: The Dead Man’s Brother (Artist Unknown)

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Dazzling Erin

Artist Unknown

Music Video of the Day: Hold On To The Night by Bootcamp (1981, directed by ????)

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

They may be largely forgotten today but Baltimore’s own Bootcamp was one of the first bands to appear on MTV. Their video for Hold On To The Night was the 42nd video to ever be shown on MTV and appropriately it was filmed in Baltimore’s version of 42nd Street, The Block.

As you can see in this video, The Block was Baltimore’s red light district. In the 1940s, it was famous for its burlesque houses and, during World War II, many a soldier spent his last night before shipping out visiting the Block. It was here that Blaze Starr got her start. By the 1950s, The Block’s burlesque houses had been replaced by sex shops and strip clubs. The fact that Baltimore’s Police Headquarters sat at the east end of The Block didn’t keep it from becoming notorious as a center of prostitution, drug dealing, and general seediness. The story was that the police, realizing they could never stop either the drug or the sex trade, instead just tried to contain them to one section of the city. While that may or may not have been true, I always wondered if the Hamsterdam storyline in the 3rd season of The Wire was inspired by The Block.

Over the years, the Block has shrunk. Now, it’s only two blocks long and it’s best known for being home to a few strip clubs. The Gayety Theater, which is heavily featured in this video, burned down in 2010. Arson is suspected.

As for Bootcamp, they were briefly popular in the early 80s, playing with bands like The Tubes, Squeeze, The B-52’s and Split Enz, before breaking up in 1984.

Artist Profile: Henry Fox

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Dazzling Erin

Who was Henry Fox?

There isn’t much biographical information available about this artist but, because he was on the few cover artists to regularly sign his work, he is better known than some of his contemporaries. It appears that Fox began his career in 1952 and was active throughout the 60s but that is all the information that I could find.

Luckily, Fox’s work can speak for itself:

Let’s Talk About The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (dir by Anthony C. Ferrante)

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday was Sharknado Day.

What is Sharknado Day? If you have to ask, you’ll never understand. Sharknado Day is the day that the latest chapter in The Asylum’s Sharknado franchise premieres on SyFy. That’s the day when people like me cause twitter to go over capacity tweeting about the film. That’s the day good people all across America try to count the number of celebrity cameos while also trying to keep track of all of the homages and references to past movies that are always waiting to be found in every Sharknado Film. Yesterday was the sixth Sharknado Day since 2013 and, if we’re to believe our friends at The Asylum, it was also the last Sharknado Day.

Is it true? Was The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time truly the final Sharknado? Perhaps. But somehow, I have a feeling that the flying sharks will return someday. Critics have always underestimated the production savvy of The Asylum and I wouldn’t be shocked if, after a year or two of nostalgia, we saw Sharknado 7: A New Beginning.

But if The Last Sharknado was truly the final Sharknado, then it can be said that the franchise truly went out on a high note.

The plot — well, usually, the conventional wisdom is that the plot of a Sharknado movie really doesn’t matter. Usually, it’s assumed that all a Sharknado film needs is a lot of shark mayhem and snarky humor. And that’s true, to an extent. And yet, I still found myself getting caught up in The Last Sharknado‘s storyline. It all deals with Fin (Ian Ziering), April (Tara Reid), the head of a robot version of April (again, Tara Reid), Nova (Cassandra Scerbo), and Skye (Vivica A. Fox) traveling through time, hopping from period to period. Fin and April’s goal is to stop the first Sharknado and to save the life of their son, Gil. Nova wants to save the life of her grandfather, even though that might change history to the extent that she would never become a great shark hunter. As for the robot head … well, she develops an agenda of her own, one that really has to be seen to be believed.

The film has a lot of time travel and, of course, the journey from period to period allows for several celebrity cameos. When Fin ends up in Arthurian Britain, Neil deGrasse Tyson pops up as Merlin. During the Revolutionary War, a somewhat sarcastic General Washington is played by Darrell Hammond. Dee Snider plays a sheriff in the old west. Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott show on the beach in the 60s. Touchingly, the film even finds a way to include the late John Heard in the action. (Heard played a key supporting role in the first Sharknado.) I’m a history nerd, so I enjoyed all of the time travel. I especially enjoyed the film’s portrayal of Benjamin Franklin as a rather bitchy eccentric, largely because it’s often forgotten that Franklin was, in real life, a bit of a bitchy eccentric.

(Add to that, how can you resist a film the features both dinosaurs and flying sharks?)

The film takes a surprisingly dark turn during the second hour, as Fin and Skye spend some time in a dystopian future and Nova tries to change history by saving her grandfather’s life. When Fin points out that doing so will change history and that, for Nova to become a great shark hunter, her grandfather has to die, Nova calls him out for being self-centered. To their credit, both Cassie Scerbo and Ian Ziering play the argument totally straight and both give heartfelt performances. Amid all of the comedy and the shark-related mayhem, the film develops a real heart.

That heart is at the center of The Last Sharknado. To a large extent, the sharks are superfluous. They’re carnivorous MacGuffins. Instead, the film is about celebrating not only the bonds between Fin, April, Nova, and all of their friends but also the bond that’s been developed between the characters and those of us who have watched them over the course of six films. Towards the end of the film, when Fin talks about what his friends and family mean to him, it’s clear that he’s also speaking for the filmmakers. Just as Fin thanks his friends for sticking with him, the filmmakers take the time to thank the audience for sticking with them. It was a heartfelt scene and it was the perfect way to end The Last Sharknado.

To those who do not celebrate Sharknado Day, it may seem strange to say that I got emotional while watching the final scene of The Last Sharknado on Sunday night. Then again, is it any stranger than the idea of a franchise about a bunch of sharks flying through the air, spinning around in a funnel, becoming a major pop cultural milestone?

It’s a strange world and we’re all the better for it.