Yearly Archives: 2018

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 08/05/2018 – 08/11/2018

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Our foray into the wonders of Elijah Brubaker’s Reich these past few weeks has put paid to the idea that these Weekly Reading Round-Ups are all about looking at new stuff that was actually released during the seven-day span in question, but I don’t think we missed much. We would, however, be missing out on a smattering of noteworthy first issues this time out if we set our view-finders backwards, so let’s not do that this time, shall we? Stuff worth talking about new on comic book shelves this past Wednesday, then, listed in order of how well I liked ’em —

Who better than a delightfully cantankerous old man to weave a tale of the decidedly un-delightful, but definitely cantankerous, old men, as well as the constantly put-upon young men whose labors they exploited, that built this benighted comic book industry we all know, love, and loathe…

View original post 1,162 more words

Music Video of the Day: Drive My Car by Breakfast Club (1988, directed by Bill Fishman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When I was doing my research for today’s music video of the day, I was sorry to discover that the 80s pop group Breakfast Club was not named after the famous John Hughes film.

Instead, they were formed in New York City in 1979 and they went through several different lineups before they signed with ZE Records.  At one time, a young Madonna was their dummer but she left the band long before they released their first (and only) album in 1987.

Breakfast Club’s biggest hit was Drive My Car, a cover of a song that had previously been made famous by The Beatles.  The cover appeared on the soundtrack of License to Drive, which is actually one of the better films to co-star Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.  It’s no Lost Boys but it is better than Dream A Little Dream and Heather Graham’s in it.

The video is the usual combination of clips from the film and scenes of the band acting crazy.  Since they were already covering a Beatles song, it made sense to go ahead and put Breakfast Club in a 1980s version of Hard Day’s Night and have them spend most of the video trying to escape their obsessed fans.  While the Beatles had to outrun their fans, Breakfast Club was lucky enough to own an invisible car.  I don’t know who edited it but this video does do a good job of integrating the scenes of the band with the clips from the film.

Things worked out better in the video than they did in real life.  Breakfast Club split up shortly after the release of License to Drive.

Pre Code Confidential #22: GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (MGM 1933)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

One of the most bizarre films of any era is GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE, a political fantasy extolling the joys of a totalitarian dictatorship in America! Produced by the independent Walter Wanger , a staunch anti-Fascist(1) , and financed by William Randolph Hearst, the left-leaning newspaper magnate(2) who served as the inspiration for CITIZEN KANE, the film shows what would happen if all the political power in Washington were consolidated in one man – and shows it to be a good thing!

Newsreel footage is interspersed with the inauguration of President Judson Hammond (Walter Huston ), newly elected at the height of the Depression. Hammond is a typically phony, glad-handing politician, more concerned in towing the party line and maintaining the status quo than helping the people that elected him. Though he promises peace and prosperity, Hammond tells the press he regards the problems of unemployment, homelessness, and rampant crime…

View original post 835 more words

Music Video of the Day: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith (1991, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Remember the old chat lines?

I don’t know if they’re even still around but back in the late 80s and the 90s, they were the only thing advertised on TV after midnight.  All you had to do was dial the number and then, for only three dollars a minute, you could get a custom psychic reading or hear Ice Cube’s thought of the day.

The most popular chat lines were the ones that were advertised as being used by “hot singles waiting to talk to you!”  The commercials all featured insanely hot girls in their underwear, usually lying in bed with a landline phone.  Common sense should have told everyone that anyone that hot wasn’t sitting at home on Friday night, waiting to hear from some teenager in Canton.  Still, 1-800 numbers were a big business back in the day.  They were the original chat rooms.

They weren’t cheap, either.  “3.99 for the first minute, 0.99 for each additional minute.”  Those minutes added up fast, especially when the operators had been trained to draw things out.  For some people, it was worth it for the chance to fantasize about the voice at the other end of the line.

The video for Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion centers around that fantasy.  On one end, the teenager from Canton who says he’s an entertainment lawyer.  On the other end, his fantasy.  In the middle of it all is Aerosmith, performing at an old warehouse in the Charleston Navy Yards.

Sweet Emotion is one of Aerosmith’s most enduring songs.  Some fans think that the song was inspired by the band’s mutual dislike of Joe Perry’s then-wife but Steve Tyler has said that it was actually inspired by a feud between the wives of both Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton.  The song was a big hit when it was originally released in 1975 and then it was an even bigger hit when it was re-released in 1991.

Confessions of a TV Addict #9: The Amazing Sci-Fi Worlds of Irwin Allen Pt. 2

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Last week, I did an overview of producer Irwin Allen’s first two sci-fi shows, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and LOST IN SPACE. Today, Allen’s final shows in the quartet, THE TIME TUNNEL and LAND OF THE GIANTS! 

Where Allen’s LOST IN SPACE was juvenile fantasy, his next series THE TIME TUNNEL (ABC, 1966-67) took a more serious tone. Scientists Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert ) and Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren), working on the top-secret government Project Tic-Toc, become “lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages… (and) tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time” (at least according to the opening narration!). Project director Lt. Gen. Kirk (Whit Bissell ), ‘electrobiologist’ Dr. Ann McGregor (Lee Meriwether), and electronic genius Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba) track the pair through those “infinite corridors” and try to assist in navigating them…

View original post 696 more words

Music Video of the Day: I’m Free by The Soup Dragons (1990, directed by ?????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day is for the song I’m Free, which was covered by the Scottish group, The Soup Dragons, in 1990.

That’s right, this is a cover.  I’m Free was originally recorded by The Rolling Stones in 1965 and was the last track on the Out Of Our Heads album.  To quote Rolling Stone Magazine, the original song was a “folk rocker.”  The version by the Soup Dragons was much more psychedelic and featured a verse from Jamaican reggae performer, Junior Reid.  I’m Free became the band’s biggest hit, reaching the number 2 spot on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart.  You may have also heard it in the film, The World’s End.

As for the Soup Dragons, after ten years and five albums, they disbanded in 1995, though all of the members continue to make music to this day.

Blues On The Downbeat: ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (United Artists 1959)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer


Desperate men commit desperate acts, and the three protagonists of ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW are desperate indeed in this late entry in the film noir cycle. This is a powerful film that adds social commentary to the usual crime and it’s consequences plot by tainting one of the protagonists with the brush of racism. Robert Wise, who sharpened his skills in the RKO editing room, directs the film in a neo-realistic style, leaving the studio confines for the most part behind, and the result is a starkly lit film where the shadows of noir only dominate at night.

But more on Wise later… first, let’s meet our three anti-heroes. We see Earle Slater (Robert Ryan ) walking down a New York street bathed in an eerie white glow (Wise used infra-red film to achieve the effect). Slater’s a fish out of water, a transplanted Southerner drifted North, a loser and loose cannon…

View original post 665 more words

Scenes That I Love: Happy Birthday, Sam Elliott!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the 73rd birthday of the perennially underrated actor, Sam Elliott!

Sam’s been acting for longer than I’ve been alive.  He’s been in a ton of good movies and he’s given some truly iconic performances and yet, with all that in mind, he still seems to be strangely underrated.  At the very least, he deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance in last year’s The Hero.   There’s some speculation that he might get one this year for his role in A Star is Born.

With all that said, most people seem to know Sam Elliott best for playing The Stranger in 1998’s The Big Lebowski.  So, with that in mind, here’s a scene I love featuring Sam Elliott from that very film!

Sam Elliott abides.