Yearly Archives: 2018

Music Video of the Day: Our House by Madness (1982, directed by Dave Robinson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are many houses featured in the music video for Madness’s Our House.  While the song is about the day-to-day life of the British working class, the video still offers up glimpses of the Playboy Mansion and Buckingham Palace.  However, most of the video was filmed at a terrace house in northwest London.

This song is often mistakenly referred to as being a one-hit wonder.  While it may be the band’s best-known and most popular song in the United States, it’s just one of the many hits that Madness had in the UK.  First formed in 1976 and still together (though they did temporarily break-up for 6 years, from 1986 to 1992), Madness has had 15 singles reach the UK top ten, one UK number one single, and two numbers ones in Ireland.  Over the course of the 80s, Madness spent a record 214 weeks on the UK singles charts.

This video was directed by David Robinson, who directed several other videos for Madness.  He also directed videos for Robert Plant, The Belle Stars, Robert Palmer, and Tracey Ullman.

 

Lisa’s Week In Review: 9/17/18 — 9/23/18

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

September’s nearly over!  It rained all weekend and it’s supposed to rain all week but the important thing is that it’s nearly October and almost time for our annual horrorthon!  This upcoming week is going to be all about getting ready to make this the greatest October ever!

Here’s what I did this week:

Movies I Watched:

  1. Adrift (2018)
  2. The Best Man (1964)
  3. Bits and Pieces (1985)
  4. Cutthroat Island (1995)
  5. Death Wish 3 (1985)
  6. Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)
  7. Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)
  8. First Reformed (2018)
  9. In the Blink Of An Eye (2009)
  10. The Island (1979)
  11. Life Itself (2018)
  12. Long Lost Daughter (2018)
  13. Marty (1955)
  14. No One Would Tell (2018)
  15. Ocean’s 8 (2018)
  16. One Night With The King (2006)
  17. Under the Electric Sky (2014)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. American Pickers
  2. American Horror Story
  3. America’s Dumbest Criminals
  4. Bar Rescue
  5. Barter Kings
  6. Better Call Saul
  7. Big Brother 20
  8. Big Brother After Dark
  9. Castaway
  10. Dance Moms
  11. Degrassi
  12. The Deuce
  13. Doctor Phil
  14. Face the Truth
  15. Fear the Walking Dead
  16. I Dream of Jeannie
  17. I Feel Bad
  18. Inside the Manson Cult: The Lost Tapes
  19. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
  20. King of the Hill
  21. LAPD: Life on the Beat
  22. Look Who’s Stalking
  23. Masterchef
  24. Murder by Numbers
  25. My Crazy Sex
  26. Parking Wars
  27. The Purge
  28. Shipping Wars
  29. Strange Evidence
  30. The Talk
  31. Twin Peaks: The Return
  32. Young Sheldon
  33. Your Worst Nightmare

Books I Read:

  1. The Art of Horror Movies (2018) edited by Stephen Jones
  2. Carrie (1974) by Stephen King
  3. The Plot To Kill The President (1972) by Jack Pearl
  4. The Zero Factor (1980) by William Oscar Johnson, Jr.

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Above & Beyond
  2. AC Slater
  3. Afrojack
  4. Armin van Buuren
  5. ARMNHMR
  6. Avicii
  7. Big Data
  8. The Black Keys
  9. Bob Dylan
  10. Carrie Underwood
  11. Cedric Gervais
  12. The Chemical Brothers
  13. Daemonia
  14. David Bowie
  15. Dillon Francis
  16. DJ Judaa
  17. Elle King
  18. Florence + The Machine
  19. The Flying Lizards
  20. Goblin
  21. Hardwell
  22. Icona Pop
  23. Jai Wolf
  24. Jakalope
  25. Johnny Nash
  26. Kedr Livanskiy
  27. The Killers
  28. Martin Garrix
  29. Muse
  30. NGHTMRE
  31. Nine Inch Nails
  32. Phantogram
  33. Saint Motel
  34. Sleigh Bells
  35. Swedish House Mafia
  36. Tiesto
  37. Wavedash

Links From Last Week:

  1. On my sister’s photography site, she shared Commerce Tunnel, Love, Tribute, Two Trees, Sky, signs, and Creek.
  2. On my music site, I share music from Elle King, Sleigh Bells, Johnny Nash, Florence + The Machine, Bob Dylan, Kedr Livanskiy, and Nine Inch Nails.
  3. Accused Sexual Harrassers Thrived At NBC News
  4. How Michael Moore Lost His Audience
  5. Jared Leto, Class Warrior
  6. Watch an hour of deleted scenes from Blue Velvet
  7. Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: The Pleasure Garden
  8. Dan Fogelman hits back at critics of his new film, Life Itself
  9. Chevy Chase is 74, sober, and ready to work.  The problem is nobody wants to work with him.

Links From The Site:

  1. Erin shared the Shadow Covers of Jim Steranko and artwork like The Hucksters, Twilight for the Gods, The Tight Corner, Dangerous Voyage, Sea Struck, The Champion, and The Love Pirate.
  2. Gary reviewed Life Begins In College, Santa Fe Trail, Movie Crazy, and Seasons in the Sun.
  3. Jeff share videos from Motley Crue and Primus and shared his weekly trailer round-up!
  4. I shared music videos by Afrojack, Dillon Francis, The Flying Lizards, Hardwell, and Armin van Buuren.  I shared both the Emmy winners and the trailer for Mary Poppins Returns!  And I reviewed the following movies: Cutthroat Island, The Island, In The Blink of An Eye, Life Itself, and Long Lost Daughter.  You should go read all of those reviews if you haven’t yet!
  5. Ryan reviewed A Perfect Failure and Flower Power and shared his weekly reading round-up!
  6. Arleigh shared the trailers for Apostle and Captain Marvel!

Want to see what I did last week?  Click here!

Weekly Trailer Round-Up: Joker, Stan & Ollie, Ralph Breaks The Internet, The Oath, Solis, The Haunting of Hill House, The Twilight Zone

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Despite the success of Wonder Woman, DC Entertainment has still struggled when it comes to crafting a compelling cinematic universe.  The upcoming Joker is not an official part of the DCEU but that could change if the film is a success.  An origin story, Joker features Joaquin Phoenix taking on the role of the clown prince of crime.  Though it will be over a year before we see the final results, director Todd Phillips has released a teaser, showing us Phoenix in his Joker makeup.

In Stan & Ollie, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy finally get the biopic treatment, with John C. Reilly in the role of Hardy and Steve Coogan as Laurel.

Along with playing Oliver Hardy, John C. Reilly will also be returning to the role of Ralph in Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2.  The mayhem continues on November 2nd.

In The Oath, all Americans are required to sign a loyalty oath the day after Thanksgiving.  A new red band trailer for this dark comedy was released this week.

In Solis, Steven Ogg plays an astronaut who is trapped on a spacecraft that is on a collision course with the sun.  That’s not a good place to be.

Just in time for Halloween, Netflix will be reimagining The Haunting of Hill House as a ten-episode television series.  The show drops on October 12th.

Finally, The Twilight Zone is returning once again, this time under the direction of Jordan Peele.  The CBS All Access show will premiere in 2019.

Other trailers that were released this week:

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 09/16/2018 – 09/22/2018, “Now” #4 And New Minis From Brian Canini

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

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

From the best anthology comic in a decade to the best ongoing mini, this week had plenty to offer yours truly. It’s late as I write this, I’m tired, but I’m also enthused to talk comics, so let’s do just that —

I’m not sure what it is about fourth issues of anthologies, but in much the same way that Kramers Ergot #4 threw down the gauntlet and shouted “this is where comics are now, and this is where comics are going — dare you to stop us!” way back in the halcyon days of 2008, editor Eric Reynolds has assembled the very best of the best of veteran and emerging contemporary cartoonists to make much the same declaration here in 2018 with Now #4, which marks not only the (temporary?) pinnacle of this Fantagraphics series to date, but also something of a high-water mark for the anthology format in…

View original post 1,125 more words

Music Video of the Day: Jerry Was A Race Car Driver by Primus (1991, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The song may be about a drunk race car driver named Jerry and a retired fireman named Captain Pearson but the video is exhibit one of why nachos shouldn’t be left on the sidewalk.

Jerry Was A Race Car Driver was the second single to be release by Primus and it was their first song to receive heavy radio airplay.  It eventually peaked at number 23 on 1991’s Modern Rock Tracks.  Listen closely and you can hear a sample of Bill Moseley saying, “Dog will hunt!” in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

As for the video, the man buying the nachos is played by Adam Gates while the skateboarder who collides with him is Primus’s guitarist, Larry LaLonde.  The performance footage was filmed at a Primus show at Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, California while the race car footage was filmed at the Petaluma speedway.  As for the claymation figures in the nachos, they are all creatures who appeared on the cover of Primus’s Sailing the Seas of Cheese album.

Hooray for Harold Lloyd!: MOVIE CRAZY (Paramount 1932)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Harold Lloyd  made a smooth transition from silent films to talkies beginning with 1929’s WELCOME DANGER. Unlike Charlie Chaplin (who stubbornly clung to making silents until 1940), and Buster Keaton (whose MGM contract took away much of his artistic freedom), Lloyd retained both his comic visual style while integrating verbal gags in the new medium and kept control of the pictures he made. And while his popularity had begun to wane by the 1930’s, Harold Lloyd’s early talkies are definitely worth watching – because they’re flat-out funny! Case in point: 1932’s MOVIE CRAZY.

MOVIE CRAZY is one of those “Hollywood-behind-the-scenes” stories you know I love so much, so it automatically scored cool points with me! Kansas farm boy Harold Hall lives with his parents and daydreams of being a movie star. One day, he sends his picture and a letter to Planet Films exec O’Brien – only the inept Harold…

View original post 643 more words

Music Video Of The Day: Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe (1989, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

First released in 1989, the album Dr. Feelgood became and remains Mötley Crüe’s best-selling album to date.  It was also their most critically acclaimed, in no doubt due to the band’s newly found sobriety.  After years of drugs, sex, and debauchery, Dr. Feelgood was Mötley Crüe’s announcement that they could still rock even if they were sober.

Ironically, for an album that was recorded sober, the title track was about drugs.  Dr. Feelgood was about a Los Angeles drug dealer.  Nikki Sixx, who wrote the song, later told Rolling Stone that the song was based on several different drug dealers that he had done business with.  Just two years before Dr. Feelgood became a hit, Sixx had been a notorious junkie who, after a heroin overdose, was actually legally dead for two minutes before a paramedic was able to revive him with two shots of adrenaline.

Along with being a slang term for heroin, Dr. Feelgood was also the nickname of several notorious doctors.  Perhaps the most infamous Dr. Feelgood was Max Jacobson, who used to give “miracle tissue regenerator” shots to the rich and famous.  His clients included everyone from JFK to Marilyn Monroe to Humphrey Bogart.  Robert Freyman, the physician who is though to have inspired The Beatles’s Dr. Robert, was also sometimes called Dr. Feelgood.

Dr. Feelgood became Mötley Crüe’s first and, to date, only gold single in the United States.  The video follows the song’s title character as he goes from working the streets to owning a mansion.  In a repeat of what happened to Tony Montana, Dr. Feelgood’s own hubris eventually brings him down.  As for why Mötley Crüe is performing in a revival tent, it probably just looked cool.

The song spent 109 weeks on the charts after its release and it remains Mötley Crüe’s most popular single.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #195: Long Lost Daughter (dir by Christopher James Lang)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Friday night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Long Lost Daughter!

Why Was I Watching It?

First off, let me just say that, considering what the folks on the East Coast have had to deal with over the past two weeks, I feel really guilty about complaining about getting a little bit of rain in Texas.  (And it’s not really a complaint because, to be honest, I love stormy weather!)

That said, it rained all day Friday and it’s supposed to continue to rain through the weekend.  When I was driving home from work, the rain was so bad that I actually had to limit myself to 30 mph.  We’re under flash flood warning right now.  What better way to pass the time when you’re trapped inside by a storm than be watching a Lifetime movie?

What Was It About?

Cathy Rhodes (Molly Hagan) is a successful and acclaimed author of children’s books.  She’s written hundreds of stories about Mr. Poppins, a rabbit who can’t find his way home.  It’s made her a beloved figure in her small town but there are some who find Cathy and her husband (Bates Wilder) to be a little bit strange.  They whisper about how, 20 years earlier, Cathy’s 7 year-old daughter, Michelle, vanished.

Meanwhile, two new arrivals have come to town.  Jonathan (Richard Brancatisano) is an aspiring science fiction writer.  And his wife (Sofia Mattson) is going to help run the education center that Cathy has helped to fund.  It turns out that Jonathan’s wife is 27 years old and has no memory of her mother or her childhood.  And her name is …. Michelle!

Could Michelle be Cathy’s daughter?  That’s certainly what Cathy thinks and she’s willing to do anything to make sure that both her daughter and Mr. Poppins find their way home…

What Worked?

Molly Hagan may not be a household name but I can guarantee you that you would recognize her if you saw her.  She’s been in a countless number of films over the years and she is a truly great character actress.  She’s played so many different characters and she’s been totally convincing every time.  (I think her best-known recent film might be Sully, where she played one of the flight attendants who chanted, “Brace!  Brace!  Head down!  Stay down!”)  Anyway, Hagan does a great job as the Cathy Rhodes, making her both frightening and sympathetic.

Also giving a good performance was Bates Wilder, who played Cathy’s somewhat creepy husband.  Both he and Hagan keep you guessing.

Speaking of keeping you guessing, this film had an ambiguous ending that I absolutely loved.  I won’t spoil it but it was handled very well.  It’s the type of ending that I wish Lifetime would try more often.  Sometime, it’s not necessary to spell everything out.

What Did Not Work?

Could Michelle and Jonathan have been anymore unlikable?  Michelle acted like moving from the city to a small town was the equivalent of moving to a different country.  When Cathy mentioned she was making a casserole, Michelle’s smug response of, “Casserole!” was enough to make me decided that I wouldn’t ever want to know someone like Michelle in real life.

As for Jonathan … well, I lost all sympathy for him when he announced that, for him, being a writer was about business and not art.  “No one ever reads Proust anymore,” he said, at one point.  What a jerk!  Michelle, at least, kinda redeemed herself as the film progressed.  But Jonathan …. well, once a jerk, always a jerk.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Whenever Michelle got annoyed with Jonathan, I was like, “Oh my God!  I feel the exact same way!”

Lessons Learned

Don’t insult Proust.