Yearly Archives: 2018

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

Posted on 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 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan 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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Music Video of the Day: Hold On To The Night by Bootcamp (1981, directed by ????)

Posted on 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 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 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.

Music Video of the Day: Your Love by The Outfield (1986, directed by John Jopson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This is a song that I will always associate with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.  Your Love is on the Flash FM playlist.  It’s not a great song to listen to when you’re in the middle of a police chase but it is nice when you’re just stealing cars on a rainy night.

The video was shot, over the course of a day, on a soundstage in Astoria.  While the band is playing, an artist played by JoAnne Willette finger paints the cover of The Outfield’s first album, Play Deep.  Willette would later co-star on the Growing Pains spin-off, Just The Ten Of Us.  She also appeared in episodes of The Facts of Life, T. J. Hooker, Santa Barbara, Growing Pains, Melrose Place, Chicago Hope, Becker, ER, The Young and the Restless, My Sister Sam, Private Practice, and The New Adventures of Old Christine.  Among her film credits are small roles in both Welcome to 18 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.

Even though The Outfield was a British band, they never found much success in the UK.  Their popularity was almost solely centered in the U.S., where Your Love reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #7 on the Mainstream Rock chart in 1986.

Lisa’s Week In Review: 8/13/18 — 8/19/18

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dance, Shark, dance!

This was a great week!  How could it not be?  It was SyFy Shark Week, after all!

Plus, I’m currently getting things ready for October.  The site’s annual horrorthon is going to be the best yet!

Movies I Watched:

  1. 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)
  2. 3-Headed Shark Attack (2015)
  3. 5-Headed Shark Attack (2017)
  4. 6-Headed Shark Attack (2018)
  5. Bait (2012)
  6. Bermuda Tentacles (2014)
  7. Breaking the Press (2010)
  8. Dam Sharks (2016)
  9. Frenzy (2018)
  10. Ghost Shark (2013)
  11. I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)
  12. Ice Sharks (2016)
  13. The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018)
  14. Malibu Shark Attack (2009)
  15. Megalodon (2018)
  16. The Miracle Season (2018)
  17. My Little Girl Is Gone (2018)
  18. Nightmare Shark (2018)
  19. Open Water (2004)
  20. Open Water 2: Adrift (2007)
  21. Open Water 3: Cage Dive (2017)
  22. Proud Mary (2018)
  23. A Quiet Place (2018)
  24. Ready Player One (2018)
  25. Roboshark (2015)
  26. Santa Jaws (2018)
  27. Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)
  28. Sharknado (2013)
  29. Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
  30. Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)
  31. Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017)
  32. Sharktopus (2010)
  33. Shartopus vs. Pteracuda (2014)
  34. Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (2015)
  35. Swamp Shark (2011)
  36. Toxic Shark (2017)
  37. Zombie Shark (2015)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Bachelor in Paradise
  2. Bar Rescue
  3. Better Call Saul
  4. Big Brother 20
  5. Evil Lives Here
  6. Fear The Walking Dead
  7. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  8. King of the Hill
  9. Parking Wars
  10. Talking Dead

Books I Read:

  1. The Dead Man’s Kiss (1992) by Robert Weinberg
  2. Van Gogh and Music: A Symphony In Blue and Yellow (2018) by Natashca Veldhorst, translated by Diane Webb
  3. You’re On An Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir (2018) by Parker Posey

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Amy Shark
  2. Big Data
  3. Camila Cabello
  4. Carlos Rivera
  5. Coldplay
  6. Deadmau5
  7. Deftones
  8. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
  9. Imogen Heap
  10. Jake Bugg
  11. The Killers
  12. Lindsey Stirling
  13. Marta Sanchez
  14. Matthew Dear
  15. Moby
  16. Muse
  17. Neon Indian
  18. OneRepublic
  19. Tiesto
  20. The Ting Tings
  21. Victoria Beckham

Links From Last Week:

  1. On her photography site, my sister shared: The Alley Is Still There, A Piece of Something, Bricks, More Bricks, Cement, Withering, and Water Hose!
  2. On my music site, I shared songs from Victoria Beckham, Muse, Deadmau5, Marta Sanchez, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Lindsey Stirling, and Tiesto!
  3. Inside the Left-Wing Harassment Campaign Against Lesbian Batwoman
  4. Journalists Need To Stop Playing Themselves In Movies
  5. Ethan Hawke Gets Candid on Fame, Filmmaking and What He Learned From ‘Reality Bites’
  6. James Gunn Meets With Disney, Told He Will Remain Fired and Not Return for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’
  7. Kevin Spacey’s Billionaire’s Boys Club Earns An Abysmal $126 On Opening Day
  8. Johnny Depp! Nazi Clowns! Sgt. Pepper! Three “What Were They Thinking” Movies!
  9. Interview with Greg Fallon from Close Calls, 10.31 and The Perfect Host: A Southern Gothic Tale
  10. Bruce Campbell will be back as Ash in Evil Dead video game

We love you, Roboshark!

Links From The Site:

  1. Case Wright reviewed Netflix’s How It Ends!
  2. Erin shared the Salacious Covers of Inside Detective and shared covers from an unknown artist, Jack Faragasso, Howie Forsberg, Frank Vaughn, Enoch Bolles, Frank R. Paul, and another unknown artist!
  3. Jeff paid tribute to Aretha Franklin and shared music videos from Aretha, Metallica, and Journey!  He also shared this week’s trailer round-up!
  4. Ryan reviewed Grip and How To Be Alive and shared his weekly reading round-up!
  5. I shared music videos from LL Cool J, Deftones, and Amy Shark.  I also reviewed Megalodon, Santa Jaws, Frenzy, Nightmare Shark, My Little Girl Is Gone, and 6-Headed Shark Attack!

(Want to see what I accomplished last week?  Click here!)

Have a great week everyone!

Let’s Talk About 6-Headed Shark Attack (dir by Mark Atkins)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, we’re in the middle of SyFy’s Sharknado week. On Sunday night, SyFy will premiering what they say is going to be The Last Sharknado. In the days leading up to that moment, they’ve been reshowing all of their classic shark films and premiering a new shark film each night!

Saturday night’s premiere was 6-Headed Shark Attack!

“Oh, Hell yeah!” I shouted when I first saw the title of this movie.  So much attention has been paid to The Asylum’s Sharknado franchise that people tend to overlook that the Asylum has another equally entertaining franchise, the multi-headed shark franchise.

Starting with 2-Headed Shark Attack in 2012, the Asylum has steadily been increasing the number of heads on its sharks.  Indeed, one of the pleasures of these multi-headed shark films has been trying to guess just how exactly all of those shark heads would fit on just one shark body.  With last year’s 5-Headed Shark Attack, we ended up with a shark who had four heads at the front and, rather awkwardly, one head on its tail.  The shark in 6-Headed Shark Attack is shaped by like a starfish and is perhaps the most impressive multi-headed shark yet.

What was it that made the 6-headed shark so impressive?  Well, have you ever seen a shark crawl out of the ocean and chase someone across a beach?  Watch 6-Headed Shark Attack and you will!  By using two of its heads as legs, the shark could move pretty quickly across sand.  As a result, the timeless advice of “Don’t go in the water” isn’t going to help you out when it comes to the 6-headed shark!

Another great thing about the 6-headed shark is that it had super healing powers!  For instance, if it lost one head, another head would eventually pop up in its place.  In perhaps one of the greatest scenes ever to be found in an Asylum shark film, the 6-headed shark actually ripped off one of its own heads and threw it at someone!  Not even Jaws could do that!

Whereas previous multi-headed shark films pretty much ignored the question of just how a shark ended up with multiple heads, 6-Headed Shark Attack actually does provide a bit of an origin for its title character.  It was created as the result of a military research lab that was located on a remote island.  The lab has long since been abandoned but the 6-headed shark is still out there.  Unfortunately, the island is currently being used for couples therapy, which is being led by Will (Brandon Auret).  Even once the 6-headed shark shows up, Will remains determined to bring everyone together and help them achieve their full potential.  There’s something oddly touching about Will’s effort to do his job, even when there’s a shark throwing one of its heads at his clients.

I liked 6-Headed Shark Attack.  This is one of those films that works because it delivers exactly what it promised.  The title declares that we’re going to get a 6-Headed Shark Attack and that’s what we get!  If you can’t enjoy the sight of a shark with 6 heads chasing people across the beach, I worry about you.