Thunder Alley (1985, directed by J.S. Cardone)

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Richie (Roger Wilson) is an Arizona farm boy who can play the guitar like a riot and who, after he joins a band called Magic, discovers that success is a hideous bitch goddess.

Thunder Alley was a Cannon production and it features all of the usual rock movie clichés. Though Richie is reluctant to join Magic and leave his family behind, he soon emerges as the most talented member of the band and he starts to overshadow the arrogant lead singer, Skip (Leif Garrett). Donnie (Scott McGinnis), who is Richie’s best friend in the band, gets hooked on cocaine while Richie struggles to resist groupie temptation and remain loyal to his sweet girlfriend, Beth (Jill Schoelen). The band depends on their road manager, Weasel (Clancy Bown), to get them on stage in time and to protect them from dishonest club owners.

As predictable as it may be, Thunder Alley is one of the better films to be distributed by Cannon Films in the 80s, which is saying something when you consider that Thunder Alley doesn’t feature Michael Dudikoff, Chuck Norris, or Charles Bronson. The thing that sets Thunder Alley apart from so many other similar films is that, when you actually see Magic perform and hear their music, you actually believe that the band could be a success. This isn’t one of those films where everyone is feigning enthusiasm for a band that sounds terrible. Instead, Magic actually sounds like a band that could have gone all the way in 1985. The scenes of them going from one cheap motel to another while coming together as a band feel as authentic and real as the scenes of Skip angrily realizing that Richie has replaced him as the face of Magic.

Though he was probably cast because he was one of the stars of Porky’s, Roger Wilson was also an actual musician and he’s credible whenever he’s performing on stage. The same can be said of former teen pop idol Leif Garrett, who plays an actual rock and roller in Thunder Alley and who is surprisingly convincing in the role. Sporting an impressive beard, Clancy Brown is the ideal road manager while Jill Schoelen brings a lot of life to her small role as Richie’s loyal girlfriend.

For a film that is all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Thunder Alley has an innocent side. Even after he becomes a star and he’s got groupies going crazy every time he steps up to a microphone, Richie’s main concern is making sure that he gets home in time to help his father with the harvest. Thunder Alley not only asks how far you would go to be a star but also suggests that there’s nothing wrong with choosing, instead, to be a loyal boyfriend or a good son. Thunder Alley brings it own earnest approach to all of the usual rock and roll clichés and suggests that, with the right combination of talent and hard work, you can have it all, the farm and the stage.

Of course, it helps if you’ve got Clancy Brown looking out for you.

Lifetime Film Review: Mile High Escorts (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mile High Escorts aired on Lifetime on July 19th. Because I was hosting the #ScarySocial live tweet of City of the Living Dead, I missed it but thanks to my DVR, I was able to record it and watch it earlier today. Seriously, will there ever be a better invention than the DVR?

Mile High Escorts tells the story of Lauren (Saxon Sharbino). Lauren is a flight attendant. She gets to fly all over the world and she’s even put in a request to be assigned to the Paris route. How could her life get any better? Well, don’t ever take your happiness for granted because reality soon intrudes on Lauren’s perfect world. The airline announces that they’re going to be cutting back on flights, which means that Lauren and her friend Ashley (Kara Royster) are going to be flying less and also making a lot less money! But Lauren needs that money because her father is on the verge of getting kicked out of his home. And Ashley needs the money because …. well, Hell, who doesn’t need money? (I totally related to Ashley.)

Fortunately, a chance meeting with Hannah (Christina Moore) might be just the solution to Lauren and Ashley’s problems. Hannah owns a private airline and she’s always looking for new flight attendants. Because her airline is exclusively used by wealthy, handsome, and single (if just for the weekend) men, her flight attendants have to be attractive and they have to be friendly. They also have to be willing to spend time with their clients even after the airplane has landed. She offers Lauren a job but Lauren, at first, is reluctant. It sounds too much like an escort service to her, largely because it is. But then Lauren’s hours get cut and her father’s unpaid bills start to pile up and soon, Lauren and Ashley are mile high escorts!

At first, everything seems great but, as we soon discover, the life of a mile high escort is not a simple one. Sure, at first, it’s a lot of fun. All of the passengers are handsome and rich and like to have a good time. Lauren even makes a connection with Thomas (Esteban Benito), who appears to be a rare nice guy. But this is a Lifetime movie so you know the fun can’t last. It turns out that the private airline business is indeed a shady one and someone is murdering mile high escorts. Can Lauren and Ashley figure out what’s going on before they become the next victims?

I absolutely loved Mile High Escorts. This movie had everything that I love about Lifetime movies. The plot was melodramatic and full of scheming and sex. The clothes were to die for. The men were handsome. Christina Moore did a great job keeping you guessing as to Hannah’s motivations and both Saxon Sharbino and Kara Royster were likable in the lead roles. This was a fun Lifetime film. You don’t watch a film like this and worry about whether or not the plot makes total sense. You certainly don’t watch a film like this because you’re hoping for a realistic portrait of what it means to be a mile high escort. You watch a film like this because it’s fun! And Mile High Escorts definitely was.

Song of the Day: The Theme From The Stendhal Syndrome by Ennio Morricone

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day is the Theme from The Stendhal Syndrome. Composed by Ennio Morricone, this piece of music creates a perfectly creepy atmosphere for Dario Argento’s 1996 film, The Stendhal Syndrome. Argento’s later, post-Opera films are often treated rather dismissively by critics but I’ve always liked The Stendhal Syndrome. I definitely like Morricone’s score.

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

Artwork of the Day: No Mask For Murder (by Robert Stanley)

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Dazzling Erin

by Robert Stanley

On The Road To Ruin And Revelation : Mara Ramirez’s “MOAB”

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

There’s truth in packaging, and then there’s this : Oakland-based cartoonist Mara Ramirez’s recently-released debut graphic novel, MOAB — which comes our way courtesy of Freak Comics — is formatted to look like a sketchbook/diary with a lush moleskine cover because, well, it is a sketchbook/diary with a lush moleskine cover, it’s just that it happens to tell one complete story. And one complete true story, at that.

I think, at any rate. Granted, there’s no indication that the narrative herein is strictly autobiographical — or even loosely autobiographical — but even if it isn’t, that doesn’t mean the story, and the emotive and expressive qualities that positively ooze from its metaphorical pores, is any less real. In fact, it only takes a few pages to clue readers in to the fact that this, right here, is as absolutely real as it gets.

And no sooner do I say…

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Music Video of the Day: Sisters by Saint Motel (2019, dir by A/J Jackson)

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Enjoy!

Shell Game (1975, directed by Glenn Jordan)

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Max Castle (John Davidson) is a conman who gets arrested in Florida because of a shady real estate deal. The judge releases him into the custody of his older brother, an attorney named Stephen (Robert Castle). Though Max is technically just a paralegal, he secretly helps out his brother’s clients but running elaborate scams on the people who have cheated them. When businessman Lyle Rafferty (Jack Kehoe) embezzles money from his own charity and then lets one of his employees take the fall, Max decides that Rafferty is going to be his next target.

Shell Game was a made-for-TV movie. It’s pretty obvious that it was meant to be the pilot for a weekly series, where I guess Max would have pulled a con on every different evildoer every week. Because the show is more interested in setting up who Max is and why he cons people, there’s not much dramatic tension in Shell Game. Max tricks Rafferty into buying a worthless gold mine and Rafferty falls for every single trick that Max pulls on him. Unfortunately, since Rafferty is such an easy target, there’s no real pay-off to seeing him get conned. It’s not like The Sting, where there were real stakes and dangers involved in Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s pursuit of Robert Shaw’s money. The con is just too easy.

On the plus side, Max’s old partner-in-crime is played by Tom Atkins. Atkins is so believable as a veteran conman with a heart of gold that he probably would have been a better pick for the lead role than the likable but bland John Davidson. The rest of the cast is forgettable.

Would Shell Game have worked as a weekly series? Maybe, especially if Tom Atkins was a part of the regular cast. The idea of a former conman now running scams on other con artists had the potential to be intriguing and Max hints that he was framed by his partners in Florida. I guess a weekly series would have explored that in greater detail. However, it was not to be. This shell game was played once and then forgotten.

Film Review: After Midnight (dir by Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella)

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A man named Hank (Jeremy Gardner), who owns a pretty nice house out in the country, is holding a shotgun. He’s just shot a hole through his front door. Later, when the sun rises, he’ll walk around his land, carrying his gun and searching for anything that shouldn’t be there. When an unfamiliar car drives down the road, he fires at it.

Hank has a few reasons for being paranoid. He’s convinced that there’s something out there. For the past two weeks, Hank claims that there’s been a monster scratching at the front door. His friends tell him that it’s probably just a bear but Hank swears that it’s not. It’s too big and strong and strange to be a bear. It’s a monster, Hank swears.

Most of his friends assume that Hank is losing it. It probably doesn’t help that Hank started talking about this monster around the same time that his girlfriend Abby (Brea Grant), left him. Hanks claims that he has no idea why Abby left. He assumes that she’s down in Florida with an old boyfriend but he doesn’t know for sure. Whenever anyone suggests that he might want to think about why he and Abby are having problems, Hank steers the conversation back to the monster that he claims is trying to break into the house.

Hank spends his nights waiting for the monster and thinking about Abby. We see flashbacks to his relationship with Abby and what we immediately notice is that they always seem to be happy. In Hank’s memories, we never see them fighting or any hints that there was ever any trouble in their relationship. Yet, no one seems to be surprised that Abby left Hank so, obviously, it was clear to everyone else that Abby wasn’t happy. Are we seeing real memories of Hank and Abby or are we just seeing things the way that Hank has chosen to remember them?

After Midnight is a hybrid of a horror movie and a relationship drama. It’s definitely not a film for everyone. It moves at its own deliberate pace. Some of the dialogue is a bit overwritten and I’m still not really sure how Hank managed to get away with firing a shotgun at a moving car. (The film explains that he’s got a relative on the police force but it still seems like a bit of a stretch.) There’s a very lengthy scene that is just made up of a largely static shot of Abby and Hank talking about their relationship. It’s one of those scene that you’re either going to love or you’re going to hate. Myself, I liked the fact that the film was just as concerned with Abby and Hank as a couple as it was with whatever was hiding in the darkness. It helped that Gardner and Grant were a likable and believable couple. That said, if you’re only watching this film for the horror elements, you’ll probably get annoyed.

However, After Midnight also features what is perhaps one of the greatest jump scares that I’ve ever seen. It occurs towards the end of the film so yes, it does demand a little bit of patience on your part. But that patience will be rewarded! Seriously, I’m not going to spoil it but I will say that I literally fell off my couch in shock when it happened. It was a perfectly executed moment and one that entirely justified that patience required to reach it.

After Midnight is on Prime. It’s not for everyone but I liked it.

Song of the Day: Spasmodicamente by Ennio Morricone

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day comes to use from Ennio Morricone’s score for Umberto Lenzi’s 1974 giallo Spasmo.

As I was listening to this music, I took a few minutes to think about all of the directors with whom Morricone worked over his career. Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Quentin Tarantino, Roland Joffe, Sergio Corbucci, Umberto Lenzi, Terrence Malick, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, Don Seigel, John Carpenter, Brian DePalma, Franco Zefferelli, Barry Levinson, and so many more, all of them collaborated with Morricone. His music brought to life the work of so many artists. That’s certainly the case with Spasmo.

From Ennio Morricone, this is Spasmodicamente.

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

Artist Profile: Darrel Greene (1917 — 2014)

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Dazzling Erin

Doing It by Darrel Greene

All of the paperback covers below were done by the prolific Canadian-American artist, Darrel Greene. Greene, who was born in Canada and grew up in Utah, served as a flight instructor in the U.S. Navy but, instead of becoming a commercial pilot, he instead became a commercial artist and ended up doing the covers for a countless number of paperbacks. For several decades, Greene’s illustrations enticed paperback readers the world over.

Here’s a small sampling of his work: