Monthly Archives: August 2020

Song of the Day: The Main Theme From For A Few Dollars More by Ennio Morricone

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing our tribute to Ennio Morricone, today’s song of the day is the main theme from 1965’s For A Few Dollars More.  If Sergio Leone’s version of the old west was as a mythological landscape, Morricone’s music was always the perfect soundtrack.

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

  1. Deborah’s Theme (Once Upon A Time In America)
  2. Violaznioe Violenza (Hitch-Hike)
  3. Come Un Madrigale (Four Flies on Grey Velvet)
  4. Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence)
  5. The Strength of the Righteous (The Untouchables)
  6. So Alone (What Have You Done To Solange?)
  7. The Main Theme From The Mission (The Mission)
  8. The Return (Days of Heaven)
  9. Man With A Harmonic (Once Upon A Time In The West)
  10. The Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  11. The Main Theme From The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  12. Regan’s Theme (The Exorcist II: The Heretic)
  13. Desolation (The Thing)
  14. The Legend of the Pianist (The Legend of 1900)
  15. Theme From Frantic (Frantic)
  16. La Lucertola (Lizard In A Woman’s Skin)
  17. Spasmodicamente (Spasmo)
  18. The Theme From The Stendhal Syndrome (The Stendhal Syndrome)
  19. My Name Is Nobody (My Name Is Nobody)
  20. Piume di Cristallo (The Bird With The Crystal Plumage)
  21. For Love One Can Die (D’amore si muore)
  22. Chi Mai (various)
  23. La Resa (The Big Gundown)
  24. Main Title Theme (Red Sonja)
  25. The Main Theme From The Cat O’Nine Tails (The Cat O’Nine Tails)
  26. Deep Down (Danger Diabolik!)
  27. Main Theme From Autopsy (Autopsy)
  28. Main Theme From Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) 
  29. Main Theme From A Fistful of Dollars (A Fistful of Dollars)

Music Video of the Day: Embarrassment by Madness (1980, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“We were trying to do Motown with this one. Lee Thompson’s sister had a baby with a black man and it caused consternation in his family. It’s a great lyric – really sensational. You couldn’t believe such sensitivity could come from such a rough diamond, but Lee is one of the best lyricists of his time. We were having trouble with people associating us with the NF, so it was nice to establish once and for all that we weren’t.”

— Suggs on Embarrassment 

The NF that Madness’s frontman refers to was the National Front, a fascist British political party that was at the height of its prominence when Embarrassment was recorded.  Because Madness was a ska band and because many of the skinheads who supported the National Front were also into ska music, Madness had to spend a good deal of their early career just assuring people that they were not themselves supporters of the National Front.  (Today, of course, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could listen to any of Madness’s songs and mistake them for supporters of the NF.)  This song, which sympathetically tells the story of a woman who has been rejected by her racist family because she’s having a black man’s baby, is not only a repudiation of everything the NF stood for but it’s also one of Madness’s rare “serious” songs.

Enjoy!

Snatched (1973, directed by Sutton Roley)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Three women have been kidnapped and are being held prisoner in a lighthouse.  Robin Wood (Tisha Sterling), Kim Sutter (Sheree North), and Barbara Maxvill (Barbara Parkins) are married to three wealthy men and the kidnappers (one of whom is played by the great Anthony Zerbe) assume that the husband will be willing to pay whatever is necessary to get back their wives.  Paul Maxvill (John Saxon) and Bill Sutter (Leslie Nielsen!) are willing to put up the money but Duncan Wood (Howard Duff) scoffs at the idea of paying a million dollars just to see his adulterous wife again!

It sounds like the set-up for a Ransom of Red Chief-type of comedy but Snatched is actually a very serious and intelligent thriller, one that will definitely keep you on your toes as you try to keep up with who is working for who.  Kim is diabetic and is growing weaker every minute that she’s being held in the lighthouse.  Paul, Bill, and police detective Frank McCloy (Robert Reed) try to get Duncan to pay his share of the ransom but Duncan is convinced that his wife has been cheating on him and he refuses to pay for her.  On top of that, it turns out that one of the wives might be in on the scheme.  When she tells the kidnappers that she’s actually the one who came up with the plan, is she just trying to protect the other wives or is she telling the truth?  It leads to betrayal and a surprisingly downbeat ending.

Snatched is a well-produced made-for-TV movie.  The mystery will keep you guessing and the cast is made up of a collection of old pros.  Leslie Nielsen, cast here long before he reinvented himself as a comedic actor, is especially good as Bill Sutter and John Saxon gives one of his better performances as Paul.  Even Robert Reed gives a good performance.  Snatched is a classic made-for-TV mystery.

Song of the Day: The Main Theme From A Fistful of Dollars by Ennio Morricone

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Our tribute to Ennio Morricone will be coming to a close at the end of this week.  We’ve shared a lot of unforgettable music from Morricone and hopefully, we’ve encouraged you to track down a few of the films that he scored.  Obviously, there’s no way that we could do a tribute to Morricone without including the main theme from Sergio Leone’s first Spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars.

Though it may not be as well known as Morricone’s scores for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon A Time In The West, it’s just as epic.  The real old west may not have featured Morricone’s music playing in the background but it definitely should have.

Here is the main theme from A Fistful of Dollars!

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

  1. Deborah’s Theme (Once Upon A Time In America)
  2. Violaznioe Violenza (Hitch-Hike)
  3. Come Un Madrigale (Four Flies on Grey Velvet)
  4. Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence)
  5. The Strength of the Righteous (The Untouchables)
  6. So Alone (What Have You Done To Solange?)
  7. The Main Theme From The Mission (The Mission)
  8. The Return (Days of Heaven)
  9. Man With A Harmonic (Once Upon A Time In The West)
  10. The Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  11. The Main Theme From The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  12. Regan’s Theme (The Exorcist II: The Heretic)
  13. Desolation (The Thing)
  14. The Legend of the Pianist (The Legend of 1900)
  15. Theme From Frantic (Frantic)
  16. La Lucertola (Lizard In A Woman’s Skin)
  17. Spasmodicamente (Spasmo)
  18. The Theme From The Stendhal Syndrome (The Stendhal Syndrome)
  19. My Name Is Nobody (My Name Is Nobody)
  20. Piume di Cristallo (The Bird With The Crystal Plumage)
  21. For Love One Can Die (D’amore si muore)
  22. Chi Mai (various)
  23. La Resa (The Big Gundown)
  24. Main Title Theme (Red Sonja)
  25. The Main Theme From The Cat O’Nine Tails (The Cat O’Nine Tails)
  26. Deep Down (Danger Diabolik!)
  27. Main Theme From Autopsy (Autopsy)
  28. Main Theme From Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) 

Music Video of the Day: Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi (1987, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jon Bon Jovi has said that the inspiration for Wanted Dead or Alive came to him one morning while he struggling to sleep on a tour bus.  It occurred to him that being in a rock band was much like being an old west outlaw.  As Bon Jovi described it, a rock band was “a young band of thieves, riding into town, stealing the money, the girls, and the booze before the sun came up.”  I’m not sure that every rock band would agree with that description but, judging from the deathless success of this song, it worked for Bon Jovi.

(I’m also not sure how many old west outlaws came out of New Jersey.)

The video was directed by Wayne Isham and the black-and-white cinematography is courtesy of Derek M. Allen.  It was shot over the course of Bon Jovi’s 1987 world tour and it features scenes that were shot at venues all over the United States.  The theme of the video is that life on the road is hard and Bon Jovi works really hard.  Looking at other music videos that were released around the same time as this one, I’ve noticed that hard work is a recurring theme in many of them.  Bands, especially ones that were often dismissed as being “hair bands,” really wanted to make sure people knew that a tremendous amount of work into their performances.

You have to give Bon Jovi some credit.  Their music not only epitomized an era but, as a band and with the exception of Richie Sambora, they’re largely stuck together and continued to rock.  That’s more than you can say for Winger.

Enjoy!

Lisa’s Week In Review: 7/27/20 — 8/2/20

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The important thing, for me, is that I got my car inspected and paid the registration fee this week.  I hate having to do stuff like that and I resent the inconvenience.  But I got it done and now …. well, now, I guess I’ll just spend the rest of 2020 sitting on my couch and ordering stuff off of Amazon.

Seriously, the world’s just kind of standing still right now.

Anyway, here’s what I watched and read this week!

Films I Watched:

  1. Adopted in Danger (2020)
  2. Baby Monitor Murders (2020)
  3. The Black Castle (1952)
  4. The Comic (1969)
  5. The Crazies (2010)
  6. Deadly Daughter Switch (2020)
  7. The Encounter (2010)
  8. Engaged to a Psycho (2020)
  9. Enter Laughing (1967)
  10. Gotti (2018)
  11. Radioactive (2020)
  12. The Thin Man (1934)
  13. Tread (2020)
  14. The World, The Flesh, and The Devil (1959)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. 9-1-1
  2. 9-1-1: Lone Star
  3. The Alienist
  4. The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons Ever!
  5. Bar Rescue
  6. Community
  7. Cults and Extreme Beliefs
  8. Daily Mail TV
  9. Degrassi
  10. Dr. Phil
  11. Dragnet
  12. Evil Lives Here
  13. Friends
  14. Ghost Whisperer
  15. Homicide City
  16. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
  17. It’s a Living
  18. The Love Boat
  19. The Office
  20. Paranormal Survivor
  21. The Powers of Matthew Star
  22. Saved By The Bell
  23. Seinfeld
  24. The Simpsons
  25. Storage Wars

Books I Read:

  1. Go Ask Alice (1971) by “Anonymous”

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Above & Beyond
  2. Adi Ulmansky
  3. Afrojack
  4. Alvin Risk
  5. Amy Winehouse
  6. Armin Van Buuren
  7. Avici
  8. BANKS
  9. Big Data
  10. Blanck Mass
  11. Britney Spears
  12. Cage the Elephant
  13. Calvin Harris
  14. The Chemical Brothers
  15. The Correspondents
  16. The Crystal Method
  17. Daft Punk
  18. deadmau5
  19. Dillon Francis
  20. DJ Snake
  21. Ennio Morricone
  22. Goblin
  23. Gwen Stefani
  24. HAIM
  25. Hardwell
  26. I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY FOUND ME BUT THEY DID
  27. Icona Pop
  28. The Interrupters
  29. Jessica Simpson
  30. Joywave
  31. Kedr Livanskiy
  32. Kid Rock
  33. Lynard Skynard
  34. Neon Indian
  35. Robyn Adele Anderson
  36. Spice Girls
  37. Steve Aoki
  38. Swedish House Mafia
  39. Taylor Swift
  40. Tove Lo
  41. UPSAHL
  42. Warren Zevon
  43. Zedd

Our Continuing Tribute to Moricone:

  1. Chi Mai (various)
  2. La Resa (The Big Gundown)
  3. Main Title Theme (Red Sonja)
  4. The Main Theme From The Cat O’Nine Tails (The Cat O’Nine Tails)
  5. Deep Down (Danger Diabolik!)
  6. The Main Theme From Autopsy (Autopsy)
  7. Main Theme From Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion)

Links From Last Week:

  1. Why Comic-Con ‘At Home’ Was a Bust
  2. Have You Been ‘Wokefished’ While Dating? Here’s How to Tell
  3. 6 people who don’t deserve their Emmy nominations this year — sorry
  4. 13 people who didn’t get an Emmy nomination this year, but should have
  5. Emmys 2020 Nominations: 12 Biggest Snubs and Surprises
  6. Emmy nominations 2020: 10 surprises and snubs
  7. Gianni Russo Tells The Story Of Getting Kidnapped By Pablo Escobar After Murdering His Underboss In A Las Vegas Restaurant
  8. Buy physical media
  9. RIP, WIlford Brimley, funnier than you might think

News From Last Week:

  1. Gotham under attack: ‘Joker’ spotted jet-skiing on the East River
  2. ‘Upstream Color’ Director Shane Carruth Accused of Abusing Ex-Girlfriend
  3. ESPN investigation finds coaches at NBA China academies complained of player abuse, lack of schooling
  4. Taylor Swift Remains Silent as Fans Doxx and Harass Music Critic Over ‘Folklore’ Review
  5. Dozens Of Former “Ellen Show” Employees Say Executive Producers Engaged In Rampant Sexual Misconduct And Harassment
  6. ‘This Is a Real Kick in the Shorts’: Small-Town Theaters Owners React to AMC’s VOD Pact With Universal
  7. NBC Insiders Say Entertainment Boss Fostered Toxic Culture, Under Investigation
  8. Alan Parker, director of ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Mississippi Burning,’ dies at 76

Links From The Site:

  1. Jeff reviewed The Bounty Man, The Love War, Blood River, Cave-in!, Die Watching, Stranger On My Land, and Zapped!  He shared music videos from The KLF and Debbie Harry and he paid tribute to Wilford Brimley!
  2. Erin shared the covers of Fight Stories, along with: The Cautious Amorist, Tropical Spitfire, South Sea Stories, Point Venus, Jewel of the Java Sea, The Tracks, and Flame Goddess!
  3. Ryan reviewed Questions of Molten Motion, Dress Rehearsal, and Detective Double Digest!
  4. I shared music videos from BANKS, The Devil’s Daughters, The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, Los Bitchos, and Dum Dum Girls.  I shared the Emmy nominations and I paid tribute to Richard Linklater and Mario Bava.  I shared a scene from Danger Diabolik!  I shared my Oscar predictions for July!  I shared trailers for After We Collided, Kajillionarie, and Honest Thief!  I reviewed Her Deadly Groom, Deadly Daughter Switch, Gotti, The Powers of Matthew Star, Engaged to a Psycho, The Baby Monitor Murders, The Comic, Tread, and Adopted in Danger!

More From Us:

  1. Ryan has a patreon!  You should consider subscribing!
  2. On her photography site, Erin shared: 3 Trees, Garden Statue, Green Sky, Street, Blue, To The Side, and Path to Somewhere!
  3. On my music site, I shared songs from BANKS, Saint Motel, I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY FOUND ME BUT THEY DID, The Correspondents, The Interrupters, Robyn Adele Anderson, and Amy Winehouse!

Want to check out last week?  Click here!

The Crazies (1973, dir by George Romero)

Zapped! (1982, directed by Robert J. Rosenthal)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this painfully dumb high school comedy, Scott Baio is Barney, a teen scientist who experiments on lab mice and grows specially modified orchids for his high school’s principal, Walter Coolidge (Robert Mandan, who played a lot of high school principals back in the day).  When there’s an accident in the lab, Barney develops telekinetic powers.  Barney then falls in love with the class president, Bernadette (Felice Schachter), while his best friend Peyton (Willie Aames) pursues the beautiful but vain Jane (Heather Thomas).  Barney uses his powers to make a ventriloquist act as if it’s possessed and to help Peyton rig a casino-themed frat party.  Meanwhile, Scatman Crothers plays the school’s baseball coach and has a long scene where he gets high and imagines that he’s riding a bicycle with Albert Einstein.  That’s actually kind of cool.

Zapped! is a movie where Scott Baio magically gains the power to move things with his mind and yet the most implausible part of the movie is the idea of Willie Aames being the most popular student at the high school.  Heather Thomas is believable as a cheerleader and Felice Schachter is perfectly cast as the brainy class president.  Even Scott Baio is not terrible as Barney.  But then Willie Aames shows up and we find out that he’s supposed to be a chick magnet and it becomes impossible for those watching to continue to suspend their disbelief.

Not much really happens in Zapped!  Even after he gets his powers, Barney is frustratingly passive character who just does whatever Peyton tells him to do.  Barney uses his powers to help Peyton show up Jane’s college boyfriend and he uses his powers to help Peyton win games at the school carnival and then Barney uses his powers to help out Peyton when Jane’s boyfriend tries to beat him up.  Maybe Barney needs to get new friends.  The only time Barney uses his powers for himself is when he’s playing baseball and he makes the ball stop in mid-air so that he can hit it.  Somehow, no one watching the game seems to find it strange that the baseball stops in mid-air.  The movie ends with a take on Carrie.  Barney uses his powers to blow off everyone’s clothes at prom.  It’s all to help Peyton, of course.

Zapped! supposedly has a cult following, probably composed of people who were 13 when they first saw it and who only remember the sweater scene with Heather Thomas and the final prom scene.  (Or they’re remembering the famous poster, which is a lot more fun than anything that actually happens in the movie.)  Other than that, this is one of the most boring films ever made.  Perhaps the only interesting thing about the movie is that Heather Thomas sued the production when they failed to acknowledge that a body double was used for Jane’s nude scenes.

On a positive note, Zapped! did give us this classic Onion headline:

 

Song of the Day: Main Theme From An Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion by Ennio Morricone

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, we’re starting in on the final week of our tribute to Ennio Morricone so today, I want to share one of his most important compositions.

The 1970 film, Investigation Of A Citizen About Suspicion, was a dark satire about police corruption and murder in Italy.  It was not only critically acclaimed but it also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  (That award is now known as Best International Film.)  The success of this film showed that Morricone was more than just a composer of epic Western themes and it also introduced his music to a whole new group of filmgoers.

Here is Morricone’s Main Theme From Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion:

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

  1. Deborah’s Theme (Once Upon A Time In America)
  2. Violaznioe Violenza (Hitch-Hike)
  3. Come Un Madrigale (Four Flies on Grey Velvet)
  4. Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence)
  5. The Strength of the Righteous (The Untouchables)
  6. So Alone (What Have You Done To Solange?)
  7. The Main Theme From The Mission (The Mission)
  8. The Return (Days of Heaven)
  9. Man With A Harmonic (Once Upon A Time In The West)
  10. The Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  11. The Main Theme From The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)
  12. Regan’s Theme (The Exorcist II: The Heretic)
  13. Desolation (The Thing)
  14. The Legend of the Pianist (The Legend of 1900)
  15. Theme From Frantic (Frantic)
  16. La Lucertola (Lizard In A Woman’s Skin)
  17. Spasmodicamente (Spasmo)
  18. The Theme From The Stendhal Syndrome (The Stendhal Syndrome)
  19. My Name Is Nobody (My Name Is Nobody)
  20. Piume di Cristallo (The Bird With The Crystal Plumage)
  21. For Love One Can Die (D’amore si muore)
  22. Chi Mai (various)
  23. La Resa (The Big Gundown)
  24. Main Title Theme (Red Sonja)
  25. The Main Theme From The Cat O’Nine Tails (The Cat O’Nine Tails)
  26. Deep Down (Danger Diabolik!)
  27. Main Theme From Autopsy (Autopsy)