Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Nightstick (1987, directed by Joseph L. Scanlan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The three Bantam Brothers (Walker Boone, Tony DeSantis, and Dave Mucci) have just gotten out of prison and they’ve all already stolen several pounds of explosives.  Pretending to be international terrorists, they try to blackmail banker Adam Beardsley (John Vernon) into paying them off.  Deputy Police Commissioner Ray Melton (Robert Vaughn) wants to go by the book but his superior, Thad Evans (Leslie Nielsen), realizes that this case is going to require a cop who is willing to break all the rules.  It’s time to call in Jack Calhoun (Bruce Fairbairn).

When this movie started, I assumed that it was a comedy.  The title sounded like a double entendre and Leslie Nielsen’s name was right there in the opening credits.  The opening heist scene also felt like a comedy, up until the Bantam brothers started shooting people.  That was when I realized that this movie was supposed to be a drama.  Why would you cast a post-Airplane! Leslie Nielsen in a serious cop film?  This film did come out before The Naked Gun but it was still after Nielsen sent up every cop show ever made with the original Police Squad television series.  .And then, on top of Nielsen, the film gives us Robert Vaughn and a very grumpy John Vernon.  All it needed was OJ Simpson as Calhoun’s partner.

Even though the movie was a drama, it still felt like a comedy.  Bruce Fairbairn wasn’t much of a cop but luckily, the three Bantam brothers weren’t that much of a group of criminals.  Jack Calhoun had a girlfriend (Kerrie Keane) who constantly reminded him that he could have been having sex with her if he wasn’t constantly searching for the Bantam brothers.  “I can’t be in two places at once,” Calhoun said with a sigh.  I’m still not convinced this wasn’t a comedy.

Nightstick was originally made for Canadian television.  When it first aired, it was called Calhoun.  The name was changed to Nightstick for the video release, even though no one in the movie uses a nightstick.  Calhoun uses a gun and, at one point, a binder but he doesn’t carry a nightstick.  Maybe his character should have been named Jack Nightstick to make the title work.

Did I hallucinate this movie?  I’m pretty sure it was a comedy.

 

Music Video of the Day: Come Undone by Duran Duran (1993, directed by Julien Temple)

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This song and video were both a part of Duran Duran’s early 90s comeback.  Backing vocalist Tessa Niles is both heard in the song and seen in the video as she struggles to escape from the underwater chains that bind her.  The majority of this video was shot in Los Angeles but the giant aquarium scenes were filmed at the London Zoo.

Director Julien Temple needs no introduction.  He is, of course, best known for his work with the Sex Pistols.

Enjoy!

The Toughest Man In The World (1984, directed by Dick Lowry)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Bruise Brubaker (Mr. T) spends his nights as a bouncer at a club owned by his best friend (Dennis Dugan) and his days running a center for at-risk youth.  Bruise is a former Marine drill sergeant who is now determined to make Chicago a better place.  He’s so cool that his name is Bruise and he even has his own theme song, which plays whenever he patrols the streets and alleys of Chicago.  But when it looks like the youth center is going to get closed down unless it can quickly raise some money, Bruise faces the challenge of a lifetime when he enters a competition to prove that he’s the toughest man in the world!

Is Mr. T the toughest man in the world?  I pity the fool who even has to ask.

This made-for-TV movie is exactly what you think it is.  Mr. T barks out his dialogue with his signature growl but he still seems utterly sincere when he orders the kids to say in school and stop trying to mug old men in the alleys.  At first, it seems like Bruise should be able to easily win the Toughest Man competition but it turns out to be tougher than he thought.  There’s an extended sequences in which Bruise tries to learn how to box and it turns out that he’s no Clubber Lang.  There’s also an extended subplot about some broadly-played mobsters who are hoping that can drug Bruise so he’ll lose the contest.

Probably the funniest thing about the movie is the idea that everyone in Chicago would stop what they were doing so that they could gather around the television and watch the Toughest Man contest.  The second funniest thing is Dennis Farina showing up in a small role and reminding us that it takes all types of actors to make a movie.

Mr. T was never a good actor but he was a great personality and that personality is on full display here.  The Toughest Man In The World will make you nostalgic for a more innocent time.

Music Video of the Day: Treat Your Mother Right by Mr. T (1984, directed by Jeff Margolis)

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Mr. T has a message for everyone.

This originally premiered as a part of Mr. T’s motivational video, Be Somebody … Or Be Somebody’s Fool!  Director Jeff Margolis was an Emmy-winning director who worked with Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews, and Richard Pryor.

Enjoy!

The Slime People (1963, directed by Robert Hutton)

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Pilot Tom Gregory (Robert Hutton) lands his private plane in Los Angeles and is shocked to discover that the city is surrounded by a thick fog and that it appears to be nearly deserted.  A chance meeting with a professor named Galbraith (Robert Burton) and his two daughters (Susan Hart and Judee Morton) leads the group to a television station where they watch a news report about how Los Angeles has been surrounded by a “hardened fog.”  No one can escape the fog and no one can escape the Slime People, reptilian humanoids who have ascended from their underground lair and declared war on the surface world.  There appears to only be, at most, six Slime People but I guess that’s all you need to conquer Los Angeles.

The Slime People is a Z-grade horror film that features a lot of stock footage, monsters that would not be out of place in a Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who serial, and an out-of-control fog machine.  The fog machine is actually the star of the show.  There’s so much fog in this movie that it’s often impossible to see the actors or the Slime People.  It’s a shame because, considering that the production ran out of money after 9 days and the majority of the actors were never paid, the Slime People costumes are not that bad.

Along with the fog and the costumes, the other memorable thing about The Slime People is that none of the survivors seem to be particularly upset about any of the horror that they’ve just experienced.  One young soldier (William Boyce) takes the time to ask one of the professor’s daughters if she’ll be available to date once the crisis ends.  It’s a tribute to the American youth of the 1960s that not even an attack from underground dwellers could stop date night.

 

Music Video of the Day: Foreclosure of a Dream by Megadeth (1992, directed by Jeff Richter)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this video, Megadeth takes on the 1990s mortgage crisis with a song that feels just as relevant today as when it was first released.  It’s hard to imagine Metallica ever doing a song like this.

Director Jeff Richter has also worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Faith Hill to John Fogerty and Nine Inch Nails.

Enjoy!

The Rainmaker (1997, directed by Francis Ford Coppola)

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Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is an idealistic young law school graduate who discovers that having a degree and passing the bar doesn’t automatically make you a success.  He gets a job working a bar that just happens to be owned by an ambulance chasing attorney named Bruiser Stone (Mickey Rourke).  Bruiser takes Rudy on as an associate and assigns his associate, Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), to teach Rudy how to find cases.  When Bruiser flees the country to escape an FBI investigation, Rudy and Deck start their own law firm.  Rudy soon finds himself with the case of his young career, representing a family in a law suit against Great Benefit Insurance.  Rudy also falls for Kelly (Claire Danes), a young woman who is being abused by her husband (Andrew Shue).

It can be hard to believe today but, in the 90s, every John Grisham novel was adapted for the screen.  Most of the adaptations weren’t very good but audiences ate them up.  In many ways, The Rainmaker is the ultimate John Grisham adaptation because it contains every single trope that John Grisham made popular with his legal thrillers.  This time, Matt Damon is the charismatic attorney.  Roy Scheider is the soulless corporate CEO who needs to be brought down.  Jon Voight is the intimidating opposing counsel.  Danny DeVito is the eccentric comic relief and Mickey Rourke is the dues ex machina who returns to the movie to give Rudy a piece of information at the exact right moment.   The appeal of Grisham is that he made readers (and eventually moviegoers) feel like insiders while presenting them with stories that were essentially very simple good vs evil morality tales.  The insurance company is so cartoonishly evil that there’s no doubt Rudy is going to defeat them.  There’s also no doubt that Rudy is going to find a better calling than ambulance chasing because the only thing that people hate more than insurance companies is lawyers.

The Rainmaker is never as complex as it pretends to be but it’s an entertaining legal movie.  It was also director Francis Ford Coppola’s last big hit.  It’s really more of a Grisham film than a Coppola film but Coppola’s influence is still felt in the almost uniformly excellent cast.  (Ignore Andrew Shue if you can.  Melrose Place was very popular in the 90s.)  Damon, Danes, Rourke, Voight, Dean Stockwell, Danny Glover, Teresa Wright, Virginia Madsen, and Mary Kay Place all give memorable performances.  Roy Scheider is loathsome as the sweater-wearing CEO.  Best of all is Danny DeVito, who gets all of the best lines.

The Rainmaker was the best of the 1990s Grisham adaptations.  While it’s not quite a masterpiece, it’s still emotionally very satisfying.

Music Video of the Day: Saints by The Breeders (1993, directed by Frank Sacramento)

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The Breeders did more than just Cannonball.  Their entire first album was full of excellent songs, like this one.  This video shows that the band was just as cool in the snow as they were at a carnival.

Director Frank Sacramento also worked with Blondie, Everlast, Dru Hill, Hootie and the Blowfish, and House of Pain.

Enjoy!

The Wanderers (1979, directed by Philip L. Kaufman)

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In 1963, teenage Richie Gennaro (Ken Wahl) may not be much of a high school student but he’s the coolest kid on his block.  He’s the leader of the Wanderers, an Italian-American street gang.  Among his friends are the neurotic Joey (John Friedrich), Turkey (Alan Rosenberg), and Perry (Tony Ganios — yes, Meat from Porky’s), who has just moved to the Bronx but whose height and ability to fight makes him a key member of the Wanderers.  Richie dating Despie (Toni Kalem), the daughter of the local mob boss (Dolph Sweet).  However, when Richie meets Nina (Karen Allen), he wonders if there’s something more out there than just spending the rest of his days in the Bronx.

Based on a novel by Richard Price, The Wanderers has always been overshadowed by 1979’s other big gang movie, The Warriors.  That’s too bad because they’re both great films.  Walter Hill has always said that he envisioned The Warriors as being set in the near-future.  The Wanderers, on the other hand, is very much a film about the past.  An episodic movie that is more about capturing a time and a place as opposed to telling a traditional story, The Wanderers portrays 1963 with a mix of nostalgia and realism.  The soundtrack is heavy with early rock and roll.  There’s a scene where Richie sees a group of adults crying as they watch the coverage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  Nina listens to Bob Dylan at a coffeehouse and the local mob boss is a fan of The Hustler.  But for Richie and his friends, adulthood is something to be put off for as long as possible.  Life is about wearing their jackets, giving each other a hard time, trying to get lucky, trying not get slapped upside their heads by their parents, and preparing for the big football game against a rival gang.  When a Marine recruiter tricks the members of one gang into enlisting, it’s a big deal to Richie because he no longer has to worry about being harassed by them.  Those of us watching, however, know that Vietnam is in thee future.  Scenes of Richie and Joey joking around are combined with moments of sudden violence.  For the most part, the Wanderers and their neighborhood rivals are amiable rivals but, take a wrong turn, and you might find yourself being chased by the viscous Ducky Boys.  For Richie, his life revolves around being a Wanderer but nothing can last forever and the film ends with a celebration that feels like a last hurrah for a changing world.  Some will escape The Bronx and find a new world with new possibilities and new freedoms.  There’s a particularly interesting subtext to the friendship of Perry and Joey, with the film ending on a subtle note that suggests that there’s more to their relationship than just being members of the same gang.

The end result is one of the best coming-of-age stories out there.  Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Alan Rosenberg, and Tony Ganios all give excellent performances as the main Wanderers.  Karen Allen and Toni Kalem are perfectly cast as the two women who represent Richie’s possible future.  (The strip poker scene is a highlight.)  Kalem’s Despie represents the Bronx while Allen’s Nina represents the world outside and the film treats both of them with respect.  At first, Despite might seem like a stereotype but she soon proves herself to be more aware of what’s actually going on around her than anyone realized.  Richie may like Nina but it’s hard to imagine him ever being truly happy away from his home.

The Wanderers deserves more attention than it has received over the years.  It’s funny, touching, and sometimes scary.  (The Ducky Boys, despite their name, will haunt you.)  Wander over and watch it.

Scene That I Love: Billy Dee Williams in The Empire Strikes Back

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Happy birthday to the one and only, Billy Dee Williams!

I remember the first time I watched The Empire Strikes Back, I was shocked when Lando betrayed his friend Han Solo.  Luckily, Lando was able to later redeem himself but the Cloud City betrayal scene remains one of the best moments in the original Star Wars trilogy.