Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Seasons In The Abyss by Slayer (1990, directed by Di Puglia Gerard)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Yes, that is Slayer rocking out at the base of the Sphinx.

For their very first music video, Slayer traveled to Egypt.  At the time the video was shot, Iraq had just invaded Kuwait and the world was on the verge of war.  Despite all of the tension in the region, the members of Slayer said that they were warmly received by both the citizens of Egypt and the American soldiers who were preparing for Operation Desert Storm.  The Egyptian government was so eager to show that it wasn’t anti-American that it allowed Slayer access that the band might not have otherwise been given.  At the same time, back in the United States, the Satanic moral panic was still in force and Slayer was being accused of leading its fans into lives of sin and decadence.  Slayer was promoting diplomacy while Tipper Gore was still playing records backwards.

Enjoy!

Homicide: The Movie (2001, directed by Jean de Segoznac)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Before The Wire, there was Homicide: Life On The Streets.

Based on a non-fiction book by the Baltimore Sun’s David Simon, Homicide: Life on the Streets aired for seven seasons on NBC, from 1993 to 1999. For five of those seasons, Homicide was the best show on television. Produced and occasionally directed by Barry Levinson, Homicide was filmed on location in Baltimore and it followed a group of Homicide detectives as they went about their job. From the start, the show had a strong and diverse ensemble, made up of actors like Andre Braugher, Ned Beatty, Jon Polito, Melissa Leo, Kyle Secor, Clark Johnson, Richard Belzer, Daniel Baldwin, and Yaphet Kotto. When Polito’s character committed suicide at the start of the third season (in a storyline that few other shows would have had the courage to try), he was replaced in the squad by Reed Diamond.

Homicide was a show that was willing to challenge the assumptions of its audiences. The murders were not always solved. The detectives didn’t always get along.  Some of them, like Clark Johnson’s Meldrick Lewis, had such bad luck at their job that it was cause for alarm whenever they picked up the ringing phone. As played by Andre Braugher, Frank Pembleton may have been the most brilliant detective in Baltimore but his brilliance came with a price and his non-stop intensity even led to him having a stroke while interrogating a prisoner. Kyle Secor played Pembleton’s partner, Tim Bayliss.  Bayliss went from being an idealistic rookie to a mentally unstable veteran murder cop in record time, spending seven seasons obsessing on his first unsolved case. Homicide dealt with big issues and, much like its spiritual successor The Wire, it refused to offer up easy solutions.

Despite the critical acclaim and a much hyped second season appearance by Robin Williams (playing a father who was outraged to hear the detectives joking about the murder of his family), Homicide was never a ratings success. After five seasons of perennially being on the verge of cancellation, the producers of Homicide finally caved into NBC’s demands.  The storylines became more soapy and the cases went form being random and tragic to being what the detectives had previously dismissively called “stone cold whodunits.”   New detectives joined the squad and the focus shifted away from the more complex veterans. Not only did this not improve ratings but also those who had been watching the show from the start were not happy to see Pembleton and Bayliss being pushed to the side for new characters like Paul Falsone (Jon Seda) and Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne). Falsone, in particular, was so disliked that there was even an “I Hate Falsone” website. At the end of the sixth season, Andre Braugher left the show and that was the end. The seventh season limped along, with Bayliss growing increasingly unstable.  The show ended with the implication of Bayliss turning into a vigilante and resigning from the Baltimore PD. It was not a satisfying ending. Richard Belzer’s John Munch moved to New York and became a regular on Law & Order: SVU but the rest of the detectives and their fates were left in limbo.

Fortunately, on February 13th, 2000, NBC gave Homicide another chance to have a proper conclusion with Homicide: The Movie.

Homicide: The Movie opens with a montage of Baltimore at its best and its worst, a reminder that Homicide never abandoned the city that had supported it for seven years.  While other shows recreated New York or Chicago on a soundstage, Homicide was always an authentic product of Baltimore. Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) is now running for mayor on a platform calling for drug legalization. When Giardello is shot at a campaign stop, all of the current and former members of the Homicide Unit come together to investigate the case.   While Giardello fights for his life, Pembleton and Bayliss partner up for one final time.

Homicide: The Movie fixes the main mistake that was made by the final two seasons of the show. Though all of the detectives get their moment in the spotlight (and all true Homicide fans will be happy to see Richard Belzer and Ned Beatty acting opposite each other for one final time), the focus is firmly on Pembleton and Bayliss. It doesn’t take long for these two former detectives, both of whom left the unit for their own different reasons, to start picking up on each other’s rhythms. Soon, they’re talking, arguing, and sometimes joking as if absolutely no time has passed since they were last partnered up together. But, one thing has changed. Bayliss now has a secret and if anyone can figure it out, it will be Frank Pembleton. What will Pembleton, the moral crusader, do when he finds out that Bayliss is now a killer himself?

The movie follows the detectives as they search for clues, interview suspects, and complain about the state of the world.  However, in the best Homicide tradition, the investigation is just a launching point to investigate what it means to be right or wrong in a city as troubled as Baltimore.  In the movie’s final half, it becomes more than just a reunion movie of a show that had a small but fervent group of fans. It becomes an extended debate about guilt, morality, and what it means to take responsibility for one’s actions. The final few scenes even take on the supernatural, allowing Jon Polito and Daniel Baldwin a chance to appear in the reunion despite the previous deaths of their characters.

Despite being one the best shows in the history of television, Homicide: Life on the Streets is not currently streaming anywhere, not even on Peacock.   (Considering how many Homicide people later went on to work on both Oz and The Wire, it would seem like it should be a natural fit for HBOMax.) From what I understand, this is because of the show’s signature use of popular music would make it prohibitively expensive to pay for the streaming rights. Fortunately, every season has been released on home video.   Homicide: The Movie is on YouTube, with the music removed.  The movie’s final montage is actually more effective when viewed in complete silence.

Music Video of the Day: Everything Counts by Depeche Mode (1983, directed by Clive Richardson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The video for this fan favorite was shot around what was then West Berlin.  (This was before the wall came down.)  Clive Richardson had also directed the video for Just Can’t Get Enough and the band turned to him, after previously working with Julian Temple, because they felt that Richardson could visually toughen up their image and help the band move away from the more self-consciously artsy style that Julian Temple had attempted to go with.  The end result was a video that quickly went into regular rotation on MTV and a song that proved to be one of Depeche Mode’s most enduring hits.

Enjoy!

A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case Of The Wicked Wives (1993, directed by Christian Nyby II)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Famed fashion photographer David Morrison (Eric Braeden) has fallen on hard times but things are looking up.  The American Museum of Art wants to do a retrospective of his work.  He just has to get the permission of his current wife, Dee (Kathy Ireland), and his four ex-wives (Shelley Hack, Kim Alexis, Maud Adams, and Beverly Johnson).  All of them are super models who owe their careers to David but four of them hate his guts and Dee isn’t happy when she sees evidence that he has been cheating on her.  When David turns up dead, Dee is arrested.  She claims that she’s innocent but the prosecution is sure that they have an airtight case.

This sounds like a case for Perry Mason!

However, Perry’s out of town so it falls to Perry’s never previously mentioned best friend, Tony Caruso (Paul Sorvino), to solve The Case of the Wicked Wives!  With the help of Perry’s tireless associates, Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Ken Malansky (William R. Moses), Caruso works to solve the case and prove the Dee is innocent.  He also prepares many pasta dinners and frequently sings.

So, where was Perry?  As everyone knows, Raymond Burr played Perry Mason for 9 seasons in the 50s and the 60s.  20 years after the show aired its final episode, Burr returned to the role in a series of highly rated, made for television movies.  Unfortunately, Burr died in 1993 with several movies left to be filmed.  In his will, Burr specifically requested that production on the remaining films continue so that the cast and crew wouldn’t lose their jobs.  Since the role of Mason obviously could not be recast that soon after Burrs’s death, it was decided that the remaining movies would feature guest lawyers.  Enter Paul Sorvino.

The Case of the Wicked Wives was the first Perry Mason film to be made after Burr’s death.  As his replacement, Tony Caruso has much in common with Mason, including the ability to make the guilty confess in open court.  Unlike Mason, Caruso is also obsessed with cooking elaborate spaghetti dinners and singing operatic arias.  This movie came out just a year after Sorvino left Law & Order to specifically pursue his opera career.  Sorvino sings a lot in The Case of the Wicked Wives, sometimes in court.  Unfortunately, a love of singing and pasta are the only two personality traits that are really given to Caruso.  Through no fault of Paul Sorvino’s, Caruso is never as compelling a character as the coolly calculating Mason.  Mason could trick anyone into confessing through perfectly asked questions.  Caruso is more into courtroom stunts that would get most lawyer disbarred.

Because the mystery itself is a dud, the main reason to watch The Case of the Wicked Wives is for the wives.  Who wouldn’t want to keep Kathy Ireland from being wrongly convicted?  All of the wives get at least one big moment to shine and tear up the scenery.  You’ll guess who the murderer is long before anyone else in court.

Game Review: Rock, Paper, Scissors! (2022, William Moore)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

As is explained in the description of this interactive fiction game, you are a contestant in the biggest Rock, Paper, Scissors! tournament in history.  I did not even know that there was such a tournament!  While the crowd watches, no doubt spellbound, you and an opponent challenge one another to a battle of who can cover rock, cut paper, and blunt scissors!

That’s the entire game.  It’s just Rock, Paper, Scissors over and over again.  Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  Sometimes, you tie.  It says something about the way that interactive fiction works that this is one of the more addictive games that I’ve played this year.  You don’t get anything for winning.  As far as I can tell, the tournament goes on until the player decides to stop playing.  But I will be damned if I didn’t get caught up in whether or not I would be able to pick the right hand gesture.  By typing “rules,” you can command that the rules be displayed so you can see how and why your opponent picked whatever it is that they picked during each round but I preferred to keep the game mechanics a mystery.

It did take me a few turns to figure out how to actually initiate the game with the opponent.  The version of the game that I played did not understand the commands “play” or “challenge.”  Eventually, I got  frustrated and wrote “Hit Opponent,” because violence is always the last resort while trying to guess the verb while playing interactive fiction.  It turned out that was exactly the right command.

Play Rock, Paper, Scissors!

Music Video of the Day: What We’re All About by Sum 41 (2002, directed by Marc Klasfeld)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this song from the soundtrack of the 2002 Spider-Man film, Sum 41 plays upside down, in the best tradition of Spider-Man fans everywhere.  Along with keeping an eye out for clips from the film, also watch out for Slayer’s Kerry King, who shows up to remind everyone what rock is all about.  As someone who grew up with an MTV that played music, I miss the music videos that always used to be released to promote movies.  I always enjoyed the mix of performance footage with the most kinetic scenes from the movie.

This music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld, who has directed music videos for literally everyone.  Don’t even think about becoming a rock star if you can’t get Marc Klasfeld to direct at least one music video for you.

Enjoy!

The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1982, directed by Jerrold Freedman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“He wet his pants on my mother’s rug!”

That’s what happens when you’re the boy who drinks too much.

In this made for television social problem film, a young Scott Baio plays Buff Saunders.  Buff is a high school student, a star hockey player, and an alcoholic.  He drinks because he grew up with an alcoholic father (played by Don Murray) and he learned early that drinking could make him feel confident whenever he was feeling insecure.  When Buff’s drinking gets out of control and he starts getting into fights, blowing off school, and seriously injuring himself, he is sent to a rehab center, one that is out of town so that the hockey team doesn’t find out that he’s an alcoholic.  His best friend, Billy (Lance Kerwin), rides the bus every day so that he can be there to support Buff but Buff’s own father cannot bring himself to come down there.  At first, Buff refuses to admit that he has a problem and won’t even speak up in the group meetings.  Eventually, even Billy starts to get tired of Buff’s attitude and his refusal to admit that his drinking has gotten out of control.  When Billy says that he’s not going to spend his birthday watching Buff sulk at rehab, Buff is forced to take a look at what his life has become.

The Boy Who Drank Too Much was basically an after school special that got the primetime movie treatment.  Scott Baio was in a lot of these movies, which is one reason why it is sometimes tempting to laugh at them today.  Baio was never really a bad actor but he was one of those actors who came across as being smarmy even when he was supposed to be playing a sympathetic or sincere character.  That’s especially true in The Boy Who Drank Too Much.  Even when Buff finally seems to be serious about controlling his drinking, you still never believe his sincerity.  When he apologizes for all the harm that his drinking has caused, he still seems like he’s waiting for the chance to grab the flask that he’s hidden somewhere in the room.  For the most part, though, that works for the character.  Baio’s playing an alcoholic who, for the majority of the movie, just tells people what he thinks they want to hear to get them off his back.

The movie does a good job of showing how a problem like alcoholism can be passed down through the generations.  Lance Kerwin and especially Don Murray both give good performances as the two people closest to Buff.  Murray appeared in and helped to produce a lot of social problem films like this one and it’s obvious that his heart was really in his performance here.  Ed Lauter took a break from appearing in every single Charles Bronson film to play Kerwin’s father and the lovely Toni Kalem, who was one of the most underrated actresses of the era, appears as well.  For a television production that’s trying very hard to be socially relevant, The Boy Who Drank Too Much isn’t bad.

Music Video of the Day: Big Brat by Phantom Planet (2003, directed by Spike Jonze)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Big Brat, which appeared on Phantom Planet’s self-titled third album, has twice gotten a lot of attention.  The first time was when it was released as a single in 2003 and the Spike Jonze-directed music video went into regular rotation on MTV.  (This was when MTV still played videos and had some actual influence.)  The second time was in 2012, when it was included on the soundtrack of The Amazing Spider-Man.

The video features the band performing and shooting a low budget zombie film.  (Remember that 2003 was long before the current zombie boom, showing that both the band and director Spike Jonze were far ahead of the curve.)  This is yet another video in which Spike Jonze displays his love of media and pop culture.  Jonze, of course, has gone on to have a very successful career as a director of idiosyncratic feature films.

Enjoy!

The Shooter (1997, directed by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

While riding his horse through the old, Michael Atherton (Michael Dudikoff) discovers a group of thuggish ranch hands attacking a prostitute named Wendy (Valerie Wildman).  Because Michael is known as being the Shooter, he has no problem coolly gunning the men down and saving Wendy’s life.  Unfortunately, for Michael, one of the dead men is the son of a fearsome rancher named Jerry Krants (William Smith) and Jerry has his own reasons for wanting Wendy dead.  Michael may be the Shooter but Jerry Krants is William Smith so you automatically know that it is not a good idea to mess with him.

In the grand spaghetti western tradition, Krants has his men kidnap Michael, beat him up, and crucify him outside of town.  The men leave Michael for dead but, after they’ve left, Wendy repays Michael’s kindness by untying him from the cross, nursing him back to health, and saving his life.  (The same thing used to happen to Clint Eastwood, except he usually had to nurse himself back to health without anyone else’s help.)  With everyone else believing him to be dead, Michael rides into town to get his violent revenge against Krants and his men.  With all of the townspeople convinced that Michael has returned as a ghost, only the town’s power-hungry sheriff, Kyle Tapert (Randy Travis), understands what has actually happened.  Tapert makes plans to use Michael’s return for his own advantage.  While it wouldn’t look good for Tapert to openly murder all of his opponents, what if he killed them and then framed Michael?  And then what if he made himself a hero by being the one to end Michael’s reign of terror?

Directed by Fred Olen Ray, The Shooter is a low-budget western that turned out to be far better than I was expecting.  Ray is obviously a fan of the western genre and, with The Shooter, he’s made a respectful and, by his standards, restrained homage to the classic spaghetti westerns of old.  He even shows some undeniable skill when it comes to building up the suspense before the climatic showdown.  Ray indulges in every western cliché imaginable but he does so with the respect of a true fan.

With his less than grizzled screen presence, Michael Dudikoff is slightly miscast as a Clint Eastwood-style gunslinger but the rest of the cast is made up of genre veterans who give it their best.  In particular, William Smith shows why he was one of the busiest “bad guys” working in the movies.  To me, the most surprising part of the film was that the casting of Randy Travis as a villain actually worked.  Fred Olen Ray made good use of Travis’s natural amiability, making Kyle into a villain who will give you friendly smile right before he opens fire.  Also be sure to keep an eye out for Andrew Stevens, playing the man who records Michael’s story.  It wouldn’t be a Fed Olen Ray movie without Andrew Stevens playing at least a small role.

Low-budget, undemanding, and made with obvious care, The Shooter is film that will be appreciated by western fans everywhere.

The Boys are Back In Town: Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head Episodes 1 & 2

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Having done both America and the universe, Beavis and Butt-Head are back where they belong!

I just watched the first two episodes of Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head on Paramount+.  The boys are once again spending their days sitting on the couch and watching videos.  They’ve got a flat screen now and, like the rest of the world, they’ve abandoned MTV for TikTok and YouTube.  Judging by these two episode, they’re a little smarter now than they were during their original run.  Butt-Head can now read (if he puts some effort into it) and Beavis knows how to use a drill.  Of course, smart is a relative term when it comes to Beavis and Butt-Head.  They haven’t changed that much.  They’re still getting trapped in boxes and they still can’t score.  Beavis still loves fire but, as he discovers during the first episode, Fire can be a tough taskmaster.

Beavis and Butt-Had aren’t the only ones to return.  Mr. Van Driessen and Mr. Anderson return in the second episode.  Mr. Van Driessen tells the boys that people will buy fresh honey.  Mr. Anderson tries to warn the boys about a giant wasp’s nest.  You see where it’s going but it doesn’t make it any less funny.  Unfortunately, Stewart hasn’t returned yet.  Is he still wearing his Winger t-shirt in 2022?

Each episode features two separate stories, along with cut-away scenes of Beavis and Butt-Head watching and commenting on videos.  The first episode started with Beavis and Butt-Head wrecking havoc at an escape room and it ended with Beavis talking to a dumpster fire.  The Escape Room story wasn’t anything special but it did serve to reintroduce Beavis and Butt-Head so it served its purpose.  The Dumpster Fire segment was better and it featured a rare solo turn for Beavis.  I loved that Fire’s instructions to Beavis were not what you would expect.  Get some exercise.  Recycle.  Think about college.  Fire cares!

The first episode was all about reintroducing Beavis and Butt-Head but the second episode showed the series settling into its groove.  The first story featured Beavis and Butt-Head getting trapped in a box.  Beavis, always the optimist, thought that maybe they should just get used to living in the box and that maybe some chicks would show up.  When they realized they were running out of air, Butt-Head started taking deep breaths to try to get as much of the air as possible before Beavis could get it.  The second story was a stone cold Beavis and Butt-Head classic, featuring farmer’s markets, wasps, shampoo, and of course, Mr. Van Driessen and Mr. Anderson.  Everyone knows that Beavis and Butt-Head never score and never will score.  The second episode reminded us that Mr. Van Driessen never score either and it’s usually Beavis and Butt-Head’s fault.  After years of being humiliated and often grievously injured by Beavis and Butt-Head, Mr. Van Driessen still hasn’t given up on them.  Maybe he should.

Of the videos that the boys critiqued, the highlight was Beavis revealing his love for BTS but I also liked their commentary on a creepy Cale Dobbs video.  Their TikTok commentaries seem like they’ll be more uneven but I did enjoy their reaction to the man explaining how to do a prison tattoo.  That will be a good skill to have when the boys inevitably end up in prison.

The most important thing about, though, is that Beavis and Butt-Head are back!  Just in time, too.  The world is finally stupid enough to benefit from their insight.