Back in the 1980s, you never knew when a glam metal band might suddenly drive by your home or your office, inviting you to rock out to the thundering beat of the band and the vibrato-laden lyrical stylings of a lead singer like Don Dokken.
This video for Dokken’s It’s Not Love has everything:
An opening shot of a hot blonde getting into a truck? Check!
A dancing homeliness man? Check!
The band rocking out as they’re driven through Los Angeles? Check!
Groupies? Check!
A shout-out to pioneering underground radio station KMET 94.7? Double check!
Originally, I was going to post this on Sunday but this is probably not an appropriate Mother’s Day song. One rumor is that this song is about a young Satanist telling his parents not to try to lead him away from the lifestyle that he wants. Danzig, himself, once said that the mother he was singing to was meant to be Tipper Gore, who was big on banning heavy metal music and whose then-husband, Albert Gore, was actually a part of a Senate committee looking into “obscene” music.
This is the first video for Mother. Danzig redid the song in 1993 and came out with a second video as well. I prefer the first video because Danzig doesn’t dance. As Beavis and Butthead said when they viewed Danzig shaking his hips in the second video, “That little dance wasn’t very cool.”
One day, while defending Gotham City, Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) learn that there is a plot to abduct Commodore Schmidlap from his yacht. Quick! To the batcopter! Flying over the ocean, they locate the yacht but it turns out that the whole kidnapping plot was a ruse for a shark to attack Batman!
“Holy sardine!” Robin exclaims!
With the help of porpoise who bravely sacrifices its life to protect the Caped Crusader, Batman manages to escape. Back at police headquarters, Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), and Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) wonder which member of Batman’s rogue’s gallery of villainy could have been responsible for the ruse.
Batman says that it was pretty “fishy” what happened and that could possibly mean The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) was involved!
Robin points out that it happened “at sea” and C stands for Catwoman (Lee Meriweather)!
Batman then says that the shark was “pulling my leg” and that might mean it was working for The Joker (Cesar Romero)!
Chief O’Hara says that it all adds up to “a sinister riddle,” which can only mean one thing: The Riddler (Frank Gorshin)!
“The four of them,” Batman says, “working together…”
“Holy nightmare!” Robin exclaims!
As you can probably guess, the tone of 1966’s Batman: The Movie is far different from the tone of more recent Batman films. That’s because Batman: The Movie was based on the light-hearted 60s TV show that made Batman a household name even while transforming the character from being a shadowy vigilante to being a comedic straight arrow, a proud square who regularly lectured the citizens of Gotham about respecting the forces of law and order.
Batman: The Movie was released after the conclusion of the first season of the Batman televisions series and it featured nearly the entire cast of the show. (Lee Meriweather replaced Julie Newman in the role of the purring Catwoman.) The movie feels like an extended episode of the show, still using the same famous music and featuring scenes of Batman and Robin running in place with a street scene projected behind them. The attitude is one of affectionate parody, as opposed to the more cynical campiness of Joel Schumacher’s infamous films from the 90s. Adam West expertly deadpans his way through the main role while the underrated Burt Ward energetically plays the naïve and easily amazed Robin. Of the villains, Lee Meriweather is a sexier Catwoman than Anne Hathaway and there’s never been a better Riddler than Frank Gorshin. (Of the many actors who played Batman’s villains on the TV series, Gorshin was always the only one who seemed to understand that he was supposed to be playing someone dangerous.) At 104 minutes, Batman: The Movie runs out of steam before it ends but there’s still much here to entertain fans of the television show.
Of course, when I was growing up in the 90s, there was no easier way to lose credibility with most diehard Batman films than to admit to liking anything about the television series. The Batman TV series was widely blamed for people thinking that comic books were only meant for kids. Tim Burton was a hero for treating Batman seriously. Joel Schumacher was hated for taking the opposite approach. Batman and Robin was criticized for being too much like the TV show, right down to George Clooney doing a poor man’s Adam West impersonation in the main role. Despite the acclaim that greeted Batman: The Animated Series, It wasn’t until Christopher Nolan took control of the character that the cinematic Batman truly returned to his grim roots.
Since the conclusion of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, there have been several versions of Batman. Ben Affleck took over the role for two films. Young Bruce Wayne and his doomed parents briefly appeared in Joker. Robert Pattinson is set to take over the role in The Batman. Now that everyone knows Batman as a grim avenger and countless actors have bragged about how they prepared for their roles in the Batverse by reading either The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight Returns, it’s easier to appreciate the more light-hearted approach of something like Batman: The Movie. After two decades of grim and serious Batmans being used as a metaphor for everything from PTSD to the surveillance state, the sight of a paunchy Adam West trying to find a place to safely dispose of a ridiculously oversized bomb can be a relief.
“Sometimes,” Batman says, “you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”
To be honest, I’m neither a huge fan of Bon Jovi or Young Guns II but Blaze of Glory is still a rocker of a song, one that both makes the film it appears in better and which can also stand on its own. Jon Bon Jovi captured the feel of a great western with this song, in a way that he tried too hard and failed to do with Dead or Alive.
Of course, the video is full of footage from Young Guns II. It’s not only a good music video but it’s a good trailer as well. The only problem is that it almost reveals the plot of the entire movie.
Like a lot of people, I was shocked and saddened when I heard yesterday that Tawny Kitaen had died at the age of 59. Though Kitaen is arguably best-known for appearing in a series of music videos for Whitesnake, her first music video appearance was in today’s music video of the day.
In this video, Kitaen plays one of two women who apparently really love RATT. (At the time, she was dating the group’s guitarist, Robbin Crosby.) When she puts the Out of the Cellar album on the jukebox, it mystically summons two members of the RATT. Soon, Tawny and her friends are running out on the check, stealing cars, and eventually getting pulled over by two cops who turn out to be Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee! At the end of the video, Milton Berle shows up, recreating a role that he played in an earlier RATT video. Milton’s nephew, Marshal, was the band’s then-manager.
Despite the presence of Uncle Miltie and two members of the Motely Crue, this video today is all about Tawny Kitaen, who is young, beautiful, and appears to have not a care in the world. Rest in peace, Tawny.
Joe Walsh, who joined the Eagles in 1976, originally wrote and performed In The City for the 1979 cult classic, The Warriors. Around the same time that The Warriors came out, The Eagles released their sixth studio album, The Long Run, which featured the full band’s version of In The City.
This was an early music video, released before MTV was even a thing and when music vides were still viewed as largely being a novelty. Like most of the music videos of the era, it’s a simple performance clip.
Due to the Pandemic, 2020 was the first year since 2009 not to see the release of any new Marvel films. Many people wondered if the MCU would be able to survive taking a year off. Would people still care about or even remember the Marvel movies without having a new one released every four months? With so many of the MCU’s most popular characters either dead or retired by the end of Avengers: Endgame, would viewers in a post-Pandemic world still flock to theaters to see what Marvel’s fourth phase had to offer?
The positive responses to Disney+’s WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier would seem to suggest that the answer is yes but the first real test will be when Black Widow, Shang-Chi, The Eternals, and the latest Spider-Man film are released later this year. Black Widow is the first solo movie of one of the Marvel’s most popular characters and Spider-Man is Spider-Man so both are expected to be blockbusters. The Eternals are less well-known but, because their movie was directed by Nomadland‘s Chloe Zhao, expectations are high. Shang-Chi is probably the biggest question mark but the trailer generated a lot of enthusiasm.
With Black Widow just a few months away from opening, Marvel Studios today released a sizzle reel to remind viewers of what’s coming out. After a brief look at Marvel’s past, the trailer provides footage of Black Widow, Shang-Chi, and, for the first time, The Eternals. It ends with a list of upcoming Marvel films, including the newly titled Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels. (The Marvels is the sequel to Captain Marvel, presumably titled to remind people that there is more to the film than Brie Larson.) Finally, things end with a hint that The Fantastic Four will soon be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This is actually one of Def Leppard’s better songs but it had the misfortune to be released in 1996, at a time when many formerly huge 80s bands were being overshadowed by the new bands of the 90s. Visually, the music video has more in common with the melancholy video style of 90s grunge than with the energetic and upbeat videos that we typically associate with Def Leppard.
This video was directed by photographer Matt Mahurin. Mahurin started directing videos in 1986 and has worked with everyone from U2, Queensrÿche, Metallica, and Dreams So Real to Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, R.E.M., and Alice In Chains.
This video is from back in the day and I mean way back in the day. Believe it or not, there was a time when U2 was a pretty rocking band. It may be hard to believe it now that the band is often used as a punchline and Bono is better known for his messianic tendencies than his abilities as a singer but in the 80s and, for much of the 90s, U2 was one of the best and, dare I say it, most interesting bands around.
If you doubt me, watch this performance clip which also served as the video for their song Bad. Regardless of how people feel about them in the aftermath of the Songs of Innocence debacle, there was a time when U2 rocked.
Back in the 70s, Hollywood finally figured out that a good soundtrack was a good way to convince people to come see your movie.
In the 80s, Hollywood figured out that a good music video was an even more effective way to draw in audiences than a good soundtrack.
The video for What A Feeling is entirely made up of scenes from Flashdance. It probably wasn’t difficult to put it together and it probably played a huge role in the film becoming a hit and this song eventually wining an Oscar. It was a lesson that Flashdance producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer would remember when they went on to produce other feature-length music videos, like Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and Dangerous Minds.
Through the Shattered Lens 