Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Megaforce (1982, directed by Hal Needham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Megaforce is the code name for America’s daring, highly-trained, Special Mission force. Its purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

Oh wait, that’s G.I, Joe!

Megaforce is another daring, highly-trained, Special Mission force.  Led by Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick), Megaforce is a group of international soldiers who have the latest technology at their disposal, like dune buggies and lasers and all of the cars the were left over from Cannonball Run.  They also have flying motorcycles that can shoot missiles and we can all agree that’s pretty damn cool.  When Megaforce is recruited to protect the Republic of Sardun from being conquered by the nation of Gamibia, it brings Ace and his men into conflict with Duke Gurerra (Henry Silva), who used to be a friend of Ace’s until he became a mercenary who would work for the highest bidder.  Duke’s latest employer?  GAMIBIA!

Megaforce is a strange movie.  Director Hal Needham later said that, when the film went into production, he felt he had his finger on the pulse of the country and apparently he thought America was ready for a movie about a group of men who wear skin-tight uniforms and who communicate almost exclusively by giving each other a thumbs up.  What led to Needham choosing to cast Barry Bostwick in the lead role?  Bostwick is very enthusiastic as Ace but he’s not a believable military leader.  We expect discipline and stoicism from our military leaders but Bostwick always seems to be a little too excited about everything.  “Remember,” he says, “the good guys always win!  Even in the 80s!”  Then he kisses his thumb, which is his way of letting the newest member of Megaforce, Zara (Persis Khambatta), know that she is loved.  I don’t know of many military leaders who were known for kissing their thumbs.  Patton probably could have gotten away with it.  Eisenhower, however, never would have been elected President if he had been half as enthusiastic as Ace Hunter.

There’s not really any plot to Megaforce.  Zara tries out for the group but she’s a woman so she has to prove herself.  Ace and his second-in-command, Dallas (Michael Beck), lead the troops in Gamimbia.  The soldiers shoot lasers and rockets from their glowing cars and their flying motorcycles but Megaforce is one of those strange action movies where no one is actually injured as a result of all the violence.  Megaforce was made for the kids.  It was made for an audience that cares more about flying motorcycles than plot or good acting or the non-existent romantic sparks between Barry Bostwick and Persis Khambatta.  In 1982, there probably wasn’t a parent alive who didn’t dread the prospect of their child demanding to watch Megaforce for the hundredth time.

Megaforce has a reputation for being one of the worst movies ever made but it’s not that bad.  How many other films feature something like this:

It’s impossible not to appreciate the brave efforts of the actors as they feign excitement over something that was definitely not actually happening in front of them.  Michael Beck and Barry Bostwick will make you believe that a green screen can be used to make a motorcycle look like it can fly.  Megaforce’s slogan may be Deed Not Words but who needs either when you’ve got a hundred dollars to spend on your special effect budget?

I will be the first to admit that Megaforce is no Delta Force but it’s dumb and sometimes it features Barry Bostwick on a flying motorcycle and it’s got Henry Silva in it, laughing like a maniac.  And finally, it leaves us all with a valuable lesson.  The good guys always win!  Even in the … 20s.

Music Video of the Day: I’m Bored by Iggy Pop (1979, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Listening to the lyrics and watching the video, I think Iggy Pop might have been bored when he came up with this song.

This song is off of Iggy’s third studio album, New Values.  This was the first of Iggy Pop’s solo albums to not have had any involvement from David Bowie.  New Values was well-received by the critics but it wasn’t a commercial success, peaking at #180 on the Billboard Top 200.  Among the album’s notable fans is Charles Thompson IV, who is better known by the names Frank Black and Black Francis.  It’s easy to imagine I’m Bored as a Pixies song, isn’t it?

While Iggy Pop was promoting New Values in Australia, he appeared on the show Countdown, which was Australia’s version of American Bandstand and Top of the Pops.  In an appearance that would subsequently become legendary, Iggy Pop made no attempt to hide the fact that he was lip-syncing I’m Bored and, at one point, he even stuffed his microphone down his pants and attempted to dance with the teenage girls in the audience.  After the “performance,” Iggy was interviewed by the show’s host and spent the entire time jumping up and down on his chair and shouting, “G’Day, mate!” in a mock-Australian accent.  The video for I’m Bored was subsequently filmed in New Zealand.

Enjoy!

If Lucy Fell (1996, directed by Eric Schaeffer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Lucy (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Joe (Eric Schaeffer) are two platonic best friends and roommates.  They have a pact.  If they don’t find true love by the time Lucy turns 30, they’ll hold hands while jumping off of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Now, Lucy’s 30th birthday is rapidly approaching and Lucy still hasn’t found the right man!  Meanwhile, Joe is obsessed with Jane (Elle MacPherson) but he hasn’t had sex in five years!  It looks like Lucy and Joe are going to have to commit suicide.  They made a pact, after all and single New Yorkers don’t break pacts.  Fortunately, things start to look up when Joe finally talks to Jane and Lucy meets a weirdo artist named Bwick (Ben Stiller).  Or could Lucy and Joe are actually meant to be together?

If Lucy Fell was briefly a big deal in 1996 because it featured both supermodel Elle MacPherson and Ben Stiller.  (It’s easy to forget how popular Ben Stiller was in the mid-90s.)  Once the film came out, people discovered that it was actually about the bland characters played by Sarah Jessica Parker and Eric Schaeffer and the film bombed at the box office.  Though it may be forgotten today, If Lucy Fell is still the epitome of the type of independent romantic comedy that a lot of directors made in the 90s.  Take a plot line that probably wouldn’t have made it beyond the table read if it was an episode of Friends (it’s interesting to note that both MacPherson and Stiller later made guest appearances on that sitcom), toss in some “alternative” music, and beg someone with a well-known name to take a supporting role.  The film is also interesting as an example of how a generally unappealing actor can play the lead in a romantic comedy and get to make out with both Elle MacPherson and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Just write and direct the film and then cast yourself in the lead role.  Congratulations to Eric Schaeffer for figuring it all out.

I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the 90s.  I guess everyone eventually feels nostalgic for the decade in which they grew up.  But nostalgia can be a harsh taskmaster and it’s important to remember that not all 90s independent films were Pulp Fiction and Fargo.  Quite a few of them were If Lucy Fell.  Ben Stiller has some funny moments, though they’re so cartoonish that they seem like they belong in a different film.  Elle MacPherson is beautiful, even if her character never makes sense.  Sarah Jessica Parker seems like she deserves better than everything the film offered to her.  Eric Schaeffer is dull but at least he got along with the director.  12 year-old Scarlett Johansson has a small role.  If Lucy Fell was a film that could only have been made in 1996 and it was forgotten by 1997.

Escape to Victory (1981, directed by John Huston)

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In 1942, during the height of World War II, Nazi Major Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow) is surprised to discover that professional English footballer John Colby (Michael Caine) is a prisoner of war in France and that he has formed his own soccer league with his fellow POWs.  Seeing a chance for a propaganda coup, von Steiner arranges for a team led by Colby to be travel to occupied Pairs where they will play a match against the German national team.

Colby agrees, on the condition that it be a real game and that the teams not just be made up of officers.  At the insistence of his senior officers, Colby also allows an American prisoner named Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) to serve as the team’s trainer.  Hatch is plotting to use the match as a cover for his own escape.  When it appears that there’s a chance for the entire team to escape during the match, Colby and his team are forced to choose between defeating the German team or making a run for freedom.

I think that, for most people, that wouldn’t be too difficult of a decision to make.  If I have to choose between escaping a POW camp or winning a match, I’m going to go down the tunnel and do what I have to do to make it across the English channel.  In the movie, though, it’s a matter of pride and I think Michael Caine is probably the only actor who could make such a conflict feel credible.  Though Stallone got both top billing and a romantic subplot with a member of the Resistance, it’s Michael Caine’s movie all the way through.  From the minute he demands to know “what the bloody hell” is going on, Michael Caine owns Escape to Victory.

Escape to Victory is an old-fashioned war film.  Think of it as being The Great Escape with tons of soccer kicked in.  Fans of the game will probably enjoy seeing legendary players like Pele and Bobby Moore cast as the POWs who make up Colby’s team.  The movie has some slow spots but it’s ultimately a rousing adventure, featuring good performances from Caine, von Sydow, and Sylvester Stallone.  It’s interesting to see Stallone cast as someone who isn’t automatically the best player on the field.

The film is based on a true story, one that sadly did not share this film’s happy ending.  In 1942, a group of Ukrainian POWs played an exhibition match against their German captors.  When the POWs won the match, the Germans responded by executing the majority of the players.  The true story of the Death Match (as it was later called) was told in 1962, in a Hungarian film called Two Half Times In Hell.

Music Video Of The Day: Crackerbox Palace by George Harrison (1976, directed by Eric Idle)

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Yes, this video was directed by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.  Idle appears in the video, as does Neil Innes.  (Innes plays several roles, including the woman pushing the carriage at the start of the video.)  This video was shot on the grounds of Harrison’s estate, Friar Park (which was also known as, you guessed it, Crackerbox Palace).  The video made its debut on the November 20th, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live.  SNL, that week, was hosted by Paul Simon and featured both Simon and Harrison as the musical guests.

The name Crackerbox Palace was originally used as the name for the Los Angeles estate that was owned by Lord Buckley, a comedian who was admired by Harrison and whom it was felt that Harrison physically resembled.  Harrison wrote the song after meeting Lord Buckley’s former manager, George Grief.  Harrison also payed homage to Blazing Saddles in the song, repeating Madeline Khan’s famous line of “It’s twoo, it’s twoo” during the instrumental breaks.

This whimsical video reflects Harrison’s sense of humor (not to mention Idle’s).  Harrison, with his reputation for being the spiritual Beatle, never seems to get enough attention for his sense of humor.

Enjoy!

Striking Distance (1993, directed by Rowdy Herrington)

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Thomas Hardy (Bruce Willis) comes from a huge family of Pittsburgh cops.  He used to be a homicide detective but then his father (John Mahoney) was murdered by a serial killer and his cousin (Robert Pastorelli) jumped off a bridge after Hardy turned him in for being crooked.  When Hardy insisted that the serial killer who murdered his father and countless others in Pittsburgh had to be a cop, he was kicked out of homicide and reassigned to the river patrol.

Two years later, Hardy drinks too much and spends his time floating up and down the river.  He’s got a new, younger partner named Emily (Sarah Jessica Parker) but not even Emily can snap him out of his funk.  It’s not until the serial killer starts to strike again — this time specifically targeting people from Hardy’s life — that Hardy starts to care about police work again.

Striking Distance is a good example of a thoroughly mediocre film that bombed at the box office but was given a new lease on life by HBO.  During the 90s, it sometimes seemed as if there wasn’t a day that went by that HBO didn’t air Striking Distance at least once.  I guess it makes sense.  Bruce Willis was a big name and Sarah Jessica Parker did eventually end up starring on one of HBO’s signature hits.  Still, it seems like they could have found a better Bruce Willis film to air.  When critics in the 90s complained that Bruce Willis was an ego-driven star who wasn’t willing to break out of his comfort zone, they weren’t talking about Willis’s appearances in films like Pulp Fiction or 12 Monkeys or even Die Hard.  They were talking about movies like Striking Distance, where Willis smirks his way through the film and spends more time making the camera gets his good side than actually developing a character.

The most interesting thing about Striking Distance is that it manages to be too simple and too complicated at the same time.  There’s no mystery to the identity of the serial killer or why Hardy is being targeted.  There’s also no depth to Hardy and Emily’s relationship.  As soon as they meet, everyone knows where their relationship is going to head.  At the same time, the movie is full of red herrings and unnecessary characters.  Hardy comes from a family of policemen and it seems like we meet every single one of them.  Tom Atkins, Dennis Farina, and Tom Sizemore all show up as different relatives.  They don’t add much to the movie but they’re there.  Andre Braugher, Timothy Busfield, and Brion James also all show up in minor roles, to no great effect beyond providing the film with an “It’s that guy!” moment.

To the film’s credit, it has a few good chase scenes, though the novelty of everyone being in a boat wears off pretty quickly.  Striking Distance is a mess but everyone who had HBO in the 90s sat through it at least once.

 

Music Video Of The Day: Tommy Gun by The Clash (1978, directed by Don Letts)

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“I was saying us rock ‘n’ rollers are all posers and egomaniacs, but we know that terrorists are as bad, or worse than we are. They definitely love to read their own press… I know they dedicate their life to a cause, but they’re always posing for pictures.”

— Joe Strummer, on Tommy Gun

It’s always hard for me to listen to The Clash without also thinking about the way that Johnny Lydon dismissed them as not being a real punk band.  (Lydon was fond of pointing out that Strummer was a diplomat’s son and that he had previously been in a “pub band” before getting involved with punk scene.)  Johnny may have had a point about The Clash never really being as working class as they claimed to be, though that didn’t stop him from collaborating with members of the band on a few projects after The Clash broke up.  Still, I’ve always liked The Clash’s music.

Tommy Gun was the band’s take on international terrorism.  When it was first released, there was some controversy over whether the band was pro-terrorism or anti-terrorism.  As with many of The Clash’s songs, it could be read both ways.  It was The Clash’s first top twenty hit in the UK, peaking at #19.

This video was one of the first of many to be directed by Don Letts.  Some sources say that this was the first video that Letts shot for the band, though Lett’s video for The Clash’s White Riot was actually released before the video for Tommy Gun.  I don’t know how true that is but I do know that Letts went on to direct several videos for both The Clash and Mick Jones’s Big Audio Dynamite.

Enjoy!

Cinemax Friday: The Big Fall (1997, directed by C. Thomas Howell)

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Directed by C. Thomas Howell!?

You read that right!  After spending years as a straight-to-video mainstay, C. Thomas Howell finally stepped up from just starring in these films to directing one.  Of course, Howell still stars in The Big Fall as well as directing it.  What better way to make sure that your star takes your direction than by casting yourself in the lead role?  It makes sense.  The end result is a lot better than anyone would probably expect it to be.

Howell plays Blaise Rybeck, a self-described “private dick,” who works in modern Los Angeles with his protege (Sam Seder) and his secretary (Kathy Griffin, whose role is thankfully small).  Rybeck talks and dresses like a hard-boiled, 1940s P.I., right down to wearing a trench coat and a fedora while delivering his lines in a Bogart-style rasp.  The decor of his office is straight from the 40s as well.  Despite this, the movie takes place in modern times, with people using cell phones and bungee jumping off of bridges.  That no one comments on how out-of-time Rybeck seems to be indicates that Howell knew exactly what he was doing with his directorial debut.  The Big Fall is a tone perfect send-up of the neo-noirs that Howell spent most of the 90s appearing in.  His direction shows far more wit than you might expect from the star of Soul Man.

Rybeck is hired by sultry Emma Roussell (Sophie Ward) to find her brother.  It turns out that her brother has gotten involved with a bunch of extreme sports-obsessed bungee jumpers.  (This film attempts to do for bungee jumping what Point Break did for surfing and it actually succeed because the bungee jumping scenes are pretty damn cool.)  It all has to do with a criminal named Axe Roosevelt, played by the great Jeff Kober.  Of course, it also turns out that there’s more to Emma than meets the eye because this is a noir and there always is.

As a director, Howell does a good job of spoofing the material while still playing it straight enough that the movie doesn’t just become one big inside joke.  Jeff Kober and Titus Welliver are great as the bad guys, Sophie Ward is sexy as the femme fatale, and C. Thomas Howell keeps things moving both in front of and behind the camera.  This is an unexpected straight-to-video gem.

Music Video of the Day: Maybe Tomorrow Maybe Tonight by Earth and Fire (1973, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For today’s music video of the day, we have another song from the Dutch progressive band, Earth and Fire. I wrote a little about the history of Earth and Fire yesterday.

This is off of their third album, Atlantis.  From what I can tell, Maybe Tomorrow Maybe Tonight was the only single released off of Atlantis.  It was a hit for the band, breaking into the top ten in both their native Netherlands and in Belgium.  It only reached the 44th position in the German charts.  Who knows why.

This video, like the majority of the music videos from the 70s, is a performance clip.  Apparently, it was originally filmed for a Dutch television show.

Enjoy!

The Tie That Binds (1995, directed by Wesley Strick)

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John (Keith Carradine) and his wife, Leanne (Daryl Hannah) are two white trash murderers who are on the run with the police.  When the cops catch them in the act of burglarizing a house (and murdering the people who live there), John and Leanne manages to narrowly escape but they’re forced to leave behind their 6 year-old daughter, Janie (Julia Devlin).

Traumatized by her former life, Janie is adopted by an architect named Russell (Vincent Spano) and his wife, Dana (Moira Kelly).  Dana, who lost her previous baby, and Russell are convinced that they can give Janie a loving home and help her overcome her past traumas.  And it seems like they might be correct, even though Janie is still terrified of a mysterious monster that she calls “the tooth fairy.”

However, John and Leanne are determined to get their daughter back and they’ve just found out where Russell and Dana live.

The Tie That Binds is a stupid movie from 1995 that, like a lot of stupid movies from the 90s, was put into heavy rotation on HBO and Cinemax after a brief box office run.  The main problem with the film is that everyone consistently makes the dumbest decisions possible but then we’e expected to sympathize with them when everything goes wrong.  John and Leanne may be extremely evil but they’re also extremely stupid so it’s hard to really buy into the idea that they could somehow successfully evade being caught by the police long before the inevitable scene where they confront Russell and Dana in the unfinished house that Russell’s spent the entire movie working on.

The Tie That Binds does feature good performances, all from actors who deserved better.  Keith Carradine and Daryl Hannah are frightening and Moira Kelly and Vincent Spano are convincing as a normal couple who just want to do the right thing.  Both Kelly and Spano should have been bigger stars back in the day but instead, it seems like they usually just ended up in stuff like The Tie That Binds.