Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Cannonball by The Breeders (1993, directed by Kim Gordon and Spike Jonze)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Cannonball was the biggest hit for one of the best bands of the 90s, The Breeders.  And the song’s music video was one of the best that ever played on MTV.  According to Kim Deal, this song was inspired by the Marquis De Sade.  Thanks to this video, most of us will always associate this song with the Deal sisters having fun in rehearsal, Josephine Wiggins showing off her cool professionalism, and Jim MacPherson beating the Hell out of those drums.

This video was directed by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and a young up-and-comer named Spike Jonze. This was Jonze’s first music video.

Enjoy!

The Guvnors (2014, directed by Gabe Turner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Back in the day, The Guvnors were one of the most feared and powerful firms around.  Based in London, this group of football hooligans were famous for the brutality of their fights.  More than 20 years later, they’ve all retired from hooliganism and, more or less, gone on to live normal lives.  (One of them is a cop!)  Their former leader, Mitch (Doug Allen), preaches non-violence and worries about his son copying his past mistakes.  When he runs into the former members of a rival firm at a soccer game, he makes a point of shaking hands with them.  The past is over.

When young drug dealer Adam (Harley Sule) takes over a London manor estate, he is eager to fight the former members of the Guvnors so that he can establish that he and his gang are now in charge of the neighborhood.  Mitch tries to ignore him until a former Guvnor, Mickey (David Essex), is murdered in his home.  Mitch gets the old firm back together again for one last brawl.

Also know as Hoodies vs Hoodlums, The Guvnors is gritty but contrived, with action that plays out at a slow pace while managing to hit just about urban gang movie cliche imaginable.  There was a lot of potential to the idea of Mitch getting the old gang back together again but it doesn’t happen until nearly an hour into this 95-minute movie so, with the exception of a sepia-toned flashback, we don’t really get much of an idea of who these people were in the past.  Doug Allen project quite authority as Mitch but rapper Harley Sule (credited here as Harley Sylvester) is unimpressive in the role of Adam.  He doesn’t come across as being a dynamic enough leader to take over a manor estate, let alone defeat a group of middle-aged football hooligans.

Despite a premise with a lot of kick, The Guvnors misses the goal.

Blazing Bullets (1951, directed by Wallace Fox)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Johnny Mack Brown rides across the old west until he reaches a seemingly abandoned ranch.  Someone takes a shot at him with a gold bullet.  It’s because the the ranch has a reputation for being haunted and everyone knows that the only way to take care of a ghost is to shoot at it with gold bullets.

(It’s common frontier knowledge!)

Johnny may says that he’s a simple cowhand who has been hired to look after the ranch but actually, he’s a government agent who has been sent to investigate the disappearance of rancher John Roberts (Forrest Taylor) and the theft of government gold.  Bill Grant (House Peters, Jr.) is the main suspect in the Roberts disappearance but Roberts’s daughter (Lois Hall) insists that he’s innocent.  Even though Roberts forbid Grant from seeing his daughter, Johnny Mack Brown suspects that Grant is being set up as well.  Brown doesn’t buy the idea of the ranch being haunted either.  If Fuzzy Knight was there, he’d probably see a ghost but Fuzzy takes this film off.  Time for Johnny Mack Brown to investigate.

Despite the exciting title, Blazing Bullets is only a so-so B-western.  Working without his usual sidekicks, Brown just goes through the motions and there’s not nearly enough action.  A movie called Blazing Bullets should have had more blazing bullets in it.  Today, it’s impossible to watch the film without expecting Harvey Korman to show up as Hedley Lamarr.

Music Video of the Day: I Missed Again by Phil Collins (1981, directed by Stuart Orme)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this music video, Phil Collins demonstrates that no one can mime playing an invisible instrument better than him.  Journey may have tried but no one does it like Phil.

Primarily a television director, Stuart Orme directed several videos for both Genesis and Phil Collins as a solo act.

Enjoy!

The Last Whistle (2018, directed by Rob Smat)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Victor Trenton (Brad Leland) is a high school football coach who is determined to have an undefeated season so that he can score a college coaching job.  However, when one of his players, Benny Robison (Fred Tolliver, Jr.), dies of a previously undiagnosed heart condition during a grueling practice, Trenton’s plans fall apart.  Instead of rescheduling the next game, Trenton insists that his players play it.  When an assistant coach forfeits the game, Victor starts to become the town pariah.

This is a short and simple indie film about the price of win-at-all-costs competitiveness.  Even before Benny dies, Victor Trenton is not a particularly likable character.  A part of him does care about his players but an even bigger part sees them as pawns in his quest to get a college position.  When Benny dies, Trenton refuses to take any responsibility and descends into drinking and self-pity.  When Trenton is sued by Benny’s mother, Trenton insists that nothing is his fault.  By the end of the movie, Trenton has started to take some responsibility but the movie doesn’t end with a definite resolution.  It’s up to the viewer to decide whether or not Victor Trenton is responsible or truly sorry for Benny’s death.

It’s not a totally satisfying viewing experiences but Brad Leland gives one of the most authentic “coach” performances that I’ve ever seen.  He knows how to win football games and, for his hometown, that’s enough until it isn’t.

Music Video of the Day: Mystify by INXS (1989, directed by Richard Lowenstein)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

If you were ever wondering how INXS composed their songs, this video probably doesn’t show you how it actually happened.  I guess it’s possible that there was a cameraman and a sound crew present at exactly the right moment but doubt it.

It was still one of INXS’s more popular songs, peaking at 17 on the U.S. Charts.

Enjoy!

On The Edge (2002, directed by Fred Williamson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When a high school basketball player named Willie Joe Harris (Derrick Franklin) gets in some trouble with some local drug dealers, he goes to Dakota Smith (Fred Williamson), an ex-cop and private investigator who now spends his time golfing.  Realizing that the old neighborhood has been taken over by drug dealers like Slim Jim (Ice-T), Dakota and his friends come together to take back the streets.  Jim Brown is former football coach Chad Grant.  Ron O’Neal is Willie Joe’s guardian, Frank.  Bernie Casey is Rex Stevens, whose family was killed by hitmen looking for Willie Joe.  Together, they’re on the edge.  They’re not alone on the edge, though.  A manic Gary Busey plays a hitman named Felix.  Gloria Allred (!) plays Councilwoman Gloria Johnson, Dakota’s contact at city hall.

Fred Williamson directed On The Edge and, in tradition of Original Gangstas, the main appeal of the film is to see a bunch of former blaxploitation stars showing off that they could still own the screen.  Our stars may not move as quickly as they used to but they’re still good shots, they’re still good with a quip, and the ladies still love Fred.  The film also has an anti-drug “take care of your community” message but most people will just be watching to see Fred Williamson and Jim Brown doing their thing.  (The film’s cover art might feature Ice-T front-and-center but this is a Fred Williamson film all the way.)

The film itself isn’t great.  Sometimes, it was impossible to make out what the characters were saying and the scene with Gloria Allred mostly seemed to be there so that Fred could say that he knew Gloria Allred.  But the combination of Williamson, Casey. O’Neal, and Brown still carried a punch.  Say what you will about his films, few people were more confident on screen than Fred Williamson.

Snake River Desperadoes (1951, directed by Fred Sears)

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A young Indian brave named Little Hawk (Don Reynolds) runs across the countryside, hoping to run into the Durango Kid.  Instead, he runs into Steve Reynolds (Charles Starrett), who listens as Little Hawk explains that the Indians and the white men are about to go to war.  Steve promises to deliver the message to Durango.  That will be easy for Steve because he is Durango!

White bandits are disguising themselves as Native Americans and attacking stagecoaches.  The local townspeople are getting riled up.  Meanwhile, businessmen Jim Haverly (Monte Blu) is running a trading post and secretly selling weapons to the Indians.  Jim is hoping to profit from the upcoming war.  Jim is also the uncle to Little Hawk’s best friend, Billy (Tommy Ivo).  When Durango and his sidekick Smiley Burnette show up, they team up with Billy and Little Hawk and try to stop the war before it happens.

This is one of the many B-westerns that featured Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid.  The Durango Kid was always an agent of the federal government but he pretended to be an outlaw to make it easier for him to get information.  Sometimes, it really didn’t make sense for Steve to pretend to be the Durango Kid, like in this movie.  I guess no one wanted to give up the gimmick, just like no one wanted to give up Smiley Burnette’s musical comedy.

This one has all of the horse-riding and gun-shooting that fans of the genre would expect from a Charles Starrett western.  It also has a lot of stock footage that appeared in a countless number of other B-westerns.  Starrett is a convincing cowboy and Monte Blue is a good villain, as always.  The child actors can sometimes be difficult to tolerate but I imagine the kids in the audience preferred watching them to sitting through the romantic subplots that these films usually had.  Fans of the gerne will enjoy the film, if just on a nostalgic level.  Those who are not into westerns will still not be into them after watching.