Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Poison by Slaughterhouse (2023, directed by Meriel O’Connel and Anna Tse)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Because I’m getting old and I still don’t want to admit that the music I grew up with is now considered to be “classic” rock, this South Bay band is new to me but I like their sound and I like this video, which feels like a throwback to the days before music got boring and corporate.

I found an interview in which the lead singer (and director of the video) Meriel O’Connel had this to say about Poison:

The song is about society being subjected to constant overwhelming stimulus on our phones, devices, etc that creates this culture of comparison, disposability, and lack of fulfillment in our daily lives. There’s another component where these companies and corporations who push apps, social media, etc aren’t making these things just for fun, it’s all for profit. To keep us searching for more rather than being satisfied by ourselves and our immediate surroundings, and ultimately them knowing & tracking everything about us algorithmically.

It’s this lack of escapism that makes it more difficult for us to turn inwards & go into our own internal lives and spaces, and makes us place value on what we’re putting out externally rather than consider how we can be internally fulfilled, fill up our own cups.

That’s not bad!

Enjoy!

Party Line (1988, directed by William Webb)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Hot singles are waiting to speak to you!”

Remember those party line commercials that used to air late at night in the 90s?  For just a few dollars a minute, you could call and talk to someone claiming to be a hot woman in your area of town.  (The commercials always featured women because everyone understood that only men would be dumb enough to call the number.)  Even when I was a teenager, I knew that there was no way that a young, hot woman was sitting at home alone and waiting for a stranger to call her.  But obviously, some people thought they were true because those party lines commercials aired for a long time and really only went away once everything moved online.

In Party Line, Greta Blackburn and Leif Garrett plays homicidal siblings who have money to burn so they spend all of their time on the party line, enticing men to sneak away from their wives and come to their mansion so that they can be murdered.  Detectives Richard Hatch and Shawn Weatherly are assigned to find out why so many married men are turning up dead.  The chief of police is played by Richard Roundtree, who is so smooth that his main purpose in the movie is to remind us that not everyone has to use a party line to pick up women.  It’s a standard 80s thriller that has some moments of unexpected humor, largely due to the contrast between the beautiful and rich killers and the people that they target.  Richard Hatch is wooden in the role of the detective but Shawn Weatherly is attractive and likable as his partner,  Greta Blackburn makes for an excellent femme fatale while Leif Garrett is twitchy but convincing as a killer who likes to wear a bridal gown.

Party Line was made when the idea of adult phone lines was still a new one.  Apparently, when those lines first started to advertise, the part about it costing money wasn’t actually mentioned and could only be discovered by reading the small print at the bottom of a television screen.  Since the small print was not only very small but also usually accompanied by a picture of a blonde in lingerie, no one ever bothered to read it.  I was not one of them but I do know more than a few 90s kids who came home from school to discover a parent waiting to talk to them about the phone bill.  The world was a different place back then.  Today, everyone should know that most hot singles have something better to do than to talk to you and if they don’t, they’re probably killers like people in Party Line.  It’s not worth a dollar for each additional minute.

 

Music Video of the Day: In The Shade of The Shadows by Rosalie Cunningham (2024, directed by Rosalie Cunningham and Rosco Wilson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In The Shade Of The Shadows is the first single off of Rosalie Cunningham’s upcoming album, To Shoot Another Day.  (The album is due to be released on November 1st.)

According to the video’s description on YouTube, this video is a 100% DIY creation, made with a phone and a good deal of creativity by Cunningham and Rosco Wilson.  To quote Cunningham (again, from the video’s description on YouTube): It’s amazing what you can do with a phone, a torch, some free child labour, a tree surgeon and some SASS. 

Enjoy!

Playing With Fire (1985, directed by Ivan Nagy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

David Phillips (Gary Coleman) is a teenager who sets fires when he gets upset.  He has many reasons to be upset.  His parents (Ron O’Neal and Cicely Tyson) are getting divorced and are constantly fighting.  His teachers at school are always getting on his back.  He has to take care of his younger siblings and his dog.  He can’t even get the bigger kids in school to let him play basketball with them.  At first, David just plays with his lighter but, after he accidentally sets his mother’s coat on fire, David discovers that he likes to watch things burn.  David and his mother both claim it’s just coincidence that David is always nearby whenever a fire breaks out but Fire Chief Walker (Yaphet Kotto) knows what’s really going on.  After David nearly burns down his house, Walker tries to reach him before it’s too late.

This isn’t really meant to be a horror film  but it’s shot like one, with plenty of scenes of Gary Coleman staring at a burning fire with a possessed-look in his eyes.  The movie tries to make David sympathetic but the scene where he threatens his own dog with a lighter suggests that David has more problems than just his parents splitting up.  This was Gary Coleman’s first dramatic role.  I think it may have also been his only dramatic role.  It’s not that he’s not convincing as a really angry kid.  It’s just that he’s Gary Coleman so, no matter how much the movie tries, it still comes across as being a special episode of Diff’rent Strokes where Arnold becomes a pyromaniac.  Coleman tries to play up the drama of the situation but it’s hard not to laugh whenever he looks shocked at one of the fires that he has just started.  Every scene seems like it should end with Conrad Bain showing up with the cops.

For years, this movie was next to impossible to find but finally, someone found an old VHS tape in their garage and uploaded the movie to both YouTube and the Internet Archive, ensuring the world will never forget the time that Gary Coleman played with fire.

One final note: the director is better known for eventually becoming business partners with notorious Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss.

Music Video of the Day: Where I Reign by Kerry King (2024, directed by Jim Louvau)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this song, Kerry King reveals that he reigns right where you would expect the lead guitarist for Slayer to reign.  This song is off of King’s album, From Hell I Rise.  Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda provides the vocals.

The music video keeps things simple and straight-forward, emphasizing performance over glitz.  Director Jim Louvau previously directed the video for Jerry Cantrell’s Atone.

Enjoy!

Storm Warning (2007, directed by Jamie Blanks)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A lawyer named Rob (Robert Taylor) and his French wife, Pia (Nadia Fares), get lost while on a boating trip and land on an island during the middle of a storm.  French Island is home to a family of rednecks, Poppy (John Brumpton) and his two inbred sons, Jimmy (David Lyons) and Brett (Matthew Wilkinson).  When the rednecks catch Rob and Pia seeking shelter in their home, they sexually harass Pia (which is not cool) and they give Rob a ton of crap for driving a Volvo (justified).  “You’re a frog on French island,” one of the rednecks tells Pia.  After having their wet suits stolen and being forced to kill a wallaby, Pia and Rob remember the end of Straw Dogs and violently turn against the rednecks.

This was a pointless movie.  Don’t go on sailing trips if you don’t know who or what is on any of the islands.  Don’t break into people’s houses, no matter how bad the storm is.  Always make sure to grab the keys before trying to steal a truck.  Never trust a Rottweiler.  These are lessons that are understood by everyone except for characters in dumb movies like this one.

There’s an unrated version of this is you want an extra four minutes of blood and insults.

Music Video of the Day: Foxy, Foxy by Rob Zombie (2006, directed by Rob Zombie)

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The cliche view of Rob Zombie is that he is a shock rocker who branched out into horror filmmaking.  With the song and the music video for Foxy, Foxy, Zombie shows that he is just as much a descendant of Lynard Skynard’s as he is of Alice Cooper’s.  And though the video may not have the horror themes that most people expect from a Zombie production, the song itself was at least partially inspired by a Lon Chaney film, He Who Gets Slapped.

Yes, that is Sheri Moon Zombie showing up at  the outdoor concert.

Enjoy!

In The Shadow of Guilt (2022, directed by Keven Russell)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

An alcoholic writer is driving drunk when she runs over a little girl.  At first, she gets out to help but when she sees that the girl is dead, she just apologizes and drives off.  Later, she and another writer are at a rustic retreat.  The drunk writer has writer’s block.  The other writer has a secret.  A neighbor tells a story about another little girl who was killed mysteriously.  Eventually, a ghost shows up because the alcoholic has been living in the shadow of guilt.

I liked the idea behind this one but the action moved slowly and the two main actresses were not convincing.  It’s only a 62 minute film but it seemed like an eternity.  The ghost special effects were effective enough, though there were a few times when it looked like the ghost’s mask was about to fall off.  Brian Stewart, as the neighbor, did a good job in his one big scene.  They should have made the entire movie about him.  Main message: Don’t drive drunk and things like this movie won’t happen to you.

Music Video of the Day: The Show Must Go On by Three Dog Night (1975, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Three Dog Night was a band that was prominent in the days before music videos but fortunately, they left us with a wealth of live performances that were captured for television.  I don’t know what show this was filmed for, just that it’s from 1975.  For our purposes, the MVP of this video is the keyboardist who goes out of his way to bring some Halloween flavor to the proceedings.

Originally written and performed by Leo Sayer, this cover of The Show Must Go On was Three Dog Night’s final Top 10 hit in the United States.  The best part of the song, the intro, was severely shortened for the song’s radio edit but it still became a hit.

Enjoy!

The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It (1977, directed by Joseph McGrath)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It should have been so much funnier.

After someone is obviously meant to be Henry Kissinger (played by Ron Moody) is assassinated when he loses his diary and extends the wrong greeting to a welcoming party in the Middle East, someone claiming to be a direct descendant of the infamous Prof. Moriarty sends a letter to the U.S. President (Joss Ackland) taking responsibility and claiming that it’s the first step in a plan to control the world.

Who better to stop the descendant of Moriarty than the descendant of Moriarty’s greatest enemy?  Arthur Sherlock Holmes (John Cleese) operates out of Baker Street with Dr. Watson (Arthur Lowe), who is bionic, and their housekeeper, Miss Hudson (Connie Booth).  Holmes solution to bringing out Moriarty is to host a gathering of the world’s greatest detectives and to dare Moriarty to try to take them out with one fell swoop.  Soon, everyone from Sam Spade to Columbo to McCloud is showing up at Baker Street.

This is a joke-a-minute comedy.  The jokes that work are funny but, unfortunately, there aren’t many of them.  Some bits, like Joss Ackland’s impersonation of Gerald Ford, start off well and then go on for too long.  Other bits, like the famous TV detectives showing up at Baker Street, have potential but fail due to poor execution.  Unfortunately, much of the humor is just not that clever to begin with, which is not something that anyone would expect from a script co-written by John Cleese.  As an actor, John Cleese is funny but underused, playing Sherlock Holmes as being an even denser version of Basil Fawlty.  Arthur Lowe’s comedic befuddlement is consistently amusing but I wish the script has done more with the idea of him being bionic.  Connie Booth is both funny and sexy and the best reason to watch this misfire.