Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Rough Tough West (1952, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Holden (Charles Starrett) is hired by an old friend, Jack Mahoney (played by Jock Mahoney), to serve as the sheriff of a frontier town.  Steve soon discovers that his old friend has been corrupted by power and is plotting to cheat the locals out of their land and the gold that the land holds.  Despite their friendship, Steve knows that Jack has to be stopped and made to see the errors of his way.  It’s a good thing that Steve is secretly the Durango Kid and that his old sidekick, Smiley Burnette, is the town’s police chief.  But even if Jack Mahoney does eventually see the error of his ways, will it be soon enough to stop his out-of-control henchmen?

This was one of the last of the Durango Kid films and it’s heavy on stock footage and Smiley Burnette musical numbers.  It has all of the usual horse chases and gunfights but making the villain an old friend of the Durango Kid adds a little more emotional weight to this entry than some of the other Durango Kid films.  As always, Charles Starrett is a strong western hero and Smiley Burnette’s antics are nowhere nearly as annoying as the antics of some of the other western sidekicks who were populating matinee movie screens in 1952.  Western fans should enjoy this fast-paced and undemanding film.

This is not the first time that Jock Mahoney played a friend of the Durango Kid who is named Jack Mahoney, though I think the Jack Mahoney who appeared in Pecos River, Junction City, Smokey Canyon, The Hawk of Wild River, and The Kid From Broken Gun was meant to be a different character than the one who appeared in The Rough, Tough West.  If Smiley Burnette could have a rotating cast of musicians who followed him from town-to-town, then the Durango Kid could very well have known multiple Jack Mahoneys.

 

Enemy (1990, directed by George Rowe)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

At the height of the Vietnam War, CIA agent Ken Andrews (Peter Fonda) disguises himself as a French journalist, slips into North Vietnam, assassinates a VC general, and then makes his escape into the jungle.  Unfortunately, the helicopter that was meant to take Ken to safety is blown up, leaving Ken stranded in the jungle with a beautiful Chinese spy named Mai Chang (Tia Carrere).

With the VC after both of them, Ken and Mai will have to set aside their initial enmity and work together to make it out of North Vietnam.  In between endless scenes of the two of them making their way through the jungle, there are battle scenes where the VC manage to shoot everything except for the two people that they’re after.

This cheap film was shot in 1988 but it sat on the shelf for two years.  The script, which attempts to be a rumination on the nature of war, feels as if it was written even earlier.  It will always be strange to me how Peter Fonda went from starring as bikers and aging hippies in films like Easy Rider and The Wild Angels to playing CIA agents and military officers in films like this one.  Peter Fonda was a stiff actor but, in this case, it works for his character, who, after all, is meant to be a man who has to keep his emotions under control.  Tia Carrere is beautiful and seems to be trying really hard to give a convincing performance despite being miscast as a grim spy.  Fonda and Carrere do have a surprising amount of chemistry together.  The romance that develops between them actually feels believable.

Enemy suffers from too much padding.  It’s a two-person show and those two people spend a lot of time walking through the jungle.  Some of the action scenes are exciting and the idea of an American spy falling in love with a Chinese spy is interesting but the ending, while action-packed, still feels like a cop out that’s designed to give Ken an easy out.  You can almost hear Ken thinking to himself, “I really dodged a bullet there.”

Music Video of the Day: Jet City Woman by Queensryche (1991, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This song is straight forward by Queensryche standards.  Jet City is a nickname for the band’s then-hometown of Seattle and, at the time this song was written and recorded, Geoff Tate was married to a flight attendant.

The video is also straight forward, focusing on the band performing in front of a crowd of appreciative fans.

Enjoy!

Real Men (1987, directed by Dennis Feldman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Due to a chemical spill that is spreading through the ocean, life on Earth is going to end in five years unless something is done.  A group of friendly alien offer to give Earth either the “Good Package” or the “Big Gun.”  The Good Package can clean up the ocean.  The Big Gun is a big gun.  They both sound good to me!  The aliens only want a glass of water in return and they want that glass to be delivered by CIA Agent Pillbox.

Unfortunately, Pillbox has been killed in the field so the government tracks down a meek office worker named Bob Wilson (John Ritter) who looks just like Pillbox.  Tough and streetwise Nick Pirandello (Jim Belushi) is sent to recruit Bob and take him to the aliens.  Trying to stop Nick and Bob are a group of rogue CIA agents who would rather get the Big Gun than the Good Package.  Nick teaches Bob how to be a “real man” and Bob teaches Nick how to be a real friend.  They also beat up clowns.

A box office failure that did even worse with the critics, Real Men is a movie that was saved by cable.  When I was a kid, Real Men used to show up on HBO all the time.  Whatever flaws the film may have had, the mix of John Ritter’s physical comedy, Jim Belushi’s wiseguy attitude, and the action scenes made it the type of movie that was ideal for home viewing, especially if you had just gotten out of school and wanted to watch something before your parents came home and asked if you had done your homework.  Real Men was fun enough to hold up to repeat viewings but it was also slight enough that it wasn’t a huge tragedy if the channel got changed before the movie ended.

When I rewatched Real Men, I thought the film’s storytelling could have been tighter but it still turned out to be better than I was expecting.  There were a lot of classic buddy movies released in the 80s and while Real Men may not be the equivalent of a 48 Hours or a Midnight Run, John Ritter and Jim Belushi are still an entertainingly mismatched team.  Ritter again shows that he was a master at physical comedy while Belushi provides sarcastic commentary from the side.  A lot of the odd couple-style banter is predictable (Bob doesn’t smoke but Nick does) but Ritter and Belushi deliver their lines with enough conviction to still make it work.  Nick teaches Bob to believe in himself and Bob is able to both save the world and tell off the neighborhood bullies.  The film’s mix of action, science fiction, and broad comedy confounded critics in 1987 but it holds up today.

Music Video Of The Day: Lay It Down by Ratt (1985, directed by Marshall Berle)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

What did young Stephen Pearcy wish for his birthday?  He wished to be a rock star with a girlfriend who had appeared in Playboy and today’s music video of the day indicates that his fantasy came true.  (Or at least it came true for a while.)

Young Stephen Pearcy was played by child actor Whit Hertford.  The woman that the adult Stephen sings to was played by model Marianne Gravatte, who also appeared on the cover of Ratt’s Invasion Of Your Privacy album.

The video was directed by Marshall Berle, who was also known for his work with Van Halen and for being Milton Berle’s nephew.

Enjoy!

Mission of Justice (1992, directed by Steve Barnett)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Suspended from the police force because he does thing his way and doesn’t follow the book, martial artist Kurt Harris (Jeff Wincott) joins the Peacekeepers, a Guardian Angel-like group that is led by Dr. Rachel K. Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen).  Larkin is running for mayor on a law-and-order platform.  Just as the Peacekeepers have protected the local bodegas, Dr. Larkin will clean up the streets.

Kurt has a reason beyond just bitterness for joining the Peacekeepers.  Kurt suspects that the Peacekeepers is actually a criminal enterprise and that they are responsible for the murder of his mentor, Cedric Williams (Tony Burton, who does not throw the damn towel when confronted by the bad guys).

There were some good fight scenes and the idea of the Peacekeepers hiding their crimes behind their vigilante activities was an interesting one. The Peacekeepers were obviously based on New York’s Guardian Angels and it’s interesting that both the leader of the Angels and the leader of the Peacekeepers ended up running for mayor.  Of course, Curt Sliwa’s campaign was not as destructive or evil as Dr. Larkin’s.  In fact, I wasn’t really sure why Dr. Larkin was running for mayor, out of all the things that she could have done with her money and her paramilitary force.

Brigitte Nielsen always makes a good villain and the movie also features dependable straight-to-video action mainstays like Matthias Hues, Luca Bercovivi, and Karen Sheperd.  Unfortunately, Jeff Wincott was always one of the blandest of the 90s second tier action heroes, lacking the charisma of a Dolph Lundgren, a Jean-Claude Van Damme, or even as Steven Seagal.  Wincott was the star you called only after exhausting every attempt to sign Lorenzo Lamas.  Wincott is convincing when he’s throwing a punch or kicking someone in the face but when he has to show emotion or deliver dialogue, the movie come to a halt.

With a more charismatic star, Mission of Justice could have been a B-classic but instead, it’s just another forgettable straight-to-video action movie.

Music Video of the Day: Best of Both Worlds by Van Halen (1986, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This song and this video finds Sammy Hagar filled with optimism about his future with Van Halen.  That optimism wouldn’t last for long but both Sammy and Van Halen still went on to create a lot of great music, both together and separately.

This performance is taken from Live Without A Net, a concert video that was recorded at a show in New Haven, Connecticut.

Enjoy!

Aftershock (1990, directed by Frank Harris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s the future and society has collapsed.  America is now controlled by the evil Commander Eastern (Richard Lynch) who, with the help of a propagandist known as Big Sister and a paramilitary leader named Oliver Queen (John Saxon), rules with an iron hand.  Colonel Slater (Christopher Mitchum) is the leader of the revolution that threaten to overthrow Eastern’s regime.

Two revolutionaries, Wille (Jay Roberts, Jr.) and Danny (Chuck Jeffreys), are stuck in one of Eastern’s prison.  Every day, they fight for their lives and they wait for a chance to escape.  That chances come in the form of Sabrina (the beautiful Elizabeth Kaitan), an alien who lands on our planet under the mistaken assumption that Earth is an utopia.

When Sabrina, Willie, and Danny finally manage to escape, they have to make it to Slater’s headquarters while avoiding the bounty hunter (Chris DeRose) who Queen has been sent to capture them.

A fairly standard rip-off of the Mad Max films, the most interesting thing about Aftershock is the cast.  I already mentioned Mitchum, Saxon, Lynch, and Elizabeth Kaitan but there are also appearances from Russ Tamblyn, Michael Berryman, Matthias Hues, and Deanna Oliver.  For a movie that looks cheap and doesn’t really bring anything new to the postapocalyptic genre, there are a lot of very talented people in this movie.  (Even talented people have to pay the bills.)  Most of them are only on for a few minutes.  The instantly forgettable Jay Roberts, Jr. and Chuck Jeffreys are the actual stars here.  Jeffreys was a stunt man who was famous for his resemblance to Eddie Murphy.  He looks good in the action scenes but otherwise, he and Roberts don’t make much of an impression.

At least Elizabeth Kaitan gets a decent amount of screentime.  Kaitan appeared in a lot of movies in the 80s and 90s.  None of the movies were very good.  She got stuck with roles like the girlfriend in Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 and a victim in Friday The 13th Part VII.  Kaitan got roles primarily because she was beautiful but she had a likable screen presence and more than a little talent.  In Aftershock, she gives a convincing performance as a stranger in a strange land, one who has her own eccentric way of viewing things.  Her performance is the best thing about Aftershock and the main reason to watch.

 

 

Music Video of the Day: I Wanna Be Somebody by W.A.S.P. (1984, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s a good thing that skeleton was there to cut through the chain that was holding the door closed or you might have missed this performance from W.A.S.P.

This music video seems tame today but, back in the 80s, this was exactly the sort of thing that was sending Tipper Gore and the other members of the PMRC into a panic.

What does W.A.S.P. stand for?  We Are Sexual Perverts was one popular guess but not a correct one.  In an interview, Blackie Lawless said it stood for, “We ain’t sure, pal.”

Enjoy!