The Zombie King (2013, directed by Aidan Belizaire)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Embittered by the death of his wife, Samuel Peters (Edward Furlong) turns to voodoo in an attempt to bring her back to life. Kalfu (Corey Feldman), the lord of the underworld, agrees to close the gates of Hell and allow the dead to roam the Earth with Peters as the immortal zombie king.

Edward Furlong selling his soul to Corey Feldman might sound like the premise of an entertainingly bad movie but, unfortunately, nether Furlong nor Feldman have much screen time. As hard as it is believe, The Zombie King may be one of the first recent films that would have benefitted from more Corey Feldman and Edward Furlong. Instead, the two of them are basically just special guest stars with limited screen time.

Instead, the majority of the movie is about a group of humans trying to survive in a village that’s been invaded by zombies and quarantined by the government. The movie tries to balance horror with British humor in a style that tries way too hard to duplicate Simon Pegg’s success with Shaun of the Dead, right down to casting a Nick Frost look-alike as a quirky milkman named Munch.

Much ends up in a group led by a stoic mailman named Ed Wallace (George McCluskey), who says that delivering the mail in Northgate was just as dangerous as being a member of the SAS. The movie mixes scenes of zombie mayhem with scenes of Ed, Mulch, and the other survivors having very British arguments about how best to deal with the situation and whether it’s safer to head to a church or a pub. There are some amusing moments but there’s even more jokes that fall flat and Munch is never as funny as a character as the film seems to think he is.

Even with Edward Furlong welcoming the recently dead to “Hell on Earth” and Corey Feldman giving a surprisingly energetic performance as the lord of the underworld, The Zombie King never escapes the shadow of all the zombie comedies that came before it.

Music Video of the Day: Bullet With Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins (1995, directed by Samuel Bayer)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

The world is vampire

For a period of time in the 90s, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing that. It was one of the original memes, thanks to both the song and the video that was made to promote it. The video, which was inspired by photographs of a Brazilian gold mine, was filmed in a quarry near Simi Valley. While the extras dressed like miners and were meant to represent the Biblical lepers who asked Jesus to heal them, the band goes for a glam rock look. It pays to be in the band.

This video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who has done music videos for everyone who is anyone.

Enjoy!

Great Moments In Comic Book History #34: Tawky Tawny Makes His First Appearance

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

76 years ago, in Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures #79, Tawky Tawny made his first appearance.

Who was Tawky Tawny? He was a humanoid Bengal tiger from India who spoke perfect English and who simply wanted to come to the United States so that he could learn about American culture. Though Tawky Tawny is friendly and intelligent, everyone panics when they see him because he’s a humanoid tiger who talks. It falls to Captain Marvel (in the days before D.C. bought the character and changed his name became Shazam) to track down the Tawky Tawny and discover what is going on with him.

Luckily, Captain Marvel discovers that Tawky Tawny means well and just wants to get to know people. Captain Marvel gets him a job as a tour guide at a local museum.

Created by writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck, Tawky Tawny soon became one of Captain Marvel’s most important supporting characters. He even got his own origin story when it was revealed that Tawky Tawny was a normal tiger until he was framed for murder. A local shaman gave Tawny a serum that allowed him to stand upright and verbally defend himself. For the rest of Captain Marvel’s run, Tawky Tawny was the hero’s best friend. While Captain Marvel was the beloved hero, Tawky Tawny was the outsider who never lost his positive outlook and his intellectual curiosity.

Fawcett subsequently sold Captain Marvel and all of his supporting characters to DC Comics. Unfortunately, DC has consistently proven themselves to be inept when it comes to bringing Tawky Tawny into their continuity. Still, Tawky Tawny endures as a symbol of hope and optimism.

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Music Video of the Day: Hands by Jewel (1998, directed by Nick Brandt)

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Jewel was not only an inspiring singer who went from being homeless to being a superstar but she was also an everyday hero, as seen in this video. In this video, Jewel comes across a collapsed building and saves a life. This video was directed at an abandoned apartment complex in West Covina, California.

Jewel has said that she wrote this song, during her pre-stardom, after she was tempted to steal a sundress from a store in Pasadena. She felt so bad about even considering being a thief that she wrote a song asking when she had lost faith in herself.

This video was directed by photographer Nick Brandt, who has also done videos for Michael Jackson, XTC, and Moby.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Insane In The Brain by Cyrpess Hill (1994, directed by Josh Taft)

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

This 90s anthem was filmed at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Though it might be hard to believe today, a music video that featured people openly celebrating smoking weed was something that still took a lot of people by surprise in 1994.

Director Josh Taft worked with just about everyone in the 90s. Taft has directed videos for Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Mad Season, and Fuel. Taft has also worked as a commercial director, doing ads for Adidas, Reebok, Nike, Energizer, Sprite and Nissan Xterra. In 2013, he directed a documentary called Alive & Well, which profiled 7 individuals living with Huntington’s Disease.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Harley Davidson by Brigitte Bardot (1967, directed by François Reichenbach and Eddy Matalon)

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Happy birthday, Brigitte Bardot!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Not A Dry Eye In The House by Meat Loaf (1995, directed by Howard Geenhlagh)

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Today would have been the 76th birthday of Meat Loaf.

The video for Not A Dry Eye In The House features Meat Loaf looking over an empty stage and singing about his long lost love, who was also a starlet. The video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh, who has also done videos for Culture Club, Eels, Iron Maiden, Pet Shop Boys, Placebo, Elton John, Sting, Suzanne Vega, and others. Probably his most acclaimed video is the one that he directed for Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.

(He also directed the video for Come With Me, Puff Daddy’s take on Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. Don’t hold it against him.)

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The Rumour by Olivia Newton-John (1988, directed by Brian Grant)

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Today would have been Olivia Newton-John’s 75th birthday and today’s music video of the day is one that she did in the late 80s.

The Rumour was the title track off of Newton-John’s 13th studio album. The song was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and features John on the piano. The video features a stage-bound hotel, where rumors begin and spread with the help of the paparazzi. The snake crawling across a typewriter lets us know all that we need to know about Newton-John’s feelings towards the scandal-obsessed tabloid press.

This was one of the many music videos to be directed by Brian Grant, who worked with just about every prominent musical artist of the era.

Enjoy!

American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1991, directed by Cedric Sundstrom)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

The new American Ninja, Sean Davidson (David Bradley), travels to a remote island nation and gets captured while investigating a corrupt British ninja named Colonel Mulgrew (James Booth), who is trying to help an evil sheikh (Ron Smerczac) purchase a suitcase nuke. With Sean and his associates being held hostage in an old British fort, the original American Ninja, Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff), is called in to rescue Sean and thwart the terrorist’s plot. Joe has retired from the Ninja game and is now work as a member of the Peace Corps but he’s persuaded to battle evil one last time. In typical Cannon Films fashion, he has an army of rebels backing him up as he attacks Mulgrew’s compound.

The fourth American Ninja film teams up Michael Dudikoff with the David Bradley, who took over the American Ninja franchise with the third film. The idea was probably to use the presence of Dudikoff to give Bradley the credibility that he lacked in his previous American Ninja outing but the film actually sabotages David Bradley further by having Bradley spend nearly the entire film tied up while Dudikoff gets to fight the bad guys. Dudikoff and Bradley barely even interact in the film, with Bradley mostly being present for the slowly-paced opening while Dudikoff shows up for the more exciting, fight-filled finale. It’s almost as if the film was set up as an elaborate prank to make Sean look even less worthy as a replacement as Joe. While it’s true that Sean does get to fight Mulgrew at the end of the movie, Joe gets to fights the Super Ninja (Kely McClung). Fighting a Super Ninja is always going to be more impressive than fighting a British guy.

American Ninja 4 is a Cannon film but it was definitely not made during Cannon’s heyday and it is never as memorable as any of the previous American Ninja films. The poster features Dudikoff and Bradley both ready to battle, much like those old issues of Marvel Team-Up that would feature both Spider-Man and the Human Torch working together to battle Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, or any of the other evil comic book doctors. (Marvel had a lot of them.) Bringing the two American Ninjas together would seem to promise double the action but instead, it’s just an underwhelming team-up. Cannon would have been better served by adapting the issue of Marvel Team-Up where Spider-Man and John Belushi battled the Silver Samurai. That was an exciting story!

The American Ninja Saga:

Music Video of the Day: Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J (1990, directed by Paris Barclay)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

This song was written at a time when some critics were saying that LL Cool J’s popularity and creativity was waning. The “mama” of the title was LL Cool J’s grandmother, who told LL Cool J to keep doing what he was doing and “knock his critics out.” Don’t call it a comeback because LL Cool J never left and this song and music video proved it.

The video was directed by Paris Barclay, who would go on to become one of the busiest and most respect television directors in the industry. A winner of multiple Emmys and a two-time president of the DGA, Barclay has directed episodes of NYPD Blue, Lost, Sons of Anarchy, ER, The West Wing, CSI, The Shield, House, and a countless number of other shows.

Enjoy!