Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

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

Posted on 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 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 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:

  1. American Ninja
  2. American Ninja 2
  3. American Ninja 3

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

Posted on 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!

Music Video of the Day: (Don’t Fear) the Repear by The Alice Band (2002, directed by Rob Dickens)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Alice Band was a girl group put together by Rob Dickens in 2000.  They weren’t together for long and they only released one album before breaking up but they did manage to stick around long enough to record this cover of Don’t Fear The Reaper.

This video was directed by Rob Dickens, the British music industry executive who put the group together in the first place.  There’s no word on whether he felt the cover needed more cowbell.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Steam by Peter Gabriel (1993, directed by Stephen R. Johnson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Steam was the second single to be released from Peter Gabriel’s sixth solo album, Us.  Buoyed with this memorable music video, Steam reached number ten in the UK and number one in the U.S.

When asked about his vision for Peter Gabriel’s video for Steam, director Stephen R. Johnson said he wanted to cram as many things in possible and he certainly did that.  Johnson also did the video’s for Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and Big Time and, as with those two videos, the special effects and visuals were so outrageous that a lot of viewers probably missed that they were very subversive and sometimes disturbing.

(As for Gabriel, he said it was simply a song about a relationship where the woman was cultured and well-educated while the man was less intellectual but was also more street smart.)

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: One More Reason by L.A. Guns (1988, directed by Ralph Ziman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

L.A. Guns is a band that has had a long and storied history, from their initial formation in 1983 to the brief moment when they joined with Axl Rose and became known as Guns N’ Roses to Tracii Guns leaving Guns N’ Roses after conflict with Rose and then forming a second version of L.A. Guns.  Unfortunately, L.A. Guns’s history is so intertwined with Guns N’ Roses that it is sometimes overlooked that L.A. Guns could rock just as much as Axl’s band.

At the same time that Guns N’ Roses were releasing their first music videos and making their mark on MTV, L.A. Guns released their video for One More Reason, one of the most apocalyptic looks at Los Angeles ever put on film.

This video was directed by Ralph Ziman, who has also worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Toni Braxton, and Faith No More.

Enjoy!