Music Video of the Day: Ah! Leah! by Donnie Iris (1980, dir. ???)

Posted on July 30, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s tough when I hit a video like this.

I can’t ignore it. The song is huge while still being somewhat obscure.

There is ample information out there about Donnie Iris himself. You can read an article on Pop Dose that covers him in detail. You can read an interview with him over on Songfacts. And of course there’s the standard Wikipedia article as well.

However, I can’t find anything specific to this video. I’m guessing that it came out in 1980 because that’s when the single was released. I think the director might be Chuck Statler since he worked with Iris on several other videos, but I can’t find anything to make me feel comfortable enough to include his name in the title.

There’s the usual nonsense in the YouTube comment section. I only look on a video like this because once in a blue moon there’s something useful about the video. There wasn’t anything this time. The closest I came across was speculation about the identity of the woman in the video.

Just enjoy this simple video for a fun song.

Late Night Cable Movie Review: The Love Machine (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s been awhile since I wrote a review of a feature film. Let’s see if I can still get through one of these. How hard can it be? It’s a Dean McKendrick movie.

If you’re gonna watch this, then I hope you have seen McKendrick’s The Deadly Pickup (2016) and Model For Murder (2016) since this is basically a third film in what could be an unofficial trilogy.

The movie begins, and we see what looks like an amplifier with two voltage gauges, a pressure gauge stuck on top, and something that shoots a beam out of it, which I’m sure comes from another one of McKendrick’s films.

Much like this set, which is where Sarah Hunter’s character from Model For Murder was killed.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

In this film, Carter Cruise is playing Bair. She is in a session with psychologist, Dr. Stephanie Bradshaw (Jennifer Korbin). Bradshaw asks her what she does when she sees an attractive man. She wants to know what her first thoughts are. Those first thoughts are of stock footage from The Deadly Pickup.

The opening kill.

And Rick!

You remember Rick, right? He’s the guy who got pricked with her poisonousness ring, yet still managed to stumble from the car where they had sex…

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

so that he could die somewhere else.

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Then he came back in Model For Murder as a photographer.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

There’s also a flashback to Charlie who had to be rescued from Cruise by Deputy Randall.

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Don’t worry, Deputy Randall, who was promoted to detective in Model For Murder, makes a return in this film. Like Cruise, he is playing a different character. However, unlike Cruise, he is played by Billy Snow via the pseudonym of Alan Long. Makes sense to use the name of an actor from 1975’s Pick-up.

After the reused footage, the doctor turns up the dial on the machine, then asks her again what she wants to do with the attractive man.

Perfect! I can’t say the same about these opening credits though. This dance number with Erika Jordan goes on just short of forever.

It only exists so she can give a lap dance to one of our main characters, Don (Justin Berti), in order to introduce us to him.

It also gives me an excuse to wonder what led her from working as a detective to dancing at this club.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Also, Don has gone from managing models to sadly having to visit this strip club.

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

After a shot of a street somewhere, we cut to the bedroom where Erika Jordan and Billy Snow had sex in Model For Murder.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

This is where we meet Don’s wife, Jane (Alice Haig). They are having trouble with their marriage. He wants to try couples therapy, but she is reluctant, so he leaves to sleep on the couch, which judging by the paint on the walls, is probably in the same building as the room from earlier.

Meanwhile, at the $20 Oil Change…

Don strikes up a conversation with his friend John (Michael Hopkins) concerning his marriage problems.

I know I said something similar when I talked about Model For Murder, but welcome back to the world of the living, Josh. You might remember Michael Hopkins as Carter Cruise’s first victim in The Deadly Pickup. Or you don’t, because you have a life, haven’t seen all three movies, and certainly haven’t paid this much attention to them.

We also get the return of Sheriff Bates…

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

except this time Michael Gaglio owns this $20 Oil Change.

And I got this humorous shot of Justin Berti.

It doesn’t have to do with anything. I just thought I’d share it with you.

John suggests a therapist that worked for him and his wife, Angie.

Then we get what looks like a new set.

Sure, it appears to have been decorated by the same people who did the police station in The Deadly Pickup, but I couldn’t find it anywhere else.

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Inside, the doctor gets the story from Don and Jane about their troubles while they sit on the couch that Rick had sex on in Model For Murder.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Of course she’s an ideal candidate to be zapped by that machine. The questions ultimately lead the doctor to asking Jane about her sexual fantasies. This time we don’t get stock footage. It’s just another reused set. She dreams of sunbathing on the set of the sexual encounter with a murder victim her husband told police about in Model For Murder.

Model For Murder (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

And of course there’s a pool boy (Robbie Caroll). You may remember him as the police officer who arrested Katie Morgan at the beginning of Vixens From Venus (2016).

Vixens From Venus (2016, dir. Sal V. Miers)

Much like Jordan, his career seems to be on the downswing. He was once a police officer, and now he’s been reduced to being a pool boy.

This is the first sex scene of the movie. I would love to have heard the conversation on the other end of this that Jane was having with the doctor.

While this scene happens, we are treated to a few minutes of a soundalike of Take Five by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

The session went well, and a follow-up appointment is set.

Now we get to find out what the outcome of these treatments is when we get to meet John’s wife, Angie (Pepper XO).

A call comes in from the therapist who tells Angie that “it’s time.” That means it’s time to have sex on Brian and Traci’s bed from The Deadly Pickup.

The Deadly Pickup (2016, dir. Dean McKendrick)

It also means that it’s time for John to die from a corkscrew to the chest.

The next morning, Jane tells Don that she thinks the treatments are going well, and Don goes off to work to have the bad news broken to him about his friend being killed. But before Don receives the bad news, we get to see that the $20 Oil Change has an SBC payphone in 2016.

Gaglio breaks the news to Don, which leads the film to immediately cut to two people having sex on a leopard-print bed. I have no idea who they are.

She gets a call from the doctor, and he’s dead.

Now Jane meets Jeff (Billy Snow). If he looks worried here…

it’s because of who his wife is.

Jane goes in for another treatment. While she is under the control of the machine, the doctor forces herself upon Jane. No joke. They really could have left this scene out–no matter how short it is.

Don now breaks the news to Jane about John’s death so that we know the two of them have a reason to start being suspicious of the doctor. That’s not important though, because the scene that I was waiting for, finally happens.

Breezy finally gets her revenge on Deputy Randall. Does the rest of the film really matter now?

Okay, fine. Jane is lying in bed when she has a dream of Christine Nguyen doing a shower scene. I’m not kidding. They randomly inserted a shower scene by having Jane dream about one out of the blue for no apparent reason.

With the death of Billy Snow, Don is convinced things are fishy with the doctor, and he tries to talk Jane out of seeing her. It doesn’t work.

Then they have another shower scene. I have to give them some credit. They do end it with pertinent information to the plot. Jane remembers the doctor’s “Kill him” line.

Don does some intense research online about the doctor.

Long story short, something bad happened to her, so she’s taking revenge on other people.

Don now races to save his wife from this monster. Unfortunately, Don’s an idiot, and Jane zaps him with the machine, leading to a sex scene. However, since we are at the end of the film, when Jane pulls a gun to shoot him, he takes it away from her.

The doctor comes in, and I kind of love Don because he doesn’t hesitate for second. She pulls a knife, and he shoots her.

A quick shot at the machine, and Jane is free from its power. A couple lines of dialog are exchanged, then the movie abruptly ends.

So, that’s The Love Machine.

For the people watching for entertainment value, it doesn’t have much to offer other than getting to see Carter Cruise do in Billy Snow.

For people watching for the sex, it doesn’t have much either. There are a couple of sex scenes, and two shower scenes shoehorned into the movie. The one scene of girl-on-girl is kind of disturbing seeing as the doctor does sexually assault her. Then the movie adds confusion since that encounter is what appears to trigger her to have a dream about a woman taking a shower. Yet, it’s never followed up on.

I almost would have preferred the doctor to win in the end by taking Jane away with her. Sure, it would have been dark, but it would have been something memorable about this movie.

I can’t recommend this one.

Music Video of the Day: Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order (1986, dir. Robert Longo)

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

From the book, I Want My MTV:

Michael Stipe: Robert Longo was one of the premier painters coming out of New York. We wanted to upset the visual language of videos, and that’s what we got with “The One I Love.” He was referencing Renaissance paintings, rather than Madonna. I saw the video he did for New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”–he interrupts it about two-thirds of the way through with a scene out of a movie, where a woman stands up at a table and says, “I refuse to believe in reincarnation, because I will not come back as a bug or an insect,” a guy goes, “Well you’re a real up person,” and then it slam-cuts back into the song. I don’t think anyone had ever interrupted a song, cut to something, and then cut back to the song.

That’s quite the memory Stipe has. He still misquoted the video, but he was really close. That part actually goes like this:

“I don’t believe in reincarnation because I refuse to come back as a bug or as a rabbit.”

“You know, you’re a real ‘up’ person.”

I can’t find out who the third person in the room is, but the other two are well-known.

The first is Jodi Long. She’s been in a bunch stuff, and is still acting today. She was in Paul Schrader’s Patty Hearst (1988), which Lisa reviewed yesterday. I didn’t pick out this video to go with that review. I didn’t know till I went to write this that there was even a record of who these two people are.

The second is E. Max Frye. He has done numerous things over the years. You probably know him best as co-writing the screenplay for Foxcatcher (2014), which earned him an Oscar nomination.

Stipe says that this part is from a movie. From what I’ve read in other articles, that part was shot for this video. If this was a film, it is still undocumented on IMDb. The only time I can find on IMDb where Long and Frye worked together was on the film, Amos & Andrew (1993). That film was written and directed by Frye.

Nightflight’s profile of New Order videos had this to say about Bizarre Love Triangle:

For the video for “Bizarre Love Triangle,” released in November of 1986, New Order turned to New York-based director and visual artist Robert Longo, who claimed that the music of Joy Division and New Order were very influential on his work.

Longo would end up giving New Order a very experimental film as a promotional video, with fragmented vertiginous fast cuts, infused with color, which were then merged together visually competing ideas.

One of those ideas included men and women in business suits are seen falling through the air, something he’d based on his own set of lithographs called “Men in the Cities.”

Another of the other ideas Longo pursued was the use of visually appealing panels of Longo’s own art, which are then interrupted by a “bizarre love triangle,” a black and white melodrama scene with Asian actress Jodi Long and Oregon-based screenwriter and filmmaker E. Max Frye arguing emphatically about reincarnation.

They also go on to say that the shots of the band were filmed when they performed live “in the hills of Italy.”

Director Robert Longo appears to have made only one feature film. He directed Johnny Mnemonic (1995).

The video was produced by Michael Shamburg. Shamburg produced quite a few videos for New Order. He’s also has producer credits for a lot of well-known movies such as The Big Chill (1983), Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Garden State (2004), and Django Unchained (2012).

According to Peter Hook of New Order in the book I Want My MTV:

We met Michael Shamburg when he filmed us playing in New York, and we gave him more or less complete artistic freedom to do our videos. Michael’s a big producer now–he did Pulp Fiction and Garden State–and he introduced us to interesting directors: Robert Longo, Kathryn Bigelow, Philippe Decouflé, Robert Frank, William Wegman, and Jonathan Demme.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Maxine by Sharon O’Neill (1983, dir. ???)

Posted on July 28, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

We’re going back to New Zealand. This time it’s for a hit song by Sharon O’Neill called Maxine.

The video is about a prostitute named Maxine who is followed by a case worker played by O’Neill who is unable to help her. Maxine gets kidnapped and killed. O’Neill is there when they wheel her into the hospital dead. In the end, we see O’Neill lay a flower at what is supposed to be her grave before they crane the camera upward to reveal how large the graveyard is. Just like her case is #1352, her death is #???, and is lost in the crowd.

O’Neill said the following about the inspiration for the song in an interview with the NZ Herald in response to a question about why she moved to Australia:

The record company, CBS, wanted to see if they could break me in Australia so they sent me over with my Kiwi band which had Dave Dobbyn in it – he’ll josh me for saying that. We worked the pub scene five nights a week and really schlepped it.

I was living in a hotel in Kings Cross when I got the inspiration to write Maxine. She was always out there working at 3am when we’d get home bleary-eyed from a gig in Newcastle.

In that same interview, she added some info about the video in response to another question:

[Q] What do you think about the way women are portrayed in the music industry now?

[A] I find some of the videos really explicit. It’s got to the point where young girls think that’s the way it’s got to be. Back in the 1980s they wouldn’t screen the Maxine video till after 8pm because she goes into the toilets with a razor blade. You’ve got people gyrating like they’re having sex but you can’t show that because it’s drugs. I mean she’s a junkie, she dies. It’s a terribly sad story.

She’s right about the drugs part. I believe I mentioned back when I featured Twilight Zone by Golden Earring that it wasn’t just censored for the topless spy scene, but also for the couple of seconds where we see lead-singer Barry Hay injected by one of the dancers. The scene exists as a way of sending him back to the stage-dimension that may or may not be only in his mind. I wonder how they covered that up seeing as it is a key-scene. It’s not like When The Lady Smiles where they could just play some footage from earlier in the video over the parts that are still censored on YouTube today.

I’d say, enjoy, but this isn’t that kind of video.

Music Video of the Day: Sweating Bullets by Megadeth (1993, dir. Wayne Isham)

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Lisa recently spotlighted a music video for a Megadeth song called Hanger 18. In that post she mentioned that she didn’t really know much about them except that the song fit World UFO Day. Because of that, I feel I need to provide what little backstory I know about them.

When I was a kid I remember seeing the album Countdown To Extinction in the store. I remember it to this day–not because I was listening to them at the time, but because of that cover.

I saw that, and figured this band was not for me. I was a child at the time. I didn’t really get into heavy metal till I went to Cal in 2007. I knew some of the big bands, and had probably heard music they had done, but that was about it. The only band I remember having an album for in the 90s was Metallica. That’s fitting when discussing Megadeth because they are an unintentional spinoff of that group.

Lead-singer Dave Mustaine was the guitarist for Metallica until he was kicked out of the band in 1983. Metallica were well known for their heavy drinking. They were even nicknamed Alcohollica for awhile. The problem was apparently that while the rest of the band were funny drunks, Mustaine was a violent drunk. That was too much of a deadly combination, so they kicked Mustaine out of the group. Kirk Hammett would end up taking his place. To say that Mustaine was heart-broken. I remember an interview he gave close to twenty years later where it did, or nearly brought him to tears.

After Metallica, Mustaine would go on to form Megadeth. A couple of successful albums later, and they hit upon the one that featured the classic, Peace Sells. That song was so popular that according to Mustaine in the book I Want My MTV, MTV even stole part of it to use it in the theme for MTV News:

MTV scammed me. They never paid for using the bass line from “Peace Sells” as the MTV News theme. I wrote that music.

Several albums later, they released Countdown To Extinction. The album did well–I’m sure this amazing video didn’t hurt.

There are different stories floating around about the source of the song. If you go to Wikipedia, then you get this alleged quote from Mustaine:

I wrote that about myself. It was pointed out to me that I’m kind of schizophrenic and that I live inside my head. Which is something I don’t subscribe to, but I enjoyed the theory nonetheless.”, and “I think all of us are sweating bullets all the time. Society’s a joke right now, and people are getting more and more hostile. When you think about having an evil twin or schizophrenia, I think a lot of us are schizo, because we live inside our heads. There’s someone we all confer with; it’s called our conscience. Some people cannot control their other side; it takes them over. Everybody has that psychotic side. Everyone has a thing that will make them snap.

The problem is that if you actually follow the source cited for the quote, then it takes you to a page that no longer exists even though it was apparently retrieved on January, 23rd 2017.

Hop over to Songfacts and you get a bit of a different story.

Dave Mustaine has said that the song is about himself, and that he wrote it after “it was pointed out to me that I’m kind of schizophrenic and that I live inside my head.”

He revealed on VH1’s That Metal Show, however, that the song was inspired by a friend of his girlfriend (and later, his wife), Pam. This friend suffered from anxiety attacks – Mustaine called her “s–thouse crazy.” She would take Pam to a party, have an anxiety spell and leave her; Mustaine would get the call and have to pick her up.

After Mustaine wrote this song, Pam thought it was about her, but Dave assured her she was “not that crazy.” Said Mustaine, “I wrote this song about her nutty friend.”

The video is a perfect storm of concept, director, and cinematographer.

The video shows us Mustaine in a nightmarish mental health cell where we are taken into his brain by literally seeing multiple versions of himself talking and interacting with each other.

There are two parts that I particularly like.

The first part is when two Mustaines are harassing another from the sides while that one is holding what looks like a human heart before they all come into sync to say the lyric, “Mankind has got to know his limitations.”

The other part is when you see one Mustaine kicking another in the face who is sitting in a corner.

The director of the video is Wayne Isham. Isham has worked with everyone from Rod Stewart to The Spin Doctors to Faith Hill. He seems to have primarily worked with heavy metal bands that include both Metallica and Megadeath. He is credited with inventing the Bon Jovi video for Mötley Crüe–Home Sweet Home–and then giving it to Bon Jovi, who built their career on that style.

The cinematographer is none other than Daniel Pearl. Pearl is the man who has shot well over 400 music videos from the early 80s to today. You could probably write a whole book that is comprised of a series of interviews with him about each video he remembers working on, and you would have a mini-history of music videos from the MTV-era.

He has only helmed a couple of projects because he has stated that he’s perfectly happy with being a cinematographer. One of the few videos that he got behind the camera for was Butterfly by Mariah Carey. He has shot seventeen of her music videos. He has also worked on several feature films, including the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

That’s why I referred to this video as a perfect storm.

It’s one of my favorites. Enjoy!

30 Days Of Surrealism:

Music Video of the Day: Naughty Naughty by Danger Danger (1989, dir. ???)

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

What was it Lisa said the other day about why the two of us pick out particular videos?

Now, there’s a variety different reasons why Val or I might pick a video for music video of the day. Sometimes, the choice is made as a way to honor an artist who has recently passed away. Sometimes, it’s done to commemorate a historical event. And sometimes, especially in my case, it’s just because the song’s chorus has gotten stuck in my head.

And sometimes a video gets picked solely for the purpose of telling a funny story one of us happens to come across. This one comes courtesy of the good old book, I Want My MTV. It’s from Steve Backer. Backer was a promotion executive for Epic Records.

We signed a band called Danger Danger. Just the worst of the fucking hair bands. They were dreadful. But our label president, Dave Glew, was obsessed with a song and a video of theirs, “Bang Bang.” I could get five videos onto MTV and it didn’t matter to him, because Danger Danger wasn’t in rotation. So he came up with this awful idea: The entire staff of Epic would put on hard hats–because hard hats symbolized danger, get it?–and walk to the MTV offices. I’m talking about the entire label. When the receptionist announced that Steve Backer had arrived for his 11 A.M. meeting, I’ve never been more mortified in my life. I still cringe when I think about it.

So naturally since his story mentions the video for the song Bang Bang, I’m spotlighting the video for their song Naughty Naughty. There’s a very good reason for that. Bang Bang is kind of catchy. It’s also a simple stage performance video. This one on the other hand is…how can I put it…um…what was that Jedadiah said the other day about that movie where a bird tries to Poe Sharon Stone?

Dumb. Just dumb.

Truer words were never spoken–or written in this case.

I do have a couple of things to add:

Why does this video start off with a Mr. Roboto voice followed by synthesizers from Trancers, and then caps it all off with humpback whale songs from Star Trek IV?
As dumb as this video is, you could get some enjoyment out of it by playing it over scenes from Rear Window.
This last one is the most important because I know it is the burning question on everyone’s mind right now. Is there a Danger Danger music video that features an ape on a motorcycle? Yes, there is. It’s just awful.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Message To My Girl by Split Enz (1984, dir. Noel Crombie)

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Yes, the song is great. I’ve enjoyed the songs I’ve heard by the New Zealand band Split Enz. That isn’t the reason I am featuring this video.

It’s because I’m pretty sure this is the earliest video I have encountered that was shot in only two takes. They used the same trick as Alfred Hitchcock did in Rope (1948). Near the end, when Neil Finn opens the door, they hid a cut. To quote former Split Enz bassist Mike Chun from his book Stranger Than Fiction: The Life and Times of Split Enz:

The film clip was shot in November in a disused Melbourne warehouse and was virtually a one-take clip.

I’m surprised they did two takes at all. I don’t see anything in the video that would have necessitated it.

We see Neil walk past Eddie Rayner on keyboards.

Then they hide the cut when the yellow door opens.

Neil walks for a little while.

Finally, Neil shows up in front of the rest of the band.

I would think that there was plenty of time for Rayner to run around the camera to take his position further on in Neil’s walk. You can even see what looks like Rayner checking to see if he is off-camera in order to know when to make his run to the next part of the set.

My best guess is that while the rest of the video has the camera looking very steady, it seems to switch to handheld in order to move in on the band. You can also see both the lack of a track for the camera in the final shots of the video, and the track it was presumedly on prior to the cut at the door.

If Neil looks familiar, that’s because he and drummer Paul Hester would go on to form Crowded House.

Split Enz had been around since the early 70s. It was founded by Neil’s older brother Tim and Phil Judd. They broke up shortly after this song came out.

The video was directed by band member, Noel Crombie. He not only appears to have directed all of their videos, but did things like hair, album covers, and was particularly notable for his costumes. To quote again from Mike Chun’s book:

Backstage, in readiness for the show, Mr. Crombie walked in with a bulky suit-carrier and pulled from it a selection of brightly colored suits. For the first time we looked upon a set of Crombie original costumes designed and sewn by the man himself. In wild, pastel colours, distorted shapes and angles, the suits stood before us as a symbol of the new era. They were quickly entitled (at times) ‘the Zoots’ or (at times) ‘the Twits’.

You can see those kind of costumes in the video for the song I See Red. There also appears to be a nod to them in the video for Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House, which mimics this video.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Come Around Here No More by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (1985, dir. Jeff Stein)

Posted on July 23, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s about time I got to a music video that lead to the PMRC. It may not look like one that would, but it did.

At the beginning of the book, I Want My MTV, there’s a whole chapter about the issue. The authors start off by talking about Tipper and her daughter’s experience watching Hot For Teacher. According to the book, her daughter said the following:

Mom, why is the teacher taking off her clothes?

I would love to know if that was Kristin Gore considering she went on to have a career in comedy. She and Tipper even played on a Diva Zappa comedy single. Frank Zappa having testified at the congressional hearings over this stuff. Although it sounds like it was Sarah LaFon Gore Maiani judging by her age when she saw the two videos.

On another occasion, Gore and her six year old saw Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” video–some other parent, having gone through the “Hot for Teacher” incident, might have learned a lesson and banished MTV from the home–and the girl was “disturbed,” Gore said, “because the last scene showed [an actress] turning into a cake and being sliced up.

I have feeling the authors of the book think this is ridiculous.

In September 1985, Senator John Danforth, also married to a PMRC member, convened a congressional hearing to discuss the excesses of rock music in the age of cable TV. And that is how the Commerce Committee of the 99th Congress of the United States, like millions of other Americans, watched “Hot for Teacher” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It” when they should have been working.

You got me as to what bothered them with We’re Not Gonna Take It, considering it’s a song about civil rights and standing up for what you believe in. At least with Hot For Teacher you could make the reasonable argument that while harmless entertainment, it should be aired when a six-year-old isn’t likely to stumble across it. I’m really glad we live in a time when music videos aren’t taken down from YouTube for explicit content. Oh, right, that happens.

Anyhow, lets talk about the video, including some bits from Alice herself, Wish Foley (Louise Foley).

Here’s the genesis of the video according to Tom Petty:

Dave Stewart and I wrote and produced “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” We were talking about the video while we were in the studio, and he said, “I’ve always wanted to be the guy sitting on a mushroom with long nails and a hookah. You know, like in Alice in Wonderland.” And I said, “That’s it. We’ll do Alice.”

Thus, Dave Stewart got his wish:

Tom Petty: We didn’t use any special effects. Everything that’s big was big, and everything that’s small was small. It was a two-day shoot, and each day was fourteen hours, way into the night. Even for musicians, those were challenging hours. But we knew while we were doing it how shit-hot it was.

I don’t want to copy the entire section on this video, so here are the highlights:

Wish Foley: When I went to the audition, there were fifteen or twenty girls coming in at the same time. They were models, in skimpy leather outfits with short skirts. Boobs everywhere. It was kind of gross; they would stand in front of a mirror and do their “come hither” look. And here I am, dressed up like Alice in Wonderland.

She was 21. She had done a bunch of commercials along with some TV work. She says she had been the original Joanie (Happy Days), but that after they shot the pilot, she was told that she looked too much like Cindy Brady. It’s funny that after this video, Foley went on to work on Disney productions such as Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Hercules (1997). She was also in the movie, Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978) before going on to do this video.

Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978, dir. Richard C. Bennett & Ralph Senensky)

Jeff Stein: We built a giant teacup out of an aboveground pool.

Jeff Stein: The doughnut was a giant inner tube. I asked for the water in the teacup to be warm, and it wasn’t. She was in cold water on an air-conditioned stage for quite some time, and never said anything. When she came out, she had hypothermia.

Wish Foley: If you look closely, you can see me shivering. They bundled me up and shoved me into an emergency-wash shower.

Tom Petty: For the last shot, where we cut a piece of Wish’s body and eat, we had a giant cake made in the shape of her body, and Wish slipped her head from underneath. That must have been uncomfortable as hell. There was only one cake, so we had one take to get it right.

Wish Foley: When people said that the cutting of the cake promoted cruelty to women, I had to laugh that people took it so damn seriously.

Jeff Stein: I was cited by a parents-teachers organization for promoting cannibalism.

It amazes me that this video was swept up in that whole thing. It’s a trippy music video based on a book that has been adapted into everything from an X-rated musical to a Goodtimes animated cash-in movie to an official Disney version.

I think my favorite part about this whole PMRC thing comes from Dee Snider. He both testified, and played himself in the VH1 movie about it called Warning: Parental Advisory (2002). In an interview, he said that he didn’t have a problem with there being a label on albums to tell parents about the content. He thought that was reasonable. He wasn’t happy about the way they were going about it. A bunch of wives of congressmen getting their husbands to hold sessions on the evils of music, which forced people like Snider, Zappa, and John Denver to have to come and testify in front of Congress about music and censorship.

John Diaz was the producer.

Tony Mitchell, Kathy Dougherty, and Peter Cohen did “special effects” for the video, according to mvdbase–despite what Tom Petty said about them not using special effects. They were probably the people responsible for creating the things, and that one special effects shot at the end.

Enjoy!

30 Days Of Surrealism:

4 Shots From 4 Films (John Heard): Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979), Cutter’s Way (1981), After Hours (1985), Big (1988)

Posted on July 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I know everyone knew John Heard from the Home Alone series, but he did others things as well. Early on he was even given lead roles. I tried to pick a mixture of his early stuff, and when he was moved to largely playing character and supporting roles.

Rest in peace, John Heard.

Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979, dir. Joan Micklin Silver)

Cutter’s Way (1981, dir. Ivan Passer)

After Hours (1985, dir. Martin Scorsese)

Big (1988, dir. Penny Marshall)

Music Video of the Day: High In High School by Madam X (1984, dir. Marcelo Epstein)

Posted on July 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

After doing a song by Vixen, I knew I would find a Madam X video somewhere.

Madam X are a metal band that was originally formed by the Petrucci sisters–Maxine and Roxy. Roxy Petrucci would go on to be in Vixen. The band went through several band changes including bringing in Sebastian Bach before he went on to be in Skid Row. From what I can tell, this song is their most successful one. What a video they made for it.

The video begins by introducing us to our main character played by a guy I have a strong feeling I’ve seen in something else. I wanna say he is the doorman in Harden My Heart by Quarterflash. He is startled by the school bell ringing.

Then the teacher comes in who I’m quite sure is played by guitarist Maxine Petrucci.

With a little jump cut, they are now in a prison, like a certain other video that takes place in a high school.

The bars come down on the window next to our hero.

The main reason I think Maxine plays the teacher is because I’m betting those are the two male members of the band–Bret Kaiser and Chris Doliber.

Our hero looks inside of his desk. Inside, he sees the band performing on a history book.

Of course simply looking inside of your desk and smiling means that the teacher and class are going to scream the chorus at you.

The teacher looks inside his desk. Seeing herself playing guitar lets him off the hook for now.

Meanwhile, one of the other band members is trying to make fire.

Teach now pulls out a leopard. With a little of laying on of the hands…

she gives birth to her sister Roxy.

Now the class sings the lyrics, “you’ll never pass by kissing ass,” at the teacher.

One look from teacher, and a grin from our hero, the class now has their heads replaced by things like a globe and a pyramid.

The teacher comes over to grab our hero’s ear, which stretches like Silly Putty.

After the band plays some more, the desks open up…

to reveal that their actual heads are trapped inside the desks.

The teacher is gone now. I’m just going to assume this very quick cut to Maxine holding what looks like his ear is supposed to mean she transported into his desk.