Film Review: The Submission of Emma Marx (2013, dir. Jacky St. James & Eddie Powell)

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

With The Submission of Emma Marx, I have now seen four different variations of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), including the official version.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015, dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson)

The official one was only really good for an elementary school sleepover. They showed next to nothing to the point that it was laughable, and Anastasia Steele was the worst English major ever to only name a few problems with the film.

Old Fashioned (2014, dir. Rik Swartzwelder)

Old Fashioned (2014) was one of the most offensive pieces of garbage I’ve sat through all year. If you thought Fifty Shades was bad in its’ portrayal of women, then are you in for a surprise with that movie.

Pleasure or Pain (2013, dir. Zalman King)

Pleasure or Pain (2013) could show more than the official one, but you OD’d on the massive amounts of erotica pretty quickly.

This movie can show everything that the official one couldn’t show and more even in the edited down to softcore version I watched, which was plenty for me. This has a Christian Grey who is willing to be alone in a room with a woman whereas Clay wouldn’t do that in Old Fashioned. Unlike Pleasure or Pain, this does a good job of not overdoing the sex and doesn’t wear out its’ welcome in general. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its’ problems, but it is still the best one I have seen so far.

According to Jacky St. James in X-Rated: The Greatest Adult Movies of All Time (2015), she read the book Fifty Shades of Grey, and was offended at the way the female character was portrayed, so she wrote the script for this movie. That’s a good thing, but it will lead to some stiltedness about the film.

Let’s jump in.

Like a lot of movies, it doesn’t actually begin with the title card I put at the beginning of the review. This one starts and continues like a film noir in that it has a lot of voiceover narration by Emma Marx (Penny Pax). She is getting her butt paddled by this movie’s Christian Grey.

He is William Fredricks who is played by none other than my favorite steak cutter from Erotic Ink (2011).

Erotic Ink/Love Is a… Dangerous Game (2011, dir. Eddie Powell)

That’s Richie Calhoun. No relation that I am aware of to urban cowboy Rory Calhoun.

Angel (1984, dir. Robert Vincent O’Neill)

The voiceover starts off with Emma asking the audience if they are curious about how the person you think you were can vanish and “someone new is born.” It then cuts to the bed with the title card on it. This is a bed made up for a couple who act both as the “normal” opposite of Emma and Mr. Fredricks, but are also there to open the film with a sex scene. But first he proposes to her. However, unlike an opening kill in a slasher movie, this sex scene goes on for an inordinate amount of time. I expected better here. Especially when the rest of the movie does hold itself to a higher standard. I kept track, and it lasts close to 20 minutes. On the upside, it does serve a purpose. It is meant to show you very vanilla sex to contrast with the three other scenes that we get between Emma and Mr. Fredricks.

With that marathon done, Nadia (Riley Reid) decides to shove her engagement ring right in the face of Emma.

I don’t recall exactly what Anastasia was doing going to meet with Grey, but Emma is going to see Mr. Fredricks to complete her masters thesis on gender equality in the workplace. It’s because he hires a disproportionate number of women as employees. To be exact, 97% of his 2,000 employees are women. She says to us that she has interviewed a lot of people “from female executives to male nurses to transgender women battling the glass ceiling.” If you are thinking that line felt a little forced, then you’re right. It’s a little Tasha Yar and Samantha Carter in early episodes of Stargate SG-1. Like the overly long sex scene, it too has a purpose though. It is supposed to make sure that BDSM doesn’t mean a surrender of equality, that she is in somehow being manipulated into it, or that this means she is a pervert/abnormal. We’ll get the same from him. He is also never portrayed as some sort of wounded deviant. They are both intelligent people with their own beliefs, and are always treated as such. Again, it can feel forced at times, but it still works in the end.

Now we meet Mr. Fredricks.

Since they have to save time to actually have sex scenes, they get right to talking about how he likes to be dominant and the enjoyment that can be derived from surrendering control to someone else.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention Penny Pax’s voice. I mentioned that there is voiceover narration throughout this, but I didn’t mention that while Pax does a fine job when onscreen, she really does have a horrible voice for narration. It works for the character and when we can see her, but when it is disembodied, then it gets to you.

The conversation went well for Mr. Fredricks because she goes home and masturbates. She wakes up the next morning to Nadia bringing her a letter from Mr. Fredricks requesting her to take advantage of an opportunity he is going to offer her, but only after she has graduated. He states explicitly that she is not to contact him till then.

We now get a montage of the last four months before her graduation passing by as she ponders how she will respond to giving up control when she lives by such rigid control in her own personal life. That’s when she gets a call from Mr. Fredricks. She wonders where he got her number.

My words exactly.

Finally, the four months pass, so she receives her instructions about where to go and how to be dressed.

I love this set. The table acts as both a distancing device between them because of where they stand at the start,…

and it also keeps an equality between them through its’ symmetry.

It wouldn’t be a Fifty Shades movie if it didn’t have some sort of negotiation scene. The difference is that she actually knows everything in the document. We don’t get stupid questions about butt plugs. In fact, she recognizes that it is “a contract soliciting [her] for a BDSM relationship”. She says that isn’t for her and gets up to leave. However, he reminds her that despite what she is saying, she did show up wearing exactly what he told her too, so he moves in to see if his instincts are right. They are as we know from the scenes that followed this one where she was very excited at this prospect.

I also accidentally caught Penny/Emma with a great surprised look on her face.

Now they have pretty vanilla sex till the very end when he adds a little BDSM element in the form of a tie that goes through her mouth to bind it.

We wake up in bed only to go into a flashback about their further negotiations that they had the night before. They worked out an equitable situation, which includes a job at his company. It lasts for a few minutes, and that is the last we here of it in the movie. Very refreshing when a movie can show what it is supposed to be about, and doesn’t have to pad itself out with stuff like negotiations because it wants to keep its’ R-rating. I love that he explicitly says “I won’t chase you, although, I’ll probably want to.” Not even Clay Walsh in Old Fashioned–a religious Fifty Shades–could do that. He also explicitly tells her that it would be fun to do it at work, but that as soon as work from 8 to 5 is over, she has no obligation to him until the weekends when they really have their fun. I mentioned it before, but at times it does feel forced even though it’s nice to hear.

She finds this whole thing exciting, new, and so unexpected from someone like herself.

Of course it’s no secret that the woman on the right is Jacky St. James making a cameo appearance in her own film. She did the same thing in Erotic Ink, which she didn’t direct, but did write.

Erotic Ink/Love Is a… Dangerous Game (2011, dir. Eddie Powell)

Upon her next visit to his house, he is still easing her way into the world of BDSM, and she likes it.

Emma and William develop a relationship where they both enjoy BDSM that is a metaphor for not being ashamed of who you are, not surrendering your rights as a human being, and not accepting being portrayed or thought of as broken just because other people think you are a deviant. It’s not surprising that this is the theme of The Submission of Emma Marx seeing as it is also present in Erotic Ink. There too, the main character had a judgmental couple who she knew, and another unusual guy played by Richie Calhoun in her life that she was fascinated by. In this film, it’s the soon to be married couple that is judgmental about her decision. However, they seem to get over it, and appear to get married. They too have every right to live their life the way they choose.

Just before Emma and Mr. Fredricks reach mutual happiness, he does throw her out because she begins to tell him that they are both deviants. He doesn’t follow her like he promised. She discovers that there’s nothing really wrong with her after spending time helping Nadia out with her wedding, and returns to him.

Of course Jacky St. James wasn’t going to let the movie end without recreating the most famous shot from Fifty Shades that I included at the beginning of the review.

I recommend this film. It is less of a typical pornographic film, and more of a political statement. If I have to choose between the horrific and abusive Old Fashioned, the tease and somewhat offensive Fifty Shades of Grey, or the endless erotica of Pleasure or Pain, then I’ll take The Submission of Emma Marx. However, I am worried about the sequels seeing as this does feel like a finished story.

Music Video of the Day: Pepper by Butthole Surfers (1996, dir. Gavin Bowden)

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Just like with Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, Pepper by Butthole Surfers was one of those songs that came at an odd time. That brief little window between the musical renaissance of the early-90s and the musical plague of the late-90s. In between we got interesting transitional groups like Butthole Surfers and PUSA.

The music video is simultaneously dark with it’s lyrics and crime scene presentation, but then we suddenly switch gears to something that looks like a variety show and/or old commercials. Even the cops from the dark part come over to act as backup dancers for the band. On the dark side, Erik Estrada shows up as a kidnapping victim who is being rescued from the lead singer of the band. For people who are older than me, the name means the show CHiPs, which I’m sure is why he is in this music video. However, to people of my generation, he will always be Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Diego Garcia Marquez from Sealab 2021.

I honestly don’t really get it all too much. To me it’s all about contrast in how songs tend to switch gears from the verses to the chorus and back. Much like the video switches from the police scenes during the verses, then goes to the colorful portions during the chorus and back again. Sometimes it intermixes them a bit, but by and large, they are divided. That’s about all I’ve got other than that I like this song, and the video reminds me of the one for Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches.

However, Wikipedia adds a little more to the story. It tells me that the reason the police and Estrada are shown eating corn from a can is a reference to how music videos are made. Apparently music video directors are told to “have this shot and that shot – how they’re spoon-feeding images to the audience.” Sounds like he is describing making any film. Except maybe Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993), which is just a blue screen while audio plays over it. There had to be more to the quote. Some context that makes the statement make more sense like that he is talking about being given direction by producers and people from the band’s record company about things they have to include.

Lisa has since added even more to the story in the comments.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Closer by Nine Inch Nails (1994, dir. Mark Romanek)

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

We’ve reached the end of my little journey from synthpop to industrial rock, and I think I’ve saved the best for last.

I didn’t watch MTV much in the early to mid-1990s, but I did on occasion. This was one of those music videos that would instantly stop me in my tracks. If it was on, then I was in front of the TV. At the time, it was the music video with the spinning pig’s head that seemed forbidden somehow. I also remember it being one of the most weird and best put together music videos of the time. Oh yeah, and the song is awesome. This is coming from someone who was not a fan of Nine Inch Nails either. I appreciated this song, I liked The Perfect Drug, and certainly was aware of their existence, but that still didn’t do it for me.

Today I remember Trent Reznor spinning on his back in the air more than anything else about it. The rest is filled with disturbing imagery, or at least imagery that appears disturbing when it is shown the way it is. I mean a lot of it is just stuff you would expect in a museum exhibit. One screwed up museum exhibit with the Warren Commission judging you for being there, but still. I’m also pretty sure that’s a picture of Jack Nicholson on the wall next to the monkey reminding me that I eventually have to do Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden. That’s really all I have to say because while I may love the song and video, I still have no real idea what it means. I just know that I want to watch it over and over till I figure it out, or it remains a mystery. Shouldn’t be too hard though, but I kind of like it just being a visual feast without any particular purpose to me.

This is one of those music videos where we know more than just the director.

Krista Montagna produced it, and appears to have produced some music videos for Madonna. She was also a production assistant on Silent Night, Deadly 2 (1987). That means the woman who produced this music video was probably there to witness Eric Freeman deliver his insanely over-the-top performance. Perhaps she was even there for “Garbage Day!”

On photography we have Harris Savides. He worked on numerous music videos. Some notable examples are Everybody Hurts for R.E.M. and Criminal for Fiona Apple. Not bad. He’s also done some work on feature films like Zodiac (2007), American Gangster (2007), Milk (2008), and Frances Ha (2012) among others. Again, not bad.

Robert Duffy edited the music video. He basically worked on other music videos that Mark Romanek made. Although, he did edit R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion. He has worked in feature films too, having edited The Cell (2000) and Self/less (2015).

Tom Foden worked as the production designer. Tom Foden did a few music videos, and what do you know, he was the art director on Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees. I didn’t expect that tie-in with what I said about Ministry’s Over The Shoulder. Foden also worked on The Cell and Self/less among other feature films as a production designer.

I guess the one we have to thank for Reznor spinning on his back in the air is Ashley Beck who did the visual effects on this and two other Mark Romanek music videos. She’s done visual effects on Romanek’s One Hour Photo (2002) all the way up to Suicide Squad (2016).

I guess I could go to Wikipedia and find out the intention of the music video, but I’m not going to do that. I’d like it to remain a mystery for me to crack for the time being.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Jesus Built My Hotrod by Ministry (1991, dir. Paul Elledge)

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Now we have reached Ministry’s industrial metal years. This is probably my favorite Ministry songs of the ones I have heard. It’s also both better in music video form, and worse at the same time. It’s worse for a minor reason. The video has him say “Jesus was the devil.” That’s not what he says in the song. In the song it’s “Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil. Jesus was an architect, previous to his career as a prophet.” The one on the song is much better. However, the video does add something I absolutely love. At about three minutes and twenty seconds we get a guy who looks like the man with the horned-rimmed glasses saying “drag racing” several times in a row. This music video seems to throw every repetitious thing they can into the pot to create this hard rocking industrial metal song. This included dialog and imagery. The imagery being something they couldn’t do in a purely audio form.

This time Alain Jourgensen seems happy. In fact, I’d say it’s almost like he’s floating on a cloud as he seemed to be doing literally in the music video for Over The Shoulder. The music video also has that tying in of everything to the theme of the song visually thing going on. This is one of those songs that I would suggest watching in music video form, and not just off of the album.

I don’t really have anything else to say about the video or the song except that I think it’s one of the best music videos I have watched for this ongoing series of posts.

Director Paul Elledge would direct a couple more music videos, but that’s all. He did an excellent job here.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Over The Shoulder by Ministry (1985, dir. Peter Christopherson)

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I have tried to stay away from repeating the same artist before I even reach 50 of these posts, but I can’t. I did Rio by Duran Duran and People Are People by Depeche Mode, so it only feels right to not only do Ministry here, but to follow it up with one of their industrial metal songs tomorrow.

I don’t know if I would call this just dark synthpop, or whether I would go ahead and call it industrial rock. It’s not industrial metal. We’ll see that tomorrow, clear as day. It certainly sounds like something Nine Inch Nails would have done though. You can hear how they have expanded the ingredients thrown into the musical pot in order to start to create this new flavor of music that is still based heavily on repetitious sounds. Just like Depeche Mode’s People Are People, it uses mechanical sounds, but here it’s done to a greater degree. Almost in an orchestral way. I know it sounds weird, but I certainly think of The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails to be less of a rock song, and more of a composition a la classical music.

You can tell that Alain Jourgensen was still not happy yet. I say that because he is still faking a British accent like he did on the band’s previous album. I’m guessing that the record company or other pressures on him said, “If you are going to do this style of music, then you must sound British like Simon Le Bon or Dave Gahan!” For the record, Alain Jourgensen was born in Cuba, and grew up in Chicago. Eddie Vedder is also from Illinois, but we all thought he was from Seattle when I was a kid.

Anyways, this video isn’t that much different from the one for Revenge, which was off of their previous album called With Sympathy. Over The Shoulder was off of their next album called Twitch. It too has a dark look about it. Two of the biggest differences to me are that it looks grimy rather than stagey, and it is comprised of the kind of imagery you would expect from industrial rock/metal. In fact, it ties all of its’ imagery together with the song while actually becoming part of the song the same way that we’ll see tomorrow. They are all disposable things.

I love how the ending of this video has Jourgensen twisting around mostly naked the way Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor famously would later on. I also love how it seems that if Jourgensen floated around that grocery store any longer, then he probably would have bumped into Thom Yorke in Radiohead’s music video for Fake Plastic Trees.

Director Peter Christopherson would go on to direct a lot music videos, which included ones by Nine Inch Nails.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: People Are People by Depeche Mode (1984, dir. Clive Richardson)

Posted on August 7, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Synthpop, industrial metal, and industrial rock are all the same music to me. The songs are made up of repetitious elements which are sung over. What makes them sound so different is the same reason one type of food tastes so different than that same food that is made a little differently. Take this song for instance compared to Rio by Duran Duran. That song uses the synthesizer as its’ ingredient. It gives it a very smooth and stylish sound that slips down the throat like cough syrup. In this music video, within the first second we see that Depeche Mode used other things like industrial sounds such as a cannon shooting off, hitting metal, and of course the synthesizer still. The repetition is as present as it was in Rio, but since the sources of that repetition have changed, the song comes across as something different when all that’s changed are the ingredients that satisfies the needs of the recipe. The lyrics of the song also take it from something that is pure fun to something that has meaning, but without much punch. It still goes down easy, but it’s a serious pill you are easily swallowing this time.

The video is a rather simple combination of war imagery with the group. The video alternates between fractured and un-fractured images in color and solid black and white. I’m not sure why they didn’t go for the obvious here. I would have had an arc in the video that moved from fractured images of the band in color to them in solid black and white that is paired with the stock footage. It would have helped to drive home that as the song is sung, the message goes from confusion to the issue being very simple, solid, and black and white. Still, it has that kind of effect anyways. In fact, you could argue that by never having such an arc, it makes sure that there isn’t a resolution to the problem despite lyrics like “people are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully.”

The song itself is one I pull out anytime something tragic has happened because of hate. It’s simple too: “I’m relying on your common decency. So far it hasn’t surfaced, but I’m sure it exists. It just takes awhile to travel from your head to your fist.” Sad but true.

Hallmark Review: The Good Witch’s Gift (2010, dir. Craig Pryce)

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I haven’t done a Hallmark movie in awhile. It’s been even longer since I did one that I watched on DVD. I only mention it because once again it is difficult to get it to start in VLC, and the close captioning is a little wonky. That leads to some humorous captions. I bring them up in case you go to watch it using VLC, or need to use the close captioning for more than just convenience. This is also the last of the Good Witch movies I have left to review. Let’s dig in.

The movie begins and we immediately join Jake Russell (Chris Potter) as he is doing some window shopping to decide what to get Cassie (Catherine Bell) for Christmas. He’s also doing a bit of foreshadowing.

He spots a guy that he clearly knows, but then Cassie pops up like she always does to say “hi.”

This is as good a time as any to mention that she uses her powers a little more explicitly this time around. It’s not like in a later one where she teleports right in front of a camera. However, she does pop around more, and she makes the doors to her shop open right in front of Jack to the point where he asks her if she installed automatic doors. At least that’s what they say if you can hear. If you can’t, then this is what shows up onscreen.

The next important thing is to find out who that guy was that Jack saw while window shopping. It’s a guy named Leon Deeks (Graham Abbey) who was part of a bank robbery and was recently released after having served his time. The issue is that not only was the money never recovered, but Jack’s son is going out with Deeks’ daughter played by former Degrassi: TNG star Jordan Todosey. It’s interesting that with this film it means that actor Matthew Knight was in a movie with one of the late stage Degrassi: TNG actors, and one of the early ones in Jake Epstein who was in an episode of Matthew Knight’s short-lived TV Show called My Babysitter’s A Vampire.

Deeks of course stops by Cassie’s place, and as usual with new people, she nearly gives him a heart attack by suddenly showing up behind him. He remembers the place when it used to be rundown and is impressed with what she has done. There is an ulterior motive to him looking around the place. It will turn out the unrecovered money from the robbery is under her floor.

Lori (Hannah Endicott-Douglas) makes a return, but really won’t play too much of a role in the film. Mainly when Cassie’s ring goes missing, she runs around looking for it. However, good old quintessential small town busybody Martha Tinsdale (Catherine Disher) is sure around for her plot line.

At the start she is being annoying, making people angry, and really getting into hitting that gavel. She is rejecting a local business’ request to put up a sign to advertise for their business. Her plot line is like the rest in that it will revolve around family, and will resolve with family. It’s what the “Gift” in the title means. The formation or maintenance of family is the central theme around which the plot lines revolve. I do love how at this meeting, which is where we first see her, she manages to piss off everyone at the table. Then she leaves only to be confronted by her husband the mayor who tells her they lost a lot of money, and she needs to get a job as a result.

Catherine Disher really does have that Jim Carrey facial expression thing about her. I love it.

Then we meet Brandon (Matthew Knight) and Jodi Deeks played by Jordan Todosey.

So, we have Cassie and Jack who need to end up getting married to each other. We have Jodi and her father who need to be reunited despite Jodi’s mother fighting against it. It’s understandable because the time he served was ten years on top of committing the crime. We also have Martha who needs survive this bump in the road with her husband. However, we have one last piece of setup.

What do we do with grandpa (Peter MacNeill)? He actually has one of the more subtle ways of having family in his plot line. The woman he met last time at the orchard departs. Since Cassie is going to go and live with Jack in the end, what is going to happen to Grey House?

That’s your setup. The movie is on autopilot now as the plot lines run their course to their happy conclusions. Let’s talk about how these different plot lines all resolve.

The reason for the marriage being rushed is that Jack is getting frustrated that it keeps getting pushed back, so come hell or high water, he’s going to make it happen before Christmas. The marriage runs into a few small speed bumps with finding a preacher at the last minute, getting the wedding together at the last minute, and getting the marriage license also at the last minute. It’s the standard stuff you’d expect. Martha’s husband marries them since he is the mayor. They get the marriage license since Cassie has been around long enough legally that the government says that’s enough to establish an identity. I’m not sure it really works that way, but it’s a movie, and a very minor point that is just there to stall the film a bit.

Martha goes around trying to sell herself as a prospective employee, but she’s pissed off too many people for that to be an easy task.

In the end, she’ll become a party planner. Cassie is the one who suggests this to Martha. In this one, more than others, she seems to be more conscious of these actions to help people. I swear I remember in the past that she treaded the line between some sort of an all knowing being, and a regular human better.

As for grandpa, that’s actually easy. He moves in to take care of Grey House and the B&B with Cassie.

The hard one is getting Jodi and her father back together. That’s really what Cassie puts her mind too. In the end, that works out too, but she has to attack that problem from several angles. Turning the money in is the major step he takes to turn things around for him and his family.

It really has been awhile since I watched other Good Witch movies, but this one felt a little different. I recall the others having a main plot, and several micro-plots around it that really didn’t have any reason to be there. This time around we have the Deeks plot line that has some more importance, but they are all treated rather equally, tie together, and have a central theme. Kind of like a Good Witch version of Signed, Sealed, Delivered: From The Heart (2016) except that it doesn’t have so many plots that it gets overwhelming. This is average, but recommendable as far as Good Witch movies go.

Music Video of the Day: Rio by Duran Duran (1982, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Would you believe that until a week or so ago I didn’t know we had an Olympics coming up? I only realized it because the Diet Coke cans I pulled out of the fridge had changed and had the rings on them. This is seriously my life. So is trying to figure out how to talk about a Russell Mulcahy masterpiece that everyone has seen.

I’m going to go ahead and call it now. Russell Mulcahy is the father of the music video. They existed before he started making them sure. There were films going back to at least the 1940s that were essentially music videos hung on a clothesline plot. I’m watching this music video over and over while I write this, and I have yet to see a single shot that isn’t perfectly done. The angles, the use of iris shots, split screens, the incredible use of color, and everything I’m seeing in every frame is perfect. The music video even goes into black and white widescreen as if you have suddenly stepped into The Longest Day (1962). I love the two guys playing the sax–Nick Rhodes and John Taylor–who are paired via a split-screen. There’s also the part where we think he is going to slip on a banana peel, but he misses it only to be hit by a giant bowling ball. I can only imagine being alive in 1982, turning on MTV, and seeing this. This was probably the first exposure most people had to a truly well-made short film that happened to be built around a song. It certainly would have been for a child who was lucky enough to have cable in 1982. My first exposure was Hungry Like The Wolf, but that’s another Duran Duran/Russell Mulcahy collaboration we’ll get to eventually.

This is one of those music videos where we know more than just the director. Jackie Adams produced this music video. She seems to have worked with Mulcahy on a total of five music videos, and made an appearance in Mama by Spice Girls. Those music videos range from something surreal like Billy Joel’s Pressure that starts off with a version of The Parallax View (1974) training montage to something simple like Only The Lonely by The Motels. By the way, what the heck is it with Billy Joel music videos being some of the most interesting and well-made ones that never get enough attention? Just saying that I’m looking at Pressure right now, and it is amazing.

But back in Rio, we have to mention the band itself because Duran Duran are more than just a band that stood around and played their song in this music video. This is an embodiment of their music and style. As I’m sure you all know by now, Duran Duran are a group of guys from the UK who came over to the US bringing style over substance synthpop with very well-crafted songs. We mentioned synthpop when we spoke about Ministry. I contend that we had style over substance with Duran Duran. We then made it substantive with Depeche Mode, but it was still quite radio friendly, and hadn’t shed the legacy of groups like Duran Duran. Then we had Ministry forced to try and be like them, but then had them turn to something very much on the fringes before evolving synthpop into industrial metal. Ultimately, we had groups like Nine Inch Nails who came along and broadened it into an almost orchestral sound with industrial rock. At least that’s my excuse for the next four music videos I intend to feature after this one.

Sit back and enjoy this classic music video directed by one of the best in the business with all the style and 80s dripping off your screen while a wonderful Duran Duran song plays.

Music Video of the Day: Here I Go Again by Whitesnake (1987, dir. Marty Callner)

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Happy Birthday, Tawny Kitaen! You took what would have been a high-spirited, but quickly forgettable “put the band onstage and focus on the lead singer” video, and made it one of the most memorable music videos of the decade.

She didn’t have to do much either. The bits in the car are probably the least focused on, but I have always loved the part when she grabs lead singer David Coverdale and rips him over the front seat. I really love that because she doesn’t do it easily either. She grabs him and yanks him right over the seat. You can even see her reach to grab his leg to get him completely into the backseat just before it cuts away.

Lisa being our resident lover of dance, of course loves the hood dancing part. Who doesn’t? I remember last year when someone tweeted a screenshot of it and said something about her being their second biggest crush in the 1980s. I don’t recall if they even included her Twitter handle, but she responded asking basically: “My God! Who was #1?”

Thank you, Tawny Kitaen. Not only for the video, but insuring that no one would forget what is a really good song. A song that could have been forgotten if they hadn’t made this version, and only stuck with the 1982 music video. All it took was adding dancing a little on two car hoods, hanging out a car window, and ripping Coverdale over a carseat. We’ll talk about the 1982 version next month because Kitaen and Coverdale were kind enough to have birthdays in August and September respectively.

Music Video of the Day: Epic by Faith No More (1990, dir. Ralph Ziman)

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I will keep the history lesson to a minimum. From the late 80s to the very early 90s was a weird time. The 80s were already priming themselves to be destroyed, but for a brief period we got incredibly dated stuff like this music video. Lisa loves to call certain films time capsules of an era that is no longer with us. That is this video in a nutshell. The song certainly lives up to its’ title. It is one of those underdog music videos that would sometimes make it on top lists back in the day and sometimes not. The same thing happened with the music video for Godley & Creme’s Cry.

This is one of those music videos that stirred up controversy too. It’s the fish at the end that flaps around out of water. Nothing major like the letter writing campaign that pushed Metallica’s One into late night or the one that stopped The Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up from playing anytime.

I love this song and music video. For whatever reason, I lump it together with Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. Since the 2000s, I also lump it together with the music video for Get Free by The Vines.

The music video was directed by Ralph Ziman who seems to have stuck with relatively obscure songs. Some big names like Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne, but past their prime.