Rest in peace, Christine McVie.
Tag Archives: Dominic Sena
Music Video of the Day: Magic by Mick Smiley (1984, directed by Greg Gold)
Magic is probably best known for being used in the original Ghostbusters. It’s the song that plays while the ghosts are being released from Ghostbusters HQ and subsequently haunting New York. It’s been said that composer Elmer Bernstein, who did the score for Ghostbusters, hated the way that Magic was used in the film. Then again, Bernstein also hated the film’s Oscar-nominated theme song.
The video has nothing to do with ghosts but instead, it’s about the magic of attraction. It was directed by Greg Gold, who also directed videos for Michael Bolton and the Hollies. Far better known than the video’s director is the video’s cinematographer. Dominic Sena would go on to direct several music videos before eventually branching into directing feature films like Kalifornia, Gone In 60 Seconds, Swordfish, and Season of the Witch.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Don’t Mean Nothin’ by Richard Marx (1988, directed by Dominic Sena)
Today’s music video of the day is Richard Marx’s Don’t Mean Nothin’. This video was directed by Dominic Sena, who later directed films like Kalifornia, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Swordfish. Let’s break it down and see if this video really don’t mean nothin’.
0:03 — I’m not sure but I think we may be in Hollywood.
0:04 — These scenes of Los Angeles street life will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a movie about a small town girl moving to the big city to pursue her dreams.
0:18 — Welcome to Shangri-La!
0:26 — Cynthia Rhodes plays the small town girl. You may recognize her from Flashdance, Staying Alive, and Dirty Dancing. At the time this video was shot, she was dating Richard Marx. She would marry him a year later. They divorced in 2014.
0:38 — The sleazy apartment manager is played by the one and only G.W. Bailey. Bailey has been in a ton of television shows and movies. If you don’t know him from M*A*S*H, you probably know him from the Police Academy films.
0:48 — Cynthia knows what ol’ G.W. was doing back there.
0:55 — Richard Marx’s father was in advertising and Richard Marx started his singing career when he was five years old and he performed a jingle that his father had written. When Marx was 17, he moved to Los Angeles. This song was based on his experiences.
1:14 — Cynthia’s barely been in Hollywood for a week and she’s already got an audition! That’s better that most small town girls do in the big city.
1:38 — Another great moment from G.W. Bailey.
1:53 — Cynthia is shocked! to discover what goes on in Hollywood.
2:09 — Richard says, “Drink up and enjoy the show!” Cynthia is not amused.
2:24 — More Hollywood stock footage.
2:44 — That’s Joe Walsh of the Eagles on guitar.
2:59 — Proof that this video was made in 1988: Richard hands over a cassette of his music.
3:24 — Disgusted to see that Cynthia’s become either a maid or a waitress, Richard stops the music and throws away his future.
3:27 — There’s a lot of hockey hair in this video.
3:38 — Ol’ G.W.’s in trouble now.
3:42 — Are they taking pictures of G.W. getting beaten up? Or does G.W. own a strobe light?
4:08 — Cynthia finally feels comfortable enough to wear an ugly sweater in L.A. and Richard has switched to decaf.
4:20 — A new small town girl arrives. Cynthia tells her where she can find Ol’ G.W.
4:24 — Cynthia and Richard shares a smile and a private laugh as the new girl naively plunges into the moral abyss that is Hollywood.
4:32 — Don’t worry. It don’t mean nothin’ at all.
Music Video of the Day: Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell (1984, dir. Francis Delia)
A few years ago when the Snowden stuff happened, it was priceless to come and look at this music video. You’d see comments along the lines that if Rockwell had only knew it was really the NSA that was watching him, or simply that Rockwell was right that somebody was watching him. Of course you also got the usual comments of people coming many decades later wondering if that is Michael Jackson singing the chorus. Yes, it is.
As is par for the course, this is the first time I have actually paid close attention to the music video I’m spotlighting. It is loaded with a lot of interesting stuff to tie-in with the theme of paranoia.
Why is Rockwell reading the Chinese characters at the beginning? Is that some sort of ghostly reference. Is that supposed to be a second Rockwell? We follow that one while it cuts back and forth to Rockwell in the shower. Is that supposed to mean he has a split personality? It’s probably just the music video’s requisite reference to Psycho (1960), but then we also get the scene with him watching himself on TV. I love it.
I think my favorite part is when someone dressed like a grieving widow is right outside his shower, but he doesn’t see them. They do the same thing while he is standing in the cemetery that apparently is in his backyard.
It comes as no surprise to me that this music video was directed by Francis Delia. He’s the director who brought us the music video for Blue Öyster Cult’s Shooting Shark, which is one of the best of the 1980s. That one was also surreal.
We know quite a few of the people who worked on this music video beyond the director.
The blonde coming out from under the bed is Francis Delia’s daughter Amy.
Nancy Leiviska wrote and produced the music video. You might know her as being the mother of RedFoo whom she had with Barry Gordy. She has apparently gone on to work as an executive assistant on numerous films for Ice Cube. She worked on several other music videos including appearing as one of the people in the music video for Rick James’ Super Freak.
Dominic Sena shot the music video. He directed around 40 music videos and shot around 10 of them. He also went on to direct movies like Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) and Swordfish (2001).
Jason Braunstein was the production manager. The only other credit I can find for him is having worked as an associate in charge of production on Ms. 45 (1981).
Jon Leonoudakis was the production coordinator. He is in the music video as the guy who is looking in through the porthole of the front door. I can find a few credits on him like directing some sports documentaries in recent years. However, it’s clearly his work as an electrician on The Last American Virgin (1982), a production coordinator on Dead Women in Lingerie (1991), and a second unit location manager on Maniac Cop 2 (1990) that jump out at you on his IMDb profile page.
You could do a step-by-step review of this music video, but it’s only about three and a half minutes, so if you haven’t seen it yet, then watch it. It is one of the greatest music videos ever made, and still relevant today. In particular when you are trying to find a music video to help bookend the month of October.
Lisa Marie Does…Season of the Witch (dir. by Dominic Sena)
I have to write this review quickly because I have a feeling that, in another 30 minutes or so, my body’s immune system will succeed in destroying any trace of Season of the Witch.
In Season of the Witch, Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman play two Crusaders who eventually get disillusioned with killing people so they desert the army, end up in a small village somewhere, and are informed that the town is being destroyed by the plague because a curse has been put on the town by a witch. Cage and Perlman are then recruited by the local town’s cardinal (Christopher Lee, who is pretty much wasted under all of this really nasty plague makeup) to take the witch to a monastery that is located somewhere else. You’re never really sure where any one location is in relation to another in this film, which is a bit of a problem since the majority of the film is taken up with the journey to the monastery.
Anyway, the Monks at the monastery have this ancient book that apparently contains all these incantations that can be used against evil. This book is the only one left in existence which leads to the question of why nobody ever bothered to make more than a handful of copies of all of these amazingly important books. I mean, seriously, people. So the idea is to take this witch to the monastery and read this book which will end the plague.
So, we go through the whole journey thing and a few unimportant characters are killed off along the way and Cage and Perlman discuss the meaning of life and faith and, at first, we’re led to doubt whether or not the accused witch is actually guilty but then she starts causing all of these supernatural, witch-like thing to happen so I guess the filmmakers got bored with that whole subplot early.
Then we reach the monastery and a whole other movie starts. Seriously, I cannot begin to put into words just how massively the tone of the film changes once they reach the monastery. The film actually becomes good in a kind of silly, over-the-top way as soon our knights are dealing with all of these flying demons and there’s disfigured monks all over the place, and the priest gets to say, “We’re going to need more holy water,” at one point. (“Yay!” I nearly shouted out in the audience, “Catholic action movie one-liners!”) The tone changes so massively that Season of the Witch actually becomes a really fun and entertaining little action movie but, unfortunately, just as soon as things start to get really fun — bang! Movie is over. Thank you for coming out tonight, folks. Now get the Hell outta here.
Season of the Witch is, to put it politely, a mess. This isn’t all that surprising as the movie is being released in January and January is, of course, reserved for either Oscar contenders going into wide release, films starring Jason Statham, or movies that are being released because the studio is contractually obligated. Ron Perlman, being a veteran of both Guillermo Del Toro and Jean-Pierre Jeneut, knows exactly how play his role but Cage just rides around on his horse looking like he’s late for Halloween party. Director Dominic Sena appears to have a mancrush on Zack Snyder and does the whole speed up the camera randomly then go into slow-mo even more randomly thing but it doesn’t really add up to anything more than just confusion.
Finally, I left this film feeling very betrayed because, seriously — how can you call your film Season of the Witch and not feature the classic Donovan song?
Through the Shattered Lens 