Tag Archives: Kenny Ortega

Music Video of the Day: Young Turks by Rod Stewart (1981, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

There is a little bit of a complex story leading up to why I chose to do this music video, so let me try and walk you through it. I wanted to do Oh Sherrie by Steve Perry. I went to my trusty source of background on the first ten years of MTV–I Want My MTV by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum. I figured there might be some background as to why Oh Sherrie is such a great early example of the early anti-video. I certainly found that information in the form of “discussion” about the music video for Separate Ways (Worlds Apart). In particular, Adam Rubin–after going on a rant involving calling for the execution of the director of the video and the band’s manager–said, “But this is my point, there really wasn’t a music-video aesthetic yet.” Really? I read that, and I wanted to started laughing. That’s right up there with people saying The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first sound film. Maybe if he had said there wasn’t an established way to make videos for any artist, rather than the select few who were onboard with making them prior to 1983 like ABBA; Bee Gees; Earth, Wind & Fire; Funkadelic; Van Halen; Rainbow; Judas Priest; and many more, then I could buy it. However, let’s have some fun at his expense by doing as many music videos prior to 1983 that I can find to continue to break up the ABBA retrospective so that it is not everyday.

Up to this video, we have already covered 75 pre-1983 music videos. These are videos such as the many beautifully constructed ABBA music videos of all types (which you’ll find a lot of Separate Ways comprised of), the stage performances of Meat Loaf and Van Halen, the special effects laden video for Let’s Groove by Earth, Wind & Fire, the video filled with visual tie-ins to the the title for Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant, Run To Hills by Iron Maiden that broke un otherwise static stage performance video with relevant stock footage, the metaphor-laden Pressure by Billy Joel, and many more. Oh, and that little video for Rio by Duran Duran that went under everyone’s radar, which is why even early Def Leppard was shot like they were Duran Duran. I would include Michael Anthony as a samurai in Oh, Pretty Woman, but I haven’t done that video yet.

With that in mind, here is Young Turks by Rod Stewart, brought to us by the infamous Russell Mulcahy. As far as MTV goes, Rod Stewart was an early darling of there’s. He came prepackaged with so many music videos that he dominated the first day of MTV. The stories about him in I Want My MTV range from crazy dinners to stumbling upon jars of cocaine in his home. It’s interesting, but would you expect anything less from Rod Stewart. It’s not exactly shocking as it is, “That’s my Stewart!”

This song is probably burned into the memories of most people around my age (33). It was included on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack. For whatever reason, this song would play again and again every time I had to repeat a mission that involved flying a plane. I don’t recall why I kept failing or what it kept playing this song instead of another; I just remember this song playing on an endless loop. However, it is a good song. Hearing it as many times as I did, didn’t change that fact.

Young Turks is a slang term referring to rebellious youth. According to the description on the YouTube video, this was the first video to feature break dancing.

I know I say it a lot, but it is a simple video. Two young lovers encounter dancers choreographed by Kenny Ortega and they are lead to Rod Stewart who is having a concert on a slab of concrete. In between, we get cuts to the young lovers trying to make it on their own. The restaurant that Billy emerges from is the Licha’s Santa Fe Girll at the northeast corner of 7th and Santa Fe streets in Los Angeles. The Hotel Hayward also shows up in the video. One of the things that sticks out at me the most in the video is the use of the split screen.

You may or may not recognize Patti who was played by Elizabeth Dailey. She has down mostly voice-work, but has appeared in numerous films over the years. She’s probably best-known for playing Dottie in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985). But that’s only one of 185 acting credits.

Dale Pauley played by Billy. I couldn’t find any information about him except a shot of him kissing Holly Penfield. That’s it.

There is a second music video for this that is bland stage performance that Wikipedia says was aired one-third of the way through Dick Clark’s three-hour American Bandstand 30th Anniversary Special Episode on October 30th, 1981.

I’ll probably do that one in a couple of days, just so you can contrast the two.

Paul Flattery produced the video who we’ve already talked about.

Peter Lippman was the production manager who we’ve also already talked about.

They are prolific as both directors and producers.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #34: The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again (dir by Kenny Ortega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR!  It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet.  So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR!  She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Wednesday, December 7th!  Will she make it?  Keep checking the site to find out!)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again aired on Fox on October 20th, 2016.

I’ve actually come across some debate online whether the Fox version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show should be considered a remake or merely a tribute to the original film.  It really doesn’t matter.  Whether it’s a tribute or a remake, it’s way too bland to succeed as either one.  Regardless of whether you think the original film (or the original stage play, for that matter) is a transgressive mindfuck or an overrated slog, you can’t deny that director Jim Sharman, star Tim Curry, and writer Richard O’Brien fully committed themselves to being subversive and challenging the audience.  The Fox version was directed by Kenny Ortega, who is best known for the High School Musical films.  Ultimately, this version feels so safe and bland that you could easily imagine Brad and Janet watching it while on church retreat.

It’s like Rocky Horror channeled through Glee channeled through the rockmentary episode of Saved By The Bell.

(“Friends forever.  It’s a nice idea.'”)

As for the cast, I thought Victoria Justice did a pretty good job as Janet, though it’s impossible for me to see her without singing that Best Friend’s Brother song that TeenNick always used to play in between episodes of Degrassi.  Reeve Carney did an acceptable Richard O’Brien impersonation as Riff-Raff.

Laverne Cox took on the role of Dr. Frank-n-Furter and somehow, she managed to make that role boring.  You know who would have made a great Frank-n-Furter?  Adam Lambert.  But he was stuck playing Eddie, the delivery boy who gets eaten.  Lambert did a pretty good job as Eddie but let’s be honest — ANYONE WHO CAN SING CAN PLAY EDDIE!  Frank-n-Furter, on the other hand, is a dynamic character and, for a production of Rocky Horror to work, Frank has to dominate the entire show.  Far too often, Cox seemed to blend into the background.

As for the original Frank, Tim Curry showed up as the Criminologist.  Curry had a stroke in 2012 and now uses a wheelchair.  Here’s hoping the best for him!

As for this version of Rocky Horror, it will soon be forgotten.  Actually, it probably already is forgotten.  I had forgotten about it until I saw it on the DVR.  As opposed to some of the other made-for-TV musicals that have recently aired — Sound of Music, Grease — this version of Rocky Horror was not aired live.  To be honest, I think it would have been better if it had been a live production.  At the least, it would have brought an air of potential danger, the thought that anything could happen, to the production.

That’s what this version was missing.

Oh well!

Music Video of the Day: Allentown by Billy Joel (1982, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I know I have already done two Billy Joel music videos this year, but I opened my big mouth and brought up this one up a couple of posts ago. I figure I’d get it over with now.

Even though I burst through a bunch of the book I Want My MTV when I first got it, I’ve slowed down significantly, and I’m still stuck at the part where people are telling stories of drugs, alcohol, blow jobs, shrooms, cocaine, and even using a penis to sing a Rolling Stones song. I’m not joking about that last one. I’ll get to that Van Halen music video eventually. The point is that I am still stuck in the period numerous people in the book refer to as the Old West with lunatics running the asylum.

I bring that up because this music video has become notorious in the past decade or so for being one of the most homoerotic music videos of the early 1980s. People interviewed in the book bring up that this was a highly experimental period for music videos. That’s how you get crazy music videos like Anger Is My Middle Name by Thor. It’s also how you got Huey Lewis & The News singing to a woman in a bed who must be an incredibly heavy sleeper (Do You Believe In Love). Lewis thought it was ridiculous, but it was hit, so he figured that if that was what people wanted, then that would be their thing. That’s how we got things like Huey becoming Frankenstein’s Monster, The News getting decapitated, Huey finding a Lumiere brothers film behind a door at a party, and a sand shark trying to eat a family, among other things.

So, you take a highly experimental time when people were trying all sorts of things with some people deliberately making nutty music videos, and you wind up not being able to real say that this music video was intentionally homoerotic. Considering all the early music videos I have seen, I think not. One of the early appeals of MTV was that then exotic acts like ABC were suddenly being broadcast in the midwest.

Back then there seemed to be two masters of music videos. You had the women who were at the high-level because the music industry was largely a man’s game, but music videos had to be made, so they pawned the job off on women. Russell Mulcahy is basically the father of the modern music video. He tried all sorts of things. A good example being Total Eclipse Of The Heart for Bonnie Tyler. I think the stuff that is homoerotic was put in because it seemed to fit, and they were trying things no matter how crazy they seemed.

The most interesting part about this music video to me is that while it does have the mostly naked guys, the construction workers, and the unnecessary dancers at the end, it still is a good representation of what Billy Joel’s song is about. Even the homoerotic parts fit just fine into Joel’s intended message until you get to the end. I think the dancers at the end were probably choreographer Kenny Ortega’s idea to go with the whole thing looking like a play rather than reality.

Why the guy in white briefs? You got me. I get why there’s the guy in black briefs throwing the guitar around him in Faster Than The Speed Of Night. Bonnie Tyler’s best music videos are filled with what people perceive as binary, and sexual orientation is just another one of those things. They could have left out the white briefs guy. That just doesn’t have any reason I can think of to be there.

In summary, I suggest you watch the music video three times. The first time watch it how it was intended. The second time watch it for the homoerotic material. The third time combine the two to find that it still comes together.

Jackie Adams was the producer on the music video. You might recall her as the producer of both Rio for Duran Duran and Pressure by Billy Joel.

Doug Dowdle was the editor on the music video. He did a mix of editing, directing, and writing for music videos. He apparently even directed a music video for his own song Burning In Me. We’ll see him again when I finally get around to doing Bonnie Tyler music videos because he directed Holding Out For A Hero.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: She’s A Beauty by The Tubes (1983, dir. Kenny Ortega)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Happy Birthday, Erin! If it weren’t for your Artwork of the Day posts, then these posts probably wouldn’t exist. I can’t thank you enough.

Okay, so why did I pick out this particular music video?

  1. The title fits with Erin’s handle on here.
  2. It starts off with a big picture of something you would find on a pulp novel that she would post. The mermaid later on also looks like something I would expect to see on an Artwork of the Day post.
  3. Just like The Warrior by Scandal that I featured for Lisa’s birthday, this was also shot by Texas Chainsaw Massacre cinematographer Daniel Pearl.
  4. Also, it connects exploitive artwork together with dancing thanks to director Kenny Ortega.

Speaking of Kenny Ortega, he has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments over the decades.

  1. Recently he brought us what I have been told is an abomination of a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  2. He also brought us the nightmare fuel that is the High School Musical films.
  3. He choreographed Material Girl for Madonna.
  4. A year before this music video he choreographed what has been deemed in recent years to be one of the most homoerotic music videos of the early-80s. That being the one for Billy Joel’s Allentown. Billy Joel himself is quoted in the book I Want My MTV about the video. He said that when it blew up on the Internet, he went back and took a look at it. He sees it too, but said that he honestly didn’t notice at the time. I believe him. It does look like a David DeCoteau 1313 movie at times except with dance and set to music. However, it still looks like a good representation of what Joel is singing about. I can see the homoeroticism going over Joel’s head.
  5. Oh, and he is credited with single-handedly destroying Billy Squier’s career with his music video for Squier’s song Rock Me Tonite that he made a year after this one. If you read this Lisa, anytime you want, just tell me, and you can take one of the days to do a post on that music video. I would love to see you tear it apart by talking about everything wrong with the horrifying dancing in it.

There was some justice on that fifth one. Based on his music video credits on mvdbase, it appears that after Rock Me Tonite, almost nobody wanted to work with him. That wouldn’t matter too much though since he was also working on films like St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), and Dirty Dancing (1987), to name a few, before also going on to direct Newsies (1992) for Disney.

As for The Tubes, they are a San Francisco band that has important connections to the formation of MTV.

In the early days of MTV, one of the things they were in desperate need of was cable subscribers. One of the most successful ways they spread cable was through the infamous “I Want My MTV” slogan. That goes back to the funny $1 story with Mick Jagger. Another way they got cable subscribers was by proving the network was having an effect on the record industry rather than just being a curiosity. This is where The Tubes play a big part.

John Sykes and Tom Freston were sent by Bob Pittman to Tulsa, Oklahoma because that was where they had the highest concentration of subscribers according to Freston. One night Pittman got a call from them with some news. They noticed that a record store in the area was sold out of The Tubes. Since they were the only one playing The Tubes, according to Pittman, they knew it had to be them. Pittman said that was the first evidence they had that they were causing records to be sold.

The music video for their song Prime Time was played on the first day of MTV. They also had a few more made in 1981 before having a big hit with She’s A Beauty. It was in heavy rotation on the network. It’s a prime example of the kind of music The Tubes made. They were known for things like What Do You Want From Life? (consumerism/media), Talk To Ya Later (sex/politics/media), and the song White Punks On Dope, which is about their own fans.

That’s the one where their lead singer would come out as the character named Quay-Lewd wearing ridiculously high platform heels while being dressed like some combination between a classical musician and a punk. In the performances I have seen on YouTube, they would have him get pinned down by a falling stack of amps during the instrumental portion. You can see a reference to that when “Beauty” and the kid plow through a stack of amps.

Chuck, my new concert correspondent, has this to say about seeing them live (you can also read it in the comments below):

There are very few bands I haven’t seen in concert at least once. The Tubes in concert were right at the top of my “best” list. They were absolutely incredible. If you didn’t love them when it started, you certainly did when it ended. They weren’t really concerts, but life changing, spectacular events.

At one of their concerts in Santa Monica, the ensemble on stage during their last song of the night included a full choir, three or four high school cheerleader squads, the UCLA drum corps and marching band, around 70 jugglers, dancers, acrobats, various musicians, circus animals, (including an elephant) The Tubes themselves, and gawd knows what else. Everyone in the audience was jumping on their seats, which isn’t easy in folding theater seats. We were all hoarse from singing along (screaming along?) during “WPOD”

… and all this was AFTER most of the audience had the crap scared out of them during a way too real “terrorist takeover” lead-in to “Funky Revolution.” Something no band would dare attempt nowadays.

The kid was played by the late Alexis Arquette. It was her first acting job at the age of 13.

Enjoy! Also, Happy Thanksgiving!