Music Video of the Day: The Rumour by Olivia Newton-John (1988, directed by Brian Grant)

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Today would have been Olivia Newton-John’s 75th birthday and today’s music video of the day is one that she did in the late 80s.

The Rumour was the title track off of Newton-John’s 13th studio album. The song was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and features John on the piano. The video features a stage-bound hotel, where rumors begin and spread with the help of the paparazzi. The snake crawling across a typewriter lets us know all that we need to know about Newton-John’s feelings towards the scandal-obsessed tabloid press.

This was one of the many music videos to be directed by Brian Grant, who worked with just about every prominent musical artist of the era.

Enjoy!

Holiday Spirit: A Mom For Christmas (dir by George T. Miller)

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1990 made-for-TV movie, a little girl wishes for a mom for Christmas. So, of course, a mannequin played by Olivia Newton-John comes to life and serves as her mother. The only catch is that she goes back to being a mannequin on Christmas Eve! Can Olivia’s new family find a way to make her into a real person or will she go be forced to back to decorating a department store as soon as the holidays end?

Watch to find out!

Music Video of the Day: Reach Out For Me by Olivia Newton-John (1989, directed by ????)

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Today would have been Olivia Newton-John’s 74th birthday. Today’s music video of the day is for Newton-John’s cover of the song Reach Out For Me, which appeared on her fourteenth studio album, Warm and Tender. As an album, Warm and Tender was a mix of cover turns and children’s lullabies. That is a theme that is certainly present in this music video.

Enjoy!

Film Review: Toomorrow (dir by Val Guest)

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1970ish film Toomorrow tells the story of a group of students who are determined to make their way through art school despite not having much money. They do what they can to cut down on costs. For instance, they all live in one big, communal house. And even though they think that the protestors in the streets are totally groovy and happening in a far out way, they decline to really get involved with any of it because bail’s expensive.

(At least, that’s what I assume is going on in the protest scenes. This isn’t exactly the most coherent film ever made.)

The students also pay for college by forming their own band! Calling themselves Toomorrow, they make use of a new instrument called the Tonaliser! The Tonaliser sends out sonic vibrations that put everyone into a good, dancing mood! The Tonaliser is so powerful that the vibrations are even felt in outer space.

It turns out that there’s a group of aliens who have all the technology in the world but who have never figured out how to create music. They really want to learn, though. Music is the one thing that their society needs. The aliens, represented by Johnny Williams (played by the great character actor Roy Dotrice, who looks embarrassed to be in this film), abduct Toomorrow so that Toomorrow can teach them how to appreciate music. Toomorrow has no problem with doing that but they’re going to need help to focus or …. something. I don’t know. This movie is impossible to follow. All I know is that an alien woman goes down to Earth to keep Toomorrow focused and there’s a scene where she’s taken to an adult Swedish movie so that she can learn about human anatomy. Or something.

Yes, it’s Toomorrow! A film about hippies that was meant to appeal to hippies but which was definitely made by people who were not hippies themselves. The film does it best to show off its counter-culture bona fides, what with the commune and the art school and the protests and the band’s lead singer waking up with a different woman every morning and a barely there subplot about a professor having an affair with the member of the band. But none of it feels very authentic, largely because all of the hippies are very clean-cut and none of the protestors are really protesting anything specific as much as they’re just walking around with signs. All of the “shocking” counter-culture behavior takes place off-screen. Randy Newman once described Horse With No Name as being “song about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid” and Toomorrow is a film that was obviously made by that kid’s grandparents. As for Toomorrow the band, their music is nothing special. In fact, there’s really not a single memorable song to be found in Toomorrow the film. The aliens could have just waited a few years and abducted the house band from the Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

You may have noticed that I mentioned that the film was a “1970ish” film. That’s because Toomorrow didn’t receive an actual theatrical release. It was produced by Harry Saltzman (who also co-produced the first 9 James Bond films) and Don Kirshner, the music promoter who was responsible for The Monkees. It was directed by veteran British director Val Guest. When Saltzman and Kirshner failed to pay Guest and the rest of the crew for their work on the film, Guest sued and, as a result, Toomorrow spent decades held up in litigation. It was only released on video because everyone who was suing eventually died with the case unresolved.

If Toomorrow is known for anything, it’s for being the film debut of a young Olivia Newton-John. Olivia played a member of Toomorrow but she doesn’t get to do much, beyond smiling cheerfully while either performing and passing out tea at the commune. Olivia reportedly had such a terrible time on the set of Toomorrow that she swore she would never make another film and nearly turned down Grease as a result. That said, Olivia is probably the best thing about Toomorrow. She’s the only member of the band with any screen presence and probably the only one of them who could have talked the aliens into not blowing up the Earth.

Toomorrow can be viewed on YouTube. It’s interesting as an example of how much the old film establishment struggled to figure out how to appeal to younger filmgoers in the late 60s and early 70s. Every moment in the film has been calculated to appeal to “the kids” but it’s precisely because it’s so calculated that the film ultimately fails. There would be no tomorrow for Toomorrow.

Music Video of the Day: Xanadu by Olivia Newton-John (1980, dir by ????)

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rest in Peace, Olivia Newton-John.

Scenes That I Love: Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta Perform You’re The One That I Want From Grease

Posted on August 8, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I just read that Olivia Newton-John passed away earlier today. She was 73 years old.

Here she is, performing You’re The One That I Want with John Travolta at the climax of 1978’s Grease. No matter what else you may think about this film (and, to be honest, it’s not one of my favorite musicals, just because of the way that director Randal Kleiser framed most of the dance numbers), you can’t deny that both Olivia and Travolta poured their hearts into this climax.

Love On The Shattered Lens: Xanadu (dir by Robert Greenwald)

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“What the Hell did I just watch?” I asked myself as the end credits rolled for the 1980 film, Xanadu.

Xanadu is one of those films where words just fail you. It’s a musical and it stars Olivia Newton-John, who has a good voice even if she’s also kind of a bland screen presence. The music is really good. I love the main song and it’s definitely one that has gotten stuck in my head every time that I’ve heard it. Of course, for the longest time, I thought Olivia was singing, “One-a-due.” (Seriously, I’m the worst when it comes to mishearing lyrics.) But no, I later discover that she was singing about Xanadu and who would have guessed that Xanadu would turn out to be a roller disco?

Yes, it’s a very strange movie.

Xanadu starts out with a mural of nine women coming to life. The 9 women are the Muses. You may remember them from Greek mythology. They exist to inspire artists who inevitably end up falling in love with him without realizing that a muse is not allowed to love back. This leads to a lot of great art but also to a lot of broken hearts. Olivia Newton-John plays a muse named Terpsichore but she prefers to be known as Kira because …. well, wouldn’t you? For centuries, Kira has inspired great works of art. She’s worked with Michelangelo and probably a few poets as well. As someone who majored in Art History, I’m thankful for Kira because, without her, my degree would be totally useless as opposed to just slightly. In the year 1980, Kira has again entered the mortal world so that she can inspire …. a roller disco.

Yeah, okay.

Listen, I could probably go on for about a thousand words about how disappointed I would be to go from inspiring the Mona Lisa to inspiring a tacky roller disco in Malibu. But it doesn’t seem to bother Kira so good for her! Of course, Kira is a bit distracted because she’s broken the number one rule of being a muse. She’s fallen in love with an artist!

Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) is a painter whose job involves painting larger versions of album covers so that they can be displayed in the windows of record stores. Sonny dreams of being an independent artist but instead, he’s stuck recreating the works of others. He feels like his life and his work are going nowhere. However, once he sees a picture of Kira, he is immediately inspired. And then, when Kira skates up behind him and kisses him, he’s in love!

Yay!

The only problem, of course, is that Sonny is a human being and Kira is a mythological creature. If Sonny was destined to fall in love with a creature from Greek mythology, I guess he should be happy that it was one of the muses and not Medusa. But anyway, Kira says that she’s not allowed to be with Sonny so Sonny tries to talk Zeus and Hera into changing the rules. Whether or not he succeeds is kind of left up in the air. I think a bigger problem would be the fact that Kira is immortal whereas Sonny comes across like he’ll probably end up snorting too much cocaine before the 80s are over. But that’s never really brought up in the film.

Around the same time that Sonny meets Kira, he also meets Danny (Gene Kelly!), who is a former big time band leader who now spends his time hanging out on the beach and dreaming about opening up a roller disco. It turns out that, when Danny was a young man, he was also inspired by Kira. Danny and Sonny join forces and soon, Xanadu is a reality! Danny fantasizes about a 1940s style nightclub. Sonny fantasizes about a generic “rock club.” They may have two different visions but fortunately, they both agree one one thing: everyone has to wear roller skates.

Xanadu is one of those films where not much really happens but it’s still incredibly busy. Danny keeps on dancing. Sonny keeps on painting and bitching about how his life isn’t going anywhere. Kira keeps on roller skating through everyone’s life. As I said, the music’s great but the storyline …. well, to be honest, I thought the film’s story was fun as an example of something that could only have seemed logical in the late 70s. I mean, it’s an incredibly stupid film but Gene Kelly’s in it and, even at the age of 68, he was still such a dedicated old trouper that you can’t help but smile whenever he breaks out a few moves. Add to that, Michael Beck and Olivia Newton-John do make for a cute couple, even if both of them were reportedly miserable during filming. They just look like they belong together, in a California beach community sort of way.

Xanadu’s a big mess of a movie but it’ll make you dance and it’ll make you sing. All together now: One-a-due, One-a-due something want to do….*

Back to School Part II #10: Grease (dir by Randal Kleiser)

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to reviewing Grease on this site, the film and I have a long and twisted history. There have been several times when I was tempted to review Grease but one thing has always stopped me:

I absolutely hate this film.

Grease is one of my least favorite films and, to be honest, just thinking about it causes me pain. Just about everyone that I know loves Grease. They love the songs. They love the music. They love the performances. They want to see it on stage. They want to see it on the big screen. They watch every time it pops up on AMC.

Growing up as a theater nerd means being surrounded by people who love Grease. I cannot begin to count the number of times that I forced to watch this movie in school. So many theater teachers seemed to feel that showing Grease in class was some sort of reward but, for me, it was pure torture. And the fact that I was usually the only one who disliked the film made the experience all the more unbearable.

Back in 2014, when I was doing the first set of Back To School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease. But I just could not bring myself to voluntarily relive the film. Instead of putting myself through that misery, I decided to watch and review Rock ‘n’ Roll High School instead. It was the right decision and I stand by it.

Jump forward two years and here I am doing Back to School again. And again, for some reason, I had put Grease down as a film to review. It’s just a movie, right? And yet, after I finished writing my excellent review of Animal House, I again found myself dreading the idea of having to even think about Grease.

So, I said, “Fuck this,” and I promptly erased Grease from the list and I replaced it with Skatetown USA. Then I watched Skatetown and I’m glad that I did because that was an experience that I can’t wait to write about! And yet, I still had this nagging voice in the back of my mind.

“You’re going to have to review Grease at some point,” it said, “If not now, when?”

The voice had a point. However, I was soon reminded that there was an even more important reason to review Grease. A little further down on my list of Back to School films to review was a little film called Grease 2. How could I possibly review Grease 2 if I hadn’t already reviewed Grease? My OCD would not allow it!

And so, here I am, reviewing Grease.

Grease, of course, is a musical about teenagers in 1958. Danny (John Travolta) is in love with Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) and Sandy is in love with Danny. But Danny’s a greaser and Sandy’s Australian! Will they be able to work it out, despite coming from different worlds? Of course they will! Danny’s willing to dress up like a jock in order to impress Sandy while Sandy’s willing to wear black leather to impress Danny! Yay! They go together! And they’ve got a flying car, too! YAY!

And then Satan arrived…

Of course, there’s other subplots as well. For instance, Frenchy (Didi Conn) nearly drops out of school but she’s visited by Satan (Frankie Avalon) and he manages to change her mind. And Rizzo (Stockard Channing) might be pregnant because Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) hasn’t bought any new condoms since the 8th grade. Comparing the sensitive way that teen pregnancy was handled on a show like Degrassi: The Next Generation with the way it’s handled in Grease is enough to make you want to sing “O Canada” every day for the rest of your life.

Here’s what I do like about Grease: Stockard Channing is great as Rizzo, though it’s hard not to feel that she deserves better than a doofus boyfriend like Kenickie and a boring bestie like Sandy. I also like You’re The One That I Want. That’s a fun song.

But as for the rest of the movie … BLEH! I mean, it is so BORING! It takes them forever to get to You’re The One That I Want. Olivia Newton-John is so wholesome that she literally makes you want to tear your hair out while John Travolta pretty much acts on auto pilot. As for the supporting cast, most of them appeared in the stage production of Grease and they still seem to be giving stage performances as opposed to film performances. They’re still projecting their lines to the back of the house. Worst of all, it’s obvious that director Randal Kleiser had no idea how to film a musical because the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and framed that, half the time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet. If you can’t see the feet, it defeats the whole purpose of having an elaborate dance number in the first place!

So, no, I don’t like Grease.

Sorry, everyone.

However, I’m sure I’ll enjoy Grease 2….