Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Monday, August 7th, 2023
Last week we discussed GET CRAZY, a movie about a bunch of bands putting on a concert that was just barely released in August of ’83. Today we’re going to take a look at a 1983 film also about a bunch of bands putting on a concert, but this one wasn’t released at all until 2020, because it was never finished. Technically the thing they released is considered finished, but I’d dispute that description.
GRIZZLY II: REVENGE is officially the sequel to William Girdler’s GRIZZLY (1976). Over the years I’ve stumbled across it occasionally on IMDb when looking up various filmographies – I believe it used to be listed as GRIZZLY II: THE CONCERT and GRIZZLY II: THE PREDATOR – but it said the production fell apart before they finished filming. Little did I know there was an executive producer out there still determined to release it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbie Wilde, Charles Cyphers, Charlie Sheen, David Sheldon, Deborah Foreman, Deborah Raffin, Dick Anthony Williams, George Clooney, Jack Starrett, Joan McCall, John Rhys-Davies, Laura Dern, Louise Fletcher, Steve Inwood, Timothy Spall
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Music | 11 Comments »
Thursday, August 3rd, 2023
August 5, 1983
GET CRAZY is a goofy let’s-put-on-a-show comedy directed by Allan Arkush, with a tone similar to his earlier, more popular ROCK ’N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL. It’s another broad comedy and celebration of punk culture, oddly mixed with some blues this time.
Daniel Stern (BLUE THUNDER) stars as Neil Allen, stage manager for the historic Saturn Theater, where legendary promoter Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield, NASHVILLE) is putting on his 15th annual New Year’s Eve concert. But there’s a villain trying to steal his thunder. Younger, more competitive promoter Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr., CAT PEOPLE) of Serpent Sounds lands his helicopter in front of the theater, causing various women’s clothes to blow off, and struts in with his two henchmen (Bobby Sherman and Fabian), all three of them dressed in silver. He threatens to take over the lease on the Saturn, causing Max to have a heart attack and his shitty nephew Sammy (Miles Chapin, THE FUNHOUSE) to kiss Beverly’s ass. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allan Arkush, Allen Garfield, Anna Bjorn, Bill Henderson, Bobby Sherman, Clint Howard, Dan Frischman, Daniel Stern, Dick Miller, Ed Begley Jr., Fabian, Franklyn Ajaye, Gail Edwards, Howard Kaylan, Lee Ving, Linnea Quigley, Lori Eastside, Lou Reed, Malcolm McDowell, Mary Woronov, Miles Chapin, Paul Bartel, Robert Picardo, Stacey Nelkin
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Music | 11 Comments »
Monday, January 30th, 2023
There’s a surprising amount of shitting, pissing, and puking in BABYLON, the bawdy fictionalized-early-Hollywood period comedy-drama from writer/director Damien Chazelle (writer of THE LAST EXORCISM PART II). It opens with hard-working studio assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva, Narcos: Mexico) trying to impress his bosses by helping organize a crazy mansion party/orgy, and he has to figure out how the fuck to get a rented elephant up a hill. While pushing the way-too-small truck, the elephant gets spooked, and the wrangler (Jimmy Ortega, “Sicario #1,” SABOTAGE) is graphically showered with feces from above.
I appreciate that it’s a surprisingly JACKASS way to kick off a movie some had purported to be Oscar bait, but it’s narratively odd. It must be intended to establish the lowest-of-the-low start to Manny’s career in the movie industry, but he doesn’t seem to get any on him, so it kinda seems like stolen valor to me. Shouldn’t the wrangler be the one getting the meteoric rise? Oh well. Maybe that’s the sequel.
This party scene could be a short film unto itself, and it introduces each of the characters whose ups and downs we’ll be following throughout the movie, chief among them Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie, THE LEGEND OF TARZAN), an aspiring starlet from New Jersey who’s not on the guest list, but Manny takes pity on her and sneaks her in. She peer pressures him into doing a line with her and they have a vulnerable moment that will connect them for life, sharing their Hollywood aspirations. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Pitt, Damien Chazelle, Diego Calva, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Flea, Jean Smart, Jimmy Ortega, Joe Dallesandro, Jovan Adepo, Justin Hurwitz, Lewis Tan, Li Jun Li, Lukas Haas, Margot Robbie, Olivia Hamilton, Olivie Wilde, Patrick Fugit, Rory Scovel, Spike Jonze, Tobey Maguire, Troy Metcalf, Vanessa Bednar
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Music | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2023
STEP UP: YEAR OF THE DANCE (a.k.a. STEP UP CHINA) is a Chinese production developed by Lionsgate as an official entry in the STEP UP franchise, though it’s not connected by any characters. It was released in China in 2019 and apparently here (digital only) in 2020, but I didn’t find out until recently. I watched the English-dubbed version that’s on Tubi because I wasn’t sure if the VOD release would be different. (That’s not the ideal way to watch it, I imagine, but I got over it.)
My podcast friend Michael Scott of Action For Everyone shares my love of the STEP UP series and the dance movie genre, and we’ve talked about doing a STEP UP episode some day. He always says that dance movies are martial arts movies, and this one really literalizes that notion. It actually starts with a fight, and has more of them later, and the central dance crew find their success by starting a fad of “kung fu street dance.” So it makes sense that YEAR OF THE DANCE is directed by the great American stunt veteran and martial artist Ron Yuan, who you’ve seen in many movies including DOUBLE DRAGON, BLOOD & BONE, THE ACCOUNTANT and THE PAPER TIGERS, and who recently directed BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: dance movies, Ron Yuan
Posted in Reviews, Action, Drama, Music | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, December 7th, 2022
Some time around the mid-‘90s I took a weekly screenwriting class for a while, and the teacher loved Paul Schrader. He seemed to bring him up in every class. The guy who wrote TAXI DRIVER. The guy with the strict Calvinist upbringing. Eventually he had us watch a Paul Schrader movie, and he chose LIGHT OF DAY – the one where Michael J. Fox plays in a rock band with Joan Jett. I had seen it before and I didn’t dislike it but I thought it was a weird choice to represent Schrader. I think maybe the teacher hadn’t seen it yet.
But, you know, after THE CARD COUNTER last year and finally watching LIGHT SLEEPER this year I was kinda high on Schrader and thought it might be worth going back to this one to see if there was something I was missing. Well, no, not really, but that’s okay. It’s not in the vein of those ones I just mentioned and it’s not as powerful or as distinctly Paul Schrader, but I don’t think anybody else would’ve made exactly this rock ’n roll movie.
I used to think of it as corny because it’s a rock star acting and a sitcom star rocking, but what’s cool about it is that it’s thoroughly working class. It’s about a band, but it’s never about the record label guy is coming to the showcase and it’s their big chance and they write a hit and they get the cover of Rolling Stone but then it’s the pressures of fame or whatever. No, they’re just a small band that plays at a little tavern in Cleveland called the Euclid (“the Euc” for short) and they try to keep that gig or set up a small tour or play in a different band that will pay better. They do pull a pretty good crowd for the size of the place, but they’re not famous. Nobody knows who they are. And they gotta have jobs. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy L. Sullivan, Cleveland, Gena Rowlands, Jason Miller, Joan Jett, Michael Dolan, Michael J. Fox, Michael McKean, Paul Schrader, Thomas G. Waites, Trent Reznor
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Music | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
RICKY POWELL: THE INDIVIDUALIST is a 2020 documentary about the late New York City photographer/scenester who documented the golden age of hip hop and the ‘80s New York City art scene. Most of us know of him because of a line in a Beastie Boys song – he grew up with Ad Rock and went with them on their tours for around a decade, hanging out and taking photos. He also took many famous pictures of Run DMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy.
And it was more than that. He just lived in an interesting place and time, and knew a ton of people who went on to do big things, who were comfortable with him and let him take candid photos of them. Club kids, actors, graffiti artists. Some of his old friends are interviewed in the movie: Natasha Lyonne, Debi Mazar, Fab 5 Freddy, Laurence Fishburne, the graffiti writer Zephyr. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Beastie Boys, Debi Mazar, Fab 5 Freddy, hip hop, Josh Swade, Laurence Fishburne, Max Perlich, New York City, photography, Ricky Powell, Run DMC, Vin Diesel
Posted in Documentary, Music, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Monday, April 4th, 2022
WILD ZERO (1999) is something that I was aware of as a major cult movie twenty-some years ago, but I never got around to seeing it until now. So young people, please ignore that first sentence and pretend this is an impressive find on my part.
I remembered it because I watched that Japanese post-apocalyptic punk movie BURST CITY not too long ago. WILD ZERO is very different, but it’s another crazed genre movie starring rowdy Japanese rock ’n’ rollers who play music and get into trouble. A trio called Guitar Wolf (led by Guitar Wolf, backed up by Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf), who play a garage rock style they call “jet rock ’n’ roll,” star as themselves in a goofy zombie/sci-fi movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Guitar Wolf, Japanese punk, zombies
Posted in Music, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 8 Comments »
Monday, February 7th, 2022
BURST CITY (1982) is more of an immersive experience than a movie. It’s very light on plot, and I couldn’t tell you any of the characters’ names, and only what a couple of them were up to. But I thought it was great as sort of a travelogue to a dystopian near future as imagined by the early ‘80s Japanese punk scene.
It’s about the gangs and punk bands in a very filthy and crowded slum. They live in wrecked buildings and abandoned factories, covered in graffiti, strewn with junk, wreckage, the occasional mannequin. They sit around on the floor, playing instruments, watching a TV, giving commentary through a megaphone. One such place is presented with a title card that says “BATTLE ROCKERS SECRET BASE.”
Some of them have drag races and work at garages, but quit that job because they’re “much too artistic” for it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: dystopian futures, Japanese punk, jishu eiga, punk, Sogo Ishii
Posted in Music, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
“They’ve got a sound that the world is gonna love. The world.”
For many years I was aware that there was an old ‘80s movie released on VHS called SHORT FUSE starring Art Garfunkel. Because of that tough sounding title I figured it was some kind of WALKING TALL or DEATH WISH type shit where Art Garfunkel had a short fuse and some motherfucker made the mistake of lighting it. And then Art Garfunkel went off faster than expected on account of his fuse’s shortness.
Then Mr. Subtlety told me I should check out this movie called GOOD TO GO “a deliberate attempt to make a Go-Go version of THE HARDER THEY COME, with a bunch of local artists playing themselves,” which he noted was called SHORT FUSE on video and had Garfunkel in it. He knew I was into funk, and go-go is a related subgenre I could theoretically be into.
I was intrigued, but then kinda forgot about it until I was record shopping and bought the GOOD TO GO soundtrack because it was cheap and had Trouble Funk and Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers on it. And then I saw Art Garfunkel on the back and could tell from the picture that this was a guy with a really short fuse. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Garfunkel, Blaine Novak, Fab 5 Freddy, go-go music, Harris Yulin, Michael White, Richard Brooks, Robert DoQui, Washington DC
Posted in Crime, Music, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, September 14th, 2021
DISCO 9000 – or FASS BLACK as it’s called on the Xenon Entertainment VHS tape I rented – is a 1977 movie about a super big shot who runs a record label and dance club in the top of a 26 story building on the Sunset Strip. It’s the second of two movies directed by the actor D’Urville Martin (GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, ROSEMARY’S BABY, BLACK CAESAR) – the first one was DOLEMITE. So yes, he’s the guy Wesley Snipes played in DOLEMITE IS MY NAME.
Fass Black is the name of said big shot, played with distinct swagger by John Poole, whose only other role was as “Record Executive” in the Philip Michael Thomas movie DEATH DRUG (1978). He also has story and wardrobe credits on this. And wardrobe credit is big because that’s about half of the character. One notable thing about this movie is that he wears white-framed sunglasses more often than he doesn’t. It went long enough without showing his eyes at the beginning that I was convinced it was gonna be a DREDD thing where he never takes them off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: D'Urville Martin, disco, Harold Daniels, Jeannie Bell, Johnnie Taylor, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Roland S. Jefferson M.D.
Posted in Crime, Music, Reviews | 6 Comments »
