Of course, I wake up this Saturday morning with hundreds of things to do today and The Neverending Story is on. There goes my next 90 minutes of the day.
I've talked about this movie before but wanted to quickly give an ode to one of the more underrated speeches in movie history...The Rock Biter farewell speech.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Scary Movie Villains - Zoltar from "Big"
OK, so maybe Zoltar isn't too scary now but when the movie Big came out in 1988 my 11year old self was expecting a typical PG rated comedy. After all, Tom Hanks was well known to me at the time in my young life. He was very funny in the movie "The Money Pit" with the blonde lady from the TV show "Cheers" that was on WPIX almost every month. "Splash" was my first exposure to grainy nudity. He also was in that goofy show "Bosom Buddies" which at the time I had no idea what the premise of the show was about other than the fact that two guys seemed to want to dress up as women. Tom Hanks also had some coolness about him because he played raging alcoholic Uncle Ned in the show "Family Ties". Lastly, he was in a movie I wasn't allowed to see at the time..."Bachelor Party". That video rental box of that movie always caught my pre-teen eye...after all, there was nudity to be found in that movie....but I digress.
So anyway, Big starts and it seems like a good movie. Poor Josh can't go on the roller coaster to impress to the girl he likes because he's not "big" enough. Enter stage left, a mysterious machine that appears to grant Josh a wish to be "Big"...I give you Zoltar.
Zoltar didn't seem too scary at first...until Josh put the quarter in the machine and Zoltar's mouth started moving and its eyes lit up red. I tried to find a video clip of this scene but came up empty so I can only throw a few pictures of that scene up there. I think you get the gist of it.
Good lord look at that face! I used to scare easily as a kid (see an earlier post I did of movies that used to make me cry)so this broke me down pretty good within seconds. The music was pretty scary here too if I remember right. Zoltar only appears twice in the movie and is onscreen for less than 5 minutes but my nightmares lasted for months.
I guess in hindsight, Zoltar wasn't a bad guy. He granted wishes and Josh was all set to live to a happy and successful life if not for his best friend continuing to guilt him as he was turning his back on his old life.
Anyway, if I see a Zoltar machine today, I will definitely wish for a few extra zeroes added to my income but I'll also be a slightly afraid to look into his cold red eyes. I'd also make sure to see if he's plugged in or not.
So anyway, Big starts and it seems like a good movie. Poor Josh can't go on the roller coaster to impress to the girl he likes because he's not "big" enough. Enter stage left, a mysterious machine that appears to grant Josh a wish to be "Big"...I give you Zoltar.
Zoltar didn't seem too scary at first...until Josh put the quarter in the machine and Zoltar's mouth started moving and its eyes lit up red. I tried to find a video clip of this scene but came up empty so I can only throw a few pictures of that scene up there. I think you get the gist of it.
Good lord look at that face! I used to scare easily as a kid (see an earlier post I did of movies that used to make me cry)so this broke me down pretty good within seconds. The music was pretty scary here too if I remember right. Zoltar only appears twice in the movie and is onscreen for less than 5 minutes but my nightmares lasted for months.
I guess in hindsight, Zoltar wasn't a bad guy. He granted wishes and Josh was all set to live to a happy and successful life if not for his best friend continuing to guilt him as he was turning his back on his old life.
Anyway, if I see a Zoltar machine today, I will definitely wish for a few extra zeroes added to my income but I'll also be a slightly afraid to look into his cold red eyes. I'd also make sure to see if he's plugged in or not.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Awesomely bad videos from the 80's - "Africa" by Toto
When I was 8 years old I moved from the town of West Bay Shore to the town of West Islip. Along with the demographics going from 40% white, 30% black, 20% hispanic, and 10% asian to 99.9% white/.01% every other race, I also discovered something new....cable TV.
Cable TV was rudimentary in the mid-80's. There weren't too many channels but I'll always have channel 25 burned into my brain until the day I die. That was the original channel number for MTV...at least on Long Island. I'll also forever remember channel 26 but that's for another time. Anyway, before the days of MTV not playing a single video...they actually played videos. This is one of the first to go into heavy rotation and although the song is definitely dated, I'll admit its one of my favorites. Today, we take a look back at Toto's "Africa".
As in past video reviews, here is the video. Just follow along the time stamps for the highlights below it.
0:00 - 0:20 - Ah yes...those famous jungle beats and that little synthesizer rift. If you weren't ready for 80's music by the time this was released in 1982, then you were about to have it force fed to you by a spoon. We appear to see the largest globe ever created and then find ourselves in an old library.
0:22 - 0:35 - Toto had three main singers...this is one of them. I don't any of their names but I called this guy "full blown neck beard" guy. The woman in the background looks a little like the girl running around the "Hungry Like The Wolf" video by Duran Duran but I don't think that's ever been confirmed.
0:37 - Full blown neck beard guy is a little overweight for your typical rock star back in the day and you can tell by the fact that he's sweating at this point in the video.
0:43 - I love in every music video, they always try and include clips of the band player. Toto had a ton of members so its hard to work them in but they do their best here. The first shot of the drummer playing a bongo with drumsticks is awesome...but that awesomeness is surpassed by the drummer's glasses.
0:52 - Another band member...he's also a singer as you'll see shortly. He's a dead ringer for the Blue Oyster Cult guitarist but I think its because they have the best mustaches other than Ron Jeremy. He's playing some kind of wicker maracas that probably don't produce a sound in real life but looks neat here.
0:57 - I love this guy...the keyboard player. He's actually the brother of the drummer...if you can't tell by their somewhat similar looks then you'd definitely know because he also is rocking huge glasses.
1:02 - I'm not sure what library uses a kerosene lamp.
1:04 - Its the lead guitar player and half of the bass player!
1:11 - The first group shot of the band. I think they blew 90% of the video's budget to make it look they were playing on a giant stack of books.
1:16 - I'll talk more about this later but I don't know anybody that plays the bass guitar and holds it up that high. Its almost parallel to his body. I'm taking my technical music hat off now.
1:26 - There's the bass guy getting his solo moment. Again, it looks like he's playing the bass over his head.
1:35 - Love the gong hit.
1:42 - 1:56 - I can't tell what kind of library this is. There seems to be leaves on the ground and torches going on in the background. Maybe the library is supposed to actually be in a African jungle.
1:58 - 2:00 - Out of the hundreds of thousands of songs written, I give you the only one that uses the words "Kilimanjaro" and "Serengeti"...in the same line. I find this awesome.
2:18 - One of the other lead singers of Toto...the wicker maracas playing guy rocking the mustache. I love his face getting into it.
2:33 - Another sign the 1980's were here...wrist sweatbands for the keyboard player.
2:40 - 2:47 - There seems to be some sort of plot going on here. The neck beard guy has a scrap of paper and he seems intent on finding the book it belongs too. Meanwhile the librarian seems to be getting sweaty and there's a guy with a spear lurking.
2:50 - And so begins the most deliciously awful keyboard solo of 1982.
3:02 - Well hello there Mr. Percussionist of the band!
3:10 - 3:20 - It seems our hero is getting too close to finding his book because someone throws a spear, though it doesn't seem to come anywhere close of hitting him. It does lead to a huge stack of books to fall. IT would have been funny if it was the stack that Toto was playing on.
3:24 - I love these few shots before the end. Imagine going to a library, you take a book off the shelf, and there's a long haired mullet guy playing a guitar at you.
3:33 - Hey, its the page the protagonist has been looking for!
3:36 - This shot scared me when I was younger. This guy is super intense.
3:39 - Oops, someone drops the kerosene lamp on the book and it goes up in flames in two seconds.
3:42 - As much as the guy at the 3:36 mark scared me as a kid...this guy's expression scares me more as an adult.
3:48 - 4:06 - A bunch of shots are recycled...probably because Toto blew the budget on the book illusion.
4:17 - The main guy appears to be posing for Africa's version of Playgirl.
4:20 - end - Cut to the book burning and then fade to black...
Well, there you have it. Not a great song or video when you look at them by themselves but when you put the two together...you have classic 1980's bliss.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Guilty Pleasures - Rocky V
Guilty Pleasure Movie Reviews
Rocky V
My love for the Rocky movies is strong as they have always played a part of my childhood into my fragile adult mentality. I remember watching the Apollo Creed/Rocky fight in the first Rocky movie when I was 5 years old and not being to comprehend that a human face can be beat up that badly. I was probably 8 when I first watched Rocky III and had nightmares when a drunken Paulie throws the beer bottle at the Rocky pinball machine (the music is really freaky). I must have watched Rocky IV one hundred times since it first came out and most of the soundtrack is in regular rotation on my IPod (“there’s no easy out…there’s not shortcut hooooommmmeee”).
Anyway, I was always too little to see the first four movies in the theater but when Rocky V came out in 1990, my 12 year old self was there. I actually thought it was a pretty good movie at the time but nearly 19 years later my adult mind is fighting my child mind to change that opinion.
Here’s a debate between the child in me and the adult perspective between various scenarios in the movie:
1.) Thanks to Paulie, Rocky goes bankrupt and is forced to move into a cruddy place in Philadelphia with Adrian, his son, and Paulie…again, the guy who bankrupted him.
Child in me: Wow, that Rocky is so nice that he let his brother-in-law still live with him after causing him to lose his home, his super cool robot from Rocky IV, and all of his nice cars.
Adult in me: I would have slit Paulie’s throat ear to ear if he made me lose millions of dollars…I guess Rocky really did have brain damage from all of those fights.
My second favorite line from the movie is at the very beginning when he’s sitting in the shower after fighting Drago and he says “I can’t stop my hands from shaking”. I love that line for some reason.
2.) Rocky finds a job and begins training a young fighter, Tommy Gunn (aka Tommy Morrison who would go onto a real career and then get AIDS). Tommy and Rocky enjoy success but Rocky blows off his family.
Child in me: Yay for Rocky! He seems happy again even though his son seems really sad and has started smoking. Doesn’t his son know smoking is bad?
Adult in me: I actually like Tommy Morrison’s character but why did Sly Stallone cast his own son in the movie? I actually like his son suffering in this movie. And though smoking is bad, it sure can take the edge off when your Dad is ignoring you (***not from personal experience***)
3.) Rocky loses control of Tommy Gunn as he leaves Rocky for a Don King lookalike George Duke.
Child in me: That George Duke character is really evil.
Adult in me: The actor playing George Duke is one of the worst actors ever.
4.) Tommy Gunn goes berserk and its up to Rocky to take him down. They engage in a street fight. Rocky nearly dies of an aneurysm but not before his old trainer Mickey appears in a strange manifestation to tell him to get up and fight because “Mickey loves him”. Rocky defeats Tommy Gunn and probably goes back to his old life.
Child in me: That fight scene was awesome but I don’t understand how Mickey came back for a few moments there.
Adult in me: Poor Burgess Meredith, the actor playing Mickey, probably needed some money to pay for health bills. If not for Rocky 6, I would assumed Rocky would have died of dementia shortly after this movie.
Sidenote: My all time favorite lines of all of the Rocky movies occur towards the end. I love Rocky’s lines of “my ring’s outside” and of course the semi-famous “well why don’t you just go for it”. My favorite line is when Tommy insults Rocky by calling him stupid and Stallone, in one of his most over the top performances, shouts “What? Brains? you say that I don't have any brains Tommy?”. You need to see these lines being said. I wish I could upload these scenes.
Here's the final fight scene good stuff here:
Love the mullet and the "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!!" line from Tommy early on. Around the 2 minute mark is when Mickey and Drago appear and gets really trippy. To see how bad that Don King like actor is, go to the 6:15 mark and listen to his "Gooood Daaaamn"
Summary: In all, it doesn’t hold a candle to the first four Rocky movies but for a guilty pleasure, its not as bad as the critics say it is. Whoever decided on HOW they got Rocky back to streets (Paulie bankrupting him and Rocky still letting him live) probably rights for the TV show Heroes since its full of plot development that makes little sense.
Rocky V
My love for the Rocky movies is strong as they have always played a part of my childhood into my fragile adult mentality. I remember watching the Apollo Creed/Rocky fight in the first Rocky movie when I was 5 years old and not being to comprehend that a human face can be beat up that badly. I was probably 8 when I first watched Rocky III and had nightmares when a drunken Paulie throws the beer bottle at the Rocky pinball machine (the music is really freaky). I must have watched Rocky IV one hundred times since it first came out and most of the soundtrack is in regular rotation on my IPod (“there’s no easy out…there’s not shortcut hooooommmmeee”).
Anyway, I was always too little to see the first four movies in the theater but when Rocky V came out in 1990, my 12 year old self was there. I actually thought it was a pretty good movie at the time but nearly 19 years later my adult mind is fighting my child mind to change that opinion.
Here’s a debate between the child in me and the adult perspective between various scenarios in the movie:
1.) Thanks to Paulie, Rocky goes bankrupt and is forced to move into a cruddy place in Philadelphia with Adrian, his son, and Paulie…again, the guy who bankrupted him.
Child in me: Wow, that Rocky is so nice that he let his brother-in-law still live with him after causing him to lose his home, his super cool robot from Rocky IV, and all of his nice cars.
Adult in me: I would have slit Paulie’s throat ear to ear if he made me lose millions of dollars…I guess Rocky really did have brain damage from all of those fights.
My second favorite line from the movie is at the very beginning when he’s sitting in the shower after fighting Drago and he says “I can’t stop my hands from shaking”. I love that line for some reason.
2.) Rocky finds a job and begins training a young fighter, Tommy Gunn (aka Tommy Morrison who would go onto a real career and then get AIDS). Tommy and Rocky enjoy success but Rocky blows off his family.
Child in me: Yay for Rocky! He seems happy again even though his son seems really sad and has started smoking. Doesn’t his son know smoking is bad?
Adult in me: I actually like Tommy Morrison’s character but why did Sly Stallone cast his own son in the movie? I actually like his son suffering in this movie. And though smoking is bad, it sure can take the edge off when your Dad is ignoring you (***not from personal experience***)
3.) Rocky loses control of Tommy Gunn as he leaves Rocky for a Don King lookalike George Duke.
Child in me: That George Duke character is really evil.
Adult in me: The actor playing George Duke is one of the worst actors ever.
4.) Tommy Gunn goes berserk and its up to Rocky to take him down. They engage in a street fight. Rocky nearly dies of an aneurysm but not before his old trainer Mickey appears in a strange manifestation to tell him to get up and fight because “Mickey loves him”. Rocky defeats Tommy Gunn and probably goes back to his old life.
Child in me: That fight scene was awesome but I don’t understand how Mickey came back for a few moments there.
Adult in me: Poor Burgess Meredith, the actor playing Mickey, probably needed some money to pay for health bills. If not for Rocky 6, I would assumed Rocky would have died of dementia shortly after this movie.
Sidenote: My all time favorite lines of all of the Rocky movies occur towards the end. I love Rocky’s lines of “my ring’s outside” and of course the semi-famous “well why don’t you just go for it”. My favorite line is when Tommy insults Rocky by calling him stupid and Stallone, in one of his most over the top performances, shouts “What? Brains? you say that I don't have any brains Tommy?”. You need to see these lines being said. I wish I could upload these scenes.
Here's the final fight scene good stuff here:
Love the mullet and the "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!!" line from Tommy early on. Around the 2 minute mark is when Mickey and Drago appear and gets really trippy. To see how bad that Don King like actor is, go to the 6:15 mark and listen to his "Gooood Daaaamn"
Summary: In all, it doesn’t hold a candle to the first four Rocky movies but for a guilty pleasure, its not as bad as the critics say it is. Whoever decided on HOW they got Rocky back to streets (Paulie bankrupting him and Rocky still letting him live) probably rights for the TV show Heroes since its full of plot development that makes little sense.
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