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Jon Calderas

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Posts posted by Jon Calderas

  1. Posted

    Hey, I met Albert Pyun last week and asked him where I could see "Road to Hell" (the sort of unofficial sequel to Streets of Fire). He said it is available via his Facebook page or website. Check out Albert Pyun films on Facebook or Google his website. He said it is only available for about 2 weeks. I haven't seen it, but I am darned intrigued. I am fascinated that there is any kind of sequel to this movie and from the trailers and videos online it looks like Diane Lane and Michael Pare had a kid (played by Roxy Gunn, who totally looks the part) and this sequel is partly her story.

    • Like 1

  2. Posted

    in the course of half a song Alphie grows a beard and starts looking like Will Ferrell. Bananas.

     

    Also, good to see the pointy shouldered suits stayed in style...

     

    More cowbell. Or apfel. And I don't care if the excuse is she's been with us over a year. Fine, call it 23 months. Minus 9 months of pregnancy. That kid should be no more than 6 - 14 months or so and it's easily 3 years old.

     

     

     

    12715969_10208803475023337_4014734414075593787_o.jpg

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    I was thinking on who could at least act in their respective part. Olivia and Kylie aren't the greatest but with this shit they could at least do a decent job. Where as with TSwift... I just can't with her at all.

     

    Which is why I need Bowie as Boogalow and keeping Fister's recommendations of DLR and Grace Jones.

     

    Also this depends on if Grace can sing because I'm not sure if I ever have heard her do so.

     

    Why go to the trouble of remaking it? If you want something sort of in the same vein but much, much better just watch Phantom of the Paradise. I'd love to see them do that for the podcast. Depalma, Jessica Harper, Paul Williams, Gerrit Graham. Covered a lot of the same ground but way better movie and music.

     

     

     

     

  5. Posted

    I knew I was in for something special when this movie started with a pastiche of the Eurovision Song Contest. As a European, it is without competition my favorite event of the year. Essentially, each country delegates an act to represent them and in the end, one country wins. Often the acts go to great lengths to be memorable, be it strange outfits or stage gimmicks. It makes a lot of sense for Israeli writers to use the contest as the setting for a story, as Israel had just won it two times in a row in 1978 and 1979.

     

    Why it was supposed to be Worldovision is a bit beyond me. You would think it has to do with Bibi and Alphie being from Moose Jaw and representing Canada at the contest. That's not necessarily true. You don't have to be from a country to represent it at the contest. In 1988, a little known singer from Canada won the Eurovision Song Contest singing for Switzerland. Her name was Céline Dion.

     

    The actual 1994 Eurovision Song Contest was won by Ireland, with a song by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan called "the Rock and Roll Kids", a wistful, quiet song about the love for a simpler time with simpler music, not dissimilar to Alphie and Bibi's love song.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGAfONwvVdU

     

    As for the question of where the movie takes place; according to the rules of Eurovision (and Worldovision by extension, one would assume), the contest would be hosted in the country that won in the previous year. So the real question is, who won Worldovision in 1993 and when are we getting that prequel?

     

    Wow, okay- when they performed I thought their song was sappy and terrible and was dumbfounded the audience turned around. I thought there was no credible way they could win that contest with a song like that. Real life is stranger than fiction. And I'm not insulting the singer from Eurovision, just surprised that a low key song like that could win. Nice find.

  6. Posted

    This probably has something to do with the archaic belief that "left" carries a negative connotation. The word sinister, for example, historically means both "evil" and "on the left side".

     

     

    I think you are giving them way too much credit. I am guessing they ran out of glue, or horns. To think they actually put thought into number and placement location of horns boggles the mind. :)

     

    I love the audience guy that asked, "Do you think when they had the production meeting.."

     

    "No."

    • Like 5

  7. Posted

    I love how they were excited for a second that the music was by George Clinton (Parliament founder and uber funk God- actually Parliament and Bootsy Collins would have fit perfectly in this movie) then realized it was by George S. Clinton.

     

    George S. Clinton also did music for all three Austin Powers movies, as well as many, many other movies. Oddly, The Apple is not listed on his resume.

     

    I imagine Menahem Golan in his velour track suit pitching it to distributors - "It will be very big! We have music by George Clinton!"

     

     

    http://www.georgesclinton.com/

     

     

     

    He kind of looks like Michael Mckean (Spinal Tap):

     

    clinton2009.jpg

     

    Not to be confused with George Clinton:

     

     

    mothership-landing.jpg

    • Like 4

  9. Posted

    Okay, I looked more and found all you ever wanted to know about the Streets of Fire tarp.

     

    Andrew Laszlo specifically says the tarp was designed so they could shoot day for night and avoid night labor premiums and have longer day hours to shoot. Allegedly final cost close to $3 million.

     

     

    Also lots of technical details on lighting and shooting here.

     

    But I'm calling Paul on this one, I went back and he claims the tarp was built because Diane was a minor and it was to accommodate her schedule. It had nothing to do with Diane Lane being a minor!

     

     

     

    https://books.google...%20fire&f=false

  10. Posted

    You'd be amazed. I've worked on a few films where minor extras were used, and there have almost always been scheduling issues with things running behind or with cancelations, because when you have minors around, their guardians have to be there too, which means mom or dad has to take off from work, and unless they're ALSO working on the film, they're not getting paid to be there. So much of the extras casting is pretty last minute too, which doesn't work well with a regular 9-5 schedule. When I worked on "Abduction", there was the added problem of Taylor Lautner being hot shit with teenage girls at the time, and they made up such a high percentage of the turnout for the casting calls. Right off the bat, most of the extras that were hoping to work were more interested with just seeing the star and screaming his name than with actually working and following direction, and that's the exact opposite of what you want in set. I've only worked in the Pittsburgh and Cleveland areas though, so maybe it isn't as much of an issue in the larger markets where there's a bigger pool of interested people to draw from, and the novelty of the latest teen idol shooting a movie in your town has worn off a bit. For more on my mostly misadventures on "Abduction", read my comments on THAT episode's thread!

     

    That's crazy, but I guess I can believe it. Seems like LA would be flush with 18 year old actors, but who knows? I've searched and can't find any references that they had to accommodate any minors or Diane Lane's schedule (minor or not). Wonder where Paul found this factoid? I didn't go back to listen, but if he was implying the tarp was built so they could shoot during the day for Diane, I don't see that anywhere. References just say it was built so they could shoot day for night (cheaper and easier).

  11. Posted

     

    Perhaps she turned 18 near the end of shooting, therefore they had to work around child labour standards until her birthday? It could also be a thing that if she was 17 when she started, her contract wouldn't grandfather in the fact of her being age of majority in the middle of shooting.

     

    Also, presumably there were some minors in the crowd during the concert scenes so they would all have to be done during sanctioned hours.

     

    This is just off the cuff, I haven't researched California child labour regulations

     

     

    Well, if you believe Wikipedia (oh, and why WOULDN"T you)...production began April 1983 and ended August 1983. Diane Lane would have been 18 on January 22, 1983.

     

    Maybe rules were different in 1983, but current laws only apply to 17 and under and say total of 10.5 hours on set, 6 hrs of which are for work, 3 for tutoring (on school days), 1 for break and 0.5 for meals. 8 hours on non school days, still total 10.5 hours.

     

    So, doesn't sound like Paul is right on this one. If there were minors in the crowd, I am guessing they would have recast them instead of having a multi million dollar production shoot around non essential extras.

  13. Posted

     

    I fucking love this movie. I wish June would have been on the show for this because I really do think that she would have had a kindred love of it with me. I'm glad Jason agreed, because I'll be honest... I was a little peeved by Rachel and Jessica's instant dissatisfaction with the film... I almost crawled out of my skin when I heard them call music by The Blasters "hillbilly music".

     

    Maybe it isn't for everyone, but damn- it's definitely for me.

     

    Nice of you to share this - I have a lot of affection for it too. Chalk it up to right place, right time, right age for it to make an impression. I loved that Jason repeatedly defended it. I agree, I'd much rather have heard June on this one. When you start off saying, "It was a piece of s**t", it's all downhill from there. I watched The Apple (which is up next) over Christmas break because I saw it mentioned in the Canon films documentary ("Electric Boogalo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films" - highly, highly recommended) on Netflix. The Apple is absolutely terrible (but in horrible, misbegotten way that will be great for the show). This one is not (though the podcast was fun).

    • Like 2

  15. Posted

     

    The reason the sound like Meatlof songs is because they are Jim Steinman songs. He's the one responsible for the vast majority of songs Meatloaf did. Also, Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All," Bonniw Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart' and "Holding Ot For A Hero." even Sister's Of Mercy's "This Corrosion."

     

    He has a VERY distinctive musical and lyrical style. He also tends to use what I like to call the "Steinman Reverse" where he uses a lot of opposites in the lyrics: I would do anything for love... But i won't do that;

    You and me we're goin' nowhere slowly...but we should be goin' nowhere fast; Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling apart; etc. etc. etc.

     

    Needless to say, I love the guy. :)/>

     

    -PIZmeyre

     

    Man, I love Sisters of Mercy and that song. I did not know Steinman produced that! Now that you say it, it is obvious. Wow. Cool trivia!

  19. Posted

    So, they asked what’s a Sorel? and came up blank. Well, I’ll throw this out there.

    Walter Hill likes myths and heroes and violence (see The Warriors)..

    I did some searching and found out that Georges Sorel was a French philosopher.

     

    Wikipedia sez:

    “His notion of the power of myth in people's lives inspired Marxists and Fascists.[4] It is, together with his defense of violence, the contribution for which he is most often remembered.”

     

    This source sez:

     

    http://www.encyclope...rges_Sorel.aspx

     

    “Reflections on Violence is the work of Sorel‘s which aroused by far the greatest response. This book is chiefly a philosophical commentary on revolutionary syndicalism, a commentary strongly inspired by Bergson‘s thought. In it Sorel developed the notions of “myth” and “violence.” “

     

    And this source doubles down and sounds a bit familiar…

     

    “Sorel believed that the Proletariat, properly motivated, had all of the necessary traits to become what Nietzsche had called “the blond beast.” Sorel was referencing the archetypal Roman legionnaire or Homeric hero whose disciplined bravery had “cleared a path for [them] on land and see, everywhere erecting imperishable monuments for good or evil.” He equated this momentous bravery with what he called a “heroic mentality.” Sorel saw the acquisition of this mentality as essential for the proletariat’s ultimate destiny: the accomplishment of feats of glory.

     

    This philosophy was so alluring because it advocated immediate violent action…Sorel’s doctrine allowed individuals to take the course of history into their own hands.”

     

    http://www.joejerome...ments/sorel.pdf

     

    I think if you read this, it is clear why this movie had to end in a sledgehammer battle.

     

    Sorel also means a “Young buck (deer) in its third year” or a yellowish or reddish brown color. I'm gonna guess the color reference is not intended, but "young buck"? Maybe.

     

    If either of those are true, it is the most obscure, elliptical band name ever.

  20. Posted

    Just read the Blake Harris oral history and he mentioned a nice write up by Greil Marcus (famous rock critic). Here it is.

     

    http://greilmarcus.n...s-of-fire-0994/

     

     

    I caught the last 20 minutes of this urban never-never-land rock fable on A&E one afternoon (cast: Diane Lane, Michael Pare, Willem Dafoe, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Lee Ving, Bill Paxton, Ed Begley, Jr., the Blasters, Robert Townsend), waited out the plot for the final musical number, and had my memories of the film dissolved by the wonder of what goes on. There’s a tremendous unreality to the sound and staging of “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young”—it’s thrilling but in a prickly, disturbing way. Music videos have never come within centuries of what Hill (and Jeffrey Hornaday, the choreographer) does here with every gesture. Contradictions are the medium: singer Lane’s dress is at once tight and hanging on her like a piece of paper, slit all the way down in back—she’s not thin. The perfection of every move, every cut, is scary, and the sense that this isn’t happening is overpowering: it’s as if this is no performance but a transmission to the stage, by unknown technology, of your deepest performance fantasies. The audience waves its arms, and you peer through them: at the way the drummer, shot from below, makes the beat, the way the guitarist frames Lane with his back to her, his zoot suit touching her skin, the way the black vocal quartet enters the ensemble, strolling and strutting as if they’ve been called forth to walk it like she talks it.

     

     

    On-screen the music—by some faceless aggregation called Fire, Inc.—sounds a thousand times better than it would on a record. This is exactly right for what you know cannot be real: the many female and for all I know male voices coming out of Lane’s mouth. There’s no way in the world what you’re seeing is making the sound you hear, but you can believe the performers, in character, know this as well as you do. As you, in the audience, watch, the performers are projecting their own fantasies onto themselves, desperately, happily, casually, as a matter of life and death. Isn’t this what happens in a real show?

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    I am glad The Renegades because it gives me an excuse to share the greatest TV intro of all time.

     

     

    Also, Michael Pare was not in The Renegades, but a young Patrick Swayze (also mentioned in the episode) was.

     

    I was looking on IMDB and I note with shock and not a bit of horror that Pare has 24 projects active between 2015 and 2016. Seven of those are for 2016. And it's January.

     

    Also, were they being funny when the guy yelled "Greatest American Hero" and they responded, "He wasn't in that?". I thought they were mocking the guy because everyone knew Pare was in that show.

  25. Posted

    The whole fight with the sledgehammer thing made me think of all the times I've seen someone in a film fight with a sledgehammer. Off the top of my head I've only got Pale Rider where Clint Eastwood hits Richard Kiel in the face with a sledgehammer and doesn't Shaq have a sledgehammer in Steel? I guess Shaq never hits anyone in the face with it.

     

    Anyway the whole problem everyone had with the scene is that sledgehammers are top heavy and will take you with them when you swing them at somebody and this very issue comes up in a scene in a martial arts film I saw within the last year or so where the solution was to not fight with the heavy end but to fight with the handle. Anyone know which film I'm talking about?

     

    It's like the lowest tech light saber duel ever

     

    Sledgehammer battle? That's SO Raven!

    • Like 4
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