December 2014 Blog Posts

Merry 198X-Mas 2014

Adam Dravian's picture December 25, 2014 - 6:07pm by Adam Dravian

We'd hoped to give you the gift of the newest page today, but it's not done yet. Jessica's illness had sapped her artistic powers, and now that she's finally feeling better, we have all sorts of Holiday distractions.

Mega bummer, I know. But I have something to cheer you up: the 1985 He-Man & She-Ra Christmas special, in which Skeletor learns the meaning of Chistmas.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Comments
Tagged as
Christmas

Page Delayed Due to Sickie Jessica

Adam Dravian's picture December 20, 2014 - 9:21pm by Adam Dravian

Looks like the next page is going to be a couple days late.

Jessica was happily working on the page Thursday, when she developed a nasty stomach ache. It persisted overnight, preventing her from getting much sleep, so I took her to the Urgent Care Center. They looked her over, then had her go to the ER. After some more tests, they found out she has pancreatitis, basically an inflamed pancreas.

She's on painkillers and doing fine now. She just has to take it easy and stay on a liquid diet for a few days.

Anyway, we just wanted to give you a heads up on why the next page is going to be posted later than usual.

Comments
Tagged as
news

Movie Review - Conquest [1983]

Adam Dravian's picture December 18, 2014 - 5:38pm by Adam Dravian

Conquest 1983 Poster

When Conan the Barbarian came out in 1982, it schooled us on what was best in life and introduced the world to one of the biggest icons of the ‘80s (and beyond). It also kickstarted the golden age of the barbarian movie genre. Unfortunately, none of the barbarian films that followed came close to matching the masterpiece that is Conan the Barbarian (including its own sequel), but a lot of them are awesome because of just how campy or fucking weird they are.

Take Conquest for instance. It’s definitely the most fucked-up of all the barbarian films I’ve seen, and that’s a genre with no shortage of fucked-upness. Conquest is sort of an odd mix between Conan the Barbarian, Quest for Fire (an awesome 1981 epic about Neanderthals and early humans which featured Ron Perlman in the role he was born to play), and one of John Boorman’s more surreal films, like Zardoz. Oh, and Conquest is directed by Lucio Fulci.

Comments
Tagged as
movie review

Music Video: "Voo Doo" by Rachel Sweet [1982]

Adam Dravian's picture December 11, 2014 - 4:58am by Adam Dravian

Rachel Sweet Blame it on Love

I had planned to do a movie review this week, but I'm still sick, so you're getting a quickie music video feature instead.

I know she totally looks like jailbait, but Rachel Sweet was actually 19 or 20 when this masterpiece of spooky seduction was made. "Abracadabra, baby," indeed. My favorite part has to be the superimposed cat that pops up around the 2:10 mark.

This song's from her fourth and final album, Blame it on Love (1982). After the album failed to do well in spite of this majestic video, she dropped out of the music business.

Mostly. She did return from time to time to record stuff for soundtracks and theme songs. Like the opening to the early '90s Nickelodeon show, Clarissa Explains It All:

So obnoxiously early '90s. Sorry about that.

Comments
Tagged as
music video

Music Video: "Samurai" by Michael Cretu [1985]

Adam Dravian's picture December 5, 2014 - 11:19am by Adam Dravian

Michael Cretu Samurai

I came down with the flu this week, so I've been all lazy and I'm posting this later than I would've liked. But it's a good one. In fact, it may be the most delightfully '80s music video we've featured thus far.

Michael Cretu is a Romanian-German dude who's mostly famous for his later music project, Enigma (which, in turn, is mostly known for those Pure Moods CD commercials that were ubiquitous in the '90s). And he's also known for long-term boning one of Europe's most famous '80s pop stars, Sandra.

Michael Cretu Sandra 1987

He released two solo albums in the '80s, which are kind of unique in that he released two versions of them, one in English and the other German. "Samurai" came from his second album and was a huge hit in Europe, but didn't get too much attention in the US despite having this totally rad music video:

Man, I fucking love this song.

Comments
Tagged as
music video