Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: jack nicholson

  • Year of the Weasel Episode 5: In the Army Now (1994)

    Year of the Weasel Episode 5: In the Army Now (1994)

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

    Well, we knew the honeymoon had to end eventually; after nearly four months of being arguably the world’s most consistently Pauly Shore-positive podcast, we’ve finally found a movie we just plain don’t like. In the Army Now is brazen military propaganda, weirdly racist, and perhaps worst of all, not very funny. But hey, at least the soundtrack has a pretty cool ZZ Top song!

    A quick note on the audio quality: We once again had a laggy Internet connection, and somehow lost Callie’s local audio, so you’ll notice significantly more crosstalk than usual on this one (and that’s coming from two people with a pretty high tolerance for crosstalk). Your patience and understanding is appreciated!

    Video version:

    00:00:00 Trailer for In the Army Now (Daniel Petrie Jr., 1994)

    00:06:15 We talked about the Jeffrey Katzenberg/Totally London kerfuffle in our Son in Law episode

    00:07:34 In the Army Now on Rotten Tomatoes (actually a 12% approval rating, congrats Pauly!)

    00:26:30 Barbarians (1987) violates all the taboos In the Army Now is afraid to touch

    00:29:55 We talked about Pauly’s gormless, childlike proposal to Drew Barrymore in our last minisode

    00:38:28 Our previous podcast where we talked about an annoying guy who yells “Hello!” a lot

    00:43:57 “World of Swirl” by ZZ Top (music video by Zack Snyder!)

    00:46:18 Follow us on Instagram!

    00:46:28 Follow us on YouTube!

    00:46:37 Email us! (heybuuuddy@dystopiandanceparty.com)

  • Dystopian Halloween Party Podcast: Trick or Treat

    Just under a year ago, we launched our podcast with a special Halloween episode dedicated to 1987’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare. This year, the Dystopian Halloween Party podcast returns with another heavy metal horror flick: Trick or Treat from 1986, which does not star Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne, no matter what the DVD box tells you. If you’re looking for a movie to watch this Halloween night, look no further: it’s party time! Show notes below.

    (more…)

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast: Prince, 1958-2016

    If it wasn’t official before, it is now: 2016 is a terrible year for musical icons. Callie and I were blindsided by the news of Prince‘s untimely death last Thursday; it hit us even harder than the news of David Bowie‘s passing back in January (and that, as you might recall, hit us pretty damn hard). It’s difficult to overstate just how much Prince means to both of us. He’s easily our favorite solo artist in all of pop music; check our frequently used tags on Dystopian Dance Party, and you’ll see that he’s the most talked-about topic by some distance. All of which fails to adequately capture the feelings we have for his body of work, and the sense of loss we feel now that he’s gone.

    Unlike with Bowie, we weren’t actually planning on podcasting about Prince this month–but we had to, if only so we could talk through all the emotions we’ve both been feeling for the last week. The podcast we originally recorded earlier in the month, on Nintendo‘s Legend of Zelda series, will be posted eventually, when it all feels a little less meaningless. But for now, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…

    (more…)

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

  • Jheri Curl June: The Time’s “Jerk Out”

    Well, here we are: the last day of Jheri Curl June, and I don’t think there could be a better band to go out with than the greatest band in the world, the muthafuckin’ Time. Today’s selection, “Jerk Out,” comes from the earliest of the Time’s many reunion albums, 1990’s  Pandemonium: their first release as a group since 1984’s Ice Cream Castle, and the first time the supremely talented live band were allowed to play their own instruments on record. Like Full Force, the Time during this period represented a transitional moment, bridging the last gasps of jheri curl with the rise of New Jack Swing: just check out singer Morris Day’s hair in the video below, an unholy combination of a flat-top and a pompadour with a tiny rat-tail in the back that would never have passed muster in the first half of the ’80s. But the song itself dates from 1981, when ghostwriter Prince recorded a demo for the band’s second and greatest album, What Time is It? In a way, then, we’re taking “Jheri Curl June” full circle, with a song from the golden age of one of the genre’s greatest innovators, brushed off and updated by his most accomplished disciples to mark the end of an era.

    And what a way to go out: “Jerk Out” isn’t just a standout track on Pandemonium, it’s one of the best jheri curl songs ever. It perfectly captures both the Time’s smooth-as-silk funkiness and Day’s ludicrous persona of a squawk-laughing pimp daddy who coordinates the color of his suit with the color of his BMW (though not, it must be said, in the video, which is maddening if you’re even the slightest bit OCD). The song’s glossy production demonstrates all the tricks Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis learned during their (then) seven years as hitmaking producers for the likes of Janet Jackson and the Human League. The video, too, has everything a Time fan could possibly ask for: Morris preening in a selection of smoking jackets, a bewildering cameo by a Jack Nicholson impersonator in a Batman T-shirt, and of course, the obligatory post-48 Hrs. scene of Jesse Johnson playing one of his sexy solahs in a country and western bar while angry rednecks pelt the stage with beer bottles. And yes, of course, Jerome brings Morris a mirror before it’s all over.

    So there we have it: the end of Jheri Curl June. There are a lot of great jheri curl artists we have yet to cover, and we both had a lot of fun doing this, so I’m happy to announce that we’ll be doing it all over again next year. Yep, you heard it here first: I’m committed to keeping this blog up and running for at least another year, if only to give myself an excuse to spend another month writing about jheri curl music next summer. In the meantime, we hope you’ve enjoyed this maiden voyage of the S.S. Jheri Curl. Check out the now-finished Spotify playlist after the jump, and we’ll see you again next summer! (Or…you know, later this week, since we do post other things throughout the year. Seriously, don’t wait a whole year before coming back to this blog.)

    (more…)