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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 3 years

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Psycho Analysis: Suicide Squad Team A

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS! Seriously, as soon as you click that read more, you’re gonna be smacked with SPOILERS! Don’t say I didn’t give you ample warning this time!)

The world’s in danger yet again, and Amanda Waller is in need of some expendable forces to take on some dirty jobs in the name of preserving peace. Last time she did this, it seems like she hired the wrong people. Nice guy Will Smith Deadshot? Bland, boring Killer Croc? El Diablo, who became attached to a bunch of reprobates after spending a couple hours with them? The only one who was useful in that squad was Katana. She had their backs, could cut all of them in half with one sword stroke just like mowing the lawn, and her sword traps the souls of its victims. Unfortunately, she was decidedly not expendable, so what is a girlboss like Waller to do?

Easy: Assemble a brand new squad of criminals to do the dirty work. Harley and Boomerang are the only ones she brought back, because let’s be real, they’re the only ones we give a damn about. Filling out the rest of the squad are the stoic, craggy crackshot Savant; the handsome, German spear-thrower Javelin; the alien warrior Mongal; the frothing, psychotic animal Weasel; the confident and all-powerful TDK; and Blackguard, who is literally just a guy. Together, this team gets deployed to Corto Maltese to do what no one else can do, and with skills like theirs, they are absolutely unstoppable!

They all fucking die before the opening credits.

Motivation/Goals: Considering the goal of the squad is to shave time off their prison sentences by going on the mission, it’s ostensibly the reason every single one of these goons accepted the job. Savant and Weasel are pretty well established in this regard; we get to focus on Savant for much of the opening, so we can get a sense of him, and Weasel is stated to have murdered no less than 27 children. So, yeah, they need to do this mission.

The rest, though? Who knows! Why are Mongal, Javelin, and TDK in prison? How did they even get an alien like Mongal? What did they do to land in the position they’d need to go on a suicide mission? Why doesn’t this movie have flashy, intrusive cards explaining everything to us in a throwaway gag in a montage?!

Blackguard, at least, has some other motivation. He sold out the entire squad to the military of Corto Maltese, which is why they’re ambushed. Now, there’s actually some ambiguity here: Did he do this of his own volition, and was this a complete surprise, or is it, as it is heavily implied, all part of Waller’s plan and she let this happen as a diversion for the other team to get in unnoticed?

Honestly, though, it doesn’t matter what their goals are. They’re all dead within five minutes of the movie starting, with one exception.

Performance: So, the reason these guys are even worth talking about is because, despite their minuscule screentime, all of their actors manage to cram in enough humor and characterization that they’re all pretty fun and likable. Michael Rooker is as stony and stoic as ever as Savant (until he hilariously isn’t), Flula Borg’s Javelin is really sweet and charming in his interactions with Harley, and Pete Davidson’s Blackguard is just amazingly douchey and pathetic. Special mention goes to Nathan Fillion’s TDK, who has an utterly endearing and unwavering faith in his astoundingly crappy ability to�� detach his arms. It’s honestly kind of beautiful. Then there’s Weasel as portrayed by Sean Gunn, who is just a hilarious crackhead of an animal man.

Final Fate: Literally every single one of them die horribly thanks to Blackguard’s betrayal. He’s the first to go, because as soon as he walks out saying “Hey guys, it’s me, the one who contacted you!” he literally has his face blasted clean off. The rest go soon after. Mongal, in one of the most astounding moments of idiocy I’ve ever seen, leaps on a helicopter despite Rick Flag telling her specifically not to. Her weight and strength send it careening out of control, which leads to it shredding Captain Boomerang to bits before exploding, burning her alive as she painfully screams and writhes in agony. TDK gets his arms shot into Swiss cheese, leading to him bleeding out since even detached they still are part of him. Javelin is also shot, but gets a dying moment with Harley where he passes her Checkov’s Javelin. Finally, after witnessing all of this carnage, Savant completely loses his shit and tries to swim away, leading to Waller blowing his head up.

You may be wondering what happened to Weasel. He appears to drown as soon as the Squad deploys, because despite being actually smart in this movie, Waller forgot to make sure everyone on the Squad could swim. Thankfully, this lovable child-murdering crackhead rodent was just sleeping, and wakes up in the first credit scene.

Best Scene: Obviously, it’s their one and only scene. It’s a magnificent slaughter that puts the X-Force scene from Deadpool 2 to shame.

Final Thoughts & Score: I’ve gotta hand it to James Gunn. Even though these losers are only onscreen for a few minutes, they all get to cram a lot of charm and personality into that time, to the point it’s actually kind of sad seeing them all die. It’s a beautiful mix of comedy and tragedy. Since their screentime is so limited, though, I’m mostly going to be grading them on style, performance, and so on rather than on villainy like normal. They are all bad guys, as they don’t really get a chance to redeem themselves like the other Squad, so I’m still counting them as villains, which means they could potentially score above an 8 (which is the highest score I’m willing to give heel-face turn villains, because they end up being better as characters in general than as villains).

I’m also not going to talk about Boomerang (I’ll talk about him when I review the original Squad) or Harley (because she not only lives, but deserves her own solo Psycho Analysis). Now here we go, from best to worst:

TDK

If you thought anyone but TDK would get top marks, you’re sadly mistaken. Seeing Nathan Fillion proudly wield the insanely lame power to detach his arms to lightly tap soldiers on the head and gently grab their guns is a sight I never knew I needed to see until this movie. The fact he just seems so darn proud about this power that he doesn’t even bother to use in any way that would be remotely useful is honestly really endearing. Frankly, the sheer fact they adapted Arms-Fall-Off Boy in any way is enough for me to give him a 10/10.

Weasel

Weasel is just disgustingly delightful. He’s just a horrible, nasty, ugly little bastard… But he’s kind of adorable? He clearly has no idea where he is at any given time and is just so goddamn freaky that I can’t help but love him. The fact that, despite being a character who in the comics is noteworthy only for dying on his first mission with the Squad, he manages to survive the entire movie is pretty impressive. Hopefully he comes back in the future, but either way he gets an 8/10 from me.

Javelin

Honestly, aside from Boomerang, his death stung the most. He’s just so cute and charming, and he doesn’t even get to fling his javelin at anyone! Thankfully, he passes it on to Harley, and boy does she ever get to use it! He’s so cute, I have to give him an 8/10. I just wish we got more of him.

Savant

Savant is just an absolutely hilarious bait-and-switch. We follow him through the prologue, with everything seeming to point to him as our main character and the Squad leader. He’s stoic, he’s cranky, and he has impeccable aim… and then we get to the beach and he just freaks the hell out and starts screaming and crying and running away like a little bitch. Seeing Michael Rooker act like he’s shitting his pants after playing a badass like Yondu is just the sort of hilarious subversiveness that James Gunn loves to do when you let him loose. The fact that he looks like, to paraphrase the TVTropes YMMV page for the movie, a “cyberpunk Tommy Wiseau” is the icing on this 7/10 cake.

Blackguard

I was prepared to hate this guy just based on how lame Pete Davidson’s costume was, and you know what? I do hate him. But I love to hate him. He’s just an utterly pathetic scoundrel and a coward, true to his name. The fact he is the first to die, as just about everyone predicted, and is killed absolutely gruesomely makes any annoyance he could provide moot, and his freeakout over being seated next to Weasel on the plane is actually kind of funny. I was originally going to give him a 6, but you know what? He can have a low 7/10. He’s like the only member of this particular Squad to actually do anything evil, so I gotta give him props for that.

Mongal

Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not blame James Gunn or actress Mayling Ng. I’m not actually mad at either of them for what they chose to do, because it is ultimately hilarious and sad. It suited the narrative of the film, and I’m not actually, genuinely mad.

With all that out of the way, Mongal is one hell of a stupid cunt. It is one thing to cause your own death with your stupidity, it is something else entirely to cause the death of a beloved character with your poorly planned attack. The fact she didn’t take into account how her weight and strength would effect an airborne helicopter makes one wonder if she is really supposed to be based on a character who can take on Superman and live to tell about it.

Let’s compare her to two similar characters to really show how bad she is. Like Blackguard, she is directly responsible for a death on the beach, Blackguard being responsible for everyone by selling them out and leading them into an ambush (and yes, I’m including him as well), and Mongal killing Boomerang with the chopper. The difference is, Blackguard’s betrayal was deliberate, he meant to sell the team out, he was actively doing something evil there, while Mongal killed Boomerang out of sheer idiocy.

Now, let’s compare her to Zeitgeist from the similar bloody massacre that occurred during X-Force’s deployment in Deadpool 2. Like Mongal, he accidentally kills a teammate. The difference is, in the case of Zeitgeist, he only accidentally melted Peter, it was a freak accident, and ultimately it does get undone by the end. Meanwhile, Mongal made a conscious, stupid decision and ended up killing her squadmate with her own idiocy. She sucks, hardcore. I don’t do this lightly, but I’m giving her a 1/10. Villains just don’t get much stupider than her.

I will giver her this, though: the makeup work on her is good. She’s lowkey kinda hot if I’m being honest. But being hot and having good makeup does not a good villain make.

#Psycho Analysis #The Suicide Squad #Savant #Michael Rooker #Javelin #Flula Borg #TDK #Nathan Fillion #Weasel #Sean Gunn #Mongal #Mayling Ng #Blackguard #Pete Davidson

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nightopianfoxgirl · 3 years

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Summarizing “MMBN Blazing Fire” . . . Sorta

For those who don’t know, this story is almost 3 years old and has been completely revamped last year. If you are new, its okay I got you covered. For fun, I will be summarizing each chapter in the worse way possible! based on what chapters are available and CANON

Chapter 1 - 5+ years after Battle Network 6, everyone grew up and is trying to have a happy life. Officials split into two branches for junior and senior affiliates. IPh-! I mean PETs are super expensive due to their hologram and AR technology to the point supply and demand ain’t met. What the hecj is wrong with IPC this time? Lan and Megaman are 16 year old teens that still have their karma of finding bad things right when everything is all fine and dandy. Whole arcade in a mall turns into a bomb, people are hurt, and the twins gotta dust off the hero capes because now there is some strange cult called The Third Eye running around. Why did the Officials not say anything about this?

Chapter 2 - Lan, Mayl, and Dex get kidnapped by the Officials to recruit them to battle against The Third Eye. The trials are all rigged to see if their IQ is higher than the age of five. Lan ends up finding a girl who might be familiar and also cheating? Nah, no need to pay mind to her, she helped him win one of the challenges. Lan and Megaman’s final trial is fighting the Lord of the UnderNet himself who now is a vigilante with the Officials, WHAT?! Behold, they pass and are placed on Team Protoman because why not? Team Colonel was canon, it’s Team Protoman’s turn now. Chaud ain’t here, but a fiery teenage girl named Nicole, claims to be the new leader and knights the twins with a strange battle chip.

Chapter 3 - Lan is dragged under into a secret society called Net Savior and is thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn Cross Fusion and the secrets of the Synchro Chip. Dr. Hikari is here with his new partner who are developing the Dimensional Area. Turns out this man is named Dr. Armaboard and is the daughter of that random girl at the try outs. Still nothing of importance. Lan gets KO’d on the first day and sent to the hospital yet still comes back for more until he gets his first mission. The twins must wander around and look for gang members to arrest. Random exposition dumb because now we know Chaud’s R.I.P. Megaman finds an icey cold individual, turns out to be another teen that literally tries to freeze them to death while another weirdo tries to fry them into chicken. The twins are tossed into a dumpster as the gang members slither away like cowards because the Dimensional Area trucks are here.

Chapter 4 - Okay, the twins failed, que the training arc. Before that starts, Dark Chips are back and this time they can corrupt your immortal soul, humans! Now Dr. Hikari will have to live in his office again to get work done. Officials start calling more forces into Japan. Guess who beats Lan’s butt into the pavement: stone cold Raika who’s back for round 3 and now he has a gun! Mission 2: help a poor shopkeeper who saw their fellow workers get harassed by a Third Eye person. The twins get to witness humans literally turn into net navi-like beings with powers, but takes them to the ground. Another bundle of strange teens caught and off the street. What is with this trend?

Chapter 5 - Are you thirsty after reading all this so far? Need some water? Recommend you don’t drink it from any tap because the water plants are getting messed up by Dark Chips and ice? Oh no. People are dying of poisoning and Net Savior needs to protect the remaining plants that are not tainted yet. Lan fails to do that even though he sneakily signed himself up on that mission. Hey, that’s the guy that tried to freeze the twins into a popsicle the other episode. Turns out he’s a confirmed runaway named Tohru. Remember him from the anime? The twins battle the teen at Tohru’s father’s water plant. They win, but the fried chicken guy is here too and is now wanted for the attempted murder of Tohru. An actual wholesome father son moment is in this chapter, not lying.

Chapter 6 - One eco-terrorist plot later, twins still gotta go to school. Oops! His own teacher gets possessed by demons and attempts to kill Lan and Megaman along with his entire class. Said something about net navis being bad. We live in a society . . . of WEIRDOS! Lan rescues his class, but Megaman is still trapped by a rook spawning viruses that are closing in! . . . Nah! Fake out, but Colonel comes to save the day because he’s alive somehow after turning into an actual bomb. Someone spiked the food in the teacher’s work room. We find a middle schooler this time at the scene of the crime. Axes are thrown but don’t worry, we all trust Dingo with that, right? The kid is arrested, but now the ACDC Elementary is attacked leaving poor Ms. Mari and her class trapped inside a carbon monoxide box. Will Lan save them? Check the next chapter because I actually had to cut it in half due to time constraints during 6 and 7′s uploads.

Chapter 7 - The twins break the kids out only to get stalked by some creepy guy who hacked the speakers of the school telling them to give up while saving the other faculty. They almost get crushed to death, but guess what? The Dimensional Area trucks are back so they can fight now. A little kid is held hostage for Lan’s Synchro Chip, but Net Savior says no as they send in reinforcements. The day is saved but now two kids are arrested. Unknown girl is back trying to interrogate the kids. This girl is Dannyela who finds out the two are brothers and were kidnapped from Swapapolis. . . . Are you catching on this trend now? Lan confronts the leader behind this attack, knowing it’s Tora. The twins eat Dark Chips and almost kills Tora, but they get slapped by Nicole to stop. Shocker, Tora only was doing this because the real culprit, some sleazy adult with no name; had his brothers and didn’t get the memo that they were safe. Lan and Tora team up to fight this guy at a bar. Protoman sighting and saving the day, everyday moment spawns. Also get a random moment with the president of IPC. Not a happy moment, but Tora reuniting with his younger brothers are.

Chapter 8 - Borderline filler while making itself clear it isn’t fan service! I swear several points made in this chapter will come back. Lan and Megaman are invited to dorm at Net Savior for their safety and security. Mayl and Dex get to come along too. Everyone seems like like their dorm mates, except Mayl who got Jasmine and Raika somehow getting the two people he specifically did not want. Guess who. But this episode is for Protoman who switched to independence after his operator’s death. He’s going through his teenage rebellious phase: new clothes, new style, and drives a motorcycle. Turns out this navi has lost his ability to speak, at least with humans, and was found eroding in his operators PET. No one knows what happened, not even Protoman can tell you because his memory is borked. He drags Bass into a mission with him to track down missing navis within the area. They accidentally find another Officals on this case. Meet another OC named Starlight, just a friend. They team up, kick some navi butt, and run into a very ominous net navi in the process. Wonder if we will see them again?

Chapter 9 - Two character crimes occurred in the games: Mamoru never came back and Anetta really REALLY sucked. Anime version for life. I tried to fix it because Capcom won’t. Oh goody, first schools and now children’s hospitals are getting attacked. Kids are coming down with Dark Aura poisoning, breathing issues, and muscle problems. Nicole drags Lan into this to try and find the person who would harm defenseless kids again. They help run a charity drive. Mamoru is here too to help with the festivities and almost got to battle Lan. The reason Officials could not find the culprit so soon was because someone switched out the appropriate meds. Anetta was fooled into believing the medicine she was using worked after using it for so many years in the cult. Nah, the members of The Third Eye used this as a good opportunity to wipe her out before her kindness wins over the Dark Aura and she gives up classified information. Lan and Megaman save her and unlock a brand new Soul Unison, Plant Soul, because yes the fan base’s favorite system is back. All is good, but what is this about the Dark Aura rising someone from the dead?

Chapter 10 - You go be a good Net Saver and find the details to this guy on your own. Anonymous is speaking to you always

#fanfic #fanfiction #welcome to the world of blazing fire #i fear posting this on the main megman tags #there is a lot to read but this is the dumb version #i think its a bit funny #dark chips #don't eat dark chips

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the-master-cylinder · 5 years

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Greg Cannom Ozzy Osbourne ”Bark at the Moon” In 1980, Ozzy Osbourne signed as a solo act by Epic Records; at his first meeting with the company’s top brass, the Ozz pulled a dead pigeon out of a paper bag, and bit its head off. Supposedly the record execs were quite shocked, and ready to terminate Osbourne’s contract then and there. It’s said that his manager had to do a lot of managing to smooth things over with the record honchos.

The story of the rocker’s geek-like behavior got out to the rock press, and it didn’t seem to hurt Osbourne’s image any. If anything, it seemed to cement his reputation as a “real showman” one who would do anything to give his audience a rise. Then, during a concert in Des Moines in 1982, a member of the audience threw something on stage. To Osbourne, it looked like a toy-a rubber bird. It seemed a good idea to play along with the gag, so the Ozz picked it up and bit into it.

Instead of getting a mouthful of rubber, Osbourne again felt the sickening crunch of tiny bones as he bit off the head of a dead bat. Again, this time by accident he’d played the geek. And, again, the story got played up by the rock press, though most reporters neglected to mention that the incident had been accidental; as far as they were concerned, it was just old Ozzy, the madman of rock, playing that role to the hilt. It didn’t feel that way to Osbourne, though, who had to endure a painful series of rabies shots for his error.

During his 1983 tour of the U.S. Osbourne found his concerts were the target of a pressure campaign by church and parents’ groups, who perceived the Ozzas some form of human devil. Animal Cruelty and satanism were regarded by these groups as a regular part of his act, which of course they had never seen. Robert Hilburn of the L.A. Times reported on a meeting of one such group, which had Seen Osbourne’s act after they had failed to stop it.

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The next morning, several of the concerned ministers gathered to hear a report on the show. “You know what bothered me the most?”one pastor asked. “He said ‘God bless you.’ That’s blasphemy.”

Osbourne, a sincere Christian in his private life, was more than a little upset by these attacks by the clergy.” At first, all this satanic business was funny,” he told Hilburn. It brought me a lot of publicity when I needed it… But it has become like a nightmare. It’s like an LSD trip. You take a tablet and it’s fun at first, but you can’t turn it off.

“To me, it’s like American Werewolf in London or something, just a put on… Why are these people picking on me? Why don’t they picket Vincent Price? He must have been in 90 films with all kinds of satanic references.”

The Ozz made it pretty clear in all of his interviews of the period that he was ready for a change. That change arrived this year, when he appeared, on the Bark at the Moon (1983) album cover and in the video for the title track, as a werewolf. Osbourne’s logic here is pretty clear-if no one believed he was play-acting as a satanist, maybe they will finally recognize Ozzy the Werewolf as a creation of the purest fantasy.

Because Ozzy, like Michael Jackson, is a huge fan of John Landis’ An American Werewolf, Rick Baker was the first artist approached; but Baker was determined to take a hiatus from makeup work. Osbourne and company began combing the country in search of the right makeup man for the job, when one of their contacts recommended Greg Cannom, who had cut his teeth, lycanthropically speaking, as a key crewmember on The Howling. “They told me they needed this werewolf makeup in one week,” says Cannom.

There were actually two Cannom werewolves involved, the first to be done for the album cover photo session, and a second for the Bark at the Moon video. “In a way, I viewed the album cover shoot as a test; for the video, we had more time, and made a few changes that made it much more to my liking.”

Cannom’s involvement in the video has convinced him that the music business is even crazier than the movie business, though he found the project, overall, a fun assignment. Initially, Cannom was put off a bit by Ozzy’s “madman” reputation; that changed, however, when he met Osbourne. “His wife said to me, ‘I want to see how you’re going to get Ozzy to sit still for five hours,” Cannom recalls. “But he did it, no problems, and he wore the contacts with no problems.”

True fans know that Ozzy’s personality is more puppy dog than Satanist, and Cannom’s design reflects this with a more doglike countenance. A chief difficulty in the design of prostheses was the requirement that Osbourne’s tattoos, on his knuckles, chest and arms, should show through. This required the laying of very fine hair.

Two continents collaborated to get the work done within schedule. We were surprised to learn that in the U.S., Cannom’s chief assistant was Kevin Yagher. The hair for Ozzy’s wig was laid by Hollywood’s leading hairmeister, Josephine Turner. In England, Janice Barnes tied the individual hairs to lace hairpieces for Osbourne’s body, which she also applied.

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Mark Mayling served as Cannom’s assistant at Shepperton Studios for the album cover shoot, and on location for the video. Cannom is particularly pleased with the skill and the speed displayed by Turner and Barnes on the exacting hair work. “It was amazing, just plain incredible, that they were able to come through in that amount of time.

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“The video was shot at Northampton County Sanatorium, which was built for rich people in the early 1900’s; they closed it down just a few years ago. It was one of the most spectacular buildings I’ve ever seen, and one of the scariest. Hundreds and hundreds of vast, empty rooms and vaulting hallways. I’d hate to be in there at night. One of my main disappointments with the video was that they really didn’t make very good use of that fabulous building…I was also disappointed that they didn’t show the makeup up close, after all the effort that went into it.”

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John Carl Buechler on the Ronnie James Dio’s Last in Line (1984) In 1984, Ronnie James Dio’s eponymic band followed up the success of Holy Diver with their second album, The Last in Line. The title track was accompanied by a completely bizarre music video directed by Don Coscarelli, who also brought us the horror flick Phantasm.

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The Ramones Psycho Therapy Video Shostrom’s entry into the wide world of rock video makeup came while he was working at an L.A. prop house; at the time, he was molding various nefarious devices to be used by the intergalactic buccaneers in the forthcoming film Ice Pirates. “Frank Delia, the producer of the Psycho Therapy (1983) video, knew John Varris, the vice president of the company,” Shostrom says. “John came in one day and said, ‘I know a lot of you guys have weird portfolios, a friend of mine is producing a rock video, and if you bring in your portfolios tomorrow, you can show him your stuff.'” The next day, Delia looked over the portfolios of the crew members; Shostrom and Showe were picked for the job.

Delia was far more open to input by the makeup artists than most film producers. “I don’t think Frank had worked with special effects of this sort before,” says Shostrom, “and, considering the weird situations portrayed in the video they’d planned, he was more inclined to be open, allowing us to toss in some ideas.

“Frank played the song for us, gave us copies of the lyrics, explained the basic idea of the psychoward and asked us if we had any ideas. We threw the ball around for several hours, and came up with the scenario of the Teenage Dope Fiend-the TDF, as Frank liked to call him-on the table about to be given a lobotomy, when his head splits open and this ‘alter ego emerges.”

This effect was accomplished “dry that is, without unpleasant gore, slime or other viscous substances, though a more graphic approach was considered. “But even before filming, there were many people at Warner Brothers and MTV who let Frank know they were against it,” says Shostrom. “Frank fought them, though we didn’t go with any blood. It was still too gory for a lot of people; when they screened it for MTV, people walked out and said there was no way they could show it.

“All of the work has done in eleven arduous days—the lifecast of the actor, Robert Dennis, who played the TDF, his splitting head, the creature puppet, the corpse apparition of the psychiatrist, and one other thing that you can barely see at all in the video, a breathing desktop-a slight Videodrome ripoff. If you look carefully when the corpse-psychiatrist is on, you can see a bulge rising in one corner. And there was also a brief cutaway for the operation scene, where the surgical team is a bunch of rotted corpses. The work for that consisted mostly of taking some old heads off my shelf and throwing some shit on them.”

The puppet, a caricatured likeness of actor Dennis, was built onto a cast of Shostrom’s arm. For actual shooting, Shostrom manipulated the puppet while Showe worked the cables that opened Dennis’ head. Their only assistant was Miles Liptak, who helped with the casting.

“Unfortunately, we never got to meet the Ramones,” laments Shostrom, who has performed as a rock musician himself. “They shot it over a three day period; the first two days they shot with the Ramones, while we continued work in the shop the last day was just pickups and effects, so the Ramones were gone.”

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Music Video Work Shostrom, who has recently finished working on a second rock video, for Blue Oyster Cult, expects special makeups to be an increasing part of the rock video phenomenon. “It’s good for the artist,” he says, “because you’re not tied into a script, and it’s clear that they need your ideas and input. Also, it’s a very small proportion of films that can use or require special makeup. Rock videos, just by the nature of the music, have great possibilities for visuals of all kinds, including makeup.”

It’s long been known that one factor that draws rock fans to auditoriums is the chance to hear their favorite hit tune performed live. Taking the rock video phenomenon to its logical conclusion, it probably won’t be long before groups start attempting to re-create their hit videos, live on stage. Imagine, for instance, the Rolling Stones interrupting a performance of Undercover of the Night to engage in a heated on-stage gun battle!

For close to a decade, rock’s leading dramatic troupe has been none other than The Tubes, a musical ensemble composed primarily of former art students. Though the group successfully entered the mainstream of recorded rock with their 1983 hit “She’s a Beauty,” in the mid-70’s their live stage shows were viewed by many as the leading edge of rock’s avante garde.

The elaborately staged Tubes concerts as preserved for posterity on Thorn-EMI’s cassette, Tubes Video, have always been enormously expensive to mount. Early on, the group found a bargain in Rick Lazzarini, a 15-year-old makeup enthusiast. “My brother knew a guy, Tim Mazonk, who was doing pyrotechnics for them,” recalls Lazzarini, “and that was how I hooked up with them.” For one segment of the show, Lazzarini transformed lead singer Fee Waybill into the ultimate punk rocker” by festooning his face with razor blades and other sharp objects. Another character, glitter rock king Quay Lewd, sported 13-inch platform shoes built by Lazzarini (these are still in the act). In a sequence that anticipated Videodrome, Waybill would ram headfirst into a Lazzarini-built TV set, coming up with the set stuck on his head, distorting and magnifying his features. On special occasions, Lazzarini would join the group onstage during the finale, to dance about in his own “anatomically correct” complete with genitals apesuit.

Lazzarini’s otherwise normal teenage lifestyle prevented him from touring nationally with the group, but he worked with them throughout the state of California, where the group enjoyed its greatest popularity. “It was a great thrill,” Lazzerini recalls,” ’cause here I was a kid from a hick town south of San Francisco, reading every copy of Famous Monsters and running out into the street with blood all over me like your readers do, so it was great to have the chance to do these really bizarre things.”

At 17, Lazzarini began touring with KISS as a pyrotechnician, designing various stage effects, and preparing and cuing the on-stage explosions that accompanied their high-decibel rock. His makeup skills were later called into play, however, for such tasks as finding a formula for stage blood that would meet the high standards set by Gene Simmons. “He wanted something that would be healthy if you swallowed it.” Lazzerini recalls. “We wound up using a mixture of egg whites, some flour to thicken it, and red food coloring. It had to be warmed a bit, too, because he didn’t want to take it cold.”

Simmons had a unique method for maintaining discipline among the pyrotechnics crew. A quantity of mouthwash was kept on-stage so that Simmons could clear his throat after performing fire-breathing stunts; when any of the pyro crew missed an effects cue, they could expect to be sprayed with a mouthful of Lavoris. Lazzerini apparently didn’t find Simmons’ methods too unreasonable, however, later, when working for the Hollywood Wax Museum, the makeup artist arranged for the group to be immortalized as one of the museum’s most popular exhibits.

Around the same time, Lazzarini and John Watkins (who would later succeed him as pyrotechnician for KISS) organized a group called the B.E.M.’s (Booger Eating Morons). The group lasted for only one concert hall appearance before becoming a San Francisco Bay rock legend. Suffice to say that their act featured on-stage gunplay, blood pumps, smashed guitars and the microwave massacre pictured above.

Lazzarini subsequently resumed his college education. “I was taking film courses,” he says, “and also courses in business, law and computer science-I decided I wanted to be a rich makeup effects artist, not just a makeup effects artist.” While pursuing his education, Lazzarini referred any major assignments he was offered to friends, though he contributed additional stage effects designs for a subsequent KISS tour.

Lazzerini’s return as a rock’n’roll makeup maestro came with the making of the Jeopardy video featuring Greg Kihn. As head of makeup effects, Lazzerini was in charge of zombie-izing 30 people, attendees at a wedding of the dead, and sculpted a 6-foot-long Octopus tentacle (adapted to greater length by the video crew) which engages Kihn in mortal battle. Assisting with the zombie makeups was a young makeup artist with the singular name Syd Terror; Terror also provided the connective tissue for a strange pair of Siamese Twins seen in the video, and “Martha,” the video’s zombie bride.

The resultant video was one of four nominees in the best effects category of Heavy Metal magazine’s rock video awards last year, and the only nominee that did not rely heavily on opticals for its razzle-dazzle. Just recently, Lazzarini and Mark Shostrom worked together on a brand-new video for Blue Oyster Cult, produced by Frank Delia of Psychotherapy fame. The video, called Shooting Shark, features two ravishing and scantily clad models wearing custom masks designed by the pair. Lazzarini built the iguana head, and contributed mechanicals to Shostrom’s jackal head that allow it to snarl. Unfortunately, the ravishing models are not featured in the video as prominently as are the less-than attractive faces of BOC’s members.

“Working with Frank, you find that he doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows what he doesn’t want-and that leads to numerous changes and headaches,” says Lazzerini. “But it also gives you an opportunity to offer your ideas, which is always good, So there you have it a natural combination: fast, loud music and special makeup effects. When there’s more to report in this burgeoning field, we’ll be reporting it. In the meantime, just remember the wise words of Sleepy LaBeef: It ain’t what you do, It’s the way how you do it And it ain’t what you eat It’s the way how you chew it.

Stan Winston sculpts Mr. Roboto (1982) for a Styx music video, the character would become one of the most iconic pop-culture figures of the 1980’s.

Ed French/”Torture” The Jacksons I got a phone call from a woman saying, “We need a character with a leering, toothy grin from ear to ear (literally, a hand with a human eyeball growing out of its paim, a rock with a human face and three people singing… without faces (all features blank, smooth except for mouths). Are you the person who does this sort of thing?” “Yes,” replied, “I’m that kind of guy. “We’ll need you next week if you’re available. That was producer Kathy Dougherty on the phone two days before the Jacksons were to begin shooting the “Torture” video from their Victory album.

Very shortly after that I was sitting with director Jeff Stein in the dining hall at Astoria Studios, I found out that Jeff had directed videos for the Cars (“You Might Think”, Billy Idol (“Rebel Yell”) and Hall and Oates (“Out of Touch). His laid-back demeanor, I later realized, were quite necessary to his survival during the uninterrupted 24 and 48 hour stretches of filming and editing that would take place during the next two weeks.

Since the final effect of the video would be more of a “fun-house” experience than a “chamber of horrors’ a la “Thriller”, we agreed that the artistic effects would be slanted toward the surreal. Art director Bryce Walmsley was coming up with a wall composed of oversized moveable plastic eyes, so we decided that, in an atmosphere like this, my Gahan Wilson-inspired “Mixed-up Face mask (a.k.a. “The Geek” appearing in Geek Maggot Bingo) would be right at home in cameo appearance.

While repairing, retouching and restoring “The Geek to his original ghastly splendor, I was also sculpting a dental nightmare in clay on a stone life-cast of my face. Having just completed an exhausting stint on Larry Cohen’s new epic The Stuff, my death-like appearance probably inspired Jeff to cast me as the video’s leering “Phantom of the Opera” character. Although leff had those abominables, Phibes and Sardonicus, in mind for the shrouded, ear-to-ear grin figure at the high-tech pipe organ, my immediate inspiration for the prosthetic leer was that gooney Hirschfield caricature of Jerry Lewis I was seeing all over town in the adverts for the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

The monstrous grin was sculpted and the two-piece mold completed in about four hours. The only other prosthetic appliance that could be pre-fabricated was for the bit in which the eye peeks through the skin in Jackie Jackson’s hand. Using a negative hand mold, close to the size of Jackie’s hand, created a thin latex rubber skin that I would adhere over a semi-spherical glass eye l had attached in the palm of Jackie’s real hand When the hand opened, a pre-cut slit pulled apart and the eye pushed through the “skin” The faceless singers were supposed to be three of Jackie’s brothers and the immediate makeup solution was to use prosthetic adhesive to glue nylon stocking over their heads, exposing only their mouths and ears, “seal” the material with liquid latex, make it up with rubber-mask grease paint and, lastly, add wigs. Even considering the total absence of pre-production time, I thought these things could be effective.

It turned out to be overly optimistic to think that “Torture could be shot in four days. The Jacksons would shoot their scenes for the first three days (Tuesday through Thursday and many effects scenes would be shot on Friday featuring Jackie. The shooting schedule actually expanded in to a marathon seven days and nights, which was still remarkably short, considering that every shot had some special effects in it. Steve Kershoff, whom I had met on Exterminator Il and who had recommended me for this job created smoke effects, whips that cracked explosively and other pyrotechnic goodies. Louise de Teliga provided dancers with spider costumes containing extra arms and, in a nifty visual pun, Peter Wallach animated break-dancing skeletons, (built by Bill de Paulo) that really broke!

The alien-landscape set of flat terrain, with the occasional black papier mache rock Sprouting up from terra-burlap, took up fully one third of the huge Studio H floor and included a beautifully air brushed cyclorama of star filled heavens with very agreeable looking pastel colored “cosmic dust.” While “The Geek’s fleeting appearance was being enormously enhanced by the camera work of Tony Mitchell, the “Forbidding Fortress set was being constructed only a few yards away, complete with sliding doors, dungeon and a pipe organ that rolled like a train down tracks which disappeared at the end of a corridor. This was where I would do my leering Lon Chaney routine while a dozen or more plastic-clawed dancers clutched at Jackie’s stunt double through bars in their floor prison.

Test estimated that the leering-face makeup would take three hours to complete, so I started at 3:00 am by waxing down my beard, In the past, I’ve prepared for roles by cutting my hair short and even shaving my scalp to alter my hairline. If a role has required a beard, and there was time to grow it, I grew it. If I had a beard and it had to go, I shaved it without a second. This time I experimented with applying the piece over the beard. At 4:00 am I had completed the application of the unpainted appliance and took a little walk through the Carpentry shop and out onto Studio H where the crew was still working the kinks out of the set’s moveable parts. Hoping that the completion of my makeup would coincide with that of the set, I took three more hours with the painting, assisted by a fabulous West Coast makeup artist, named Sally Childs and we were still ready too soon.

I took a little nap in the makeup chair until l was awakened, “1984” style, with the Jens of a camera about six inches away from my face. It was 8:00 am and a video crew was documenting the making of “Torture.” pointed to my face and shook my head “no” to indicate that I couldn’t talk under the monstrous mouth. After a quick trip to wardrobe, I took my place at the organ. It’s not easy playing the pipe organ in a shroud, especially if you’re miming it to a Jacksons hit while your mouth is glued shut at 8:30 in the morning. On top of that, while listening to my directions, (“Get down”, “Play that muthal”, “Get funky, Ed” screamed Jeff Stein) manfully attempted to stay aboard a speeding pipe organ, that could have used a seat belt, when it abruptly reached the end of its runway. I had been in makeup about 10 hours when the 40-second sequence, that took five hours to shoot, finally wrapped.

Aside from my good fortune to work with the Jacksons, that week was also special because I moved to my new 2500-square foot living and working space. “Torture” continued shooting and in between trips in a moving van between Manhattan and Brooklyn I found myself sitting on the floor of one empty living room or the other, talking on the phone with Sally Childs or Jeff Stein in Studio H in order to keep tabs on when I would be needed for Jackie’s third eye bit. The action of the scene had Jackie backing into the wall of eyes and inadvertently sticking his hand through one of the orbs and then retracting the hand now covered with dripping goo. He would then open his wet hand to reveal the eye staring at him. Sally told me, “They need the eye goo standing by!” and I suggested picking up a few jars of pink Dippity Doo setting gel, which is exactly what we used when the scene was shot on the following Tuesday. Although fatigued from being on call most of the night and obviously not having the easiest time of it, injured Jackie cheerfully climbed into a canvas chair so that makeup could begin. A few feet away the wall of eyes was being lit. It was Jackie’s final scene and when Jeff yelled “Cut” everyone gave him a well-deserved round of applause.

It looked like that pretty much wrapped up my work on “Torture”, too, but two days later, I was contacted about the pick-up shots that would be filmed in a photography studio in Manhattan. One of the shots was to be that trio of faceless singers and I was feeling a litt anxious about the effect as we were not able to use the same marvelous cameraman. I was very pleasantly surprised and relieved when I walked into the studio Saturday morning to find that Dave Greene was to be Tony’s replacement. Greene’s photography and canny suggestions had been a great help to me when we worked together on Sleepaway Camp

The three brothers.. actually, three volunteers were supposed to simply turn to the camera and reveal their blank faces. I suggested that we not have them move at all, but rather simply have them wear the trademark.

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Jackson shades and simultaneously remove them on cue. (You never see these guys without them on, right?) Our Jacksons surrogates were extraordinarily patient, especially when you realize the makeup totally abscured their vision for three hours. Now, part of my job became that of escorting these guys to the bathroom and making sure they didn’t incinerate themselves or anything else while they were smoking. When the nylon edges around the mouths started to work loose, due to the wear and tear or repeated takes of lipsynching the song, I not only reglued them but hit upon the idea of concealing the now obvious edges with quickly improvised mustaches. The three of them appear on the video for one freaky second you might miss them if you blink.

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY rollingstone revolvermag Fangoria#35 Gorezone#04 Fangoria#42 Fangoria#41

1980’s Music Videos & Make Up Effects Greg Cannom Ozzy Osbourne ”Bark at the Moon” In 1980, Ozzy Osbourne signed as a solo act by Epic Records; at his first meeting with the company's top brass, the Ozz pulled a dead pigeon out of a paper bag, and bit its head off.

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