Music N' More: March 2019

Friday, March 22, 2019

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

This is the third installment of The Mummy series. This one completely moves away from ancient Egypt and instead moves on to ancient China.

Summary
-When Alex O'Connell is excavating at a dig site in China, he unearths the first emperor of the Qin dynasty-a brutal, shape-shifting creature who was cursed by a witch long ago.

Cast
-Brendan Fraser: Rick O'Connell
-Jet Li: Emperor
-Maria Bello: Evelyn O'Connell
-John Hannah: Jonathan Carnahan
-Michelle Yeoh: Zi Yuan
-Luke Ford: Alex O'Connell
-Isabella Leong: Lin
-Anthony Chau-Sang Wong: General Yang
-Russell Wong: Ming Guo
-Liam Cunningham: Roger Wilson

Did You Know?
-Jet Li was only available for part of the shoot. To do his scenes as the Dragon Emperor, it was decided that his character would be seen as either a rotting mummy or as a terracotta mummy. It was done this way so that he could do his live scenes and the remainder would be done through CGI
-In the scene with the tombs, the crossbow traps were based on real life. According to Chinese archaeologists, there were similar traps when archaeologists tried excavating the site of the Terra Cotta Army
-In the movie, there is a device that triggers a trap by dropping a small bronze ball from a dragon's mouth into a frog's mouth. This is said to be inspired by an ancient machine that could predict what direction an earthquake was coming from and is considered to be the father of the modern seismograph
-The scenes in the Himalayan Mountains were actually filmed in summer heat on a soundstage
-This was the Hollywood debut for Chinese martial arts legend Wu Jing, who appeared as one of the soldiers having a brief battle with Jet Li at the start of the movie
-Rob Cohen, director of the movie, had always been incredibly fascinated with Chinese history and culture. When he was approached about filming a movie in China, he was all for it. He wanted the movie to be filmed in China as much as possible and also to pay respect to the culture, he wanted Chinese history and culture to be depicted as accurately as possible
-This movie involves another collaboration between Jet Li and Russell Wong. The first movie starring the two martial artist/actors was 2000's Romeo Must Die

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

The Mummy Returns (2001)

This is the sequel to the first film, The Mummy.

Summary
-Alex O'Connell is the eight year old son of Rick and Evelyn O'Connell. They are discovering ancient Egyptian artifacts and when Alex accidentally slips on the Bracelet of Anubis, which is being transported to a museum in London, they soon discover so is the body of Imhotep. The dead high priest wants the bracelet to control the Scorpion King's army and with the bracelet on, Alex's life is at stake.

Cast
-Brendan Fraser: Rick O'Connell
-Rachel Weisz: Evelyn Carnahan / Nefertiri
-John Hannah: Jonathan Carnahan
-Arnold Vosloo: Imhotep
-Oded Fehr: Ardeth Bay
-Freddie Boath: Alex
-Alun Armstrong: Mr. Hafez
-Dwayne Johnson: The Scorpion King
-Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje: Lock-Nah
-Shaun Parkes: Izzy
-Aharon Ipale: Pharaoah

Did You Know?
-Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velasquez did their own fight scenes without stunt women. To do this, they trained for five months
-Arnold Vosloo had to have his whole body shaved twice a day to retain the smooth, hairless look. Initially, he tried waxing but it caused him too much pain
-On the dress that Anck Su Manu wears, the sleeves look just like the body paint from her previous life
-Production was approved to start on this movie the morning after The Mummy opened in May 1999
-All the lines spoken by Dwayne Johnson are in ancient Egyptian
-The axe the Arnold Vosloo carried weighed about 50 pounds. He said that after three days, his arms felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets

-Production rounded up vintage double decker buses for the movie. The ads in them are real ads from the 1930s
-The exterior shots of what is supposed to be the British Museum is not the real British Museum. It's actually University College London. The actual British Museum was undergoing renovations at the time and was covered in scaffolding
-In real life, Oded Fehr has no face tattoos. He does have one on his back, a small ghost
-At the end of the film, the voice of the Scorpion King was dubbed by Brazilian rock musician, songwriter and guitarist Max Cavalera, lead vocalist of the bands Sepultura, Soulfly and Cavelera Conspiracy
-The two men guarding the Bracelet of Anubis in Evy's vision in the tomb are brothers in real life

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Mummy (1999)

This movie is one of the bigger movie series out there. Almost each one deals with a mummy coming back from the dead.

Summary
-An English librarian obsessed with ancient Egypt hires a man named Rick O'Connell to take her and her brother to the ancient city of Hamunaptra. They discover that someone else is interested in this ancient dig site and unknowingly unleash the dead High Priest Imhotep, who was cursed at the time of his death.

Cast
-Brendan Fraser: Rick O'Connell
-Rachel Weisz: Evelyn Carnahan
-John Hannah: Jonathan Carnahan
-Arnold Vosloo: Imhotep
-Kevin J. O'Connor: Beni Gabor
-Jonathan Hyde: Dr. Allen Chamberlain
-Oded Fehr: Ardeth Bay
-Eric Avari: Dr. Terrence Bey
-Stephen Dunham: Mr. Henderson
-Corey Johnson: Mr. Daniels
-Tuc Watkins: Mr. Burns
-Omid Djalilli: Warden Gad Hassan
-Bernard Fox: Captain Winston Havelock
-Patricia Velasquez: Anck Su Namun

Did You Know?
-During the scene where Brendan Fraser's character was hanged, he nearly died. Rachel Weisz said that he had stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated
-Most of Patricia Velasquez's costume was body paint, which took four hours to apply. Other than that, the only other costume pieces was a loin cloth and some jewelry

-To make sure the ancient Egyptian spoken in the movie was accurate, an Egyptologist had phonetically rendered what the language would have sounded like
-To keep the PG-13 rating, the white nightgown Evelyn wore had to be digitally painted white because it became transparent when wet
-The morning after the film's release, director Stephen Sommers was contacted by Universal and told "We need another one". Obviously they already saw the success of the film and wanted a sequel
-Originally, the voice over in the beginning of the movie was supposed to be done by Imhotep. But since he would not know English, it was given to the character Ardeth Bay instead
-In real life, Imhotep was an architect. He was the one who first developed the great pyramids, especially the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in 2600 BC. He was not a villain as shown in the movie, but a highly revered architect and physician
-Historically, the Medjai were tattooed from head to toe. Stephen Sommers didn't want Oded Fehr tattooed like that because he considered the Israeli-born actor "too good looking" to cover up

-When Imhotep was creating the sandstorm in the desert, the camera had to quickly go up. The reason being that the wind machines kept blowing up the cape and loincloth worn by Arnold Vosloo, exposing his bare backside
-The prison where Evelyn first meets O'Connell was filmed at an apartment complex in Marrakech
-The whole production had the protection of the Moroccan Army behind them as well as kidnapping insurance taken out on everyone. This was a fact that Stephen Sommers told everyone only after the shooting had finished
-Due to unstable political conditions, filming could not be done in Egypt
-Ardeth Bay is an anagram of Death by Ra, the protector of mankind from the mummy Imhotep
-There were many health risks filming in the scorching Sahara sun. Medics had created a special drink for everyone to consume every two hours. Sandstorms were constant. Medics had to airlift people out due to snake bites, spider bites and scorpion stings
-Even though the title of the movie is The Mummy, the title character was never mummified. He suffered a far more gruesome death called the Hom Dai, which was a very brutal way to go only used for the most extreme of circumstances. The ancient Egyptians feared it so much they dare not perform it unless absolutely necessary

-Rick O'Connell mentions he was in the French Foreign Legion. He mentions he was a lieutenant. This is incorrect; as an American, he could certainly serve in the Legion, but lieutenants are required to be French nationals
-This was the first major screen role for Oded Fehr
-The building used for the Cairo Museum was really a government building in Marrakech
-During the scenes of the Bedouin trading post and Royal Air Force runways, there are children visible. These were local children from in and around Marrakech
-Both Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr appeared on the television series Charmed, playing warlocks

Oded Fehr, Charmed

Arnold Vosloo, Charmed

-Once again, Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr appeared together on another television series-NCIS, both playing Israeli Mossad agents

Arnold Vosloo, NCIS. Playing an Israeli Mossad agent

Oded Fehr, NCIS. Playing an Israeli Mossad agent

-Omid Djalilli, who is a British-Iranian comedian, made his acting debut in this film

-Jonathan Hyde, who plays a British Egyptologist, is in real life Australian. He was born and raised in Brisbane, which is a city in Queensland, Australia

Rainbow (band)

This is a fairly well known band. Started by Ritchie Blackmore, formerly of Deep Purple, this band has had a revolving door on members.

History
-Formed in 1975
-The band lasted from 1975-1984 and then 1994-1997. The reason there was a sizeable gap between the years is because in 1984 Deep Purple had reunited to record Perfect Strangers and The House of Blue Light. Unfortunately, old tensions never die. Ritchie Blackmore and singer Ian Gillan once again started fighting. This went on until about the early 1990s
-The name was inspired by the famous Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles, where Ritchie was living at the time.
-How the band started is in 1974, Ritchie was incredibly annoyed at the heavy soul/funk direction that Deep Purple had taken, thanks to then singer David Coverdale and then bassist Glenn Hughes both being fans of soul and funk music. His annoyance with this type of music, which he dubbed "shoeshine music" had started around the time of Stormbringer. That's why to this day that is his least favorite Purple album. It reminds him too much of that era.

-Another thing that became a thorn in Blackmore's side was that his fellow bandmates were not interested in including a cover song on Stormbringer. The song of choice was "Black Sheep of the Family" by Quatermass. During the subsequent tour to support the new album, the opening band had been an American band called Elf. Blackmore was shocked by their vocalist, Ronnie James Dio. He had approached Dio about forming a band together. Once they got talking, they both discovered a lot in common, one thing in particular being a love of medieval and Renaissance culture and history. Before long, a whole album worth of songs had been created. Initially the band's debut album was titled Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, but then on the second album it was shortened to just Rainbow. To let everyone know that it was a group of people working together and not just everyone working to the marching orders of one person. And, of course, Blackmore got his cover song on this album. "Black Sheep of the Family" made it on the debut album shown below

-It was in 1978, around the time of Long Live Rock 'n' Roll that the relationship between Dio and Blackmore was not only becoming volatile, it was becoming deadly to the great chemistry in the band. Dio felt that he was standing in the shadow of Blackmore, like he was the star attraction of the band, even in America, where Dio is from. Not only that, Dio's then girlfriend Wendy was whispering things into his ear about how Ritchie had appeared on the front of Circus Magazine by himself and how good he was, essentially starting rumors. Unfortunately, tensions began to rise later on. When Dio approached Blackmore about it, Blackmore was adamant that the whole band be on there. This led to tensions between Dio and Blackmore, resulting in Dio leaving.

-Of course, Dio would go on to greater things-joining Black Sabbath in 1979 to prepare for production of 1980's Heaven & Hell.

-The next singer would be Graham Bonnet, who would only last one album, Down to Earth. Blackmore was more or less insistent that everyone in the band have long hair, but Graham had short, almost razor cut hair. It was even hinted that Blackmore wanted people to stand guard over Bonnet to keep him from getting his hair cut. Of course, Bonnet managed to slip away and get the haircut and when Blackmore seen it on stage, Bonnet said, with a laugh, that his jaw nearly hit the floor in shock. Bonnet soon was fired afterwards. This album produced two major singles: "All Night Long" despite accusations of being a song sexist towards women and "Since You've Been Gone", which was written by former Argent band member Russ Ballard.

-Rainbow had even come under fire for their song "All Night Long", which was deemed discriminatory towards women and sexist. To combat that, ever the practical joker, Ritchie appeared on magazines wearing stockings and a garter belt, commenting that "he can just as easily be one of the girls".

-Bonnet, sadly, didn't last long. He was drunk when the band played at the prestigious Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donnington. He was soon fired afterwards. Then in comes New Jersey resident Joe Lynn Turner. His somewhat operatic vocals appealed to Blackmore, who wanted to take the band in an even more commercial pop-rock direction, which the band had accomplished with Graham Bonnet singing "Since You've Been Gone".

-With Turner up front singing, the band had managed to break America with albums like Straight Between the Eyes, Bent Out of Shape and Difficult to Cure. With Turner up front on vocals and new drummer Bobby Rondinelli, this signaled a rise from the ashes for Rainbow. 1981's Difficult to Cure helped the band alienate themselves from the past days of Dio's European fantasy-based lyrics into a more radio-friendly sound. Once again, Russ Ballard was helping them out, with a song he wrote called "I Surrender". Another single that seems to go over well from this album is "Can't Happen Here", a fast-paced song with a driving guitar rhythm

-The band had effectively broken up in 1984 when it was announced Deep Purple was reuniting. The band had come together to record two albums: The House of Blue Light in 1987 and Perfect Strangers in 1984. Unfortunately, old tensions between Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore soon reawakened. This time it was because Ian's voice was starting to go faulty. Ritchie describes Ian's voice as being "absolutely dreadful".

-Unfortunately, by the time 1983 came around, they had completed Bent Out of Shape and it appeared to all that the best days had long since passed. But, today there are fans rediscovering these albums and becoming fans of all their albums.
-Between 1975-1984 and 1994-1997, the band released eight albums, each with a slightly different lineup and sound. Each album that changed lineups ever so slightly had either kept their die hard fans or completely alienated them with a sound other than what they liked. The first two albums with Dio on vocals, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and Rising, had lyrics deeply rooted in medieval, fantasy.
-When Ritchie rejoined Deep Purple, things had gone okay for a while but the old tensions starting rising. Ritchie quit for good in 1994, being replaced by former Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse. Steve is still in Purple to this day, trying to play like Blackmore while also maintain his own style of playing.

-Rainbow released one final album, Stranger in Us All in 1994. This would be the last album to use the moniker Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. He would then go on to perform more medieval-type music with his fiancée Candice Isralow (Candice Night) in the duo Blackmore's Night. To this day, Ritchie is not interested in releasing whole albums worth of work. He's more interested in just releasing songs as singles. Blackmore's Night did manage to headline the Monsters of Rock festival in Germany in 2015

Discography
Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975)
Rising (1976)
On Stage (1977)
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978)
Down to Earth (1979)
Difficult to Cure (1981)
Straight Between the Eyes (1982)
Bent Out of Shape (1983)
Stranger in Us All (1995)

Members both past and present