Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi: The Next Generation 2.15 “Hot For Teacher”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, JT is still alive.

Episode 2.15 “Hot For Teacher”

(Dir by Philip Earnshaw, originally aired on July 25th, 2003)

Class clown J.T. is given a week of after school detention with Ms. Hatzilakos.  J.T. discovers that Hatzilakos is more than just a hot teacher and Ms. Hatzilakos tells J.T. that he’s capable of being more than just an obnoxious kid.  They bond while taking care of a pregnant gerbil.  But then, during class, JT stuffs some balloons up his shirt and pretends to be Ms. Hatzilakos.  It gets a laugh from Jimmy but, when Ms. Hatzilakos catches him, she is not amused.

These early JT stories are always rather childish, largely because JT himself was a rather immature character.  Eventually, by the time season 5 rolled around, JT would have a pregnant girlfriend and a side hustle selling drugs and he would become a much more interesting character.  And, of course, he would eventually end up getting stabbed to death outside of Emma’s house.  But that’s all far in the future….

Seriously, though, it’s impossible to watch a JT episode without thinking, “Hey, that kid is going to die in a scene that was probably too graphic for a high school show.”

As for the B-plot of this adequate but not particularly memorable episode, Spinner and Jimmy decide to always be brutally honest with each other.  It doesn’t last for long.  They should have tried to get Marco in on the pledge.  Now, that would have been some drama!

Review: Black Death (dir. by Christopher Smith)

Posted on by Arleigh

“I believe hunting necromancers and demons serves men more than it serves God.” — Osmund

British filmmaker Christopher Smith has always been something of an under-the-radar presence, steadily putting out films that show flashes of talent without quite breaking into the mainstream. By the time Black Death arrived in 2011 (after its 2010 UK debut), Smith had already built a modest body of work that hinted at a filmmaker sharpening his voice. Looking back now, though, Black Death feels less like a stepping stone and more like a high-water mark—arguably the point where his growth as a director peaked before his later efforts settled into something more pedestrian or simply passable.

Set in 1348 England during the height of the plague, the film follows Osmund, a young monk caught between his religious vows and his love for a woman named Avrill. It’s a familiar internal conflict, but one that Black Death treats with a surprising amount of weight. Osmund’s indecision isn’t just romantic hesitation—it’s a crisis of identity, faith, and fear in a world that feels like it’s actively collapsing. When Avrill gives him a week to choose, that ticking clock hangs over everything that follows, even as the narrative shifts into something darker.

Enter Ulric (Sean Bean), a hardened knight tasked with investigating a remote village rumored to be untouched by the plague—and possibly harboring a necromancer. Osmund volunteers to guide Ulric and his men through the marshes, seeing the journey as both an escape and a test. What follows is less a traditional quest and more a gradual stripping away of certainty, as each step toward the village drags the characters deeper into moral ambiguity.

The journey itself is marked by violence, disease, and small but telling moments of cruelty. One of the film’s most effective scenes involves a woman accused of witchcraft. Ulric appears, at first, to intervene with compassion, only to execute her himself in the name of expediency. It’s a cold, efficient act that encapsulates the film’s worldview—belief, in any form, can justify brutality when it’s held too tightly.

Once the group reaches the village, Black Death shifts gears into something more unsettling. The horror here isn’t loud or overt; it’s quiet, controlled, and deeply psychological. The village’s apparent immunity to the plague raises more questions than it answers, and Smith resists the urge to provide easy explanations. Instead, the film leans into ambiguity, letting tension build through implication rather than spectacle.

At its core, the film is less about the plague itself and more about how people interpret it. Is it divine punishment? A test of faith? Or something else entirely? Smith, working from Dario Poloni’s script, explores how both religious and secular authorities manipulate these interpretations to maintain control. The result is a world where truth becomes secondary to belief—and where belief itself becomes a weapon.

Osmund stands at the center of this conflict, pulled between Ulric’s rigid, punitive worldview and the village’s more enigmatic philosophy. Eddie Redmayne plays him with a quiet restraint that borders on opacity in the first half, but that pays off once the story reaches its turning point. As Osmund begins to unravel, Redmayne lets more complexity seep in, turning what initially feels like a passive character into something far more unstable and unpredictable.

Sean Bean, as expected, delivers a commanding performance. His Ulric is not a cartoonish zealot, but a man whose certainty makes him dangerous. He believes completely in what he’s doing, and that conviction gives his actions a disturbing legitimacy. It’s one of those performances where the lack of doubt is what makes the character so unsettling.

Visually, Black Death commits fully to its bleakness. The mud-soaked landscapes, the gray skies, the ever-present sense of decay—it all reinforces the film’s oppressive tone. Smith’s direction here is notably controlled, favoring atmosphere and tension over flashy technique. The violence, rendered with practical effects, is harsh and immediate without feeling gratuitous, adding to the film’s grounded realism.

There’s an unmistakable echo of Witchfinder General in how the film approaches its themes, particularly in its refusal to draw clean moral lines. Like that earlier classic, Black Death presents a world where righteousness and cruelty often occupy the same space, and where faith can be both a source of strength and a tool of destruction.

What makes Black Death stand out within Smith’s filmography—especially in hindsight—is how confidently it balances all of these elements. The thematic ambition, the performances, the atmosphere, the restraint in its storytelling—it all comes together in a way that his later films haven’t quite matched. Where Black Death feels deliberate and probing, much of his subsequent work has leaned more toward the functional, lacking the same sense of purpose or depth.

That’s not to say Smith lost his technical ability, but the edge—the sense that he was really digging into something uncomfortable and meaningful—feels dulled in comparison. Black Death captures a moment where everything aligned: a strong script, a committed cast, and a director pushing himself beyond straightforward genre conventions.

The result is a film that works on multiple levels. It’s a grim historical horror piece, a character study, and a meditation on faith and control, all wrapped in a stark, unforgiving atmosphere. More importantly, it stands as a reminder of what Christopher Smith was capable of at his peak—even if that peak, in retrospect, came earlier than expected.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 4/27/26 — 5/3/26

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the month of May!  I hope you’re getting ready for a great July!

Here’s what I watched this week:

Film I Watched:

  1. Accused: The Karen Read Story (2026)
  2. An Amish Murder (2013)
  3. The Amityville Horror (2005)
  4. Battlestar Galactica (1978)
  5. The Black Hole (1979)
  6. Brainstorm (1983)
  7. Con Man (2018)
  8. Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (1947)
  9. A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)
  10. I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco (2026)
  11. The Killing Fields (1984)
  12. Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean (1990)
  13. Mama’s Little Murderer (2026)
  14. Mission Galactica (1979)
  15. Over the Edge (1979)
  16. Rambo: First Blood Part II  (1985)
  17. Red Dawn (1984)
  18. Shocking Dark (1989)
  19. Stalked By Amish Boyfriend (2024)
  20. Super Shark (2011)
  21. The Wrong Baby Daddy (2026)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Baywatch
  2. CHiPs
  3. Crime Story
  4. Dr. Phil
  5. Freddy’s Nightmares
  6. George Gently
  7. Git It On
  8. Hollywood Demons
  9. Intervention
  10. Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger
  11. St. Elsewhere
  12. Who’s The Boss?

Trailers:

  1. Resident Evil
  2. Giant

Live Tweets:

  1. Shocking Dark (1989)
  2. An Amish Murder (2013)
  3. Red Dawn (1984)
  4. Super Shark (2011)
  5. The Amityville Horror (2005)

4 Shots From 4 Films:

  1. Joseph Kosinski
  2. Lone Scherfig
  3. Wes Anderson
  4. Lars Von Trier
  5. Phillip Noyce
  6. Nico Mastorakis
  7. Alien Invasion

Scenes That I Love:

  1. F1
  2. 1990: The Bronx Warriors
  3. Face/Off
  4. Wonder Woman
  5. From Here To Eternity
  6. Tommy
  7. Rocky III

Song of the Day:

  1. James Brown
  2. Jimi Hendrix
  3. Carlos Puebla
  4. Michael Nyman
  5. Lalo Schifrin
  6. Stevie Ray Vaughan
  7. Jethro Tull

Music Video of the Day:

  1. Metallica
  2. Slayer
  3. Jane’s Addiction
  4. The Breeders
  5. Love & Rockets
  6. Phil Collins
  7. INXS

Artwork of the Day:

  1. Clues Detective Stories
  2. Sinner
  3. Snappy
  4. The Blond Girl/Campus Knockout
  5. Confessions of a Carnival Dancer
  6. Reagan’s Raiders
  7. Babe Ruth In Babe Comes Home

Links From Last Week:

  1. Beefcake::Mark Gregory
  2. My “Close Encounter” With A Wild Elephant! Up Close And “Too Personal” With Lions Too!

News From Last Week:

  1. The Academy Has Changed The Rules
  2. Singer David Allan Coe Dies At 87

Links From The Site:

  1. Leonard shared the trailer for Resident Evil!
  2. Arleigh reviewed Death Race, Banshee, Angel Heart, Chiefs, and Cherry!
  3. Erin reviewed Joe Torre: Curveballs Along The Way and Here Come The Tigers!  She shared the covers of Pirate Stories!
  4. Jeff paid tribute to Ask Jeeves and reviewed Incident at Crestridge, Flat Top, In A Class Of His Own, Q&A, Colorado Ranger, The Guvnors, Blazing Bullets, and The Last Whistle!
  5. Brad reviewed Crisis Negotiators!  He also told us about the time Charles Bronson met Roy Rogers!
  6. I shared some thoughts on the culture!  I also shared my April Oscar Predictions!
  7. I reviewed episodes of Crime Story, CHiPs, Saved By The Bell: The New Class, Pacific Blue, The Love Boat, 1st & Ten, Decoy, Hunter, Saved By The Bell, Homicide, and Degrassi!

Check out last week by clicking here!

Pierce Brosnan Is Brendan Ingle In The Trailer For Giant

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Back in the day, my favorite boxer was Britain’s own Naseem Hamed, a flamboyant showman who always turned his entrance into a production but who could also back up his ego in the ring.  A lot of my friends couldn’t stand Prince Naseem, as he was known, and they used to watch HBO Boxing specifically hoping to see him lose.  In retrospect, he was one of the last of the genuinely entertaining boxers.

Giant, which has already been released to generally positive reviews in the UK, stars Amir El-Masry as Hamed and Pierce Brosnan in the role of Hamed’s trainer, the legendary Brendan Ingle.  Judging from the just-released trailer, Brosnan, who always been the most underrated of all the actors who played James Bond, is almost unidentifiable in the role of Ingle.

Giant will be released in the U.S. later this year.

Jeeves, RIP

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When I first heard that Ask.com had shut down on May 1st, my initial reaction was to be surprised that it was still around.  I always figured that it had shut down in 2006, around the same time that it retired Jeeves as its mascot.  After I got over my surprise, I felt surprisingly sad.  Another part the early Internet is gone.

Kids today might not believe it but there was a time when people used several different search engines instead of just typing all of their queries into Google.  Yahoo was the big one but people also used Lycos, Altavista, DuckDuckGo, Infoseek, AllTheWeb, and several others.  And, if you wanted a personalized experience, you asked Jeeves.  Jeeves would not only answer your questions and give you links but he would do so in the voice of a dryly humorous British manservant.  Before AI, there was Jeeves.  And Jeeves made a lot less mistakes!

Jeeves is gone now and so is a large part of the Internet’s early history.  Today, we take Google for granted and no one calls this place the “information super highway” anymore.  Jeeves might not seem like a big deal to those who never met him but, for many of us, he represents a time when the Internet was new and exciting, when it was a collection of niche sites as opposed to a soul-sucking Behemoth.  Sadly, future generations will never know the joy of Jeeves directing them to the most comprehensive Simpsons fan site on Geocities.  I feel bad for them.

RIP, Jeeves.  Thanks for the memories.

 

 

Incident At Crestridge (1981, directed by Jud Taylor)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Robert (Sandy McPeak) and Sara Davis (Eileen Brennan) arrive in the town of Crestridge, Wyoming, just in time to not only witness a group of mobsters attacking the local massage parlor but also to see the local sheriff (Walt Field) refuse to do anything about it.  While Robert works at the local hospital, Sara runs for sheriff and is elected despite only having recently arrived in town.  The mayor (Pernell Roberts) is convinced Sara will be easy to manipulate but Sara is determined to expose not only his corruption but also the gangsters who secretly control the town.  What Sara doesn’t realize is that the Mayor only allowed Sara to win the election because he felt that the old sheriff was getting too sloppy in his malfeasance.  The same corrupt system that allowed Sara to become sheriff is also designed to take the position away.

Despite being made-for-TV, this isn’t a bad movie.  Eileen Brennan is believably tough as the sheriff but she never becomes a one-dimensional crusader.  Pernell Roberts is even more believable as a venal politician who has been in power for so long that he thinks he can get away with anything.  The movie’s plot has a few surprises and the ending is downbeat but believable.  I did have a hard time believing that someone could be elected sheriff within weeks of first arriving in a town but it made sense once I started to think of Incident at Crestridge as being a modern-day western.  Just as how Johnny Mack Brown, Charles Starrett, and Allan Lane used to ride into towns that needed someone honest to protect the citizens, Eileen Brennan drives into Crestridge.

No offense to the legacy of Suzanne Somers but this film is much better than She’s The Sherriff. 

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 5.8 “The True Test”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, a special guest star ends up in the Box.

Episode 5.8 “The True Test”

(Dir by Alan Taylor, originally aired on November 22nd, 1996)

At the end of this week’s episode, Pembleton finds out that he has finally passed his firearms exam and he’s been cleared to return to active duty.  Excusing the suspension of disbelief necessary to buy that Pembleton has recovered that quickly from his stroke, it’s a good thing that Pembleton and Bayliss will be working together again.  Because, seriously, Bayliss spent this episode acting like an unprofessional ass.

There’s been a murder at the exclusive Larchmont Academy.  Fifteen year-old Marshall Buchanan, the only black student at the entire school, has been found on the athletic field, stabbed to death.  It’s Lewis’s case but his temporary partner, Bayliss, takes charge.  Bayliss is convinced that Marshall was killed by a student and that the killing was racially motivated.  Bayliss is rude to the headmaster.  He’s rude to Marshall’s 12 year-old roommates.  He gets angry in the cafeteria and starts banging his hand on a table while everyone is trying to eat.  Lewis finally asks Bayliss what his problem is.  Bayliss explains that he grew up near Larchmont.  His cousin desperately wanted to go to Larchmont but was rejected because he wasn’t from an old money family.  Bayliss has never forgotten the way his cousin cried after getting his rejection letter.

Hey, Bayliss, you know what?

Big freaking deal.  None of that matters!

Your cousin wasn’t accepted?

Oh, boo hoo.  That has nothing to do with the case!

Usually, I like Bayliss and, even more importantly, I like Kyle Secor’s performance as Bayliss.  But, in this episode, Bayliss was just kind of whiny.  Pembleton would have told him to knock it off.  Lewis just ignores him.

Bayliss is right about one thing.  The murderer is a student, a 17 year-old sociopath named McPhee Broadman.  (Seriously, Homicide, you couldn’t have come up with a less on-the-nose name?)  McPhee is a sociopath who is looked up to by a bunch of the younger students.  His mother (Sagan Lewis) is a judge and therefore, he thinks he’s untouchable.  McPhee is played by a young Elijah Wood and Wood, it must be said, gives a chilling performance as the young murderer.  Towards the end of the episode, a smirking McPhee confesses to the crime.  Even after hearing him confess and say that he wants to kill her, McPhee’s mother still immediately starts making plans to defend him and to suppress his confession.

And she’ll probably succeed.  Bayliss has an obvious personal issue with McPhee.  And, as far as I could tell, neither Bayliss nor Lewis bothered to Mirandize him before interrogating him.  Way to let a murderer back out on the streets, guys!

Seriously, thank God Pembleton is back.

As for Kellerman, he is still on restricted duty but he did buy Dr. Cox a drink at the Waterfront and it’s kind of easy to see where things are heading with those two.  But if Pembleton can recover from a stroke in eight episodes, Kellerman can beat those bribery charges.  I have faith.

Brad reviews CRISIS NEGOTIATORS (2024), starring Lau Ching-Wan & Francis Ng!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

My wife loves Hallmark movies and a handful of other movies that she tends to want to watch over and over again. That list of movies includes DIE HARD, VOLCANO, STRIKING DISTANCE and THE NEGOTIATOR. Every time we go to the family cabin for a weekend getaway, she insists that I pack our DVD of THE NEGOTIATOR to watch at some point over the weekend. It’s fair to say I’ve watched the film at least 10 times over the last 10 years or so, and I really do enjoy it. Did you know that filmmakers in Hong Kong remade THE NEGOTIATOR back in 2024 under the title of CRISIS NEGOTIATORS? It’s produced by superstar Andy Lau, who does a cameo. It’s directed by Herman Yau, who’s directed such successful and diverse films as THE UNTOLD STORY and the SHOCK WAVE franchise. It stars two of the best Hong Kong actors of the last 3 decades in Lau Ching-Wan & Francis Ng. Of course I had to see it!

If you’ve seen the original film, there aren’t a lot of surprises in CRISIS NEGOTIATORS. Lau Ching-Wan plays Man Wai, an expert police negotiator. After celebrating his latest birthday, he gets a message to meet a friend and co-worker whose investigation into thefts from the “Police Welfare Fund” seems to implicate fellow members of the police force. When he shows up at the meeting, his friend has been murdered and the cops are soon on the scene. Arrested and determined to prove his innocence, Man Wai escapes custody and makes his way to the Internal Investigations Unit. He takes his own set of hostages, one of which may be involved in taking money from the Police Welfare Funds. He has an interesting request… I’ll only talk to Tse Ka Chun (Francis Ng). Chun, a former police negotiator who left the force to become a social worker, is soon on the scene. As Man interrogates the hostages and talks to Chun, it becomes apparent that he’s been set up. But will he live long enough to expose the real killers?! 

As a huge fan of Hong Kong cinema, and after having seen THE NEGOTIATOR so many times, I thought it would be fun to compare the two films and looks for things that stand out in the Hong Kong version. CRISIS NEGOTIATORS opens with a particularly interesting sequence where an unstable couple armed with knives takes the workers of a family services center hostage. It seems that their young son has been forcibly removed from their home and they want him back. Man Wai (Lau Ching-Wan) and Chun (Francis Ng) work together to try to resolve the situation. What makes this opening unique is that the actor playing the unstable man is Andy Lau, a true superstar of Hong Cinema and entertainment in general (he’s one of the 4 “Heavenly Kings of Cantopop). Lau is one of the producers of the film, so it makes sense he threw a little of his star power in front of the camera, even if the cameo is the exact opposite of many of his roles. In English language terms, it would be like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio being in the opening scene of THE NEGOTIATOR. 

Another difference in the two films that I really appreciate is the character of Tse Ka Chun, played so well by veteran Hong Kong star Francis Ng. As good as Kevin Spacey is in THE NEGOTIATOR, I really appreciate the tweaks made for the Hong Kong version to Chun. In this version, Chun reluctantly comes back to help the police in this specific situation. He has dedicated his life to helping the poor and unfortunate souls who have found themselves on the lowest rungs of Hong Kong society. In other words, he’s just a really good guy. There are a couple of sequences where he interacts with this poor beggar of an old granny that makes my heart swell as he treats her with kindness and dignity while others do not. It also provides a hilarious payoff at the film’s conclusion. 

Lau Ching-Wan is great in the central role of Cheuk Man Wai. A 4-time winner (and 18 time nominee) of the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor, Lau is simply one of the best actors working in Chinese language cinema. While I don’t give him an edge over Samuel Jackson’s intense performance in the original film, Lau brings his talent to bear in the role and doesn’t miss a beat. Other performances that stand out to me are provided by veterans like Michael Miu as a corrupt superior officer and Kent Cheng as the older cop in charge of everything. Cheng’s character and performance isn’t anything special, but I just enjoy seeing him on screen. One character who can’t be replaced in the original movie is the smarmy Internal Affairs officer played by the late, great J.T. Walsh. Walsh was truly a one-of-a-kind talent, and I don’t think anyone else can do what he did so well. Veteran Hong Kong actor Michael Chow gives a solid turn as the corrupt II agent here, but it’s just too much of an uphill climb. Man Wai’s hostages are pretty good as well, but can’t really compete with the memorable work by Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Paul Giamatti in the original. 

CRISIS NEGOTIATORS would have no chance to work if it didn’t capture some of the intensity of the original film, and I think it was largely successful in that endeavor. Director Herman Yau does a fine job, and I did find myself really getting into the film as the pressure ratcheted up on the main characters. With that being said, outside of a couple of changes, the film sticks pretty close to the original so fans will definitely be in very familiar territory. 

The primary purpose for making CRISIS NEGOTIATORS was to take the excellent story of THE NEGOTIATOR into the lucrative Chinese language market. It had a respectable box office return in the summer of 2024, bringing in around $22 million in mainland China and around $11 million HK dollars in Hong Kong. With good, but not great numbers, the film mostly fulfills its purpose. At the end of the day, CRISIS NEGOTIATORS won’t replace THE NEGOTIATOR on my watch list, but I still enjoyed it very much. I appreciate the cinema and stars of other parts of the world, and this remake was time well spent!

CRISIS NEGOTIATORS is currently streaming on Tubi.