Hi, everyone! Tonight, on Mastodon, I will be hosting the #TubiThursday watch party! Join us for a true classic, Dirty Dancing!
You can find the movie on Tubi and you can join us on Mastodon at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) We will be using #TubiThursday hashtag! See you then!
Today’s song of the day comes from David Bowie and it’s about Bowie’s fascination with Andy Warhol. Warhol himself apparently didn’t care for this song but Bowie meant it as a tribute.
This song came out in 1971. 25 years later, Bowie would play Andy Warhol in Basquiat.
The great Robert Mitchum was born, on this date, 108 years ago. Today’s scene that I love comes from one of my favorite Mitchum films, the classic 1947 noir Out of the Past.
In this scene, we are reminded that no one was cooler than Robert Mitchum. And no one threw a better punch.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
On this date, 98 years ago, Andy Warhol was born. Today, we mark this occasion with….
4 Shots From 4 Andy Warhol Films
Empire (1965, dir by Andy Warhol)
Vinyl (1965, dir by Andy Warhol)
Poor Little Rich Girl (1965, dir by Andy Warhol)
Chelsea Girls (1966, dir by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey)
by Peter Poulson
This cover is from 1952.
Midnight Mover is the Accept song that wasn’t Balls to the Wall. I actually prefer Midnight Mover to Balls to the Wall as both a song and video but Midnight Mover was never featured on Beavis and Butt-Head and is lesser known as a result.
The song is about a drug dealer, one who moves his product at midnight. The video is mostly interesting as an early example of the “bullet time” technology that would later be made famous by The Matrix. Accept did it first!
The director also did videos for Pet Shop Boys, Replacements, Mick Jagger, Rush, and the Fat Boys, amongst others.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.
This week, yet another new player joins the Bulls.
Episode 4.11 “Final Blow”
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on December 14th, 1988)
Bubba’s fighting with his wife again! Maybe Jethro can fix things by sending her a fur coat, along with a card claiming that the coat is a gift from Bubba. Yes, that really is one of the main storylines on this week’s episode. If nothing else, you can always count on 1st & Ten to keep things simple.
As for the other storyline, the Bulls have signed Olympic runner Moses Jackson (Peter Parros) to the team. Moses’s agent (Calvin Lockhart), who is obviously meant to be a stand-in for Don King, announces that Moses is both the fastest man on the planet and also the world’s greatest athlete. For his part, Moses doesn’t even want to play football. He’s terrified of getting tackled.
Wide Receiver Coleman King (Richard Lawson) is scared that he’s going to lose his job to Moses. Even though Coleman had never been seen or mentioned before last week’s episode, he is apparently an old friend of TD Parker (OJ Simpson). TD is not so secretly in love with Coleman’s wife, Della (Vanessa Bell Calloway). When a depressed Coleman goes to Bulls Stadium with a gun, it’s up to TD to turn on the charm and convince Coleman that violence is never the answer. TD tells Coleman that he can’t play forever and he has to start thinking about what he wants to do once his athletic career is over. Coleman decides that he would like to be a teacher. TD takes Coleman’s gun and drives Coleman home in his Bronco.
During the next game, Moses turns out to be a bust. Every time he gets the ball, he gets tackled almost immediately. It’s not until the final quarter that he finally manages to break free and run for a 60 yard touchdown. However, Moses then runs into the locker room and refuses to come back out. The Bull are still down by 6 and their star player has just announced his retirement. Fortunately, Coleman King is still playing and he manages to make a last-minute, game-winning touchdown.
Yay! The Bulls remains undefeated.
After the game, TD congratulates Coleman and tells him that he picked a great way to go out. Coleman laughs and says he’s not going anywhere. He figures that he has at least another three years to go before retiring. Teaching can wait!
This was actually not a terrible episode. A lot of that is due to Richard Lawson’s empathetic performance as Coleman King. In fact, Lawson turns Coleman King into one of the few interesting characters on the series. I can’t wait to see what else he does …. oh wait. According to the imdb, this episode was the last time that either Richard Lawson or Coleman King appeared on 1st & Ten.
Oh well, I guess that’s football for you!
I loved STAKEOUT when I was a teenager. Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez are hilarious and Aidan Quinn is suitably nasty as the bad guy, but I have to admit that the main reason I love the movie is because it’s the first time I remember seeing Madeleine Stowe. I was 14 years old when our family rented it for the very first time, and I’ve been in love with her ever since.
STAKEOUT was released on August 5, 1987. In celebration of its 39th anniversary, I present this scene that was burned into my memory a long time ago.
(Parental Discretion is advised, as the Rhythm is probably gonna get you!)
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
Come aboard, we’re expecting you….
Episode 8.5 “Only the Good Die Young/Honey Beats the Odds/The Light of Another Day”
(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on October 13th, 1984)
This week, Isaac’s friend Lydia (Vernee Watson) boards the boat with her young son, Timmy (Emmanuel Lewis). Is it time for Isaac to find love? Not quite. It turns out that Isaac knew Lydia’s deceased husband. This trip is the first that Lydia and Timmy have taken since he died.
At first, Timmy is all cute and adorable. But then he overhears Isaac talking to Lydia. When Isaac mentions something about the good always dying young, Timmy decides to be bad so that he’ll live longer. Soon, he’s sneaking out of his cabin, making a mess in the kitchen, and trying to steal stuff from the gift shop. Finally, Captain Stubing and Isaac explain to him that what Isaac said was just an expression. All is forgiven!
Oh God, this storyline. I almost always respond to stories about people dealing with the loss of a parent or spouse. I did not respond at all to this story, though. Some of that is because Emmanuel Lewis’s performance as Timmy was way too cutesy. Even more of it was because this story didn’t really deal with loss in any sort of honest or authentic way. Instead, it was just some stupid kid who misunderstood something that he heard. As usual, Ted Lange really poured his heart into his performance but otherwise, this story just fell flat.
Meanwhile, blind Millie Constant (Barbara Parkins) thinks that she has randomly run into Sam Washburn (John Bennett Perry — yes, Matthew’s father). In college, before she lost her eyesight, she had a crush on Sam. What she doesn’t know is that Sam is dead and she’s actually met his younger brother, George. When Millie finally figures out that George is not Sam, how will she react? Most people, blind or not, would probably be disgusted and go out of their way to avoid George for the rest of the cruise. Millie, however, falls in love with George because this is The Love Boat! This story actually featured two good performances. Both Parkins and Perry did their best with the material they had been given to work with. But the story itself asks us to suspend our disbelief just a bit too much.
Finally, Honey Mallory (Stephanie Faracy) boards the boat with her boyfriend, bookie Jake Diamond (James Sloyan). With Jake more interested in making bets than romance, Honey starts to hang out with Miles Metcalf (Jack Riley). Jake panics when he realizes that he might lose Honey. He should also panic about the fact that Miles is a federal agent who has been secretly recording all of his conversations with Honey. This story ends on a weird note. Honey realizes that she loves Jake but Miles announce that Jake will be getting indicted at the end of the week.
All in all, this was not a memorable cruise. None of the stories worked that well and, with the exception of Ted Lange, the Love Boat cast didn’t really seem like that they were that into it this week. This was a pretty forgettable cruise.
Today’s song of the day comes from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston.
Through the Shattered Lens 