Monthly Archives: June 2021

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Blue Monkey (dir by William Fruet)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1987 Blue Monkey

Last night, as I sat down to watch the 1987 Canadian film, Blue Monkey, I found myself singing a song in my head:

How does it feel
When you treat me like you do
And you’ve laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are?

I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard your words
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how do I feel?

Unfortunately, it turned out that the only thing Blue Monkey had in common with the classic New Order song, Blue Monday, was an enigmatic title.  Just as the song never really mentions anything about Monday, Blue Monkey does not feature a single monkey.  One minor character does mention having a dream about a monkey but, otherwise, there are no monkeys in the film.  Speaking as someone who believes that almost any film can be improved the presence of a monkey, I was disappointed.

(Seriously, Nomadland would have been a hundred times better if Frances McDormand had a pet monkey.)

What Blue Monkey does have is a lot of blue.  The characters wear blue shirts and some wear blue uniforms.  Another wears a blue hat.  The film takes place in a hospital where almost all of the walls are painted blue.  Even worse, the majority of the film’s scenes are saturated with blue lighting.  

Here’s just two screenshots:

blue-monkey-1987-movie-image-7Blue-Monkey-1987-movie-William-Fruet-4

Seriously, some scenes were so blue that I was reminded of John Huston’s decision to suffuse Reflections in a Golden Eye with the color gold.  Personally, I think Huston made a mistake when he did that with Reflections but I can still understand the reasoning behind the decision and I can see what Huston was attempting to accomplish.  The blue in Blue Monkey feels like a distraction, as if someone realized, on the day before shooting, that the title didn’t make any damn sense.  “We’ll just make the whole movie blue!”

The problem, of course, is that the film goes so overboard with the blue lighting that it actually becomes difficult to look at the screen for more than a few minutes.  I had to keep looking away, specifically because all of those blue flashing lights were starting to make me nauseous and were on the verge of giving me a migraine.  At times, the image is so saturated in blue that you literally can’t make out what’s happening in the scene.  Of course, once you do figure out what’s happening, you realize that it doesn’t matter.

Blue Monkey takes place in a hospital.  A handyman has been having convulsions after pricking his finger on a plant that came from a mysterious island.  Perhaps that’s because a mutant larvae is now using his body for a host.  The larvae eventually develops into a giant grasshopper — NOT A MONKEY! — who stalks around the hospital and kills a few people.  The Canadian government is threatening to blow up the hospital unless something is done about the blue grasshopper.

It’s a Canadian exploitation film but Michael Ironside isn’t in it so it somehow feels incomplete.  That said, John Vernon plays a greedy hospital administrator and it’s fun to watch him get irritated with everyone.  A very young Sarah Polley has an early role as an annoying child.  There’s actually several children in this film and you’ll want to throw something at the screen whenever they show up, that’s just the type of film this is.  (Some of my fellow movie-watching friends were actually upset that the children survived that film.  I wouldn’t go that far but I still found myself hoping John Vernon would tell them all to shut up and let the adults handle things.)  Susan Anspach plays a doctor, showing that anyone can go from Five Easy Pieces to Canadian exploitation.  The film’s nominal star is Steve Railsback, playing a cop who comes to the hospital to check on his wounded partner and who ends up on grasshopper duty.  Steve Railsback has apparently said that he’s embarrassed to have appeared in this film.  Consider some of the other films that Steve Railsback has appeared in and then reread that sentence.  

In the end, Blue Monkey doesn’t add up too much.  There’s no Michael Ironside.  There’s no monkeys.  There’s just a lot of blue.

Chris Russ Returns To Workplace Purgatory In “Eddie The Office Goblin” #2

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

With the release of issue #2 of his self-published series Eddie The Office Goblin, Michigan-based cartoonist Chris Russ faces the challenge all artists do with their “sophomore outings,” namely : prove that their concept has staying power now that the premise has been established and the unfamiliar is, of necessity, decidedly less so. Whether or not he pulls it off is rather dependent on one’s views of #1 (for the record, I gave it a mostly positive review on this very blog), but even a generous reading of this mini — which I’m inclined toward — would result in a grade of “incomplete,” because even more important than what’s come before, or what’s happening now, is what will happen next.

Which, let me be clear, is no “bad” thing any more than it’s a “good” thing. Russ is playing the proverbial “long game” here, and depending on how all…

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The Abyss Gazes Back In Samuel Benson’s “Long Gone” #4

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

The comics of Iowa City’s Samuel Benson have always hovered near the edges of some fairly dark places, but in issue #4 of Long Gone, his venerable self-published series, there’s a shift that’s definitely both noticeable and consistent : the death of the self— be it the ego, the corporeal form, or both — is waiting for all of the protagonists in the four longer strips and two single-pages that make up the contents of this (as always with Benson) high-production-value ‘zine, with the rub being that it’s not always the worst outcome. Or even, for that matter, necessarily a bad one. We’re about to get a little philosophical here, so buckle up —

It’s a fallen world, and the evidence is all around us, so maybe escaping it isn’t such a crazy idea, amirite? None of us has any real idea what’s waiting for us on the so-called…

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Lisa’s Week In Review: 6/14/21 — 6/20/21

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Summer temperatures arrived this week!  We’ve gone from being in the 70s to being in the high 90s and, as a result, we’re cranking up the AC here at the Texas offices of the Shattered Lens and we’re hoping for some sort of eventual relief.

Still, there is good news.  The local Alamo Drafthouse will soon be reopening.  2021 will soon be halfway through.  In another few months, it’ll be my favorite time of year!  It’s all just a matter of surviving the summer heat.  Best of luck to us all!

As for next week, I will be divorcing myself from the news and only focusing on movies and writing.  It’s not going to be easy because I actually am kind of interested in who is going to win the NYC mayoral primaries.  Then again, it’s a New York election so it’s not like they’re going to finish counting the votes before August anyways.

Anyway, here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week:

Films I Watched:

  1. All The King’s Men (1949)
  2. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
  3. Crawlspace (1972)
  4. Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
  5. The Great Silence (1968)
  6. Hellmaster (1992)
  7. I, Tonya (2017)
  8. Kickboxer (1989)
  9. The Last Hurrah (1959)
  10. Lord of the Flies (1963)
  11. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
  12. Rad (1986)
  13. Robo Vampire (1988)
  14. Twilight (2008)
  15. The Wager (2007)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. The Bachelorette
  2. Baywatch
  3. Court Cam
  4. Hell’s Kitchen
  5. Intervention
  6. The Love Boat
  7. The Office
  8. South Park

Books I Read:

  1. The Woman Next Door (2019) by Sue Watson

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Barry Adamson
  2. BJ Thomas
  3. Blanck Mass
  4. Blue Swede
  5. Britney Spears
  6. The Chemical Brothers
  7. The Crystal Methods
  8. Coldplay
  9. David Hasselhoff
  10. Dua Lipa
  11. Everclear
  12. Gladys Knight and the Pips
  13. Groove Armada
  14. Gunship
  15. Katy Perry
  16. The Killers
  17. Massive Attack
  18. Mobile
  19. Muse
  20. Phantogram
  21. The Prodigy
  22. Pulp
  23. Saint Motel
  24. Simon and Garfunkel 
  25. Taylor Swift

Trailers:

  1. E3 2021 Part One
  2. E3 2021 Part Two
  3. E3 2021 Part Three

News From Last Week:

  1. Frank Bonner, Brash Salesman on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 79
  2. Roku claims ‘significant growth’ from shows it acquired from Quibi
  3. Inside Chris Harrison’s Shocking Downfall as ‘The Bachelor’ Host — and a $9 Million Payout
  4. BLACULA (2022) Reboot of the blaxploitation classic announced!

Links from Last Week:

  1. Tribeca Film Festival 2021 was the weirdest movie fest ever
  2. Too Jewish For Hollywood: As Antisemitism Soars, Hollywood Should Address Its Enduring Hypocrisy In Hyperbolic Caricatures of Jews
  3. A Century Of Film: Disney
  4. My Week in Books, Movies, and TV 6/18/21 (The World’s Common Tater)

Links From The Site:

  1. Erin shared Dime Detective Magazine, I Know The Score,  Complete Stories, Flirt, RAF Aces, Imagination, and Father of the Amazons!  She also reviewed Mr. Baseball and shared the covers of Baseball Stories and High Heel Magazine!
  2. Doc wished everyone a happy Father’s Day!
  3. Jeff paid tribute to Ned Beatty!
  4. Ryan reviewed The Punishment, Francis Bacon, and 65 Bugs!
  5. I shared music videos from The Brady Bunch, Muse, The Crystal Method, Mobile, The Prodigy, Gunship, and Gladys Knight and the Pips!  I reviewed Rad!  I paid tribute to Lucio Fulci!  I shared my week in television!

More From Us:

  1. Ryan has a patreon!  You should consider subscribing!
  2. For SOLRAD, Ryan reviewed King of Court!
  3. On my music site, I shared songs from Pulp, Groove Armada, Massive Attack, The Prodigy, David Hasselhoff, Blue Swede, and BJ Thomas!
  4. On her photography site, Erin shared: Construction 8, Construction 9, Construction 10, Abandoned, Abandoned 2, Abandoned 3, and Abandoned 4.

Want to see what I did last week?  Click here!

Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir by Denis Villeneuve, cinematography by Roger Deakins)

Lisa’s Week In Television: 6/13/21 — 6/19/21

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yes, I did watch some television this week.  However, I didn’t actually take any notes about the shows that I watched so this edition of Lisa’s Week in Television might be lacking a little in detail.  Sorry about that!  To be honest, I spent most of this week adjusting to the arrival of summer temperatures and I ended up devoting most of my attention to the air conditioning.

Still, here’s a few thoughts about what I can remember about what I watched this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

It was a bit of a silly episode this week.  (I know, I know, they’re all silly.)  Rene had to fly a kite in order to make the new radio work.  (Don’t ask.)  Mimi, the new waitress, was disguised as a nun and she ended up getting twisted in the kite so she ended up as a flying nun.  It made no sense but, perhaps for that reason, it made me laugh.

The Bachelorette (Monday on ABC)

This week, Katie was stunned to discover that one of the bachelors might not have been there for the right reasons!  She sent Cody home because he was apparently only there to increase his profile.  Usually, it takes a few more episodes for The Bachelorette to reach the “He’s not here for the right reasons” stage.  The fact that this season got to it during the second episode worries me a little because this is a franchise that is always at its worse whenever it gets self-righteous.

(I always remember the episode of Burning Love, where the bachelors had to make sock puppets.  Adam Scott said, “This is so stupid.” Cut to Joe Lo Truglio: “And I was like — hey man, I’m here for my son.  Take this seriously!”)

In other news, Mike read a really awkward letter to his “future wife,” explaining why he waited until marriage to have sex.  Like I said, it was hella cringey but it pretty much guarantees that Mike will be the next Bachelor.

Bar Rescue (Sunday Night, Paramount)

It’s been a while since I watched this show.  Watching it on Sunday night, I discovered that John Taffer still apparently believes that not knowing how to run a bar is the worst crime known to man.  “YOU’RE OVERPOURING!  THAT’S MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN!”  Relax, John.  It’s just a bar.

Baywatch (Weekday evenings, H&I)

H&I has started in on the NINTH season of Baywatch and I have to say that I’m getting the feeling that, by the time this season rolled around, Baywatch was just repeating itself and going through the motions.  Every episode that I watched this week featured a storyline that had been done in a previous episode.  So, I guess if you’re wondering how many lifeguard stories there are, the answer is 8 seasons worth.

Let’s see how much I can remember about what I saw this week:

On the first of Sunday’s episodes, the Baywatch lifeguards had some competition from a private security company called — I kid you not — Bayguard!  Mitch and Cody had to prove that Baywatch was just as good as Bayguard, which they managed to do by rescuing a boy in a storm drain.  Mitch and Cody spent a lot of time rescuing people from storm drains.  The second episode was a sweet story about a little boy named Timmy who really liked dolphins.  Timmy also got trapped in a cave so Mitch and the lifeguards had to save him.  It was typical Baywatch stuff but David Hasselhoff always did his best work with the unabashedly sentimental storylines.

On Monday, a mysterious figure was roaming the beach and saving people from drowning!  Could it have been the klutzy new maintenance worker played Brooke Burns?  Since Burns was already featured in the opening credits wearing a Baywatch uniform, that was a pretty easy question to answer.  This was followed by an episode where April felt guilty about a swimmer dying, which was pretty much a remake of an earlier episode in which Caroline felt guilty about a swimmer dying.

On Tuesday, Hobie made his first appearance of the season.  Despite being Mitch’s son, Hobie had been missing in action for the previous few episodes.  (In real life, actor Jonathan Jackson was dealing with an addiction to cocaine that basically led to him being fired from the show.)  Hobie was arrested after a boat he was driving crashed.  However, it turned out that Hobie was not at fault!  Knowing that this episode was kind of meant to be a wake-up call to Jackson about his own behavior made the whole thing awkward to watch.  This was followed by an episode in which one of the lifeguards was selected for Jeopardy.  Unfortunately, she was later disqualified when it was discovered that she knew someone who worked on the show but Alex Trebek still made an appearance and was his usual charming self.

On Wednesday, the first episode featured Mitch having a mid-life crisis, which he previously had two seasons ago.  This was followed by an episode were Mitch befriend an orangutan.  Strangely, Mitch didn’t mention that — during season two — he befriended a chimpanzee.

On Thursday, Cody started using performance-enhancing drugs to increase his chances of going to the Olympics, much as several other characters have done on previous episodes of Baywatch.  This was followed by a skydiving episode which was basically a remake of the skydiving episode from season six.  Of course, the previous episode turned out to be a dream whereas this episode was real.  MITCH CAN SEE THE FUTURE!

On Friday, Mitch adopted a new son named Tanner.  (Hobie, we were told, was now living with his mother.)  This was followed by an episode where April and Craig finally broke up, which seemed appropriate since April was like 19 and Craig was nearly 60.  Craig apparently is a hotshot defense attorney but he was nowhere to be seen in the episode where Hobie was in jail.  Craig is a bad friend.

On Saturday, Peter Barton co-starred as a race car driver who was officially sponsored by …. wait for it …. AOL!  As a result, the entire episode featured people talking about how much they loved AOL.  Mitch’s adopted son even checked his AOL account and got the “You have mail” prompt.  “Hey, pal,” Mitch said, “you got mail!”

When future historians research the 90s, they’ll just watch episodes of Baywatch.

Court Cam (Wednesdays, A&E)

Don’t talk back to the judge or Dan Abrams will put you on TV and make fun of you.

Hell’s Kitchen (Monday Night, FOX)

There was a lot of raw chicken being sent up to the pass this week.  The blue team lost again.  This seems to be the way that it goes every season, though.  The men start out losing, the women get overconfident, and eventually both teams kind of crash and burn.

Intervention (Monday Night, A&E)

The intervention didn’t work this week.  Kelsey went to rehab but relapsed.  It was sad for I’ll give Intervention some credit for admitting that these things don’t always have a happy ending.

Moone Boy (Sunday Night, PBS)

Martin graduated from national school and attempted to make sure that his name would be remembered by future classes!  I remember, in high school, I was convinced the future students would never forget my graduating class.  In retrospect, I’m not sure why I thought that.  It’s not like Saved By The Bell, where the members of the New Class where still talking about the time Jessie got hooked on caffeine pills.  Time marches on.

The Office (Saturday Afternoon, Comedy Central)

Amy Adams just wanted to sell purses.  Michael bought her a $10,000 espresso machine. CRINGE!  Still, hilarious though.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

It was a typical episode of Open All Hours.  Arkwright abused Granville while Granville silently plotted his revenge.

The Powers of Matthew Star (Sunday Mornings, MeTV)

I was dealing with insomnia on Sunday so I did watch an episode of this old sci-fi series on MeTV.  (I used to set the DVR for it but, up until this week, I had kind of lost interest in it.)  Peter Barton — yes, the same Peter Barton who appeared on Baywatch this week — played an alien who was pretending to be a normal high school student.  In this week’s episode, Matthew Star traveled to the Bermuda Triangle and got a tragic message from his homeworld.  It was pretty silly but, as the title character, Peter Barton was sincere enough to nearly sell it.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

Screech got struck by lightning and suddenly had the power to see the future.  Zack tried to use Screech’s powers to cheat on the History midterm.  Unfortunately, Screech lost his powers and Zack got an “F minus …. for scamming!”

South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)

“Free Hat!  Free Hat!”  Actually, I don’t remember which episode it was that I watched but the Free Hat episode is always a good a default to go with.

Upstart Crow (Sunday Night, PBS)

Incredibly proud of his new play, Will Shakespeare is stunned to discover that the few women in his life are not as enamored of The Taming of the Shrew as he is.  Will simply cannot figure it out!  This was a funny episode, mostly because it was true.

 

 

 

Happy Father’s Day From The Shattered Lens

Posted on by Doc Bowman

Not all fathers are good fathers. That’s especially true when you’re a cat. Most cat fathers abandon their families before their kittens are even born and then, if they run into any of their children, they hiss and the growl! Most cats have serious issues as a result.

Luckily, most humans do better! Today, the TSL wishes a happy birthday to all of the fathers! Regardless of how old your children are, Father’s Day will always be your day! We hope it’s a great one for you and that all the cat fathers out there can learn to follow your exaple!

It’s never too late.