Monthly Archives: February 2022

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/6/22 — 2/13/22

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been quite a week.  The Oscar nominations were announced.  The creepiest Winter Games ever have been playing out in China.  South Park revealed that some people apparently didn’t understand that Tolkein was named after the author of The Hobibt and Lord of the Rings.  (Like, seriously, you guys…..)  And the z-list celebs on Celebrity Big Brother revealed themselves to be taking the show way too seriously.

Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Chaos on a train!  Rene thought he and Yvette were going to elope on the Geneva Express but unfortunately, his wife Edith found Rene’s note and thought that it was meant for her.  While Rene wandered the train, trying to hook up with his two mistresses without his wife noticing, Herr Flick, Lt. Gruber, and a host of others wandered the train in search for the valuable original copy of the painting known as The Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies.  Things got a bit chaotic on the train and they were even more chaotic back at the Cafe, where Officer Crabtree and his mangled French offered up very little in the way of help.  I laughed, I always do.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Amazing Race here.  The Amazing Race has been a bit odd this season.  Due to the COVID lockdowns, two of the strongest teams ended up dropping out of the race.  As a result, we are late into the race and there are currently three strong teams and then two teams that basically can’t even read a road map.  The two weaker teams would never have lasted this long in a normal season.  I’m going to laugh and laugh if one of them somehow manages to win.  As of right now, though, it seems as if the oddly robotic but hyper competent team of Kim & Penn have to be considered the favorites.

BBC World News (Tuesday Morning, BBC)

I watched the Oscar nomination announcements on the BBC because, unlike ABC, the BBC actually showed all of the categories instead of just showing the major nominees.  (Add to that, why would anyone want to watch Oscar analysis from George Stephanopoulos?)  I have to admit that I enjoyed the BBC’s take on the nominations, which basically amounted to, “Quite a few nominations for Belfast, that’s a win for our side.”

Celebrity Big Brother (CBS and Paramount Plus)

I wrote about Celebrity Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.  I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of celebrity reality competition shows to begin with and Celebrity Big Brother tends to be the worst of them all.  Since celebrities really don’t have much at stake in these games, most of them just leave the House when things get too intense, like Chris Kattan did earlier this week.  As for the remaining celebrity houseguests, Todd Bridges is an idiot and Toddrick Hall seems to be taking this whole thing just a little bit too seriously.  Don’t ruin your brand just to give Julie Chen something to talk about.

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoon, FXX)

Among the episodes I watched on Monday afternoon, there was one where Hank got to carry the Olympic flame and Dale got a chance to use the flame to light his cigarette.  Go, Hank!  Go, Dale!  That was back when the Olympics were something special.

On Thursday, after getting disgusted with all of the propaganda at the Winter Games, I again turned over to FXX and watched a few episodes of King of the Hill.  I watched five episodes, from Lucky trying to sue Dale to Launne getting married to Boomhauer surfing at Corpus Christi.  It was fun and took my mind off what Boomhauer would call “the dang ol’ enormity of it all.”

 The Love Boat (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Yay!  It was a 70s Valentine’s cruise!  Love was in the air and cocaine was probably backstage.  Sailing on the Love Boat were Patty Duke, Frankie Avalon, Barbie Benton, Denny Evans, Jamie Farr, Ricky Nelson, and Carole White!  A computer program that was designed to link everyone to their ideal Valentine’s Day partner caused havoc on the boat but everything worked out in the end.  That’s the important thing.

Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

Because I have the world’s worst martyr complex, I wrote about the latest episode of Pam & Tommy here.

South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)

For the record, I always knew his name was Tolkien.  I don’t know what the Hell was wrong with the rest of you.

The Winter Olympics (All Week, NBC and Other Stations)

On Sunday night, I watched figure skating.  Even though I’m not as into the Olympics this year as I’ve been in previous years, there’s still no way that I would miss figure skating, curling, yeti hunting, and that weird sport where they ski and shoot a rifle.

On Monday morning, I watched that very sport, with the skiing and the rifle shooting.  It still seemed like a strange sport to me but, as I watched, I also realized that it was probably the only Olympic event that James Bond would have enjoyed (and, by that, I mean Roger Moore’s joyful Bond as opposed to Daniel Craig’s whiny Bond) and I was happy about that.  Later, I watched some curling and I seriously think I could do well with that sport.  I know how to work a broom.

On Wednesday, I watched some skiing and that totally freaked me out, just because I’ve heard so many stories about people slamming into trees.  Agck!  Then, on Thursday, I watched a bit more curling and that definitely left me less freaked out than the skiing.  You can’t hurt anyone with a broom, unless you’re Jackie Chan in an 80s movie.

Saturday morning, I watched some figure skating, which I loved.  I also watched some ski jumping and I marveled at how fake the snow looked.  Apparently, they’ve been using fake snow for the Winter Olympics because it’s not actually that cold or snowy in Beijing.  That’s weird and strange and yet somehow appropriate for these uniquely uninspiring games.

WKRP In Cincinnati (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Radio DJ Johnny Fever got a job hosting a television dance show and sold out his soul to play disco music.  Fortunately, Johnny was able to vanquish his evil Rip Tide identity at the end of the episode.  At one point, Johnny’s TV boss said that she loved the 60s and would love to “get mellow and listen to the Dead” after the show and I was like, “Oh my God, they allowed people talk about weed on TV back then?”  You learn something new every day.

A Blast From The Past: Big Man On Campus (dir by Sid Davis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1963 educational short film, Big Man on Campus, tells the story of Jerry, a 13 year-old with the attitude of a 16 year-old.

Jerry thought he was the coolest kid at his middle school.  He thought throwing a milk carton was no big deal.  He thought not studying for his classes wasn’t the worst thing in the world.  He thought all of his classmates would like him if he rode his bicycle into traffic.  He thought starting fights was no biggie.  He thought everyone wanted to listen to another chorus of Grease Lightning.  He thought Sandy was just a summer fling and that having the Ramones play at the local high school wouldn’t be a big deal.  Jerry thought a lot of things.

Jerry was wrong.

Fortunately, the Vice Principal was there to set Jerry straight.  That’s right, the vice principal.  Jerry may thing he’s a big man on campus but he’s not even important enough to rate a meeting with the principal.  Instead, he has to make due with the guy who teaches Chemistry.  It takes a while for the vice principal to step out of his office but when he does, it’s obvious that the vice principal, with his navy haricut and his eyeglasses, isn’t going to stand for any nonconformity.  Most afternoons, the vice principal would be busy tracking down and tearing up flyers for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.  Instead, on this day in November of 1963, the vice principal is having to discipline Jerry.  Not only has Jerry caused a disruption at the school but he’s also allowed for the proliferation of pro-Castro propaganda.  Can Jerry be saved or is he destined to become a pinball wizard with his own holiday camp?

You probably already know the answer.  This educational film comes to us from Sid Davis, whose films were best known for their use of an extremely judgmental and rather dramatic narrator.  The Sid Davis narrators were the ones who wouldn’t only explain what had happened but who would also offer up questions like, “You never thought one little action could ruin your life and the lives of so many others, did you?”  That narrator is heard in Big Man on Campus but we also hear the voice of Jerry, trying to convince himself that his actions were no big deal and that everyone is totally overreacting.

Of course, deep down, Jerry knows that he’s no good.  He knows that his mother is setting him up for a life of crime by arguing that “boys will be boys.”  He knows that he’s destined to end up at juvenile hall and, after that, a life of unemployment.  He knows all of this but he needs the help of a seriously annoyed adult to help him truly understand it.  He needs the hard-earned, war-scarred, and apparently nearsighted wisdom of the vice principal.

Can Jerry be saved or is he destined to end up working a prop comic in Wichita Falls?  Watch and find out!

Game Review: Locked Door IV (2022, Cody Gaisser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Once again, you are in a white room, with  locked door that needs to be unlocked.  Actually, there are two this time.  There are other exits that are not locked and which lead to other areas that were not featured in the previous Locked Room games.  Search the warehouse.  Examine the garden.  Or talk to Bob, who is again standing in the room and holding a key that he won’t just hand over.

Safety in Numbers is the fourth Locked Room game.  Again, the aim is simple.  Give Bob something he wants.  Get that key.  Unlock that door.  Get your trophy.  But this time, there are more rooms to explore.  There are extra puzzles to be solved.  And there is a safe that needs to be opened.  Finding the combination for the safe should be easy.  Any experienced IF player will know where to look.  Using that combination to unlock the safe is much less easy.  As much as I appreciate what the Locked Door games are doing, the fourth entry leads to one of the most frustrating cases of “guess the verb” that I’ve ever come across.  Turn, set, spin, what the Hell am I supposed to do with this dial?

Play Locked Door IV and let know if you figure it out.

*Spoilers* Reacher, S1 Ep3, “Spoonful”, Review By Case Wright, (Dir: Stephen Surjik)

Posted on by casewright

We need to create a list of people in this show who don’t want to kill Jack Reacher. I can think of three people… Oscar, Roscoe, and maybe….Jasper. Jasper could snap. How many times can you dig testicles out of a dead man’s stomach before you go homicidal… twice… three times?! Not many more (see below).

Jasper desperately groping for his mental Happy Place.

We learn from BRIEF exposition that Jack’s estranged brother Joe was in the Secret Service and high up boss: Director of special investigations – anti-counterfeiting. Somehow Margrave is involved in counterfeiting?! What’s special about Reacher is that at its heart it’s a Whodunnit. It’s a mystery with so much action, but it’s a mystery show like if Sherlock Holmes traded in his opium for LOTS of freeweights. Jasper identifies the latest murder victim as a trucker who worked for Kliner. This trucker got into a jam and got a high priced lawyer somehow to get him out of it.

They develop a plan: Oscar will search a crooked prison guard’s home and Reacher goes to the lawyer posing as a prospective client. Both end with severe beatings. Oscar gets beaten and arrested by redneck cops who mistake him for a burglar and Reacher just plain beats up the lawyer until he gives up information. Obviously, they are planning on taking this case to court.

The next plan is to confront KIiner at his office. Why? This did not make sense, but it enabled Oscar to show some more emotions. With their hand tipped, EVERYONE has to go into quasi-hiding. This town really sucks. Roscoe has a run-in with the world’s most obvious sociopath- KJ- Kliner’s horrible kid. KJ tries to drive a wedge in Roscoe and Reacher’s relationship by accusing him of being a war criminal. We all hate KJ. Oscar goes to Atlanta to find some intel on Hubble the accountant. Hubble stopped coming to the Atlanta office for work a year ago. What was he doing? Well, money laundering. So…. Ok, I guess Oscar just really wanted to hangout in Atlanta. Yes, there’s a lot going on.

Reacher goes back to crooked prison guard’s bar to find him. He doesn’t, but he does get to beat the Hell out of several people. The crooked prison guard skipped town. Once again, Reacher is tailed by two South American Hitmen who try really really hard to kill him, but Reacher beats them to the punch and shoots them dead. Reacher discovers the crooked prison guard is dead in their trunk. I really need to get a body count on this show; we have to be edging into Total Recall territory.

This is a fun episode and it really forces all the heroes to understand that there will be no arrests. This is the wild west and it’s murder and vengeance every single day.

Music Video of the Day: Cocaine Blues by Alice Martin (2022, dir by Julian Bordeau)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To be honest, I originally just picked this video because I liked the name of the song and it reminded me of how, for one semester, I was friends with a guy in college who had a cocaine connection.  He was very popular during the fall semester but then he transferred to another college and he didn’t bother to tell anyone where he got his cocaine from before he left.  On the whole, that was probably a good thing since I don’t anyone in my social circle really needed a raging cocaine addiction but still, I often wonder if he realizes that, to this very day, his former group of friends still debate where he got his cocaine from.

Anyway, after I picked this video, I actually watched it and you know what?  I absolutely love it.  I love both the video and the song.  Alice Martin is a force of nature.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Grindhouse: C.C. and Company (dir by Seymour Robbie)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As our long-time readers know, I’ve seen my share of bad movies but it’s been a while since I’ve seen one as bad as 1970’s C.C. and Company.

C.C. and Company is about a drifter named C.C. Ryder (played by Joe Namath, who was a pro football quarterback at the time).  Ryder rides through the desert on his dorky motorcycle.  He doesn’t have a job.  He doesn’t have much money.  He does have a lot of hair and he also has a lot of teeth.  We know that because it’s rare that there’s ever moment when C.C. isn’t smiling.  C.C. is perhaps the most cheerful amateur criminal that I’ve ever seen.  Even when C.C. really shouldn’t be smiling, he’s smiling.  There are moments when people try to kill C.C. and he responds with a smile.  This could be a sign of C.C.’s devil-may-care-attitude but I think it has more to do with Joe Namath being a really bad actor.

C.C. is apparently a member of a motorcycle gang.  I say apparently because no one in the gang seems to like him and they’re constantly beating up on him.  The leader of the gang is Moon (William Smith) and among the members of the gang is an intimidating figure named Crow (Sid Haig).  Smith and Haig were both professional actors and genuine tough guys.  They not only knew how to act on camera but they also knew how to throw a punch without faking it.  Having them act opposite Namath doesn’t really accomplish much beyond emphasizing just how terrible an actor Namath was.  Even though Moon is a Mansonesque creep, you still find yourself rooting for him whenever he and C.C. get into a fight because Smith creates an actual character whereas Namath…. well, he doesn’t.  I sat through this entire film and never once did I find myself wondering what C.C.’s initials stood for.  That’s how uninterested I was in C.C.’s life.

Anyway, C.C. meets the wealthy and chic Ann McCalley (Ann-Margaret) after Ann’s limo breaks down in the middle of the desert.  C.C. not only fixes the limo but he also saves Ann from Crow and Lizard (Greg Mullaney).  It’s love at first sight but, unfortunately, Ann has places to go so she drives off and C.C. returns to the biker camp and watches as Moon sends his girlfriend, Pom Pom (Jennifer Billingsley), out to make money on the highway.  As I watched all of this, I found myself wondering how everyone else in the gang got stuck with names like Moon, Lizard, Crow, Rabbit, Pom Pom, and Zit-Zit (my favorite) but somehow C.C. was able to keep his innocent initials.  The movie never explained the ritual behind receiving motorcycle gang names and I think that was a missed opportunity.

Eventually, C.C. trades in his dorky motorcycle for a Kawasaki, largely because Kawasaki apparently paid the film’s producers a lot of money.  C.C. enters a race and wins.  Ann sees him win and falls even more in love with him.  C.C. gets into a fight with the gang and then he and Ann head to …. well, it looked a lot like Reno but honestly, who knows for sure?  Eventually, Moon and the gang track C.C. and Ann down and it all leads to one last fight.  We never do find out if the “company” of the title referred to Ann and her rich friends or Moon and the gang.  Not even C.C. seems to know for sure.

So, there’s a lot of reasons why C.C. and Company doesn’t really work but mostly it all comes down to the lead non-performance of Joe Namath as C.C.  There’s nothing tough or intimidating or rebellious about Namath.  C.C. is the biker you can bring home to meet your parents.  William Smith and Sid Haig are a lot more fun but they’re playing totally disreputable characters.  Namath and Ann-Margaret have zero romantic chemistry and the entire film has the look of a cheap made-for-TV movie.  Between C.C. and Company and Altamont, 1970 was not a good year to be a biker groupie.

That said, there is one good scene in C.C. and Company, where C.C. and Ann go out dancing.  While Joe Namath awkwardly shakes his shoulders while flashing that ever-present grin, Ann-Margaret dances as if the fate of the world depended upon her.  One year after the release of this movie, she would prove herself as dramatic actress and receive her first Oscar nomination for Carnal Knowledge.

Film Review: KIMI (dir by Steven Soderbergh)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

KIMI, the latest addition to Steven Soderbergh’s interesting but frustratingly inconsistent filmography, stars Zoe Kravitz as Angela Childs.  Angela is an agoraphobic tech worker who is living in Seattle during the COVID pandemic.  A sexual assault survivor, Angela spends her days and nights safely locked away in her apartment.  She works from home.  She always keeps her mask some place near.  Occasionally, she’ll have a video session with her therapist.  Her mom calls and scolds her for not going outside.  She exchanges texts and occasionally more with Terry Hughes (Byron Bowers), an attorney who lives across the street.

And, she’s watched by Kevin (Devin Ratray).  Kevin also lives across the street and, throughout the film, he’s occasionally seen watching her from his top floor apartment.  It’s creepy but it’s not surprising.  KIMI is a film in which everyone is being watched by someone else.  Sometimes, they realize it and often they don’t.  Welcome to the Surveillance State, where privacy is the ultimate illusion.

Angela works for the Amygdala Corporation.  Under the leadership of CEO Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGuado), Amygdala has created KIMI, the virtual assistant that is superior to Alexa because all of KIMI’s errors are corrected not by a pre-programmed algorithm but instead by human workers who are constantly listening to KIMI’s data stream and correcting errors.  Angela is one of those engineers.  Usually, her job consists of programming KIMIs to play individual Taylor Swift songs as opposed to building Taylor Swift playlists.  When one owner calls KIMI a peckerwood, Angela programs the KIMI to understand that peckerwood is an “insult; vulgar.”  However, one data stream contains the sounds of what Angela believes to be a sexual assault and a subsequent murder.

Uniquely, for a film like this, Angela’s struggle is not to get people to believe that she heard what she heard.  Instead, her struggle is to get the evidence to the people who need to hear it for themselves.  Angela is terrified of leaving her apartment and, once she finally does, the outside world confirms all of her fears.  KIMI is a film about paranoia, a portrait of a world where everyone can be tracked and no one — from Angela’s too-helpful boss (Rita Wilson) to the man who casually walks by with an umbrella — can be trusted.

As I’ve said in the past, Steven Soderbergh has always been hit and miss for me.  It’s remarkable how many Soderbergh films that I love but it’s equally remarkable just how many Soderbergh films I absolutely loathe.  At his best, he can be a clever stylist and, at his worst, he can be painfully pretentious.  And yet, regardless of anything else, you do have to respect Soderbergh’s willingness to experiment with different genres and styles.  Soderbergh never stops working, despite the fact that he announced his retirement years ago.  Despite getting off to a slow start, KIMI is one of Soderbergh’s more entertaining thrillers, one that does a great job creating an atmosphere of paranoia and one that is also blessed with excellent performances from Zoe Kravitz and Rita Wilson, who makes good use of her limited screen time.  KIMI is a well-made Hitchcockian thriller and, along with No Sudden Move, it’s a return to form for Soderbergh after the two terrible movies that he made with Meryl Streep, The Laundromat and Let Them All Talk.  Yes, Soderbergh can be inconsistent but when he’s good …. he’s very, very good.  (Sometimes, he’s even brilliant.)  Narratively, KIMI may be a relatively simple film by Soderbergh standards but it’s undeniably effective.

Along with being a portrait of our paranoid age, KIMI is very much a pandemic thriller.  Angela mentions that her relationship with Terry started during the lockdowns, a time when no one found it strange that someone would be unwilling to leave their apartment.  When Angela does finally step out of her apartment, she is, of course, fully masked up and her paranoia about being followed severs as a metaphor for the paranoia that many people felt (and continue to feel) during the pandemic.  KIMI is not the first pandemic thriller and it certainly won’t be the last.  Still, what’s interesting to me that the pandemic subtext will probably be more noticeable to those who lived in states with mask mandates and aggressively regulated lockdowns than it will be for those of us who live in states that never had mandates and which, for lack of a better term, re-opened last year.  Half the people viewing KIMI will nod in recognition as Angela grabs her mask before walking up to her front door and as she quickly dashes down the street, careful not get too close to anyone else.  The other half will feel as if they’re watching some sort of dystopian science fiction film.  It all depends on where you’ve lived for the past two years.

Artwork of the Day: Men (by James Elliott Bama)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

by James Elliott Bama

Hey, guys, there are other people in the water.  Just look behind you for a second.  The blonde has been saved but I don’t think things are going to go as well for the two other people in the water.

This cover is from 1959.  The magazine is called Men, which I think is funny.  (Real men save the blonde and leave everyone else to drown.)  The cover was done by James Elliott Bama.

Music Video of the Day: Let Somebody Go by Coldplay and Selena Gomez (2022, dir by Dave Meyers)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, the goodbye hug.  The tearful break-up.  The understanding farewell.  The moment when you watch someone walk away and it becomes clear that the two of you will probably never see each other again.  We’ve all been through that type of pain and, more often than not, when we remember the moment, we remember it as being in black-and-white.  Selena Gomez was the perfect choice for this song, bringing truthful sadness and emotion to the lyrics.  

This video was directed by Dave Meyers.  Dave Meyers has directed a lot of videos.  How many Dave Meyers videos have we shared on this site?  I don’t know, I’ve lost track.  Whatever it is that it takes to make someone into a good music video director, Dave Meyers definitely has it.  This, of course, is actually the second video for this song.  The first video has a sort of sci-fi feel to it.  I prefer Meyers’s more emotional approach.

Remember when Selena Gomez shows up in The Big Short and explained how some sort of stock market concept worked.  And some old lady said, “I like Selena Gomez, I’ll invest in whatever she’s investing in.”  That was a weird scene and I have to admit that I still have no idea how the stock market works.

I usually don’t follow or comment on celebrity gossip because I find it to be tacky but I was happy when Chris Martin divorced Gwyneth Paltrow.  I was concerned that she was using all of his Coldplay money to invest in making candles.  I will admit that I kind of pictured the “Dinner Party” episode of The Office whenever I imagined what it was like to visit Chris and Gwyneth.  “Hey, babe? How about we take the beer sign down until our guests leave and then we can discuss it.”

Anyway, enjoy!

We had that kind of love
I thought that it would never end
Oh, my lover, oh, my other, oh, my friend
We talked around in circles and
We talked around and then
I loved you to the moon and back again
You gave everything this golden glow
Now turn off all the stars ’cause this I know
That it hurts like so
To let somebody go
All the storms we weathered
Everything that we went through
Now, without you, what on earth am I to do?
When I called the mathematicians and I ask them to explain
They said love is only equal to the pain
And when everything was going wrong
You could turn my sorrow into song
Oh, it hurts like so
To let somebody go
To let somebody go
Oh-oh (oh-oh)
Oh-oh
(Let somebody, let somebody go) yeah
Oh, oh-oh (oh), when you love somebody (oh)
When you love somebody (oh)
Got to let somebody know
Oh, oh-oh (oh), when you love somebody (oh)
When you love somebody (oh)
Got to let somebody know
So, when you love somebody
When you love somebody
Then it hurts like so
To let somebody go
It hurts like so
To let somebody go
But you’re still with me, now I know
(Let somebody, let somebody go)
Oh-oh (let somebody, let somebody go)
But you’re still with me, now I know