by Erin Nicole
I took this one at Huffines Park. There were actually many turtles around but this one was definitely the star.
Artwork of the Day: Turtle
Monthly Archives: September 2022
Music Video of the Day: Arnold Layne by Pink Floyd (1967, directed by Derek Nice)
Pink Floyd released their first single and their first video in 1967. This video for Arnold Layne was filmed in February of 1967 on a beach in West Sussex. I can only guess how cold it must have been while they were filming.
The video, which features the band and a bunch of mannequins, shows that Pink Floyd had a surreal spirit from the beginning. This video is also unique because all of the members of the band seem to be happy to be with each other for once. This was filmed before Syd Barrett’s breakdown and long before Roger Waters and David Gilmour started suing each other.
Enjoy!
Retro Television Review: City Guys 1.7 “Red Ferrari” and 1.8 “Rock the Vote”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
Last week, I reviewed two episode of City Guys that actually weren’t that bad. Let’s see if that trend continued! But first….
How smart and streetwise are these neat guys? Let’s find out!
Episode 1.7 “Red Ferrari”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 18th, 1997)
Two weeks ago, I mentioned that TNBC was notorious for showing the episodes of their shows out-of-order and that certainly seems to be the case with City Guys.
In Red Ferrari, Chris and Jamal are once again antagonistic acquaintances, as opposed to the best friends that were just one episode ago. Chris is once again angry with his parents, despite coming to a new understanding with his father in the previous episode. El-Train is again the school bully, despite trying to turn over a new leaf two episodes ago. As well, Jamal drops by Chris’s apartment for what appears to be the first time, despite the fact that we already saw him spending several days there during the second episode. Obviously, one doesn’t necessarily watch a show like this with the expectation of a great deal of effort being made to maintain some sort of continuity. But seriously, the City Boys timeline is messy enough to be distracting.
Anyway, this episode finds both Chris and Jamal in a whiny mood. Jamal is whiny because he’s poor and no one wants to go on a second date with him. Chris is whiny because he’s rich and his parents have apparently forgotten about his birthday. With his parents going out of town, Chris decides to get revenge by throwing a huge party and (shades of Ferris Bueller) driving his father’s prized red Ferrari.
Can you guess what happens? If you said that it was the same thing that happened on Saved By The Bell when Zach drove a car that he shouldn’t have been driving, you’re right! The car gets side-swiped. Chris and Jamal have to figure out how to get the car fix before Chris’s parents come home. Of course, Chris’s parents come home early anyway. They didn’t forget his birthday. They just wanted to surprise him! And it turns out that the Ferrari is Chris’s birthday present!
Anyway, Chris and Jamal confess what happened. Chris’s parents get into an argument over whether Mr. Anderson could stand to lose a few pounds. (He looks pretty good for a guy in his 40s.) Jamal asks Chris if his parents are always like that. “They’re on good behavior because of my birthday,” Chris says and the episode ends, leaving us to consider the Hell of Chris Anderson’s everyday life.
Ugh. That’s kind of depressing. I’m not sure anything was learned from this episode so let’s move on.
Episode 1.8 “Rock the Vote”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 25th, 1997)
Ugh. It’s a student council election episode!
Yes, every TNBC show — from Saved By The Bell to this one — had a handful of shows that revolved around an absurdly powerful student council. In City Guys, Dawn and Cassidy are running for student council present. Jamal manages Dawn’s campaign. Chis manages Cassidy’s campaign. Dawn is too focused on the issues. Cassidy is too focused on fluff. School bully El-Train is so offended by their shallow campaigns that he runs for student body president, using the fact that he’s been in high school for nearly six years as the basis of his campaign. This episode ends on a weird note, in that we don’t actually learn who won the election. So, hey …. thanks for watching!
As usual Steven Daniel transcended the material as El-Train but, otherwise, this episode was ruined by the fact that it was about a student council election and no one in their right mind should take any of that crap seriously. The only show that correct portrayed the student council were the early seasons of Degrassi, in which the council mostly planned dances and got caught up in pretty drama that no one else cared about.
Well, these two episodes of City Guys were pretty disappointing. Hopefully, next week will be better for the neat guys!
A Blast From The Past: Ben Affleck For Diet Coke
In the year 2001, Ben Affleck wasn’t only Matt Damon’s best friend. He was also a commercial spokesman!
For instance, he narrated this creepy commercial for Diet Coke. Oddly enough, he doesn’t say anything about Diet Coke but he does say a lot about his wife’s underwear and then, eventually, the underwear that he saw in “the hamper as a kid.” Wait, what? Weirdo.
I actually get what this commercial is attempting. Diet Coke is a soft drink for real people and real people get married and eventually stop having sex. But do real people tell complete strangers about it? Of course, they do now but this commercial was before social media.
This is from the same ad campaign that featured Renee Zellweger watching her neighbor take a shower and sing. (I shared that commercial last week.) Since we didn’t see Renee’s face in that previous commercial and since we don’t see Ben’s face in this one, I like to think that this commercial is a sequel to the previous one. Renee eventually married the guy across the street and then started wearing cotton underwear. And I assume that the guy stopped singing.
Wow, this was a depressing world that Diet Coke created.
Artwork of the Day: Expect Everything
by Erin Nicole
This billboard used to stand outside of Mockingbird Station. I’ve always liked the contrast between the beach and the apartments behind it.
Music Video of the Day: 68 Guns by The Alarm (1983, directed by ????)
In a video that switches from black-and-white to color, the members of The Alarm are chased through London by the police. Not surprisingly, both this song and the video were inspired by a book that the lead singer of the Alarm read about street gangs in Glasgow.
68 Guns would go on to become The Alarm’s highest-charting song in the UK, reaching the 17th position. In the U.S., the song reached number #39 on the Hot Mainstream Rocks chart. This was the band’s first song to appear on the charts in either nation.
Enjoy!
Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.3 “Ex Plus Y / Golden Agers / Graham and Kelly”
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!
Love! Was it exciting and new this week?
Episode 1.3 “Ex Plus Y / Golden Agers / Graham and Kelly”
(Directed by Adam Rafkin and Stuart Margolin, originally aired on October 8th, 1977)
The third episode of The Love Boat is all about age differences, growing together, and growing apart.
For instance, it’s love at first sight when Julie spots Jim Wright (Charles Frank). I mean, hey, his name is even “Mr. Wright!” And it turns out that, even though he looks like he’s 40, Mr. Wright is actually only 30! And he likes Julie too! The problem, however, is that Jim has been hired to serve as a tour guide for a group of elderly tourists. And those tourists (led by Edward Andrews) simply will not leave Mr. Wright alone! Every time Mr. Wright tries to spend some time alone with Julie, the old people show up. Obviously, the show means for us to sympathize with Julie and Jim but I think I’m actually on the side of the old people as far as this is concerned. I mean, they didn’t pay money so that Jim could have a vacation. They paid Jim to be their tour guide and, unless he’s going to refund their money, that’s what he needs to concentrate on. He and Julie can fall in love once Jim is off the clock.
While Julie pursues Jim, 12 year-olds Kelly (Kristy McNichol) and Graham (a very young Scott Baio) pursue their own romance. Or actually, it’s Kelly who pursues the romance. Graham likes Kelly but he’s also immature and not sure how to talk to girls so he always ends up doing or saying something silly or stupid whenever he and Kelly are on the verge of having a “real” moment. On the one hand, this was actually a fairly realistic storyline, at least by Love Boat standards. On the other hand, Baio and McNichol looked so much alike that any scene featuring the two of them was like that picture of the two Spider-Men pointing at each other. Graham also ended up with a very convoluted backstory to explain why he was traveling with a British grandmother (played by Hermoine Baddeley) despite being a kid from Brooklyn. It was one of those overly complicated and distracting things that could have been solved by simply not casting a British stage actress as Baio’s grandmother or not casting a very American actor as Baddeley’s grandson.
Finally, Robert Reed and Loretta Swit played a divorced couple who found themselves on the same cruise. At first, they dreaded seeing each other but then, eventually, they agreed that they still had feelings for each other. Surprisingly enough, the story did not end with Reed and Swit getting back together. Instead, they just grew as people and were now ready to let go of the bitterness that was holding them back in their new relationships. That was actually a pretty good story and I appreciated the realistic resolution. However, before making peace with his ex-wife, Robert Reed came across as being so angry and so bitter that it was actually kind of scary to watch. It turns out that the Love Boat has skeet shooting. If you don’t think the sight of Robert “Mr. Brady” Reed with a rifle wouldn’t be terrifying, this episode is here to prove you wrong!
I have to give this episode a mixed review. Two of the stories worked better than I was expecting but this episode suffered from the miscasting of some of the passengers. Still, the ship and the ocean looked as lovely as ever and really, that’s the important thing.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Stephen King Edition
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!
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Mr. Stephen King!
In others words, it’s time for….
4 Shots from 4 Stephen King Films
Creepshow (1982, dir by George Romero, written by Stephen King, DP: Michael Gornick)
Maximum Overdrive (1986, dir by Stephen King, written by Stephen King, DP: Armando Nannuzzi)
Sleepwalkers (1992, dir by Mick Garris, written by Stephen King, DP: Rodney Charters)
The Stand (1994, dir by Mick Garris, written by Stephen King, DP: Edward J. Pei)
Scenes That I Love: Bill Murray in Zombieland
He’s not a zombie!
He’s Bill Murray!
And today is Bill Murray’s birthday so it seems like a good time to share a scene that I love. In this scene from 2009’s Zombieland, Bill Murray proves that not even the zombie apocalypse can stop the Murraycane.
(Unfortunately, Bill comes to a tragic end in Zombieland but at least he gets to enjoy himself for a while.)
Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells!
Today is the 156th anniversary of the birth of British author H.G. Wells!
It’s a bit of a tradition around these parts to celebrate H.G. Wells’s birthday with the help of another Welles, in this case Orson. Here is the infamous 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. This is the program that became famous for terrorizing America. Of course, there’s always been some suggestions that the reports of panic were a bit exaggerated. That’s always possible. Orson Welles was, at heart, a showman and he knew how to tell and embellish a story. That said, it is also known for fact that enough people took the show seriously that the panic made the front page of the New York Times.
The first half of the show is an early example of what would become known as the found footage genre. It was the first mockumentary! The second half features Welles narrating the events after the invasion. During the second half, the news program angle is dropped and it becomes a traditional radio broadcast. One would hope that even panicked listeners would have taken the hint but who knows? They may have been too busy loading up their shotguns and heading outside to search for Martians to have been paying attention at that point.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 