Monthly Archives: November 2023

Music Video of the Day: When We Were Young (The Logical Song) by David Guetta and Kim Petras (2023, dir by Hannah Lux Davis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Needless to say, there is nothing that will make you feel older than realizing that you’re entire house has been flood and you didn’t even notice because you were too busy singing.

I am definitely not feeling young right now, though I guess I still am.  Seriously, I’ve spent most of November in a daze.  Maybe this song will help me wake up!

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.8 “Shadow Boxer”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode is a creepy one!  Read on!

Episode 1.8 “Shadow Boxer”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on November 21st, 1987)

Tommy Dunn (David Ferry) is a punch drunk boxer who barely makes a living working at a local gym.  No one takes him seriously.  The other boxers taunt him.  The owner of the gym treats him like a slave and continually tells him that he’ll never be a champion.  However, Tommy has a secret weapon.  He’s found an old pair of boxer gloves.  The gloves used to belong to a savage boxer known as the Killer.  When Tommy puts the gloves on and touches his shadow, his shadow comes to life.  While Tommy is throwing punches either in the gym or in the ring, his shadow is beating someone else to death.  As long as his shadow is beating someone up, Tommy is unstoppable.

After Tommy’s shadow murders the owner of the gym, Micki, Ryan, and Jack show up to investigate.  (The gloves were, of course, bought from Curious Goods.)  Micki brings her camera and takes pictures of all of the boxers so that Ryan and Jack can later look to see if any of them are wearing the “Killer” gloves.  It doesn’t take them long to discover that Tommy is currently in possession of the gloves.  When Micki flirts with Tommy at a diner, Ryan and Jack break into his apartment and search for the gloves.  This leads to three things happening.  First off, Micki has a really awkward date with a murderer.  Secondly, Ryan and Jack fail to find the gloves before Tommy returns.  Third, Tommy now knows that Ryan, Jack, and Micki are onto him.

During his next fight, Tommy sends his shadow after Jack but fortunately, Micki is waiting with a flashlight.  Shining light on the shadow causes it to disappear and it also causes Tommy to get beaten unconscious in the boxing ring.  With Tommy temporarily out of commission, Ryan steals the gloves.  Tommy can no longer use the gloves to kill but, as Micki bitterly points out, Tommy will also never be prosecuted for all the people that he killed.

Of course, Tommy then shows up at Curious Goods and tries to force Micki to tell him where the gloves are.  Ryan puts on the gloves and proceeds to beat up Jack, which leads to Ryan’s shadow beating Tommy to death.  Jack isn’t particularly happy about getting beaten up but it does save Micki’s life.

This was a well-done episode.  There weren’t many twists to the story but the sight of Tommy’s shadow following people around was undeniably creepy.  The shadow was probably the scariest of all of the threats that have appeared on the show so far.  Even when the shadow was saving Micki’s life by beating Tommy to death, it was still scary to watch.  When Ryan hit Jack, it was left ambiguous as to whether or not he was trying to save Micki’s life or if the evil of the cursed gloves had briefly possessed him.

The only unfortunate thing about this episode is that it led to me going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of researching boxers who have died in the ring.  Boxing is a brutal sport, whether you’re fighting with cursed gloves or not!

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.6 “A Secret No More”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get muddy!

Episode 2.6 “A Secret No More”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 7th, 1988)

“On this episode….”

No, sorry, Mr. T does not utter those words at the start of this week’s episode of T and T.  Starting with the second season, the show did away with the practice of Mr. T introducing each episode.  It’s a shame because that was always one of the best parts of every episode.  I especially would have liked to have heard how Mr. T would have introduced this episode, which features a lot of mud wrestling.  “On this episode, Amy and I explore the world of mud wrestling and everyone gets dirty.”

This week’s episode find Amy and T.S. hired by an insurance company after a Canadian Senator named Sam Smale (Leon Pownall) is apparently killed by a car bomb.  If the insurance company can prove that the car bomb was planted by gangsters instead of terrorists, the company can get out of paying any money to the senator’s wife.  Wait?  What?  How does that work?  Is that really something that would be put into an insurance policy?  I guess the idea is that terrorists would be targeting Sen. Smale because of his job while gangsters would be targeting Sen. Smale because he was corrupt.  I don’t know.  It’s weird.

Sen. Smale was frequently seen hanging out at Toronto’s busiest mud wrestling club.  The club is owned by the Granger Brothers, Charlie (Michael Copeman) and Red (Ric Sarabia).  (“Those are two bad brothers,” T.S. says.)  A review of the senator’s assets reveals that he was nearly broke.  (“Senator business must be bad,” T.S. says.)  Could Sam Smale have gotten into debt with the loan-sharking Granger brothers?

T.S. heads over to the club, where he meets the newest mud wrestler, K.C. Morgan (special guest star Vanity).  K.C., however, is no ordinary mud wrestler.  Instead, she’s a reporter working undercover and she’s uncovered evidence that the Senator was doing business with the Grangers!  Needless to say, this leads to Amy, K.C., and T.S. all getting into a fight with the Grangers in the mud pit.  It also leads to Senator Smale suddenly showing up and revealing that he faked his death and was planning on running off with the insurance money.  T.S. promptly punches the senator and the corrupt politician ends up in the mud pit.  Later, at the gym, T.S. talks about how silly Amy looked covered in mud and K.C. goes out on a date with T.S.’s best friend, Decker.  (We learn, from K.C., that Decker’s first name is actually Danforth.)  And that’s the end of that!

This episode packed quite a bit into 22 minutes.  In fact, it was all a bit too rushed.  This is one of those episodes that would have benefitted from an hour’s running time.  I have to admit that I laughed out loud when the supposedly dead senator suddenly showed up with a gun on his hand, just because it was such an out-of-nowhere yet kind of lovable plot development.  This was a totally ridiculous episode but that’s what made it fun.  T and T is at its best when it embraces its own absurdity.

Next week, T.S. battles a crack dealer.

“On this episode, Amy and I attack the whack….”

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For Disturbing Behavior!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1998’s Disturbing Behavior!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Disturbing Behavior is available on Prime!  See you there!

Music Video of the Day: Cosmic Slop by Funkadelic (1973, dir by George Clinton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Supposedly, LSD was consumed before this video was shot in Central Park and Times Square.

This was one of the few singles to be released by Funkadelic.  Though it stalled at 103 on the charts when it was first released, it’s still went on to become a live-performance favorite and one of the group’s most enduring songs.  Cosmic Slop was written by George Clinton and Bernie Worrell and it’s actually meant to be the prayer of a mother who will do anything to take care of her children.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 1.9 “Catch A Falling Star”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the highway leads to Hollywood!

Episode 1.9 “Catch a Falling Star”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on Nov. 14, 1984)

In this rather slight episode, Daniel Davis plays movie star Lance Gaylord.  Lance is both producing and starring in a western and he’s so dedicated to the film that he rarely sees his two children, Brock (Bobby Jacoby) and Karen (Emily Moultrie).  His son has been acting out and Lance thinks that it’s just because the kid is a brat and he’s upset about his parents getting divorced.  The truth, of course, is that Brock just wants his father’s attention.

Jonathan and Mark show up on the set of Lance’s movie and explain that they’ve been sent over by the Darwin Agency.  (An angel who works for the Darwin Agency?  Take that, secular humanism!)  Lance tells Jonathan and Mark to keep an eye on his kids while he’s shooting his movie.

The problem is an obvious one.  How can Jonathan get Lance to spend more time with his children, especially his angry son?  Well, maybe the child star who is appearing in the movie could come down with the chicken pox.  And then, maybe with Jonathan’s encouragement, Brock could try out for the role.  At first, Lance angrily says that he will not even allow his son to audition but when Brock runs away from home and Jonathan yells at him for not being there for his son, Lance realizes the errors of his ways.  When Brock returns home, he gets his audition and he gets the role.  He also finally gets to go fishing with his dad.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is how little actually happens.  It really doesn’t take much for Lance to see the errors of his ways.  He just needs Jonathan to yell at him for a minute or two.  The whole thing epitomizes the feel-good blandness that the show was known for.  In the end, Lance isn’t a bad father.  He just needed to be reminded to do what was right.  Myself, I’m more concerned with the fact that Lance’s film looks way too old-fashioned to be a hit, even in the 80s.  As soon as I saw Lance dressed up like a cowboy, I thought to myself, “Oh, this movie is going to be such a flop that careers are going to end.”  Hopefully, Lance is keeping productions costs down or he might never work in Hollywood again.

This episode’s big scene actually doesn’t have anything to do with Lance or his children.  Instead, it comes when Jonathan and Mark go to a grocery store and end up getting confronted by a junkie (Dennis A. Pratt) with a gun.  With the junkie attempts to shoot Jonathan, Jonathan snatches the bullet out of the air.  At the police drag him away, the junkie shouts that he’s never going to drugs again.  Obviously, Jonathan and Mark were changing lives everywhere!

Next week, Jonathan and Mark help out on another film set!

Retro Television Reviews: Jennifer Slept Here 1.8 “Rebel With a Cause”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Jennifer Slept Here, which aired on NBC in 1983 and 1984.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Jennifer learns karate and Joey is tempted to the dark side.

Episode 1.8 “Rebel With a Cause”

(Dir by John Bowab, originally aired on December 16th, 1983)

Poor Joey!

Jennifer has decided to learn karate.  Why a ghost would need to learn karate, I do not know.  However, while showing off her newly learned moves to Joey, Jennifer kicks his bed and causes it to collapse.  Mr. Eliot rushes into the room and, because he can’t see Jennifer, he assumes that Joey must have been jumping up and down on his bed despite the fact that Joey is a teenager in high school.  Joey’s allowance will go to buying a new bed!

The next day, at school, Joey makes the mistake of asking out the girlfriend of the school’s biggest bully.  Fortunately, Jennifer materializes just in time to beat up the school bully.  Again, because no one can see Jennifer, everyone assumes that Joey beat up the bully.  The bully’s gang decides to make Joey their new leader.

At first, Joey is reluctant.  But when people at school start to act like they’re scared of him and start to do favors for him, the power goes to Joey’s head.  Soon, Joey is wearing a leather jacket and trying to be tough.  Jennifer points out that this isn’t who Joey is and, deep down, Joey knows that.  When the entire gang shows up at Joey’s house, Jennifer suddenly materializes and pretends to be Joey’s biker girlfriend which somehow scares the gang off.

This is a confusing episode, largely due to the fact that the show has never clearly established just what exactly Jennifer can and can’t do as a ghost.  In some episodes, like this one, she can materialize and be seen by others.  In other episodes, it’s been suggested that only Joey will ever be able to see her.  In just the previous episode, Jennifer had the power to possess other people but, in this episode, she doesn’t even use that power despite the fact that it would have gotten both her and Joey out of a lot of trouble.  (If Jennifer has possessed Joey and then beat up the bully, it would have certainly made more sense than everyone assuming Joey beat up the bully despite the fact that Joey would standing several feet away while Jennifer put the guy in his place.)  And, again, why would Jennifer learn karate in the first place?  Who is teaching her?  When did she learn?  Jennifer mentions that she’s met a lot of bikers in the afterlife but when was that?  As far as I can tell, Jennifer spends all of her time harassing Joey at the house.

Even if you ignore all of the inconsistencies with Jennifer, you have to wonder why, in the year 1983, Joey is going to a school that is apparently controlled by a 1950s street gang.  Seriously, this gang of bullies is even less intimidating than a community theater production of Grease.

It was sweet that Jennifer was so concerned about Joey and, as usual, Ann Jillian brought a lot of heart to the role but this episode just didn’t make any sense.