Yesterday, I shared the first music video for Madness’s first single, The Prince, which was just the band performing the song on Top of the Pops in 1979. That video didn’t have Madness’s signature nuttiness so, over 40 years later, the band released a new, official video for the song.
This video is made up for footage that was taken from 1981 Madness film, Take It or Leave It and it features the band in the studio, on stage, and generally having a good time. The film was directed by Dave Robinson, who was the president of Stiff Records and who directed all of Madness’s early music videos.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!
This is such a weird episode.
Episode 1.8 “Green Thumb Burglar”
(Dir by Christian I. Nyby II, originally aired on November 10th, 1977)
This week’s episode is an odd one, largely because it all hinges on the usually uptight Sgt. Getraer suddenly revealing himself to be a fanatic about plants.
When Ponch and Baker roll up to headquarters while on their motorcycles, Getraer is so busy talking to some potted plants that he has set up outside the station that he almost forgets to yell at Ponch. Getraer is really into taking care of plants and he’s not happy to learn that there is a criminal gang lurking on the highways and stealing plants. Getraer says that he’s upset because of how much taxpayer money is being wasted due to the thievery but it’s pretty obvious that Getraer is actually taking the robberies personally as a plant lover.
Baker suggests that maybe the plants are being stolen by people who are disguised as city employees. To me, that seems like a pretty obvious possibility but both Ponch and Getraer are amazed by Baker’s suggestion. Crooks disguising themselves so that they can commit a crime without anyone calling the police on them? Seriously, who would have guessed!? Both Ponch and Getraer are so impressed that they each initially take credit for Baker’s idea. Baker is quick to let everyone know that he’s the one that figured out the extremely obvious way that the criminals were operating.
And have no fear! The Green Thumb Bandits are caught by the end of the show. In fact, they are captured as soon as Baker comes up with his extremely obvious idea. As is typical of CHiPs, the episode focuses on the cops pursuing the crooks and, as a result, we don’t really learn much about the crooks. Personally, I would like to know how they came up with the ideas to steal plants.
This is a weird episode, even beyond Getraer’s obsession with plants. At one point, Ponch and Baker pull over a guy wearing a fuzzy, yellow monster costume. “It’s PuffnStuff!” Ponch exclaims. A quick Google search revealed to me that PuffnStuff was apparently a children’s show character in the 70s. Ponch is really excited to see him but I have to wonder if the actor who played PuffnStuff would actually wear the costume while driving. PuffnStuff does say that he’s heading to a photo shoot but still, why not put the costume on when he arrives?
(Baker, for his part, does not own a TV and has no idea who PuffnStuff is.)
Finally, Ponch and Baker pull over two middle-aged twins for running a stop sign. The twins explain that they are the world-famous Tidwell Twins and that they can see the future. After Ponch laughs at their claim, one of the twins explains that Ponch will have four bad things happen to him. One will involve a sharp object. One will involve an authority figure. One will involve a fire. (Agck!) One will involve a romantic disaster. By the end of the episode, Ponch will have cut his hand on a can of beans, gotten yelled at by Getraer, gotten covered in fire-extinguishing foam, and dumped by his latest girlfriend. Ponch has the worst luck but at least he got to meet PuffnStuff!
This was a weird episode. As always, the California scenery was nice to look at and the motorcycles were cool. But the plot was just all over the place. At least Robert Pine got to do something other than just yell at Ponch. He seems to be having fun portraying Getraer’s plant-obsessed gentle side.
Next week …. Ponch takes up bowling? That’s what the plot description says. Maybe meeting PuffnStuff inspired Ponch to follow his bowling dreams. We’ll find out soon!
The saga of the world’s most boring and tedious couple finally comes to an end in After Everything.
When last we checked in on Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), they were probably both wondering how they ended up with the type of names that most people would expect to find attached to fake profiles on a dating app. Tessa had also just left Hardin, upset that he used the details of their relationship to write his first novel, After.
After Everything opens with best-selling, voice-of-his-whiny-generation Hardin being pressured to come up with a follow-up novel but he has writer’s block because Tessa won’t even return his texts. As he explains it, he’s lost his muse and he can’t write anything without her. (Maybe he should send her some of the money that he made off of her life story then.) Despondent, Hardin starts drinking again. This would be a big plot point if not for the fact that, in every After film, the alcoholic Hardin starts drinking again. Hardin has gotten sober and given up his sobriety so many times that, at this point, it’s more about being indecisive than anything else. Either be a drunk or don’t be a drunk but make up your freaking mind.
Hardin does what any struggling writer would do when confronted with writer’s block. He goes to Portugal and reunites with a woman whose life he ruined. Natalie (Mimi Keene) had a scholarship and a promising future until Hardin filmed himself having sex with her in order to win a bet. When Hardin’s friends made the film public, Natalie was humiliated, she lost her scholarship, and she spent years mired in depression before she escaped to Portugal. In a plot twist that is not only dumb but also rather offensive, she’s surprisingly forgiving of Hardin when he shows up in Lisbon. Sure, he took her virginity to win a bet and sent a video to all of his friends without her consent but hey, Hardin’s had a rough life as the privileged child of two wealthy people who give him everything that he wants. Natalie’s life may have been ruined, the film tells us, but Hardin has recently spent a few weeks feeling bad about it so they’re even. Natalie introduces him to all of her friends. (It doesn’t take long because Natalie only has two.) Everyone is really impressed to discover that Hardin wrote After.
“I hear they’re making a movie!” one friend says.
“Harry Styles should play you!” the other friend shouts, a reference to the fact that the whole damned After franchise started as Harry Styles fan fiction.
(It’s a moment so awkwardly executed and so self-congratulatory that it reminded me of the moment in the second film when the author of the original book made a cameo appearance. “What do you write?” she was asked. “Oh,” she replied, smirking directly at the camera, “this and that.” I threw a shoe at my TV but, fortunately, I have terrible aim.)
If Natalie forgiving Hardin isn’t bad enough, Hardin also decides to write a book about the time that he ruined her life, a book that he cleverly entitles Before. You really do have to wonder if Hardin has ever met anyone that he didn’t end up exploiting in some terrible way. Having learned his lesson with Tessa, Hardin allows Natalie to read the book before sending it off to the publisher. Natalie happily gives her consent for it to be published because what girl wouldn’t want the guy who sexually humiliated her to use the memories of that humiliation as a way to make money for himself?
As you may have noticed, Tessa is not present for the majority of After Everything, though she does appear in several flashbacks to the earlier films. She shows up briefly at the beginning and then the end of the film and there’s a point about halfway through the film where she wakes up and discovers that Hardin has sent her a weepy text. When Hardin gives his best man speech at his half-brother’s wedding reception and, as usual, makes it all about himself, there’s a shot of Tessa looking moved. But, for the most part, this installment is all about Hardin thinking about the past and saying stuff like, “I’m trying to be a better person.” Of course, we do still get the franchise’s signature overheated but discreetly-shot sex scenes, though one of them is just Hardin having a dream about a flight attendant while most of the rest are just flashbacks.
(This film has so many flashbacks to the previous films that it’s hard not to notice that the franchise’s makeup artists could never quite remember the exact locations of all of Hardin’s tattoos.)
Unfortunately, Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s bland performance as Hardin has always been one of After’s biggest problems so basing an entire movie around his petulant screen presence was perhaps not the best way to go. We are continually told that Hardin Scott is the most exciting writer in the world but there’s nothing about Tiffin’s performance that suggests that Hardin can even think in complete sentences, let alone write them down. Hardin spends a lot of time whining and a lot of time drinking and there comes a point where you just want someone to say, “You’re a twenty-something alcoholic who is still bitching about stuff that most people get over when they’re 16. Grow up.” Unfortunately, no one does say that. However, about 52 minutes into the film, Hardin totally gets his ass kicked by some beach bullies. That was emotionally satisfying to watch.
In the end, Hardin and Tessa are reunited. After five movies, Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin still do not have a shred of romantic chemistry. It’s nice that Hardin and Tessa worked everything out but I would still dread getting stuck in a conversation with either one of them.
Apparently, this is the last of the After films and that’s probably for the best. At this point, I think the only place left to go would be After Life, with Tessa and Hardin boring everyone in Purgatory with their story about how they first bonded over their shared love of an obscure novel called The Great Gatsby. Writing this review, I was shocked to discover that this franchise is only 4 years old. Seriously, I thought had been suffering for at least ten years because of these two.
A series of murders have occurred at Harrison State Prison in California. What better way to investigate the crimes and catch the guilty than to send in an undercover cop? Who can enter a California prison and investigate the crime without drawing too much attention to himself? It would have to be someone who could blend in with the population without seeming out of place.
How about Jean-Claude Van Damme?
Van Damme, in one of his early films, stars as Louis Burke, a Canadian with a Belgian accent who comes to Los Angeles to track down a serial killer known as the Sandman (Patrick Kilpatrick, who was last seen running for governor of California in 2021) and then just sticks around. Burke enters the prison and somehow, he is not immediately tagged as being a B-movie star who is working for the police. I guess California prisons are full of Belgian kickboxers.
A realistic portrait of prison and police work, this is not. But it is Van Damme at his most berserk, flexing his muscles and shouting at his enemies and getting hit in the head by a flying wrench at one point. To the surprise of no one, the Sandman eventually ends up in the prison with Burke and it leads to an epic showdown that takes place in the middle of a prison riot. The fight is exciting because Van Damme and Kilpatrick were two tough actors who, at that point in their careers, had nothing to lose by going all out on screen.
(Of the three major B-action stars of the 90s, Dolph Lundgren was the one you watched because he could actually act. Steven Seagal was the one you watched because you hoped someone would beat him up. Jean-Claude Van Damme was the one you watched because he could actually do everything he did in the movies in real life as well.)
There are many good actors to be found in Death Warrant, playing paper-thin characters. Robert Guillaume is the one-eyed clerk who takes Burke under his wing. Larry Hankin is the biggest weasel in the prison. Art LaFleuer is the prison guard from Hell. George Dickerson is the obviously corrupt official. Abdul Salaam El-Razzac is the voodoo priest who watches over the prison. Cynthia Gibb is the attorney who pays Burke a conjugal visit. It’s good to see them all.
Death Warrant is a dumb and entertaining B-movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not Van Damme’s best but it’s not his worst either. It’s Damme fun.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
This week, Pam Grier and John Turturro show up in Miami!
Episode 1.16 “Rites of Passage”
(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on February 8th, 1985)
This week’s episode of Miami Vice opens with a 5-minute mini-movie. Before we even get to the opening credits, we have watched as young and innocent Diane Gordon (Terry Ferman) arrives in Miami from New York, takes her first walk on a Florida beach, has a “chance” meeting with a smooth-talking guy named Lile (David Thornton), and ends up at a party being held at a mansion belonging to David Traynor (a young John Turturro). Traynor tells Diane that he runs a modeling agency and that he would love to put her under contract.
It’s a stylish and rather brave opening. For five minutes, we don’t see or even hear about any of the regular characters. Instead, we’re introduced to world where image is everything, from the bodies on the beach to Traynor’s art deco mansion to the beautiful women who have been paid for by considerably less attractive men. In those five minutes, Diane wins our sympathy and we also see how she (and so many others) have fallen into the trap set by the David Traynors of the world. For those five minutes, we are reminded that this is a show about more than Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. It’s about more than even Miami. This is a show about America.
After the opening credits, we watch as the police retrieve the body of one of Traynor’s girls from a lagoon. She committed suicide. In the crowd watching is Diane’s sister, Valerie (played by the legendary Pam Grier). Valerie is a New York cop. When she goes to the Vice Squad to ask for Castillio’s help in searching for her sister, we learn that she is also Tubbs’s former (and soon current) lover.
In many ways, the rest of this episode is traditional Miami Vice. Zito and Switek provide some comic relief when they disguise themselves as exterminators and invade one of Traynor’s parties. Crockett and Tubbs once again go undercover as Burnett and Cooper, infiltrating Traynor’s mansion so that they can rescue Diane. Diane has been so brainwashed by Traynor and Lile that, even after she’s been reunited with her sister, she still can’t bring herself to admit that Traynor was using her. She calls Traynor and tells him that she’s decided to go back to New York City. In a montage that is rather creepily scored to Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is, scenes of Valerie and Tubbs making love are mixed with scenes of Lile giving Diane an intentional drug overdose.
Technically, this is a Tubbs episode. For once, of the two main detectives, Tubbs is the one who has a personal reason for wanting to take Traynor down while it falls to Crockett to deal with Castillo’s withering stare of concern. That said, Rites of Passage is Pam Grier’s show all the way. From the minute that Grier shows up, she controls every scene in which she appears. Just as in Coffy, Grier plays an avenging angel. This episode ends, as Miami Vice often did, with a shoot out but this time, it’s Grier who guns down Lile and Traynor. “Read me my rights,” Valerie says to Crockett as the episode ends.
Again, the storyline may have been typical Vice but the performance of Pam Grier and the stylish direction of David Anspaugh elevated the episode. This episode presents Miami as being beautiful but heartless, a place where innocents come to pursue the American dream but instead find themselves being used and abused by sleazy but wealthy men. (At one point, it is mentioned that Traynor specializes in finding women for diplomats, meaning that most of his clients have diplomatic immunity.) Traynor’s mansion is a brilliant combination of the sleek and the tacky and Turturro plays Traynor as being a not particularly clever man who has gotten rich because he understands that everyone ultimately driven by the same desire for power and pleasure without consequences.
Next week …. it’s another Tubbs episode! Can Tubbs defuse a hostage situation, despite not having an ex-lover around to help him? We’ll find out!
The latest addition to the quasi-franchise that started with 2020’s Top Gunner, 2023’s Top Gunner: America vs Russia takes place in the near future.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has led to a stalemate. When the United States starts to take a more active role in defending Ukraine and arming the dissidents in Russia, it leads to a coup in Russia. President Vasiliev (Alex Veadow) wants to bring about a new era of peace but, when he’s assassinated, the new president of Russia, the evil Borovsk (Pavel Kuzin), accuses the United States of being behind the murder and declares war on the U.S.A. Soon, Russian jets are invading the airspace of Washington D.C. and blowing up the Washington Monument. (The White House gets hit by a bomb as well but, fortunately, it’s not a very impressive bomb.) Borovsk is such a fanatic that he is even prepared to launch his country’s nuclear arsenal against America. Such an action would, of course, lead to the end of the world.
Fortunately, America is not just going to roll over and accept defeat. (Or, at least, it’s not going to accept defeat in the movies. In the real world, it seems to be a different story.) America has fighter pilots, like Footloose (Andrew Rogers) and Firefly (Kayla Fields), who are dedicated to defending the nation. America has a super-secret new jet than can even fly into deep space so it can fire missiles at a Russian satellite. America has got CIA operatives like Veronica Vachs (Simone Posey) operating in Moscow. America has got a Vice President (Gary Poux) who believes in the country’s destiny. And, perhaps most importantly of all, America has got Eric Roberts.
Eric Roberts also appeared in the first Top Gunner, though he was playing a different character in that film. In Top Gunner, Eric Roberts was a flight instructor. In Top Gunner: America vs Russia, Eric Roberts is …. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
As President Jeremiah Stewart, Eric Roberts gives orders and refuses to be pushed around and always puts America first. When he hears that Washington D.C. might soon be attacked, he doesn’t show a hint of fear. He doesn’t run off to a bunker. He doesn’t whine about not being popular. He doesn’t desert America’s allies. Seriously, he’s one of the best president that I’ve ever seen and I would certainly vote for Jeremiah Stewart in 2024 before I even considered casting a ballot for any of the other jokers that are running. Just by casting Eric Roberts as the President, Top Gunner: America vs Russia wins the war. When Roberts says that he doesn’t care what the official protocol is, you believe him. I bet when he’s not fighting the Russians, President Stewart is working to repeal the 16th Amendment. (That’s the one about income tax.) Seriously, I want to see this guy on Mt. Rushmore.
Anyway, this is a typical Asylum film. The special effects are cheap but it seems like everyone had fun working on the film and it’s hard not get swept up in the silliness of it all. I mean, at one point, a fighter plane literally flies into space without a bit of concern for stuff like oxygen or heat shields or anything else. It’s so shamelessly absurd that it feels rather churlish to nitpick. Most importantly, it’s a movie about how America kicks ass and, in these troubled times, who can’t appreciate that? I mean, how could we not kick ass with Eric Roberts leading us?
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
Traditionally, as far as pop culture goes, January doesn’t get much respect. If a studio has a film that they knew isn’t going to be a hit with critics or audiences, January is where they usually dump it. The same can often be said of publishers. Everyone is so busy getting caught up on what they missed during the last few months of the previous year, chances are that they won’t notice a few bombs dropped on the cultural landscape. That’s the theory anyways.
But, you know me! I’m an optimist. And I remain convinced that, even in January, there are things to which we can look forward, And here’s six of those things!
(Why six? Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers.)
The Iowa Caucus
That’s right! It’s an election year! And the first contest of 2024, the Iowa Presidential Caucus, is just two weeks away! Remember how much fun we all had in 2020 when the Democrats couldn’t figure out who had actually won their caucus? Who knows what fun this year has in store for us! The Iowa Caucus will be held on January 15th.
(Okay, this may seem like a lame thing to look forward to but it’s January and beggars can’t be choosers.)
2. The Sundance Film Festival
While the 2023 race waits to be determined, the 2024 Oscar Race will begin at the Sundance Film Festival! It seems like, every year, there is at least one Sundance Film that makes it into the Best Picture lineup. In 2023, Past Lives and Magazine Dreams were huge hits at Sundance and now, it looks like Past Lives has a great chance of being nominated for Best Picture. As for Magazine Dreams ….. well, yeah. Which contenders will come out of this year’s festival? We’ll find out when Sundance opens on January 18th.
3. I.S.S. — This film, about strange happenings on the International Space Station, is set to be released on January 19th. I always enjoy a good mix of horror and science fiction. Plus, once this film comes out, maybe YouTube will stop trying to make me watch the trailer.
4. Mean Girls — The Mean Girls musical will be released in theaters on January 12th. I’m not really sure that we need a new version of the film when the original holds up perfectly well but whatever. Originally, this was going to go straight to Paramount Plus but it was decided to give the film a theatrical release instead. Normally, that would be a sign of huge confidence if not for the fact that it was given a January release.
5. The Bricklayer — For those of us wondering whatever happened to Renny Harlin, he’s got a new film set to be released on January 5th. Hey, that’s this week!
6. The Oscar Nominations — The nominations will be announced on January 23rd and I’ve got a lot of movies that I still need to watch! So I better get to it!
4 Shots From 4 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.
Happy New Year’s Day! Did you have as wonderful a celebration as the characters featured in today’s special edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films?
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Poseidon Adventure (1972, dir by Ronald Neame, DP: Harold E. Stine)
The Godfather Part II (1974, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Gordon Willis)
New Year’s Evil (1980, dir by Emmett Alston, DP: Edward Thomas)
Strange Days (1995, dir by Kathryn Bigelow, DP: Matthew F. Leonetti)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)
Change comes with a new year. That’s just an inevitable fact of life. Sometimes, it’s good chance and sometimes, it’s bad change and sometimes, it’s change that is both good and bad. That’s certainly the case with today’s scene that I love.
In Serigo Leone’s 1984 masterpiece, Once Upon A Time In America, 1933 brings with it the end of prohibition. While the nation celebrates the right to once again legally drink, gangsters like the ones played by James Woods and Robert De Niro mourn the loss of their business and try to figure out a new way to pay their bills.
In this scene, Prohibition — that law that was hated by so many — is given a send-off by the people that it made very rich.
Through the Shattered Lens 