Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 2/19/24 — 2/25/24


I’m happy and feeling better as my week at the Lake comes to a close.  In the end, I guess I just needed to rest a little.

Here’s what I watched and listened to this week:

Films I Watched:

  1. Along Came A Spider (2001)
  2. Always A Winner (2023)
  3. Black Box (2020)
  4. The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970)
  5. Experience The Rainbow (1978)
  6. Get Christie Love! (1974)
  7. The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972)
  8. Money Plane (2020)
  9. Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)
  10. Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws (1978)
  11. Smokey Bites The Dust (1981)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Abbott Elementary
  2. American Idol
  3. Bubblegum Crisis
  4. Check it Out!
  5. CHiPs
  6. Degrassi Junior High
  7. Dr. Phil
  8. Friday the 13th: The Series
  9. Highway to Heaven
  10. In The Lion’s Den
  11. Lauren Lake’s Paternity Court
  12. Law & Order
  13. The Love Boat
  14. Maury
  15. Miami Vice
  16. Monsters
  17. Night Flight
  18. T and T
  19. The Vanishing Shadow
  20. Welcome Back Kotter

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Adi Ulmansky
  2. Britney Spears
  3. Charli XCX
  4. The Chemical Brothers
  5. Ellie Goulding
  6. Fatboy Slim
  7. Jennifer Love Hewitt
  8. Icona Pop
  9. Kedr Livanskiy
  10. Kid Rock
  11. Lynard Skynard
  12. Moby
  13. Muse
  14. Rita Ora
  15. Saint Motel
  16. Selena Gomez
  17. Tiesto
  18. Trobar de Morte

Live Tweets:

  1. Smokey Bites the Dust
  2. Along Came A Spider
  3. Sinbad of the Seven Seas
  4. Black Box

Awards Season:

  1. SAG Awards

News From Last Week:

  1. Actor Ewen McIntosh, Who Played Keith On The Original Office, Dies
  2. Dancer Robin Widsor Dies At 44
  3. Actress Pamela Salem Dies At 80
  4. Choreographer Steve Paxton Dies At 85
  5. Actor Paul D’Amato Dies
  6. Actor Kenneth Mitchell Dies At 49
  7. Actor Chris Gauthier Dies At 48
  8. Actor Stuart Organ Dies At 72
  9. Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion on Hold After Seeing OpenAI’s Sora: “Jobs Are Going to Be Lost”
  10. Box Office: Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ Jams Past $120M Globally, ‘Madame Web’ and ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ Spin Out

Links From Last Week:

  1. Can’t These Privileged White People Feel Compassion for Israelis Murdered by Hamas?
  2. Central Park’s Snowy Polar Bears! Beautiful Snow Sculptures Raising Awareness For Wildlife!
  3. Tater’s Week in Review 2/23/24
  4. Lord of Abundance

Links From The Site:

  1. Leonard shared the trailer for Borderlands!
  2. Jeff reviewed Woman They Almost Lynched, Smokey Bites The Dust, and Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws!
  3. Jeff paid tribute to Sam Peckinpah!
  4. Jeff shared music videos from Nirvana, Ozzy Osbourne, and George Harrison!
  5. Erin shared Sexplosion, For Your Signs Only, To Catch A Spy, Ladies of the Dark, The Ring A Ding UFOs, The Chic Chick Spy, and The Miss From SIS!
  6. I reviewed Degrassi Junior High, Miami Vice, CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Baywatch Nights, The Love Boat, Monsters, In The Lion’s Den, Highway to Heaven, T and T, Friday the 13th, Welcome Back Kotter, and Check it Out!
  7. I reviewed Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Believers, Payback, Lockdown 2025, No Way Out, Reality, Chappaquiddick, The Brotherhood of the Bell, The Judge and Jake Wyler, and Always a Winner!
  8. I shared music videos from Trobar de Morte, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Adi Ulmansky, and Kedr Livankiy!
  9. I shared a song from Paint Your Wagon!
  10. I shared my week in television!
  11. I shared scenes from Point Blank, In The Heat of the Night, Money Plane, Dune, Mixed Blood, and City of the Living Dead!
  12. I paid tribute to John Frankenheimer, Warren Harding, Robert Altman, Luis Bunuel, Terence Fisher, and Neil Jordan!

More From Us:

  1. At her photography site, Erin shared Showing Off, Three In A RowNo Swimming, Swim At Your Own Risk, All The Colors of The Day, Troll Face, and Tree!
  2. At my music site, I shared songs from Adi Ulmansky, Charli XCX, Selena Gomez, Fatboy Slim, Tiesto, Rita Ora, and Ellie Goulding!

Check out last week by clicking here!

February Positivity: Always A Winner (dir by Dave Christiano)


In this 2023 film, teenage golf champion Emily (Evangeline Griffin) transfers from one private Christian academy to another.  At her new school, the golf coach, Coach Kelly (Jenn Cooke), tells her two best players, Madison (Amelia Still) and Hannah (Ashley Brant), to befriend Emily and gauge whether or not she plans on continuing to play golf in high school.

When they approach Emily in the school’s cafeteria, they are shocked when Emily says that she’s a pretty good golf player and she plans to be state champion again.  They are scandalized when Emily mentions that she broke all of Coach Kelly’s old records at her previous school.  They are stunned when Emily suggests that she’s a better golfer than Coach Kelly ever was.

“Are you a Christian?” Madison asks.

Yes, this is another one of those films.  This is another Dave Christiano-directed film in which high school athletics (in this case, golf) are used as a metaphor for faith.  Emily may say she’s a Christian but first she’s going to have to learn that being a Christian means always doing what your coach tells you to do (even if that means hitting with a seven when you’d rather use your nine) and, of course, being a humble winner and a gracious loser.  As Coach Kelly explains it, Emily could be the best player in the world but God might have plans for her that don’t include winning the state championship.  To me, that’s an odd way to look at things.  I mean, if God is the one who is deciding who is going to win the tournament, why waste all that time with practicing your swing and learning how to putt?  It takes Emily a while to listen to Coach Kelly so we end up with a lot of scenes of Madison and Hannah sucking up to the coach while Emily rolls her eyes in the background.  One wonders if Christiano realized that Madison and Hannah are both the type of people who everyone hated in school, the snitches who followed the rules and called out anyone who didn’t.  Emily may be arrogant but at least she seems like she gets some sort of enjoyment out of winning.  At least she acts like a human being as opposed to a Sim, waiting to be told what to do.

Meanwhile, Madison is freaking out over whether or not she’ll be able to afford to attend Zion College.  She has applied for all of the scholarships and she’s been working part-time and saving her money and her father is willing to contribute a little as well but Madison is still short $5,000.  Madison suggests that she could take out a student loan but her mother says, “No, your father doesn’t want you borrowing any money.”

On the one hand, that’s good advice.

On the other hand, Madison’s the one who is paying for most of her tuition so shouldn’t she be the one to decide whether or not to apply for a student loan?  I mean, Madison is going to be a legal adult by the time she starts college.  And it’s not like Dad is helping out all that much so who cares what he thinks?  Still, Madison’s mother tells her that it might just be God’s plan for Madison to go to a community college.  And again, with all due respect, you have to wonder if we’re supposed to take comfort in the idea of a God who micromanages ever aspect of our lives.

Finally, Hannah learns that a friend is pregnant and thinking about getting an abortion.  Hannah tells her friend that she can’t get an abortion because the Bible says, “Do unto others.”  As Hannah explains it, how would her friend feel if she had been aborted?  Her friend takes Hannah’s words to heart and tells her father that she’s pregnant.  This leads to a montage of her father yelling at her but we don’t hear what he’s saying because a very mid Christian rock is playing over the soundtrack.  Everything works out in the end, of course.  Speaking as someone who has never been comfortable with the extremes of either side of the abortion debate , this whole scene really irked me, as it was very heavy-handed and poorly written.  It’s easy to win an argument when the other side isn’t allowed to present its case.  Just because pro-abortion writers tend to caricature pro-life arguments, that still doesn’t make it any less strident when pro-life writers do the same thing to the other side.

In the end, everything works out.  Emily learns to be humble.  Madison goes to college.  Hannah is hopefully prepared to babysit.  The film ends with one golfer getting disqualified for making a technical mistake, just for Emily to beg that the rules be suspended so that the other golfer can get the trophy she’s earned.  Amazingly, the rules are suspended which really isn’t the way rules are supposed to work.  Apparently, the message is that God’s rules cannot be broken but UIL’s rules are fair game.

14 Days of Paranoia #10: The Brotherhood of the Bell (dir by Paul Wendkos)


First aired on television in 1970, The Brotherhood of the Bell tells the story of Andrew Patterson (Glenn Ford).

Andrew Patterson is a widely respected economics professor.  He is an influential academic, one who has a nice house, a beautiful wife (Rosemary Forsyth), and a father-in-law (Maurice Evans) who owns a very successful business.  Patterson is also a member the Brotherhood of the Bell, a secret society made up of successful men who all graduated from the prestigious College of St. George in San Francisco.  Patterson has been a member of the society for 22 years and he’s never really taken it that seriously.  He thinks of it as just being a collection of influential men who enjoy getting together and discussing their vision for the world.

That all changes when the man who brought Andrew to the Society, Chad Harmon (Dean Jagger), gives Andrew an assignment.  The Society wants him to deliver an envelope to his friend, Dr. Konstantin Horvathy (Eduard Franz).  Horvathy is up for a deanship that another member of the Society desires for himself.  Inside the envelope is damaging information that the Society has gathered about the people who helped Horvathy defect to the United States, information that will be made public unless Horvathy withdraws as a candidate.  Reluctantly, Andrew shows Horvathy the envelope.  Horvathy responds by committing suicide.

Stricken with guilt, Andrew decides to expose the existence of the Society but he discovers that won’t be easy.  Almost overnight, Andrew’s perfect life starts to collapse.  He loses his job.  The IRS launches an investigation of his father (Will Geer).  As Chad explains it, the Society is responsible for everything that Andrew has and, therefore, the Society can take everything away.  When Andrew goes public, he’s dismissed as just being paranoid and soon, Andrew truly is paranoid.  With his marriage in ruins, Andrew goes on a talk show and can only watch helplessly as his claims are dismissed by the host (William Conrad) and as the audience argues about whether or not the Society is a white plot, a communist plot, a Jewish plot, a Catholic plot, or a government plot.  Even the people who believe Andrew are too busy fighting amongst themselves to provide any help for him or to stand up to the unified power of the Brotherhood.  The host repeatedly rings a bell during the show, the better to mock everyone’s fears.  The film makes a good point.  Crazed theorists are often a conspiracy’s best friend.

An intelligently written and well-acted film, The Brotherhood of the Bell‘s main strength is the direction of Paul Wendkos.  The lighting gets darker and the camera angles become increasingly more skewed as Andrew’s paranoia grows.  In fact, Wendkos does such a good job of visualizing Andrew’s deteriorating mental state that it’s easy to wonder if maybe everyone is right and all of this really is just happening in Andrew’s head.  Though the film ends on a slightly triumphant note, it’s hard not to feel that it’s a temporary victory at best.  The Brotherhood of the Bell (which I imagine was based on Yales’s Skull and Crossbones) will always be there.

14 Days of Paranoia:

  1. Fast Money (1996)
  2. Deep Throat II (1974)
  3. The Passover Plot (1976)
  4. The Believers (1987)
  5. Payback (1999)
  6. Lockdown 2025 (2021)
  7. No Way Out (1987)
  8. Reality (2023)
  9. Chappaquiddick (2017)

Retro Television Review: The Judge and Jake Wyler (dir by David Lowell Rich)


Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1972’s The Judge and Jake Wyler!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

Judge Meredith (Bette Davis) is a retired criminal court judge who has developed a severe case of hypochondria.  She lives in a mansion that she never leaves.  Anyone who comes to see her must be personally vacuumed by her butler before they can be allowed to stand in her presence.  She hates people who take too long to get to the point and she also has little use for people who are rude on the phone.  She especially dislikes cigarettes and refuses to have even an unlit one in her presence.

Jake Wyler (Doug McClure) is an ex-con who is currently on supervised probation.  Despite his criminal past, he’s a likable and amiable guy and, every morning, he wakes up with a new woman in his bed.  Jake enjoys tweaking authority and he always has a pack of cigarettes on him somewhere.

Together, they solve crimes!

They actually do!  The judge is dealing with retirement by running her own detective agency, one that is exclusively staffed by people that she previously sentenced to prison.  Jake does most of the leg work as far as the agency is concerned.  The Judge calls him every morning and demands to know why he’s not working harder.  Jake would rather just sleep-in but working for the judge is a part of his parole.  She could easily send him and everyone else working for her back to prison.  This sounds like a pretty unfair situation to me and the Judge is so demanding that I think it could be argued that she’s an abusive boss.  But, because this is a pilot for a TV show and the Judge is played by Bette Davis, everyone is very loyal to her.

At the start of the film, Jake reveals to Robert Dodd (Kent Smith) that his wife, Caroline (Lisabeth Hush), has been cheating on him with Frank Morrison (Gary Conway).  When Robert is later found dead in a hospital room, the official verdict is that he committed suicide.  However, his daughter, Alicia (Joan Van Ark), claims that her father was murdered.  At first, both Jake and the Judge suspect that Alicia just wants to collect a bigger life insurance settlement but it turns out that Dodd’s beneficiary wasn’t even Alicia.  The money is going to his second wife, the one who was cheating on him.  While the Judge yells at people on the phone, Jake investigates the death of Robert Dodd.

The Judge and Jake Wyler is a mix of comedy and mystery.  Jake has a way with a quip and the majority of the suspects, including John Randolph and Eric Braeden, all have their own eccentricities.  Director David Lowell Rich does a good job of keeping the action moving and the mystery itself is actually pretty interesting.  Surprisingly, the show’s only real flaw is Bette Davis, who seems to be rather bored in the role of Judge Meredith.  Even though the character seems to have been specifically written for her trademark caustic line delivery, Davis delivers her lines with little enthusiasm.  One gets the feeling that she wasn’t particularly happy about the idea of having to do a television pilot.

Davis need not have worried.  The Judge and Jake Wyler did not turn into a series.  That said, the movie is an entertaining and diverting murder mystery.

Scenes That I Love: Christopher George In City of the Living Dead


Today, we celebrate what would have been the 93rd birthday of the rugged American actor Christopher George.

George may have gotten his start in westerns and war movies but he is best remembered for a series of horror films in which he appeared in the late 70s and early 80s.  One of the best of those was Lucio Fulci’s 1980 classic, City of the Living Dead.

In today’s scene that I love, Christopher George plays a reporter who realizes that psychic Catriona MacColl has been buried alive.  He digs her up.  Of course, this is a Fulci film, so things nearly go terribly wrong.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Neil Jordan Edition


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!

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Irish director Neil Jordan!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Neil Jordan Films

The Company of Wolves (1984, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Bryan Loftus)

Interview With A Vampire (1994, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Philippe Rousselot)

The Butcher Boy (1998, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Adrian Biddle)

In Dreams (1999, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Darius Khondji)

Oppenheimer Blows Up The SAG Awards!


The SAG Awards were handed out last night (and televised on Netflix) and there should no longer be any doubt that Oppenheimer is going to have a very good night at the Oscars

Here are the winners!

(And cograts to Pedora Pascal for finally breaking the tyranny of Brian Cox.)

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE
American Fiction
Barbie
The Color Purple
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Annette Bening – Nyad
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Margot Robbie – Barbie
Emma Stone – Poor Things

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Colman Domingo – Rustin
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
Penelope Cruz – Ferrari
Jodie Foster – Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Willem Dafoe – Poor Things
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie

OUTSTANDING ACTION PERFORMANCE BY A STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
John Wick: Chapter 4
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION MOVIE OR LIMITED SERIES
Matt Bomer – Fellow Travelers
Jon Hamm – Fargo
David Oyelowo – Lawmen: Bass Reeves
Tony Shalhoub – Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie
Steven Yeun – Beef

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION MOVIE OR LIMITED SERIES
Uzo Aduba – Painkiller
Kathryn Hahn – Tiny Beautiful Things
Brie Larson – Lessons in Chemistry
Bell Powley – A Small Light
Ali Wong – Beef

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE IN A COMEDY SERIES
Abbott Elementary
Barry
The Bear
Only Murders in the Building
Ted Lasso

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Brett Goldstein – Ted Lasso
Bill Hader – Barry
Ebon Moss-Bachrach – The Bear
Jason Sudeikis – Ted Lasso
Jeremy Allen White – The Bear

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alex Borstein – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Rachel Brosnahan – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Quinta Brunson – Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri – The Bear
Hannah Waddingham – Ted Lasso

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE IN A DRAMA SERIES
The Crown
The Gilded Age
The Last of Us
The Morning Show
Succession

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Brian Cox – Succession
Billy Crudup – The Morning Show
Kieran Culkin – Succession
Matthew Macfadyen – Succession
Pedro Pascal – The Last of Us

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Jennifer Aniston – The Morning Show
Elizabeth Debicki – The Crown
Bella Ramsey – The Last of Us
Keri Russell – The Diplomat
Sarah Snook – Succession

OUTSTANDING ACTION PERFORMANCE BY A STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A DRAMA OR COMEDY SERIES
Ahsoka
Barry
Beef
The Last of Us
The Mandalorian

Music Video of the Day: When We Was Fab by George Harrison (1988, directed by Godley & Creme)


George Harrison would have been 81 years old today.  Sadly, he was taken from us at far too young an age.  It only seems appropriate to honor him with today’s music video of the day.

When We Was Fab, which appeared on Harrison’s album Cloud Nine, was one of the many songs that the surviving Beatles wrote about their time as members of the world’s greatest band.  For the music video, Ringo Starr made an appearance, as did old Harrison friends like Elton John and Jeff Lynne.  It has been rumored that Paul Simon also appears in the video but directors Godley & Creme have both denied that Simon was present during filming.  Godley & Creme were known for their technically innovative music videos and I remember that the effects in When We Was Fab, as simple as they seem today, were considered to be ground-breaking when the video was first released.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check it Out! 1.19 “My Darling Serpentine”


Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Cobb’s descends into chaos!

Episode 1.19 “My Darling Serpentine”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on February 19th, 1986)

Last week, Edna left Howard after an argument and Howard had an affair with her replacement.  It was implied that Edna leaving Howard was a frequent occurrence and that Howard was the least romantic man alive.

This episode, Edna and Howard are once again totally in love and Howard is so romantic that Edna can even brag about all of the presents that he’s given her over the years.

Continuity, what is it?

This year, Howard is busy at the store so he makes the mistake of sending Alf the security guard out to pick up a piece of jewelry for Edna.  Alf, however, gets distracted while walking by a pet store and instead, he returns to the store with a hamster.  Edna freaks out about the idea of owning a rodent and instead, she gives it to Murray.  The hamster then escapes into the store, which isn’t good since there’s a health inspector in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, it’s prom night for Murray and he needs a date.  Not surprisingly, he asks supercool Marlene to be his date.  Also not surprisingly, Marlene laughs in his face.  However, after thinking about how she never got to go to her prom because she dropped out of school, Marlene changes her mind.  Murray is super-excited until Christian and Alf suggest that Marlene is going to take his virginity.  When Marlene shows up in the break room in her prom dress and a blue wig, Murray freaks out.

Murray runs away and disappears into the store.  Now, everyone not only has to look for the hamster but also for Murray.

This episode is a bit frantic but it made me laugh.  A lot of that was because Gordon Clapp made his third appearance on the show, playing the cheerfully dumb Viker.  Previously, Viker was the store’s electrician.  In this episode, he’s suddenly a pest control expert.  In order to track down the hamster, he released a snake into the store.  In order to track down the snake, he releases a mongoose.  “I’m glad I don’t shop here,” Viker says.  Gordon Clapp delivers all of Viker’s lines with such sincerity that his brief appearance elevates the entire episode.

In the end, thinks work out.  The snake is caught when it attacks Howard.  Marlene forgives Murray and they head off to prom.  The hamster runs off with Marlene’s blue wig.  And Edna is surprisingly forgiving about Howard telling the security guard to buy her an anniversary present.  As for the mongoose …. well, I’m sure it found a good place to live.  The important thing is that this episode made me laugh more than the typical episode of Check It Out!  I enjoyed it.