Monthly Archives: February 2024

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Degrassi Junior High 2.7 “Bottled Up”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, Kathleen gets her moment in the spotlight!

Episode 2.7 “Bottled Up”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on February 15th, 1988)

At the start of this week’s episode of Degrassi Junior High, Kathleen (Rebecca Haines) comes home from school all excited.  She has been named to Degrassi’s academic team and will be appearing on Canada’s number one academic game show, Quest For The Best!

Unfortunately, her mother (played by Sheila Brogren, the real-life mother of Stefan Brogren, who played Snake) is too drunk and incoherent to congratulate her.  And Kathleen’s father is away on business.  When Kathleen talks to him on the phone, it becomes obvious that he spends a lot of time away from home, leaving Kathleen alone with her alcoholic mother.

The next day, at school, Kathleen meets with the other members of the academic team so that they can practice for their upcoming appearance.  (Of course, Caitlin’s a member of the team because Caitlin was a member of every non-criminal group at Degrassi.)  Ms. Avery hands them a VHS tape (because it’s the 80s) of Quest For The Best‘s previous episode so that they can check out their competition.  The only problem is that Degrassi Junior High only has one VCR (seriously, Canada?) and it’s broken.  Caitlin has a VCR at her home but she explains that her family also has company over.  (I’m not sure why that would matter but whatever.  Caitlin’s perfect family was always hosting a political dissident or two.)  Who else has a VCR?  Hey, how about Kathleen!?  Apparently, her family just got a new VCR and everyone at school knows this because Kathleen made the mistake of bragging about it.

Kathleen says that her mother is sick.  Caitlin insists that Kathleen let them use her VCR.  In other words, Caitlin won’t let the team use her VCR because her family has company but she has no problem with going over to Kathleen’s house and bothering her mother, despite the fact that Kathleen has basically made it sound as if the woman is on the verge of death.

Reluctantly, Kathleen allows everyone to come over to her house but she asks that everyone try to be quiet while watching the tape.  But, as quiet as everyone tries to be, Kathleen’s mom still comes downstairs with a glass of booze.  Kathleen is mortified while everyone else quickly leaves.

The next day, at school, Caitlin asks Rick what she should do about Kathleen’s alcoholic mom.  Rick, quite sensibly, points out that it’s not Caitlin’s place to do anything.  When Caitlin ignores Rick’s advice and tries to talk to Kathleen about it, Kathleen tells her to leave her alone and I am totally on Kathleen’s side here.  Caitlin may mean well but she has no idea what Kathleen is going through.

On the day of filming, Kathleen is stunned to discover that she forgot to bring her Degrassi Junior High sweater to the taping.  She desperately calls her mom and asks her to bring the sweater from home.  Her mother agrees and then passes out drunk.  Kathleen goes to the taping and stares at the empty chair that was reserved for her mom.  Luckily, Rick is at the taping and he hands Kathleen his sweater.  Awwwww!

Largely thanks to Kathleen, Degrassi Junior High defeats Liberman High.  Yay!  But — oh no!  Kathleen’s mother has still not shown up and night has fallen.  Kathleen starts to walk home, just for Rick to join her.  (Rick was going to spend time with his Caitlin, his sometimes girlfriend, but again, she has company at home.)  Rick is the one who ends up talking to Kathleen about her mother, explaining that he has similar issues with his father.

At home, Kathleen confronts her drunk mom about missing the taping and gets smacked as a result.

The next day, at school, Caitlin again tries to talk to Kathleen about her mother but when Kathleen says she doesn’t want to talk about it, Caitlin gets an attitude and says she doesn’t care anymore.  Rick then walks into the classroom and Kathleen makes it a point to thank him for his advice.  She says she’s going to call social services for help with her mom.  In the episode’s best moment, Kathleen thanks Rick for walking her home.  Caitlin suddenly turns around in her seat.  “You walked her home?”

Way to go, Kathleen!  Seriously, in the past, Kathleen has usually been the least likable character on Degrassi but, after seeing how judgmental and self-righteous Caitlin can be, there’s something deeply satisfying about Kathleen finally one-upping her.  Add to that, Kathleen and Rick make for a surprisingly well-matched couple.  I totally hope Rick dumps Caitlin for Kathleen.

On a serious note, this episode was an example of what Degrassi did so well.  It took a character like Kathleen, who has been such an antagonist in all of her other appearances, and it showed that she was human just like everyone else.  Kathleen’s constant bragging and her own judgmental style was shown to be her way of dealing with having a truly terrible situation at home.  With this episode, Degrassi Junior High not only dealt with the pain of having an alcoholic parent but also reminded its audience that we’re all human.  Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I guess I should mention the B-plot.  Scooter and his friend Max (Joshua Whitehead) want to be cool so they follow Rick around.  When they discover Rick smokes, Max gets a pack of cigarettes and they give smoking a try.  They end up coughing a lot.  It was kind of silly, to be honest.  But I did find it interesting that Rick could both inspire Kathleen to get help for her mother and Scooter to start smoking.  Rick’s a powerful guy.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 2/12/24 — 2/18/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!

Well, after three weeks of sickness, pain, and injury, I am finally feeling better.  My sprained ankle is healing up nicely and I’m up and walking again, even if I am limping a little.  This upcoming week, Jeff and I will be doing all of the romantic stuff that we were originally planning on doing this week.  (It’s hard to be romantic when you’re spending almost all day on the couch and crying because you turned your foot the wrong way during your ankle exercises.)  The most important thing, though, is that I feel like I’m back, both mentally and physically.  After spending the last few weeks in an emotional and pain-induced daze, I feel like I’m finally ready to jump back into the important things, like trying to predict the Oscars.

Here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week!

Films I Watched:

  1. Amy Fisher: My Story (1993)
  2. The Amy Fisher Story (1993)
  3. Casualties of Love (1993)
  4. Deep Throat II (1974)
  5. Fast Money (1995)
  6. Harpoon (2019)
  7. Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
  8. Live Again, Die Again (1974)
  9. Mad Max (1979)
  10. Miami Vice: The Prodigal Son (1985)
  11. Night Game (1989)
  12. The Passover Plot (1976)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Abbott Elementary
  2. Baywatch Nights
  3. Bubblegum Crisis
  4. Check It Out
  5. CHiPs
  6. Degrassi Junior High
  7. Dr. Phil
  8. Fantasy Island
  9. Friday the 13th: The Series
  10. Highway to Heaven
  11. Lookwell
  12. The Love Boat
  13. Miami Vice
  14. Monsters
  15. Night Flight
  16. T and T
  17. The Vanishing Shadow
  18. Welcome Back, Kotter

Books I Read:

  1. The Fifth Avenue Apartment (2023) by Pamela Kelly

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Above & Beyond
  2. Amy Winehouse
  3. Bess Atwell
  4. Britney Spears
  5. Carly Simon
  6. The Chemical Brothers
  7. Ellie Goulding
  8. Fatboy Slim
  9. Graham Barham
  10. Jakalope
  11. Jessica Pratt
  12. Katy Perry
  13. Moby
  14. Muse
  15. Nine Inch Nails
  16. Rita Coolidge
  17. Saint Motel
  18. Selena Gomez
  19. Taylor Swift
  20. Tiesto
  21. Yvonne Elliman

Live Tweets:

  1. Fast Money
  2. Night Game
  3. Mad Max
  4. Harpoon

News From Last Week:

  1. Love Boat Composer Ben Lanzarone Dies At 85
  2. Cinematographer Alec Mills Dies
  3. Berlin Film Festival jury questions move to uninvite far right
  4. Box Office: ‘Bob Marley’ Biopic Beats Expectations With $51 Million Holiday Debut, ‘Madame Web’ Collapses

Links From Last Week:

  1. Tater’s Week in Review 2/16/24
  2. New York’s Got Snow! Here’s Video Of Central Park’s New White Coat!
  3. Why Cats Make the Best Valemtimes

Links From The Site:

  1. Leonard shared the trailer for Sting!
  2. Erin shared Secret Romance, Ranch Romances. All-Story Love, The Girl in the Death Set, Floating Death, Spy Stories, and Kiss The Tiger!
  3. Erin wished you a Happy Valentine’s Day and shared Part 10 of It’s Love!
  4. Jeff shared music videos from Nine Inch Nails and RATT!
  5. I wished everyone a happy Mardi Gras!
  6. I shared my week in television!
  7. I reviewed Degrassi Junior High, Miami Vice, CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Baywatch Nights, The Love Boat, Monsters, Lookwell, Highway to Heaven, T and T, Friday the 13th, Welcome Back Kotter, and Check It Out!
  8. I shared the trailer for American Dreamer!
  9. I shared music videos from Graham Barham, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Jessica Pratt, and Bess Atwell!
  10. I reviewed Casualties of Love, Amy Fisher: My Story, The Amy Fisher Story, Fast Money, Deep Throat II, and The Passover Plot!

More From Us:

  1. At Days Without Incident, Leonard shared songs from Barry White, D’Angelo, and Borislav Slavov!
  2. At her photography site, Erin shared Clouds, One Bird, Black Bird, Setting Sun, Happy Valentine’s Day, Walker, and DART Tracks!
  3. At my music site, I shared songs from Fatboy Slim, Selena Gomez, Tiesto, Above & Beyond, Rita Coolidge, Ellie Goulding, and Amy Winehouse!

Want to check out what I did last week?  Click here!

14 Days of Paranoia #3: The Passover Plot (dir by Michael Campus)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1976 and based on a book that had come out ten years previously, The Passover Plot is a film that asks, “What if Jesus was a political revolutionary who faked his own death?”

Even when the film was first released, that wasn’t a particularly novel or new theory.  Ever since the Crucifixion, there have been conspiracy theorists who have claimed that the entire thing was staged.  Indeed, the early days of the Church were defined by conflicts between different sects debating the true nature of Jesus, with those who believed that he was the son of God and that he had risen from the dead eventually winning out over sects who claimed that Jesus was not divine or that he had actually escaped from the Romans and was instead hiding out in Egypt or even on the island that would eventually become known as Britain.  (The fact that so many Gnostics and other heretics were executed by the Church and their texts suppressed only served to lend them credibility with future theorists.)  Still, every few decades, some new book or film will claim that Jesus faked his death or married Mary Magdalene and gullible people will act as if this is somehow a new argument.  It’s been over 20 years since all of that Da Vinci Code nonsense convinced bored suburbanites across America that they could be experts on both boxed wine and historical conspiracy theories.  We’re about due for a new version of the old story.

As for The Passover Plot, it features Zalman King as Yeshua of Nazareth, an angry young man who dreams of the day when Judea will be free of the Romans.  Having a knowledge of the prophecies of a messiah and also knowing that he is descended from King David, Yeshua specifically patterns his life after the prophecies and presents himself as being not just another revolutionary but instead as being sent by God.  However, he is also aware that it will be necessary for him to “die” and “rise from the dead,” so he goes out of his way to force the hand of Pontius Pilate (Donald Pleasence).  Having seen plenty of crucifixions when younger, Yeshua arranges for the local revolutionaries to drug him so that he’ll appear to be dead.  When he later wakes up, everyone will believe that he has returned from the dead.  The film ends with several title cards, all arguing that the Gospels were written long after Yeshua’s death (“Mark lived in Italy!” one title card proclaims with almost comical indignation) and were subsequently rewritten by “unknown” hands.

The Passover Plot is a weird combination of biblical epic and conspiracy thriller.  Scenes of Yeshua preaching feel as if they could have come from any traditional Biblical epic but they are awkwardly placed with scenes of Yeshua having secret, melodramatic meetings with various conspirators.  It would make for an interesting contrast if not for the fact that the film itself is so slowly paced and boring.  Zalman King, who is best-known for his subsequent career as a softcore filmmaker, spends a lot of time yelling and smoldering intensely but he still doesn’t have the charisma or screen presence necessary to be convincing in the role.  In the scene were he’s meant to be passionate, he shrieks with such abandon that he makes Ted Neeley’s performance in Jesus Christ Superstar feel restrained.  This film asks us to believe that people would not only abandon their previous lives to follow Yeshua but that they would also take part in an elaborate conspiracy that could have gone wrong at any time.  For that to be believable, Yeshua needs to be played by someone who doesn’t come across like the drama student that everyone dreads having to do a scene with.  Far more impressive is Donald Pleasence, whose portrayal of a ruthless and unfeeling Pilate is a marked contrast to some of the more sympathetic interpretations of the character that tend turn up in the movies.

On the plus side, the film does look good.  It was shot on location in Israel and there is a certain authenticity to the film’s recreation of the ancient world.  Along with Pleasence, character actors like Scott Wilson (as Judas!) and Dan Hedaya get a chance to shine.  But otherwise, The Passover Plot is too slowly paced and kooky for its own good.  Conspiracy theorists never seem to understand that the more elaborate a conspiracy theory becomes, the less convincing it is to anyone who isn’t already a true believer.  In the end, how one feels about the film’s conclusions will probably be connected to how one already views Jesus and the Church.  The Passover Plot is not a film that’s going to convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced.

14 Days of Paranoia:

  1. Fast Money (1996)
  2. Deep Throat II (1974)

Retro Television Reviews: Live Again, Die Again (dir by Richard A. Colla)

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1974’s Live Again, Die Again!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

30 years ago, Caroline Carmichael (Donna Mills) died.

Except, she really didn’t.  Instead, when on the verge of death, she was put into cryogenic suspension.  She has spent the last three decades in suspended animation and, as a result, she has not aged in all that time.  In fact, her hair still looks perfect.  (I have some doubts about the scientific validity of any of this but let’s just go with it.)  As this movie begins, Caroline Carmichael finally wakes up.

Caroline has an entirely new world to discover.  At a party to celebrate her awakening, Caroline is shocked to discover that, while she still appears to be young, all of her friends are now in their 60s. Her husband, Thomas (Walter Pidgeon), is now old and sickly.  Her beautiful home is now looked after by a strict and suspicious housekeeper (Geraldine Page).    Her two children (played by Mike Farrell and Vera Miles) both appear to be older than her.  In fact, her daughter was so traumatized by Caroline’s “death,” that she is now terrified of being left alone with her mother.

You might expect that this film would be dedicated to Caroline adjusting to the world of the 70s and that it might feature some thoughts on whether it’s ethical to keep someone in suspended animation for 30 years.  And there are elements of that.  Caroline is amazed by all the tall buildings.  Her daughter’s reaction to Caroline’s return is hardly heart-warming and even Caroline’s whiny son doesn’t seem to be quite as happy about it as one might expect.  Her husband has spent the last 30 years of his life waiting for Caroline to wake up and it’s hard not to consider how many opportunities for happiness or success that he missed as a result.

That said, the film itself quickly becomes more of a gothic murder mystery, as Caroline comes to realize that someone is trying to kill her.  That’s kind of a shame because I actually found all of the cryogenic stuff to be much more interesting and the idea that one could basically just stop aging for 30 years was an intriguing one.  It’s an interesting question.  If it could save your life at some undetermined point in the future, would you be frozen?  Myself, I think I would be reluctant to do so because you never know what type of world you might wake up in.  Caroline is lucky enough to wake up wealthy in the 70s but what if you woke up and discovered that your entire family had died while you were in your coma?  What if you woke up and discovered that your country had become some sort of socialist Hellhole?  Imagine if someone went into hibernation in 1994 and then woke up in 2024?  They would probably want to go back to sleep.

The film was written Joseph Stefano, who also did the script for Psycho and was one of the producers behind The Outer Limits.  Not surprisingly, the script is full of snappy dialogue and the cast features two Psycho cast members, Vera Miles and Lurene Tuttle.  Director Richard Colla keeps the action moving and, early on in the film, he does a good job of depicting Caroline’s disorientation with finding herself in an entirely new world.  The film is well-acted by the entire cast, with Donna Mills especially doing a good job as Caroline.  This was an intelligent, well-made, and — most importantly — short made-for-TV movie.  At a time when almost all movies and TV shows seem to be too long for their own good, it’s hard not appreciate Live Again, Die Again‘s 73-minute runtime.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out 1.18 “Store Wars”

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 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, both Cobb’s and Edna get some competition!

Episode 1.18 “Store Wars”

(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on February 12th, 1986)

Odd episode, this week.

After having a fight with Howard, Edna abruptly leaves town for Florida.  Apparently, this is something that she does frequently.  (We are 18 episodes in and this show has yet to come up with a consistent portrayal of Howard and Edna’s relationship.)  I have to admit that I’ve never worked retail so I’m not totally sure how these things work but can you just stop going to work whenever you feel like it and still have a job?  It seems like this is the sort of thing that would get most people fired.  Maybe it’s different when you’re sleeping with the boss.

Anyway, Howard gets a new secretary and he is shocked to discover that Irene (Cynthia Belliveau) is young and attractive and totally into him.  Soon, Howard is wearing an earring, sunglasses, and dressing like Bruce Springsteen.  Irene even teaches Howard how to do yoga.

All of this leads to Howard getting distracted from the latest work crisis.  A new store has opened up across the street.  Just Food sells …. well, just food.  There are no bag boys or special displays or anything else that would cost any extra money so Just Food can lower their prices.  Soon, all of Cobb’s customers are going to Just Food!  Even when Christian lowers the prices at Cobb’s, Just Food lowers their prices even more.  Is it possible that Just Food could have a spy in the store?

Yes, there is a spy and, as you probably already guessed, the spy is Irene.  (How did Irene get the job?  Didn’t she have to go through a background check?  Do they not do that in Canada?)  Howard eventually figures it all out but he feels a little better when Irene tells him that, even though she was a spy, she truly did fall for him.  They share a passionate kiss and the audience applauds.  Then Irene leaves and Howard calls Edna to ask her to come back home.  “Awwwww!” the audience says.

Uhmmm …. yeah.  Thanks for the mixed signals, studio audience.  Howard basically cheated on Edna while she was gone but apparently that’s okay because, afterwards, Howard asked her to come back home.  Is Howard ever going to tell Edna about Irene?  She’s going to find out as soon as she asks either Marlene or Jennifer about what happened at the store while she was gone.  Unless Edna was hooking up with a 21 year-old life guard in Florida, Howard’s screwed either way.

This episode just felt off.  Howard can be a jerk but he’s always been loyal to Edna, even when they’ve fought in the past.  The “Store Wars” storyline had potential but it was pretty much overshadowed by Howard trying to be Springsteen.  This episode just didn’t work.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/11/24 — 2/17/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This was another week in which I didn’t watch much television, beyond what I usually review.  A lot of that is because I was preoccupied with exercising my ankle (which is doing much better) and Valentine’s Day!  And some of it is because I guess modern television just doesn’t interest me that much right now.  All the game shows and the self-conscious prestige dramas are just kind of boring.

Anyway, here’s some thought on what I did watch this week!

Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)

I felt that this week’s episode was a clear improvement over the premiere, though the show still seems to be struggling to find its footing in the third season.  I liked Gregory as the cool teacher and I enjoyed the return of Tariq but I’m still not a fan of Janine working for the district.

Bubblegum Crisis (Night Flight Plus)

The action moved to Houston in the episode that I watched on Saturday morning.  As usual, I couldn’t really follow the plot but it was fun to watch everything explode.  Bubblegum Crisis takes place in 2033 so I guess we’ve got nine years left.

Diocese Of Dallas Catholic Mass  (Sunday Afternoon, Channel 27)

For various reasons, I really wanted to go to Mass on Sunday but with my sprained ankle, I really didn’t feel like having to hop all the way down to St. Joseph’s.  Fortunately, television to the rescue!

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

I watched an episode on Monday night.  A woman falsely accused her ex-husband of using their child to make pornographic movies.  Her husband passed a lie detector test and, as Phil pointed out, the woman’s story was full of inconsistencies and never made any sense.  Despite being exposed as being a liar, the woman refused to apologize.

On Saturday, I watched an episode that featured an online gambling addict who, having lost all of his money, was now living in his mother’s basement.  “We are staging an intervention,” Dr. Phil said, in that ultra-dramatic way of his.

Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)

This Friday, I watched an episode about famous people who made cameo appearances in 80s music videos.

The Super Bowl (Sunday Night, CBS)

I have to admit that I was really rooting for the 49ers by the end of the game.  I always like it when the underdogs win.  But still, congratulations to the Chiefs on their victory.  As usual, I was mostly watching for the commercials but I got kind of bored with them this year.  The one with Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon was amusing.

The Vanishing Shadow (Night Flight Plus)

I watched another installment of this old timey serial on Saturday morning. Our heroes spent most of this episode being pursued by gangsters.  Fortunately, they had a vanishing ray!  This old 30s serial is a lot of fun.

Watched and Reviewed Elsewhere:

  1. Baywatch Nights (YouTube)
  2. Check It Out (Tubi) — Review Dropping In 30 Minutes
  3. CHiPs (Freevee)
  4. Degrassi Junior High (YouTube)
  5. Fantasy Island (Daily Motion)
  6. Friday the 13th (YouTube)
  7. Highway to Heaven (Freevee)
  8. Lookwell (YouTube)
  9. The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)
  10. Miami Vice (Tubi)
  11. Monsters (Tubi)
  12. T and T (Tubi)
  13. Welcome Back Kotter (Tubi)

14 Days of Paranoia #2: Deep Throat Part II (dir by Joseph Sarno)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1974, Deep Throat II (also known as Linda Lovelace, Secret Agent) is the R-rated sequel the legendary X-rated film, Deep Throat.  I should, at this point, confess that I have never seen Deep Throat, though I have seen the 2005 documentary about the making of the film and its subsequent cultural impact, Inside Deep Throat.  I’ve also read Legs McNeil’s oral history of the adult film industry, The Other Hollywood.  Perhaps most importantly, I’ve watched Boogie Nights a dozen times.

Anyway, Deep Throat II….

The star of the original film, Linda Lovelace, returns as …. Linda Lovelace!  Linda is working as a nurse for a perpetually turned-on sex therapist (Harry Reems) who, when told that he got laid just last night, whines, “Last night was a long time ago!”  Among the therapist’s patients is nerdy Dilbert Lamb (Levi Richards), who is obsessed with black lingerie and his aunt, Juliet.  Dilbert has built a giant super computer named Oscar.  In its electronic voice, Oscar says stuff like, “Why do you want to talk to me, baby?”

The plot is not particularly easy to follow but, as far as I could tell, the head of the CIA (played by adult film vet Jamie Gillis) is concerned that Dilbert has been compromised by either the Russians or by a bunch of do-gooder activists led by a Ralph Nader-style journalist named Kenneth Whacker (David Davidson).  (The journalist’s followers call themselves Whacker’s Attackers.)  The decision is made to recruit Linda Lovelace to investigate because Lovelace apparently has a mysterious technique that she can use to get men to tell her anything.

When Linda is first approached by the CIA, she thinks that she is being drafted into the Army so that she can fight in Vietnam.  “But I have asthma and I need new reading glasses!” she says.  Hey, me too!  Anyway, Linda is relieved to discover that she will not being going to Vietnam and that her new codename is Agent — wait for it — 0069.  (Just in case you were wondering what the level of humor was in this particular film….)

Despite the film’s cast of veteran adult performers and the fact that it’s a sequel to the movie that some people went to jail for transporting across state lines, Deep Throat II is an incredibly tame movie.  The film is edited so haphazardly that it feels as if at least half of it was left on the cutting room floor.  At first, I assumed that I was watching a heavily edited version of the original film but a few minutes of research online revealed that I was watching the original.  (Apparently, director Joe Sarno directed the film so that more explicit scenes could be directed by another filmmaker and inserted into the action but, for whatever reason, those scenes were never filmed.  Sarno was usually one of the more aesthetically interesting and thematically daring of the directors working in the adult film industry.  You would not necessarily know that from his work on this film.)  The actors struggle to keep a straight face while delivering their lines, Harry Reems enthusiastically jumps up and down in almost every scene in which he appears, and Linda Lovelace seems to be trying really hard but she just has a blah screen presence.  Unlike Marilyn Chambers in Rabid or Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience, Linda Lovelace does not come across as having been a particularly good actress.

That said, there is one interesting aspect to Deep Throat II.  Kenneth Hacker worries that Oscar could become smarter than the human being who programmed it and that the computer’s creation could be the first step to the creation of a permanent surveillance state, one in which even private thoughts will be used against the citizens of the United States.  In the film, everyone laughs him off.  50 years later, it no longer sounds that fanciful.

14 Days of Paranoia:

  1. Fast Money (1996)

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter 3.10 “Barbarino In Love: Part One”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, the Sweathogs are on the verge of actually accomplishing something but Barbarino is distracted by love.

Episode 3.10 “Barbarino In Love: Part One”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on November 3rd, 1977)

At the new apartment, Gabe asks Julie if he’s ever told her about his ancestor, Bart Kotter.  Bart was a prospector who let his friend Jesus die of snakebite because the only way to save him would have been for Bart to suck out the poison himself.  Julie finds the joke to be amusing, probably because it just gave her a new idea about how she could escape from her loveless sham of a marriage.

But enough with the Kotters.  It’s time to meet….

THREE DO’S AND A DON’T!

Okay, it’s actually just the Sweathogs again.  Three Do’s and a Don’t is what Vinnie has named their boy group.  They are competing in the regional semi-finals of the New York talent competition and, if they win, they’ll move on to the statewide contest.  Mr. Woodman isn’t a huge fan of their music, leading Washington to tell them that Three Do’s and a Don’t are not for the “over 30 crowd.”

And yet, when the group performs, they turn out to be a 50s do-wop group that performs a version of Jeepers Creepers.  Vinnie Barbarino sings in falsetto while the others do the acapella thing in the background.  1977 was the year of disco in the U.S. and punk rock in the UK.  It was not a decade known for its love of barbershop quartets.  Three Do’s and A Don’t appears to be very much for the over 70 crowd.

Still, the audience at the show goes crazy for them and I imagine that entirely has to do with Vinnie Barbarino.  Seriously, when you watch this episode and watch all of the Sweathogs performing together at the same time, it’s easy to see why Travolta went on to become a film star while some of the others — like Ron Pallilo — spent their post-Kotter career making cameo appearances in stuff like the sixth Friday the 13th film.  Travolta dominates the talent show, bringing a smoldering quality to even something as hackneyed as Jeepers Creepers.

Cassy (Amy Johnston) is impressed.  Cassy is the “winner from upstate.”  (“You’re a winner downstate as well,” Barbarino replies.)  Since the Sweathogs win their semi-final, that means that they’ll be facing off against Cassy at the final competition.  However, Barbarino is smitten with Cassy, especially after she instructs him on how a gentleman talks to a lady.  Instead of rehearsing with his group, Barbarino spends the weekend showing her around Brooklyn.  He even takes her to the local diner, where they run into Gabe and Julie, who are having a typically awkward date night.

Speaking of awkward, Barbarino’s date is crashed by the other Sweathogs, who demand to know why Barbarino has been blowing off rehearsal.  Washington explains that winning this competition would mean a lot to the rest of them.  Barbarino realizes that Cassy is the competition and that he can’t compete against the woman he loves.  The disgusted Sweathogs walk out on him as three dreaded words — “TO BE CONTINUED” — appear on the screen.

As easy as it is to be snarky about Three Do’s and a Don’t and their glorified barbershop music, this episode was enjoyable because it allowed to John Travolta to have center state and it also featured some very nice chemistry between Travolta and Amy Johnston.  Barbarino and Cassy are a cute couple, with Barbarino’s earnest stupidity matching up well with Cassy’s earnest intelligence.  Personally, I totally think that Barbarino should ditch his old friends for his new relationship.  I mean, how much happiness can you sacrifice for Arnold Horshack?

Next week, we’ll see if Barbarino finds happiness or if he returns to the Sweathog fold!