Daily Archives: April 21, 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.1 “Can’t Live With ‘Em: Part One”

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, the third season of Degrassi Junior High beings with tragedy!

Episode 3.1 “Can’t Live With ‘Em: Part One”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on November 28th, 1988)

This is one of the most important episodes in the history of the Degrassi franchise.  Along with starting the show’s third season, this is the episode that sees the beginning on the long and tragic decline of Derek “Wheels” Wheeler.  If you’re a fan of Degrassi: The Next Generation and you’ve always wondered how Wheels eventually ended up becoming a suicidal ex-con who is treated like a pariah by his former friend Snake, this episode is where it all began.

There’s actually a lot going on in this episode, though it’s the Wheels storyline that dominates.  With the start of a new school year, everyone at Degrassi is eager to catch up after the summer break.  Among the new developments:

Stephanie is no longer a Degrassi student and is instead going to private school.  Her brother Arthur and his best friend Yick Yu both apparently hit a growth spurt over the summer.  (Yick, in particular, is suddenly surprisingly tall for his age.)  Yick notices that Arthur seems to be dressing better and that he’s also taken to reading the business section of the newspaper.  Arthur insists that he’s not secretly rich, which is not something you say unless you actually are secretly rich.

Yick and Arthur also play a prank on new 7th grader, Bartholomew Bond (Trevor Cummings), first locking him in the janitor’s closet and then, after letting him out, directing the poor kid to the wrong homeroom.  It’s the same joke that Joey played on Arthur, way back in the first episode.  The only difference is that Yick and Arthur feel bad about it afterwards.

Having been held back, Joey is repeating the 8th Grade.  “Hey,” he asks Snake, “what do you think about Caitlin?”  Snake replies that Caitlin is not Joey’s type.  Of course, fans of Degrassi: The Next Generation know that Joey and Caitlin are destined to spend the next 20 years falling in and out and back in love with each other.

Spike is back at school.  This episode features the first appearance — albeit in polaroid form — of baby Emma.  Shane tries to approach Spike, saying that he wants to meet his daughter.  Spike tells him to stay away.  (Apparently, Shane’s parents sent him to summer camp to keep him away from Spike and Emma.)

With Stephanie gone, both Kathleen Mead and Nancy Kramer (Arlene Lott) are running for president of the student council.

The 9th Graders are spending half the day at Degrassi Junior High and half at Borden High.  Lucy notices a cute high school guy and smiles at him, even though the guy’s friend dismisses her as being a “minor niner.”

Ultimately, though, this episode is dominated by Wheels and his family.  Wheels wants to hang out with Joey.  His parents tells him that they think Joey is a bad influence.  His parents don’t care that Joey, Wheels, and Snake have their own band and are working on a demo tape of their only song.

“Parents,” Snake says, “can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”

Wheels replies that he would be happy to live without them.

Well, Wheels is going to get his wish.  When his parents go to the movies, Wheels sneaks out and goes to Joey’s house.  He, Joey, and Snake record their demo tape.  Wheels then heads home and is stunned to see a police car sitting outside of his house.

They called the cops? Wheels wonders.

No, they’re dead.  The police have accompanied Wheels’s grandmother so that she can tell him that his parents were killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light.  The end credits roll over a freeze frame of a stunned Wheels being hugged by his grandmother.

OH MY GOD!  I mean, seriously, who would have guessed that Wheels’s parents would die right at the same time that Wheels was saying he was sick of dealing with them?  As tragic as all that is, it’s even worse if you know what waits for Wheels in the future.

This episode of Degrassi Junior High did everything that a season premiere should.  It reintroduced us to the characters and set up the season’s main storyline, the downfall of Wheels.  This was classic Degrassi.  Next week, things get even worse for Wheels.  Poor Wheels.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 4/15/24 — 4/21/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Another long week comes to an end.  I am again shadowbanned over at Twitter or X or whatever we’re supposed to call it nowadays.  I really just want to abandon all social media and just write film reviews for the rest of the year.  That would probably be a lot less stressful!

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

Films I Watched:

  1. Broken Angel (1988)
  2. Crips and Bloods: Made In America (2008)
  3. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
  4. Divine Will (2017)
  5. Easy Money (1983)
  6. Gang War: Bangin’ In Little Rock (1994)
  7. Gang War II: Back In The Hood (2004)
  8. Island of Terror (1966)
  9. Jail Bait (2014)
  10. Lock-Up: Prisoners of Rikers Island (1994)
  11. Locked Up (2016)
  12. Lost Girl (2018)
  13. Obligations (1950)
  14. Prom Night (1980)
  15. Rebels of PT-218 (2021)
  16. Round of Your Life (2019)
  17. The Savant (2019)
  18. The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973)
  19. Truth or Dare …. A Critical Madness (1986)
  20. Wannabe: Life and Death In A Small Town Gang (1999)
  21. Wayne’s World (1992)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Abbott Elementary
  2. Baywatch Nights
  3. Blind Date
  4. Check it Out!
  5. CHiPs
  6. Degrassi Junior High
  7. Dr. Phil
  8. Dragnet
  9. Fantasy Island
  10. Friday the 13th: The Series
  11. Highway to Heaven
  12. Law & Order
  13. The Love Boat
  14. Miami Vice
  15. Monsters
  16. New Sounds
  17. Our America With Lisa Ling
  18. T and T
  19. Veronica’s Video
  20. Welcome Back Kotter

Books I Read:

  1. The Longs of Louisiana (1960) by Stan Opotwosky

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Adi Ulmansky
  2. The Beaches
  3. The Black Keys
  4. Britney Spears
  5. The Chemical Brothers
  6. Coldplay
  7. Courtney Love
  8. DJ Snake
  9. Haim
  10. Jakalope
  11. Lenny Kravitz
  12. Lindsey Stirling
  13. Machine Gun Kelly
  14. Maggie Lindemann
  15. Margherita Vicario
  16. Peso Pluma
  17. Sabrina Carpenter
  18. Saint Motel
  19. Taylor Swift
  20. Yvonne Elliman

Live Tweets:

  1. Truth or Dare …. A Critical Madness
  2. Easy Money
  3. Wayne’s World
  4. Prom Night

News From Last Week:

  1. Singer Mandisa Dies at 47
  2. Singer-guitarist Dicky Betts Dies at 80
  3. Box Office: A24’s ‘Civil War’ Fends Off Three New Movies to Remain No. 1
  4. Taylor Swift’s Record-Breaking First Day at Spotify With ‘Tortured Poets’ Didn’t Stop at 200 Million Streams — It Actually Surpassed 300 Million

Links From Last Week:

  1. Have You Seen James Taylor’s ONLY Movie? Starring A Beach Boy? Here’s The Cult Counter-Culture Classic “Two Lane Blacktop”!
  2. REPOST: Got Bats?
  3. Tater’s Week in Review 4/19/24

Links From The Site:

  1. I reviewed For My Daughter’s Honor, Degrassi Junior High, Miami Vice, CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Baywatch Nights, The Love Boat, Monsters, Veronica’s Video, Highway to Heaven, T and T, Friday the 13th: The Series, Welcome Back Kotter, and Check It Out!
  2. I shared music videos from Haim, DJ Snake, Sabrina Carpenter, The Black Keys, Lindsey Stirling, Courtney Love, and The Beaches!
  3. I shared my week in television!
  4. Erin shared Jackie Robinson Enters The Big Leagues, Speed Adventure Stories, Eyeful, Smash Detective, Beauty Parade, Two For The Money, and Mugs Molls And Dr. Harvey!

More From Us:

  1. At my music site, I shared songs from Maggie Lindemann, Haim, Margherita Vicario, Machine Gun Kelly, The Chemical Brothers, Adi Ulmansky, and Lenny Kravitz!
  2. At her photography site, Erin shared Raining, Clouds, In The Wild, Holidays At The Park, A Picture Of The Moon, Bird, and Judgment!

Check out last week by clicking here!

Retro Television Review: For My Daughter’s Honor (dir by Alan Metzger)

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 1996’s For My Daughter’s Honor (a.k.a. Indecent Seduction)!  It  can be viewed on YouTube, Tubi, and Prime.

Welcome to Tate, Oklahoma.

It’s a nice little town in what is usually referred to as being the heartland of America.  It’s a place where the streets are clean, the people are friendly, and where everyone roots for the local high school football team.  That makes Coach Pete Nash (Gary Cole) a pretty important person in Tate.  At a start-of-the-year pep rally, the football team is introduced as “Oklahoma’s team” and that would make Pete Nash Oklahoma’s coach.  Make no mistake about it, they love football in Oklahoma.  They love it almost as much as we love it in Texas.

Coach Nash also teaches Biology and he’s known for being the cool teacher that all of the students like to hang out with.  Soon, Nash is hanging out with 14 year-old Amy Dustin (Nicholle Tom) and Amy’s friends, Kelly (Allyson Hanigan) and Kimberly (Sara Rue).  With Coach Nash, they all get to drink beer.  They get to break into the school library and have fun with the copy machine.  Coach Nash sends Amy flirty little notes and she writes back.  Nash even encourages his daughter to invite Amy over for a sleepover so that she can lose her virginity.  Yikes!

Amy’s mother (Mary Kay Place) and her father (Mac Davis) both have their concerns about the amount of time that Amy is spending with Coach Nash.  Amy’s father is especially upset when he hears that Coach Nash threw a fit after he saw Amy dancing with a boy her own age.  But everyone in town tells them that they’re being paranoid and that Coach Nash is a good guy who just happens to be very close to his students.  He’s a family man and he’s a good football coach and that’s all that matters.

Though the names and the central location have all been changed, For My Daughter’s Honor is based on a true story.  The actual events took place in Texas and, as happens in the movie, the parents of the victim ended up suing the school district for failing to do anything about the predatory teacher.  The film certainly does capture the feeling of living in a small community where everyone thinks that they know everyone else and where people often choose not to believe what is obviously happening right in front of them.  Coach Nash makes no effort to hide his activities but he gets away with it because no one wants to confront what’s going on.  It’s easier to just say that Coach Nash is a passionate teacher or that he’s someone who lets his emotions get the better of him.  For many in the town, it’s easier to blame Amy and her family than it is to hold Coach Nash responsible for his own actions.

Gary Cole gives a strong performance as Coach Nash and is equally believable whether being blandly affable or obsessively creepy.  One of the reasons why this film works is because everyone has had at least one Coach Nash in their lives, that person who seems friendly but just gives off a strange vibe.  In the end, this is a film that says that it’s okay to be concerned.

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Save Me By Haim (2012, dir by Austin Peters)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the day is one of the few Haim videos not to have been directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.  Austin Peters is the credited director.  He’s also directed videos for two of my other favorite artists, Dillon Francis and Major Lazer.

The Haim sisters could definitely defeat me in basketball.  Of course, I’ve never played basketball and, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I also can’t stand to watch basketball because of all the squeaky shoes.  One reason why I prefer golf and boxing to basketball is because there’s no squeaking involved in either of those sports.

Enjoy!