As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1990’s Aftershock! Selected and hosted by Rev. Magdalen, this movie is about life after an eclipse! So, you know it has to be good!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Aftershock on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
I was torn about whether or not to listen to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon during the eclipse because — bleh! — Roger Waters. But then I remembered that the other members of the band hate Roger Waters as well and I was able to use that to justify things. I mean, seriously, some things are just made for eclipses and that’s certainly true of the somewhat silly and portentous but still effective Dark Side of the Moon.
(Silly, portentous, and effective is also a good description of Pink Floyd as a whole.)
So, with that in mind, here is today’s special Eclipse Day song of the day. Actually, I guess I should say that these are today’s songs of the day because technically, they are two separate songs. But they might as well be two.
In honor of the eclipse that I will probably not be able to see because of the clouds and the rain, today’s scene that I love comes from 2014’s A Field In England. This film may (or may not) take place during a solar eclipse. I won’t try to explain everything that is happening in the scene, beyond stating that this particular field in England is home to some interesting mushrooms. I encourage you see to watch the film for yourself.
The X trilogy kind of snuck up on everyone. The end of March 2022’s “X” gave us a sneak peek at Pearl, which ended up releasing later in theatres that same year. Now, director Ti West and actress Mia Goth are closing the loop with MaXXXine, which arrives in theatres this summer.
MaXXXine is a direct sequel to X, with our heroine still wanting to be a major star after the events of the first film. Though she may not realize it, Maxine has a lot in common with Pearl, and those elements may put her into some dark circles.
MaXXXine also stars Kevin Bacon, Halsey, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Debicki, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Michelle Monaghan.
The prediction down here is that it’s going to be cloudy and rainy today so we probably won’t have the best view of the eclipse. That’s okay, though. I’m always tempted to look straight at the sun during an eclipse and, apparently, that’s one reason why my eyesight gets worse with each passing year. My friend Tammy says that it doesn’t matter because it will still get dark so we’ll know the eclipse is happening, even if we can’t see it.
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!
Mr. Colby returns!
Episode 2.12 “He’s Back”
(Dir by Clarke Mackey, originally aired on March 21st, 1988)
Mr. Colby (Marcus Bruce) is back, substituting for Ms. Avery.
The last time that Mr. Colby substituted at Degrassi, he ended up sexually harassing Lucy. Despite the attempts of L.D. and Wheels to convince her otherwise, Lucy decided not to report Mr. Colby. She just wanted to put the experience in the past and move on. However, this episode opens with Lucy being woken up by nightmares, in which Colby is the central figure. When Lucy sees Colby in the office, asking for Ms. Avery’s lesson plans, she freaks out.
Still, she refuses to go to the principal about what happened. She still just wants to move on. After her trouble with shoplifting during the first season, Lucy has finished up her community service and is now volunteering at a daycare out of the kindness of her heart. She’s trying to build a new life for herself but, when it becomes obvious that Colby is now grooming Susie (played by Sarah Charlesworth), Lucy realizes that she can no longer be silent.
“You want to see Mr. Lawrence?” the school secretary says when she sees Lucy, Susie, and every other girl in Colby’s class standing in front of her. “This better be important.”
It is, Lucy replies.
This is a pivotal episode as far as Lucy’s development is concerned. In this episode, Lucy shows that she’s gone from being spoiled and self-centered to someone who actually does care about other people and who wants to make the world a better place. If you know the history of this show and the characters, there’s something a little sad about the scenes in which she goes to Wheels for support. Those of us who have seen School’s Out (and this is a spoiler for those of you who haven’t so consider yourself warned) know that Wheels is destined to go to prison for killing a kid while driving drunk. We also know that Lucy is destined to be temporarily blinded and crippled in that same accident. In this episode, though, both Wheels and Lucy still have their entire future ahead of them.
This episode was a good example of what Degrassi Junior High did so well. So many teen shows would have wrapped up this storyline in one episode and certainly, they would have never address Lucy’s lingering trauma. Instead, Lucy would have done gone to the principal on her own, Colby would have been fired, and the entire thing would have never been mentioned again. Degrassi Junior High, on the other hand, understands that it’s not always easy to do the right thing, especially when you just want to put it all behind you and get on with your life. With its portrayal of Lucy’s lingering trauma and her reaction to seeing Mr. Colby back in the school, Degrassi Junior High proves itself to be one of the most honest shows about growing up.
I want to wish a Happy Eclipse Day to all who plan to celebrate! Supposedly, it’s going to be cloudy and rainy down here while the eclipse is going on. That’s okay. I’ve seen an eclipse before. When I was six years old, I looked straight at an eclipse. And now, I wear contact lenses. Draw your own conclusions!
Anyway, here’s what I watched and listened to this week!
1941’s Underground tells the story of two brothers on opposite sides in Nazi Germany.
Kurt Franken (Jeffrey Lynn) is a patriotic German who believes that the country got a raw deal at the end of World War I and who is a strong supporter of the Nazis. He served in the army, fighting on the front. When he returns home to Berlin, he’s missing an arm. Whenever his friends and his family say that they’re sorry that he lost his arm, he replies that he was happy to make the sacrifice for his country. When someone starts to mourn for his son who was killed in the fighting, Kurt accuses the man of being a traitor for doubting the wisdom of the government. Kurt is a true believer, just the type to be recruited by the SS and tasked with helping to investigate who is behind a series of anti-Nazi radio broadcasts. Kurt believes that, if the government says it, it must be right. Laws must be obeyed and orders followed without question. Kurt, in other words, is a very familiar type.
What Kurt doesn’t realize is that the man behind the broadcasts is his own brother, Eric (Phillip Dorn). As Kurt investigates, he falls in love with Sylvia (Kaaren Verne) without realizing that she is also a part of the resistance. While Kurt tries to discover who is behind the underground radio station, Eric and his fellow resistance members attempt to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo.
For a film made in 1941, the film’s doesn’t flinch from showing the brutality of the Gestapo. Like all authoritarian dictatorships, The Third Reich is determined to quash any and all signs of dissent and they investigate the underground radio station with a ruthlessness that even takes Kurt by surprise. Witnessing first hand the brutality and sadism of the government for which he gave his arm, Kurt starts to doubt his previous beliefs. But will Kurt’s doubts come in time to save the lives of Eric and his fellow resistance members?
Made at a time when the United States was still officially neutral in the violent conflict that was sweeping the rest of the world and released just a few months before the U.S. officially declared war on the Axis Powers, Underground is a powerful look at life under a dictatorship. Shot in a noir style, the film’s black-and-white imagery perfectly captures the harshness of life in Germany while the shadows in the background perfectly capture the paranoia of knowing that saying the wrong word could lead to arrest, torture, and death. The film’s final minutes involve a guillotine sitting ominously in the background, a reminder that Nazi Germany was not the first authoritarian regime and that it would not be the last.
The film is well-acted, with Jeffrey Lynn epitomizing the otherwise intelligent people who allow themselves to get caught up in the madness of the majority. His discovery of the truth about Germany was obviously meant to mirror the awakening of the Americans who previously supported a policy of neutrality. By the end of the film, both Karl Franken and the audience understand that the time for neutrality has passed.
Heldorado, Arizona is a frontier town with a problem. The Tullivers, led by Mike (Tom Tyler), keep robbing the bank and running off anyone who agrees to be the town’s marshal.
The Colonel (Raymond Hatton) and the Mayor (Fuzzy Knight) are at their wits end until a bison hunter named Lucky (Russell Hayden) comes riding into town in search of work. They hire Lucky to be their new marshal, paying him $200 a week and allowing him three free drinks a day.
They also give Lucky a cabin to stay in but when Shamrock Ellison (James Ellison), a dandy from up north, rides into town on a donkey, Lucky decides to rent him the cabin. When Ellison arrives at the cabin, he finds two Tulliver brothers looking for the stolen money that they hid in the fireplace. The brothers try to shoot Ellison but accidentally end up shooting themselves instead.
When Ellison says that he wants to keep a low profile, Lucky takes credit for killing the two Tullivers. When Mike shows up looking for revenge, Lucky has a change of heart and gives all the credit for Ellison. Lucky makes Ellison his deputy but what he doesn’t know is that Ellison is actually a government agent who has been sent to Heldorado to clean the town up.
This B-western does a good job of mixing comedy with action. It was one of many films that Ellison and Hayden made together and Hayden’s bluster plays off well against Ellison’s more serious performance. Much of the humor comes from Ellison having to keep the other townspeople from realizing that he’s a crack shot who knows how ride a horse as well as anyone in town. As well, Fuzzy Knight has his moments as the always drinking mayor. The action scenes are well-choreographed and there’s even a suspenseful scene where Ellison gets a shave from a barber who is actually a relative of the Tullivers. As always, the beautiful Julia Adams is a welcome addition to the cast as the Colonel’s daughter, who falls for Ellison. For fans of the genre, there’s plenty of entertainment to be found in this brisk, 50-minute western.
Through the Shattered Lens 