Daily Archives: May 13, 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.4 “Disaster Squad”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Ponch attacks a reporter …. or does he?

Episode 2.4 “Disaster Squad”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on October 7th, 1978)

In a change-of-pace for this show, it’s Officer Jon Baker who gets a girlfriend in this week’s episode.  Ellen Roberts (Liberty Godshall) is a recently divorced woman with an annoying 4 year-old named Chris (Christian Zika).  Because Baker doesn’t want any kids around to ruin his action, he gets Ponch to hang out with Chris.  Fortunately, it turns out that Chris loves motorcycle and even owns his own mini-bike.

Impressed by how well Chris can handle his bike, Ponch enters Chris in a children’s dirt bike race.  When one of the other racers knocks Chris down in the middle of the race, an angry Chris says that he’s going to hit the other racer.  Ponch tells Chris to never hit anyone and he says that he’s ashamed to hear Chris speak like that.  Chris promises not to ever fight.

But then, the next morning, Chris turns on the TV and sees a report about Ponch punching out an obnoxious news reporter (Harvey Jason) who got in the way while Ponch and Jon were dealing with a suicidal motorist.  The anchorman (played by Regis Philbin!) then comes on TV and basically says that Ponch is the epitome of everything bad about the police.   Chris starts sobbing.  Ponch lied about not fighting!  Chris hops on his mini-bike and, still crying, drives away.

What Chris doesn’t know is that Ponch was set up.  Lee and the members of “the Disaster Squad” have been following Ponch and Baker around, filming accidents, and getting in the way.  (At one point, one of Lee’s men event tosses a road flair under a car that’s leaking oil, causing an explosion.)  Lee doctored the tape of an earlier confrontation with Ponch to make it appear the Ponch threatened and hit him.

But that doesn’t matter to Chris.  With tears flowing down his cheeks, he drives his little motorcycle into the Los Angeles river.  Fortunately, Ponch and Baker find him in time to save his life and teach him an important lesson about fake news.

This episode …. where to begin?  It opened with a good chase scene and it featured a truck flipping over so that was good.  But then bratty little Chris showed up and the whole episode went downhill.  The child playing Chris was, to be charitable, not exactly the world’s best actor and his over-the-top reaction to seeing Ponch hit someone was bit too silly to inspire anything other than a chuckle.  “Ponch said never to hit anyone!” Chris wails.  Well, kid, Ponch is a damn hypocrite.  Sorry.

It was all pretty silly.  Baker finally got to do something other than gaze at Ponch in amazement but, in the end, the story was still pretty much Ponch-centered.  One thing I noticed about this episode is that Getraer had absolutely no sympathy for Ponch, even though he believed Ponch was being set up.  Seriously, I get that Getraer has a lot to deal with but does he have to be a jerk all the time?

Next week …. Ponch and Baker continue to keep California safe!

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Rope!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

After we finish up this week’s #MondayActionMovie on Mastodon, we will be hopping over to twitter where #MondayMuggers will be showing 1948’s Hitchcock classic Rope!  The film is on Prime and it starts at 10 pm et!

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 over to twitter, pull Rope up on Prime, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! 

Enjoy!

The Films of 2024: Orion and the Dark (dir by Sean Charmatz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1995, an 11 year-old boy named Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) lives in Philadelphia.

He has two loving parents.  He lives in a nice house.  He has his fist crush, on his classmate Sally (voiced by Shino Nakamichi).  He has a bully (voiced by Jack Fisher) who enjoys giving him a hard time and he has several notebooks full of his thoughts and drawings.  He also has a lot of fears.

Indeed, it’s his fears that largely define Orion.  Some of his fears are understandable.  I don’t like wasps or murder clowns either.  Some of his other fears are a bit more elaborate.  He’s scared of his bully but he’s even more scared of fighting his bully because he might accidentally break the bully’s nose and drive a piece of bone into the bully’s brain, therefore killing him.  His biggest fear, however, is his fear of the Dark.

In fact, Orion spends so much time talking about how much he hates the dark and how scared he is of the dark that Dark (Paul Walter Hauser) appears to him in human form and explain that he’s getting tired of Orion blaming him for anything.  Dark takes Orion with him as he travels across the world, bringing darkness to various countries and overseeing various other elements, like Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett), Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), Quiet (Aparna Nancherla), and Sleep (Natasia Demetriou).  Dark shows Orion that there’s no need to scared of the dark and that everyone involved is just doing their job.  Orion comes to understand and appreciate Dark but, when he makes the mistake of saying that he still kind of likes Light (voice by Ike Barinholtz) better, it leads to a lot of hurt feelings and resignations….

If this sounds a bit weird, one should keep in mind that the story is being told by the adult Orion (voiced by Colin Hanks) to his daughter, Hypathia (Mia Akemi Brown).  Adult Orion is telling the story to help Hypathia deal with her own fears and it soon becomes obvious that he’s making it up as he goes along.  Hypathia is aware of this and has no hesitation about calling out the stuff that doesn’t make any sense.  And when Orion proves incapable of coming up with a satisfactory ending for his story, Hypathia jumps into the story herself in an attempt to bring it all to a proper conclusion.  But once she’s in the story, can she get back out?

Orion and the Dark may sound like a standard “conquer your fears and believe in yourself” animated film but the script was written by Charlie Kaufman and, in typical Kaufman fashion, the story is full of twists and turns and more than a few moments of commentary on the whole act of storytelling itself.  There’s actually a lot going on in Orion and the Dark, with the film ultimately becoming a tribute to the power of imagination and to all of the parents-turned-storytellers in the world.

I’m a bit notorious for crying while watching animated films and I will say that Orion and the Dark brought tears to my eyes more than a few times.  It’s an incredibly sweet movie, one that can be appreciated by both children and adults.  It’s a movie about not just conquering fears but also using those fears to make oneself stronger.  The final message is that light cannot exist without the dark and vice versa but that’s okay.  There’s much to love in the light but the dark can be lovable too.  Fear is a part of life but it’s not the only part of life.

Creatively-animated and featuring a strong cast of voice actors, Orion and the Dark is definitely one to check out.

The Stranger From Ponca City (1947, directed by Derwin Abrahams)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After spending the past few years cleaning up the west, Steve Leary (Charles Starrett) rides into the town of Red Mound and says that he is ready to buy a ranch and settle down.  What Steve finds is an unfriendly town that is divided between law-abiding citizens on one side and cattle rustlers on the other.  The cattle rustlers want to prevent Steve from purchasing the old Atkins ranch and they’ll do anything to keep the deed from being signed over.  It’s a good thing that Steve also happens to be the legendary Durango Kid.

This is a standard entry in the Durango Kid series.  To me, it’s interesting to see that, even though Steve seems like he wants to settle down and live a peaceful, ranching life, he still can’t bring himself to give up his secret identity.  It is also interesting that Steve cannot escape Smiley Burnette.  This time, Smiley is the owner of Red Mound’s restaurant and he’s accompanied by Texas Jim Lewis and the Lone Star Cowboys.  It seems like Smiley sings even more than usual in this entry.

I liked the opening of The Stranger From Ponca City, in which Steve rides into town and all of the townspeople demand to know which side of Red Mound he supports.  Smiley even explains that food made on one side of the town cannot be taken to the other without it leading to violence.  After the opening sequence, The Stranger From Ponca City focuses on all of the usual horse chases and gunfights that showed up in all of the Durango Kid films.  Most of the Durango Kid stock company shows up as well.  Keep an eye out for Jock Mahoney, playing a bad guy with Kermit Maynard.

Director Derwin Abrahams keeps things moving, even if his direction is not up the level of the work of Durango’s usual directors, Ray Navarro and Fred F. Sears.  This isn’t the best of the Durango Kid films but fans of the genre should enjoy it.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.14 “Yankee Dollar”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Sonny’s latest girlfriend gets involved in the drug trade.

Episode 2.14 “Yankee Dollar”

(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on January 17th, 1986)

It’s another night in Miami.  Sonny Crockett is looking forward to driving out to the airport and picking up his latest girlfriend, a flight attendant named Sarah (Audrey Matson).  For two years, Sarah has been working the Miami to Bogota to Paris and back route.  She doesn’t make a lot of money but, as is typical for this show, she lives in a small but very nicely furnished house.

Unfortunately, Sarah dies shortly after Sonny picks her up.  She goes into cardiac arrest, the result of a balloon of cocaine bursting inside of her.  It turns out that Sarah was working as a drug mule, all so she could make a quick five grand and buy a used BMW.

Seriously, what are the chances that Sonny Crockett’s girlfriend would turn out to be a drug smuggler?  Maybe she thought she was dating Sonny Burnett.  Or maybe, like so many others on this show, she allowed her desire for the finer things in life — like a BMW — to lead her astray.  This is one of the major themes of Miami Vice.  In a society where conspicuous consumption rules, people will do anything to appear richer than they actually are.

When Sonny and Rico arrest Sarah’s brother, Tim (Clayton Rohner), they discover that he works for a wealthy businessman named Charlie Glide (Ned Eisenberg).  Everyone knows that Charlie Glide (a great name, by the way) is involved in the drug trade but no one has ever been able to pin anything on him.  In the past, Charlie avoided cocaine but he’s now looking to branch out.  Sonny and Rico go undercover to try to bring Charlie down.

Of course, it doesn’t work.  Charlie is smart enough to figure out that Sonny and Rico are trying to set him up.  Even after Crockett and Tubbs drag him down to the police station and Charlie makes a deal for immunity in return for setting up two other drug dealers (Anne Carlisle and Pepe Serna), he still tries to double cross the cops.  And even though the double cross doesn’t quite work, Charlie remains smug in his knowledge that he has immunity.

Except, of course, he doesn’t have immunity from all crimes.  Earlier in the episode, Charlie’s executive assistant, Max Rogo (Austin Pendleton), used Charlie’s gun to execute Tim.  Even though Crockett and Tubbs know that Max is the one who pulled the trigger and that Max is the one who decided to kill Tim, they still arrest Charlie for the murder.  (Max was apparently killed in an earlier shootout so it’s not like he’s around to tell the truth.)  “You changed the rules!” Charlie shouts as he’s dragged away.

This episode is Miami Vice at its most cynical.  Crockett and Tubbs can’t get Charlie for the crime he committed so, instead, they set him up for a crime he didn’t commit.  They did change the rules in that they decided they no longer have to follow them.  The episode is full of characters so desperate for money that they’ll do just about anything, even smuggling a lethal drug in their body.  Crockett can only watch helplessly as Sarah dies and, even as Charlie is taken away, there’s never any doubt that he’ll be replaced by someone else, the drug trade will continue, and more people will die just because they wanted to be able to afford a few extra things.  Crockett and Tubbs are fighting a war that can never be won.  Whatever victories they get ultimately feel hollow.  Arresting Charlie won’t bring Sarah back and it won’t stop more innocent people from dying.  Ned Eisenberg was wonderfully smug as Charlie Glide and Austin Pendleton was appropriately creepy as the always-smiling Max Rogo.  This was a good episode, one that challenged the traditional cop show narrative.  How long can one fight a losing war?

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Fantastic Four!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 1994’s Fantastic Four!  Selected and hosted by Rev. Magdalen, this movie was produced by Roger Corman and never released!  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 Fantastic Four 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.   

Scenes That I Love: The Opening of Top Gun

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, 38 years ago, Top Gun was released and the movie changed forever.

From the opening shot, Top Gun captured the attention of audiences who understood that, though the film’s script may have been full of cliches and though the movie was basically just a remake of the old service moves of the late 30s and 40s, it didn’t matter because jets are freaking cool.

And that opening scene is today’s scene that I love!

Happy Top Gun Day!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Harvey Keitel Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 85th birthday to the legendary actor, Harvey Keitel!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Harvey Keitel Films

Mean Streets (1973, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Kent L. Wakeford)

Taxi Driver (1976, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Chapman)

Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)

Bad Lieutenant (1992, dir by Abel Ferrara, DP: Ken Kelsch)

Music Video of the Day: The Angel and the Gambler by Iron Maiden (1998, directed by Simon Hilton)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day comes from Iron Maiden’s Blaze Bayley Era.  The video and the aliens that appear in it were almost entirely computer generated at a time when that was still considered to be unusual.

Director Simon Hilton has also done videos for Mark Ronson, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Robert Plant, The Black Crowes, and many others.

Enjoy!