Daily Archives: May 17, 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, a flip of the coin leads to tragedy!

Episode 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

(Dir by Mark Sobel, originally aired on October 21st, 1988)

Finally, Jack, Micki, and Ryan have a night to relax.  Jack does some reading while Micki poses for Ryan, who is apparently a sculptor now.  Micki says that it’s unfortunate that Ryan is stuck having work at Curious Goods when he has so much artistic talent.  Micki has a point, even if this is the first time that we’ve heard about Ryan’s artistic interests.

Suddenly, the phone rings.  A reporter named Tom Hewitt (Bill MacDonald) is calling because he’s heard that Jack is an expert in the occult.  Tom says that he’s tracked down a Satanic cult that is planning on doing something big.  He tells Jack where he can find all of the evidence that Tom has gathered over the course of his investigation.  While Jack and Ryan head over to the bus depot where Tom has hidden his research, Micki stays at the store.  As for poor old Tom, he ends up dead with the image of a bloody ram’s head imprinted on his forehead.

Looking through Tom’s papers and photographs, Jack discovers that the head of the Satanic cult is a taxidermist named Sylvan Winters (Colin Fox) and that Sylvan is in possession of a coin that is imbued with Satanic energy.  When the owner of the coin flips it, it leads to the death of whoever is standing nearby.  After the coin kills someone, it can be used to bring someone back to life.

First, Jack goes to the taxidermy shop with Ryan but the two of them fail to find the coin.  Later, Jack returns with Micki and the two of them stumble on a Satanic ceremony.  When they are spotted by Sylvan and the cultists, Jack and Micki make a run for it.  Sadly, they get separated.  While Jack manages to escape from the cultists, Micki is caught by Sylvan.  Sylvan flips the coin and …. KILLS MICKI!

Seriously, Micki’s death took me totally by surprise and it actually left me feeling really upset.  I’ve got red hair.  Micki has red hair.  Micki tends to be a skeptic.  I tend to be a skeptic.  Micki was pretty much me on this show!  And now she’s dead?  Agck!

Arriving at the taxidermy place, Ryan sobs over Micki’s body and then tells Jack that, after he gets the coin and destroys Sylvan, he is done with the cursed antiques business.  Ryan says that he’s ready to live his life and he can’t handle losing anyone else close to him.  (Remember that Ryan’s father was killed by a cursed pipe last season.)  

Returning to the taxidermy studio, Ryan and Jack discover that Sylvan is planning on using the coin to raise two powerful warlocks and a witch so that they can combine their power to bring Satan into the world.  However, Ryan and Jack steal Micki’s body from the morgue, put a mask on her to make her look like the witch that Sylvan wants to raise from the dead, and then the replace the witch’s body with Micki’s body.  As a result, Sylvan brings Micki back to life.  (Ryan and Jack’s plan is incredibly complicated and I’m kind of surprised that they were able to pull it off.  But who cares as long as Micki is no longer dead.)  Satan gets angry, the taxidermist studio collapses. and Ryan grabs the coin and flips it in front of Sylvan.  Sylvan dies but the coin is still out there.

But no matter!  The important thing is that Micki comes back to life!  Yay!  And Ryan decides not to leave Curious Goods, mostly because he’s in love with his cousin, though that’s something that the show rarely acknowledges.

By the time this episode came around, Robey, Chris Wiggins, and John D. LeMay had developed into a tight enough ensemble that Ryan’s tears and Jack’s anger over the death of Micki felt very powerful and very real.  As well, Colin Fox was a wonderfully hissable villain.  He was so smug that I couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance.  This was an excellent episode.

Next week, Ryan falls in love with a cursed violinist because Ryan is never allowed to be happy for long.

The Films of 2024: He Went That Way (dir by Jeffrey Darling)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1964.  Kennedy is dead and Johnson is president.  American troops are in Vietnam but the American public is not yet concerned with that conflict.  Instead, it’s the British Invasion that has intrigued the youth of America.  People know that times are changing but they have no idea just how much change is waiting for them in the future.

Jim Goodwin (Zachary Quninto) is a meek animal trainer who is driving across the country with his chimpanzee, Spanky.  At one time, Spanky was a celebrity.  He ice skated with the stars.  He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Everyone loved Spanky but now, it appears that his time has passed.  People are more interested in Beatles than chimps.  With Spanky no longer in demand, Jim’s marriage is failing and he’s struggling to pay the bills.

At a Nevada gas station, Jim sees a young man named Bobby Falls (Jacob Elordi) trying to hitch a ride.  Assuming that Bobby is a college student and wanting someone to talk to during the long drive to Chicago, Jim offers him a ride.  Bobby is reluctant at first and demands to know if Jim has some sort of sinister motive for picking him up.  After Jim promises that he doesn’t, Bobby gets in the truck with him.

What Jim doesn’t know, but eventually learns, is that Bobby is a criminal.  Using a derringer, Bobby has been robbing gas stations and executing the gas station attendants.  Their journey becomes a rather macabre road trip, with Jim and Bobby bonding despite the fact that Jim is scared of Bobby and Bobby always seems to be one step away from snapping.  Bobby encourages Jim to stop being such a wimp and Jim encourages Bobby to maybe not be such a violent sociopath.  Though Bobby and Jim come from different worlds, they both have one thing in common.  They really like the chimpanzee.

I have to admit that I liked the chimpanzee as well.  Bobby’s a killer so it’s impossible for me to like him.  Jim is a wimp who fails to take advantage of several opportunities to escape so it’s impossible for me to respect him.  But Spanky is an innocent animal who likes to eat apples and who sincerely cares about both his owner and the hitchhiker who keeps losing his temper.  I watched the film dreading that something bad would happen to Spanky.  In fact, the only reason I stuck with the film for its entire running time was because I wanted to make sure Spanky survived. 

(SPOILER ALERT: He did.  Whatever other flaws this film may have, there is no deliberate animal cruelty.)

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this movie.  There was a lot that I didn’t like about the film.  I never bought the relationship between the two main characters (though I should also acknowledge that the film is loosely based on a true story and ends with an interview with the real life model for Jim).  The performances felt a bit one-note.  And, to be honest, I’m a bit bored with movies about people who spend the majority of their time killing other people.  At the same time, the film looked great.  Visually, it really captured the arid beauty of the American desert.  And the film’s final twist was just bizarre enough to make me smile.  Tragically, director Jeffrey Darling died shortly after completing production of this film.  (It was his feature directorial debut.)  And while I didn’t care much for the film, there were moments where I could see the talent of the director peeking through.  I would have liked to have seen what Darling’s second film would have been.

As for He Went That Way, it’s not a disastrous film but it’s also not one that I will probably ever feel like rewatching.

 

 

Six-Gun Law (1948, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Norris (Charles Starrett) has moved to a new frontier town and is making a good living as a cattle rancher.  The sheriff (Ethan Laidlaw) takes a dislike to Steve and even accuses him of being a cattle rustler.  Steve is so angered that he plays right into the hands of Decker (Hugh Prosser), a corrupt businessman who secretly puts blanks into Steve’s gun and then tricks Steve into thinking that he has shot and killed the sheriff.

Decker appoints Steve as the new sheriff but demands that Steve do exactly what Decker orders him to do.  If Steve actually enforced the law, Decker will turn him in as the first sheriff’s murderer.  Steve may not be able to do anything about Decker’s crimes but his alter ego, The Durango Kid, can!  As always, working with Steve is his loyal sidekick, Smiley Burnette.

The stand-out set piece of this Durango Kid film is an exciting stagecoach chase, which features the Durango Kid (in the form of legendary stuntman Jock Mahoney) making some thrilling moves.  The scene was so exciting and popular that it was used in a dozen other Durango Kid films.  These movies were never shy about reusing good scenes, effective stunts, and plot twists.  (It’s easy to lose track of how many times Steve has been appointed as sheriff of a town.)  This was also neither the first nor the last time that Hugh Prosser and Robert Wilke would play bad guys in a Durango Kid movie.  However, this is the only Durango Kid film to feature the Rodeo Rangers providing musical accompaniment  to Smiley Burnette’s songs.

Six-Gun Law will be best appreciated by fans of the western genre.  Charles Starrett is as tough and authentic a cowboy as always and the storyline has some nice twists and turns.  For once, with Steve being blackmailed by Decker, it makes sense that Steve would put on his disguise and solve his problems as the Durango Kid.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.9 “Movie Madness”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get really, really silly.

Episode 3.9 “Movie Madness”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 3rd, 1990)

Fritz and Nobby are back!

Who?

Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Nobby (Avery Saltzman) are two criminals who appeared in two episode of the second season of T and T.  The first time they appeared, they pulled a gun on T.S. Turner and threatened to kill him,  The second time, they were portrayed a bit more comedically as lovable bunglers.  This third episode finds Fritz and Nobby at their most cartoonish.

Fritz wants to rob a Chinese jewelry store that happens to be right next to Decker’s gym.  So, he and Nobby walk into the gym and tell Decker that they’ve reformed and they want to shoot a boxing movie starring him.  Decker agrees to act.  (“I could have been a contender!” he announces.)  Then Terri shows up and demands to know what Fritz and Dobby are doing at the gym so they ask her if she wants to be the female lead.  (“I have always depended on strangers being kind,” she says.)  The boxing movie becomes a love story.  Then, when the gym starts shaking due to the efforts to break through the wall that the gym shares with the jewelry store, Fritz explains that they’re testing the special effects for the big earthquake scene.  It’s a boxing love story disaster film!

Where is T.S. Turner during all of this?  Well, he doesn’t show up until the final 10 minutes of the episode.  He immediately suspects that Fritz and Nobby are up to no good.  “I’m going to pull the plug on your permanently!” he growls.

One would think that Fritz and Nobby would be smart enough to get out of the gym but they still try to blow up the wall, even with Turner nearby.  That’s a big mistake as Turner proceeds to grab them and turn them over to the police.

What a weird episode.  First off, Decker has been dumb in the past but he’s never been this dumb.  Secondly, Terri apparently knows Fritz and Nobby despite the fact that she wasn’t around during the second season.  Not only has this show failed to explain why Amy is no longer on the show but it also continually acts as if Terri has always been present despite not showing up until the start of third season.  We’re just mean to accept that Teri has always been the second T in T and T.  (How Orwellian.)  Finally, T.S. Turner is absent for most of the episode.  Why would you go to the trouble to build a show around Mr. T and then not use him?

This was all pretty silly and pretty dumb, even by T and T standards.  Remember when this show at least pretended to be a crime drama?

Oh well.  There’s only a handful of episodes left!  We’ll make it.

Scenes I Love: Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt In Twister

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bill Paxton would have been 69 years old today.  As a lover of both films and eccentric Texans, I still miss Bill Paxton.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Twister and it features Bill Paxton showing off some wonderful chemistry with Helen Hunt.  One of the great things about Bill Paxton is that he was equally at home in both big blockbusters like Twister and Titanic and low-budget indies like Near Dark.  He was an artist who also happened to be a star.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Dennis Hopper Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dennis Hopper (1936–2010)

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

88 years ago, Dennis Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas.

It seems rather appropriate that one of America’s greatest cinematic outlaws was born in a town that will be forever associated with the old west. Dennis Hopper was a rebel, back when there were actual consequences for being one. He started out acting in the 50s, appearing in films like Rebel Without A Cause and Giant and developing a reputation for being a disciple of James Dean. He also developed a reputation for eccentricity and for being difficult on set and he probably would have gotten completely kicked out of Hollywood if not for a somewhat improbable friendship with John Wayne. (Wayne thought Hopper was a communist but he liked him anyways. Interestingly enough, Hopper later became a Republican.) Somehow, Hopper managed to survive both a raging drug addiction and an obsession with guns and, after a mid-80s trip to rehab, he eventually became an almost universally beloved and busy character actor.

Hopper, however, always wanted to direct. He made his directorial debut with 1969’s Easy Rider, a film that became a huge success despite being an infamously chaotic shoot. The success of Easy Rider led to the Hollywood studios briefly trying to produce counter-culture films of their own. Hopper was given several million dollars and sent to Peru to make one of them, the somewhat dangerously titled The Last Movie. Unfortunately, The Last Movie, was such a bomb that it not only temporarily derailed Hopper’s career but it also turned Hollywood off of financing counter culture films. Hopper spent a decade in the Hollywood wilderness, giving acclaimed performances in independent films like Tracks and The American Friend, even while continuing to increase his reputation for drug-fueled instability. Hopper would eventually return to directing with his masterpiece, 1980’s Out of the Blue. (Out of the Blue was so controversial that, when it played at Cannes, Canada refused to acknowledge that it was a Canadian production. It played as a film without a country. Out of the Blue, however, is a film that has stood the test of time.) Unfortunately, even after a newly cleaned-up Hopper was re-embraced by the mainstream, his directorial career never really took off. He directed 7 films, of which only Easy Rider and Colors were financially successful. Contemporary critics often didn’t seem to know what to make of Dennis Hopper as a director. In recent years, however, Hopper’s directorial efforts have been reevaluated. Even The Last Movie has won over some new fans.

Today, on his birthday, we honor Dennis Hopper’s directorial career with….

4 Shots From 4 Dennis Hopper Films

Easy Rider (1969, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Laszlo Kovacs)
The Last Movie (1971, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Laszlo Kovacs)
Out of the Blue (1980, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Marc Champion)
The Hot Spot (1990, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Ueli Steiger)

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For Run, Lola, Run!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, we’ve got 1998’s Run, Lola, Run!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Run, Lola, Run is available on Prime!  See you there!

Music video of the Day: We’re In This Together by Nine Inch Nails (1999, directed by Mark Pellington)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video was shot in Guadalajara and a dry lake in Sayula.

This video was directed by Mark Pellington, who was one of those directors who worked with everyone who was anyone.  Pellington went on to direct films like Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies.

Today is Trent Reznor’s birthday.  Getting older is never fun but Reznor has said that he is happier now than when he first started his career.  Reznor has gone from being the poster child for excess and dark tendencies to being one of the film industry’s most acclaimed and in-demand composers.

Enjoy!