Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

Posted on January 18, 2025 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, Howard’s paranoid and with good reason! They are all out to get him….

Episode 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 17th, 1987)

After the new stockboy, 12 year-old Brad (played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge), shows Howard a newspaper article about how the company that purchased Cobb’s has been sending corporate spies into its stores to evaluate management, Howard gets extremely paranoid. He becomes convinced that there must be a spy in the store. He gathers Brad, Leslie, Christian, Viker, and Marlene into the stockroom and asks them if they’ve noticed anyone strange in the store. He also suggests that any one of them could possibly be the spy.

Or maybe — just maybe — the spy is the new butcher who keeps asking Howard all sorts of questions about the other employees. He would seem to be the most likely suspect and we know it’s him because the episode opens with him getting his assignment and talking about how he can’t wait to get Howard Bannister fired. Howard, of course, is so paranoid about the possibility of there being a spy in the store that he expresses all of his fears and frustrations to the spy. In other words, this is yet another episode episode where Howard is a complete moron. The previous season was split evenly between episodes where Howard was competent and episodes where Howard was an idiot. The episodes featuring stupid Howard were always funnier than the episodes featuring smart Howard so I think the showrunners made the right decision to focus o Howard’s stupidity in the third season. No one wants to watch a show about a good boss. What fun is that?

(It’s kind of like how we loved The Office when it was all about Michael screwing up but, when it became about new boss Andy proving himself, we all tuned out.)

It turns out that not everyone at the new corporation is supportive of the whole spy thing. T.C. Collingwood comes to the store and informs Howard that his butcher is the spy. Howard replies by giving the spy a lot of work to do. I guess that’s one way to handle it but it doesn’t change the fact that Howard told the spy that everyone at the store was incompetent and should be fired. This episode makes less and less sense the more that I think about it. Can’t corporate just look at whether or not the store had made any money and use that to determine whether or not Howard’s doing a good enough job? This episode didn’t make much sense.

Incidentally, Edna was on vacation during this episode. How many vacation does Edna get in the year? It seems like she’s never at the store. I have a feeling that Howard is going to run off with T.C. Collingwood at some point in the new future. Maybe that’s for the best. At least then Edna wouln’t have to flee to Florida every month.

Next week …. Howard wants to be a TV star! We’ll see what happens.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 1/12/25 — 1/18/25

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Brandon, you are not ready to be my head chef.”

Oh my God, did Chef Ramsay really just say that!? I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen but I don’t think any elimination has taken me as much by surprise as the elimination of Brandon this week. Brandon is who I expected to win this season and I know that I’m not alone in that. That said, Brandon did struggle at service. Of all the chefs to receive black jackets, Brandon struggled the most and, even more importantly, Brandon was really the only one to struggle. Ramsay didn’t have much of a choice but I have a feeling Brandon will return in a future season.

Speaking of Chef Ramsay, I also caught the second part of the Kitchen Nightmares premiere. I’m glad that Ramsay apparently thinks that he’s fixed that restaurant but I can promise that there is no way I would ever voluntarily eat at any establishment featured on this show. I don’t care if it’s clean now. Once a rat trap, always a rat trap.

This week’s episode of Abbott Elementary surfaced in comparison to last week’s but that’s to be expected considering the brilliance of last week’s show. I still laughed at Ava trying to figure out what it’s like to “date the poors.”

On Peacock, I watched the three episode documentary Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story and yes, that was certainly disgusting and disturbing, It was even worse than Hulu’s Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, which I also watched. I guess I felt like catching up on some sordid history this week!

Speaking of sordid, Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire is on YouTube. I watched it and I have to admit that I laughed when the “millionaire” came lurching out and started speaking in a voice that sounded exactly like Bill Hader’s. Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire was a one-time, two-hour special that aired in 2000. The man behind this fiasco (the marriage was annulled, the millionaire was not a millionaire but just a guy who was the subject of multiple restraining orders) went on to create The Bachelor.

Also on YouTube, I found all six episodes of The Starlet, a reality competition show where aspiring actresses competed for a walk-on role on One Tree Hill. Stop laughing, it was a real show. I vaguely remember watching it when it first aired. I watched it a second time on Monday because I was bored. One of the judges was Faye Dunaway. Faye was surprisingly nice. The mean judge was Vivica A. Fox.

Case and I are continuing to watch Dark, on Netflix. What a fascinating and macabre show! I recommend it to anyone reading.

I watched the latest episodes of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test but I don’t remember a damn thing about them, other than it amused me how everyone pretended to be taking everything so seriously.

And, as always, I watched the shows that I review on a weekly basis. I’m not going to sit here and list them all because I’m tired. But you can find all my reviews on this site. Yay!

Lisa Marie Review An Oscar Nominee: The Bishop’s Wife (dir by Henry Koster)

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife, Cary Grant stars as Dudley.

We first see Dudley walking down the snow-covered streets of a city that is preparing for Christmas. He watches Julia Broughman (Loretta Young), the wife of the local Anglican bishop. He stops to talk to Prof. Wutheridge (Monty Woolly), a secular humanist who is close to Julia and her husband, despite being irreligious himself. Dudley seems to know all about the professor, even though the professor is not sure who he is. The professor mentions that he was fired from a university because he was considered to be a “radical,” even though he has no interest in politics. The professor says that the town’s church has seen better days, especially since the Bishop is more interested in raising money from the rich to build a grand new cathedral than actually meeting with the poor who need help.

The last person that Dudley visits is Bishop Henry Broughman (David Niven). Dudley reveals to Henry that he’s angel and that he’s come in response to Henry’s prayers. Henry has been frustrated in his attempts to raise money for a new cathedral. Dudley has come to provide guidance.

With only the Bishop knowing the truth about Dudley, Dudley becomes a houseguest of the Broughmans. The Bishop has become so obsessed with his new cathedral that he’s not only been neglecting his diocese but also his family. While Dudley tries to show Henry what’s really important, he also helps Julia and her daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes) to fit in with the neighborhood. (Bobby Anderson, who played the young George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, makes an appearance as a boy having a snowball fight who says that Debby can’t play because no one wants to risk hitting a bishop’s daughter with a snowball.) The Bishop becomes jealous of Dudley and perhaps he should be as Dudley finds himself falling in love with Julia and considering not moving on to his next assignment.

(And now we know where Highway to Heaven got the inspiration for 75% of its episodes….)

The Bishop’s Wife is an enjoyable film, one that is full of not just Christmas imagery but also the Christmas spirit as well. The Bishop finally realizes that his planned cathedral is more of a gift to his ego than to the men and women who look to him for guidance and comfort in difficult times. David Niven is, as always, likable even when his character is acting like a jerk. That said, this is pretty much Cary Grant’s show from the start. Suave, charming, and gently humorous, Grant joins Claude Rains and Henry Travers in the ranks of great cinematic angels. Never mind that Grant’s character is a bit pushy and has his own crisis of faith. From the minute that Grant appears, we know that he’ll know exactly the right way to answer Henry’s prayers.

Cary Grant was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance here. Undoubtedly, this was another case of Grant making it all look so easy that the Academy failed to realize just how good of a performance he gave. Interestingly enough, The Bishop’s Wife was one of two Christmas films nominated for Best Picture that year, along with Miracle on 34th Street. Both films lost to Gentleman’s Agreement.

Excalibur (1981, directed by John Boorman)

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

During the Dark Ages, Britain is at war. King Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) leads his men against The Duke of Cornwall (Corin Redgrave). Uther and his men swear their allegiance to God and St. George but they trust in the magic of the mysterious Merlin (Nicol Williamson).

Merlin negotiates peace between Uther and Cornwall but Uther throws that peace away when he becomes obsessed with Cornwall’s beautiful wife, Igrayne (Katrine Boorman). Merlin uses his magic to disguise Uther as Cornwall so that Uther can spend one night with Igrayne. When Cornwall is killed in battle, Uther marries Igrayne and realizes it was never necesarry to use Merlin’s magic and that Merlin, who has the power to see the future, knew that. Merlin takes Uther and Igrayne’s infant son from them and then disappears. Later, Uther is killed by by three of Cornwall’s men. Before dying, Uther drives his magic sword, Excalibur, into a stone. On the true king of England will be able to remove it.

Uther’s son, Arthur (Nigel Terry), grows up with no knowledge about his parentage. When he accidentally draws Excalibur out of the rock, Merlin returns to counsel the new king. And the new king has much to learn, as not all of the nobleman are willing to accept him as their ruler. Arthur proves himself worthy to be king while his half-sister, Morgan (Helen Mirren), waits for her chance to get revenge.

Excalibur is one of the most ambitious films made about King Arthur. John Boorman fits the entire legend of Arthur, Lancelot (Nicholas Clay), Percevel (Paul Geoffrey), Guinevere (Cherie Lunghi), and the search for the Holy Grail into one movie and, as a result, there’s not a dull moment. Boorman presents the reign of King Arthur as a conflict between England’s pagan past and the new era of man. Merlin and Morgan’s magic is powerful but, in the end, power is determined by bloody battles fought by men encased in clunky armor. Arthur, Lancelot, and the other knights claim to live by the honorable, chivalric code but only one of them is able to live up to the ideal. The others become consumed by lust, jealousy, and a thirst for power.

In my opinion, Excalibur is the best movie made about King Arthur, mostly because John Boorman takes the story seriously and makes us feel like we are watching people who truly are living in different world and a different time. The chivalric code is necessary to keep the peace in a time when there are multiple pretenders-to-throne. Mordred (Robert Addie) is not just a villain because he seeks to overthrow his father but also because he is the one person to have no respect for the code or the mystic power of the Holy Grail.

Excalibur has a large cast with many familiar faces. Keep an eye out for Patrick Stewart as one of Arthur’s earliest supporters and also Liam Neeson as a surly Sir Gawain. Of all the Lancelots who have appeared in the movies, Nicolas Clay is the best and Helen Mirren is the perfect Morgan. Nicol Williamson steals the movie as the mysterious Merlin. And while Nigel Terry was too old for the scenes where Arthur is supposed to be a callow teenager, he grows into the role just as Arthur grew into being king of the Britons.

Monty Python and The Holy Grail will always make me laugh but John Boorman’s big, beautiful, and bloody Excalibur is the best film about Camelot.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.14 “Bride and Gloom”

Posted on January 18, 2025 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 can be purchased on Prime.

This week, it’s Welcome Back Barbarino!

Episode 4.14 “Bride and Gloom”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on January 13th, 1979)

Epstein needs a favor from Barbarino. Remember the time I saved your life? Epstein asks. No, Barbarino replies. Well, no matter! Epstein is still intent on getting to Barbarino to pay him back marrying Epstein’s Guatemalan cousin, Angelina (Rachel Levario). Angelina needs her citizenship so Vinnie just needs to stay married to her from three days and then they’ll get a divorce and Vinnie can continue to date Nurse Sally (Linda McCullough). (“What you’re doing is so noble!” Sally tells Barbarino. I am not sure I would have the same reaction to my boyfriend announcing he was marrying someone else.)

Julie and Woodman tell Barbarino that he’s too young to get married and it’s somewhat jarring to remember that Barbarino and the rest of the Sweathogs are still just supposed to be high school kids. (John Travolta was the youngest member of the cast but, by the time the fourth season rolled around, even he looked too old to be hanging out at Buchanan High.) Gabe is not around to provide any advice and I don’t think this episode even bothered to come up with an excuse to explain his absence.

Angelina does not speak a word of English so Epstein serves as the translator while she and Barbarino fight about the wedding. Angelina wants a nice wedding. Barbarino just wants to get it over with. They compromise by holding the ceremony in Barbarino’s ugly apartment. (If the show couldn’t even spend the money to convince Gabe Kaplan to appear in the show that he was starring on, there was no way they were going to splurge for an extra set.) The guests are the Sweathogs and Julie and, for some reason, Mr. Woodman. Babarino and Epstein both have huge families but none of them show up for the wedding. I guess hiring extras would have cost money. The show did hire an actor to play the priest so that was good of them.

Does Vinnie Barbarino get married? No. Angelina changes her mind and marries a musician instead. Barbarino can go back to dating Sally and I guess Gabe will just hear about it later at dinner.

“I’m so confused!” Barbarino says at one point and the audience goes wild. Even though Travolta spent this episode looking like he was pretty much over the whole thing, the studio audience was happy to see him. The show’s greatest strength, at this point, was Travolta but this episode also shows the limits of the show’s format. Barbarino had to be both a high school student and a green card groom. It felt odd and kind of unpleasant.

Finally, why is Barbarino’s apartment is always so filthy? I get that he’s supposed to be poor and living in New York but seriously, couldn’t they have swept the set occasionally? The sight of that apartment always depresses me.

This episode features the cast going through the motions and, as was often the case with season 4, it’s obvious that no one really wants to be there. I certainly didn’t want to be there! Next week features Barbarino’s final appearance on the show. Soon, Vinnie will be free.

Song of the Day: These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, covered by Jessica Simpson

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The other night, I was watching Class of 1984 with a group of friends (including three TSL writers), and I we started discussing what our high schools were known for. When I was a student there, my high school was probably best known for the fact that Jessica Simpson attended the school in the 90s. She didn’t graduate because she left Texas for Hollywood but that was still our claim to fame. It’s interesting because people didn’t care that was my school was also named one of the best high schools in America and that it had an acclaimed drama department. But they definitely cared that Jessica Simpson dropped out before I was even old enough to attend.

(Is it a good thing when your school is best known for a student who dropped out and went on to become a success with G.E.D.?)

Today’s song of the day was inspired by that conversation. Here’s Jessica Simpson, covering These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.

(Yes, I know that no cover can compare to Nancy Sinatra’s other but I didn’t go to Nancy Sinatra’s high school. Plus, I’m a Southern girl with a closet full of boots. I relate to this version.)

You keep sayin’ you’ve got somethin’ for me
Somethin’ you call love but confess
You’ve been a’messin’ where you shouldn’t ‘ve been a’messin’
And now someone else is getting all your best

These boots are made for walkin’
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
Ya

You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
And you keep losing when you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ when you oughta be a’changin’
Now what’s right is right but you ain’t been right yet

These boots are made for walkin’
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

You keep playin’ where you shouldn’t be playin’
And you keep thinkin’ that you’ll never get burnt (ha)
I just found me a brand new box of matches, yeah
And what he knows you ain’t had time to learn

These boots are made for walkin’
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

Are you ready, boots? Start walkin’

(Lyrics by Lee Hazlewood)

So, I watched Hitting The Cycle (2012, dir. by Darin Anthony and J. Richey Nash)

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

Rip (J. Richey Nash) is a veteran baseball player who started strong and then become mediocre, kind of like this film. He had his chance in the majors but then he injured his knee and now, he plays in the minors. One game, he comes close to hitting the cycle, just missing out on his chance to hit a home run. Immediately afterwards, he told that he’s been released to make room for some young players. That’s baseball. Players come and players go. I thought I’d never get over Elvis Andrus leaving the Rangers and I never did. When Andrus retired last year, he signed a one-day contract with the Rangers so he could retire as a Ranger. We love you, Elvis!

Rip goes back to his small town, where he’s still a big deal because he used to be a pro baseball player. His father (Bruce Dern) is in the hospital but Rip still resents the pressure his father put him under while he was growing up. It’s all really predictable.

I liked the baseball scenes at the start of the game, even though Rip’s batting stance seemed all wrong. They still captured the excitement of watching a good game and they reminded me that, even though football and basketball may get all the attention, baseball truly is the nation’s pastime. Baseball is Americana and I’ll always love it. But once the movie stopped being about baseball and became about Rip being a jerk to everyone in his hometown, I got bored with it. Bruce Dern was good but everyone else was forgettable.

The important thing? Only a month to go until spring training!

Elvis Andrus, once and always a Ranger!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Mortuary With #ScarySocial!

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. 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, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1982’s Mortuary, starring Bill Paxton!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and Tubi! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

Scene That I Love: Dueling Banjos from John Boorman’s Deliverance

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Diliverance (1972,dir by John Boorman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

Today’s scene that I love comes from John Boorman’s 1972 film, Deliverance. For the longest time, I thought that this scene was improvised and the kid with the banjo just happened to be hanging out around the set. That makes for a nice story but I have recently read that this scene was actually scripted and the kid, while a local, was hired ahead-of-time to show up and play the banjo.

From Deliverance, here are the Dueling Banjos!

8 Shots From 8 Films: Special John Boorman Edition

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 92nd birthday to British director John Boorman.

Boorman is one of those great director who sometimes doesn’t seem to get as much credit as he deserves. An undeniably idiosyncratic director, Boorman easily moved from genre to genre and who brought his own individual style to each of his films. Sometimes, critics and audiences responded to that vision and sometimes, they didn’t. And yet even Boorman’s so-called failures have come to be appreciated over the years. Zardoz is a cult classic. Even The Exorcist II: The Heretic is not quite the disaster that some insist. If nothing else, it’s one of the strangest studio productions to ever be released.

At his best, Boorman is one of the most influential directors of all time. How many neo-noirs have ripped off the look and the feel of Point Blank? The ending of Deliverance has been imitated by a countless number of horror films and, indeed, every backwoods thriller owes a debt to Boorman’s film about four businessmen spending a weekend canoeing. Excalibur is one of the most elegiac of all the Arthurian films while Hope and Glory retains its power to make audiences both laugh and cry with its portrayal of life on the British homefront during World War II. Meanwhile, films like The General and The Emerald Forest gave underrated characters actors like Powers Boothe and Brendan Gleeson a chance to shine.

So today, in honor of the career and the legacy of John Boorman, here are….

8 Shots from 8 John Boorman Films

Point Blank (1967, directed by John Boorman, DP: Philip H. Lathrop)