Oh, why not?
The Oscar nominations are due to be announced tomorrow and right now, I think everyone’s waiting to see who will be the next big thing. In honor of the occasion, here is Tony Wickes and the California Dreams with today’s song of the day.
All together now …. he’s so funky!
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More 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 birthday of one of the most important and independently minded filmmakers of the past 40 years, Jim Jarmusch!
It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Jim Jarmusch Films
Stranger Than Paradise (1984, dir by Jim Jarmusch, DP: Tom DiCillo)
Down by Law (1986, dir by Jim Jarmusch, DP: Robby Muller)
Dead Man (1995, dir by Jim Jarmusch, DP: Robby Muller)
The Dead Don’t Die (2019, dir by Jim Jarmusch, DP: Frederick Elmes)
Kemp Spicer (Warren Oates) rides into town and runs into Marian Starett (Jill Ireland) and her father-in-law Tom Starett (Tom Tully) who are there visiting the local blacksmith. Spicer likes what he sees when he looks at Marian, and proceeds to make some creepy advances. He then asks if they know a guy named Shane. When they ask Spicer why he wants to know, he says that him and his family are going to kill him. After Marian and Tom tell Shane (David Carradine) about what they were told, Shane heads into town. He wants to know why they want to kill him, as well as keep the Spicers away from the Starett ranch. When he arrives at Sam Grafton’s saloon, Boon Spicer (Charles Kuenstie) tells him that they are there to get vengeance for Shane killing their brother Joey four years earlier in Abilene. Shane never killed anyone in Abilene so he knows that someone is mistaken, or just flat out lying. Soon other members of the Spicer family arrive in town, led by their Bible-quoting uncle Joshua Spicer (Cliff Osmond). Shane knows he’s going to have to take on these men even though he’s innocent of their family member’s death. He just wants to make sure they don’t go out to the Starett ranch and put the family in danger.
Episode 4 of Shane has our biggest co-star yet, in Warren Oates. It’s fun seeing his Kemp Spicer creep around making threats against Shane, making advances towards Marian, and then questioning whether or not they’re even after the right guy. Cliff Osmond is memorable and interesting as Uncle Joshua Spicer who puts their family honor above everything else. This episode also sees Shane getting some help as he takes on the Spicer clan in the final shootout. This help comes from Tom Starett and Rufe Ryker (Bert Freed), the local foe of the family. I don’t expect this means Ryker has turned good, but he definitely prefers Shane over those “hillbillies” he ran out of the area years earlier. Finally, we continue to learn of Marian’s feelings for Shane in this episode. At one point, she’s willing to leave the entire ranch behind if it keeps Shane safe. Shane doesn’t hear her say this, but her father-in-law remarks that he never realized she loved Shane that much.
I found episode 4 to be an entertaining episode. It features good performances from interesting co-stars. It also makes a good point about how an innocent lie can take on a life of its own and lead to unintended consequences. I’ll be looking forward to Episode 5!
by Milo
This cover is from 1962. It’s signed “Milo.” I guess the man standing in the doorway is supposed to be Virginia’s “new kick.”
This video popped up in my YouTube recommendations, I assume because I’ve been watching a lot of Blondie videos recently. This has an enjoyably weird feel to it, with its caged clown on a typewriter and all the other carnival folks. I relate to the woman at the start of the video. That’s definitely the job and costume that I would want if I worked for a traveling circus.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.
It’s time for another trip to the beach!
Episode 1.3 “No Man’s Land”
(Dir by Michael Levine and John Bush, originally aired on March 16th, 1996)
Uh-oh! There’s Nazis on the beach.
We know that Carl (Ryan Alosio) is a Nazi because he owns a bar that is decorated, on the outside, with a swastika. Then, on the inside, there are many more swastikas and a German flag and a picture of Adolf Hitler hanging on the wall. My question is who sold the bar to Carl and how exactly is he not violating any zoning laws? Throughout the show, we’re constantly told that Carl can do whatever he wants on his property but don’t most towns have rules about what you can and cannot display in a business district? We’re told that Carl has a criminal record and his arms are covered in Nazi tattoos so, once again, I have to wonder who sold him the bar. There are a lot regulations and paperwork involved in opening up your own small business. That’s especially true if your business is going to be selling alcohol. I guess my point is that I just have a hard time believing that Carl’s Nazi bar would be allowed to stay open on the boardwalk.
Bizarrely, ordinary non-Nazis keep entering Carl’s Nazi bar. Wouldn’t the swastika turn most people away? I’m just saying that personally, I would not go in a building that was decorated with a swastika. Anytime anyone who is not a Nazi goes in Carl’s bar, Carl beats them up. You really have to wonder how Carl is managing to stay in business. I mean, let’s just accept that there’s enough Nazis in Santa Monica for Carl to have a steady customer base. Carl is still asking those people to step into a building that is decorated with a swastika and basically announce their opinions to the world. I would think at least some of the Santa Monica Nazis would be like, “No, I’d rather keep it a secret and go drink at a politically neutral bar.” I mean, this isn’t some isolated club, like the place in Green Room. This bar is sitting right in the middle of the boardwalk, where hundreds of people walk by each day. Apparently, Santa Monica Nazis have no fear of being outed.
Like all Nazis, Carl is a jerk. He beats up a vendor for selling churros in front of his bar. He also harasses all of the non-white surfers. You would think that this episode’s hero would be Officer Del Toro but instead, it falls to the very white T.C. Callaway to stand up to Carl and eventually drag him off to jail. Callaway explains that he hates bullies. That’s fine but it’s still more emotionally satisfying to watch a bully get beaten up by the bullied as opposed to by a concerned bystander.
We also get B-plot about a young graffiti artist named Melo (Christopher Babers) and Cory’s attempt to get Melo to see the error of his ways and instead use his artistic talent for something good. And Mayor Mickey Dolenz spends the episode panicking because there’s an election to coming up to determine whether or not to allow on the nudity on the beach. It’s pretty dumb but it’s hard not to smile at Mickey Dolenz playing himself.
The main problem with this episode and the show as a while is that the cops look silly riding around on their bikes. When Cory and Victor head down a flight of stairs to catch Melo tagging a tunnel, they have to pick up and carry their bikes with them and it was hard not to laugh. Whenever someone says, “This is Bike 1 responding,” to a crime call, I just imagine a dispatcher grimacing and thinking, I was hoping for a real cop. Watching CHiPs and then this episode made me appreciate how much better motorcycles are than bicycles.
Telly Savalas was born on January 21, 1922 and he died on January 22, 1994. When I think of Savalas, I first think of his most famous character, KOJAK (1973-1978).
After that I think of his work with my movie hero, Charles Bronson. They worked together on THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and VIOLENT CITY (1970). They were also in the BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965), but they didn’t share any scenes together. I’ll always remember Savalas in the movie KELLY’S HEROES (1970). This was one of my son’s favorite movies when he was growing up. He watched it constantly.
Based on this work, Telly Savalas will always be one of my favorite actors! Happy birthday, sir, and thanks for countless hours of entertainment in my life!
In the 1999 Best Picture Nominee, The Insider, the American media takes a beating.
Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman. Bergman is a veteran newsman who, for several years, has been employed as a producer at 60 Minutes. He is a strong believer in the importance of the free press and he’s proud to be associated with both 60 Minutes and CBS News. He’s one of the few people who can manage the famously prickly correspondent, Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). When we first see Bergman, he and Wallace are in the Middle East and arranging a tense interview with the head of Hezbollah. It’s easy to see that Bergman is someone who will go anywhere and take any risk to get a story. It’s also apparent that Bergman thinks that the people that he works with feel the same way.
That all changes when Bergman meets Jeffery Wigand (Russell Crowe), a recently fired tobacco company executive who initially agrees to serve as a consultant for one of Bergman’s story but who leaves Bergman intrigued when he reveals that, due to a strict confidentiality agreement, he’s not allowed to discuss anything about his time as an executive. As the tobacco companies are currently being sued by ambitious state attorney generals like Mississippi’s Mike Moore (who plays himself in the film), Bergman suspects that Wigand knows something that the companies don’t want revealed.
And, of course, Bergman is right. Wigand was fired for specifically objecting to his company’s effort to make cigarettes more addictive, something that the tobacco industry had long claimed it wasn’t doing. Wigand’s pride was hurt when he was fired but he knows that breaking the confidentiality agreement will mean losing his severance package and also possibly losing his marriage to Liane (Diane Venora) as well. However, Wigand is angered by the heavy-handed techniques that his former employer uses to try to intimidate him. He suspects that he’s being followed and he can’t even work out his frustrations by hitting a few golf balls without someone watching him. When Wigand starts to get threats and even receives a bullet in the mail, he decides to both testify in court and give an interview to Wallace and 60 Minutes.
The only problem is that CBS, after being pressured by their lawyers and facing the risk of taking a financial loss in an upcoming sell, decides not to run the interview. Bergman is outraged and assumes that both Mike Wallace and veteran 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall) will support him. Instead, both Wallace and Hewitt side with CBS. Left out in the cold is Jeffrey Wigand, who has sacrificed almost everything and now finds himself being attacked as merely a disgruntled employee.
Directed by Michael Mann and based on a true story, The Insider is what is usually described as being “a movie for adults.” Instead of dealing with car chases and super villains and huge action set pieces, The Insider is a film about ethics and what happens when a major media outlet like CBS News fails to live up to those ethics. (No one is surprised when the tobacco company tries to intimidate and silence Wigand but the film makes clear that people — or at least people in the 90s — expected and hoped for more from the American press.) Wigand puts his trust in Bergman and 60 Minutes largely because he believed Bergman’s promise that he would be allowed to tell his story. It’s a promise that Bergman made in good faith but, in the end, everyone from the CBS executives to the tobacco companies is more interested in protecting their own financial future than actually telling the truth. Wigand loses his family and his comfortable lifestyle and Bergman loses his faith in the network of Edward R. Murrow. It’s not a particularly happy film but it is a well-made and thought-provoking one.
Pacino and Crowe both give excellent performances in the two lead roles. Pacino, because he spends most of the film outraged, has the flashier role while Crowe plays Wigand as a rather mild-mannered man who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a national news story. (Crowe’s performance here is one of his best, precisely because it really is the opposite of what most people expect from him.) Crowe does not play Wigand as being a crusader but instead, as an ordinary guy who at times resents being put in the position of a whistleblower. (Director Mann does not shy away from showing how Bergman manipulates, the reluctant Wigand into finally testifying, even if Bergman’s motives were ultimately not malicious.) That said, the strongest performance comes from Christopher Plummer, who at first seems to be playing Mike Wallace as being the epitome of the pompous television newsman but who eventually reveals the truth underneath Wallace’s sometimes fearsome exterior.
The Insider was nominated for Best Picture. Somehow, it lost to American Beauty.
After being passed over twice as a result of both a “brushing incident” with a Russian submarine and an embarrassing tattoo, Lt. Commander Thomas Dodge (Kelsey Grammer, playing Dodge as being the laid back opposite of Frasier Crane) has finally been promoted and given his own submarine to command. The catch is that the submarine is a rusty piece of junk from World War II and he’s been assigned a crew of misfits. Captain Dodge is to take part in a war game. Admiral Winslow (Rip Torn) wants Dodge to prove that even an out-of-commission submarine can be dangerous by infiltrating Charleston Harbor undetected and then blowing up a dummy warship in Norfolk Harbor. If Dodge is successful, he’ll get a nuclear submarine to command. If he fails, he’ll be assigned of desk job and probably leave the Navy. While the sympathetic Winslow encourages Dodge to “think like a pirate,” the antagonistic Admiral Graham (Bruce Dern) pulls out all the stops to make sure Dodge fails.
I imagine that Down Periscope was probably pitched as Police Academy In The Navy and it follows the general rules of the Police Academy films, right down to casting Lauren Holly as the one woman on the submarine who has to overcome her own insecurities and prove herself to all the men. Unfortunately, none of the misfits on the crew are as memorable as the cadets from Police Academy and the movie’s attempts to mix juvenile humor with suspenseful naval action are not at all successful. Having Rob Schneider go totally over the top as Dodge’s second-in-command while having William H. Macy give a serious performance as the captain assigned to prevent Dodge from reaching the harbor indicates that Down Periscope has a definite identity problem.
Harry Dean Stanton plays Howard, who is the submarine’s chief engineer and who uses whiskey as a fuel to keep the submarine moving. Toby Huss has a few amusing moments as the electrician who keeps electrocuting himself. Grammer, Dern, and Macy have more than proven their talents in other projects and Rip Torn will always be remembered for bringing Artie to profane life on The Larry Sanders Show. Director David Ward also directed Major League and wrote The Sting. A lot of talent went into making Down Periscope so it’s a shame the film wasn’t more memorable.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.
This week, Fantasy Island feels familiar.
Episode 6.2 “Dancing Lady/The Final Round”
(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on October 23rd, 1982)
It’s another dancing and boxing episode!
I have lost track of how many Fantasy Island stories have centered around either dancing or boxing but I know that they’ve been the subject of multiple episodes every season. The fantasies always seem to play out the same as well. A young boxer has a shot at the championship but taking one wrong blow could end their career or even their life. And a woman with a boring job — usually, she’s a receptionist — wants to be the world’s greatest dancer but, in the end, discovers that love is the most important thing. Usually, the familiarity of the stories is a part of Fantasy Island‘s charm but I have to admit that I spent this entire episode wondering if I had seen it before. The fantasies felt so familiar that, ultimately, everyone just seemed to be going through the motions.
The dancer was Kristy Lee (Lynda Goodfriend), who was given a special powder that would give her the ability to be the world’s greatest dancer. I know what you’re thinking and no, it was not cocaine. Instead, it was dust that had been gathered from the world’s greatest theaters and which had magical powers only when used on Fantasy Island. Using the dust, Kristy auditioned for a spot in a musical showcase starring Ray Tucker (Ken Berry), a down-on-his-luck dancer looking to make a comeback. Unfortunately, Kristy was so good that Ray feared she would overshadow him. Ray had to find his confidence and Kristy had to learn that she could dance beautifully even without the magic dust because, according to Roarke, the power of love is all one needs. (That laughter you hear is coming from every dance teacher I’ve ever had.) The highlight of this fantasy was Ray Bolger, playing a Broadway producer who happened to be an old friend of Roarke’s. Bolger and Ricardo Montalban, two old show business pros, seemed to really enjoy working together. As well, Bolger’s producer had a nice scene where he and Tattoo spoke in French to each other. It was a fun little moment and, if nothing else, it indicated that both Roarke and Tattoo have lives outside of greeting people on Fantasy Island.
The boxing story featured Al Molinaro as Max, a trainer who wanted to train someone for an exhibition match against the world champion. Max got his chance to train the enthusiastic Tommy Rudolph (William R. Moses) but, when Max’s ex-girlfriend (Rue McClanahan) warned him that one more concussion could possibly kill Tommy, Max had to make a decision. Would he push Tommy to keep fighting or would he thrown in the towel after Tommy took a few shots to the head? Max, of course, did the right thing.
As I said, it was all pretty predictable and familiar. At least Tattoo got to have some fun. Along with speaking French, he also got to put on a bookie outfit and then take bets on the outcome of the fight. When Roarke told Tattoo to cancel all the bets, Tattoo replied that being a bookie was his fantasy!
Hey, it made me laugh,
Through the Shattered Lens 