Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.12 “The Big Spin”

Posted on April 8, 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 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.

Bike patrol expands its roster, this week.

Episode 1.12 “The Big Spin”

(Dir by Terrence O’Hara, originally aired on May 18th, 1996)

Bike patrol has a new recruit! Scott Kramer (Richard Joseph Paul) has been a cop for ten years and, for nine of those year, he had a perfect record. But lately, he’s became impulsive and too much of a risk taker. Bike patrol is his last chance! “I run things by the book,” Lt. Palermo says.

Chris is assigned to train Kramer and soon, the two of them are falling for each other. Chris explains that Kramer, like her, is a rebel who breaks the rule. One of the funnier things about Pacific Blue is that Chris is supposed to be a rebel who breaks the rule when she’s nothing of the sort. Instead, she just kind of gets annoyed and pouts every episode.

Anyway, it turns out that Kramer is terminally ill so he doesn’t care if he dies while taking down the two motorcycle bandits who have been robbing people all across town. And that’s a good thing because that’s pretty much what happens. The bandits are captured but bike patrol loses a recruit.

“The last thing he saw was you,” Palmero tells Chris and I think that was supposed to comfort her. Chris nods and then walks along the beach by herself.

Wow, it’s an edgy episode! Well, no, not really. It comes close to being an edgy episode. Richard Joseph Paul gives a pretty good performance as Kramer. But …. come on, folks …. they’re on bicycles! I’m sorry that I keep harping on this and, since this stupid show has like a gillion episodes, I imagine I’ll continue to harp on it in the future but bicycles are not edgy! The first season is nearly over and I still laugh whenever I see the bike cops hearing about a crime on their radio and then going, “Unit whatever responding.” I’m just imagining the dispatcher being like, “Oh no, bike patrol again.” Seriously, everyone on this show always has such a grim expression on their face and they’re determined to catch the bad guys but, again …. bicycles!

Anyway, season one comes to an end next week.

Brad’s “Stand-up of the Day” – Tim Thomerson with Freddie Prinze & Friends!

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Bradley Crain

As a big-time lover of B-movies in the 80’s and 90’s, I’ve mostly known Tim Thomerson as Dollman and Jack Deth in all those Trancers movies. I know there’s a bunch of those because Lisa hosted every one of them on #FridayNightFlix. But I found out a few years ago that he was also a well known stand up comedian who did a Charles Bronson impression. On his 79th birthday, I thought I would celebrate his stand up comedy. Be on the lookout for the Bronson impression that starts at about the 4 and a half minute mark. And this is definitely NSFW! Enjoy, my friends!

The Eric Roberts Collection: Las Vegas Story (dir by Byron Q)

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2015’s Las Vegas Story tells the story of Maria (Christina Bocanegra), a 30ish single mother with four kids, a house that she has to pay the bills on, and an adorable dog that gives her quizzical looks whenever she leaves for work in the middle of the night.

Maria works as an escort, meeting with men in hotel rooms and collecting enough money to keep her family fed and to prevent the house from falling apart. When her friend and former mentor, a stripper named Izzie (Francesca Fanti), comes to Vegas, Maria allows Izzie to say with her. When another old friend named Doug (Wade-Allain Marcus) shows up, Maria allows him to crash on her couch despite the fact that Doug is a drug dealer and he’s gotten in trouble with some very bad people.

Las Vegas Story has the usual collection of gangsters and corrupt cops that you would expect to find in a film like this but, ultimately, it’s more of a character study than a typical narrative. The film follows Maria over the course of her nights. Maria isn’t ashamed of how she makes her money but she doesn’t have any illusions about the business either. Las Vegas Story is about a woman doing what she has to do to support her family and Christina Bocanegra gives a strong and sympathetic performance in the lead role.

Maria’s most faithful client is played Eric Roberts and it must be said that Roberts give an excellent and rather poignant performance as a businessman who is terminally ill and who seems to sincerely care about Maria. Roberts doesn’t have a huge role but he definitely makes an impression and shows that he’s still more than capable of giving a memorable performance.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Command 5 (1985, directed by E.W. Swackhamer)

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Morgan (Stephen Parr) is a mysterious government operative who puts together a special paramilitary force to take on extreme threats. He says that only misfits are allowed to join his group because they have the edge he needs. Smith (William Russ) is a wild Texan who drives like a maniac. Psychiatrist Winslow (Sonja Smits) can fire an Uzi better than any man. Kowalski (John Matuszak) is a demolitions expert who listens to Beethoven. Jack Coburn (Wings Hauser) is a rebellious detective who is good with a throwing knife.

After a montage of their extensive training and a scene where our heroes take a look at the bullet-proof RV that they’ll be traveling the country in, the movie finally gets down to business. A motorcycle-riding terror cult led by Delgado (Gregory Sierra) has taken an entire town hostage and is threatening to kill everyone unless they’re given a flight out of the country. Our heroes drive their bulletproof van into town and try to defeat the bad guys. There’s one good scene where the RV is driving down the town’s main street and getting hit nonstop with bullets. The scene was obviously ripped off from the end of Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet but it’s still exciting to watch. Otherwise, the action in this one is pretty rudimentary.

I guess Command 5 was supposed to be a pilot for television show that never went into production. It is very much a television production. There’s a lot of shooting but no blood. Wings Hauser is less dangerous than usual. The whole thing ends with Command 5 looking forward to adventures that were never to come. Watching the pilot, you can see why it never became a show. The characters were all thinly-written and never seemed to have much of a connection with each other and Hauser and Russ both seemed to be competing to be the loose cannon of the group. This one is for Wings Hauser completists only.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.11 “The Songwriter/Queen of Soaps”

Posted on April 8, 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 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, things get a bit soapy on Fantasy Island.

Episode 6.11 “The Songwriter/Queen of Soaps”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on January 22nd, 1983)

Dan O’Dwyer (Anson Williams) is the grandson of composer, Jeremy Todd (David Cassidy). Todd was a important figure during New York’s tin pan alley days but, in 1983, he’s a nearly forgotten figure. He died in World War I and there are some people who claim that Todd didn’t actually write the songs that he’s been credited with. Dan’s fantasy is to go back into the past so that he can meet his grandfather and bring some of his compositions back to the present day. Mr. Roarke makes it clear that Dan cannot tell anyone that he’s from the future nor can he try to change history. Jeremy Todd is going to die no matter what.

Dan agrees and he goes back to the past. He meets his grandfather and they get along famously. Dan even finds what he’s looking for, the compositions that prove that Jeremy wrote his own songs. However, Dan also meets and falls in love with a singer named Carol (Donna Pescow). Dan may have what he wants but he’s going to lose the love of his life once the fantasy ends.

Except …. what if Carol is someone with a fantasy of her own? That’s right, Carol’s another guest on the Island! I can’t say that I was surprised by this because this is a twist that the show has used several times. Still, Anson Williams and Donna Pescow made for a cute couple and even David Cassidy wasn’t as annoying as usual in the role of Jeremy Todd. This was a good fantasy.

And hey, the second fantasy was pretty good as well! Gina Edwards (Susan Lucci) is a soap opera star who worries that she’s being taken over by Andrea, the evil character that she plays on her show. The audience loves it when Andrea is wicked and dangerous but the pressure of playing a character so unlike herself is getting to Gina. She fears that she is literally going to turn into Andrea and perhaps harm her husband, Jeff (Chris Robinson). Jeff is also the director of the show so a lot of the pressure that Gina is feeling is coming from him. Fortunately, Mr. Roarke is able to show Gina and Jeff that they are both just working too hard. They decide to take a step back and just enjoy life.

This fantasy was fun. It was not only about a soap opera but it paid homage to daytime melodrama as well. (Tattoo, it turned out, was a huge fan of the show.) Susan Lucci, not surprisingly, was totally convincing as a soap opera diva. This fantasy had some enjoyably creepy moments and also a few humorous ones. It was everything you could want from Fantasy Island.

This was a great trip to the Island!

I Watched Major League: Back To The Minors (1998, Dir. by John Warren)

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), the former third baseman for the Cleveland Indians, is the new owner of the Minnesota Twins. There’s a hotshot hitter playing for the Buzz, the Twins’s Minor League affiliate. Downtown Anderson (Walton Goggin) can hit the ball over the fences but he still needs to learn about teamwork before he’ll be ready to move up to the majors. Roger recruits an old friend, an aging pitcher named Gus Cantrell (Scott Bakula), to manage the Buzz and mentor Downtown. Under Gus’s leadership, the Buzz starts winning games. Even some former Indians, like Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and Taka Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi), are recruited to play for the Buzz. When the manager of the Twins, Leonard Huff (Ted McGinley), insults Gus and the Buzz over dinner, Gus challenges the Twins to an exhibition game, the minors against the majors. Huff accepts the challenge.

I had always heard that Major League: Back To The Minors was the worst of three Major League films but I liked it. It wasn’t as good as the first one but it wasn’t as boring as the second one. A lot of it has to do with the cast, who give it their all. Walton Goggins is great as the cocky Downtown Anderson but really, all of the actors playing entire team did a good job. They’re all misfits, of course. I especially liked Doc (Peter Mackenzie), a medical student-turned-pitcher who has the slowest fastball in the game. This movie had a little of the warmth and insider humor that made the first Major League film so special. It’s an underdog story, with the minor league players proving that they’re just as good as the spoiled players in the big leagues.

I didn’t find the idea of an exhibition game between the Twins and the Buzz to be believable. In the movie, they actually play two games against each other and they both take place during the regular season. When did they find the time to play each other? I guess they gave up one of their travel days but it still doesn’t seem like something that would happen.

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It helped that I love baseball. And I love the minor leagues, even if they don’t get the same respect as the majors. Some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen has been in minor league games. They may not have the huge contracts but they’ve got the talent, they’ve got something to prove, and they’ve got the love of the game.

So, I Watched Underdogs (2013, Dir. by Doug Dearth)

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

In a rural Ohio, a working class high school football teams plays an exhibition game against the rich school on the other side of town. The working class team is coached by Vince DeAntonio (D.B. Sweeney), a former NFL offensive coordination and the son of a coach. Vince is a tough taskmaster who tells his players that winning is not going to easy and it’s not going to be fun but he also has the connections necessary to get Joe Namath to stumble into the locker room and give a speech to his team. The quarterback (Charlie Carver) of the rich high school is the son of the businessman (Richard Portnow) who is planning on moving his factory down to Mexico and putting the entire town out of work. The quarterback (Logan Huffman) of the working class high school team is the son of an inventor (Willlam Mapother) who is being sued by a corporation that wants to steal his invention. Both of the quarterbacks like the same cheerleader (Maddie Hasson). This game is about more than just who scores the winning touchdown. It’s about town pride.

I love a good underdog story but Underdogs didn’t seem to know what story it wanted to tell. It spent as much time with the inventor and his court case as it did with the football team and the whole thing ended up becoming a commercial for his product. (The movie is based on a true story.) When it actually did get around to the football scenes, it was all too predictable. The team was bad and then the team was good and the entire game came down to one final throw of the football with the clock counting down. One weird thing about the movie is that it put a lot of emphasis on Vince recruiting unlikely players to his team but once he had them on the team, we hardly ever saw them again.

At least the movie’s heart was in the right place and it didn’t turn the cheerleaders into stereotypes, like so many high school football movies do. D.B. Sweeney was okay as the coach but I don’t know if William Mapother’s character was supposed to come across as being as strange as he did. I’m glad the underdogs proved themselves but the movie could have been better.

Song of the Day: Once Upon A Time In The West by Ennio Morricone

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing this somewhat impromptu tribute to the year 1968, today’s song of the day comes to us from Ennio Morricone’s classic score for Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West!

6 Shots From 6 Films: Special 1968 Edition

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

6 Shots From 6 Films is just what it says it is, 6 shots from 6 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 6 Shots From 6 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we pay tribute to the year 1968! It’s time for….

6 Shots From 6 1968 Films

Night of the Living Dead (1968, dir by George Romero, DP: George Romero)

Petulia (1968, dir by Richard Lester, DP: Nicolas Roeg)

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir by Stanley Kubrick, DP: Geoffrey Unsworth)

Psych-Out (1968, dir by Richard Rush, DP; Laszlo Kovacs)

Dracula Has Risen The Grave (1968, dir by Freddie Francis, DP: Arthur Grant)

Scene That I Love: Douglas Trumbull’s Stargate Sequence From 2001: A Space Odyssey

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been the 83rd birthday of special effects maestro, Douglas Trumbull.

Today’s scene that I love come from 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The famous stargate sequence was designed by Trumbull and it remains one of the most influential science fiction moments of all time. In one of their greatest oversights, the Academy neglected to include Trumbull when they nominated the film for its special effects. As a result, the Oscar only went to Stanley Kubrick. Trumbull was not happy about that and, sadly, Kubrick and Trumbull did not speak to each other for years afterwards.

Despite not being included in the nomination, Douglas Trumbull’s work has stood the test of time.