Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, the fourth season premiere concludes.
Episode 4.2 “Man’s Best Friend Part 2”
(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 23rd, 1987)
Picking up where last week’s episode, this episode opens with Alex (Danny Pintauro) visiting Jake the Siberian Husky at the big home that Jake shares with Jenny (Elisabeth Harnois), her grandfather (William Schallert), and her parents, Paul (Stan Ivar) and Michelle Raines (Laurie Walters).
Yay!
Alex’s attitude improves so much that it’s decided to move him into a foster home.
Uhmm….what about the Raines family?
The surrogate hired to carry Paul and Michelle’s baby loses the baby. Paul and Michelle are heartbroken.
Uhmm….hey, I think Alex needs a family….
Jenny gives Jake to Alex.
Awwww!
Alex’s foster family lives in a building that doesn’t allow pets.
Oh no!
Alex and Jake run away and, after nearly dying in the desert, they end up with the Raines family’s home.
I see where this is going….
If you guessed that Paul and Michelle announce that they’re going to adopt Alex and that Jake is going to continue to live with them on the ranch, congratulations! You could have been a HighwaytoHeaven writer!
This episode didn’t make me cry as much as last week’s, mostly because it was pretty easy to see where things were heading from the beginning. Even when Alex and Jake were lost in the desert, I knew they would be okay because this is HighwaytoHeaven. Children and their adorable dogs don’t die on this show. (Except, of course, for those twotimes that they did. Actually, three times, now that I think about it.) That said, I was still relieved when Jake was rescued because seriously, that dog was adorable!
This was a good conclusion to last week’s episode. Everything worked out for the best. At the end of the episode, Mark said that he understood why “they call them man’s best friend.” Michael nodded and then said, a little sadly, “Shouldn’t man’s best friend be …. man?”
I’ve shared before that Alabama was the group that my family listened to the most when I was growing up. Alabama could do it all. They knew how to put out fun country songs like “Tennessee River,” “Mountain Music” and “Dixieland Delight.” They put out some good workin’ man songs like “Roll On” and “40 Hour Week.” They took care of their redneck roots with songs like “Song of the South,” “Born Country,” and “Hometown Honeymoon.” But they seemed to really excel at love songs. I’m guessing that there was a lot of slow dancing and baby conceptions taking place during the 80’s to Alabama love songs. Songs like “Take Me Down,” “When We Make Love,” “There’s No Way,” and “You’ve Got the Touch” were all number one hits that went a long way towards the group being named “Artist of the Decade” for the 1980’s by the Academy of Country Music.
For my song of the night, I’m going to share one of my favorite Alabama love songs, “Feels So Right.” This song is a vibe, and if we’ve been lucky enough to experience the feelings expressed by these lyrics, it will take us back to some wonderful times. Enjoy my friends:
Private Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is a new arrival in Vietnam, a young infantryman who is called a “cherry” by his fellow soldiers. No one wants to get close to Eriksson because everyone knows that it’s the new guy who is most likely to make a mistake and get himself killed. The only person who seems to care whether Eriksson lives or dies is Sgt. Tony Messerve (Sean Penn), a squad leader who is so tough and battle-worn that it is easy to forget that he is only 20 years old. After a member of Messerve’s squad is killed in a firefight and Messerve’s squad had been denied leave despite all of the stress and pressure that they’ve been under, Messerve decides that, during their next mission, the squad is going to kidnap a woman from a village and take her with them.
Eriksson, who is still naive enough to sincerely say, “We’re supposed to be here to help these people,” is horrified by Messerve’s actions. At first, only he and Diaz (John Leguizamo) refuse to take part in raping the terrified woman (Thuy Thu Le). Diaz soon caves to the pressure from the rest of the squad and joins in. Only Eriksson continues to refuse but his attempt to help the woman escape fails when the members of the squad murder her during a firefight with the Viet Cong. After the battle, the wounded Eriksson discovers that no one in command wants to hear about what happened. Messerve’s second-in-command, Clark (Don Patrick Harvey), targets Eriksson, trying to shut him up permanently.
One of the many Vietnam films to come out after the success of Platoon, Brian De Palma’s CasualtiesofWar is an intense and disturbing recreation of a true story. After years of being accused of making misogynistic and exploitive films, De Palma made an effective and sensitive anti-war film, one that did not exploit the suffering of the kidnapped woman but instead portrays the depravity of war and the courage it takes to do the right thing when everyone around is ordering you not to. While it always takes a while to get used to Michael J. Fox in a serious role (and, at the start of the film, he really does seem to be miscast), he eventually gives the best performance of his career in Max Eriksson and, by using a framing device of Eriksson back in the United States after completing his tour, both De Palma and Fox show how the Eriksson, like countless other veterans, is still haunted by what he saw in Vietnam even after he returns home. Sean Penn is equally impressive as Messerve, playing him as someone who sacrificed his soul in order to survive in Vietnam. Messerve has come to view the entire country with contempt and, in his twisted way, he sees kidnapping the woman as a way to reward his squad for all that they’ve endured. The rest of the cast is also strong, with John C. Reilly making his acting debut as a member of the squad.
Not surprisingly, the dark and disturbing CasualtiesofWar was a box office disappointment. It’s still one of most harrowing films made about Vietnam and one of De Palma’s best.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.
This week, guess who is the worst?
Episode 2.16 “Movin’ On Out’
(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 19th, 2000)
This episode revisits a familiar theme. Lisa — this is, the show’s Lisa as opposed to your intrepid, red-headed reviewer — is the absolute worse. This week, Lisa is annoyed with Traycee because Traycee doesn’t always give Lisa her messages and Traycee sent the plumber home before he could fix the sink. (Traycee thought Lisa was trying to set her up on a date with the plumber.) Lisa says, “I can’t live like this” and proceeds to write up a long list of rules that Traycee will have to follow if she wants to continue living in the apartment.
(If I remember correctly, Traycee’s name is on the lease so how exactly Lisa is going to kick her out, I have no idea.)
It’s a really long list. Traycee decides to move in with the Collins brothers. The Collins brothers are excited because Traycee is planning on throwing a lingerie party with all of her friend. (Jason and Scott assume they’ll be invited.) Lisa tell Jason and Scott that they will regret letting Traycee move in but actually, Jason and Scott love living with her.
Meanwhile, Lisa gets a new roommate, who turns out to be a psychotic wrestling fan. And really, that’s where this episode should have ended. Lisa spent this episode acting like a spoiled snob, going so far as to tell other people — like the Collins brothers — not to let Traycee live with them. Hey, Lisa — IT WAS TRAYCEE’S APARTMENT IN THE FIRST GODDAMN PLACE! And didn’t we already do this stupid story at the start of the season? Yes, we did! This episode should have ended with Lisa realizing her new roommate was crazy. Instead, it ended with Lisa giving Traycee a not terribly convincing apology.
Anyway, Traycee does move back in with Lisa. She was tired of the Collins boys always wanting her to throw another party. Lisa kicks out her new roommate. Has Lisa ever considered that she might be impossible to live with?
Fortunately, the B-plot was kind of cute. After witnessing him saving the life of a sea lion, Alex develops a crush on Murray. Murray likes Alex but he worries she’s too beautiful to ever stick with a guy like him. Jason advices Murray to act like an obnoxious jackass because women love that. (Excuse me while I dramatically roll my eyes.) Murray takes Jason’s advice, even though Jason hasn’t had a girlfriend since Stads abandoned him for Europe.
(Seriously, Stads dumped Jason for a continent. Ha ha, sucks to be you, Jason.)
This B-plot may have been dumb but you know what? Brandon Brooks was adorable as the emotionally vulnerable Murray. Brooks is often the only reason to watch this show. He manages to play the goofy best friend without turning the character into a Screech-style caricature and that makes him unique amongst the goofy best friends who populated the sitcoms that Peter Engel produced in the 90s and early aughts. When I watched the pilot, I never would have guessed that Murray would eventually become my favorite character but that is what has happened. On a show where everyone else is either self-absorbed, bitchy, or just a jackass, Murray’s good vibes are often Malibu CA’s saving grace.
Legendary actor Charles Bronson ended his five-decade career by starring in a series of made-for-TV movies, FAMILY OF COPS (1995), BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II (1997), and FAMILY OF COPS III: UNDER SUSPICION (1999). I was in my mid-twenties as this series played out, and I enjoyed each of the installments. Today, I’m going to take a look at the second film in the series.
BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II picks back up with the Fein family a couple of years after the first installment. The main storyline follows Police inspector and family patriarch Paul Fein (Charles Bronson) as he supervises the investigation into the murder of a popular local Catholic priest. Of course, the investigation is a family affair, as his eldest son Ben (Joe Penny) is the lead detective on the case. Paul and Ben follow the clues that lead directly to the Russian mafia. As the investigation closes in, members of the Fein family find themselves targeted for beatdowns by Russian henchmen in order to get Paul to drop the case. Other storylines include the widower Paul’s blossoming relationship with detective Anna Meyer. Her “moves” on Paul, which began in the first installment, seem to finally be paying off. Paul’s eldest daughter Kate, the public defender, has her own set of problems when she successfully advocates for the parole of a 12-year-old criminal. On the little psychopath’s first night out, he robs a store, shoots and kills Eddie Fein’s partner, and then gets killed himself when Eddie fires back. Meanwhile, Paul’s youngest daughter Jackie (Angela Featherstone), who seems to be getting her life back on track after the events of the first film, decides she’s going to join the police academy against her dad’s wishes. Finally, Paul’s sister Shelly (Diane Ladd) visits the family, tells stories about her brother, shares a lot of wisdom, and even finds herself caught up in the crossfire of the Fein family / Russian mafia feud!
Charles Bronson was 75 years old when BREACH OF FAITH: FAMILY OF COPS II premiered on CBS on the night of February 2nd, 1997. He still handles the emotional scenes with his family well, gets to throw a couple of punches, and even gets to shoot some people, but the younger men (Joe Penny and Sebastian Spence) handle more of the action this time around. Charles Bronson is still the main reason to watch, but after all of these years, you can finally tell that he is slowing down. There is only one departure from the original cast, and that’s Joe Penny replacing Daniel Baldwin as the eldest son, Detective Ben Fein. I don’t think it hurts the film in any way, and to be completely honest, I prefer Joe Penny in the role. Sebastian Spence and Barbara Williams get to do a little more heavy lifting as Eddie Fein and Kate Fein deal with the aftermath of the young criminal, that Kate helped get released, shooting and killing Eddie’s partner. There is one exchange between Paul and his daughter Kate, who’s dealing with extreme guilt over the situation, that I always found unintentionally funny. It goes something like this:
Paul: “It’s not your fault.”
Kate: “Of course, it is.”
Paul: “Okay! So it is!”
Thanks a lot, Dad! Angela Featherstone, whose Jackie was the most interesting character in the first film, doesn’t have as much to do in this installment. She and Bronson have a great scene together when he tries to talk her out of becoming a cop, but once she heads to the academy, she pretty much disappears from the last half of the film. And finally, I like Diane Ladd as Bronson’s sister in the film. Her character brings another layer of warmth to the family dynamics and helps us get to know her brother Paul a little better.
As was the case with the original film, the central police investigation into the death of the priest at the hands of the Russian mafia isn’t all that interesting. The bad guys come right out of central casting for TV movies of the era, and the subdued violence and reduced action due to its TV roots can’t help but be compared negatively to the explosive action films that Charles Bronson once headlined. I never felt like the family was really in danger. And this is a completely personal preference, but I don’t care for the romantic relationship that develops between the characters played by Bronson and Kim Weeks. Bronson was dating Weeks in real life at the time of this movie, and they would be married the following year. Although I do hope that they were happy together in real life, I’m just not a fan of Weeks as an actress, and it’s hard for me to accept anyone but Jill Ireland as his on and off-screen love interest.
With BREACH OF FAITH: FAMILY OF COPS II being the penultimate film in Charles Bronson’s career, I definitely recommend it to his fans and to anyone else who enjoys TV movies of the era. While Bronson may be slowing down due to his age, Paul Fein is a perfect character for the icon that allows him to be tough and tender in equal measure. The final sequence of the film always brings a tear to my eye. The entire family is sitting down together to celebrate the weekly “Shabbat” meal when a misty-eyed Paul Fein raises a glass and says, “I’m proud of every one of you… my family.” I know just how much Bronson’s family meant to him, and I can’t help but see that come through in his performance.
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!
It’s the summer and it’s hot! Here are 4 shots from 4 films that represent just how hot it feels outside right now.
4 Shots From 4 Desert Films
The Searchers (1956, Dir. by John Ford)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Dir. by David Lean)
Star Wars: A New Hope (1977, Dir. by George Lucas)
This song is from A Walk To Remember, which was Mandy Moore’s first big starring role. If you haven’t seen A Walk To Remember, Mandy Moore plays a girl who marries Shane West but then dies a year later.
I guess this video is a sequel because now Mandy Moore is singing to Shane West from Heaven while Shane watches old home movies of him and Mandy goofing off between filming their scenes. Shane uses a telescope and discovers that he can see Mandy in Heaven and Mandy looks really happy. Then Shane goes into the city and is reminded that his romance with Mandy was just a part of a movie. I don’t know if that’s a happy ending or not.
Through the Shattered Lens 