Daily Archives: July 15, 2025

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.11 “Deja Vu”

Posted on 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.

This week, someone is out to frame Palermo!  It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Episode 2.11 “Deja Vu”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on November 10th, 1996)

Palermo is upset because his former partner is returned to the boardwalk and is now running an arcade.  Gene Savage (Joe Cortese) may have once been a cop but now he’s a paroled ex-con and it was Palermo’s testimony that led to Savage being convicted in the first place.  Palermo suspects that Savage is out for revenge and it turns out that he is.  He tries to frame Palermo for a murder.  Internal Affairs demands Palermo’s badge.

And the thing is …. I know I’m supposed to feel bad for Palermo but I don’t.  Palermo’s a self-righteous jerk.  He’s been a self-righteous jerk since the start of the show.  He acts like riding a bicycle somehow makes him superior to everyone else on the boardwalk.  Finding out that he testified against his partner makes him seem like even more of a jerk.  It’s hard to like a snitch.

This entire episode is built around the idea of Palermo being treated unfairly but I kind of feel like he needed to be taken down a rung or two.  Maybe now, he won’t be so rude when he arrests people.  Maybe he’ll understand that not everyone cares about his whole bicycle thing.  Probably not, though.

While Palermo was dealing with his ex-partner, Cory and Chris dealt with the Good Samaritans, a group of blue beret-wearing citizens who attempted to fight crime on their own.  Andy Miller (Keith Coulouris) was determined to take down the local drug dealer.  When Andy’s partner (Claudette Mink) got shot and nearly died, Andy snapped and grabbed a gun and tried to get revenge himself.  Cory was there to arrest not only the drug dealer but also Andy.  “You’re a danger to the community and yourself!” Cory snapped.

Ugh.  People who ride bicycles shouldn’t try to act like badsses.  Seriously, is there a less likable cast of characters than the Pacific Blue crew?  It’s not a good thing when a cop leaves me rooting for the criminals.

Film Review: Battlefield Earth (dir by Roger Christian)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After avoiding it for 25 years, I finally watched the infamous 2000 fiasco, Battlefield Earth, last night.

Battlefield Earth, based on a superlong novel by creepy cult guru L. Ron Hubbard, was a longtime passion project of John Travolta’s.  Travolta, a Scientologist, had long wanted to make a movie out of Hubbard’s science fiction epic and, on a hot streak following films like Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty, he finally did so in 2000.  He played Terl, a member of a giant alien race called the Psychlos.  The Psychlos have conquered Earth and humanity has regressed back to an almost prehistoric standard of living.  When a brave human, Johnnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), defies his elders and proceeds to venture out into the ruins of Denver, he’s captured by Terl.  Eventually, Johnnie is shown a copy of the Declaration of Independence and it inspires him to lead a revolution against the Psychlos.

Battlefield Earth turned out to be just as bad as I had heard, a charmless wannabe epic that used far too many Dutch angles and relied on slow motion to try to create a heroic (or, in some cases, tragic) feel to the action.  The plot of the film felt like something recycled from an old 1930s serial, which makes sense when you consider that L. Ron Hubbard was a pulp writer before he decided to become a guru.  What I was not prepared for was just how mind-numbingly dull Battlefield Earth is.  Most bad movies can at least make the claim of being entertaining in their badness.  If nothing else, you can often admire them for their ambition.  Take a film like Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Plan 9 From Outer Space is often derided as being the worst film of all time but it’s still terrifically entertaining and there’s a likable earnestness at the heart of it.  Director Ed Wood may not have had a budget and his main star may have been present only through stock footage but, dammit, Wood was determined to make a science fiction epic that would double as a plea for world peace and he did just that.  There’s a heart at the center of Plan 9 From Outer Space and that makes it a film that you can mock but you never quite dislike.  For all the talk of Battlefield Earth being a passion project for Travolta, the end result is an empty and rather soulless film.

(I nearly listed Battlefield Earth as being one of our Icarus Files but then I remembered that Icarus at least managed to get close to the sun.  Battlefield Earth can’t even get out of Denver.)

Travolta’s career has never really recovered from Battlefield Earth.  He is an actor who can claim to have appeared in two of the biggest, most influential films of all time — Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever — but his legacy appears to be walking around on stilts in Battlefield Earth.  As for Barry Pepper, he does probably about as well as anyone could with the role of Johnnie Goodboy Tyler but still, it’s sad to see a good actor wasted in such a bad movie.  (In fact, there’s quite a few good actors — Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Richard Tyson — wasted in this movie.)  From what I understand, the movie only covered the first 400 pages of Hubbard’s 1100-page novel.  Travolta had hopes to do a sequel but that’s not going to happen.

It’s for the best.  If people need to see a movie about L. Ron Hubbard’s belief system, they can always rewatch The Master.

 

Silicon Towers (1999, directed by Serge Rodnunsky)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Charlie (Jonathan Quint) gets a promotion to an executive job at Silicon Towers.  After his promotion, he is sent an encrypted email that reveals that the company is manufacturing computer chips that it can use to drain money from the banks and to control the world.  Charlie goes on the run, jumping from roof to roof as he tries to avoid the company’s security team and reveal the truth.  Brian Dennehy plays the evil CEO.  Daniel Baldwin plays another executive.  Brad Dourif plays a paranoid tech expert and steals the movie.  Robert Guillaume is the police detective who is investigating the strange things that are happening around the company.  Be sure to hum the Benson theme song while watching.

There was a lot of movies like Silicon Towers in the late 90s.  The internet was still exotic and people were still convinced that technology was going to destroy us all on Y2K.  Silicon Towers was not the only paranoid tech thriller to come out in 1999 but it might have been the most inept.  Serge Rodnunsky made a lot of movies back in the day and never let a lack of a budget stand in his way but he also never seemed to understand the importance of being able to hear dialogue or smooth editing.  There are some good actors in Silicon Towers.  Good luck understanding what any of them are saying.

This film is mostly memorable for the scenes of Charlie “hacking.” Charlie writes his hacking code in HTML.  That’s  pretty much all you need to know.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.1 “Forbidden Love/The Other Man — Mr. Roarke”

Posted on 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.

Today, we start the seventh and final season.

Episode 7.1 “Forbidden Love/The Other Man — Mr. Roarke”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on October 8th, 1983)

The first episode of the seventh season finds Mr. Roarke handling two fantasies.

Widow Margaret Smith (Juliet Prowse) comes to Fantasy Island, hoping to meet the man of her dreams.  However, when she does, it turns out that he’s the ex-boyfriend of her daughter, Ginny (Jamie Rose)!  Can Margaret find love without hurting her daughter?  Or is her love destined to remain forbdden….

Meanwhile, Deborah Barnes (Stephanie Faracy) wants to make her boyfriend jealous so Mr. Roarke arranges for her to meet a man on the Island.  But when the man is suddenly unavailable, Mr. Roarke gallantly steps into his place.  That’s nice of him.  It shows how far Mr. Roarke will go to make the fantasies of his guests come true.  Except — uh-oh! — now Deborah’s in love with Mr. Roarke!  What can Mr. Roarke do to let Deborah down easily and repair her confidence?

Wow!  That’s a lot of drama for one weekend!  I wonder what Tattoo has to say…?

Tattoo?  Are you there?

OH MY GOD, WHERE IS TATTOO!?

Tattoo is gone, replaced by a butler named Lawrence (Christopher Hewett) who is so heavy-set that he can’t even climb the stairs to ring the bell when the plane shows up over the island.  Instead, he looks up at the sky and then pushes a remote button that makes the bell ring.  That’s …. just lame.  Over the past few years, I have resisted making “Da plane!  Da plane!” jokes but seriously, it doesn’t feel right for the show not to start to those words.

What’s especially upsetting is that no one on the show mentions Tattoo.  Roarke doesn’t mention why Tattoo is no longer on the Island.  Instead, he acts as if Lawrence has always been his assistant.  I mean, I understand that Herve Villechaize did not leave under the happiest of circumstances but it just feels cruel not to give Tattoo a proper send-off.  Tattoo was a huge part of the show.  His interactions with Mr. Roarke were the most consistently entertaining things about Fantasy Island.  And now, he’s gone and the show refuses to even acknowledge that he was ever there.

As for Lawrence, he’s a butler.  I don’t know how the season played out but, in the first episode, it was pretty clear that Lawrence was the hired help.  (Tattoo, at the very least, always seemed to be on nearly equal footing as Roarke.)  Lawrence calls Mr. Roarke “sir” and it just doesn’t feel right.  Instead of being equals, they are very much employer and employee.

The fantasies are okay.  I liked watching Roarke trying to make Deborah fall out of love with.  But the addition of Lawrence felt so wrong and really distracting.  It doesn’t bode well for the rest of season 7.

Brad’s “Scene of the Day” – Jan-Michael Vincent and Charles Bronson shoot skeet in THE MECHANIC (1972)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Happy Birthday in cinema heaven to 1970’s heartthrob, Jan-Michael Vincent. It’s arguable that a 70’s Vincent was as good looking as a 1990’s Brad Pitt. In the 1980’s, Vincent would play Stringfellow Hawke in the iconic TV series AIRWOLF, where he was the highest paid actor on American television, bringing in $200,000 per episode. As a kid of the 80’s, I loved that show. My own extensive collection of physical media is filled with films starring Jan-Michael Vincent, especially his work from the 70’s and early 80’s. A few of my favorites are WHITE LINE FEVER (1975), HOOPER (1979 – with Burt Reynolds), and DEFIANCE (1980). Unfortunately, severe drug and alcohol abuse ultimately took its toll on Vincent’s career and his post AIRWOLF years were filled with straight-to-video B movies and walk on TV roles. Still, you couldn’t browse the inventory of Mom and Pop video rental stores in late 80’s and early 90’s without seeing loads of films with Vincent on the cover. A true cautionary tale of the damage that intoxicants will ultimately do to the human body and mind, Vincent’s final years were hard to watch, but his great work as a younger man still remains, and that’s what I’m choosing to focus on today.

In honor of what would have been Jan-Michael Vincent’s 80th birthday, I’m going to celebrate here on The Shattered Lens by sharing a scene from my favorite Jan-Michael Vincent movie, THE MECHANIC, co-starring Charles Bronson. Vincent holds his own with the veteran star in one of his most iconic roles!

Song of the Day: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Anomura Remix) by Bob Dylan

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It was one year ago today that my Dad went into hospice care.  Every day, from now through August 19th, is going to be a painful anniversary.  My Dad loved music and that’s something that I inherited from him.  The song below helped me get through a lot, both when my mom passed and now, with my Dad.

I miss you, Dad.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Larry Cohen Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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 would have been the 89th birthday of the pioneering indie film director, Larry Cohen.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Larry Cohen Films

It’s Alive (1974, dir by Larry Cohen)

God Told Me To (1976, dir by Larry Cohen)

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982, dir by Larry Cohen)

The Ambulance (1990, dir by Larry Cohen)

Scenes That I Love: Jack Meets Lloyd in The Shining

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The scene below is, of course, from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shining.

In this scene, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) stumbles into the Overlook Hotel’s ballroom, still fuming over having been accused of abusing his son.  A recovering alcoholic, Jack sits at the bar and thinks about how he would give up his soul for just one one drink.  And, on cue, Lloyd (Joe Turkel) appears.

As I was watching this scene, it occurred to me that, way back in 1980, there probably was some guy named Lloyd who saw this movie in a theater and was probably totally shocked when Jack suddenly stared straight at him and said, “Hey, Lloyd.”

The brilliance of this scene is that we never actually see Lloyd materialize.  We see him only after Jack has seen him.  So, yes, Lloyd could be a ghost.  But he could also just be a figment of Jack’s imagination.  Jack very well could just be suffering from cabin fever.  Of course, by the end of the movie, we learn the truth.

Everyone always talks about Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack.  Some people love it and some people hate it.  (I’m in the first camp.)  However, let’s take a minute to appreciate just how totally creepy Joe Turkel is in this scene.  Turkel was a veteran character actor and had appeared in two previous Kubrick films, The Killing and Paths of Glory.  Two years after appearing in The Shining, Turkel played what may be his best-known role, Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner.  Today, incidentally, would have been Joe Turkel’s 98th birthday.

From Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, here’s Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel:

Music Video of the Day: What You Doing by Pacifica (2025, dir by Zack Shorrosh)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Argentina.  I picked this video because it reminded me of riding the DART train with my friend Evelyn back in the day.  If you can’t have fun on a train, where can you have fun?

(That said, I still prefer cars.)

Enjoy!