Daily Archives: August 5, 2025

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

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, Cory helps a man who can’t remember how lame this show is.

Episode 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on December 15th, 1996)

Alec Cooper (Markus Flanagan) gets amnesia after he falls off the balcony of his hotel room while trying to escape some mysterious men with guns.  Cory tries to help Alec figure out who he actually is and she starts to fall in love with him in the process.  Alec admits that there seems to be something familiar about Cory.

Well, that means there are only two possibilities.

Cory and Alec are either meant to be together

or

Alec is married to someone who looks just like Cory!

It turns out the latter is true.  Alec eventually get his memory back and Cory meets his wife, who indeed looks a lot like her.  Cory goes back to being single.  Interestingly, Chris spends this entire episode telling Cory that she needs to date more but she doesn’t approve of Cory dating someone who has amnesia.  Then again, Chris doesn’t really approve of anyone doing anything.

Meanwhile, TC’s girlfriend makes the decision to leave Santa Monica so that she can attend a graduate program and become a counselor for rape victims.  This is the sort of storyline that would have been touching if TC has any personality or if he and his girlfriend had any sort of chemistry.  But they don’t.

It probably sound like I hated this episode.  Actually, I think it’s one of the better episodes of season 2, if just because the bike riding was kept to a minimum.  The bikes would have made this awful.  Without all of the bike nonsense, it was merely forgettable.  That’s progress!

Trailer for HIGHEST 2 LOWEST (2025), starring Denzel Washington!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Who thinks that a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW, directed by Spike Lee, and starring Denzel Washington, sounds intriguing? I do! The duo’s fifth film will be released on August 15th, 2025.

Check out the trailer for HIGHEST 2 LOWEST:

The Maltese Falcon (1931, directed by Roy Del Ruth)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Detective Sam Spade (Ricardo Cortez) may be an immoral lech but when his partner, Miles Archer, is murdered, Sam sets out to not only figure out who did it but to also eliminate himself as a suspect.  Sam was having an affair with Miles’s wife, Ivy (Thelma Todd).  Sam’s investigation leads to him falling for the mysterious Miss Wonderly (Bebe Daniels) and getting involved with a trio of flamboyant criminals who are searching for a famous relic, the Maltese Falcon.  Dudley Digges plays Casper Gutman.  Otto Matieson plays Dr. Joel Cairo.  Dwight Frye plays the gunsel, Wilmer, who Gutman says he “loves … like a son.”

The first film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel is overshadowed by the version that John Huston would direct ten years later.  That’s not surprising.  There’s a lot of good things about the first version but it’s never as lively than John Huston’s version and neither Dudley Digges nor Otto Matieson can compare to Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.  Of the supporting cast, Dwight Frye makes the best impression as the twitchy Wilmer and Bebe Daniels and Thelma Todd are both sexy as the story’s femme fatales.  That doesn’t mean that they’re better than their counterparts in John Huston’s film.  It just means they all bring a different energy to their roles and it’s interesting to see how the same story can be changed by just taking a slightly different approach.  Elisha Cook, Jr. was perfect for Huston’s version of the story.  Dwight Frye is similarly perfect for Roy Del Ruth’s version.

Needless to say, Ricardo Cortez can’t really compare to Humphrey Bogart.  But, if you can somehow block the memory of Bogart in the role from your mind, Cortez actually does give a good performance as Spade.  Because this was a pre-code film, Cortez can lean more into Spade’s sleaziness than Bogart could.  Also, because this was a pre-code film, the first Maltese Falcon doesn’t have to be as circumspect about the story’s subtext.  Spade obviously tries to sleep with every woman he meets and is first seen letting a woman out of his office.  (The woman stops to straighten her stockings.)  Gutman and Cairo’s relationship with Wilmer becomes much more obvious as well.  What’s strange is that, even though this Maltese Falcon is pre-code, it still ends with the type of ending that you would expect the production code to force onto a film like this.

If you’re going to watch The Maltese Falcon, the Huston version is the one to go with.  But the first version isn’t bad and it’s worth watching for comparison.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.4 “God Child/Curtain Call”

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.

This week, the curse of Lawrence continues.

Episode 7.4 “God Child/Curtain Call”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on October 29th, 1983)

Tori Spelling is in this episode.  She was only ten years old at the time but she was already a terrible actress.   In the role of Laurie, a poor little rich girl whose fantasy is to ask God why her parents died in a crash, Spelling gives a performance that is overly cutesy.  There’s nothing authentic about her or her delivery.  Her role on the show was obviously a result of her father being the producer.

Laurie doesn’t find God.  (At first, she assumes Roarke is God but he assures her that he is not, despite the fact that he has God-like powers.  Ricardo Montalban, for his part, said that he always felt that Roarke was a fallen angel who was doing penance on Fantasy Island.)  Laurie does however find Adam Cobb (George Kennedy), a former circus clown-turned-alcoholic who briefly pretends to be God.  At first, Laurie hates Adam for lying about being God.  Then Mr. Roarke explains that Adam’s wife died in a circus fire and that his own daughter was adopted by another family.  Laurie feels sorry for him and invites Adam to come live in her mansion with her aunt.  Adam considers it but ultimately decides that he needs to instead search for his own daughter.  In a rather bizarre turn of events, he dances with Laurie while singing Funny Face to her.

As for Laurie meeting God, Adam suggests that maybe there’s a bit of God in everyone and therefore, we’re all God.  Whatever, you hippie.

This storyline was ugh.  Like seriously, just ugh.  Laurie didn’t get her fantasy.  She just met some old alcoholic who spouted a bunch of a Unitarian mumbo jumbo at her.  As for Adam leaving the Island to find his own daughter …. well, did he?  This episode doesn’t tell us.  How exactly is he going to find her?  Does she want anything to do with him?  How was the penniless Adam able to afford a trip to Fantasy Island in the first place?

AND WHERE THE HELL IS TATTOO!?

Meanwhile, Milton Berle played an old comedian who wanted his former partners (Imogene Coca and Howard Morris) to forgive him so that they could perform together one last time.  This storyline felt very familiar and it featured a lot of singing.  Even Mr. Roarke sang a song.  It’s actually kind of strange how many songs were sung in this episode because this wasn’t a musical episode.  This wasn’t like that musical episode of The Love Boat where the songs were evenly distributed across the program.  Instead, towards the end of the episode, people just started singing.  It was weird.

Speaking of The Love Boat, this episode was directed by Isaac himself, Ted Lange.  Lange keeps the action movie but I just wish this episode had been better written.  This is another episode where it’s easy to imagine how much better it would have been with Tattoo than with Lawrence.  Tattoo would have definitely gotten emotionally involved with Laurie’s search for God.  Lawrence, on the other hand, is just a stiff upper lip butler whose main concern is making sure everyone gets their drink order.  It’s nothing against Christopher Hewett, who I have read was a good Catholic.  It’s just that he’s stuck playing a character who does not belong on the Island.

This was a pretty desultory trip to the Island.

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special John Huston Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

119 years ago today, the writer/director/actor John Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri.  Today, we honor his life and films with….

4 Shots from 4 John Huston Films

The Maltese Falcon (1941, dir by John Huston, DP: Arthur Edeson)

 

The Misfits (1961, dir by John Huston, DP: Russell Metty)

 

The Night of the Iguana (1964, dir by John Huston, DP: Gabriel Figueroa)

 

Under the Volcano (1984, dir by John Huston, DP: Gabriel Figueroa)

Scenes I Love: The Opening of Guardians of the Galaxy

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wises director James Gunn a happy 59th birthday!

My favorite James Gunn film remains 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.  Not coincidentally, that’s also my favorite comic book film.  A good deal of that love has to do with the film’s absolutely brilliant introduction of Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord.  In the scene below, both the film and Gunn announce that this is a comic book movie that actually has a sense of humor.  Let the other franchises specialize in depressed heroes and grim themes.  The Guardians of the Galaxy are all about dancing.

Here’s a scene that I love, directed by James Gunn:

Music Video of the Day: Summers in Vegas by Lolo Zouaï (2019, dir by Lolo Zouaï and Tommy Nowels)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a nicely evocative video.  Las Vegas is the quintessential American city, a celebration of commerce and hospitality that happens to be sitting out in the middle of an inhospitable desert.  Vegas could only have been founded in America and it’s only in America that it could have thrived to become the iconic city that it is today.

Of course, I should also mention that, whenever I see any clips of the Las Vegas strip, I automatically think about the movie Casino and the Ace Rothstein Dancers.  If I ever go to Vegas, I’m going to let Commissioner Pat Webb know that Sam “Ace” Rothstein has nothing to hide.

Enjoy!