Daily Archives: August 11, 2025

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.8 “Wheels of Justice”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, not Ponch can smile his way out of the darkness.

Episode 4.8 “Wheels of Justice”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on December 21st, 1980)

The streets of Los Angeles are dangerous in this week’s episode.

Stan West (Basil Hoffman) is a reckless driver who is constantly causing accidents by driving too fast and making unsafe lane changes.  He gets away with it because he keeps changing his name.

Arthur Holmes (Joshua Bryant) is a drunk who Jon and Ponch have pulled over several times.  Arthur gets away with it by claiming, after every accident, that his wife was the one driving,  Denise (Christine Belford) goes along with it, even though she hates the fact that she’s enabling her husband.

A group of cheerleaders drive around and do their cheers while driving!

Finally, a gas leak at the hospital leads to all the newborn babies being loaded into an ambulance for transport.  When the ambulance is side-swiped by Stan, the babies end up at the station.  Getraer gives everyone a lesson on how to properly soothe a crying baby.  It’s cute but it’s also so manipulative that it leaves you feeling oddly used.  But, hey, at least it’s cute!

This episode of CHiPs took a serious turn towards the end when the drunk driver swerved to avoid the cheerleaders and the end result is that his wife was thrown from the car and killed.  When the car was shown crashing in slow motion, the wife’s mannequin actually fell out of the car.  While I imagine that was probably not planned, it still created a memorably macabre image.  In the end, Arthur ends up sobbing while Denise lies dead just a few feet away from him.  That’s a pretty dark ending for an episode of CHiPs.  Not even a quick scene of the officers holding the babies could change the fact that this was a really downbeat episode.

And you know what?  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Driving drunk is selfish, stupid, and dangerous and CHiPs deserves some credit for not holding back.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.15 “Indian Wars”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Castillo goes undercover!

Episode 4.15 “Indian Wars”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on February 26th, 1988)

The Vice Squad is trying to take down Colombian drug dealer Acosta (Joe Lala).  Acosta does not trust gringos so Crockett can’t pretend to be Burnett this week.  Instead, he’s temporarily promoted to head of the Vice Squad while Castillo goes undercover.  Castillo explains to his bosses that, as a Latino, he’s the only one who can do it.  I’m not sure that I really buy Castillo’s argument.  Do you mean to tell me that, in Miami, there’s only one Latino detective working Vice?  If that’s true, someone really needs to talk to whoever is in charge of giving the detectives their assignments.

Acosta is soon taken out of the picture and replaced by the even more evil Levec (played by the great character actor, Joe Turkel).  Castillo discovers that both Acosta and Levec are being attacked by a paramilitary force that is made up of Native Americans.  Tubbs goes undercover as an anthropologist and discovers that the local Indian chief has made a deal with the drug dealers and his son (Patrick Bishop) is not happy about it.  However, it turns out that the chief’s son is actually an aspiring drug lord himself and that his whole vigilante act is really just his way of getting rid of the competition.

This was not a bad episode, particularly when compared to some of the other episodes that aired during the fourth season.  Joe Turkel made for a great villain and the scenes of the Indians attacking the drug dealers were properly atmospheric.  The episode even includes a small homage to the final showdown from Scarface.  Philip Michael Thomas was mildly amusing when he pretended to be a nerdy anthropologist.  Meanwhile, Don Johnson was barely in this episode at all.  This episode was all about Edward James Olmos’s smoldering intensity as Castillo.

Again, it wasn’t a bad episode but it still felt like it was missing something.  As with so much of season 4, it felt like the show was just growing through the motions.  In this case, it went through those motions with a bit more skill than it did in some of the season’s other installments.  This episode didn’t feature any aliens or any bull semen.  That made it a definite improvement over at least two season 4 episodes.  Still, this episode largely felt like Miami Vice on autopilot.

Live Tweet Alert – #MondayMuggers present RUNNING SCARED (1986), starring Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday, August 11th, we’ll be watching RUNNING SCARED (1986), starring Gregory Hines, Billy Crystal, Steven Bauer, Darlanne Fluegel, Joe Pantoliano, Dan Hedaya, Jon Gries, Tracy Reed, and Jimmy Smits.

The plot: Two street-wise Chicago cops have to shake off some rust after returning from a Key West vacation to pursue a drug dealer who nearly killed them in the past.

Peter Hyams directed RUNNING SCARED, and it’s one of the very best “Buddy Cop” films out there. So, if a night full of action and laughs sounds good to you, join us on #MondayMuggers and watch RUNNING SCARED. It’s on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and PlutoTV! I’ve included the trailer below:

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Stuart Gordon 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!

78 years ago on this date, director Stuart Gordon was born in Chicago, Illinois.  Gordon went from experimental theater to feature films and was responsible for some of the most visually memorable horror films of the past century.  Perhaps no other American director was a strong interpreter of the work of H.P. Lovecraft than Stuart Gordon.

Today, we honor Stuart Gordon with….

4 Shots From 4 Stuart Gordon Films

Re-Animator (1985, dir by Stuart Gordon, DP: Marc Ahlberg)

Dolls (1987, dir by Stuart Gordon, DP: Marc Ahlberg)

The Pit and the Pendulum (1991, dir by Stuart Gordon. DP: Adolfo Bartoli)

Castle Freak (1994, dir by Stuart Gordon, DP: Mario Vulpiani)

Scenes That I Love: “What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate” from Cool Hand Luke

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been director Stuart Rosenberg’s 98th birthday.  Our scene of the day come from one of Rosenberg’s best-known and best-remembered films, 1967’s Cool Hand Luke.

This is a scene that featured the line that’s been kept alive by cops, drill sergeants, and angry teachers to this day.

Music Video of the Day: The Memory Remains by Metallica, featuring Marianne Faithfull (1997, directed by Paul Andresen)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are many reasons why Jason Newsted is one of the greatest bassists of all time.  Beyond his talent, there’s his honesty.  Newsted is someone who is going to shoot straight, no matter what the question may be.  For instance, in 2002, Newsted was asked if, as a heavy metal fan, he would have bought Metallica’s 1997 album, Reload.

Newsted, who had left Metallica the previous year, replied, “Not if I heard ‘The Memory Remains‘ first.”

The Memory Remains might not be Metallica’s song.  Newsted was definitely right about that.  But it does have a memorable video, one that shows that, once the band broke their previous “no videos” stance, they quickly figured out how to use the format to their advantage.

This video was shot at the Van Nuys Airport and it had a budget of $400,000.  The room that they are performing in was actually a constructed box.  The room moved while the band remained stationary on a platform, which created the impression of the band playing while on a giant swing.  Marianne Faithfull adds her vocals as well.

Enjoy!