Daily Archives: September 2, 2025

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.18 “Full Moon”

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, it all about bicycles and sex.

Episode 2.18 “Full Moon”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on February 23rd, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue gives us the erotically-charged story of two people with no personality falling for each other.  Don’t worry, though.  Even though Chris and TC both put in for transfers so that they won’t violate Palermo’s “No Doing It On The Job” policy, they eventually realize that they’re not actually in love.  After TC kisses Chris and they prepare to move into the bedroom, Chris suddenly says that she can tell that TC feels like he’s “about to have sex with your sister,” and TC nods, as if that’s a feeling that he’s extremely familiar with.

TC and Chris fall for each other while investigating a series of ATM robberies.  The two robbers (Robert Kerbeck and Felicity Waterman) were at least convincingly sleazy.  Cory kills one of the robbers.  How humiliating it must be to be killed by someone who rides a bicycle for a living!

Meanwhile, Palermo was shocked to discover his name was in a madame’s little black book.  Palermo, you hypocrite!  Put that man in jail!  But then it turned out that madame (played by Charlie Spradling) just put random names in the book so that she could use it for blackmail.  That was pretty clever of her.  Still, I find it hard to believe that anyone, outside of the bike patrol, would have had the slightest idea who Palermo was.

This was another episode that failed because not only are the characters not interesting but they’re all pretty much indistinguishable.  Chris and Cory at least have differing hair colors.  But, from a distance, Palermo, TC, and Victor all might as well all be the same guy.  If you told me that this episode was actually about Palermo falling in love with Chris, I’d have to believe you because Palermo and TC are pretty much impossible to tell apart.  Human drama only works when the characters are recognizably human.

Agck!  That’s mean!  Oh well, it’s late….

Brad reviews LIONHEART (1990), starring Jean-Claude Van Damme!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

As a teenager of the late 80’s, I became a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme when I watched movies like BLOODSPORT (1988), CYBORG (1989), KICKBOXER (1989), and DEATH WARRANT (1990). He really seemed to be going big-time with movies like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992), HARD TARGET (1993) and especially TIMECOP (1994). Unfortunately, through a variety of problems, including a reportedly uncontrollable ego, a seemingly never ending supply of gratuitous butt shots for the ladies, and potential drug issues, his star would begin to wane in the mid-1990’s and he’d soon find his career heading the wrong direction. Through it all though, I’ve always loved Van Damme, and I still like to watch his movies (both new and old) to this day. One of the films that he made in his prime was LIONHEART (1990). I remember renting the movie as soon as it became available at our local video store, and even though I don’t hear it spoken of often these days, it’s always been one of my favorite films of the so-called “Muscles from Brussels!”

LIONHEART stars Van Damme as Lyon Gaultier, a French Foreign Legionnaire who deserts his post in North Africa after finding out that his drug addict brother, who lives in Los Angeles, has been set on fire and is barely clinging to life. Determined to help his brother’s family, Lyon goes AWOL and hops a boat to the United States of America. Unfortunately, Lyon finds himself stranded in New York with no money, until he stumbles across an underground street fight. With the connections of a hustler named Joshua (Harrison Page) and a sexy fight organizer named Cynthia (Deborah Rennard), Lyon’s talent in the ring allows him to make the money he needs to go to L.A. When he finally makes it to the west coast, his brother has passed away, leaving huge medical bills for his wife Helene (Lisa Pelikan) and young daughter, Nicole (Ashley Johnson). Continuing to fight in the underground market in L.A. to provide funds for his sister-in-law, Lyon takes on increasingly dangerous opponents, including the savage Attila (Abdel Qissi) in a high-stakes fight that could settle his family’s financial problems for good… if it doesn’t kill him. 

I mentioned earlier that I’m a big fan of LIONHEART. With that said, I can certainly see some flaws in the film. The performances aren’t all great. For example, Deborah Rennard is somewhat ridiculous as the sexy, duplicitous Cynthia. Her character is as cliched as it gets, even if she does look good in her see-through stockings. It’s also too long. Clocking in at almost an hour and fifty minutes, the film is at least twenty minutes too long. There are definitely scenes that could have been trimmed down to make for a more efficient movie. Flaws acknowledged, I watched it again today, and I still love the movie. Directed by Sheldon Lettich (DOUBLE IMPACT), LIONHEART delivers the goods as a badass, fight film with a heart. The action sequences drew me in with Van Damme’s athletic spins and kicks, but it also reminded me of my favorite film of all time, HARD TIMES (1975) starring Charles Bronson. In HARD TIMES, Bronson takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the face. In LIONHEART, Van Damme takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the nuts. Both films deliver final showdowns against awesome opponents that deliver brutal and satisfying climaxes to the action. And both films go for real emotion. In HARD TIMES, those relationships are limited to the men in Bronson’s life, but in LIONHEART, Lyon’s relationships with his friend Joshua, as well as his love for his niece and widowed sister-in-law really set the film apart. Van Damme isn’t a great actor at this point in his career, but there’s just something really appealing about his unconditional love for his family. He won me over with his earnest performance, and I was all in when everything comes to a head at the end. It was also fun seeing producer Lawrence Bender (PULP FICTION, ANNA AND THE KING, KILL BILL) cameo in an early fight scene as a doofus with a pony tail who gets his ass handed to him by Van Damme. That’s just fun movie stuff. 

Playing on Amazon Prime as I type, I easily recommend LIONHEART to any person who likes Van Damme or action films of the 80’s and 90’s. It may be as cheesy as hell, but in my opinion, it’s one of the star’s best films. 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.8 “Random Choices/My Mommy, The Swinger”

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, we have two more fantasies that do not feature Tattoo.  What even is the point?

Episode 7.8 “Random Choices/My Mommy, The Swinger”

(Dir by Bob Sweeney, originally aired on December 3rd, 1983)

Elaine Ashley (Florence Henderson) is divorced and raising two kids on her own.  Her fantasy is to be a swinger for the weekend!  Mr. Roarke arranges for Lawrence to watch the kids and then he sets Elaine up with tennis player Martin Avery (Robert Goulet).  While Lawrence attempts to explain to the kids why their mother doesn’t want them around for the weekend, Martin offers Elaine a job.  It’s a good job with a nice salary but it would require her to put her children in a boarding school.  On the plus side, I guess Elaine would finally get laid again since that seems to be her main concern.  On the negative side, no more kids.

Elaine is tempted.  In fact, Elaine is so tempted that it actually make her into a really unsympathetic character.  At first, Elaine takes the job but then, when she sees how upset her children are about no longer living with her, she changes her mind.  Hey, Elaine — how did you think the children would react!?

This fantasy irked me.  Of course, to be absolutely honest about things, Florence Henderson irks me in general.  Maybe I’m still holding the last episode of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour against her but, whenever Florence Henderson appeared on this show or on The Love Boat, the characters she played always came across as being judgmental and self-absorbed.  That’s certainly the case here.  You take your children to a tropical paradise and then you abandon them with the butler?  Really?

As for the other fantasy, it featured Jose Ferrer as a dying billionaire who needed to find someone who he could trust to give away his money to people who deserved it.  Roarke determined that person was Eddie Random (James Read), an angry young man who felt his father had been cheated by Ferrer’s tycoon.  The entire fantasy came down to Eddie proving himself by taking supplies to an Island and helping a crotchety old man come to terms with the death of his wife.

This second fantasy felt like a backdoor pilot.  It literally ended with Eddie and the billionaire leaving to have many more adventures.  As such, the fantasy itself felt rather incomplete and …. well, silly.  Why would the tycoon need Fantasy Island to help him find the right person to give away his money?  Why does he even need a person to do that?  He should have just arranged for a big scavenger hunt and whoever found the most items would get the money.  That would have been a lot more fun.

You know who always enjoyed fantasies dealing with money?  Tattoo.  I miss him.

The Films of 2025: Snow White (dir by Marc Webb)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s just get this out of the way.

Snow White is bad.

I’m not talking about the original Grimms’ Fairy Tale and I’m certainly not talking about the classic animated Disney film, which is one that always make me smile whenever I watch it.  For that matter, I’m also not talking about the majority of the Snow White remakes that have come out over the years.  (There’s been a surprisingly large amount.)

No, I’m talking about the live-action remake of the Disney animated film.  This the Snow White that finally came out earlier this year, after being delayed a countless amount of times.  If it wasn’t the SAG-AFTRA strike that delayed the film, it was the PR nightmares caused by Rachel Zegler’s inability to promote the film without hectoring everyone about her politics.  Even before that, the film was controversial because of a photo from the set that people interpreted to mean that the seven dwarves had been replaced by seven people of average size.  In Disney’s defense, it turned out that the people in the photo were not meant to be the Seven Dwarves.  Instead, the Seven Dwarves were created via CGI, which turned out to be an even worse solution.  (Though Peter Dinklage famously complained about Snow White being a “backwards story about seven dwarves living in a cave,” it’s also true that there are plenty of actors with dwarfism who probably would have appreciated the work.)

Whenever there’s a film that gets totally slammed online before it’s even released, there’s a part of me that always hopes that the film will prove the naysayers wrong and turn out to be a masterpiece.  I wanted Snow White to be good just because the online vitriol often seemed to go overboard.  For example, I may not have agreed with a lot of Rachel Zegler’s comments and I think it was selfish of her to drag her own personal politics into the promotion of a film that a lot of people worked on but I still think it’s important to be able to set aside those feelings when judging the actual film.  People who insist that they can only celebrate films made by people that they agree with are truly limiting themselves.

I was determined to ignore all of the bad publicity and watch the film with an open mind.  And the first few images made me smile.  The film opens with a bunch of animals opening up a storybook and that was such a cute image that I was briefly optimistic.  Unfortunately, the rest of the film is pretty bland.  Rachel Zegler can sing and Rachel Zegler can dance but, at least as far as this film is concerned, she has absolutely zero screen presence.  (For the record, I wasn’t really that impressed by her in West Side Story either.)  As a character, Zegler’s Snow White is boring.  The only person more boring than Zegler is Andrew Burnap as Jonathan, the bandit who is this film’s version of the original’s Prince.  They both give boring performances and they’re saddled with boring songs and neither actor seems to be sure how they should perform opposite the CGI dwarves.  (As for the CGI dwarves, they look like cartoons and they’re distracting in a way that could have been avoided by simply casting actual actors in the roles.)

I have to note that much of the online criticism of Snow White has been directed at Gal Gadot, who plays the Wicked Queen with the magic mirror.  The online film community insists that Gal Gadot is a bad actress despite all of the evidence to the contrary.  (Many of the people who insists on criticizing her now were the same people who swooned when she first played Wonder Woman.  Of course, that was before most of them went down the activist rabbit hole.)  Reading the criticism of Gadot, much of it seems to have less to do with Gadot’s performance and more to do with the fact that she’s from Israel.  If you’re that much of an anti-Semite that you’re going to judge someone’s performance based on where they were born, I don’t really know what to tell you.  Personally, I found Gadot to be one of the few bright spots of the film.  She understood the assignment and she thoroughly embraces the melodrama as the Wicked Queen.  Good for her.  It’s exactly the type of performance that the film needed.

I opened this review by saying that Snow White was bad and I stand by that.  That said, it’s main sin is that it’s so bland that it’s not even enjoyably bad.  After all the drama that went into the production, the film product is about as forgettable as a film can be.

Scenes That I Love: Keanu Reeves in John Wick

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we wish a happy sixty-first birthday to the one and only Keanu Reeves!

Today’s scene that I love comes from the film that made Keanu an icon for a whole generation of moviegoers who had blocked The Matrix sequels from their collective memories, John Wick.  In this scene, Keanu explains that it wasn’t just a dog that he lost.

There’s not a pet owner in the world who doesn’t understand exactly what John Wick is saying here.  And it must be said that Keanu, who has definitely grown a good deal as an actor over the years, really sells the emotions in this scene.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Hal Ashby 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!

Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates what would have been the 96th birthday of Hal Ashby, one of the most important (and, sadly, one of the most overlooked) directors of the 1970s.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Hal Ashby Films

Harold and Maude (1971, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: John A. Alonzo)

The Last Detail (1973, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Michael Chapman)

Bound for Glory (1976, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Haskell Wexler)

Being There (1979, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Caleb Deschanel)

Music Video of the Day: At My Most Beautiful by R.E.M. (1999, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Sometimes, the most difficult thing is just making it to the audition in time.  That is the theme of the video for R.E.M.’s At My Most Beautiful, which follows a cellist as she tries to make it to her audition for R.E.M.

The cellist is played by Rain Phoenix.  Rain was the younger sister of River Phoenix, who was a friend of R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.  Rain had previously been a member of River’s band, Aleka’s Attic, and she also served as a back-up singer with the Red Hot Chili Peppers shortly before she appeared in this video.

Director Nigel Dick is another one of those music video directors who worked with almost everyone.  If you were a successful musician, Nigel Dick probably did at least one video for you.

Enjoy!