Monthly Archives: March 2026

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Fear City!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties.  On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday.  On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix!  The movie?  1984’s Fear City!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Fear City on Prime or Tubi, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  I’ll be there happily tweeting.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

See you there!

 

Music Video of the Day: Lemon Pound Cake by Afroman (2022, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2022, sheriff’s deputies in Adams County, Ohio raided the home of rapper Afroman.  According to the warrant, they were doing so on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping.  They found neither drugs nor kidnapping victims but they did find and seize over $5,000 worth of Afroman’s money.  The money was later returned, with $400 of it missing.  During the raid, they also damaged the front gate, blew up a door, and illegally turned off the house’s security cameras.

Afroman responded with several songs and videos about the raid, all utilizing the footage that security cameras recorded before being shut down.  The deputies attempted to sue, claiming that the videos were an invasion of their privacy.  The judge eventually threw out their lawsuit though another lawsuit, claiming that the video and the songs “defamed” the deputies was allowed to proceed.  Yesterday, Afroman also won that court case.

So, I guess that means that we can  now safely share Lemon Pound Cake.

Enjoy!

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996, directed by Mike Judge)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

While having a dream about being a giant who can destroy a city and almost score, Butt-Head is woken up by his friend Beavis.  Beavis points out that their TV has disappeared. Muddy footprints lead away from the television’s former location and out the front door.  Anyone who is familiar with MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head will immediately realize that this is a crisis.  Animated and voiced by Mike Judge, the moronic teenage duo of Beavis and Butt-Head really don’t have anything in their lives beyond television and heavy metal.  Beavis and Butt-Head set off to find their television, a quest that will see them traveling all the way from Highland, Texas to Las Vegas and eventually Washington D.C.  Along the way, they’ll be pursued by ATF Agent Fleming (Robert Stack), they’ll get hired by alcoholic Muddy Grimes (Bruce Willis) to kill his wife, Dallas (Demi Moore), and Dallas will set them up as the perfect patsies for a terrorist attack on Washington D.C.  Chelsea Clinton will beat up Butt-Head.  President Clinton will declares the boys to be heroes.  They’ll even meet their fathers, though everyone involved will be too dumb to realize it.  But will Beavis and Butt-Head ever find their TV?

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was the first movie to star Beavis and Butt-Head and I can still remember when it first came out in 1996.  No one expected much from it but it turned out to be one of the funniest movies of the year, a triumph of animation, social satire, and jokes about wood.  A lot of the film’s humor comes from just how stupid Beavis and Butt-Head are but even more of the humor comes from everyone’s inability to understand just how stupid they are.  Agent Fleming may think he’s saving America but he’s actually just chasing two teenagers who don’t even know how to read their own names.  Muddy may think that he’s hired two experienced hitmen to “do” his wife but instead, he’s promised to pay two idiots to do his wife.  (With the money, “we could buy a TV,” Butt-Head tells Beavis.)  Everyone, from Fleming to Muddy Grimes, assumes that there must be some sort of grand scheme behind Beavis and Butt-Head’s journey across America.  There isn’t.  They just want to find a television.

Beavis and Butt-Head were and still are two wonderfully comedic creations.  Watching them, I’m always surprised to remember that Mike Judge provided both of their voices.  When they argue with each other about where their TV has gone or if it’s a good idea to jump out of a speeding car, Judge is arguing with himself.  Butt-Head may be the leader but the heart of the duo is definitely Beavis and maybe Cornholio.  The non-stop laughing, the inability to read, the obsessively crude humor, Beavis and Butt-Head were the future and they didn’t even realize it.  Voicing the boys and their neighbor Mr. Anderson, Mike Judge generates most of the laughs in the movie but he still gets first-class help from Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, and especially Robert Stack.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was considered to be a surprise commercial and critical success but the only people who were really surprised were those who hadn’t previously experienced Mike Judge’s sense of humor and satirical viewpoint.  Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is smart comedy about some very dumb people.

Blind Date (1987, directed by Blake Edwards)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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Walter Davis (Bruce Willis) is a workaholic who, in typical 80s fashion, is trying to secure a deal to manage the assets of a Japanese industrialist.  When he needs a date to a business dinner, his brother (Phil Hartman) sets him up with his wife’s cousin, Nadia (Kim Basinger).  Walter is warned to not let Nadia take a single sip of alcohol.  Of course, Walter lets Nadia drink some champagne.  It turns out that Nadia loses all of her inhibitions when she drinks and she says exactly what’s on her mind.  The dinner turns into a disaster as Nadia convinces the industrialist’s wife to file for divorce.  Walter not only loses his job but he now has to get the intoxicated Nadia back home.  Making that difficult is that Nadia’s ex, David (John Larroquette), is still obsessed with her.  David is also crazy and spends almost the entire night chasing Nadia and Walter.

Blind Date is historically significant because it was both Bruce Willis’s first credited film role (he had previously appeared, uncredited, in The First Deadly Sin and The Verdict) and also Willis’s first starring role.  Willis received the role after becoming a sudden star due to his role on Moonlighting and the entire movie is full of television actors.  John Larroquette was best-known for Night Court.  Phil Hartman had just started on Saturday Night Live.  William Daniels appears as Larroquette’s father.  At the time Blind Date came out, Kim Basinger was the closest thing that the cast had to a legitimate movie star.

Watching Blind Date today, it’s strange to see Willis playing a nebbish.  He’s likable but miscast as a straight-laced executive who needs his sister-in-law to set him up on a date.  It’s a role that would have been best-served by someone like John Ritter, who starred in director Blake Edwards’s Skin Deep just two years after Blind Date.  As David, John Larroquette is cartoonish but entertaining and he gets most of the best lines.  Kim Basinger is beautiful as Nadia but doesn’t always seem to be comfortable performing comedy.  There are funny moments but, as with so many of Blake Edwards’s later films, it’s uneven.

Blind Date was a box office hit.  (It was the last big hit of Blake Edwards’s career.)  The film found its real success on HBO, where it was a mainstay for several years.  Luckily, a more appropriate starring vehicle for Bruce Willis was released just a year later.  In Die Hard, Bruce Willis brought John McClaine to life and made film history.

I Watched The Whole Nine Yards (2000, Dir. by Jonathan Lynn)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Oz (Matthew Perry) is an unhappily married dentist who discovers that his new neighbor, Jimmy (Bruce Willis), is a notorious contract killer who has a bounty on his head.  Oz’s wife, Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), wants Oz to rat Jimmy out to the local mob boss (Kevin Pollack) and collect the bounty.  Oz is deeply in debt and has a hard time saying no to his wife but he and Jimmy have actually become friends.  Also, Oz is falling in love with his dental assistant, Jill (Amanda Peet) despite the fact that Jill is also a contract killer, though she’s still a “virgin” because she’s falling in love with the man that she was hired to kill.

The Whole Nine Yards is an amusing comedy that works because of the chemistry between Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis.  When it came to his movie career, Perry was always Chandler Bing no matter who he was playing but that didn’t matter because everyone loved Chandler.  I know I loved Chandler, even if Joey would have been the Friend that I probably would have ended up flirting with.  Perry was a naturally funny actor and he and Willis made for a good team in The Whole Nine Yards.  I also really liked Amanda Peet’s energetic performance as Jill and Kevin Pollack as the crime boss.  The Whole Nine Yards is basically a violent sitcom.  It may not be a great movie but Perry and Willis will make you laugh.

It’s a little hard to rewatch now.  Matthew Perry is gone.  Bruce Willis is retired for health reasons.  They’re both having so much fun in this movie and are so entertaining to watch that it’s impossible not feel a little sad watching them.  But the movie also shows what Perry and Willis could do, even with so-so material.  Watching the movie made me laugh and it made me sad but mostly it just made me appreciate their talent.  We can mourn what we’ve lost while still appreciating what we had.

I Liked Look Who’s Talking (1989, Dir. by Amy Heckerling)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Mollie Jensen (Kirstie Alley) is an accountant who has an affair with a married client, Albert (George Segal) and ends up getting pregnant.  At first, Albert has no interest in being a father but luckily, when Mollie goes into labor, she’s driven to the hospital by a down-on-his-luck taxi driver named James (John Travolta).  After little Mikey is born, James agrees to be Mikey’s babysitter in return for Mollie letting James use her address so he can set up nursing care for his grandfather (Abe Vigoda).  Mollie and James are falling in love but then Albert reenters the picture.  Will Mollie choose rich Albert or goofy James?

As if there’s any doubt!

The important this is not the story but that the story is narrated by Mikey and Mikey sounds just like Bruce Willis!

I will admit it.  I like Look Who’s Talking.

Hey, it’s cute!  It’s a movie that opens with a point of view shot of a herd of sperm heading for an egg.  Little sperm Mikey is so excited!  Even before Mikey is born, he’s giving us his opinions.  When he is born and they cut the umbilical cord, he says, “Hey, I need that!”  What newborn wouldn’t say that?  You’re comfortable and suddenly, you’re getting dragged into the real world.

What I really like about Look Who’s Talking is that we just hear Mikey’s narration and thoughts but Mikey himself doesn’t actually talk.  It’s not like those creepy commercials where they use cheap CGI to make it look like the babies are actually talking.  I hate those commercials.  Instead, we’re just hearing Mikey’s thoughts and his thoughts are probably the ones that most babies would have.  He just sounds like Bruce Willis.  John Travolta is adorable in this.  Kirstie Alley is neurotic and relatable.  The babies are all cute.  But the true star of the film is Bruce Willis’s voice.  Supposedly, Willis ad-libbed most of his lines.  Mikey’s crude but most babies are.

No, I haven’t seen the sequels.  I won’t ever see the sequels.  I get the feeling this is one of those movies that could only work once.  Didn’t the third movie feature talking animals and no Bruce Willis?  There’s no need for that.

 

One Piece: Into the Grand Line (Season 2, Episode 6 “Nami Deerest”) Review

Posted on by Arleigh

“A king is but a man, and a crown is just a hat. It is the kingdom that endures.” – Nefertari Cobra

Netflix’s One Piece live-action series keeps delivering with season 2, and episode 6, “Nami Deerest,” hits that sweet spot of high stakes, heartfelt moments, and classic pirate shenanigans. When Nami comes down with a nasty fever from some prehistoric bug bite on Little Garden, the Straw Hats make a desperate pit stop at Drum Island, a snowy wasteland once famous for its doctors but now a shell of its former self. Luffy and Sanji haul her up a brutal mountain to find the last doc standing, Dr. Kureha, while the rest of the crew chills in town with the locals who aren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat.

Right off the bat, the episode nails the tension around Nami’s illness. Emily Rudd sells her vulnerability without overplaying it—she’s tough as nails usually, but here you see the fear creeping in, making her bond with the crew feel even tighter. Iñaki Godoy’s Luffy is pure determination, strapping Nami to his back and climbing through blizzards and avalanches like it’s just another Tuesday. Taz Skylar’s Sanji gets some solid hero moments too, taking hits to protect everyone, though his flirt game takes a backseat to the urgency. It’s casual crew dynamics at their best: Zoro sharpening his swords, Usopp cracking wise with Vivi, all while the clock ticks on Nami’s condition. Directed by Lukas Ettlin, the cinematography makes Drum Island look unforgiving—those icy peaks and howling winds amp up the peril without feeling gimmicky.

Then we get the big intros: Dr. Kureha and Tony Tony Chopper. Katel Sagal does a great job portraying Dr. Kureha, nailing the grizzled, no-nonsense witch-doctor type living in a rundown castle, boozing it up and barking orders, but patching everyone up with real skill. Her dynamic with the pint-sized reindeer Chopper is gold—he’s skittish, hiding behind pillars, but his big blue nose and hat give him instant charm, and Chopper’s CGI stands up to scrutiny with Mikaela Hoover’s voice performance fitting the live-action well. The reveal that Chopper talks? Luffy’s jaw-drop reaction is comedy perfection, capturing that childlike wonder the manga’s famous for. Without spoiling deeper lore, the episode teases Chopper’s heartbreaking backstory through quick, effective flashbacks, blending humor with pathos in a way that doesn’t drag. Fans of the source material will appreciate how they adapt the Drum Island beats faithfully but tweak pacing for live-action flow—no giant bunnies yet, but the avalanche sequence delivers the thrills.

On the flip side, the Smoker and Tashigi subplot feels a tad obligatory. They’re poking around a Marine outpost massacre, clashing with some Baroque Works goons like Ms. Thursday and Mr. 11, which ties into larger conspiracies but doesn’t advance the main plot much. Smoker’s gravelly pursuit of the Straw Hats is always fun—his logia powers make him a persistent thorn—but this detour mostly serves to remind us the Marines are closing in. It’s balanced by some sharp banter between him and Tashigi, highlighting their odd-couple vibe, yet it pulls focus from Drum’s emotional core. Wapol’s cameo as a gluttonous ex-king scheming his comeback adds menace—he’s cartoonishly vile, scarfing down feasts and plotting revenge—but his full threat looms for later episodes.

What shines brightest is the found-family vibe. The Straw Hats rally without hesitation, showing how far they’ve come since season 1’s ragtag assembly. Vivi’s hidden royal ties to Drum’s messy politics add layers, with flashbacks to her kid self dodging Wapol’s cruelty underscoring the world’s corruption. It’s not all smooth—some transitions between subplots feel rushed, like jumping from the climb to castle recovery. Pacing-wise, it’s a slower burn than action-packed eps, leaning on character beats over fights, which works for setup but might test viewers craving constant devil fruit blasts.

Overall, “Nami Deerest” excels at building investment in the crew’s heart, especially as recruitment teases heat up. The illness plot humanizes these super-powered goofballs, reminding us why Luffy’s dream resonates—it’s about unbreakable bonds in a brutal sea. Production values hold strong: practical snow effects mix well with VFX, and the score swells just right for those quiet, hopeful recoveries. Casual viewers get thrills and laughs; diehards spot nods to Eiichiro Oda’s originals, like Kureha’s gruff mentorship echoing manga mentors. Not flawless—the Baroque sidequest dilutes momentum slightly, and Chopper’s full emotional punch saves for future eps—but it’s a solid bridge episode that deepens the world without stalling.

Clocking in at around emotional highs and setup payoffs, this one’s a win for One Piece‘s live-action run. It keeps the series’ spirit alive: adventure with soul, pirates who fight for friends first. Can’t wait to see Chopper rumble in what’s next—Drum’s just whetting appetites for the chaos ahead. If season 2 keeps this balance of heart-pounding climbs and character warmth, it’ll sail right into must-watch territory.

One Piece: Into the Grand Line Season 2 Episodes

Song of the Day: Under the Boardwalk, performed by Bruce Wills and The Drifters

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the birthday of the legendary Bruce Willis.  Here he has in the 80s, performing Under The Boardwalk with The Drifters.  It’s also our song of the day.

Oh, when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof
And your shoes get so hot you wish your tired feet were fire proof
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
On a blanket with my baby is where I’ll be

Out of the sun
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be havin’ some fun
(Under the boardwalk) People walking above
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be fallin’ in love
(Under the boardwalk) Yeah (boardwalk)

From the park you hear the happy sound of the carousel
You can almost taste the hot dogs and french fries they sell, yes you can
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
On a blanket with my baby is where I’ll be

Out of the sun
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be havin’ some fun
(Under the boardwalk) People walking above
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be fallin’ in love
(Under the boardwalk) Yeah (boardwalk)

Yeah, under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
On a blanket with my baby is where I’ll be

Out of the sun
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be havin’ some fun
(Under the boardwalk) People walking above
(Under the boardwalk) We’ll be fallin’ in love
(Under the boardwalk) Yeah (boardwalk)

Songwriters: Arthur Resnick / Kenny Young

Scenes I Love: Bruce Willis and Dennis Franz in Die Hard 2

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve always enjoyed this confrontation from 1990’s Die Hard 2. 

I think it accurately reflects how most cops and security people would react to having John McClane in their town (trouble does tend to follow him!) and both Bruce Willis and Dennis Franz seem to be having fun trying to irritate each other.