Two From Cirio H. Santiago: Silk and Silk 2

Posted on September 14, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When is an Andy Sidaris film not an Andy Sidaris film?

When it’s directed by Cirio H. Santiago, of course!

Santiago, the Roger Corman of the Phillippines, is credited with directing 100 films over the course of his 60-year career and the 1986 film Silk is definitely one of them! And the sequel, 1989’s Silk 2, is definitely another one. That may sound like faint phrase and I guess it is. Let’s just face it — not everyone is going to be a Cirio H. Santiago fan. Some people are going to want movies that make sense and maintain some sort of continuity from scene to scene. To those people, I will say that Silk and Silk 2 are probably not for you. However, if you just enjoy watching people fire guns and blow things up, the Silk films might be for you.

In the first film, Cec Verrell plays Jenny Sleighton, also known as Silk. Silk is the toughest cop in what we’re told is Honolulu but which is obviously Manila in real life. Early on Jenny informs us that she’s known as Silk because, “I’m so fucking smooth.” Silk may be smooth but she’s also deadly. The film establishes early on that Silk will basically shoot anyone. Normally, that might be a problem but, fortunately, Silk only seems to meet criminals. Over the course of the film, Silk investigates a smuggling operation. She starts out busting heroin dealers and then eventually comes across an identity theft ring …. at least, I think that’s what happens. Trying to follow the plot isn’t always easy but then again, why would you want to follow the plot of a film like Silk? The plot’s not the point. The action is the point and Cec Verrell is such a convincing action star that I’m surprised that she didn’t have a bigger career. Seriously, Cec Verell kicks ass!

Unfortuantely, Cec Verell did not return for Silk 2. In Silk 2, Monique Gabrielle steps into the lead role. Technically, Gabrielle is better at convincingly delivering her dialogue that Verell was but Gabrielle is never believable as an action star. As opposed to the first Silk, which emphasized action, Silk 2 emphasizes nudity and it even features a strangely blurred sex scene. (It’s like soft focus times twenty.) The plot of Silk 2, however, is a bit more fun than the plot of the first film, as it deals with the search for some ancient scrolls and it features Silk’s partner continually getting captured and tortured by the bad guys. After a while, you start to wonder if maybe Silk should stop rescuing him every time that he kidnaps because, seriously, the guy needs to learn to make more of an effort not to kidnapped every time he leaves his house. Eventually, Silk teams up with an ancient scroll expert, who looks like a reject from the brat pack. He and Silk fall for each other, of course. As with the first film, it’s not always easy to follow what’s going on but it’s a short movie and it’s quickly paced, making it ideal for when you want to watch a movie but you don’t necessarily want to have to pay too much attention to it.

Technically, neither Silk nor Silk 2 are that good but they’re both entertaining when taken on their own admittedly special terms. For all of his flaws as a filmmaker, it’s hard not to appreciate the fact that Cirio H. Santiago, like Andy Sidaris and Roger Corman, never let a lack of budget or ability stand in his way. Between 1955 and 2014, Cirio H, Santiago directed 100 films and every single one of them is uniquely his. There’s something to be said for that.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 9/6/21 — 9/12/21

Posted on September 12, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week has been all about relaxing and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when you consider what’s right around the corner. October’s coming up and with it, 31 days of straight horror. Rest assured that, at the Shattered Lens Bunker, we’re already getting prepared for the greatest horrorthon ever.

Here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week!

Films I Watched:

Television Shows I Watched:

Allo Allo
Bachelor in Paradise
Big Brother
Dragnet
Impeachment: American Crime Story
Mom
Moone Boy
Open All Hours
Talking Dead
The Ultimate Surfer
Upstart Crow
The Walking Dead
Yes, Minister

Books I Read:

The Big Bad Book of Democrats (2005) by Lawrence Binda
Black Abductor (1972) by Harrison James
Got a Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane (2003) by Jeff Tamarkin
Fright Favorites (2020) by David J. Skal

Music To Which I Listened:

The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Britney Spears
The Chemical Brothers
Coldplay
deadmau5
Elvis Costello
G. Corp
G. Love and Special Sauce
George Harrison
Gorillaz
Jackie DeShannon
The James Gang
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Starship
Jungle
Kid Rock
Lisa Stansfield
Lynard Skynard
Marvin Gaye
Muse
Nine Inch Nails
O’Jays
The Prodigy
R.E.M.
The Rolling Stones
Saint Motel
Staind
Sydney Youngblood
Taylor Swift
The Who
XTC
Zoe

Trailers:

News From Last Week:

Links From Last Week:

Links From The Site:

Erin shared Road Work Ahead, The Big Bubble, Scylla, No Mask For Murder, The Adulterers, Man Painting The Twin Towers, and A Sin In Time!
Jeff shared music videos from REO Speedwagon, The Silencers, Juice Newton, Rockpile with Robert Plant, Cliff Richard, Lenny Kravitz, and Lee Ritenour!
I shared my week in TV and I reviewed Acapulco Gold and the latest episode of The Walking Dead! I also shared a scene from Breathless!
Leonard reviewed Malignant and shared the trailer for Matrix Revolutions!
Ryan returned Back In The Saddle Part One, Part Two, and Part Three!

More From Us:

Ryan has a patreon! Consider subscribing!
For SOLRAD, Ryan reviewed Blossoms in Autumn!
In my online dream journal, I shared: Last Night’s Romantic Walk Dream, Last Night’s Convenience Store Dream, Last Night’s Dream In Which My Neighbor Lost His Foot, Last Night’s Yacht Dream, Last Night’s Marijuana Farm Dream, Last Night’s Deck Dream, and Last Night’s Weird Airplane Dream.
For my music site, I shared songs from Britney Spears, deadmau5, Saint Motel, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, The Chemical Brothers, and Nine Inch Nails!
For the Big Brother Blog, I reviewed Big Brother!
At Reality TV Chat Blog, I shared: Week 9 Veto Meeting Results, It’s Time To Open Up The Diary Room For Week 9, About The Double Eviction, Week 10 Nominations, and Week 10 Veto Comp Results!
At Pop Politics, Jeff shared: From The New York Times, Happy Labor Day, Vote Yes On The Recall and Larry Elder, Hearing The Water, Lake Texoma: Day 2, Tomorrow, September 11th: Do We Know Where We’re Going?, and Old Man Yells At Cloud!
On her photography site, Erin shared: Possum, Skeleton, Holding On, Table, Rake, Broken Window, and Backyard on a September Day!

Click here to check out last week!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/5/21 — 9/11/21

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I have been up at Lake Texoma since Wednesday so I haven’t watched much television. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Sometimes, it’s important to take some time off.

Here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

After being absent for a few weeks, Allo Allo is back on PBS! Having won his freedom from the Communist Resistance, Rene finds himself still expected to marry the head of the Communists. Meanwhile, Herr Flick continues to search for the missing painting, Edith somehow does not realize that Rene is cheating on her with literally everyone on the show, and Crabtree continues to speak very bad French. It was a strange but entertaining episode.

Bachelor in Paradise (Monday and Tuesday Night, ABC)

This week, temporary host Lance Bass was replaced by Tituss Burgess. Unlike the sarcastic David Spade and the overly earnest Bass, Burgess was just kind of boring, though it was fun to watch the Bachelors and the Bachelorettes all pretend to be huge Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fans. Anyway, though I watched them, I didn’t really pay much attention to either one of this week’s episodes. It’s a show about attractive people hanging out on the beach. You really don’t have to pay that much attention to what’s actually going on. Just enjoy the scenery.

Big Brother (All The Time, CBS and Paramount Plus)

It’ll be over by the end of this month! Until then, I’m writing about it over at the Big Brother Blog.

Dragnet (Weekday Mornings, MeTV)

I finished binging Dragnet this week, watching the final three episodes of the show’s fourth season on Monday and Tuesday. In a minute, the results of that binge.

Monday got started with an episode in which Joe and Gannon were investigating a string of robberies. A woman called them and claimed that her ex-husband was responsible. However, it turned out that he wasn’t responsible and that his ex was just trying to get him in trouble because she was still angry over the end of their marriage! However, it then turned out that, even though he wasn’t responsible for the crimes his wife accused him of, he was still holding up other stores! It was actually kind of an interesting story though, Dragnet being Dragnet, all of the action did stop for a lengthy explanation of how fingerprinting works. This was followed by another episode in which Joe and Gannon tracked down a thief, this time a safecracker. The safecracker was well-played by G.D. Spradlin, who later played Sen. Pat Geary in The Godfather Part II and Col. Corman in Apocalypse Now. This episode was also memorable for featuring a crime victim named Mr. Letterman. Needless to say, whenever his name was mentioned, I immediately pictured David Letterman looking annoyed.

On Tuesday, I set the DVR to record the final episode of the 60s revival of Dragnet. This episode, called “The Victims,” followed Joe and Gannon over the course of one night, as they investigated a series of crimes. They investigated a few robberies and yet another murder at a boarding house. Throughout it all, the emphasis was placed less on the detectives and more on the traumatized victims of the crimes that they were investigating. Throughout the show’s run, even during the campy third season, Dragnet centered around the idea that that the job of the police was to protect and serve the public and this episode emphasized that point. With the exception of a scene where Joe (rightly) reprimanded a patrolman who didn’t show enough compassion for a robbery victim, there was no moralizing. Instead, Joe and Gannon did their jobs as best they could and tried to help out the innocent victims of terrible crimes. It was the perfect final episode for this series.

Now that my binge of Dragnet is over, I can say that it wasn’t a bad show at all. Yes, it’s dated, as any show that ran from 1967 to 1970 would be. And yes, the drug-and-hippie shows were frequently campy. But there really weren’t as many episodes about drugs and hippies as I imagined. Instead, for the most part, this was just a show about two men trying to do the right thing and protect their community. Some of the episodes were undeniably silly and it’s easy to laugh at any episode in which Friday and Gannon went undercover but quite a few of the episodes hold up well as police procedurals. If nothing else, the show is an interesting time capsule of when it was made. As a history nerd, I enjoyed it.

Hell’s Kitchen (Monday Night, FOX)

On Monday night, there were two episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, meaning that two chefs were eliminated ahead of next week’s finale. Steve was the first to go, with Chef Ramsay saying that Steve had talent and a good attitude but that he wasn’t vocal enough in the kitchen. Second to go was Brynn, who Rasmsay said had the makings of a great chef but who still needed to learn how to control her emotions. I don’t think anyone who has watched this season was surprised to see those two chefs eliminated but I did appreciate that Ramsay emphasized their positive traits and encouraged them, even as he sent them out the door. I like the kinder, gentler Ramsay.

Three chefs remain and the finale is next week! Personally, I’m rooting for Trenton.

Impeachment: American Crime Story (Monday Night, FX)

This is the third installment of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story series and it deals with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

The first installment of American Crime Story dealt with the O.J. Simpson trial and it worked largely because the involvement of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski worked as a buffer against producer Ryan Murphy’s worst instincts. The second installment, about Andrew Cunanan and Gianni Versace, started out strong but ended up getting so bogged down in its reverse chronology gimmick that it lost whatever narrative momentum it had going. It’s too early to pass judgment on the third installment but I’ve had my doubts about it from the beginning. In what world, I wondered, could an Arkansas hillbilly like Bill Clinton, a living caricature of everything that is wrong with American politics, somehow be played by the handsome and charming Clive Owen? Even with Monica Lewinsky reportedly signing on as a co-producer, it was hard to imagine Ryan Murphy ever producing a show that would truly be critical of a Democrat, even one as terrible as Bill Clinton.

The first episode was uneven. It dragged a bit, lacking a dramatic set piece like O.J. Simpson getting arrested or Versace getting shot, in broad daylight, outside of his mansion. Instead, this episode built up to Bill Clinton calling Monica Lewisnky for phone sex but the effect was ruined by the sight of Clive Owen wearing a prosthetic nose. The majority of the episode was taken up with Sarah Paulson, acting up a storm as yet another obnoxious character with no social skills and while Paulson did her usual good job, it all felt rather familiar. The episode worked best during the few scenes that focused on Paula Jones, well-played by Annaleigh Ashford. Jones was the first woman to accuse Clinton of sexual harassment and, in the days before Me Too, she was ridiculed and caricatured as being “trailer trash” by the rabidly pro-Clinton national media. In the scenes in which Jones faced a barrage of ridicule and outrageously sexist questions from the press, Impeachment showed why this decades-old political scandal matters.

Mom (Weekday Afternoons, Paramount Plus)

On Tuesday afternoon, as I was packing to go up to the lake for the week, I had Mom playing in the background. I think I went through about four episodes. I didn’t pay much attention but, from what I saw, each one seemed to be more depressing than the last. This show always reminds me of why I could never be an alcoholic because there’s no way I’d ever be able to bring myself to sit through those AA meeting with all of their rules.

Moone Boy (Sunday Night, PBS)

After being gone for a few weeks, Moone Boy is once again airing on PBS on Sunday Night. This week’s episode featured Padraic running away from home and Debra trying to launch a new career as a marriage counselor. Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned for either one of them. It was a funny episode, as they tend to be. I especially enjoyed it when Martin and Padraic attempted to take up shoplifting.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Open All Hours is back on PBS. This week, Arkwright went to a funeral and left Granville alone at the store. Though Granville seemed to enjoy having some time to himself, I’m going to guess that he probably spent most of the time wondering how he had ever ended up trapped in a go-nowhere existence, living in a run-down shop as an indentured servant to a greedy old man who cared not whether his employee lived or died. It was a pretty dark episode.

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

It was fairly dull Talking Dead this week. Sometimes, Talking Dead is the perfect way to recover from an intense viewing experience. Other times, it just reminds you that it’s essentially a one-hour infomercial for The Walking Dead. This week was a case of the latter.

The Ultimate Surfer (Monday and Tuesday Night, ABC)

Much as with Bachelor in Paradise, I have no idea what’s actually happening on this show. I just know that it features attractive people surfing and that’s really all that matters.

Upstart Crow (Sunday Night, PBS)

On Sunday, I rewatched the first episode of Upstart Crow, with Will working on Romeo and Juliet, Kate lobbying for a chance to play the lead role despite the law against allowing women on stage, and Will’s family wondering why his poems don’t make much sense. I had seen it before but it all held up very well.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I (finally) reviewed this week’s episode earlier today. You can read my thoughts by clicking here.

Yes, Minister (Monday Morning, PBS)

Yay! Yes, Minister is back on PBS! They’re reshowing the show from the beginning so I rewatched the first two episodes on Monday morning. The first dealt with Jim Hacker learning about his new ministry and getting expertly manipulated by Sir Humphrey for the first time. This was followed by the episode in which Jim discovered that the world’s newest dictator was an old college classmate. Both episodes held up well to repeat viewing. In fact, having to deal with the daily reality of a Biden presidency has led me to have a greater appreciation for this show’s satirical portrayal of shallow politicians and devious civil servants.

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.3 “Hunted” (dir by Frederick E. O. Toye)

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seeing as how it’s been nearly a week since it aired, I guess I should go ahead and review the latest episode of The Waking Dead. No doubt about it, we’re all about timely reviews here at the Shattered Lens!

The latest episode of The Walking Dead was …. well, it was okay. Actually, it was better than okay. It was actually pretty good. It was well-directed. It was well-acted. There was plenty of gore, if that’s what you’re into. There were a lot of walkers. The Reapers continued to do villainous things for vague reasons. Duncan and Agatha died, so we won’t have to keep track of them anymore. After being absent for the previous two episodes, Carol showed up long enough to do her whole “compassionate but ruthless” thing. Gabriel announced, “God isn’t here anymore” before stabbing a guy in the head. It was all well-done and effective but, and I say this a lot when it comes to The Walking Dead, it was also pretty familiar. That’s the problem when a show like this goes on for 11 seasons. By this point, almost any show is going start to repeating itself and that’s been the case with The Walking Dead for a while now.

The repetitive nature of the show always leaves me with mixed feelings. Yes, the Reapers are frightening and evil but how are they any different from any of the other frightening and evil groups that have showed up over the course of this show? Yes, being eaten by a walker is not a pleasant thought but, by this point, we know that, unless it’s a season finale, only minor characters have to really worry about getting eaten by a walker. Maggie is not going to get eaten by a walker, at least not this early in the season. Neither is Negan, if just because it’s fairly obvious that show’s writers enjoy coming up with sarcastic dialogue for him. That said, I do think The Walking Dead deserves some credit for remaining consistent in its portrayal of a world without hope. The world of The Walking Dead has always been dark and dangerous and the worst thing that the show could do, at this point, would be to pretend like things will ever get better. Even Gabriel has lost his faith, accepting that the world is now ruled by chaos and random destruction.

The stuff with Carol and the horses felt like it was mostly just tacked on to give Carol and Rosita something to do but I enjoyed the interplay between Negan and Maggie. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan had an interesting …. well, I guess you’d have to call it chemistry …. in their scenes together. The first three episodes of the season have devoted a lot of time to comparing and contrasting Maggie and Negan’s leadership styles and, interestingly enough, it seems like Maggie has more in common with Negan than she wants to admit. One gets the feeling that her refusal to abandon Alden was as motivated by Maggie’s need to not turn into Negan as it was by any humanitarian impulse. Still, one can see that Maggie is starting to see that Negan might be right. Survival in world ruled by chaos often means abandoning compassion.

Overall, this was a good episode. At this point, The Walking Dead has lost its power to shock but it’s nice to see that it can still occasionally tell an effective story.

Film Review: Acapulco Gold (dir by Burt Brinckerhoff)

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I just finished watching Acapulco Gold, a rather goofy 1976 film about …. well, who knows?

The film starts with some well-shot footage of marijuana farmers checking out their crop but then it abruptly abandons all of that to follow an American insurance salesman named Ralph Hollio (Marjoe Gortner). Ralph is at an airport in Acapulco, waiting to board a flight back to America. He’s approached by a nun who asks him to carry a piñata for her. Ralph says sure but — oh no! — that piñata is actually full of heroin! Ralph’s an unwitting drug mule and not a very good one because it doesn’t take long for him to get himself arrested and sentenced to 40 years in a Mexican prison.

Despite this run of bad luck, Ralph remains surprisingly cheerful. One is tempted to almost describe him as being a Candide-like figure but that would probably be giving this film too much credit. In prison, he meets another prisoner, a boat captain named Carl Solberg (Robert Lansing). Carl is sprung from jail by local businessman, Morgan Frye (John Harkins). Frye wants Carl to sail a boat from Mexico to Hawaii. Carl agrees but he insists that Morgan also pull some strings so that Ralph can serve as his first mate. Morgan, of course, agrees.

The film’s “action” shifts to Hawaii, where it turns out that Ralph and Carl are being used as a part of a much bigger plot. Or something. To be honest, it’s a bit difficult to figure out just what exactly is going on. Acapulco Gold has a make-it-up as you go along feel to it. Occasionally, it’s amusing. Often, it’s frustrating. As soon as you start to get in any way interested in one storyline, it gets abandoned. The film doesn’t have a plot as much as it has a bunch of scenes that we’re left to assume are meant to be somehow connected.

For instance, there’s an elderly couple who keep showing up at inopportune times, providing what I guess is meant to be comedic relief. At one point, it appears that the couple is surely doomed but, several scenes later, they show up at a golf course and they look none the worse for wear. There are lengthy sailing scenes, mixed in with lengthy helicopter scenes. None of them add much to the plot but the Hawaiian scenery is frequently nice to look at. Ralph falls for Morgan’s girlfriend (Randi Oakes) while a Congressman and a corrupt DEA agent use huge, oversized walkie-talkies to communicate with two people who we occasionally see wandering around in the jungle. There’s a golf cart chase, which ends with a labored joke about a two-strike penalty. And, since this is a low-budget 70s film, there’s a day-for-night sequence that is so ineptly lit that we can barely see anyone for several minutes of the movie. (Though his face may not be visible, one can always spot Marjoe Gortner by his hair. 70s Marjoe had a lot of hair.)

At its best, Acapulco Gold is a charmingly incoherent time capsule, a chance to hop in a time machine and go back to 1976. At its worse, it’s a total mess. That said, it’s short enough that it’s never exactly boring and the randomness of it all occasionally lends the film a dream-like atmosphere (albeit one of those dreams that you forget about after you’ve been awake for 87 minutes). As I previously stated the Hawaiian scenery is lovely and some members of the cast — Robert Lansing and Ed Nelson, in particular — do the best that they can with their inconsistently written characters. The whole thing is such a slapdash affair that it becomes oddly fascinating to watch.

As for the film’s star, Marjoe Gortner was a former child evangelist whose claim to fame was being the subject of Marjoe, a documentary in which he admitted that he didn’t believe in anything that he preached and that he was just scamming people out of their money. Perhaps not surprisingly, Gortner was usually best-cast as villains or unpredictable rogues. (His best performance was as a morally ambiguous space pirate in Starcrash.) In Acapulco Gold, Gortner is playing a normal, ordinary guy who finds himself caught up in the drug underworld. Gortner is miscast as a naive innocent and, instead of projecting any sort of shock over anything tht he experiences, Gortner’s laid back performance suggests that there were multiple reasons why this film was called Acapulco Gold.

Acapulco Gold is currently viewable on Prime. It’s not a particularly good film but Hawaii has always looked great.

Sigh Here’s The Trailer for Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Adam McKay has a new movie coming out. It’s called Don’t Look Up and the cast is packed with stars. It’s apparently a comedy about two astronomers who discover that a comet is about to collide with Earth, potentially ending all life as we know it.

Here’s the teaser:

I’m not really a big Adam McKay fan. In fact, I think the last Adam McKay film that I really liked was Anchorman. The Big Short was overrated and smug. Vice was an attempt to destroy Dick Cheney that, instead, rehabilitated the former vice president’s image in the eyes of many. (I mean, seriously, it takes a certain amount of effort to screw up a film that’s only reason for existing was to portray Dick Cheney as being a sinister figure.) Both Vice and The Big Short were victims of McKay’s tendency to try too hard to prove that he’s capable of more than just Anchorman. (Let’s be honest, though. If you had to pick between Anchorman and either of McKay’s Oscar-nominated films, which one are you going for?)

McKay is not a particularly good or clever political satirist but there are people who love his work, largely because they already agree with him. His films are like the progressive, secular version of God’s Not Dead, heavy-handed, predictable, and beloved by people who exist in a very specific social and cultural bubble. Of course, both The Big Short and Vice received several Oscar nominations but that due more to Hollywood agreeing with the film’s politics than the films themselves.

Anyway, the teaser features Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, and Jennifer Lawrence, all acting up a storm. (These are four talented actors, all of whom really need a director who is willing to say, “Okay, let’s dial it back a little.” Subtlety, of course, is not really a McKay specialty.) I’m not looking forward to this film but I’ll still watch it when it shows up on Netflix. Who knows? Maybe it’ll feel more like Anchorman than Vice. One can only hope!

Scenes That I Love: The Ending of Breathless (R.I.P., Jean-Paul Belmondo)

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was saddened to learn of the death of French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo earlier today. He was 88 years old and still an international icon of movie star charisma at the time of his death.

Belmondo spent the majority of his career in France, where he was one of the early faces of the New Wave and also a prominent action star, famed for doing his own very dangerous stunts. In America, he was best-known for his starring turn in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. In Breathless, Belmondo was the perfect existential outlaw, living life day-by-day and obviously doomed but still so incredibly magnetic and stylish.

In tribute to Belmondo, here is a scene that I love, the final moments of Breathless.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 8/30/21 — 9/05/21

Posted on September 5, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Labor Day!

Speaking of work, that’s what we’re doing here at the Shattered Lens as we get ready for the annual Horrorthon! It’s just a few weeks away! This October, nonstop horror from your friends at the Shattered Lens. It’s definitely my favorite time of year!

Here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week:

Films I Watched:

American Ninja (1985)
Buried Secrets (1996)
City of Lies (2021)
A Quiet Place Part II (2021)
The Shock of the Future (2020)
Slither (2006)
The Suicide Squad (2021)

Television Shows I Watched:

Bachelor in Paradise
Big Brother
Dead Silent
Dragnet
Hell’s Kitchen
Hometown Homicide
Man With A Van
The Ultimate Surfer
Your Worst Nightmare

Books I Read:

The War For Late Night (2010) by Bill Carter

Music To Which I Listened:

Backstreet Boys
The Beatles
Britney Spears
Coldplay
The Eagles
Jessica Simpson
Katy Perry
Kedr Livanskiy
Lorde
Muse
Nancy Sinatra
O-Town
Radiohead
The Rolling Stones
Saint Motel
t.A.T.U.
Taylor Swift
UPSAHL

Trailers:

News From Last Week:

Links From Last Week:

Links From the Site:

Case reviewed Titans Episode 3.5 Lazarus!
Erin shared No Nice Girl, Bed of Fear, Forever, Backroad Motel, The Diamond Bikini, Send Them Summer, and Big Shot!
Jeff shared music videos from Tom Johnston, Rockestra, Styx, Carly Simon, Iron Maiden, Rod Stewart, and Elvis Costello!
I reviewed Val. I shared my week in television. I shared my August Oscar predictions. And I reviewed the latest episode of The Walking Dead.

More From Us:

Ryan has a patreon! Consider subscribing.
For SOLRAD, Ryan reviewed Dope Rider!
At Days Without Incident, Leonard shared a song from Halsey!
I reviewed Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog!
For Horror Critic, I reviewed Survival of the Dead, Satan’s Triangle, and Children of the Corn!
On my online dream journal, I shared: Pandemic Nightmare, Lost Car Dream, Shopping Dream, Park Dream, Flooded Garage Dream, FBI Sting Dream, and Lakehouse Dream!
At my music site, I shared songs from Nancy Sinatra, Thom Yorke, Muse, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, t.A.T.u, and Madonna!
At SyFyDesigns, I shared: It’s Time For Another Break, Where Would I Go, Top 6 Depression-Era Outlaws, and I Am Not Happy Right Now!
At Reality TV Chat Blog, I shared: Veto Meeting Update For Week 8, Time To Open Up The Diary Room For Week 8, About Tonight, Week 9 Nominations, and Week 9 Veto Update!
At Pop Politics, Jeff shared: Getting Caught Up, Two Things I Never Thought I’d See, Learning To Enjoy The Silence, September’s Here, Why Afghanistan Mattered, Remember Nomad, Bill de Blasio for Governor?, Remember U.S. Trucker, Happy Labor Day Weekend, and Labor Day Weekend Continues!
At her photography site, Erin shared: Flag, At Home, Doves in Black and White, Starry Night On A Wall, Van Gogh On A Wall, Sun, and Clouds!

Want to see what I did last week? Click here!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television — 8/29/21 — 9/4/21

Posted on September 4, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve been on a cleaning binge over the past week so I didn’t really watch that much. I did get hit with insomnia on Wednesday, which led to me watching a lot of true crime. It also led to me being beyond exhausted on Thursday. Anyway, here’s what I watched this week!

Bachelor In Paradise (Monday and Tuesday Night, ABC)

Lance Bass has replaced David Spade as the guest host. On Monday’s episode, he was very enthusiastic and very earnest and it felt totally wrong for this deeply silly and extremely shallow little show. As for Monday’s episode, the men are still hung up on stuff that happened during their time on the Bachelorette and it’s kind of pathetic. (“You weren’t there for the right reasons!”) As for the women, Demi is my favorite because she’s unapologetic when it comes to creating drama. She understands what this show is about. As for Tuesday’s episode …. well, I didn’t really pay attention to be honest. There was a lot of arguing on the beach. My favorite part of this show remains the totally self-aware and delightfully silly opening credits.

Big Brother (24/7, CBS and Paramount Plus)

I’m writing about the trainwreck of a show over at the Big Brother Blog.

Dead Silent (Wednesday morning, ID)

This is a true crime show about murders that occurred in isolated locations. I watched three episodes on Wednesday morning. One of them dealt with a particularly gruesome crime that occurred in my home city of Dallas. Yikes! It’s a scary world out there.

Dragnet (Weekday mornings, MeTV)

I’ve only got a few more episodes left until this binge is over.

On Monday, things got started with an episode in which Joe and Gannon investigated the case of a seemingly helpful woman who was actually conning old people. This was yet another episode where Joe and Gannon went undercover! I always enjoy the undercover episodes because it’s not like Joe and Gannon actually change their behavior in any way. They’re still obviously cops but no one ever seems to notice. This was followed by an episode in which Joe and Gannon investigated a murder at a boarding house, which was something that happened fairly frequently on Dragnet. This episode also featured a classic scene where Joe and Gannon convinced a reporter to hold back on publishing a story by appealing to sense of civic duty. That reporter would lose his job today. He probably would have lost in in 1970, too.

On Tuesday, the DVR only recorded the 1st episode. Either I forgot to set it to record both episodes or the cable could have gone down. (I was asleep, so who knows?) These things happen. Anyway, the episode that was recorded featured Gannon and Friday searching for a missing college student who, because of his drug addiction, had fallen in with a bad crowd. It wasn’t a bad episode, despite the fact that if featured the most clean-cut heroin addicts imaginable. For once, the emphasis was on helping drug addicts instead of just throwing them in jail.

On Wednesday morning, the DVR actually recorded both episodes. The first episode featured Joe and Gannon investigating a man who was manufacturing and selling amphetemines out of his home. They had to prove that the man was actually the one who did the manufacturing, which they managed to do through handwriting analysis. (It turns out that the man was foolish enough to leave his notes out where anyone could find them.) It was actually a pretty good episode, focusing more on police work than on heavy-handed moralizing. (That’s the main difference between the third and fourth seasons of Dragnet.) The second episode featured Joe and Gannon taking down a gang of criminals who would kidnap dogs and then return them to collect the reward. The best thing about this episode is that all of the dog owners were portrayed as being kind of crazy. I’m a cat person so I approved.

I forgot to set the DVR to record Thursday’s episodes. Sorry.

Friday got started with one of my favorite episodes, perhaps my second favorite after the third season episode where Joe and Gannon appeared on the talk show and debated the hippies. In this episode, Joe was taking a night class at the local community college when he noticed that one of his classmates had a baggie of weed hidden in his notebook. Joe arrested the student and, as a result, was kicked out of class by his left-wing professor. Joe asked for a chance to plead his case. Fortunately, it turned out that another classmate was an attorney who pointed out that the professor didn’t have any any right to kick Joe out in the first place. Featuring smug liberals, anti-drug hysteria, and a self-righteously indignant Joe Friday, Night School is a classic Dragnet episode. This was followed by an episode where Joe and Gannon worked in the Internal Affairs Department and cleared the names of two homicide detectives accused of stealing money from the victim of a crime. It was a good, solid episode but it could have used more hippies.

Hell’s Kitchen (Monday Night, FOX)

The black jackets were handed out and, sadly, both Emily and Antonio were sent home. I surprised myself by crying a little when Emily was eliminated but, to be honest, it wasn’t the first time that I’ve teared up this season. I’ve actually gotten quite emotionally involved with this show.

As you may have guessed, I’ve really enjoyed this season of Hell’s Kitchen. I’ve actually preferred it to Big Brother. The fact that Chef Ramsay has been a bit nicer this season than he has in previous seasons has been a surprising but also a welcome change. As much as everyone loves it when Ramsay yells and curses, he seems to be a lot more sincere when he’s actually praising a chef that he’s sending home and telling them to keep learning and not give up their dreams.

Hometown Homicide (Wednesday Morning, ID)

This is a true crime show about homicides that occur in small communities. I watched two episodes on Wednesday morning while I was working on some things. I’m not sure why, exactly, I ended up watching so much true crime on Wednesday. I guess it was just the mood I was in. Sometimes, you want confirmation that the world is as scary and dangerous as you think it is.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (Sunday morning, FX)

I watched Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo, which wasn’t quite as good as the first Chardee MacDennis episode but which still featured a pretty good guest turn from Andy Buckley. This was followed by the episode where Frank fell out of a window, which is one of the few It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia episodes that I’ve never been able to make my way through. That gash on the back of Frank’s head just freaks me out too much.

Man With A Van (Wednesdsay Morning, ID)

Apparently, this entire series is about men who owed vans and abducted women. I had insomnia on Wednesday morning so I watched an episode. It was about a 16 year-old girl in Arkansas who got abducted by a man with a van. It was disturbing to watch and, as with most true crime shows, it was hard not to tell that the show was exploiting a real-life tragedy. Still, the message was a good one: stay away from weird men who own vans.

60 Minutes (Sunday Night, CBS)

Good God, this show is like a hundred years old and so are most of the reporters on it. I imagine the same that can be said for the people who watch it every week. Myself, I only watch it when Big Brother gets preempted by a football game and I have to impatiently wait for Scott Pelley to get off my TV.

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Josh McDermitt continually pointing out that it made no sense for Maggie to leave Gage to die was the highlight of this week’s Talking Dead. McDermitt was, in fact, so charming and funny that I found myself really hoping that he’ll find another high-profile role after The Walking Dead ends.

The Ultimate Surfer (Monday, Tuesday, and Friday Night, ABC)

I struggle to follow most of what happens on this show. Growing up, I lived in a lot of different states and I experienced a lot of different cultures but I never met any surfers so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to this show. (If it was The Ultimate Ballerina or The Ultimate Motorcycle Gang Member, I would be on more familiar ground.) But honestly, the only thing that really matters about this show is that everyone looks really good. If you’re going to make a show about surfing, be sure to populate it with people who you would actually want to see on the beach.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I reviewed the latest episode here.

Your Worst Nightmare (Wednesday Morning, ID)

This is a true crime show. I woke up at two in the morning on Wednesday and, unable to get back to sleep, I watched two episodes. Both of them were about young women being abducted by crazed stalkers. It was probably not the best thing to watch at 3 in the morning, to be honest.

Here’s The Trailer For Belfast!

Posted on September 3, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Belfast, the latest film from Kenneth Branagh, has been getting rapturous reviews at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals. I’ve seen more than one critic say that it’s the first film that they’ve seen over the past few months that they could imagine winning best picture when the Oscars are handed out next year.

And really, I can see their point, even though I have yet to watch the film.

Consider the following:

It’s British.
It’s in black-and-white.
It’s directed by Kenneth Branagh, who some would say is overdue for some Oscar recognition.
It’s a personal film from one of the world’s leading Shakespeareans.
Even though it’s a personal film, it’s also a film about the troubles in Northern Ireland in the 70s and therefore, it’s a film that can probably be interpreted as commenting upon the divisions of the present.
It’s got an amazing cast.
It’s a period film.
Did I mention it’s in black-and-white?

As I said, I haven’t seen the film yet. But the trailer looks amazing so I can’t wait until I do!