Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Avalanche Sharks!

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?  Avalanche Sharks!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Avalanche Sharks on Prime, 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!

 

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Gus Van Sant 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 wishes a happy birthday to one of the pioneers of American independent cinema, Gus Van Sant!

It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Gus Van Sant Films

Drugstore Cowboy (1989, dir by Gus Van Sant, DP: Robert Yeoman)

To Die For (1995, dir by Gus Vant Sant, DP: Eric Alan Edwards)

Gerry (2002, dir by Gus Van Sant, DP: Harris Savides)

Elephant (2003, dir by Gus Van Sant, DP: Harris Savides)

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.13 “Snow Queen: Part One”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, we have part one of a two part story.

Episode 1.13 “Snow Queen: Part One”

(Dir by Tony Mordente, originally aired on March 23rd, 1985)

This week’s episode features two tough guys who are both named Dennis.

Dennis Farina appears as Vic Terranova, a gangster who owns a nightclub and who loves country music.  McCall is working undercover as a country-western singer in order to take both him and his cocaine-dealing operation down.

Meanwhile, Dennis Franz appears as Sgt. Jackie Molinas, a sleazy detective from New York who comes to Los Angeles to extradite Sally LaPone (Lycia Neff), a former New York drug dealer who relocated to Los Angeles after she witnessed a murder in the Big Apple.  Sally is now the exclusive drug dealer for rock star Darby Slash (Brendan Hughes).  When she’s arrested at a raid on one of Terranova’s clubs, Molinas demands that she be turned over to him.  Correctly assuming that Molinas is planning on killing her, Sally escapes his custody.  Molinas’s search for Sally leads to him apparently killing both Darby Slash and also one Hunter’s informants.

Hunter can’t prove that Molinas is the killer but he suspects it.  It seems like he could just ask his Mafia relatives if Molinas is working for the Mob but this show has kind of forgotten that Hunter has relatives in the Mafia.

This episode was part one of two so this review is going to feel incomplete.  When the episode ended, McCall had gotten a job singing for Terranova and Molinas was closing in on Sally.  We’ll see how it all plays out next week.  For this week, I’ll simply say that Dennis and Dennis delivered.  Dennis Farina was properly smooth as Terranova.  Meanwhile, Dennis Franz turned Jackie Molinas into one of the sleaziest, most obnoxious characters that I’ve ever seen.  He’s the type of guy who walks into a place, insults all of the men, crudely hits on all of the women, and then attempts to murder a stranger.  Franz made Molinas into a character worthy of loathing.

I always find it interesting when Rick Hunter has to deal with a bad cop.  It’s like the show is saying, “Yes, Rick kills a lot of people but at least he’s not that guy!”

We’ll see how things work out next week.

Retro Television Review: Decoy 1.39 “The Lost Ones”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958.  The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, Decoy comes to an end.

Episode 1.39 “The Lost Ones”

(Dir by Arthur H. Singer, originally aired on July 7th, 1958)

The final episode of Decoy finds Casey dropping in on Elsa Kramer (Phyllis Newman), a recently-released juvenile offender who Casey previously arrested.  Casey just wants to check on her and to welcome her back to society.  But, when Casey steps — unannounced, which may be okay in New York but seems rather rude to my Texas sensibilities — into the family’s small kitchen, she discovers Elsa’s abusive father is dead and Elsa is holding the gun.  Elsa makes a run for it.  Elsa’s mother (Adelaide Klein) and brother (Morton Lighter) say that Elsa shot her father in self-defense.

Casey doesn’t think Elsa pulled the trigger and is determined to find Elsa and learn the truth before Elsa is arrested again.  Not surprisingly, Casey’s right.  It was her brother who killed their father.  Elsa took the blame because her brother was going to medical school whereas Elsa really didn’t have much of a future to lose.

In some ways, this episode is an appropriate send-off for Casey and Decoy.  It has some location footage of New York, which was always the show’s main appeal outside of Beverly Garland’s lead performance.  It features Casey trying to prove that a seemingly guilty person is actually innocent.  That’s certainly preferable to what we saw last week.

At the same time, this episode had some of the same flaws that were present in quite a few of Decoy’s final episodes.  The dialogue was a bit overbaked.  Even worse, the acting from the supporting cast was not particularly impressive.  Morton Lighter was so twitchy as Elsa’s brother that there wasn’t much doubt as to who the guilty party was.  This episode also featured Casey meeting with the least intimidating street gang in New York history.  The whole thing lacked the authenticity that distinguished Decoy at its best.  I’m not really sure if the show’s producers knew that this would be the final episode of the series.  If they did, they allowed to show to end on a bit of anticlimactic note.

So, that’s it for Decoy.  For the most part, it was a good show.  The last few episodes were perhaps a bit too melodramatic for their own good.  One got the feeling that the show’s writers were under orders to “liven” things up.  But the early episodes made great use of the New York setting and, throughout the series, Beverly Garland gave a great performance as the tough but compassionate Casey Jones.

What will I be watching next?  I’ll let you know next week!

Join #TubiThursday For Disco Godfather!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Tonight, on Mastodon, I will be hosting the #TubiThursday watch party!  Join us for Disco Godfather, starring Rudy Ray Moore!

You can find the movie on Tubi or Prime and you can join us on Mastodon at 9 pm central time!  (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.)  We will be using #TubiThursday hashtag!  See you then!

Scenes I Love: Philip Seymour Hoffman in Punch-Drunk Love

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been Philip Seymour Hoffman’s 59th birthday.

Here he is in 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love, yelling at Adam Sandler and showing how a good actor can make the simple act of yelling compelling.

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Philip Marlowe Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

4 Shots From 4 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Raymond Chandler.  That means that it’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Philip Marlowe Films

Murder, My Sweet (1944, dir by Edward Dmytryk, DP: Harry J. Wild)

The Big Sleep (1946, dir by Howard Hawks, DP: Sidney Hickox)

The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsgimond)

The Big Sleep (1978, dir by Michael Winner, DP: Robert Payner)

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.9 “Team Picture”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Welcome to 2013!

Episode 4.9 “Team Picture”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on November 30th, 1988)

Weird, weird episode.

Taking place 25 years in the future, this episode features the ’88 California Bulls reuniting in 2013.  Of course, since this episode was made in 1988, its version of 2013 is a bit different from the one that we all lived through.  The 2013 of this episode is a dark and depressing dystopia, with militarized police and …. well, maybe it wasn’t that much different from what we lived through.

In 2013, former wide receiver Billy Cooper is a reporter who is hoping to go from the sports desk to the anchor desk.

TD Parker (OJ Simpson) is now the mayor of Los Angeles.

Zagreb is still playing in the NFL.

Doug Clayton is a Nobel prize-winning scientist.

Dr. Death works at a lumber yard.

Mad Dog owns twenty-five “sex discos.”

Bubba Kincaid is now the “King of Beer.”  After his bar was shut down and demolished, he started Bubba Beer, which we are told is the “last American beer.”

And Jethro — well, no one has seen Jethro for ten years.  Bubba tried to get Jethro to join him in his Bubba Beer business but Jethro refused.  He went into wrestling and then he vanished.  Most of his teammates are angry with him.  They view him as being a crybaby who needs to man up.

In this episode, Jethro resurfaces at the Dodds Corporate Headquarters in Los Angeles.  He’s got a bomb strapped to his chest and he’s threatening to blow the whole place up.  TD and Billy both try to talk to him but Jethro doesn’t want to hear what they have to say.  Dr. Death approaches him and encourages him to blow himself up.  Finally, Bubba goes to Jethro and apologizes for abandoning him.  Unfortunately, Bubba gets shot by a robot sniper and is transformed into a pile of blue ash as Jethro watches.

And that’s how the episode ends!

I appreciated the fact that this episode was so weird.  It pretty much came out of nowhere and I’ll be surprised if it’s ever referenced again.  Probably the most interesting thing about it is that all of the Bulls ended up becoming jerks.  No one seems to really care that Jethro might die.  For that matter, Jethro isn’t that upset when Bubba gets killed.

I imagine when this episode aired, it was meant to be a commentary on how uncertain the life of a pro-athlete can be once they’re no longer playing.  For every success story, there’s someone else who ends up losing all of their money and being exiled to the fringes of society.  Seen today, it’s hard to watch Jethro without thinking about CTE and all of the former players who have succumbed to it.

This episode was so odd that it defies a traditional “good or bad” classification.  I appreciated it for trying to do something different.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 8.2 and 8.3 “Vicki and the Fugitive/Lady in the Window/Stolen Years/Dutch Treat”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, we have a two-hour episode of The Love Boat!

Episodes 8.2 and 8.3 “Vicki and the Fugitive/Lady in the Window/Stolen Years/Dutch Treat”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on September 29th, 1984)

This week, the crew is assigned to a European cruise!  Aboard the Royal Viking Sky, the crew and their passengers sail from England to the Netherlands and back again.  This is one of those episodes that was shot on location and, as always, the scenery is lovely.

The stories on the other hand….

Vicki falls for a deckhand named Peter (Patrick Cassidy).  In fact, Vicki even finds herself falling in love with him.  (In this episode, it’s established that Vicki is now 17.  Is she old enough now to actually get paid a salary for all the work she does on the boat?)  However, Peter is actually Anton, a young man who is being pursued by Interpol.  The show spends a lot of time trying to make it appear as if Antono is a criminal of some sort.  Actually, he’s just a royal prince who ran off because he wasn’t ready to accept his official duties.  Vicki is happy to discover that Anton isn’t a criminal but unhappy that he now has to stay behind and rule a kingdom in Europe.

Captain Stubing probably could have helped Vicki during all of this but he was too busy pursing a romance with Inga Van Damme (Elke Sommer), a mysterious passenger who, much like Anton, appeared to be keeping a secret from her romantic partner.  Telling Stubing that she couldn’t be with him, Inga left the ship early.  Stubing wandered all over Amsterdam, searching for her.  And he discovered her …. working as a madam.  “It is legal here,” Inga explains.  “But is it morally right?” Stubing replies.

Speaking of being morally right, Dr. Foster (Pat Harrington, Jr.) finds himself on the boat with both his wife (Eileen Brennan) and his mistress (Teri Copley)!  Wow, how many times can the exact same thing happen on the Love Boat?  As always with this show, the husband went back to his wife but, fortunately, his mistress met someone while leaving the boat.  “Can I help you with your bags?” the charming stranger asks.  “Are you married?” the former mistress replies.

Finally, Danish Lisa Anderson (Cloris Leachman) meets Erik Larsen (George Kennedy), another Dane, on the boat.  (George Kennedy speaks with his normal American accent.)  Erik falls in love with Lisa (Hey!  That’s my name!) but Lisa is haunted by memories of her former lover (Tim Robbins) being dragged away by the Nazis during World War II.  At first, it seems that Lisa is too haunted by what happened to move on.  However, it is eventually revealed that her former lover is Erik Larsen!  Somehow, Tim Robbins grew up to be George Kennedy.  In her memories, it appears that Lisa betrayed Erik but actually, by pointing him out to the Nazis, she bought him time.  While everyone else in the town square was being executed, Erik was being interrogated and, because of this, he was still alive when the Americans returned.

So, here’s the problem.  Cloris Leachman, not surprisingly, gives a great performance as Lisa.  And George Kennedy, once you get over the idea that he’s supposed to be Danish, gives a pretty good performance as Erik.  But flashbacks of Nazi atrocities feel very much out-of-place when mixed in with scenes of Vicki dating a prince and the doctor trying to balance being on a cruise with both his wife and his mistress.  Tonally, this episode is all over the place.

That said, the scenery’s lovely (am I repeating myself) and Ted McGinley fit in nicely with the rest of the crew.  Pat Klous isn’t bad as Judy but, at least at this point in the season, she doesn’t have the same sort of brother/sister chemistry that Lauren Tewes had with Fred Grandy and Bernie Kopell.  McGinley, of course, had the advantage that, while he was new, he still wasn’t replacing anyone.  Poor Pat Klous still has to escape from the shadow of the former cruise director.