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, we pay tribute to the year 1987! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 1987 Films
Full Metal Jacket (1987, dir by Stanley Kubrick, DP: Douglas Milsome)
Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)
Wings of Desire (1987, dir by Wim Wenders, DP: Robby Muller)
Near Dark (1987, dir by Kathryn Bigelow, DP: Adam Greenberg)
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi
DegrassiHigh comes to a close. Here’s the final time we’ll be hearing this theme song.
Episode 2.13 “One Last Dance”
(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on February 11th, 1991)
With the end of term approaching, the students of Degrassi High are shocked to hear that their school will be closing. The next year, everyone will be split up and going to different schools. Lucy may have just been elected president of the student council but she’s never going to take office.
It’s sad news but at least the students get one last dance.
Joey and Caitlin finally get back together as the series come to a close, dancing in Degrassi’s gym. Upon hearing some students discussing the rumor that one of their classmates is HIV+, an angry Dwayne finally admits that it’s him. His “friend” Nick (George Chaker) refuses to speak to him. His other friend, Tabby (Michele Johnson-Murray), finally gets over her fear and shares a dance with him. Snake dances with Michelle. Wheels shows up to the dance and I’m going to assume that he’s no longer homeless. Arthur — remember when this show was all about Arthur? — is spotted dancing with someone. The camera pans over all of the students in the school’s gym, sharing some final moments as they prepare to end one chapter of their life and start another. It’s a low-key but effective ending for the show. It helps that the we’ve gotten to know the characters so well. DegrassiHigh didn’t need to burn down the school to have an effective ending. It just needed to get everyone together in the gym.
However, it was not the end of the franchise, not hardly. A year after Degrassi High ended, School’s Out would air and our characters would be given temporary (and, in some cases, rather tragic) closure. I’ll take a second look at School’s Out next Sunday. And then, a decade or so later, a new generation would become students at Toronto’s most famous learning center. Degrassi: The Next Generation is coming soon!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.
This week, the third season of Homicide comes to an end.
Episode 3.2o “The Gas Man”
(Dir by Barry Levinson, originally aired on May 5th, 1995)
The third season of Homicide was coming to an end and NBC was dragging its heels as to whether or not it would renew the show. Homicide was critically acclaimed but its ratings were low, despite the efforts to make the show more audience-friendly during the third season. Producer Barry Levinson grew frustrated with NBC’s refusal to tell him whether or not the show would be renewed. Feeling that show was probably over, Levinson and showrunner Tom Fontana decided to do something truly radical. They crafted a series finale that sidelined most of the major characters.
Instead, The Gas Man focuses on Victor Helms (Bruno Kirby) and his best friend, Danny Newton (Richard Edson). Helms has just gotten out of prison, where he served six years after a gas heater he installed malfunctioned and caused the death of one of his customers. Helms blames Frank Pembleton for the loss of both his freedom and his family. (After getting released, Helms tries to talk to his teenage son but is rejected.) Helms and Newton follow Pembleton across Baltimore, watching as he goes to work and to a fertility clinic. While Pembleton is investigating the murder of a fortune teller, Helms and Newton sneak onto the crime scene and find both the murder weapon and the fortune teller’s severed head. Helms takes both of them home and sends pictures to the Baltimore Sun, trying to taunt Pembleton. Both the Sun and Pembleton assume its a hoax. Eventually, Helms makes his move and, even with a knife to Pembleton’s throat, he realizes that he doesn’t have it in him to commit a cold-blooded murder. He starts to cry. Pembleton arrests him. Life goes on.
This was an interesting episode. The first time I saw it, I was a bit annoyed that the focus was taken off the lead characters. But the more I think about it, the more I appreciate what Levinson was going for. With this episode, he shows us what happens after the investigation and the conviction. Victor Helms is angry because he feels, perhaps with some justification, that he was unfairly charged and convicted. He’s obsessed with Pembleton but it’s clear that Pembleton doesn’t even remember him. For Pembleton, arresting Victor Helms was a part of his job, nothing more. For Helms, it was the moment that his entire life collapsed. Bruno Kirby and Richard Edson both gave good performances as Helms and Danny. Kirby captured Helms’s obsession but he also gave us some glimpses of the man that Helms used to be. As portrayed by Edson, Danny’s loyalty to his friend was actually kind of touching.
Of course, it turned out that this episode was not the series finale. Homicide would return for a fourth season, without Daniel Baldwin or Ned Beatty. We’ll start season four next week!
She thinks she’s Brenda Starr/her nose job is real atomic….
I love this song. It makes me regret that I was born to late to experience New York in the 70s. “She’s do dull …. rip her to shreds,” is a favorite expression of mine, one that gets me strange looks from people who are not familiar with this song.
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, we pay tribute to the year 1990! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 1990 Films
Goodfellas (1990, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Ballhaus)
Avalon (1990, directed by Barry Levinson, DP: Allen Daviau)
Dances With Wolves (1990, dir by Kevin Costner, DP: Dean Semler)
The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990, dir by Greydon Clark, DP: R. Michael Stringer)
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Martin Sheen.
In this scene from 1979’s ApocalypseNow, Sheen shows the intensity that not only nearly killed him when he suffered a heart attack during filming but which also served to make Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic a true classic.
What happened to summer this year? Seriously, it’s just kind of flying by. We’ve got August and then the first half of September and then it’s going to be Autumn again! Get out there and enjoy yourselves while you still can!
Today’s music video of the day is all about summer. It captures a few essential truths. Number one, it’s fun to get undressed in public. Number two, if you take off enough clothes while walking down the street, some dude with a saxophone will undoubtedly start following you. What I like about this video is how everyone is both intrigued and annoyed by the saxophone player. This is a video that just captures what it’s like to be young and have your entire future ahead of you. It also captures the feeling of summer!
(On a personal note, the Haim sisters remind me of the Bowman sisters, except we’re four and they’re three.)
This video was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who apparently has directed a few films as well. No, not the Resident Evil films. That’s a different Paul Anderson, all together.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which ran on the Disney Channel from 1988 to 1989 before then moving to NBC and being renamed Saved By The Bell. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!
This week, Miss Bliss makes the mistake of trusting her students. Zach Morris also learns a lesson about the Stock Market. Mr. Belding learns better than to try to be nice to Miss Bliss. It’s quite an episode!
Episode 1.3 “Wall Street”
(Dir by Burt Brinckerhoff, originally aired on December 14th, 1988)
Mr. Belding is concerned. Miss Bliss is teaching her class a lesson about Wall Street. Each of her students has donated $2 and the money has been used to buy a safe and dependable stock. Belding doesn’t think that it’s good for the students to invest real money but, as usual, Miss Bliss just smirks away his worries.
However, Zach needs $300 to pay for a video camera that he damaged. With the help of his friend Mickey (Max Battimo), Zach breaks into the classroom, gets on the computer, and invests the class’s money in potatoes. He buys the stock on margin. So, of course, when the stock tanks, Miss Bliss ends up owing $1,500.
“You just cost me my new car!” Miss Bliss angrily exclaims.
What car was Miss Bliss going to buy for $1,500? It sounds like maybe they did Miss Bliss a favor, to be honest.
Miss Bliss gets angry and storms out of her classroom. Mr. Belding comforts her and tells her that she’s a good teacher. He jokes that something even worse will probably happen in the future. Miss Bliss snaps that he should have just said, “I told you so.”
This exchange between Mr. Belding and Miss Bliss gets right to the heart of why I can’t stand Miss Bliss. Mr. Belding is trying to help. He compliments her. He tells her that this sort of thing happen to every teacher. He attempts to lighten the mood with a joke. And Miss Bliss snaps at him. Miss Bliss is someone who has no problem dismissing everyone else’s problems but, once something goes wrong for her, the entire world is supposed to stop. Mr. Belding didn’t say “I told you so,” because Mr. Belding isn’t a condescending know-it-all, unlike a certain teacher who no longer afford a new car.
I liked this episode. The overwhelming smugness of Miss Bliss meets the overwhelming self-absorption of Zach Morris. The end result is Miss Bliss doesn’t get a car but she does get a bag of potatoes. Miss Bliss even forgives her students for stealing from her. To be honest, Zach is in the 8th Grade and most 8th Graders know better. Add to that, Zach sneaks into the school to buy those potatoes. Again, this is not typical 8th Grade behavior. It might be time to get this kid some professional help because God knows what he’s going to be like when he reaches high school….
Through the Shattered Lens