This week, I was super-excited to discover the original Unsolved Mysteries on Tubi! I’ve been listening to Robert Stack as he talks about unsolved crimes and a paranormal mysteries and I have to say that Mr. Stack was truly an American treasure! I like that most of these episodes have updates and it looks like they’re still being updates. That said, I find the mysteries with no updates to be the most intriguing.
In other news, Case and I are nearly finished with Dark. We’ll be watching the final episode next Tuesday.
I am now caught up on Kitchen Nightmares. Chef Ramsay is saving restaurants that don’t really deserve to be saved. I don’t care if Gordon showed them their aware of their ways. There’s no way I’d eat in any of those places!
I watched a good deal of the news stations — BBC, FOX, C-SPAN, CNN, a little MSNBC, though that network is kind of annoying and whiny right now — this week. I won’t go into too much detail but I think I’m starting to become a news junkie.
I went over to Pluto TV this weekend and I turned on Dr. Phil for background noise. This poor woman was convinced that she was married to Tyler Perry.
King of the Hill on Hulu has definitely been my comfort show this week. It’s a Texas show and I’m a Texas girl.
Welcome to 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 Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show can be purchased on Prime.
Wedding bells are ringing!
Episode 4.21 “Ooh Ooh, I Do: Part Two”
(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on May 25th, 1979)
Horshack’s getting married!
For some reason, the Sweathogs throw him a bachelor party in Barbarino’s trashy apartment. Barbarino isn’t there. I assume he’s at work or maybe he finally moved back in with his family after realizing just how ugly and depressing his apartment was. Seriously, I will never understand why a show would try to get viewers invested in such an ugly location.
Anyway, the bachelor party is a bust. Epstein dresses up in drag and dances for Horshack. The Sweathogs love it. Horshack loves it. But then the Sweathogs make a joke about how Horshack and Mary Johnson are going to be so poor that Mary is going to have to get a job washing bricks to support them. Horshack realizes that they’re right. He’s getting married in high school and he has absolutely zero marketable skills. In fact, he’s such a weirdo that most people go out of their way to avoid him. How is he going to support Mary?
Horshask freaks out and runs away. After Mary shows them the note that Horshack left, in which he said that he was running away to become the type of man who could support her, the Sweathogs search all over Brooklyn for him. Epstein goes to a Marine recruiting station. Washington and Beau …. eh, I watched this show like 20 minutes ago and I’ve already forgotten what they did. That’s how well-written this episode was. Mary, however, knows that Horshack’s favorite movie is Wuthering Heights so she finds him at the local move theater.
They get married! The ceremony is small and pathetic. I don’t think a single member of Horshack’s family showed up. Gabe does show up and, when the Sweathogs realize that Horshack needs a ring to give Mary, Gabe gives up his own wedding ring. Julie approves. They’re probably going to get divorced as soon as the show ends.
Gabe, who is usually portrayed as being very concerned with the future of his students, is totally cool with Horshack getting married while still a high school student. At no point does he suggest that Horshack might be rushing into things or that a stunted manchild who can’t get a job might not be a good husband. This was one of Kaplan’s rare appearance during the final season of the show but he doesn’t act much like the Mr. Kotter that we got to know over the previous three seasons. It’s kind of like when Steve Carell came back for The Office finale and only said one line. It just doesn’t feel right.
Apparently, this episode was meant to a backdoor pilot for a series that would have focused on Horshack and Mary. I can’t imagine that working, though I would say that Mary and Horshack do look cute together at the end of the episode.
Speaking of endings, there are only two more episodes left! Will the Sweathogs finally graduate? We’ll find out!
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 is William Shatner’s birthday, which means that it is time for….
4 Shots From 4 William Shatner Films
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961, dir by Stanley Kramer, DP: Ernest Laszlo)
Incubus (1966, dir by Leslie Stevens, DP: Conrad Hall)
Big Bad Mama (1974, dir by Steve Carver, DP: Bruce Logan)
The Devil’s Rain (1975, dir by Robert Fuest, DP: Alex Phillips Jr.)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and 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, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1988’s Zombi 3!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!
This week, Johnny screws up, making the type of mistake that Ryan never would have!
Episode 3.7 “Hate On Your Dial”
(Dir by Allan Eastman, originally aired on November 6th, 1989)
This week’s cursed antique is an old car radio from 1954. Smear it with the blood of someone who has just died and the car will transport you back to …. 1954. That seems like an oddly specific curse and a kind of pointless one. What if the car radio ends up in the possession of someone who doesn’t care about 1954?
(And, to make clear, Jack does specifically state that the curse involves going back to 1954.)
The car radio does end up in the possession of Ray Pierce (Michael Rhoades), a racist auto mechanic who uses the car to go back to 1954 so that he can hang out with his father in Mississippi. His father (Martin Doyle) is a member of the Klan, along with his friend, Joe (played, in an early performance, by Henry Czerny). The 1954 scenes are filmed in black-and-white. When the show travels back 1954, the first thing we see is an “I Like Ike” billboard, featuring Dwight Eisenhower and a Confederate flag. Obviously, someone in the show’s Canadian writer’s room didn’t know who supported segregation in 50s and who didn’t. There was a political party wrapping itself in the Confederate flag in 1950s Mississippi but it wasn’t the Republicans and their candidate wasn’t Dwight Eisenhower.
This episode features Johnny making another one of his trademark mistakes, this time selling the cursed radio to Ray’s “slow” brother, Archie (played by Cronenberg regular Robert A. Silverman). Only after Johnny sells it does he realize it was probably cursed. Micki yells at him for not checking the manifest before selling it. Then Jack yells at him too. Jack remains angry with him for nearly the entire episode. It’s understandable that Jack would be upset but then again, maybe they shouldn’t have left inexperienced Johnny alone in the shop in the first place. Maybe they shouldn’t even be selling antiques at all. That would definitely solve the problem.
Anyway, this episode featured some of the worst Southern accents that I’ve ever heard and it also featured a cursed objects that didn’t make much sense. Johnny learned an important lesson about being careful about selling things and I guess that’s a good thing. That said, Ryan never would have made that mistake!
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, you can go over to Tubi and watch 1992’s Mind, Body & Soul.
Brenda (Ginger Lynn) has a new boyfriend! After years of getting stuck with duds, Brenda is happy to finally be dating Carl (Jesse Kaye), who is handsome and successful and has a thing about wanting her to drip hot candle wax on his body. Everything’s going fine until Carl asks her to come hang out with some friends of his. It turns out that they’re all Satanists and they’re planning on sacrificing a woman. Fortunately, the police arrive before the sacrifice can be carried out. Unfortunately, all the Satanists run off and leave innocent Brenda takes the blame.
After she’s arrested and spends several days in jail, Brenda is finally bailed out by defense attorney John Stockton (Wings Hauser). Because Carl apparently blew up her apartment (and, the police say, himself with it), Brenda doesn’t have anywhere to stay. She accepts John’s offer to stay at his place. John promises to be a perfect gentleman. He’s a former probation officer and he just wants to help.
And Brenda definitely needs some help! She suspects that Carl isn’t really dead. She keeps having bizarre visions of the robed and masked leader of the cult. She suspects that the cult might still be after her and, when she agrees to appear on a local talk show to tell her story, she finds herself stunned to be sitting across from an actual witch. Her former cellmate, Rachel (Tamara Clatterbuck), has just been released from prison and is willing to help Brenda out. Again, Brenda needs the help. The cult is after her and it’s going to take a lot of intelligence to survive and that’s probably going to be Brenda’s downfall because it’s hard to think of a dumber character than Brenda.
(Seriously, if my boyfriend took me to a Satanic cult meeting on a date, I would be out of there before they even got around to the human sacrifice part of the night.)
This film is so incredibly dumb that I don’t even know where to begin. Occasionally, I’ll see an incoherent horror film and I’ll give it a good review because the incoherence can sometimes add to the terror. Two of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin, both deliberately made horror films that didn’t make sense because they were tying to capture the feeling of being in a nightmare. Mind, Body & Soul makes sense as long as you accept that Brenda, Rachel, and almost every other character in this film is mind-numbingly dumb. The plot works as long as you accept that there is not a shred of intelligence to be found amongst any of the characters, including the bad guys. This is a dumb film that is never scary. It does feature a fair amount of nudity, which I imagine was probably meant to be the film’s main selling point.
On the plus side, Wings Hauser is always entertaining. You’ll be able to guess the big plot twist that involves his character but no matter. With his quick smirk, he at least seems to be enjoying himself. As was so often the case, Hauser’s performance is the only one in this film that feels like an actual performance. Wings Hauser was an actor who always gave it his all, even while appearing in something like this.
First released in 2004, Irish Eyes tells the story of two brother, born eleven months apart.
Tom Phelan (John Novak) is the older brother, the one who is destined to go to law school, join the Justice Department, and to marry Erin (Veronica Carpenter), the daughter of one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys. Tom’s future lies in politics. As he makes his reputation by taking down members of the Boston underworld, he finds himself being groomed for attorney general and then who knows what else.
Sean Phelan (Daniel Baldwin) is the younger brother. Haunted by the murder of his father and stuck at home taking care of his mother (Alberta Watson) while Tom goes to college, Sean soon pursues a life of crime. He falls under the influence of the Irish mob, led by Kevin Kilpatrick (Wings Hauser). Sean quickly works his way up the ranks. It doesn’t matter how much time he does in prison. It doesn’t matter how many people he has to kill. It doesn’t matter if it alienates the woman that he loves or if it damages his brother’s political career, Sean is a career criminal. It’s the one thing that he knows. When Sean finds himself as the head of the Irish mob and also the American connection for the IRA, his activities are originally overlooked by his brother. Sean even threatens a reporter who makes the mistake of mentioning that Sean and Tom are brothers. But soon, Tom has no choice but to come after his brother. What’s more important? Family or politics?
Obviously (if loosely) based on Boston’s Bulger Brothers (Whitey became a feared criminal while brother John became a prominent Massachusetts politico), Irish Eyes doesn’t really break any no ground. Every mob cliché is present here and so is every Boston cliché. Don’t rat on the family. Don’t betray your friends. The only way to move up is to make a move on whoever has the spot above you. Every bar is full of angry Irish-Americans. Every fight on the street turns deadly. Everyone is obsessed with crime or politics. The film, to its credits, resists the temptation to have everyone speak in a bad Boston accent. (The Boston accent, much like the Southern accent, is one of the most abused accents in film.) Sean narrates the films and you better believe he hits all of the expected points about life on the street.
That said, it’s an effective film with enough grit and good performances to overcome the fact that it’s just a wee predictable. Daniel Baldwin is appropriately regretful as Sean and John Novak does a good job of capturing the conflict between Tom’s love of family and his own political ambitions. Curtis Armstrong shows up and is surprisingly convincing as a psychotic IRA assassin. Admittedly, the main reason that I watched this film was because Wings Hauser was third-billed in the credits. Hauser only appears in a handful of very short scenes and that’s a shame. In those few scenes, he has the rough charisma necessary to be believable as the crime boss who holds together the neighborhood and it’s hard not to regret that he didn’t get more to do in the film. That said, the film still works for what it is. It’s a good mob movie.
This film was originally entitled Irish Eyes. On Tubi, it can be found under the much clunkier name, Vendetta: No Conscience, No Mercy.
Through the Shattered Lens