Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Frank Capra 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!

127 years ago, on this date, Frank Capra was born in Sicily.  Capra was six years old when his family immigrated to the United States and, for the rest of his long life, he would often talk about seeing the Statue of Liberty from the deck of a boat sailing to Ellis Island.  Capra went on to become a director whose work celebrated the ideals and the promise of America.  He not only gave us the holiday classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, but he also directed one of the few political films that matteed, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.  And let us not forget that the first two comedies to win the Oscar for Best Picture were directed by Capra, It Happened One Night and You Can’t Take It With You.

In honor of a great career and legacy, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Frank Capra Films

It Happened One Night (1934, dir by Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker)

You Can’t Take It With You (1938, dir by Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker)

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939, dir by Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker)

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946, dir by Frank Capra, DP: Joseph Walker and Joseph Biroc)

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new 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 show can be found on YouTube!

This week, a flip of the coin leads to tragedy!

Episode 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

(Dir by Mark Sobel, originally aired on October 21st, 1988)

Finally, Jack, Micki, and Ryan have a night to relax.  Jack does some reading while Micki poses for Ryan, who is apparently a sculptor now.  Micki says that it’s unfortunate that Ryan is stuck having work at Curious Goods when he has so much artistic talent.  Micki has a point, even if this is the first time that we’ve heard about Ryan’s artistic interests.

Suddenly, the phone rings.  A reporter named Tom Hewitt (Bill MacDonald) is calling because he’s heard that Jack is an expert in the occult.  Tom says that he’s tracked down a Satanic cult that is planning on doing something big.  He tells Jack where he can find all of the evidence that Tom has gathered over the course of his investigation.  While Jack and Ryan head over to the bus depot where Tom has hidden his research, Micki stays at the store.  As for poor old Tom, he ends up dead with the image of a bloody ram’s head imprinted on his forehead.

Looking through Tom’s papers and photographs, Jack discovers that the head of the Satanic cult is a taxidermist named Sylvan Winters (Colin Fox) and that Sylvan is in possession of a coin that is imbued with Satanic energy.  When the owner of the coin flips it, it leads to the death of whoever is standing nearby.  After the coin kills someone, it can be used to bring someone back to life.

First, Jack goes to the taxidermy shop with Ryan but the two of them fail to find the coin.  Later, Jack returns with Micki and the two of them stumble on a Satanic ceremony.  When they are spotted by Sylvan and the cultists, Jack and Micki make a run for it.  Sadly, they get separated.  While Jack manages to escape from the cultists, Micki is caught by Sylvan.  Sylvan flips the coin and …. KILLS MICKI!

Seriously, Micki’s death took me totally by surprise and it actually left me feeling really upset.  I’ve got red hair.  Micki has red hair.  Micki tends to be a skeptic.  I tend to be a skeptic.  Micki was pretty much me on this show!  And now she’s dead?  Agck!

Arriving at the taxidermy place, Ryan sobs over Micki’s body and then tells Jack that, after he gets the coin and destroys Sylvan, he is done with the cursed antiques business.  Ryan says that he’s ready to live his life and he can’t handle losing anyone else close to him.  (Remember that Ryan’s father was killed by a cursed pipe last season.)  

Returning to the taxidermy studio, Ryan and Jack discover that Sylvan is planning on using the coin to raise two powerful warlocks and a witch so that they can combine their power to bring Satan into the world.  However, Ryan and Jack steal Micki’s body from the morgue, put a mask on her to make her look like the witch that Sylvan wants to raise from the dead, and then the replace the witch’s body with Micki’s body.  As a result, Sylvan brings Micki back to life.  (Ryan and Jack’s plan is incredibly complicated and I’m kind of surprised that they were able to pull it off.  But who cares as long as Micki is no longer dead.)  Satan gets angry, the taxidermist studio collapses. and Ryan grabs the coin and flips it in front of Sylvan.  Sylvan dies but the coin is still out there.

But no matter!  The important thing is that Micki comes back to life!  Yay!  And Ryan decides not to leave Curious Goods, mostly because he’s in love with his cousin, though that’s something that the show rarely acknowledges.

By the time this episode came around, Robey, Chris Wiggins, and John D. LeMay had developed into a tight enough ensemble that Ryan’s tears and Jack’s anger over the death of Micki felt very powerful and very real.  As well, Colin Fox was a wonderfully hissable villain.  He was so smug that I couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance.  This was an excellent episode.

Next week, Ryan falls in love with a cursed violinist because Ryan is never allowed to be happy for long.

The Films of 2024: He Went That Way (dir by Jeffrey Darling)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1964.  Kennedy is dead and Johnson is president.  American troops are in Vietnam but the American public is not yet concerned with that conflict.  Instead, it’s the British Invasion that has intrigued the youth of America.  People know that times are changing but they have no idea just how much change is waiting for them in the future.

Jim Goodwin (Zachary Quninto) is a meek animal trainer who is driving across the country with his chimpanzee, Spanky.  At one time, Spanky was a celebrity.  He ice skated with the stars.  He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Everyone loved Spanky but now, it appears that his time has passed.  People are more interested in Beatles than chimps.  With Spanky no longer in demand, Jim’s marriage is failing and he’s struggling to pay the bills.

At a Nevada gas station, Jim sees a young man named Bobby Falls (Jacob Elordi) trying to hitch a ride.  Assuming that Bobby is a college student and wanting someone to talk to during the long drive to Chicago, Jim offers him a ride.  Bobby is reluctant at first and demands to know if Jim has some sort of sinister motive for picking him up.  After Jim promises that he doesn’t, Bobby gets in the truck with him.

What Jim doesn’t know, but eventually learns, is that Bobby is a criminal.  Using a derringer, Bobby has been robbing gas stations and executing the gas station attendants.  Their journey becomes a rather macabre road trip, with Jim and Bobby bonding despite the fact that Jim is scared of Bobby and Bobby always seems to be one step away from snapping.  Bobby encourages Jim to stop being such a wimp and Jim encourages Bobby to maybe not be such a violent sociopath.  Though Bobby and Jim come from different worlds, they both have one thing in common.  They really like the chimpanzee.

I have to admit that I liked the chimpanzee as well.  Bobby’s a killer so it’s impossible for me to like him.  Jim is a wimp who fails to take advantage of several opportunities to escape so it’s impossible for me to respect him.  But Spanky is an innocent animal who likes to eat apples and who sincerely cares about both his owner and the hitchhiker who keeps losing his temper.  I watched the film dreading that something bad would happen to Spanky.  In fact, the only reason I stuck with the film for its entire running time was because I wanted to make sure Spanky survived. 

(SPOILER ALERT: He did.  Whatever other flaws this film may have, there is no deliberate animal cruelty.)

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this movie.  There was a lot that I didn’t like about the film.  I never bought the relationship between the two main characters (though I should also acknowledge that the film is loosely based on a true story and ends with an interview with the real life model for Jim).  The performances felt a bit one-note.  And, to be honest, I’m a bit bored with movies about people who spend the majority of their time killing other people.  At the same time, the film looked great.  Visually, it really captured the arid beauty of the American desert.  And the film’s final twist was just bizarre enough to make me smile.  Tragically, director Jeffrey Darling died shortly after completing production of this film.  (It was his feature directorial debut.)  And while I didn’t care much for the film, there were moments where I could see the talent of the director peeking through.  I would have liked to have seen what Darling’s second film would have been.

As for He Went That Way, it’s not a disastrous film but it’s also not one that I will probably ever feel like rewatching.

 

 

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.9 “Movie Madness”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get really, really silly.

Episode 3.9 “Movie Madness”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 3rd, 1990)

Fritz and Nobby are back!

Who?

Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Nobby (Avery Saltzman) are two criminals who appeared in two episode of the second season of T and T.  The first time they appeared, they pulled a gun on T.S. Turner and threatened to kill him,  The second time, they were portrayed a bit more comedically as lovable bunglers.  This third episode finds Fritz and Nobby at their most cartoonish.

Fritz wants to rob a Chinese jewelry store that happens to be right next to Decker’s gym.  So, he and Nobby walk into the gym and tell Decker that they’ve reformed and they want to shoot a boxing movie starring him.  Decker agrees to act.  (“I could have been a contender!” he announces.)  Then Terri shows up and demands to know what Fritz and Dobby are doing at the gym so they ask her if she wants to be the female lead.  (“I have always depended on strangers being kind,” she says.)  The boxing movie becomes a love story.  Then, when the gym starts shaking due to the efforts to break through the wall that the gym shares with the jewelry store, Fritz explains that they’re testing the special effects for the big earthquake scene.  It’s a boxing love story disaster film!

Where is T.S. Turner during all of this?  Well, he doesn’t show up until the final 10 minutes of the episode.  He immediately suspects that Fritz and Nobby are up to no good.  “I’m going to pull the plug on your permanently!” he growls.

One would think that Fritz and Nobby would be smart enough to get out of the gym but they still try to blow up the wall, even with Turner nearby.  That’s a big mistake as Turner proceeds to grab them and turn them over to the police.

What a weird episode.  First off, Decker has been dumb in the past but he’s never been this dumb.  Secondly, Terri apparently knows Fritz and Nobby despite the fact that she wasn’t around during the second season.  Not only has this show failed to explain why Amy is no longer on the show but it also continually acts as if Terri has always been present despite not showing up until the start of third season.  We’re just mean to accept that Teri has always been the second T in T and T.  (How Orwellian.)  Finally, T.S. Turner is absent for most of the episode.  Why would you go to the trouble to build a show around Mr. T and then not use him?

This was all pretty silly and pretty dumb, even by T and T standards.  Remember when this show at least pretended to be a crime drama?

Oh well.  There’s only a handful of episodes left!  We’ll make it.

Scenes I Love: Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt In Twister

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bill Paxton would have been 69 years old today.  As a lover of both films and eccentric Texans, I still miss Bill Paxton.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Twister and it features Bill Paxton showing off some wonderful chemistry with Helen Hunt.  One of the great things about Bill Paxton is that he was equally at home in both big blockbusters like Twister and Titanic and low-budget indies like Near Dark.  He was an artist who also happened to be a star.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Dennis Hopper Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dennis Hopper (1936–2010)

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

88 years ago, Dennis Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas.

It seems rather appropriate that one of America’s greatest cinematic outlaws was born in a town that will be forever associated with the old west. Dennis Hopper was a rebel, back when there were actual consequences for being one. He started out acting in the 50s, appearing in films like Rebel Without A Cause and Giant and developing a reputation for being a disciple of James Dean. He also developed a reputation for eccentricity and for being difficult on set and he probably would have gotten completely kicked out of Hollywood if not for a somewhat improbable friendship with John Wayne. (Wayne thought Hopper was a communist but he liked him anyways. Interestingly enough, Hopper later became a Republican.) Somehow, Hopper managed to survive both a raging drug addiction and an obsession with guns and, after a mid-80s trip to rehab, he eventually became an almost universally beloved and busy character actor.

Hopper, however, always wanted to direct. He made his directorial debut with 1969’s Easy Rider, a film that became a huge success despite being an infamously chaotic shoot. The success of Easy Rider led to the Hollywood studios briefly trying to produce counter-culture films of their own. Hopper was given several million dollars and sent to Peru to make one of them, the somewhat dangerously titled The Last Movie. Unfortunately, The Last Movie, was such a bomb that it not only temporarily derailed Hopper’s career but it also turned Hollywood off of financing counter culture films. Hopper spent a decade in the Hollywood wilderness, giving acclaimed performances in independent films like Tracks and The American Friend, even while continuing to increase his reputation for drug-fueled instability. Hopper would eventually return to directing with his masterpiece, 1980’s Out of the Blue. (Out of the Blue was so controversial that, when it played at Cannes, Canada refused to acknowledge that it was a Canadian production. It played as a film without a country. Out of the Blue, however, is a film that has stood the test of time.) Unfortunately, even after a newly cleaned-up Hopper was re-embraced by the mainstream, his directorial career never really took off. He directed 7 films, of which only Easy Rider and Colors were financially successful. Contemporary critics often didn’t seem to know what to make of Dennis Hopper as a director. In recent years, however, Hopper’s directorial efforts have been reevaluated. Even The Last Movie has won over some new fans.

Today, on his birthday, we honor Dennis Hopper’s directorial career with….

4 Shots From 4 Dennis Hopper Films

Easy Rider (1969, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Laszlo Kovacs)
The Last Movie (1971, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Laszlo Kovacs)
Out of the Blue (1980, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Marc Champion)
The Hot Spot (1990, dir by Dennis Hopper, DP: Ueli Steiger)

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For Run, Lola, Run!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon.  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, at 10 pm et, we’ve got 1998’s Run, Lola, Run!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Run, Lola, Run is available on Prime!  See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.10 “The Monster: 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 Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

Scottie returns!  Unfortunately, he’s a drunk now.

Episode 2.10 “The Monster: Part One”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on December 4th, 1985)

It’s another week and another visit to a small town for Jonathan and Mark.

This time, Mark thinks that they are only in town to visit his cousin, Diane (Margie Impert), and her husband, Scottie (James Troesch), the quadriplegic attorney who appeared in a few episodes during the first season.  Mark tells Jonathan that, when he last spoke to Diane, she said that she had something important to talk to him about.  Mark assumes that Diane is pregnant but actually, it turns out that Diane and Scottie’s marriage is in trouble.  Scottie may be an attorney but he has no clients and Diane has gone back to work to help pay the bills.  Feeling like a failure, Scottie has taken to drinking.

While Mark deals with Diane and Scottie, Jonathan has an assignment.  He working as a handyman for Ella McCullough (Barbara Townsend) and her blind daughter, Rachel (Annabella Price).  At first, Rachel is bitter and stand-offish but Jonathan wins her over by encouraging her to leave her little cottage and explore the world.  While relaxing at a nearby creek, Rachel meets a man (Jeff Kober) who is out for a walk.  Rachel tells the man that he startled her and then mentions that the neighborhood kids talk about a monster named Julian.  Julian lives in the woods and drags off bad kids.

“My name’s Clark,” the man lies.

Actually, the man’s name is Julian but you can understand why he might not want to admit that after listening to Rachel describe him as being a monster.  Julian is not a monster, of course.  He’s a sensitive sculptor who just happens to have a very large birthmark covering half of his face and neck.  Having been ridiculed all of his life, Julian lives with his mom (Ann Doran) and rarely talks to anyone.  Still, Julian falls in love with Rachel and Rachel falls in love with …. Clark.

Julian finally finds the strength to visit Rachel at her cottage.  However, when she tells him that she will be having an operation to resort her sight, Clark yells that he’s Julian and then he runs back into the woods.  Rachel chases after him.  When she trips and hits her head on a rock, Julian runs over to her and tries to help.  Unfortunately, that’s when the police arrives and promptly arrest Julian for assault.

Julian’s going to court!  Hey, does anyone know an attorney who needs a shot of confidence and who has a unique understanding of what it’s like to be an outsider?  We’ll find out next week because this is a two-part episode!

Reviewing a two-parter is always difficult.  Tonight’s episode ends with the story nowhere close to being finished.  I can’t judge the overall story but I can say that Jeff Kober gave a touching performance as Julian and he was the best thing about the first part of The Monster.  As for Scottie, he needs to stop blaming everyone else for his own lack of confidence.  Hopefully, that’s a lesson he’ll learn during the second part of this episode.

We’ll find out next week!

The Films of 2024: The Painter (dir by Kimani Ray Smith)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Painter tells the rather predictable story of Peter.

Orphaned by a terrorist attack when he was a child, Peter (Charlie Webber) was raised by a CIA agent named Byrne (Jon Voight).  Realizing that the attack had left Peter with superhearing, Byrne raised Peter to be a CIA assassin.  But after a failed mission led to the shooting his pregnant wife, Elena (Rryla McIntosh), an embittered Peter retired from the agency.  Now, going by the name of Mark, he paints!

Why do retired CIA agents always end up living in a cabin and obsessively pursuing only one hobby?  This feels like the 100th film that I’ve seen about a former assassin living in a cabin.  Some retired agents keep bees.  Some become bricklayers.  Some become painters.  Oddly, none of them seem to become both bricklayers and painters.

Anyway, Peter is happy with his isolated life but then, everything is upended when a 17 year-old girl named Sophia (Madison Bailey) follows him to his cabin and claims to be his daughter.  She says that Elena has vanished and she needs Peter’s help to find her.  Peter insists that his name is Mark until his superhearing picks up the sound of heavily armed men gathering outside of his cabin.

This is another one of those action films where the main character is someone who kills without the slightest hesitation and who has trouble showing his emotions.  Naturally, there’s a conspiracy inside the CIA and this leads to several scenes of people saying stuff like, “Copy that.”  The only fictional character who ever sounded cool saying, “Copy that,” was Kiefer Sutherland on 24.  All the rest of these people are just pretenders.

The Painter is pretty stupid.  It won’t take you long to guess who the main villain is going to turn out to be and it also won’t take you long to guess how the final showdown is going to go.  The action scenes are so haphazardly edited that it’s difficult to keep track of who is actually fighting who and, even if you did know who was fighting who, you wouldn’t really care because none of these people are particularly compelling.

In general, if your main character is going to be remorseless killer, it’s a good idea to cast a charismatic actor in the lead role.  Audiences will forgive a lot as long as their watching someone with a compelling screen presence.  Unfortunately, both Charlie Webber and Madison Bailey give rather bland performances and neither Peter nor Sophia are particularly likable characters.  In particular, Peter drags one innocent computer store owner into his mess and then doesn’t seem to be particularly upset when the poor guy ends up with a bullet in his brain.  It’s one thing to be an assassin.  It’s another thing to be a jerk about it.

On the plus side, Jon Voight is enough of an old pro to understand that this is a movie that does not reward subtlety and he gives a performance that is totally over-the-top but which is also more than appropriate for the material with which he’s working.  (Voight is still a talented actor and it’s a shame that, due to voting for different candidates than the majority of Hollywood, he’s pretty much going to end his career appearing in movies like this.)  As well, Max Montesi gives such a cheerfully bizarre performance as a rival assassin that he actually bring the movie to life whenever he’s on the screen.

Unfortunately, the lunacy of Voight and Montesi is not enough to save The Painter.  At one point, someone dismisses Peter’s paintings as being “derivative.”  They could have been talking about this film as a whole.