Inferno (1980, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Romana Albano)
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 1980’s Inferno! Dario Argento’s sequel to the original Suspiria is one of his best films, a dream-like exploration of the dark and the disturbing. I can’t wait to share it with everyone!
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 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 The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, The Master stands up for the working man!
Episode 1.3 “State of the Union”
(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on February 3rd, 1984)
“Hi, I’m Max Keller and this is how I start my morning.”
So begins yet another episode of The Master! This time, McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is forcing Max (Timothy Van Patten) to start his day by running. McAllister says that it’s a part of Max’s ninja training but I think it’s more a case of McAllister just seeing how many stupid things he can force Max to do before Max says, “Enough!”
This week finds Max and McAllister in Clearwater, California. In order to make a little money, Max enters a dirt bike race. It turns out that Max is very well-known on the dirt bike circuit and he even runs into an old friend named Hog (Mickey Jones) at the race. Hog only shows up for a few minutes. He shakes Max’s hand, jokes about the fact that Max is traveling with a hamster and a weird old man, and then he pretty much disappears from the episode.
McAllister watches the race while stroking Max’s pet hamster.
Try to get that image out of your head.
Anyway, Max does not win the race. Instead, the race is won by Carrie Brown (Crystal Bernard). At the finish line, Carrie is nearly run over by one her competitors, Chad Webster (Cotter Smith). Chad is the son of the owner of the local cannery. It turns out that Carrie also works at the cannery. Max takes an immediate liking to Carrie and decides that he should also get a job at the cannery.
McAllister points out that Carrie is attractive. Max replies, “Does your ninja training make you immune to such things?” McAllister shrugs. It’s kind of an odd scene.
Anyway, at the cannery, Max quickly learns that there’s more to Carrie than just 80s hair and dirt bike racing. Carrie is also a union organizer! She’s carrying on her late brother’s dream of unionizing the cannery. This largely means handing out flyers and encouraging people to go to a meeting.
How bad are things at the cannery? They’re so bad that an older worker gets crushed by a palette. Fortunately, McAllister and Max show up just in time to help out. Through the use of one of his magic throwing ticks, McAllister is able to send the palette crashing into the ocean. While Max proceeds to flirt with Carrie, attentive viewers will see the worker — who is now probably crippled for life — being carried away in the background. Despite having saved the guy’s life, neither Max nor McAllister ever ask about him again.
Anyway, you know where all this is heading. Carrie wants to unionize the workers. Chad and his buddies try to intimidate the workers into not joining the union. At a meeting at the local church, Max gives a speech about how the workers have to get organized. There are plenty of fights and car chases and yet another bar brawl. That Max just can’t say out of trouble!
McAllister also joins Max on the dirt bike so that he can throw ninja stars at the bad guys. This leads to some pretty bad rear projection shots.
In the end, Chad is revealed to have murdered Carrie’s brother. The cannery votes to unionize and Max and McAllister promptly leave town because even they know better than to work at a union shop. Though it’s not specifically stated, I imagine that the cannery probably closed two months and Carrie ended up following in the lead footsteps of Jimmy Hoffa.
This episode was a bit silly, largely because neither perky Crystal Bernard nor perpetually mush-mouth Tim Van Patten were believable as firebrand labor activists. Lee Van Cleef seemed to be largely bored with the whole thing. Fortunately, next week’s episode features a guest appearance from George Lazenby so maybe that will liven things up on The Master.
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, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 2011’s Attack the Block!
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.
Attack The Block is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
Amityville Emanuelle is the latest film about the dumbass Amityville Haunting.
In order to watch any of the many films about the supposed haunted house in Amityville, New York, you need to be aware of two real-life events.
In 1974, a 23 year-old junkie named Ronald DeFeo, Jr. gunned down his entire family in their Amityville home. DeFeo first claimed that unknown gunmen had killed his family while he was out. He then changed his story and said that he killed his family but he did it because he knew they were plotting to kill him. He then suggested that the whole thing was a mafia hit. He then moved on to claiming that his sister was the one who actually killed everyone. And, finally, he claimed that he had been possessed by demonic spirits.
One year later, the Lutz family moved into the Amityville House. After a month, the Lutzes left the house and George Lutz claimed that the house was haunted and that the family had been forced to flee for their lives. Thanks to a book and a few movies based on that book, the Lutzes made some money and eventually ended up suing a lot of other people in order to make even more money. Subsequent owners of the house have never reported anything strange happening while living in the house, other than strangers stopping by to view the supposedly haunted structure.
So, we can either believe that Ronald DeFeo was a junkie who killed his own estranged family or we can accept that the Devil took one look at Ronald DeFeo shooting up heroin and decided, “I’m tired of possessing the innocent and the naïve. I’m going to possess someone who is already so screwed up that no one will even notice that he’s been possessed. That’ll show ’em!”
And we can either believe that a bunch of demons chased George and Kathryn Lutz from their home or we can believe that the Lutzes looked at the success of books and films like The Exorcist and The Omen and they decided that they might as well cash in as well.
Amityville Emanuelle accepts, from the start, the everything was due to the paranormal, which is fine. It’s a movie and Occam’s razor goes out the window when it comes to the movies. George Lutz’s daughter, Laura (Dawn Church), moves into a new house and is soon visited by a strange woman who claims that she is delivering some of George’s belongings. Laura discovers that George owned an urn that was full of Ronald DeFeo’s ashes. Apparently, George and DeFeo had a psychic connection and George, who is insinuated to have been some sort of an occultist, knew that DeFeo was going to murder his family before he even did it.
(Wow, those are some pretty mean things to say about the late George Lutz, who was a real person and not really around to defend himself. Then again, George Lutz would be totally forgotten today if not for the fact that he made up a bunch of stuff about a haunted house so really, Lutz being portrayed as an occultist feels like karma.)
Laura soon finds herself acting in strange ways, picking up random men at bars and then barely noticing when they’re subsequently killed by someone who looks just like Ronald DeFeo.
Meanwhile, Ronald DeFeo’s son, Gordon (Shane Ryan-Reid, himself a director of transgressive films), makes the mistake of using a Ouija Board with his friends and he’s soon having visions of his father killing people.
(Now, I know that some of you are now saying, “Where does Emanuelle fit in with this?” because, after all, the symbol of sexual freedom and experimentation is namechecked in the film’s title. Well, Emanuelle really doesn’t fit into it, unless you include the scene where Laura goes to a bar and picks up two men. But those watching this film because they’re expecting it to be some sort of soft-core haunted house flick are going to be disappointed.)
Amityville Emanuelle is a low-budget and rather dumb film but it is at least partially redeemed by the fact that it doesn’t appear to be taking itself seriously at all and there’s no attempt to convince the viewer that they’re somehow watching anything that could be based on fact. There’s not much in the way of suspense and both the gore and the sex are rather tame but there is a medium (played by Saint Heart) whose generally annoyed attitude is occasionally fun to watch. The Amityville Haunting has always been a particularly stupid story and the cynicism of the majority of people who continue to try to sell it as being fact has always been more than a bit icky so, at this point, Amityville Emanuelle is kind of what the legend deserves.
Hulu’s White Men Can’t Jump is the story of two aging basketball players who have never lived up to their potential but who have yet to totally give up on their dreams.
Even when he was in high school, Kamal Allen (Sinqua Walls) was considered to be one of the best basketball players in the country. A lot of that was due to how he was raised by his father, Benji (Lance Reddick, giving a strong performance in one of his final roles). Benji was a basketball star himself and, as we see in several flashbacks, he trained Kamal to be the best. Benji was so obsessed with turning Kamal into a great player that he even drove away Kamal’s mother. Benji taught Kamal all that he needed to know about playing basketball but not enough about how to survive once his playing days were over. Unfortunately, after Benji was diagnosed with MS, Kamal lost his concentration. When he responded to being taunted during a game by going into the stands and punching a guy out, Kamal ended up getting arrested and he also ended up losing his chance of entering the NBA.
Jeremy (Jack Harlow) was a college basketball star who blew out his knee and lost his chance to go pro. He makes his living hustling other basketball players, knowing that they’ll assume that he can’t shoot because he’s white. He also sells highly suspicious health tonics and he spends a lot of time meditating. Though he can barely walk without taking his pain pills first, Jeremy still wants to make the NBA. When he hears that stem cell treatment might help his knee, Jeremy starts to scheme to win the money to cover the cost.
Together, Jeremy and Kamal hustle other players, make some money, and become unlikely friends.
It took me three days to get through White Men Can’t Jump, largely because the film itself was so boring that I struggled to actually pay attention to it for more than a few minutes at a time. This film is a remake of a 1992 film that starred Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. I have not seen the original White Men Can’t Jump but I have seen enough films featuring both Snipes and Harrelson to know that they are both talented and charismatic actors who both have strong comedic timing. In short, they don’t have much in common with the two leads of the new version of White Men Can’t Jump. In the role of Kamal, Sinqua Walls is solid but dull. Walls is convincing but he’s never particularly interesting. Making his film debut in the role of Jeremy, rapper Jack Harlow is so incredibly obnoxious that I found myself wanting to throw something at the screen whenever he popped up. The film repeatedly emphasizes that no one wants to play with Jeremy because he’s white but I think it’s equally probable that they’re just reacting to the fact that he is an incredibly annoying human being. Director Calmatic does all the usual choppy editing and slow-motion dunking that most viewers have come to expect from movies about basketball but with little chemistry between the leads and a script that tends to repeat the same jokes over and over again, this film never takes flight.
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 City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Today, we say goodbye to season 4!
Episode 4.26 “Blast From The Past”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on February 24th, 2001)
The final episode of season 4 opens with the City Guys still at the Hamptons. (Wow, I guess this must be a really long weekend or something.) Chris is trying to plan “this one month anniversary surprise for Cassidy” and, for some reason, he thinks that it’s a good idea to ask Jamal and L-Train for advice. “Come on, dawg,” the very white Chris says, “a brother needs some advice here.”
“First piece of advice,” Jamal says, “don’t talk like that.”
Jamal tries to argue that anniversaries aren’t a big deal. Cassidy then enters the living room and announces that today is the 17-day anniversary of the first time that she and Chris said the same word at the same time and jinxed each other. She got Chris a card and everything. Anniversaries are very important and not just on this show. I have an entire calendar full of anniversaries and if you want to be a part of my life, you better be prepared to memorize it.
Meanwhile, on the beach, Al and Dawn are hanging out with Ms. Noble and Billy, which makes absolutely no sense. Al and Dawn make fun of Ms. Noble and Billy for being old. “Anything you and Dawn can do, Billy and I can do better!” Ms. Noble indignantly declares.
“Is that a challenge?” Dawn asks.
“Oh, it is on!” Ms. Noble replies.
Uhmm….I’ve said this before but MS. NOBLE IS THE PRINCIPAL! She shouldn’t even be hanging out with her students on the weekend, let alone challenging them on the beach!
Meanwhile, back at the vacation home, Chris has finally decided that he and Dawn will have a romantic dinner on the beach for their anniversary. (There’s nothing more romantic than sand and sea crabs!) The doorbell rings and, when Chris answer it, he’s surprised to see a girl named Nicole. They hug and Nicole announces, “When I heard you were in town, I had to come see you and say hi!”
“When you’re done saying hi,” Jamal announces, “Maybe you can introduce a brother.”
Chris explains that Nicole is his ex-girlfriend. Cassidy then enters the room and is a little less than happy to discover that Nicole is Chris’s ex-girlfriend and that Nicole lives in the Hamptons. Cassidy says she’s from the city. “I always wondered what it’s like to live in the city,” Nicole says, as if this episode is taken place in Appalachia as opposed to the Hamptons.
Somehow, Jamal and L-Train get roped into judging a dumb competition to determine whether Ms. Noble and Billy are a better couple than Dawn and Al. Let’s just ignore the whole principal thing. Billy and Ms. Noble are in their late 40s. They are challenging two seventeen year-olds.
Back at the vacation home, Nicole and Cassidy return from shopping. They’re getting along great until Cassidy asks why Nicole and Chris broke up. “Chris was a cheater,” Nicole says. Cassidy thinks that Nicole is referring to cheating at school. Nicole explains that Chris also cheats on his girlfriends. He’s a double cheater!
(But if Chris was such a cheater, why was Nicole so happy to hear that he was back in the Hamptons?)
Nicole reveals that when she confronted about Chris about being a cheater, Chris called her “the c-word.”
Cassidy gasps and I’ll admit that I gasped a little too.
“Yes,” Nicole says, “Clingy.”
(Interestingly, there’s no laughter or anything of that sort when Nicole says “clingy” so who knows? Maybe that’s what the C-word referred to back in 2000.)
You can probably guess what happens next. Chris is trying to set up the dinner without Cassidy finding out and Cassidy is convinced that Chris is cheating. Jamal and L-Train attempt to help Chris out by announcing that the three of them just want to hang out as guys but, when Cassidy doesn’t get the message, Chris tells her, “This week will go a lot better if you try not to be so …. so …. so …. CLINGY!”
OH MY GOD, HE SAID IT!
While Cassidy worries about whether or not Chris is cheating on her, the dumbass Best Couple Competition continues. Ms. Noble and Billy come over to Chris’s vacation home and they play a game where they try to guess what movie their partner is referring to. Ms. Noble and Billy easily win so I guess it’s time for Al to transfer to another school.
Later, Cassidy tells Dawn that Chris used “the c-word.”
“Oh my God,” Dawn replies, “Clingy!?”
And again, there’s no laughter. Either the joke went over the heads of the studio audience or it wasn’t a joke to begin with.
A deliveryman stops by and drops off some flowers. He explains that Chris paid him money to deliver flowers for “a secret rendezvous on the beach.” Cassidy, who is anniversary-obsessed, does not link this to their upcoming anniversary. Jamal, however, tells Dawn (but for some reason, not Cassidy) that Chris is planning on a diner for Cassidy.
Cassidy confronts Chris about the flowers and breaks up with hi,. Knowing that their friend is in pain, Jamal and L-Train promptly leave so that they can judge a tug-of-war competition between Ms. Noble and Billy and Dawn and Al. Fortunately, Dawn takes a break from pulling on the rope to let Cassidy know about the surprise dinner.
(For the record, Billy and Ms. Noble win the tug-of-war and the title of best couple. I’m not sure what pulling on a rope has to do with being the best couple but whatever. It’s a dumb plot anyway.)
Cassidy meets Chris on the beach and they forgive each other. And season 4 ends. Yay!
The first half of season 4 was fairly weak but the show kind of improved once Chris got his hair cut. Certainly, City Guys was not the best of Peter Engel-produced NBC shows but it wasn’t One World either. The biggest flaws remains the unrealistic depiction of Ms. Noble. The show’s biggest strength, at the end of season 4, is that the actors have finally stopped looking straight at the camera while delivering their lines.
Next week, we begin the final season of City Guys.
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, The Love Boat becomes …. THE DIVORCE BOAT!
Episode 2.15 “My Sister, Irene / The ‘Now’ Marriage / Second Time Around”
(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on January 13th, 1979)
Dr. Todd Gardiner (Peter Marshall) is the author of a best-selling book that advocates for open marriage but he’s never had one himself. He’s determined to finally have an affair while sailing on The Love Boat and, just to prove that he’s not a hypocrite, he’s brought along his wife, Eleanor (Barbara Rush), and he’s encouraging her to have an affair as well! Initially, Eleanor is not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of cheating on her husband, with or without his permission. But then she meets Captain Stubing!
The Captain and Eleanor have a very chaste shipboard romance. He gives her a tour of Puerto Vallarta but that’s it. As the Captain explains it, he’s a traditionalist at heart and, even though he’s fallen in love with Eleaonor, he’s not the type to take part in an adulterous affair. Eleanor realizes that the same is true for her. And, of course, Todd realizes that he doesn’t want an open marriage either!
However, it’s too late for Todd. Both Eleanor and Todd’s cruise girlfriend, Nancy Bishop (Phyllis Davis), reject him. Eleanor announces that she’s going to file for divorce. Since that was The Love Boat, I was expecting Eleanor to suddenly change her mind but the episode ended with Todd alone and Eleanor promising that she would see the Captain again in the future.
I believe this is the first episode of The Love Boat to end with a breakup instead of a romance. This episode also came out very much against open marriage, which isn’t surprising. For all the innuendos and the jokes about people hooking up during each cruise, The Love Boat was a pretty conservative show at heart. If you hooked up on the boat, you were expected to get married on shore.
Speaking of marriage and divorce, another passenger on this cruise was Doc Bricker’s ex-wife, Betty (Tina Louise). Doc Bricker found himself falling once again for Betty, which was a problem as Betty was traveling with her fiancé, Lance (Lyle Waggoner). Except, of course, Lance was just an actor that Betty hired to make Doc jealous. But then Lance and Betty fell in love for real and decided to get married. It was incredibly silly but Lyle Waggoner’s dumb-but-earnest actor schtick did make me laugh.
Finally, Irene Austin (Martha Raye) boarded the ship with plans to reunite with her old college classmate, Andy (Ray Bolger). However, upon discovering that Andy was still as spry and funny as he was in college, Irene panicked and introduced herself as being her own sister. Andy saw through the ruse and he and Irene left the ship as a couple, which was sweet. I mean, it was another silly story but the old school, showbiz veteran charm of Raye and Bolger carried the story.
Through the Shattered Lens 