Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jean Rollin 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, we honor the memory of the great French director Jean Rollin, who was born 84 years ago today in France,  It’s time for….

4 Shot From 4 Jean Rollins Films

The Rape of the Vampire (1968, dir by Jean Rollin)

The Iron Rose (1973, dir by Jean Rollin)

Night of the Hunted (1980, dir by Jean Rollin)

The Mask of Medusa (2010, dir by Jean Rollin)

Music Video of the Day: American Woman by Lenny Kravitz (1999, dir by Paul Hunter)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m just going to say it.  The Lenny Kravitz version of American Woman is a hundred times better than the Guess Who version.  I know that some people have criticized Kravitz for stripping away the film’s political subtext but I’ve listened to the original song and the politics were dumb.

As for the video, I want Heather Graham’s car.  I also like this video because it reminds me of my cousins.  The Bowman family reunion in Arkansas is always home to a lot of motorcycles and a lot of American flags.

Enjoy!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.9 “The Captain’s Captain / Romance Roulette / Hounded”

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!

Love?  Don’t worry.  Love won’t hurt anymore.

Episode 1.9 “The Captain’s Captain / Romance Roulette / Hounded”

(dir by Jack Arnold, originally aired on November 26th, 1977)

As I watched the opening scenes of the cruise’s passengers making their way onto the Love Boat, I noticed that this episode was directed by Jack Arnold.  I did some online checking and I discovered that this was indeed the same Jack Arnold who directed It Came From Outer Space, Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula, and a host of other so-called B pictures.  By the time the 70s rolled around, Arnold was directing blaxploitation films (including Fred Williamson’s Boss) and episodic television.  As I watched the episode, I found myself wondering which member of the cast probably asked Arnold the most questions about shooting Creature From The Black Lagoon.  I guess that it was probably Fred Grandy, since apparently he’s a pretty intelligent guy.

As for the show itself, it featured the typical three-story structure.  Gary Burghoff (who I had just watched on Fantasy Island) played a passenger who found himself trapped in his cabin with a security dog that had somehow gotten loose.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have a fear of big dogs so this particular scenario would be quite traumatic for me.  Burghoff, however, got along with the dog and even helped to deliver her puppies.  Awwwwwwww!  Big dogs are scary but little puppies are cute!

While Captain Stubing was dealing with the dog problem, his irascible father (played by Phil Silvers), who was himself a former cruise ship captain, was wandering around the ship and eventually falling in love with a cook named P.J. Muldoon (Judy Canova).  Captain Stubing was skeptical of his father’s romance but, by the end of the episode, he was proposing a toast to his future stepmother.  This storyline was fairly predictable but Phil Silvers and Gavin MacLeod were believable as father-and-son and their scenes together added some depth to Captain Stubing, a character who, in other episodes, has come across as being a bit flat.

Finally, Jane Curtin played Regina Parker, a literature professor who was on the cruise with two friends from college (Joanna Kerns and Susan Heldfond).  The three of them played a game, in which they basically had to make the first man that they heard use a certain word fall in love with them for the duration of the cruise.  The word was “screwdriver.”  When Regina went up to Isaac’s bar to wait for someone to order a screwdriver, she was taken by surprise when Frank (Vincent Baggetta), the ship’s plumber, walked up with a toolbox and asked for someone to hand him a screwdriver.  Regina started to hit on Frank.  Frank almost immediately fell in love with her and he let her read some of his poetry.  Even though his poetry was terrible, Regina fell in love with him.  As you can guess, Frank eventually found out about the game but, by the end of the episode, he and Regina were promising to write each other every day.  In its undeniably silly way, this was actually kind of a fun storyline.  Curtin and Baggetta actually had a lot of chemistry.  Frank’s poems still sucked though.

All in all, this was a pleasant episode.  The guest stars were likable and the cruise itself looked like it would have been a lot of fun.  Was this episode life’s sweetest reward?  It was good but I wouldn’t go that far.  Love is life’s sweetest reward.

Here’s The Trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know, way back in 2010, I took a lot of grief for not particularly liking the first Avatar.

In the years since then, it’s become a lot more common to hear people making the exact same criticism of the film that I made in 2010.  What’s strange though is that the anti-Avatar discourse has gotten so obnoxious that it’s cause me to go from hating the movie to being one of those people who is like, “Okay, it wasn’t that bad.”  Because, seriously, it’s one thing to dislike a film and it’s another thing to make that dislike into your entire personality.

To the shock of perhaps everyone who has knows me, I’m actually rooting for the Avatar sequel now.  I hope it’s good.  I hope it makes a ton of money.  Take that, you snobs!

Anyway, here’s the latest trailer for Avatar: The Way of  Water.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.8 “Superstar/Salem”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Despite being exhausted last night, I still made sure to watch the next episode of Fantasy Island before allowing myself to fall asleep.  It’s all about priorities.

Episode 1.8 “Superstar/Salem”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on March 25th, 1978)

After a conversation with Tattoo about Tattoo’s sudden interest in photography, Mr. Roarke heads to the docks to meet this week’s guest stars!

First up, we have Richard Delaney (Gary Burghoff) and his wife, Dora (Darleen Carr).  Dora thinks they are on a business trip but actually, Richard has a fantasy.  Despite the fact that he is short, middle-aged, and not at all athletic, Richard’s fantasy is to not only pitch in a baseball game but to also strike out the best baseball players around.

(As a side note, as soon as I saw that this was going to be a baseball episode, I woke up Erin and made her watch it with me.  Of course, it was also one in the morning at the time but still, I would have been a bad sister if I hadn’t.)

Anyway, Richard gets his chance.  It turns out that Fantasy Island is holding a charity baseball game and Mr. Roarke has told everyone that Richard is the best amateur pitcher in the world.  With the help of some Fantasy Island magic, Richard is able to strike out every batter who comes up to the plate.  (According to Erin, all of the batters were real baseball players.)  We know that Richard’s skills are due to magic because, whenever he throws the ball, we hear goofy sound effects.  (“This is dumb,” Erin said, “Why did you wake me up for this?”)  Richard is offered a try-out with the Dodgers.  Yay!

Richard immediately get a little bit full of himself but it turns out that Richard’s fantasy didn’t include becoming a professional baseball player and he loses his ability to pitch.  Unfortunately, Richard doesn’t discover this until after he tells off his boss.  Fortunately, his boss is impressed by Richard’s honesty and he gives Richard a raise.  Richard may never play pro ball but at least he’ll make a lot of money as an accountant or whatever it is that he does for a living.  Yay!  (“Is it over?” Erin asked, “Can I finally get some sleep now?”)

Meanwhile, Martha and Walter Tate (played by Vera Miles and Stuart Whitman) think that the world has become too permissive of bad behavior so they want to go some place where people are better behaved.  Mr. Roarke promptly sends them to 17th century Salem, where they are both accused of being witches and narrowly avoid being executed.  You know, Mr. Roarke, you could have just sent them to a friendly rural community in Nebraska or something.  NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A LESSON!

The best thing about the Salem storyline was that the evil and feared Dr. Whitfield, the man who ruled Salem with a iron fist, was played by Leslie Nielsen.  When we first meet Dr. Whitfield, he’s explaining how the town drunk came to die.

Dr. Whitfield wanted to hang both Martha and Walter for the sins of dancing and giving aspirin to a child.

Leslie Nielsen may be playing a villain but he delivers his lines in the same style that later made him a comedic icon.  If nothing else, that makes this episode fun to watch.

Martha and Walter end up fleeing Salem and, miraculously, they find themselves back on Fantasy Island.  Mr. Roarke says that he hopes they have had an enlightening fantasy.  Personally, if I was Mr. Roarke, I would be more worried about the lawsuit that they’re probably going to file against him.

This was a pretty silly episode but, as a general rule, I enjoy anything that features Leslie Nielsen playing a humorless villain.  Add to that, it was hard not to smile at the sight of Mr. Roarke and Tattoo casually emerging from the jungle in their white suits to greet Walter and Martha after the latter two escaped Salem.  It may have been a silly episode but it was also a fun one.  And really, what else does one expect from Fantasy Island?

October Positivity: To Save A Life (dir by Brian Baugh)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2009 film, To Save A Life, tells the story of two friends.

When they were children, Roger saved Jake’s life by pushing him out of the way of a car.  Roger ended up with a permanent limp while Jake was able to continue playing basketball.  By the time they start high school, Jake (now played by Randy Wayne) is a basketball star while Roger (Robert Bailey, Jr.) is an outcast.  Jake and Roger start to drift apart, with Jake even abandoning Roger so that he can go to a party with his popular new girlfriend, Amy (Deja Kreutzberg).  By the time that they’re seniors, Jake and Roger barely acknowledge each other’s existence.  When Roger brings a gun to school and kills himself in front of his classmates, Jake is wracked with guilt.  When Jake goes to Roger’s funeral, he discovers that he’s the only one of Roger’s classmates who bothered to show up.

Jake tries to go back to his normal life.  He plays basketball.  He dates Amy.  He continues to be the school’s beer pong champion.  He desperately seeks approval from his mother and his father, both of whom are too busy dealing with their own failing marriage to pay much attention to Jake.  However, Jake cannot shake the feeling that he not only betrayed Roger but that his current life is empty.

To the shock of everyone, Jake starts to attend the meetings of a church youth group.  Jake gets to know the other members of the group and discovers that quite a few of them are not particularly sincere in their faith.  The local preacher’s kid, Danny (Bubba Lewis), tells Jake that the church’s youth pastor, Chris (Joshua Weigel), is only using him because he knows that Jake is a popular student and Chris believes that Jake will bring more members into the group.  When Jake convinces Amy to attend church with him, she finds the whole experience to be weird and off-putting.  When she tells Jake that he’s pushing her too hard to be a part of his new group, it’s hard not to feel that she has a point and, fortunately, Jake realizes that she has a point.  Later, she reveals a secret that could change both her life and Jake’s life forever.

With the help of his friend Andrea (Kim Hidalgo), Jake starts to try to reach out to all the other students who, like Roger, believe themselves to be outcasts.  For his efforts, he is shunned not only be his former friends but also by several members of the youth group.  When Jake befriends troubled Johnny Garcia (Sean Michael Afable), Johnny is framed for a crime he didn’t commit….

I’ve reviewed several faith-based films this month, mostly because I felt it would serve as an interesting and occasionally humorous counterpoint to all of the horror reviews.  For the most part, I’ve been fairly snarky in my reviews and I think that snark is justified.  Faith-based films, no matter how sincere they may be, are often rather cringey to sit through.  That said, I actually really liked To Save A Life, which is a generally well-acted, well-directed, and not particularly preachy film.  Unlike a lot of other faith films, To Save A Life doesn’t idealize Jake’s experience.  His problems don’t disappear once he starts going to church and the film makes clear that his guilt over Roger’s death is something that he will always carry with him.  Instead, the film’s emphasis is less on preaching at people and more on just treating them decently and with respect.  The film is willing to concede that Amy has a point when she says that the relentless positivity of the church youth group is all a bit much and that the members themselves can be just as judgmental and hypocritical as anyone else in the world.  Indeed, the film stands out from other faith-based films by featuring a villain who largely hides his activities behind the fact that his father is a preacher.  The film benefits from a cast who, for the most part, all give naturalistic performances.  Randy Wayne and Kim Hidalgo especially do a good job of making their characters seem like actual human beings as opposed to idealized symbols.

To Save a Life is actually pretty good.  And that’s a good note on which to end this October Positivity series.

AMV of the Day: This Is Halloween (RWBY)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With Horrorthon coming to a close for the year, it’s time for one last AMV of the Day.

Anime: RWBY

Song: This is Halloween (performed by Marilyn Manson)

Creator: Primordial Paper (please subscribe to this creator’s channel)

Past AMVs of the Day

Horror Film Review: Night of the Comet (dir by Thom Eberhardt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1984 film, Night of the Comet, begins with the end.

The end of the world, that is!

When the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, the end result is that the majority of the world’s population is reduced to red dust.  Those who are exposed to the comet but not turned immediately into dust face an even worse fate.  They are transformed into mindless zombies.  Fortunately, 18 year-old Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her 16 year-old sister, Sam (Kelli Maroney), both managed to avoid getting exposed.  Sam was in a steel shed, hiding from their abusive stepmother.  Reggie was in a theater projection room with her boyfriend.  When Reggie and Sam wake up in the morning to discover that they are two of the few people left alive on the planet, they do what anyone would do.

They go to the mall!

Which is probably the same thing that me and my sisters would have done if we had found ourselves in a similar situation.  That’s one reason why Night of the Comet holds up so well.  It’s one of the few films to be honest about how most people would probably react to the end of the world.  Instead of giving a big dramatic monologue or having a breakdown or getting into a fight about who is to blame and what it all means, Reggie and Sam try to have a little fun.  Of course, they also grab some guns while they’re at the mall.  They’re not stupid.  They know the situation is grim and they need to be prepared.  But still, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t try on all the clothes that they previously would not have been able to afford.  And why shouldn’t they treat the mall as their own personal playground?  They’re young and they’ve survived the end of the world.  They deserve to enjoy themselves.

Of course, just because Reggie and Sam survived, that doesn’t mean the world is a safe place.  Along with the zombies, there’s also a crazed group of former stockboys who now view the mall as being their own personal kingdom.  And then there’s the scientists, who claim that they’re benevolent but who are actually looking for healthy specimens on which they  can experiment.

Night of the Comet is a terrifically fun horror movie, a real treat for anyone who has ever imagined what they would do if they were among the last people on Earth.  Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, and Robert Beltran (who plays another survivor) brings a lot of energy to their likable roles while Mary Woronov and Geoffrey Lewis are properly menacing as the two main scientists.  The zombies, with their crazed eyes and their decaying faces, are genuinely frightening.  Director Thom Eberhardt wisely doesn’t overuse the zombies.  Indeed, the whole point of the film is that the world is now nearly empty of people, whether they’re zombies or not.  But because the zombies aren’t present all of the time, it makes it easy to forget about them and it also makes all the more frightening when they suddenly show up.

Night of the Comet is an enjoyable mix of horror and comedy, one that holds up well nearly 40 years after it was first released.

Bonus Horror On TV: Highway to Heaven 2.5 “The Devil and Jonathan Smith” (dir by Michael Landon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this, the final day of our annual Horrorthon, we offer you a final, bonus Horror on TV entry.

In this episode of Highway to Heaven, angel Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon) tries to defeat the devil for the soul of his friend Mark (Victor French).  This episode, a true Halloween episode, originally aired on October 30th, 1985, and it features guest turns from Anthony Zerbe and the great Michael Berryman.

Happy Halloween!