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, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You!
Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles are too good to be true in this charming romantic comedy!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there tweeting 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 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 Tubi!
This week, both of the City Guys, those neat guys who smart and street-wise, learn a lesson about relationships and honesty! But before we get to that, how about that theme song?
Episode 2.7 “Dance Fever”
(dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 24th, 1998)
Cassidy is dating Nick Lachey, the leader singer of 98 Degrees, but no one seems to care for some reason. Instead, everyone is more worried about helping Jamal get a date with Amber, a private school girl who keeps stopping by the diner. When Jamal invites Amber to come to a school dance with him, Amber accepts. The only problem is that there isn’t a dance scheduled and Ms. Noble has neither the time nor the resources to arrange one.
Because he’s an idiot, Jamal decided to 1) trick Dawn into giving him the keys to the roof and 2) unlock the roof so that he can throw an unauthorized “underground” dance. This is one of those things that has disaster written all over it so Jamal decides to up the stakes by announcing that Cassidy’s new boyfriend will be performing at the dance.
Needless to see, a huge crowd shows up. (“Some of these people don’t ever go to our school,” Jamal says.) But, when it’s time for the band to arrive, only Nick Lachey shows up. It turns out that their producers wants them to lay down a few new tracks at the studio so they’re going to be late.
Realizing that a riot is going to break out and his date will be ruined if he doesn’t find a way to entertain the crowd, Jamal sends Chris, Al, and L-Train out to perform.
Just as it looks as if a riot is on the verge of breaking out, 98 Degrees shows up and calms the crowd by singing I Do (Cherish You).
The crowd may be satisfied but, because Jamal and Chris broke the rules and defied authority, the Gods of TNBC demand that they be punished. The police show up and put a stop to the illegal dance. While Chris and Jamal technically should have been arrested for breaking and entering (and nearly inciting a riot), they are instead turned over to Ms. Noble. Noble promises to punish them both and, despite Jamal getting freaking 98 Degrees to serenade her, Amber announces that she never wants to see him again.
Oh well! At least Cassidy got to date Nick Lachey before Jessica Simpson broke his heart.
Episode 2.8 “A Guy and a Goth”
(dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 31st, 1998)
Hey, remember how Chris and Jamal are apparently the only two DJs at the school radio station? During their morning show, Chris gets a call from a girl named Zoey. Even though Chris has never seen her before, he likes her voice so he asks to meet her at the diner. Zoey agrees. One scene later and….
Oh my God, Zoey’s a goth!
All of Chris’s friends give him a hard time about dating a goth so he lies to Zooey to get out of taking her to a surprise party that everyone is holding for Ms. Noble. (These students are bizarrely obsessed with hanging out with their principal.) When Zooey discovers the lie, she’s hurt. Chris makes it up to her by dressing up like a goth.
Yeah, this was pretty dumb. Making it even worse is that, in a scene that it totally ripped off from Grease, Zoey shows up at the diner dressed “normal.” Zoey was cool and smart and funny and what she saw in Chris is never really that apparent. That said, this episode was all about the costumes that people wear and it aired on October 31st. That was clever.
Zoey takes back Chris, even though she definitely deserved better. I have a feeling that Zoey will never be mentioned again on this show.
10 To Midnight (1983, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Adam Greenberg)
Charles Bronson was born 101 years ago today. In honor of the man’s legacy, here he is at the end of 1983’s 10 To Midnight, letting Warren Stacy know that “we won’t” be hearing from him.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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?
Through the Shattered Lens 