After witnessing a fight between two criminals and a young man in a convenience store, Ozzy (Shashawnee Hall) decides to track the man down. Ozzy owns a gym and he thinks that the man could be one of the next great MMA fighters. When Ozzy finds Remo Street (Casper Smart), he offers Remo a job at his gym. Street will just be cleaning up the place and serving as a sparring partner but he’ll also get to train for free. Street agrees.
Street almost immediately runs afoul Ozzy’s main fighter, Greg (John Brickner). Greg is the son of the gum’s co-owner, James (Gregory Fawcett), a gambling addict who is in debt to the Russian mob. (Those same Russian mobsters are also forcing Street to fight in an underground fight club.) Greg does not appreciate that way that Street looks at his sister, Jasmine (Kate Miner). After Greg injures his usual sparring partner, Ozzy gives the job to Street. Greg and Street have to train hard because the championship is coming up.
Though it may take place in the world of MMA, Street is a typical boxing film and it doesn’t bring anything new to the genre. The fight scenes should be the highlight of the movie but they are so poorly edited that it’s hard to keep track of who is fighting who or who is winning. The final fight, which should have been the film’s crowning moment, feels like an anti-climax. The best boxing films emphasize the strategy and the training that the fighter uses to defeat his opponent but, in Street, we don’t even get to know who the fighters are or what their strengths are. Casper Smart gives a likable performance in the title role but Street never scores a knockout.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s Playmates! It can be viewed on YouTube.
Playmates tells the story of two divorces.
Marshall Barnett (Alan Alda) is an attorney. He went to Yale and Harvard. He has a successful career. He has rich and educated friends. He has a nice bachelor pad. He also pays hundreds of dollars in alimony. He and Lois (Barbara Feldon) got divorced 3 years ago and Marshall is still bitter. He’s bitter that he has to pay her so much money. He’s bitter that he only gets to see his son on the weekends. He’s bitter that he can’t seem to start a new, meaningful relationship with anyone. He’s bitter that his wife still asks him to critique her modernist paintings.
Kermit Holvey (Doug McClure) is a blue collar welder. He has only been divorced for a few months and his relationship with ex-wife Patti (Connie Stevens) is nowhere near as contentious as Marshall’s relationship with Lois. Still, Kermit is struggling to adjust to being single and to only seeing his son on the weekends.
Marshall and Kermit meet one weekend while they are both taking their sons to the Kiddieland Amusement Park. Marshall is so overjoyed to meet someone else who is dealing with divorce that he comes on a bit strong in trying to get to know Kermit. Kermit, however, does eventually get over his initial weariness and soon, he and Marshall are best friends. It doesn’t matter that Marshall has a tendency to be a little bit condescending and that Kermit often can’t follow what Marshall is talking about. They spend most of their time talking about their ex-wives.
But then Kermit meets Lois and he discovers that her paintings really aren’t as bad as Marshall made them out to be. And Marshall meets Patti and he discovers that she’s not as dumb as Kermit made her out to be. Soon, Kermit is secretly dating Lois and Marshall is secretly dating Patti and anyone who has ever watched a comedy before knows that there is a big mess waiting in the future.
Playmates was one of those films that pretended to be a lot naughtier than it actually was. For all the winking and the occasional sly smiles, all that happens is that Kermit and Marshall both end up going out with women with whom they really don’t have much in common. And while it’s tempting to read a lot into how quickly Kermit and Marshall become friends and how they both end up dating the other’s female equivalent, I think that might be giving this film too much credit. (If it were made today, things might be different.) In the end, the film really has more to say about class than it does marriage, as both Marshall and Lois obviously view spending time with Kermit and Patti as being a way of slumming and building up some working class bona fides without actually having to be working class. Patti, to her credit, calls Marshall out on this. Marshall admits that she has a point but he still come across as if he’s talking down to her, largely because he’s played by Alan Alda, an actor who is a master at being somehow both likable and condescending at the same time.
Playmates is a well-acted film and there are some funny lines. The four main characters are all ultimately likable, even if they all have their moments where you can tell why they would be difficult to live with. It deserves some credit for following its story through to its natural conclusion, with one couple realizing that they still love each other while the other realize that they are better off divorced. The film may not be as radical as it pretends to be but it still doesn’t cop out on the ending. In the end, Playmates is probably best watched as a time capsule. It’s here if you ever want to experience 1972 firsthand.
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 were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Tubi or Prime and watched 2016’s Girl Lost.
Girl Lost tells the story of Shara (Jessica Taylor Haid), who we first see being abused by her mother’s boyfriend and then retreating outside to a pool so that she can run a razor blade over her thigh in peace. Shara is only 15 but she’s had to deal with things that no one should ever have to experience in a lifetime. Her mother, Kim (played by Robin Bain, who also directed the film), is a sex worker who expects her daughter to follow in her footsteps and who encourages Shara to pose for risqué photos that Kim then posts online.
Shara spends almost the entire film fleeing. At first, she and Kim flee Kim’s boyfriend. Eventually, Shara and her boyfriend, the well-meaning but not particularly bright Jamie (Felix Ryan), end up running away from Kim. They live on the streets and discover just how difficult it can be to survive on your own. In the end, no one can survive without money and Shara, just like her mother before her, comes to realize that there’s one guaranteed way to make that money, whether it’s waiting for a creepy guy in a back alley or getting a job talking on the phone to some pervy loser living in his mother’s basement. Eventually, Shara runs away from even Jamie and ends up working at a Russian-owned brothel. Throughout it all, her life continues to unravel. It’s a harsh world that Shara has been born into and it’s one where you either do what you have to do to survive or you end up imprisoned or worse. The film’s ends on a dark note. At first, I thought the ending was perhaps a bit too dark. After all that had happened, I wondered, what it have killed the film to end on a note of hope? But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the film ended in the the only way that the story could have ended. From the minute she was born, poor Shara never really had a chance.
It’s a deeply unsettling film. In fact, if you are trying to find something to help lull you into sleep, this is probably not the best film to go with unless you’re prepared to have some fairly upsetting dreams. Though shot on a low budget, the film captures the harshness of life on the fringes of society and both Jessica Taylor Haid and Robin Bain deserve a lot of credit for their performances as two characters who are not always likable but who are very recognizable. It’s a sad film that also serves as a tribute to every lost and forgotten soul out there.
The great character actor Lance Henriksen is 84 years old today!
Ever since he made his film debut in 1970, the legendary Henriksen has played a collection of villains, bikers, police officers, soldiers, and even the occasional android. One of his earliest appearance was in 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon. His role is small but he definitely makes an impression. His faux friendly suggestions that Sal point his gun upwards is the line that sets off the film’s haunting ending. For viewers today, of course, we know that Sal and Sonny are screwed as soon as Lance Henriksen shows up outside of the bank.
In today’s scene that I love, Lance Henriksen does what only a great character actor can do. In less than a minute, he created a truly unforgettable character.
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!
Happy Cinco De Mayo to all of our readers! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Mexican Films
Los Olvidados (1950, dir by Luis Bunuel, DP: Gabriel Figuero)
Like Water For Chocolate (1992, dir by Alfonso Arau, DP: Emmanuel Luzbeki)
Cronos (1993, dir by Guillermo Del Toro, DP: Guillermo Navarro)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, dir. by Guillermo Del Toro, DP: Guillermo Nava)
2019’s Round Of Your Life tells the story of the Collins family.
Carl Collins (Boo Arnold) is a retired PGA golfer who is still considered to be one of the best to ever play the game. He’s put a lot of pressure on his two sons to follow in his footsteps. Tucker (Tim Ogletree), who likes to tell jokes and doesn’t always follow the best golf course etiquette, has just started on the PGA tour. Meanwhile, 15 year-old Taylor (Evan Hara) would rather play video games than stick with all of the hard work needed to become a golf pro.
When Taylor fails to make the Varsity Golf Team at his high school, an angry Carl goes for a late night drive. Unfortunately, his car is hit by another car, this one being driven by a teenage girl who was too busy texting to pay attention to the road. Carl ends up in a coma. And Taylor ends up determined to join the golf team and make his father proud.
Coach Wilson (Richard T. Jones) is skeptical about giving Taylor a second chance to play for the school. But then Wilson sees Taylor playing a round with his best player, Connor (Blair Jackson, who gives the film’s best performance). Realizing that Taylor actually is a good golfer, Wilson allows him to join the junior varsity team. When one of the varsity players is caught cheating, Taylor moves up to varsity. He also starts a tentative relationship with Bailey (Alexandria DeBerry), even though Connor considers Bailey to be his girlfriend.
Tucker, meanwhile, starts going out with Minka (Katie Leclerc), a nurse at the hospital. A surprisingly large amount of screentime is devoted to Tucker and Minka’s romance, despite the fact that there’s not really much of a story there. Both Tucker and Minka are single and they start dating. One gets the feeling that the main reason this storyline was given such prominence in the film is because the actor playing Tucker also wrote the film.
This is a faith-based film, so there’s naturally a lot of emphasis on everyone praying for Carl’s recovery. This is the type of film where people discuss attending a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting without a hint of irony. This is also the rare high school film where no one ever curses, there’s no drinking to be found, and all of the relationships are relatively chaste. Whether or not the viewer finds this to be realistic would depend on what type of high school they went to. My high school experience was a bit different.
When the film started, I had a problem with the amount of pressure that Carl put on his sons to follow in his footsteps. That was especially true in the case of Taylor, who seemed to be a good kid who just happened to be a bit more laid back than either his father or his brother. Though it’s not made apparent until the film is nearly over, Round Of Your Life did share my concerns. Visually, Round of Your Life is fairly bland and the twist at the end won’t be a huge shock to anyone who has ever seen one of these films before. But there is a likable earnestness to this movie. And, needless to say, the golf courses were lovely.
At some point in an unspecified future, Czech cosmonaut Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) floats through space in a capsule. He’s on a mission to investigate Chopra, a cloud of dust and debris that has been spotted near Jupiter. On Earth, he’s a hero. People love to watch interviews with him from space, though few realize that the majority of his interviews were actually pre-recorded before he left the planet. Corporations are sponsoring his trip and Jakub is under order to use their marketing slogans as much as possible whenever he communicates with the people back home. Jakob is in a race to reach the cloud before a competing mission from South Korea. One can only guess what’s happened back on Earth to create a situation where the Czech Republic and South Korea are the two countries with a working space program.
Jakub is someone who grew up yearning to leave the planet and escape from the pain of being the son of a “party informer.” Now that he’s in space, he obsesses on how much he misses his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan). He and Lenka used to talk regularly through “CzechConnect” but it’s been a while since she’s answered any of his calls. Lenka was not happy when Jakub accepted the mission to Chopra, accusing him of abandoning her when she needed him most. Considering that she is pregnant (and that a previous pregnancy ended in a miscarriage), she’s absolutely right. What Jakub doesn’t know is that Lenka has decided to leave him. As her mother (Lena Olin) puts it, Jakub will always find an excuse not to return home and deal with their relationship. After he inspects Chopra, who is to say that Jakub won’t want to continue to see what is waiting beyond Jupiter? Lenka’s final message to him is being suppressed by the Czech government (represented here by Isabella Rossellini).
What is it that drives Jakub to separate himself from the rest of the world? Jakub is himself not totally sure. But when a giant space spider (voiced by Paul Dano) shows up in the capsule and explains that it wants to understand the human mind, Jakub starts to learn. The spider, who Jakub names Hanus, becomes Jakub’s companion and his confessor.
I’ve often said that there are two Adam Sandlers. There’s the Adam Sandler who makes goofy comedies with his friends and who mostly seems to view making movies as a working vacation. And then there’s the Adam Sandler who is a sad-eyed character actor who captures regret and spiritual malaise about as well any performer working today. To me, it’s always been interesting how the same actor who starred in something like Jack and Jill could also be absolutely heart-breaking when cast in something like The Meyerowtiz Stories. If the only Sandler films that you ever watched or heard about were his dramatic roles, you would probably assume that he is one of America’s most honored actors. Spaceman finds Adam Sandler in serious actor mode and he does a good job at portraying Jakub’s loneliness and the deep sadness that makes it difficult from him to open up emotionally. That said, I have to admit that, as I watched this deliberately-paced and rather somber film, there were a few times when I found myself thinking about how they should have made a sequel to Happy Gilmore where Happy became the first pro-golfer in space.
Spaceman is a film that I wanted to like more than I did. It’s a well-acted film, with Carey Mulligan again getting a chance to show the depth that she can bring to even a somewhat underwritten role. The Chopra is beautifully rendered. The Giant Spider becomes a fascinating character as the story plays out. The film does a good job of capturing the claustrophobia of being stuck in a space capsule. (Jakub may have escaped Earth but he’s still definitely trapped.) The problem is that the film’s approach is a bit too literal-minded. Instead, of engaging with viewers and letting them discover the film’s themes and solve the story’s mysteries for themselves, Spaceman spells everything out in the most obvious ways. The film, like Jakub, makes the mistake of not trusting the people watching to be able to understand what they’re seeing. 2001: A Space Odyssey was an obvious influence on the film’s final third but, whereas Kubrick took an obvious joy in leaving audiences scratching their heads, Spaceman wraps things up a bit too neatly,
In the end, I think Spaceman will be best-remembered for being the first film in which audiences will not be surprised to see Adam Sandler giving a dramatic performance. After Punch-Drunk Love, The Meyerowtiz Stories, Uncut Gems, and Hustle, we’ve reached the point where the idea of Adam Sandler being a good actor is no longer shocking. Who would have ever guessed?
President Skroob (Mel Brooks), the evil and incompetent leader of Planet Spaceball, has squandered all of the air on his planet and is planning on stealing the atmosphere of the planet Druida. To pull this off, he arranges for the idiotic Prince Valium (Jim J. Bullock) to marry Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), the princess of Druida. (All together now: “She doesn’t look Druish.”) Vespa and her droid, Dot Matrix (voice by Joan Rivers), flee Druida with Lord Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) in pursuit.
In debt to the intergalactic gangster, Pizza the Hut (voiced by Dom DeLuise), a mercenary named Lone Star (Bill Pullman) and his associate, the man-dog hypbrid Barf (John Candy), accept a contract from Vespa’s father (Dick Van Patten) to track down his daughter. They take off in their space Winnebago to bring Vespa home. Though they start only interested in money, Lone Star and Barf come to learn about love, freedom, and a mystical power known as the Schwartz. (“No, the Schwartz!”)
Back when I was growing up and just being able to have HBO made you the coolest guy on the block, Spaceballs was one of my favorite movies. I watched it every time that it came on cable. As usual with Mel Brooks, there were a lot of double entendres that went over my young head but there was also enough goofy humor that I could laugh at what was going on. I could quote all the lines. I laughed whenever Rick Moranis showed up in his Darth Vader-costume. I laughed at John Candy’s facial expressions. I laughed when Mel Brooks showed up as Yogurt, the Spaceballs version of Yoda. Pizza the Hut? That’s hilarious when you’re a kid!
I recently rewatched the film. Revisiting it was a lesson in how your memory can trick you. I could still quote most of the lines with reasonable accuracy but nothing was quite the way I remembered it. Rick Moranis and John Candy were still hilarious and, being older, I could better appreciated the frustration felt by George Wyner’s Colonel Sandurz. I also realized what a good performance Bill Pullman gave as Lone Star. While everyone else mugged for the camera, Pullman played his role straight.
I also discovered that a lot of the scenes that I remembered as being hilarious were actually just mildly amusing. Mel Brooks was always hit-and-miss as a director, the type who would toss everything and the kitchen sink into his films. Spaceballs has a lot of hilarious scenes but it’s obvious that Brooks didn’t have the same affection for the source material as he did with Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles or even High Anxiety. Brooks is poking fun at Star Wars because it’s popular but he doesn’t seem to have any strong feelings, one way or the other, about George Lucas’s space epic.
I still laughed, though. Even if Spaceballs wasn’t the masterpiece that I remembered it being, I still enjoyed rewatching it. The jokes that hit were funny enough to make up for the ones that missed. Even with his weaker films, Mel Brooks is a national treasure.
Seriously, I had forgotten all about the television show, Face The Truth, until I randomly came across a clip of Vivica A. Fox yelling at a guy who she felt was being disrespectful towards “The Truth Panel.” After coming across the clip, I discovered that the Face The Truth YouTube channel still existed, despite the fact that the show hasn’t aired since 2019. I have now watched several clips, all of which reminded me of of the days when I would watch this misbegotten but oddly entertaining show while working in my office.
Produced by Dr. Phil’s production company, Face The Truth dealt with typical talk show issues. Bickering roommates would come on and talk about how messy the apartment was. Bickering parents would come on and complain about their ungrateful children. Ungrateful children would complain about their selfish parents. Ex-lovers would trash each other’s bedroom skills. Ex-business partners would accuse each other of embezzlement. At the end of each show, they would be told to stand in The Circle of Truth and the audience would vote for who they thought was right.
This show’s gimmick was that, instead of just having one host, it had five. The truth panel was made up of actress Vivica Fox and four women who regularly appeared as correspondents and consultants on Dr. Phil. Dr. Judy Ho was a psychiatrist. Rosie Mercado was a plus-sized model. Areva Martin was an attorney who specialized in family law. Scary Mary was an former judge who yelled at everyone and looked like she probably smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.
What made this show a guilty pleasure? I think what really set this talk show apart from others was just how thoroughly ineffectual the Truth Panel was. Dr. Judy occasionally had some good advice but it was obvious that the other three were mostly there to try to convince Dr. Phil to give them a solo show. The panelists talked over each other. Both Rosie and Areva gave long-winded advice that, more often that not, descended into empty psychobabble. As Scary Mary basically glared at everyone as if she personally resented their existence.
The panel rarely had anything to offer beyond the shallowest of cliches and the guests always seemed to not only pick up on this but also to get pissed off about it. It’s amazing how many of the clips on the show’s official YouTube channel features guests essentially telling the Panel to shut up while Areva and Rosie stare on in stunned silence. Just as Scary Mary hated the guests, they all hated her too. The fact that the guest’s retorts were often funnier and more memorable than Scary Mary’s insults did little to help the Truth Panel’s struggle to maintain some semblance of authority.
Who can forget the woman who stormed off set because “that older white woman doesn’t like black people!” (The older white woman was Scary Mary.) Or how about the ill-tempered guy who accused Mary of aggravating him until Mary finally turned his back on him. “You need to respect the panel,” Rosie Mercado yelled.
Or how about the moment that Scary Mary, while trying to broker peace between feuding friends, used herself as an example. “I might not like these other women but I still have to come to work!” Areva, with an awkward laugh, assured the audience that the member of the Panel all loved each other while Scary Mary dramatically rolled her eyes.
Overseeing all of this was Vivica A. Fox, who sometimes yelled and who often cried depending on the story being told and who always seemed like she deserved better than to have to deal with Scary Mary’s temper tantrums and Dr. Judy’s attempts to give earnest advise while the other panelists mugged for the camera. It was The Wrong Talk Show. But it was fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way. You watched to see which panelist would give the worst advise and which guest would be the first to tell Rosie that she didn’t know what she was talking about. It was all so openly ineffectual that Face the Truth felt like a break from talk shows that were always edited (or scripted, in many cases) to make their host look all-knowing and wise. Face the Truth was a complete mess. Indeed, it was so messy that it made me feel less guilty about my own not particular stellar track record when it comes to trying to give good advice.
As with most of the shows that he’s produced, Dr. Phil hyped the Hell out of Face the Truth until it actually premiered and tanked in the ratings. After that, Phil never mentioned the show again. Face The Truth premiered in September of 2018 and it was canceled six months later, avoiding the COVID pandemic by a year. It’s forgotten today …. or it would be if not for YouTube.
Star Wars not only launched an entire expanded universe. It also launched a few thousand rip-offs. For this weeks edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers, we’ve got six trailers that might seem just a little familiar….
Battle Beyond The Stars (1980)
From Roger Corman comes this film, which is as much a rip-off of The Magnificent Seven as it is of Star Wars. Battle Beyond The Stars was a surprise box office success when it was first released.
2. Space Raiders (1983)
Also from executive producer Roger Corman, Space Raiders tells the story of what happens when a quirky band of intergalactic outlaws pick up an annoying (and frankly, rather stupid) kid.
3. The Humanoid (1979)
From director Aldo Lado, The Humanoid features the great Richard Kiel as the title character. There’s also a cute robot, an older mystic, and an evil Empire.
4. Message From Space (1978)
Do you remember another film that had a message from space?
5. Flash Gordon (1980)
Interestingly enough, Star Wars was as inspired by the original Flash Gordon as the Flash Gordon reboot was inspired by Star Wars.
6. Starcrash (1978)
And finally, we have Starcrash, the Star Wars rip-off that is actually better than Star Wars!
After witnessing a fight between two criminals and a young man in a convenience store, Ozzy (Shashawnee Hall) decides to track the man down. Ozzy owns a gym and he thinks that the man could be one of the next great MMA fighters. When Ozzy finds Remo Street (Casper Smart), he offers Remo a job at his gym. Street will just be cleaning up the place and serving as a sparring partner but he’ll also get to train for free. Street agrees.
