A Few Thoughts On The Oscars….

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, that was …. interesting.

Actually, I really enjoyed the 91s Annual Oscar ceremony this year. And you know why I enjoyed it?

There wasn’t a host.

For all the talk about how not having a host would be the death of the Oscars, the ceremony functioned just fine without an endless opening monologue. It turns out that the Oscars don’t need someone organizing a huge selfie. It does’t need someone demanding that the audience buy girl scout cookies. It doesn’t need Jimmy Kimmel bringing in random tourists or sending actors to crash the theater across the street. The presenters can do the job of the host just fine and, even better, they’re gone before you get sick of listening to them.

The show seemed to move quicker, though it still went over 3 hours. In fact, at 3 hours and 20 minutes, it wasn’t really any shorter than the previous ceremonies.

The audience seemed strangely subdued. Perhaps that’s because so many mediocre films were winning. Bohemian Rhapsody took home the most Oscars, 4 in total. Of course, not once was the name Bryan Singer mentioned. Singer was like Voldemort at the Oscars. In fact, you could kind of sense that people in the auditorium were cringing with every award that Bohemian Rhapsody won. They were probably imagining what some of the headlines will be tomorrow. “While patting themselves on the back for being woke, the Academy honored Bryan Singer.”

According to my TSL colleague, Leonard Wilson, there were boos in the audience when Green Book won best picture. I didn’t hear them but I don’t doubt they were there. Green Book isn’t a terrible film as much as it’s just a rather bland one. It’s a film about a different era that feels like it was made in a different era. Much like the last film to win without being nominated for best director, it seems destined to be forgotten.

(That last film, by the way, was Argo, which was an okay film — much like Green Book — but which isn’t exactly held up as a groundbreaking winner.)

The top moment for me was Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga performing Shallow. Lady Gaga’s acceptance speech was amazing. My second favorite moment was when Olivia Colman defeated Glenn Close for Best Actress. That’s nothing against Close. It’s just Close was such a favorite that it was nice to see Colman score an upset victory.

Now, we just wait for the ratings to come in. My fear is that the ratings are going to suck and ABC will be say, “It’s because we didn’t have a host! It’s because we didn’t do Best Popular Film! It’s because we didn’t give out any awards during the commercial break!”

Of course, the opposite is true. Despite some unfortunate winners, this was a pretty enjoyable broadcast. This was what the Oscars should always be like. We don’t need a host. We just need better nominees.

(In my opinion, Eighth Grade was the best film of the year. Of course, it didn’t get a single nomination.)

Well, this concludes another Oscar Sunday!

Thank you, everyone, for visiting the site today. With the Oscars now out of the way, we can focus our attention on the films of 2019! Let’s hope this year in film is a good one!

Thanks, everyone.

Love ya.

Degrassi: The Kids Of Degrassi Street — Ida Makes A Movie

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Valerie Troutman

A couple of years ago Lisa suggested that I review the long running franchise known as Degrassi. I’m sure she was mainly referring to Degrassi: The Next Generation, but, the franchise goes back a lot further than that particular entry. In fact, it goes back to 1979 with a series called The Kids Of Degrassi Street. I feel we should start at the beginning.

I began watching this franchise sometime in the 2000s and fell in love with it. It came in and out of my life after that, but I believe I have seen it all. That being said, it has been a long time since I watched some of these shows. Even then, I saw them out of order and with years in between viewings. As such, it will be a journey of rediscovery for me.

The show began with what I believe was a pilot episode, or at the very least, it was decided at some point to be expanded into an entire series. It’s my guess that this was something along the lines of Panic At Malibu Pier (1989), which was filmed as a movie, but was also intended to be a pilot episode for Baywatch. That way in case the show wasn’t picked up, they could release it as a movie. Or it could have been even simpler and been a pitch pilot such as the one done for Baywatch which had their long running real-life lifeguard cast member, Michael Newman, doing lifeguard things for a few minutes. No matter what it was intended to be, it did end up being turned into a series.

So what shot opens up a franchise that off and on would last about 40 years? A shot of a “Do Not Litter!” sign.

As anti-climatic as that is, it does set the tone for the entire franchise: lessons for the audience to learn.

The show essentially began as a series of after school specials where each one would focus on a particular issue or issues. If you’ve seen any later entry in the franchise, then you know that they never stopped doing that kind of thing. The difference is that in later shows these lessons would end up being folded into a normal TV show with an ongoing narrative, regular characters, and actual seasons. Still, you can unpack them and find lesson after lesson that they were trying to get across to the audience as if it were still a series of after school specials for kids. There are some recurring characters on this show, but it’s not like a regular TV Show.

Something else worth noting is that unlike a show such as Beverly Hills, 90210; Degrassi, the school, or the street in this entry, and the kids that happen to pass through are what the shows are about. On Beverly Hills, 90210 we follow a set of characters through high school, college, and beyond. That’s not what Degrassi is really going for with their shows.

I bring this up because it ties back in with what I said about after school specials. The characters on Degrassi aren’t necessarily there for one episode and then tossed away, but the takeaway for the audience are the lessons that are learned by those characters during their time in school or on Degrassi St. Of course there are exceptions since no analogy is perfect and get on with it, I know.

The first episode starts by introducing us to our two main characters for this episode. We have Ida, who is played by Zoë Newman. She is pictured on the right of the title card. We also have her friend Cookie, played by Dawn Harrison. She is on the left. As the show goes on, they fade out as the filmmakers started to find the actors that would go on to be in the next entry, Degrassi Junior High.

This cat may be surrounded by litter, but it doesn’t know how good it has it. We’ll get to that in a later episode.

There is a bunch of garbage on the ground, and after Ida steps on a sandwich…

Cookie notices a sign for a film contest geared towards children.

Ida decides to do what the title of the episode says.

She starts hunting around for a camera in her attic among her dad’s old stuff. She finds one, but it’s broken.

Enter Mom…

who suggests that Ida simply go and get the camera fixed.

Cut directly to a guy at a camera store who tells us this was made in the 1970s without needing to say a word.

He tells her that it needs a new spring, some film, and the cost.

Is that a picture of James Garner behind her? Was he a spokesman for Kodak or something at the time?

Anyways, she is going to need some money to repair the camera and Mom isn’t going to help with that, so Ida is going to have to raise some money on her own.

Back home, we meet Ida’s brother Fred, played by someone they don’t list in the credits. Proper credits don’t show up until the next episode.

He suggests mowing lawns and Cookie suggests having a bake sale, but Ida doesn’t want to do the first and doesn’t know how to cook. Thankfully, Mom has some dialog that doesn’t make sense to give Ida an idea.

She says that if Ida doesn’t “find a place for that junk from the attic”, then she is going throw it out. I have no idea if that means Ida took a bunch of stuff out of the attic, which means she could simply put it back, or what. I just know that Ida decides that she should have a garage sale.

At the sale, Fred buys a military helmet from Ida. It’s important for the plot that he does this.

Ida raises enough money, and without even counting it, the guy at the store gives her the fixed camera.

No, there will never be anything about developing, editing, or any of the other things that go into making a movie. You just have to accept that it is fixed, and now Ida is off to make her movie. It’s going to be a movie about garbage of course.

This leads to a short “Who’s On First” routine with Mom before she leaves her, Cookie, and Fred to make the movie.

While Ida films, Cookie is supposed to dance around the garbage and they have timed the shooting to coincide with the arrival of a garbage truck. Fred is supposed to hand garbage to the garbageman. Fred “accidentally” grabs Cookie’s doll and puts it in with the trash…

which must mean that Cookie has two dolls, I think, since she is holding another one.

Now comes my favorite part out of this whole thing.

Despite the fact that Fred and Cookie fight over the doll in front of him…

and despite the fact that we can see and hear Cookie calling out in his direction that the doll is not trash…

he takes it and dumps it in the back of the truck anyways before hopping onto the truck to leave.

Good job, garbageman! Also it’s a little cruel on Ida’s part to keep filming while she knows her friend’s doll is being taken off with actual garbage. Oh, well.

Via a title card telling us that two weeks have past…

Ida receives a letter telling her that she is one of the finalists in the contest. The problem is that they thought it was about war instead of garbage, probably due to the fight over the doll and the helmet. I guess what the movie is supposed to be about wasn’t something that was to be included with the film when it was sent in.

What follows is some back and forth between Ida, Cookie, and Ida’s mom which amounts to the lesson that Ida should tell them that the movie is about garbage and not war because it’s a kind of lying otherwise.

That’s an interesting looking award.

Of course Ida wins. But then she tells the guy giving out the award, played by Elwy Yost, that the film isn’t about war. The guy then all but lets her walk offstage in embarrassment before bringing up that the award is given on merit, so she can have it. It ends right there.

That’s the beginning of Degrassi! An episode about not lying and not accepting something from someone in return for something the other person misinterpreted as something different than what you intended it to be. It also pushes a “Do It Yourself” ethic and you could make the case that garbage and war aren’t as different a subject as Ida thinks.

They do undercut the first two messages a little bit since she never tells the announcer that she added a “T” to the middle of her name to make it sound more impressive even though the episode reminds us several times that she did.

Also, I understand why they did and will continue to largely push the parents into the background, but it has side effects at times. Not so much with this entry, but it will in later episodes.

We have a long way to go, and actors to discover that will move onto Degrassi Junior High, and beyond.

Guilty Pleasure No. 40: Parking Wars

Posted on February 16, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Strange show, Parking Wars.

Between 2008 and 2012, A&E aired 104 episodes of Parking Wars. Even though the show’s no longer in production, episodes still seem to air on nearly a daily basis. If you can’t find it on A&E, check on FYI. If you can’t find it on FYI, check WGN or TBS or any of the true crime networks. Nearly seven years after it stopped producing new episodes, Parking Wars airs so frequently that one could be forgiven for thinking that it had never been canceled.

It was an odd show. It was a reality show, one that allowed viewers a chance to see what it was like to be a part of the parking authority. You read that correctly. This show was devoted to perhaps the least useful members of law enforcement. The first two seasons focused exclusively on the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Since the members of the PPA were all municipal employees, I’m going to assume that the show’s producers had to get permission from the city to follow them as they worked. One assumes that the hope was that the show would improve Philadelphia’s image. That’s why it’s interesting that the main lesson to be learned from those first two seasons of Parking Wars appears to be that everyone should stay the Hell out of Philadelphia.

Seriously, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would book a flight to Philly after watching an episode of Parking Wars. Not only do all of the traffic cops come across as being assholes but so do most of the citizens that they meet over the course of their day. Everyone comes across as being a jerk. On the one hand, you have the motorists who regularly ignore posted signs and who often have no hesitation about double parking or blocking traffic. At the same time, the show’s parking cops tend to the biggest bunch of self-important pricks that I’ve ever seen.

Each episode is usually divided into three sections. In Ticketing, we follow some civil servant in a uniform while they walk up and down the street, looking for anyone to whom they can give a ticket. While they do this, they talk to the camera about why their job is important and why people shouldn’t hate them. It usually only takes a minute or so to realize that we’re not exactly dealing with the most eloquent or witty group of people here. Typical words of wisdom: “People think I’m picking on them but ….. I’m just doing my job. If they hadn’t broken the rules, I would not be writing them a ticket.” Never mind that, half the time, the parking meters are broken or that the “No Parking” sign has weathered so much abuse that it can barely be read. Whenever someone asks a legitimate question about why they’re getting a ticket, the show responds with a silly sound effect. “Only dummies question authority,” the show is saying. On those occasions when someone actually proves that they’ve been wrongly ticketed (and it happens more than a few times), they’re told to call a number or go to court and get it dismissed. “Once I start writing the ticket, I can’t take it back,” the parking cop explains, as if that somehow excuses any inconvenience that anyone else might suffer.

The 2nd section of each episode often took place at the impound lot, where the citizens of Philadelphia would go to get their cars after they had been towed. The impound lot sequences basically highlight everything that intelligent people hate about bureaucracy. I’ll always remember the woman from Delaware whose car was impounded in Philadelphia, due to a mistake made by the Delaware Highway Patrol. Even after the woman got a signed letter from a judge in Delaware exonerating her and saying that her car shouldn’t have been impounded, the lot supervisor said that the car couldn’t be released because the state of Pennsylvania still had her on its impound list. When the woman was told that she could hire a tow truck (at her own expense) and have the car towed to Delaware, the lot workers were shocked when the woman angrily announced that she wasn’t going to pay any more money just because of someone else’s bureaucratic snafu. When Pennsylvania finally did get its act together and announced that the woman could have her car back, one of the lot workers had the nerve to say, “Y’know, my supervisor went to a lot of trouble for you.” (From what we saw on the program, it appeared that the supervisor made one phone call, mostly to get confirmation that she should refuse to release the woman’s car.) The look the woman from Delaware gave that worker pretty much said it all.

Finally, an episode would usually wrap up with a sequence about booting. The booting sequences dealt with the people who drive around and randomly search for people with multiple unpaid tickets, so that they can put those big yellow locks on people’s tires. On the one hand, the booting sequences were a bit less annoying that the ticketing and impound sequences because most of the people getting booted did owe several thousands of dollars in parking tickets. On the other hand, it wasn’t hard to notice that the boot crew usually only seemed to search for cars in lower-class neighborhoods. It was rare you ever heard anyone suggest maybe going to a rich neighborhood and seeing if anyone there needed a boot. Instead the people being booted were often the very people who would need a car if they were ever actually going to get the money necessary to pay their tickets.

Throughout it all, the show punctuated every action or comment with a combination of zoom lenses and silly sound effects. If someone declared that they needed their car for work, we’d hear someone dramatically go, “DAMN!” on the soundtrack. If the parking cop pointed out a sign that said no parking, we’d get a zoom to the sign along with a smack-smack sound effect.

Even though the show is less than ten years old, watching it can be strange today. Parking Wars was clearly made before the era of #MeToo. If the parking cop is a woman, one can be sure that we’ll get at least a few interviews with the citizens of Philadelphia talking about how cute she is. If the parking cop’s a man, one can be sure that he’ll take the time to leer at any passing women while the camera zooms in on what part of her body has drawn his attention.

Eventually, it would appear that the city of Philadelphia figured out that being advertised as being one of the worst cities on Earth was perhaps not the boon for tourism that they thought it would be and Parking Wars started to focus on other cities. When they started to film in Detroit, we were introduced to a parking cop named Pony Tail. Pony Tail was perhaps the most obnoxious character to ever be unleashed on the brave viewers of A&E. Pony Tail was the type of creep who would brag about how he was punishing evil doers (because being parked at an expired meter is a sure sign of evil) but who would then spend his entire segment pouting after a random passerby yelled out, “Parking Authority sucks!”

Things got even worse once the show expanded to New York and started to feature “independent” towing companies. If it could be said that the parking cops were at least enforcing the law, the independent towing people were just straight-up assholes. Whenever they towed a woman’s car and responded to her complaints by calling her “sweetheart” or “honey,” you just wanted someone to jump in and smack the Hell out of them.

And yet, oddly enough, Parking Wars was (and is) addictive viewing. I can’t speak for everyone but for me, it’s a show that I almost hatewatch. It confirms everything negative thing that I’ve ever felt or suspected about the people in authority. If you believe that most people will let even the slightest bit of power go straight to their head, this is the show for you. If you distrust the government and think that most bureaucrats are petty tyrants, Parking Wars is a show that will confirm your every suspicion. The best moments of Parking Wars are the ones that suggest that maybe the show’s producers were secretly poking fun at the parking authority’s delusions of grandeur. I’m talking about the moments when the ticketed got their chance to yell at the ticketers and the ticketers, for the most part, were reduced to weakly saying, “I’m just doing my job….” Could it be that Parking Wars was one of the biggest practical jokes in reality show history and perhaps Pony Tail and the folks at the Impound Lot were being punked without even realizing it?

Probably not but it’s fun to think about….

Previous Guilty Pleasures

The Lesson Of Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Dazzling Erin

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown may not be as acclaimed or well-known as It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown or A Charlie Brown Christmas but it’s one of my favorite of the Peanuts holiday specials. It has a very important lesson to teach us all.

It’s all about faith.

Hardly anyone in Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown has a good Valentine’s Day. None of them should have been surprised. All of the Charlie Brown holiday specials are about how days like Halloween, Christmas, and Thanksgiving rarely live up to our expectations. Why should Valentine’s Day be any different?

Charlie Brown shouldn’t have been surprised when he went home empty-handed. Sure, he thought he’d get a lot of valentines. He even brought a briefcase to school with him because he was expecting to get so many. After Schroeder handed out all of the valentines, Charlie Brown even went to big red box and turned it upside down. There was nothing for Charlie Brown. There’s never anything for Charlie Brown.

And Linus shouldn’t have been surprised when his teacher left school before he could give her that big heart-shaped box of candy. After spending all of those Halloweens in a sincere pumpkin patch and waiting for the Great Pumpkin, Linus should have been used to the disappointment.

And Lucy should know that she’ll never be able to compete with Scroeder’s love of msic, no matter how many times she destroys his piano or tells him that Beethoven was overrated.

In the world of Charlie Brown, only Snoopy gets what he wants but he’s a dog so he doesn’t want much. All he has to worry about is keeping Woodstock happy, finishing his new book, and shooting down the Red Baron.

But they never give up. None of them. No matter how wishy-washy or crabby they may be, all of them keep the faith. None of them surrender their hope. That’s the lesson of every Peanuts holiday special but it’s especially the lesson of Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. Someday, the teacher will accept Linus’s gift. Someday, Schroeder will learn to appreciate Lucy’s finer qualities. Someday, Sally will be able to make a Valentine just as impressive as Snoopy’s

And someday, maybe today, Charlie Brown will finally get that Valentine!

Never lose hope. Never give up. That’s a good lesson for Valentine’s Day. That’s a good lesson for any day.

6 Super Bowl Commercials that Lisa Won’t Forget

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I’m sitting here like I do every year and I’m trying to pick my favorite Super Bowl ads. (After all, the commercials are the only reason that I ever watch the Super Bowl.) And I have to say that I’m having some difficulty doing it this year because, for the most part, all of the commercials were hella forgettable. There were a few good ones and a few bad ones but the majority of them were just kind of there.

The bad ones, of course, were easy to spot. There was that creepy Robochild who I guess is supposed to convince you to get your taxes done or something. The first Google ad — the one about people using Google translate to discover how to say “I love you” — was a bit too desperate to convince us that Google is a force of good as opposed to evil. (As long as I can always use it to check the weather, I really don’t care what Google does in its spare time.) I might have liked the Steve Carell Pepsi ads if they had been for Coke instead. You have to understand that, down south where I live, we kind of find Pepsi to be offensive.

To be honest, the best ads were the movie trailers but I just spent about 5 hours posting all 16 of those to the site. Here are 6 other commercials that, regardless of whether I liked them or even found them to be effective, I won’t forget.

1. Every Super Bowl, I look forward to the new M&M’s commercial. This year’s was as cute as always and Christina Applegate did a good job selling the frustration.

2. I didn’t necessarily like this Audi commercial but it did spark an interesting theological debate between me and my sister about whether or not anyone would really need a car in Heaven. Eventually, we concluded that the guy was actually in Purgatory, or at least he was until his life was saved. It bothers me that, at the end of the commercial, that guy has a half-digested cashew somewhere on his desk.

3. I preferred the robots from this Michelob commercials to the Robo Child.

4. I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be going on in these commercials for Turkish Airlines. I’m assuming that this is meant to be appeal to international assassins.

5. I did like this Olay commercial, mostly because of the horror angle.

6. And finally, there’s this commercial, which starts out as a Bud Light commercial but then quickly becomes something else. I know I already shared this earlier tonight but seriously, this was so obviously the winner of the Super Bowl commercial sweepstakes that I simply have to show it again!

OOPS, BRADY DID IT AGAIN! NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS WIN SUPER BOWL LIII!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

It wasn’t pretty. Defense dominated the game, but a late scoring drive by Tom Brady led to a Sony Michel touchdown, and the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3. It was the Pats’ sixth Super Bowl victory, tying them with the Pittsburgh Steelers for most championships in the Super Bowl era. Say what you want about it, but this native New Englander remembers when they flat-out sucked, making all this winning soooo much sweeter!

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – FEBRUARY 03: Sony Michel #26 of the New England Patriots scores a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams in the fourth quarter during Super Bowl LIII at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on February 03, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Neither team could get anything going on offense, as the Rams’ #2 ranked defense and the Pats’ #4 ranked defense hit hard. Stephen Gostkowski nailed a 42 yard field…

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Here’s The Super Bowl Spot for Hanna!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hanna was my favorite film of 2011 so I’m really hoping that the Amazon Prime adaptation does it justice. Here’s the Super Bowl spot which, if nothing else, is far more exciting than the game that is currently being played in Atlanta.

Hanna will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers, right after the game ends.

Here’s The Super Bowl Spot for Our Planet!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This might be nice!

Our Planet is a new Netflix series where Sir David Attenbourgh explores never-before-seen habitats. I always get a little bit worried about nature documentaries because they always seem to lead up to a bunch of tigers eating a gazelle but, judging from this Super Bowl spot, it looks like the show features some really impressive footage.

Plus, I can’t resist anything that feature animals looking quizzically at a camera.

Here’s the Super Bowl spot for Our Planet!

Here’s The Super Bowl Teaser for Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Did you know there’s a new Twilight Zone coming out?

Yes, again.

There’s actually been quite a few Twilight Zone revivals but this latest one involves Jordan Peele, who is a certified superfan of the show. I mean, Get Out basically was a feature length Twilight Zone episode and Us was apparently inspired by the show.

Plus, the new Twilight Zone is going to be online which, in theory, means a bit less censorship. That’s always a good thing.

Here’s the Super Bowl spot for Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone!

Here’s That Extremely Clever Game Of Thrones Commercial, the one that was disguised as a Bud Light Commercial!

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, I nearly missed this commercial because I don’t like beer. In fact, if Leonard hadn’t said something on twitter, I totally would have missed it. That would have been a shame because this might be the best commercial of this year’s Super Bowl.

Basically, it starts out like a Bud Light commercial. But then suddenly …. well, just watch it: