Eagles win the Super Bowl!

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I could care less about the Eagles winning. I’m just glad the Chiefs lost. I still like the story of Vince Papale and the movie INVINCIBLE starring Mark Wahlberg! Enjoy this amazing scene! Congratulations!

Retro Television Reviews Will Return On Monday

Posted on February 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone! Due to it being the big Superbowl weekend and also TSL’s tradition of posting all of the movie-related trailers that are released leading up to and during the big game, Retro Television Reviews will be taking a break this weekend but will start back up on Monday with Miami Vice and CHiPs. Our regular reviews of Welcome Back Kotter, Check It Out, Homicide and Degrassi High will resume next weekend!

Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ (2006, dir by Robert Iscove)

Posted on February 7, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Norman Lear has television superstar Conrad Bain under contract and Fred Silverman wants to build a show around Bain and a talented black child actor named Gary Coleman. Entitled Diff’rent Strokes and featuring Todd Bridges and Dana Plato as Coleman’s brother and stepsister, the show is a hit. The three young actors briefly become superstars, much like the amazing Conrad Bain. And then, when the show is finally canceled after ten years, it all goes downhill as Todd Bridges and Dana Plato run into trouble with drugs and the law and Gary Coleman, once one of the highest paid stars on television, discovers that he’s now flat broke. All three of them learn how quickly the world can turn on you when you’re no longer considered to be a success.

Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ was another one NBC’s cheap movies about the behind-the-scenes drama of a popular sitcom. (They also did Three’s Company and Mork & Mindy). Like all of NBC’s Behind the Camera movies, it makes the mistake of thinking that everyone is as interested in the habits of network executives as the people who work for them are. (This time, it’s Saul Rubinek who gets to play Fred Silverman.) The actors who plays Bridges, Coleman, and Plato are convincing enough but the storytelling is shallow, featuring the same information that you would expect to find in an episode of the E! True Hollywood Story. I was disappointed that we didn’t get any scenes of Alan Thicke recording the theme song.

Todd Bridges and the late Gary Coleman both appear as themselves, talking about their experiences with the show and the difficulties of navigating life after Diff’rent Strokes was canceled. Bridges is down-to-Earth while Coleman rambles like someone who was still trying to figure out how his life had led up to this moment. The ending, in which Bridges and Coleman stand at Dana Plato’s grave and Coleman delivers a nearly incoherent monologue, is the one time that the film really captures any feeling of emotional honesty. It is obvious that both Bridges and Coleman are still haunted by what happened to Plato after the show ended. Knowing that Coleman himself would die just four years after the airing of this movie makes the scene more poignant when viewed today.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.11 “Graveyard”

Posted on February 7, 2025 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, a handful of doctors save two patients and lose one.

Episode 1.11 “Graveyard”

(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on January 18th, 1983)

It’s the graveyard shift at St. Eligius. The halls and the cafeteria are dark. The ER is oddly calm. There are only a few patients to be looked after and most of the doctors are playing poker and talking about the rather boring subject of Dr. Samuels’s love life.

Only a handful of the series regulars make an appearance in this episode but that’s fine. This episode actually provides a nice break from having to keep track of where everyone is. Unfortunately, as I already said, a lot of this episode is centered around the character of Dr. Samuels. Nothing against the late David Birney, who did a perfectly acceptable job in the role, but Dr. Ben Samuels is just not that interesting of a character. He’s a dedicated surgeon who feels too much, drinks too much, and wants to sleep with his colleagues. That’s fine but I grew up watching General Hospital. I’ve seen a hundred doctors just like Samuels on television.

To me, the far more interesting characters are the people like David Morse’s Jack Morrison or Ed Begley, Jr’s Victor Ehrlich or even Terence Knox’s Peter White. They’re doctors who screw up and aren’t always brilliant and sometimes say the wrong things. They feel like real people whereas Dr. Samuels just feels like a cliche, a holdover from some other medical show. Samuels is not a particularly compelling character and, when I did some research, I was not surprised to discover that David Birney only appeared on one season of the show.

G.W. Bailey’s Hugh Beale also only appeared in the first season and that’s a shame because Bailey’s performance as Beale has been one of the first season’s real pleasures. Bailey plays Beale as a compassionate man who often pretends to be more naive than he is. As a Southerner, he’s an outsider on this Boston-set show and, being an outsider, he can often relate to the patients in the psych ward. Of course, that still doesn’t stop Dr. Beale’s main patient, Ralph the Birdman, from throwing himself off the roof of the hospital in this episode. To be honest, I already suspected things weren’t going to go well for Ralph on this show but his suicidal jump still upset me. As annoying as the character was, he was also finally making some progress. He finally admitted he wasn’t a bird. And then he proved it by showing that he couldn’t fly.

While Ralph plunged to his death, Dr. Samuels saved a gunshot victim (played by Tom Hulce). And Jack allowed the father (James Hong) of one of his comatose patients to perform a Chinese ritual that led to the patient waking up and eventually walking into the cafeteria, where the doctors were playing poker. “Who ordered the Chinese?” Fiscus asked and …. ugh. Not cool, Fiscus.

It was a night of triumph and tragedy. Ralph died but Dr. Samuels and Dr. Paxton agreed to give their relationship another try which …. eh. I don’t care about Samuels and Paxton. For the most part, though, I liked this episode. The smaller cast made it easier to keep track of things and the poker game banter reminded me that the doctors are all people too. Still, I have to feel bad for Ralph. All he wanted to do was fly.

A Pre-empted Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.17 “Return of the Supercycle”

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

Sorry, last night’s review of CHiPs was pre-empted by my own need to get some rest after spending the previous few days dealing with the worst sinus pain ever. (Well, maybe not ever but it was still pretty bad….) Here’s last night’s episode of CHiPs, just a few hours late! Regularly scheduled programming will resume soon.

Episode 3.17 “Return of the Supercycle”

(Dir by Bruce Kessler, originally aired on October 27th, 1979)

The Supercycle is back! A thief on a supercharged motorcycle is robbing jewelry storefronts. Baker takes the old Highway Patrol Supercycle out of storage so that he can go after the new Supercycle. Baker suspects that the Roy Yarnell (George O’Hanlon, Jr) might be up to his old Supercycle tricks again but it turns out that Roy is innocent. Instead, it’s his mechanic.

In other words: SUPERCYCLE SUPERCYCLE SUPERCYCLE!

Ponch spends the majority of this episode in a hospital bed. Early on in the episode, Ponch crashes his motorcycle while chasing the new Supercycle and seriously injures himself. Apparently, the crash was real and Estrada actually did injure himself. Watching the episode, it’s easy to see that the show dealt with Estrada’s injuries by just giving all of Ponch’s lines to Baker. For once, Baker is the one who bends the rules and gets to do all the cool stuff. He even gets to romance a visiting member of the Highway Patrol, Kathy Mulligan (Anne Lockhart). In any other episode, Ponch would have been the one doing all of that so it’s interesting to get to see Baker actually get to have a life for once. And yes, before anyone asks, Estrada finds an excuse to remove his shirt even when he’s relaxing in a hospital bed. No hospital gowns for Estrada!

The sad thing is that Larry Wilcox was definitely a better actor than Erik Estrada and he also looked a lot more believable on a motorcycle. But, this episode shows that Estrada just had more screen presence. As easy as it is to make fun of Ponch, Estrada’s over-the-top displays of vanity were often just what CHiPs needed. Estrada may not have been a great actor but he amusing to watch. Wilcox has a much more laid back presence. He’s a believable cop but he’s just not as much fun to watch as Estrada.

Probably the most amusing thing about this episode is that, when Estrada (or his stuntman pretending to be Estrada) is lying on the pavement, Wilcox cannot bring himself to really act convincingly concerned or worried. CHiPs is a bit infamous for the fact that Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada did not have a great working relationship. That’s all I could think about as I watched Baker casually step over Ponch’s prone form on the street.

Anyway, this episode has some spectacular motorcycle jumps and some good chase footage. There was an occasionally amusing subplot where the men of the Highway Patrol worried that Kathy was reporting their behavior to Sacramento. (Grossman, played by the invaluable Paul Linke, made me laugh with his sudden emphasis on doing everything by the book.) The Supercycle was cool. Everyone should have one.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Michael Cimino Edition

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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, it is time to celebrate the birth of one of the most intriguing (if uneven) filmmakers of the 20th Century, Michael Cimino! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Michael Cimino Films

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974, dir by Michael Cimino, DP: Frank Stanley)

The Deer Hunter (1978, dir by Michael Cimino, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

Heaven’s Gate (1980, dir by Michael Cimino, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

The Year of the Dragon (1985, dir by Michael Cimino, DP: Alex Thomson)

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 1/27/25 — 2/2/25

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Janes Holzer in Soap Opera

I’m going to keep this week’s update kind of short because I’ve been dealing with allergies and sinus pain and I need to get some rest. Consider this to be a mini-week in review.

First, and most importantly, my thoughts go out to everyone who has been effected by the two aviation disasters that occurred this week. It’s just tragic and my heart breaks for the families and friends who have lost those close to them.

The Sundance Film Festival came and went this year. I usually follow these things pretty closely but there was really next to no interesting news out of Sundance this year. I even signed up for a membership so I could attend a few online screenings but, because I’ve been feeling sick, I didn’t go to any of them. To be honest, none of the films available really appealed to me.

After getting 13 nominations (more than The Godfather), Emilia Perez‘s Oscar momentum has apparently been destroyed by the fact that someone finally got around to running a Google translate on all of Karla Sofia Gascon’s old tweets. Because last year was a difficult one for me and my family and I didn’t have as much time as usual to watch things, I haven’t gotten around to watching Emilia Perez so I don’t know if it’s as good as some say or as terrible as others say. (I do know that, as someone who has family on the border and who is a fourth-Spanish, I do have to wonder why Jacques Audiard decided to set his story in Mexico as opposed to Marseille.) But I will say that I always think a film should be judged on its own merits. Of course, that never happens but I remain an idealist at heart.

Here are the films that I watched this week:

News From Last Week:

Links From Last Week:

Click here for last week!

Rosemary Kelly in Soap Opera

Song of the Day: Satch Boogie (by Joe Satriani)

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Arleigh

There’s a saying amongst creatives that those “who can, do; those who can’t, teach”.

That label definitely doesn’t pertain to Joe Satriani. Not only is he one of rock’s greatest guitarists but he has also taught in one way or another some of the greatest rock and metal guitarists such as Alex Skolnick, Kirk Hammett, Stevie Vai and Larry LaLonde just to name a few.

Not just a genius on the guitar in a technical sense but also creatively as well. He has mastered many of the electric guitar techniques that’s become commonplace with guitarists in the rock and metal scene. Influenced by other greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Brian May, his many work shows some background in his fusion of jazz and rock that clearly makes him one of rocks virtuoso who stand amongst the Mount Rushmore of greats.

Just listen to “Satch Boogie” with special emphasis a the 1:50 mark.

Great Guitar Solos Series

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 12/22/24 — 12/28/24

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are a few thoughts about what I watched during the final week of 2024.

Check It Out (Tubi)

Look for my review of this show next Saturday.

Degrassi High and Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)

I’ve had a cold since the day after Christmas so I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed and rewatching the Degrassi franchise.

Dragnet (YouTube)

Joe Friday and Bill Gannon kept the streets safe in the episodes that I watched on Friday as I tried to get over my cold. Good for them!

Friday the 13th: The Series (YouTube)

In order to get a head start on 2o25, I watched an episode of Friday the 13th this week. Look for my review next Friday!

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (Apple TV+)

I watched this classic special with Erin on Thursday. Someone needs to check on Charlie Brown. He’s sleeping in the snow! He’ll never finish War and Peace if he gets pneuomonia!

Highway to Heaven (Tubi)

I returned to Highway to Heaven this week. Look for my review next week!

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock)

Look for my review next week!

King of the Hill (Hulu)

Hank rented a truck for the holidays! “You mean …. a convoy!?” Absolutely one of my favorite episodes of this classic show and I was happy to watch it on Monday.

I went on to binge a few more episodes on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I’ve had a cold and this show has definitely kept me entertained as I’ve tried to will myself into good health.

The Love Boat (Paramount+)

I watched an episode of The Love Boat this week. Look for my review next week!

Malibu, CA (YouTube)

I forced myself to watch two episodes of this show on Sunday. Look for my reviews in 2025!

Monsters (YouTube)

I returned to Monsters this week. Look for my review next week!

Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (Sunday Night, ABC)

I watched this holiday classic with my sisters on Sunday night. It made me smile, as it always does. I love the holidays!

Seinfeld (Netflix)

I watched the Festivus episode on Monday (which, appropriately enough, was Festivus!). I always enjoy it when Bryan Cranston shows up as the decadent dentist.

St. Elsewhere (Hulu)

Look for my reviews to return next week!

TV 2000 (Night Flight+)

I watched an episode of this 80s music video program on Friday night. They were really wild about Bruce Springsteen. I’ve never really gotten his appeal but then again, I’m not from New Jersey.

Welcome Back, Kotter (Prime)

I’m continuing my way through the fourth and final season. My reviews will return in 2025.