I Watched 2026 Opening Night On Netflix

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Last night, I watched Major League baseball’s Opening Night on Netflix.

As a baseball fan, streaming the first game of the major league season on only one service didn’t really sit well with me but, with the way things are going, everything is eventually going to be exclusively on streaming and Disney, Prime, and Netflix will probably all merge to become one gigantic, extremely expensive streaming service.  I did feel bad for the baseball fans who might not have or even want Netflix and who didn’t want to have to get it for just one night.  The Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams Game are going to be Netflix exclusives as well.

The game was blow-out.  The Yankees won 7-0 and, after the second inning, it was pretty clear who was going to win the game.  The Giants didn’t have it last night but you should never try to predict an entire baseball season based on just one game.  Take it from someone who has spent many seasons getting way too excited just because the Rangers won their first few games.  Baseball isn’t like football.  In football, you only have to survive a handful of games.  Baseball requires endurance, commitment, and patience.

I liked Netflix’s production of the game, even the parts that were a little corny.  The Giants jumping over a trolley to run out onto the field?  The Yankees surrounded by taxis as they were introduced to the crowd?  It’s baseball.  It’s the American pastime.  It’s okay if it’s silly sometimes.

So far, seven runs have been scored in the regular 2026 baseball season and they were all scored by Yankees.  That’s going to change later today, though.

Go Rangers!

Join Me For The Delta Force!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Tonight, on both twitter and Mastodon, I will be hosting a watch party in memory of the late Chick Norris!  Join us for 1986’s The Delta Force!

You can find the movie on Tubi and then you can join us on twitter and mastodon at 9 pm central time!  (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.)  We will be using #TheDeltaForce hashtag!  See you then!

The Delta Force (1986, dir by Menahem Golan, DP: David Gurifinkel)

Song of the Day: Talkin’ Baseball by Terry Cashman

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

It’s opening day and I feel like celebrating with today’s song of the day!  Talkin’ Baseball was recorded in 1981 and it’s gone on to become one of the great baseball songs.

The Whiz Kids had won it,
Bobby Thomson had done it,
And Yogi read the comics all the while.
Rock ‘n roll was being born,
Marijuana, we would scorn,
So down on the corner,
The national past-time went on trial.

We’re talkin’ baseball!
Kluszewski, Campanella.
Talkin’ baseball!
The Man and Bobby Feller.
The Scooter, the Barber, and the Newc,
They knew ’em all from Boston to Dubuque.
Especially Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Well, Casey was winning,
Hank Aaron was beginning,
One Robbie going out, one coming in.
Kiner and Midget Gaedel,
The Thumper and Mel Parnell,
And Ike was the only one winning down in Washington.

We’re talkin’ baseball!
Kluszewski, Campanella.
Talkin’ baseball!
The Man and Bobby Feller.
The Scooter, the Barber, and the Newc,
They knew ’em all from Boston to Dubuque.
Especially Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Now my old friend, The Bachelor,
Well, he swore he was the Oklahoma Kid.
And Cookie played hooky,
To go and see the Duke.
And me, I always loved Willie Mays,
Those were the days!

Well, now it’s the 80s,
And Brett is the greatest,
And Bobby Bonds can play for everyone.
Rose is at the Vet,
And Rusty again is a Met,
And the great Alexander is pitchin’ again in Washington.

I’m talkin’ baseball!
Like Reggie, Quisenberry.
Talkin’ baseball!
Carew and Gaylord Perry,
Seaver, Garvey, Schmidt and Vida Blue,
If Cooperstown is calling, it’s no fluke.
They’ll be with Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. (Say hey, say hey, say hey)
It was Willie, Mickey and the Duke (Say hey, say hey, say hey)
I’m talkin’ Willie, Mickey and the Duke (Say hey, say hey, say hey)
Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. (Say hey, say hey, say hey)
Say Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. (Say hey, say hey, say hey)

4 Shots From 4 Films: Play Ball!

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

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 Opening Day!  Here are 4 shots from 4 films about my favorite sport!

4 Shots From 4 Baseball Films

The Natural (1984, Dir. by Barry Levinson)

Eight Men Out (1988, Dir. by John Sayles)

A League Of The Own (1992, Dir. by Penny Marshall)

42 (2013, Dir. by Brian Hegeland)

Music Video of the Day: Stayin’ Alive by Bee Gees (1989, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’re ever giving someone CPR, they say that you should do it to the tune of Staying Alive so, if you memorize this song, you’ll be able to save a life.  That’s the type of helpful information that we happily provide to our readers free of charge here at the Shattered Lens.

According to the YouTube description, this from the “One for All Tour” Live concert at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne 1989, Australia.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.7 “Mutiny on the Bull Team”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Things aren’t looking too good for the Bulls!

Episode 3.7 “A Mutiny on the Bull Team”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on October 7th, 1987)

After a terrible start to the season (back-to-back losses!), TD tells Coach Grier that he needs to do something to get the team back into championship shape.  Coach Grier launches an intensive training regimen and he posts a list of rules in the locker room — no beer in the locker room, players must shave for game day, and a bunch of other things.  The players rebel and, during the next game, they stop running the plays that Grier wants.  TD confronts Grier and demands to know what’s going on.  Grier says that he just did what TD told him to do.  TD says that he didn’t tell Grier to become a dictator even though that is kind of what TD told him to do.

Really, “reign of terror?”  Coach Grier is like in his 60s and he’s fat and out of shape.  The football players are …. well, football players.  What exactly is TD Parker saying?  It’s hard to say.  OJ Simpson delivers all of his lines in the same amiable and bland manner that he used when he said he would devote his life to searching for the real killers.  It’s hard to know what TD is thinking.

Anyway, Grier realizes the errors of his ways and the Bulls win the game!  So, TD doesn’t have to cut anyone from the team.  He can put away his knife for now.  Everyone in the locker room should be breathing a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Yinessa and new owner Jill Schrader struggle with their feelings for each other.  In the end, Yinessa kisses Jill in the stadium parking lot so I guess they decided to forget about the whole “We have to maintain a professional separation” thing.

One final note: Last week’s episode featured Delta Burke swearing that she was going to reclaim ownership of the Bulls.  But, with this episode, Burke is no longer listed in the opening credits so I guess that storyline is over with.  Jill is now the owner.  Good!  Maybe the Bulls will finally win a championship.

Film Review: Survive The Game (dir by James Cullen Bressack)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Looking at the title of 2021’s Survive the Game, you may be tempted to wonder what game the characters are attempting to survive.

The answer is that there isn’t a game, unless you’re one of those people who still insists on using “The Game,” to refer to the drug trade because you once heard someone do the same thing on The Wire.

Though there are no games, the film is full of people who are trying to survive.  For instance, after a drug bust gone wrong, Detective David Watson (Bruce Willis) is trying to survive having been shot in the gut.  He manages to do so surprisingly well, even though he’s being held hostage by the bad guys.  The leader of the bad guys, Frank (Michael Sirow), is supposed to be a fearsome torture expert but David just smirks at him.

David’s partner, Cal (Swen Temmel), survives by running to a nearby farm.  The farm itself is owned by Eric (Chad Michael Murray), a veteran who is haunted by the death of his wife and who just wants to be left alone.  With the bad guys surrounding his farm and looking to eliminate all of the witnesses, Eric teams up with Cal.

There’s a lot of bad guys in this film and they’re all so eccentric that they really do become the main attraction.  The bad guys are occasionally entertaining.  They spend a lot of time bickering and each one has at least one particularly obnoxious personality trait that can be used to distinguish one from the other.  Most of them have a tattoos.  One has a mohawk.  Quite a few have brightly colored hair.  You can’t help but wonder how any of these people could possibly be successful criminals because they’ve all gone out of their way to make sure that it will be easy for law enforcement to spot and identify them.  To once again cite The Wire, Wee-Bey Brice yelled at at his son Namond for not shaving his head because the police would be able to easily spot Namond’s haircut.  Wee-Bey had a point.

Anyway, this is a siege film.  Cal and Eric spend almost the entire movie running around the farm and picking off bad guys.  For those of you who are into this sort of thing, some of the kills are imaginative and ruthless.  Interestingly, some of the bad guys are presented as being more sympathetic than the film’s heroes.  They have their own relationships and fears and they get upset when their friends are killed.  I actually felt a little bit bad for some of them. It makes Survive the Game slightly more interesting than the usual DTV B-action movie.

As you may have guessed, this is another Randall Emmett production.  Emmett is best-known for his ability to get former and current A-listers to take small roles in his B-movies.  As such, an actor like Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone would put in a day’s worth of work and the film could be advertised as starring Bruce Willis as opposed to Chad Michael Murray.  In Survive The Game, there’s a somewhat endearing moment that occurs when Willis appears to start laughing at the ludicrous dialogue to which he is being subjected.  That said, Willis was obviously not doing well when he appeared in this film and it does make some of his scenes somewhat difficult to watch.  The viewer really does end up missing the Bruce who could drive Alan Rickman to distraction.

Survive the Game is a film that I had long meant to watch, though I’m not sure why.  I think the title appealed to me.  Again, I’m not sure why.  It’s better than some of Emmett’s DTV action movies but it’s still pretty forgettable.  I would still watch a prequel about how the mohawk guy became a ruthless mercenary.  It seems like there’s probably a story there.

Film Review: Out of Death (dir by Mike Burns)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The first question that one might want to ask about 2021’s Out of Death is what is going on with that title.

Out of Death?  Did they run out?  Is there an issue with the warehouse?  Is it a nationwide outage or just a regional problem?  How exactly does someone find themselves out of death?  I mean, there are plenty of shortages in the world.  There are people who can’t get clean drinking water or tasty food.  I had to wait an extra day to get my new scanner because of a supply chain issue.  These things happen.  But people never seem to run out of death.  Death is the one thing that we will always in large quantities.

As for the film itself, it is rather death-obsessed.  Shannon (Jaime King) is a photojournalist who has recently lost her father.  All she wants to do is spread his ashes in the woods.  However, when she witnesses a murder in the woods, she finds herself being pursued by a compromised deputy (Lala Kent).  Meanwhile, Jack Harris (Bruce Willis) is a retired detective who has recently lost his wife.  He wants to spend some time alone in his niece’s cabin but instead, he finds himself mixed up in Shannon’s problems.  The corrupt sheriff (Michael Sirow) wants to be mayor and he’s not going to let Shannon and Jack stand in his way, even if it means killing every possible witness.

Even though Bruce Willis gets top-billing along with Jaime King, he’s not in much of Out of Death.  Out of Death was one of the many film productions to be delayed by the COVID lockdowns.  When production finally did begin, Bruce Willis shot all of his scenes in one day.  (The entire film took 9 days to shoot.  Roger Corman, if he was still with us, would want to know why the production took 9 days when it could just as easily been done in two.)  Sadly, this is one of the films that Bruce Willis made after it became apparent that he was having serious issues with his health.  Willis delivers his lines in a halting manner, which technically works for his emotionally shattered character but which is still hard to watch now that we know that Willis was suffering from frontotemporal dementia at the time.  Producer Randall Emmett made his career by convincing big stars to appear in B-movies and he shouldn’t be faulted for that.  However, the later films he made with Willis not always easy to watch.  Say what you will about the films that Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro have made with Emmett, they all knew what they were getting into.  It’s hard to say whether the same was true with Bruce Willis.

As for Out of Death, it’s a fairly dull cat-and-mouse game but I will give it some credit for capturing the atmosphere that goes along with being isolated in the Southern wilderness.  This is a film where you could feel the humidity rising from the screen.  And Jaime King, who deserves better, gave a strong performance as Shannon.  Otherwise, the most interesting thing about Out of Death is the mystery as to what exactly the title means.

Out of Death?  It’s a nice thought.