Film Review: Transformers: The Movie (dir. by Nelson Shin)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

1986 was such a fantastic year.

With movies like Top Gun, Labyrinth and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off already out, the summer would give us Big Trouble in Little China, Aliens, & The Fly (Which at one point you could catch as a double feature with Aliens). The two best announcements at home were that a new baby was on the way and Transformers: The Movie was coming out. By August, we knew the baby would be a boy and a name was already set aside for him. We were naming him after a fallen Officer who was a friend of my father’s on the Force.

Impending older brotherhood was nice, but for 11 year old me, it all took a backseat to the Death of Optimus Prime. Up until then, the most shocking fictional event we had in school was either Return of the Jedi closing the book on Star Wars some years prior, K.I.T.T. getting destroyed (and rebuilt with Super Turbo Boost) in Knight Rider, or Rico losing Angelina in a car bomb during the Season Finale of Miami Vice just a few months back.

I didn’t get a chance to see Transformers: The Movie during the film’s initial run, simply because there wasn’t anyone at home who wanted to sit through it with me. My older brother, through other means, managed to score a VHS copy of the film within the first week or so of its theatrical release. I watched and re-watched that video so many times, and would even pause it to try to draw some of the characters. Eventually, I was able to catch a re-release for the film’s 30th Anniversary.

After two full seasons of the show, Transformers: The Movie was basically Hasbro’s way of cleaning house from the 1984 Generation 1 toy line to introduce a new set. The show sold figures, and the hopes were that the film would do the same. Granted, there were already a large number of Transformers to work with by the time the movie came out. With nearly 50 Autobots and about 35 Decepticons to choose from, the film focused on a few, such as the Insecticons, Dinobots and some of the G1 favorites like Soundwave, Starscream, Jazz & Bumblebee. The Constructicons (and Devestator)were the only group set to be featured in the movie. The Stunticons & Aerialbots would sit this one out. Hasbro really didn’t care too much about the impact of any of these changes on the movie’s plot. While most of the trailers asked “Does Optimus Die?”, their toy commercial line already introduced Rodimus Prime.

Produced by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (Near Dark, Blue Velvet), Transformers: The Movie takes us to the future of 2005. The Autobots and Decepticons are still fighting it out, with a few changes in the war. The Decepticons own the Transformers home planet of Cybertron, but the Autobots have control of two of Cybertron’s Moons and a city on Earth. Lead by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, Eeyore on The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), the plan is get back to Earth and then handle the Decepticons from there. Of course, the Decepticons and their leader, Megatron (Frank Welker, The Golden Child) find out about this and intercept an Autobot shuttle, outright killing classic show staples Prowl, Brawn, Rachet and Ironhide. I can’t imagine what it was like to be a kid, bring your favorite toy to the movies, only to see the character it’s based on killed on screen. To make things worse, a planet eating transformer named Unicron threatens both parties, including Cybertron. Can Unicron be stopped?


It wasn’t a total loss. We were introduced to new Autobots in the rookie Hot Rod (Judd Nelson, The Breakfast Club), the war hero Kup (Lionel Stander, TV’s Hart to Hart), the fast talking Blurr (John Moschitta, Jr., Dick Tracy), would be leader Ultra Magnus (Robert Stack, Airplane), an Autobot First Lady in Arcee (Susan Blu), and Triple Changer Springer (Neil Ross). The two most famous vocal additions were Leonard Nimoy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) the new Deception leader Galvatron and Orson Welles (The Third Man) as Unicron. As a kid, it was pretty awesome to know that both Spock and the “No Wine Before It’s Time” guy were joining in all of this. It made Transformers seem a bit larger. My parents would point out that Orson Welles was “the” Orson Welles, but as Citizen Kane wasn’t on my radar (despite my Dad owning and watching it), I associated him with Wine commercials. To both their credit, Nimoy and Welles did just fine with their vocal talents.

While the animation for Transformers was never fantastic, the movie was a bit of an improvement. It never quite reached the levels of anime films like Fist of the North Star & Golgo 13: The Professional. The Soundtrack was ultimately where the film shined, with a mix of rock music from bands like Lion and Stan Bush and a score by Vince DiCola. Coming off of Staying Alive and Rocky IV, DiCola’s work on Transformers: The Movie was great, and remains a go to album for me when music is needed for a situation.

The Death of Optimus Prime was a bit of a shock to the audiences that saw (and cared about) it. Hasbro would eventually bring Prime back temporarily as a Zombie in an episode of the show’s 3rd Season, and then again to lead in the season’s 2 part finale, “The Return of Optimus Prime”.

After seeing the film, I asked me parents for some of the movie based Transformers. Christmas was put on hold by my Mom as she went into labor around Christmas Eve. I was able to open just one gift before Christmas. This happened to be a Hot Rod figure that I found in a toy store back in November, which was quickly snatched and wrapped for the Christmas Pile before I could get to open it. She had my little brother on Christmas Morning, and we eventually celebrated the holiday half a week later. Bless her heart, she gave me almost the entire Movie line – Galvatron, Rodimus Prime, Springer, Cyclonus, and the Predacons (who weren’t in the movie). Playing with them took a backseat to diaper detail, but hey, that Christmas was one of the best.

Overall, Transformers: The Movie is one of those films I happily return to from time to time. It’s not incredible in any major way, but it takes me back to one element of a magical year.

Scene That I Love: Bob Barker Beats Up Happy Gilmore

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Gilmore 2, the sequel to my favorite golf movie, is currently available on Netflix.  I’ll be watching it later today.  I have no idea if it’s any good or not.  I’m hoping for the best, though.

Anyway, this seems like a good time to share the best scene from the original Happy Gilmore.  In this scene, Happy and Bob Barker team up for a celebrity tournament.  It does not go well.  Reportedly, Barker initially turned down this cameo and only changed his mind after he was assured that he would win the fight.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special 1974 Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 pay tribute to a great year in cinema.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 1974 Films

The Godfather Part II (1974, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Gordon Willis)

Chinatown (1974, dir by Roman Polanski, DP: John A. Alonzo)

The Conversation (1974, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Bill Butler and Haskell Wexler)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, dir by Tobe Hooper, DP: Daniel Pearl)

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.6 “Playing for Keeps”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Highway to Heaven makes a mockery of legitimate theater.

Episode 4.6 “Playing for Keeps”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 4th, 1987)

Jonathan and Mark are directing a play!

The play stars movie star Rhett Clark (Eric Douglas, the least talented son of Kirk Douglas).  Rhett plays a young man who is struggling to come to terms with the impending death of his father.  In the play, Rhett’s father is played by his actual father, Jackie Clark (Donald O’Connor), a old-time comedian who can’t get work anymore.

It’s not an easy rehearsal process.  Rhett resents his father.  Jackie wants to tell jokes.  He wants to put on  a dress and a wig because, according to him, all of his fans will want to see him play “Aunt Jackie.”  Rhett explains that the play is not a comedy.  There’s no room for Aunt Jackie.  Really, explaining all of that should have been Jonathan’s job.  He’s the director!

The problem with this episode is that we’re supposed to be angry at Rhett for not supporting his father’s attempts to turn the play into a vaudeville comedy but actually, Jackie’s a jerk.  Rhett’s a jerk too but he’s a jerk who understands that, when you’re doing a dramatic play, the actor playing a dying man can’t suddenly get out of his hospital bed, duck into a closet, and then come out as Aunt Jackie.  An actor ad-libbing dialogue and then turning the play into a comedy because he’s petulant and insecure is not the type of behavior that would be tolerated in all-volunteer community theater, much less on a professional stage.  The fact that Jackie is getting paid to appear in the show makes his unprofessional conduct all the more annoying.

This episode puts on the blame on Rhett.  We’re meant to see Rhett as the ungrateful son who refuses to see things from his father’s point of view.  Because Rhett is being played by Eric Douglas, an actor who did not exactly have the most likable screen presence, it’s easy to blame him.  I mean, everyone loves Donald O’Connor,  But honestly, Jackie is the jerk here.

How big of a jerk is Jackie?  On opening night, he gets mad at his son and does his Aunt Jackie schtick.  Somehow, this leads to Rhett and Jackie reconciling and hugging it out while the audience applauds.  Honestly, though, it should have led to Jackie being fired.  If you’re not going to be professional, you have to go.  This episode would have been far more touching if Jackie had been willing to put his ego aside and actually allow his son to have the spotlight for once.

This episode will definitely not be remembered as one of my favorites of the series.  In the past, I’ve defended this show’s tendency to go for sentimentality over realism but this episode just pushed things a little too far.

Thunder In Paradise (1993, directed by Douglas Schwartz)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

R.J. “Hurricane” Spencer (Hulk Hogan) is a former Navy SEAL who now lives in Florida and makes his living with his superboat, Thunder.  Spencer’s best friend, Bru (Chris Lemmon), is also his business partner.  There’s nothing that Spencer and Bru can’t do.  This movie starts with Spencer taking the boat down to Cuba so he can rescue the family of a dissident and bring them back to Florida.  It ends with his using his boat to save the lives of his wife (Felicity Waterman) and his stepdaughter (Robin Weisman) from some treasure hunters who have made the mistake of kidnapping them.  Spencer’s marriage is one of convenience.  His wife needed a husband to get her fortune and he needed a rich wife to keep his business going.  His father-in-law (Patrick MacNee) doesn’t trust him but Spencer’s a top-notch American hero.

Though it was initially released direct-to-video, Thunder in Paradise was actually a pilot for a syndicated television show that started a few months later.  Both the film and the show were from the producers of Baywatch and it shows with the emphasis on the beach, the bikinis, the corny humor, and the cartoonish villains (led, in this case, by Flash Gordon himself, Sam Jones).  Of course, it’s a Hulk Hogan movie so none of that is really a negative.  Hogan might be playing Hurricane Spencer but he’s really playing himself and there’s enough self-aware humor to make Thunder In Paradise entertaining in a way that No Holds Barred definitely was not.  (I liked that, during a fight on another boat, there just happened to be a wooden chair sitting on the deck that Hogan could break across his opponent’s back.)  Chris Lemmon and Hulk Hogan are a surprisingly good team (Lemmon’s brain provide a needed  contrast to Hogan’s bawn) and Carol Alt is on-hand as the owner of a beach bar.  Naturally, a handful of Hogan’s fellow wrestlers shows up as well, Brutus Beefcake, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhardt, Giant Gonzalez, Jimmy Hart, and others.  As a fan of The Avengers, I was happy to see Patrick MacNee, even if his character was just a typical distrustful father-in-law.

Corny, silly, dumb, and more fun than it probably should be, Thunder In Paradise is an entertaining product of its time.

Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 2.23 “The Houseguest”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.

This week, it’s competition to see who can be the worst character.

Episode 2.23 “The Houseguest”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 29th, 2000)

A recurring theme for these reviews is that Lisa (the character, not me) is the worst.  Amazingly, in this episode, she’s only the third worse.

The second worse is Jason.  When Murray announces that he’s going to be spending the week at a convention for surfers, he leaves the key to his apartment with Lisa at the Surf Shack so that Lisa can give the key to the house sitter.  Jason and Scott, wondering why they’ve never been invited to Murray’s apartment, steal both the key and the note that Murray left.  Along with Lisa, they go to his apartment and break in.  It turns out that Murray, who is the son of a multi-millionaire, has a really nice apartment that has a hot tub in the living room!  In other words, he’s a rich guy with a rich apartment.

Now, there’s a few things to consider, when it comes to deciding who is the worst of these three.  First off, all three of them are breaking into Murray’s apartment despite the fact that he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want them there.  Secondly, thanks to Jason and Scott, Murray’s house sitter is now out of a job because they didn’t get the key or the note telling them where the apartment was located.  Third, Jason decides to move into the apartment and pretend that he owns it because he has a crush on the lingerie model living next door.

When Murray comes back unexpectedly, Jason tells Murray that Peter’s aunt just died and Peter would appreciate it if Murray spent a week living at the Collins house.  Jason then tells Peter and Scott that Murray’s aunt died and that he needs a place to stay for a week.  This is the dumbest freaking thing I have ever seen.  Why would Jason come up with two lies that would definitely fall apart as soon as Murray or Peter or Scott, for that matter, had any sort of casual conversation?

Regardless of his logic (or lack of it), it’s all enough to position Jason as being worse than both Scott and even Lisa.

And yet,  of all the character in this particular episode, Jason is only the second worse.  Alex (Suzanne Davis) is even more terrible than Jason in this episode.  When soap opera star Traycee says that she needs to hire an assistant, Alex volunteers for the job.  At first, Traycee tells Alex to fill in for Lisa at the Surf Shack so Traycee can take Lisa to the new Matt Damon movie.  (I hope they enjoyed The Talented Mr. Ripley.)  Then Tracyee orders Alex to “detail” Peter’s car.  That all made me laugh but then Alex insisted on helping Traycee out on the show.  Traycee lets Alex read the latest script for her show.  Alex gets offended by the script, telling Traycee that, since she’s playing a doctor, she needs to stand up for herself and tell the producer that she’s not going to wear a bikini in all of her scenes.  Even though Traycee doesn’t want to, she tells the producer exactly what Alex told her to say.  And Traycee gets fired.

Why is Alex the worse?  Alex is correct that the soap opera is exploitive and sexist and not a realistic portrayal of life in hospital.  However, Alex is not the one on the show.  Traycee is one on the show and she’s happy with her job and she’s certainly making more money as an actress on a soap opera than Alex is making as lifeguard or Lisa is making as a waitress.  It’s not Alex’s place to tell Traycee to refuse to do a scene, especially when Traycee herself doesn’t have any objection to anything in the script.  Traycee does get her job back, on the condition that she fire Alex.  “Okay,” Traycee said, “you’re fired.”  YAY, TRAYCEE!

(To be honest, there’s something a little hypocritical about Malibu CA criticizing a show for featuring women in bikinis when every episode of Malibu CA might as well have been shot with ogle cam.)

This was a bad episode but, to give credit where credit is due, Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor once again showed that they were the only two consistently good things about Malibu CA.  Even though they were playing caricatures, both Brooks and Taylor brought a lot of energy and sincerity to their performances.  It made Murray and Traycee the only likable characters on both this particular episode and the series overall.

Only three more episodes to go!  My nightmare will soon be over.