This Friday, June 20th, at 9 pm CT, join my wife Sierra and I as we guest host for Lisa, and she continues to enjoy her vacation! We’ll be watching TWIN DRAGONS (1992), starring not just 1, but 2 Jackie Chans! It’s available on Prime!
I’ve included the trailer below!
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 is all about everyone’s favorite shark.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jaws Edition
Jaws (1975, Dir. by Steven Spielberg)
Jaws 2 (1978, Dir. by Jeannot Szwarc)
Jaws 3D (1983, Dir. by Joe Alves)
Jaws: The Revenge (1987, Dir. by Joseph Sargent)
Don’t go in the water!
Jaws is 50 years old today. Here’s how it all began.
Jaws was first released 50 years ago today. Whenever anyone mentions Jaws, I hear today’s song of the day in my head.
by Rudy Nappi
This revealing cover is from 1959. Rudy Nappi was one of the few pulp artists who always signed his work.
Today’s music video day is not just a Backstreet Boys video. It’s also the very first video that the Backstreet Boys ever made and it’s for their very first single! Just look at how young everyone used to be.
The main theme of this video seems to be that the Backstreet Boys are terrible boyfriends but it doesn’t matter because they have got it going on! Their real girlfriends play their video girlfriends in this video and Lou Pearlman, the creepy man behind all the good times, is in the video too. My favorite Backstreet Boy was Brian.
Enjoy!
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, we start the fourth season of Highway to Heaven. This episode features orphans and dogs! I feel the tears coming….
Episode 4.1 “Man’s Best Friend Part One”
(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 16th, 1987)
Oh, this episode made me cry and cry.
Why? Well, for a couple of reasons….
First off, Jonathan and Mark got new jobs working at a kennel. Many of the dogs at the kennel had been abandoned by their owners and Ms. Lil (Fran Ryan) took care of them all, rather than taking them to the pound. And listen, I’m not a dog person. I’m a cat person. We all know this. But seriously, those dogs were adorable!
A Siberian husky named Jake gets lost. After running across the interstate (gasp!), he finds himself alone at night. Coyotes approach. (OH NO!) Suddenly, Jonathan appears and turns into a lion, scaring the coyotes off. (*sniff* *sniff* I’m okay.)
Every few days, Lil takes the dogs down to the local orphanage — (OH MY GOD!) — and lets them play with the orphans. Jake, now a part of the kennel crew, begs young Alex (Danny Pintauro, who had a much worse experience with a dog in Cujo) to play with him. Alex is shy and introverted but Jake quickly becomes his best friend. Alex starts to come out of his shell and says that he knows he’ll never be separated from Jake. For the first time in his young life, Alex is happy.
(Oh dear.)
The local media does a story on Lil and her dogs. They take a picture of Alex and Jake. The next morning, a young girl named Jenny (Elisabeth Harnois) sees the picture and recognizes Jake. For the past month, she’s been desperately looking for Jake!
(This isn’t good….)
Jenny and her grandfather (William Schallert) pick Jake up from the kennel. Jonathan has to go to the orphanage and tell Alex that his best friend is no longer going to be visiting him.
(Sorry, give me a minute.)
Alex is depressed. Jake is depressed. Jonathan shows at Jenny’s home and asks if Alex can come and visit Jake. Jenny and grandpa say yes. (YAY!)
Suddenly, three dreaded words appear on the screen: “TO BE CONTINUED”
What!? No, there’s no need to continue. Alex and Jake have been reunited, let’s end the story here….
This episode was Highway to Heaven at its most earnest, manipulative, and effective. Not only did it feature orphans but also an adorable dog and William Schallert as a genial authority figure. There was also a subplot about Jenny’s parents trying to have another child with a surrogate and I’m sure that has something to do with that promise of “TO BE CONTINUED.”
Nothing better happen to the dog!
Happy 71st birthday to Kathleen Turner! The very first time I remember seeing her was with Michael Douglas in the jungle adventure film ROMANCING THE STONE! I just loved the movie and thought she was so beautiful. I also thought Michael Douglas was great as the rascally Jack Colton. A teenage me thought this mudslide scene was hilarious. I still do! Click on the link below and enjoy!
The Rangers are losing again so I’m going to treat my sorrows with a scene that I love from a baseball movie. In this scene from 61*, Roger Maris gets his sixty-first homerun of the season and he breaks Babe Ruth’s record.
I love this scene because it’s what baseball is all about.
In 1967, a group of young men arrive at the Marie Corp. Recruit Depot in San Diego. Tyrone Washington (Stan Shaw) is a drug dealer from Chicago who tells everyone not to mess with him and who soon emerges as a natural born leader. Dave Brisbee (Craig Wasson) is a long-haired hippie who tried to feel to Canada and who shows up for induction in handcuffs. Vinny Fazio (Michael Lembeck) is a cocky and streetwise kid from Brooklyn. Billy Ray Pike (Andrew Stevens) is a country boy from Texas. Alvin Foster (James Canning) is an aspiring writer who keeps a journal of his experiences. Sgt. Loyce (R. Lee Ermey, making his film debut) molds them into a combat unit before they leave for Vietnam, where they discover that all of their training hasn’t prepared them for the reality of Vietnam.
The Boys In Company C has the same basic structure as Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, right down to R. Lee Ermey playing the tough drill sergeant. The sharp discipline of basic training is compared to the chaos of Vietnam. Ermey always said that he was playing a bad drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket because he tore down the recruits but never bothered to build them back up. In The Boys In Company C, Ermey plays a good drill sergeant, one who is tough but fair and who helps Washington reach his potential. It doesn’t make any difference once the company arrives in Vietnam, though. Both The Boys In Company C and Full Metal Jacket present the war in Vietnam as being run by a collection of incompetent officer who have no idea what it’s like for the soldiers who are expected to carry out their orders.
Of course, The Boys In Company C is nowhere near as good as Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Jacket was directed by Stanley Kubrick and it’s a chilling and relentless look at the horrors of combat. The Boys In Company C was directed by Sidney J. Furie, a journeyman director who made a lot of movies without ever developing a signature style. The basic training scenes are when the film is at its strongest. When the company arrives in Vietnam, Furie struggles with the story’s episodic structure and it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of the large ensemble cast. The Vietnam sequences are at their best when the emphasis is on the soldiers grumbling and bitching as their officers send them on one pointless mission after another. The soccer game finale tries to duplicate the satire of the football game that ended Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H but it does so with middling results. The Boys in Company C is a collection of strong moments that never manage to come together as a cohesive whole.
The movie is still important as one of the first major films to be made about the war in Vietnam. However, it’s since been overshadowed by The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and, of course, Full Metal Jacket.
Through the Shattered Lens 