Film Review: Precious Cargo (dir by Max Adams)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2016’s Precious Cargo tells the story of Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his ex-wife Karen (Claire Forlani).

Karen is a professional thief who has botched a robbery for her former lover, crime boss Eddie Filosa (Bruce Willis).  Eddie wants Karen dead so, of course, Karen flees down to the Florida everglades, where she finds Jack living in a swamp shack and making love to his latest girlfriend, Jenna (Lydia Hull).  Karen tells them to go ahead and finish up and she’ll just wait out in the kitchen.  Jack in not particularly happy to see Karen again but then he notices that she has a baby bump.  “Always use a condom,” Karen tells Jenna.  Eddie’s men, led by Simon (Daniel Berhardt), attack and it all leads to a boat chase that is surprisingly exciting when you consider that Precious Cargo is a low-budget, direct-to-video offering.

It turns out that Jack can save Karen from Eddie’s wrath by planning and executing a heist for the crime boss.  Jack assembles his crew, Jack gets ready for the heist …. uh-oh, it’s time for a double cross!  The plot is nothing special.  It’s identical to a hundred other low-budget crime films that you’ve seen recently.  It’s the type of thing that Michael Mann could have turned into a metaphor for American ennui but, in this film, it’s just a typical heist.  The viewer enjoys it while it’s happening and then forgets about it two minutes afterwards.

That said, Precious Cargo is not quite as bad as the typical direct-to-video film.  Mark-Paul Gosselaar — yes, Zack Morris himself — gives a reasonably compelling performance as Jack.  To a certain group of people, he’s always be Zack and I imagine he’s sick of people asking him about whether or not he still has his giant phone but, as he’s gone from teen idol to adult actor, Gosselaar has shown himself to be a talented actor.  (For the record, Zack lost his phone in the drunk driving episode.  I know some people say that episode doesn’t count because it was a Tori episode but I say that it does.  So there.)  Claire Forlani is actually more compelling in these direct-to-video films than she ever was in any of the big budget studio films that she used to appear in.

Of course, I imagine that the main selling point for this film was meant to be Bruce Willis.  This is one of the direct-to-video films that dominated the last fourth of Willis’s career.  When Willis retired due to aphasia, there was a general assumption that all of Willis’s direct-to-video films were made as a result of his condition.  I don’t know if that’s quite true.  (It’s entirely possible that he just wanted a quick payday.)  But it is true that Willis only has a few minutes of screentime in Precious Cargo and that several shots involving Eddie were accomplished with a stand-in.  That said, in this film, Willis still brings some energy to the part.  He’s an effective villain, even if I think everyone prefers to see Willis saving the day.  Even in the direct-to-video era, Bruce Willis still had a definite presence.

Precious Cargo is predictable and ultimately forgettable but it’s still entertaining enough for 90 minutes.

Film Review: Lay The Favorite (dir by Stephen Frears)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2012’s Lay the Favorite is a movie about gambling.

Rebecca Hall stars as Beth Raymer, a dancer in Florida who makes her money by giving private shows and lap dances to paying customers.  Bored and disillusioned with her life, she follows the advice of her father (Corbin Bernsen) and decides to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

(Really, that’s your dream?  I mean, my mom occasionally worked as a waitress because she was essentially taking care of four girls by herself and she needed the extra money but it was hardly a lifelong dream.)

Vegas is a union town, which means that Beth can’t just walk in and start serving drinks.  Instead, she gets a job working with Dink Heimowitz (Bruce Willis), a big-time gambler who hires other people to place bets for him.  Dink is surprisingly nice for a professional gambler and it’s not long before Beth finds herself falling for him.  Dink’s wife, Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones), is not happy about that.  Tulip need not worry about Beth eventually ends up falling in love with a journalist named Jeremy (Joshua Jackson) and the two of them quickly become one of the most boring couples that I’ve ever seen in my life.  Eventually, Tulip does demand that Dink fire Beth and Beth ends up in New York, working for a decadent gambler named Rosy (Vince Vaughn).  Uh-oh — bookmaking’s illegal in New York!

Rebecca Hall is one of those performers who tends to act with a capitol A.  There’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Hall has given some very strong and very memorable performances, in films like Vicky Christina Barcelona, Please Give, and the heart-breaking Christine.  However, when Hall is miscast — as she is in this film — her style of acting can seem overly mannered.  Hall plays Beth as being a collection of quirks and twitches and nervous mannerisms and embarrassed facial expressions and the end result is that Beth comes across not as being the endearing ditz that the film wants her to be but instead as just a very annoying and very immature human being.  It’s actually perfectly understandable why Tulip would demand that Dink fire her.  What’s less understandable is why we should care.  Myself, I wanted someone to warn Joshua Jackson because I don’t think he knew what he was getting into.

Lay The Favorite is yet another film that tries to use Las Vegas as a metaphor for American culture.  That’s not a bad idea.  David Lynch made great use of Vegas in Twin Peaks: The Return.  Martin Scorsese did the same with Casino.  However, Lay The Favorite was directed by the British Stephen Frears and, as happens so often whenever a European director tries to understand American culture, the entire film leaves you feeling as if you’re on the outside looking in.  Lynch and Scorsese, for instance, both understood that Las Vegas represents both the ultimate risk and the ultimate second chance.  If you have the courage, you can bet every asset that you have.  And if you’re lucky, you might win.  If you lose, you know you can still rebuild.  Whether it’s grounded in reality or not, it’s a very American idea.  Lay The Favorite, on the other hand, can’t see beyond the glitz of the strip and the harsh concrete reality of a nearby apartment complex.  It’s portrait of Vegas is as superficial as a tourist’s postcard.  Thematically, Lay The Favorite feels as empty and predictable as its double entendre title.

On the plus side, Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn, and Catherine Zeta-Jones all gave better performances that the film probably deserved.  Willis, especially, gives a poignant performance as temperamental, henpecked, and good-natured Dink.  Bruce Willis spent so much time as an action star that it was often overlooked that he was a very good character actor.  Even in a bad film like this one, Willis came through.

A Preempted Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.13 “Second Chance”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

CHiPs got preempted this week, due to our Monday celebration of St. Patrick’s Day and Kurt Russell.  Here’s the late review of this week’s episode!

Episode 3.13 “Second Chance”

(Dir by John Florea, originally aired on December 1st, 1979)

Someone is breaking into the homes of rich people, stealing their jewelry, and then making a fast escape on a motorcycle.  I say “someone” but, actually, we know who it is because the show tells us early.  It’s a two-man operation.  One guy works as a valet parker at a trendy restaurant.  The other guy sits in his van until the first guy brings over the keys of whoever they’re going to rob.  We know it but the cops don’t know it so we still have to sit through Ponch and Baker investigating the robberies and somehow not figuring out what’s going on,  even though it’s extremely obvious.

So, the crimes weren’t that interesting this week.  This show was mostly about celebrating the local children’s hospital and, even more importantly, celebrating Ponch’s popularity at the local children’s hospital.  All the nurses love Ponch.  All the children love Ponch.  Only the recently paralyzed Kelli (Dana Laurita) is immune to Ponch’s charms but he wins her over eventually.  Given the way this show treated Ponch, I’m surprised he didn’t magically heal her.

In other words, this is another episode in which Baker does a lot of work and Ponch gets all the credit.  There are a few exciting chases, as there were with every episode of CHiPs.  Whatever else you may want to say about the show, it’s obvious that the producers understood that people were watching for the high-speed pursuits and the crashes.  This episode even features Ponch on a boat.  The bad guys can’t even swim away to safety!  Of course, it’s Ponch who got on the boat.  There’s no way that Baker was going to get do anything like that.  I’m surprised Ponch even needed a boat, to be honest.  If nothing else, Ponch should be able to walk on water by this point.

Anyway, it was an okay episode.  Ponch appears to be full recovered from his injuries from earlier in the season so watch out, bad guys!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.10 “Captive Audience”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

I’m a little bit late with this review but so what?  I mean, what’s Pacific Blue going to do?  Chase me on their bicycles?

Episode 1.10 “Captive Audience”

(Dir by Terrence O’Hara, originally aired on May 4th, 1996)

The local bank is being robbed!  The three robbers — desperate and murderous criminals all — have taken hostages, including TC and Cory.  TC just wanted to check out his safe deposit box.  Cory just wanted to withdraw some money so she could buy a motorcycle.  (If she had been withdrawing the money to buy another bicycle, I would have thrown a shoe at my television.)  TC is in uniform.  The robbers know he’s a cop.  Cory is not in uniform and she and TC are pretending not to know each other.  There’s also a pregnant woman in the bank who goes into labor, which means that Cory is going to have to get over her loathing of babies to help deliver one!

*Sigh*

I think I’ve said before that I hate cop shows that feature people being held hostage.  It’s always the same thing.  The robbers threaten a lot of people.  The hostages get beaten and abused.  Outside the bank, the negotiator says, “You have to give me more time!”  On Pacific Blue, the negotiator is Captain Palermo and there’s something just silly about him, in his shorts and crisp polo shirt, directing a bunch of rough-and-ready SWAT team members who are in protective gear.  Hostage situations are serious and potentially deadly but Palermo chasing the robbers are on his bicycle just made me laugh and laugh.  I also laughed when the SWAT team first arrived at the bank and spotted Cory and TC’s bicycles sitting outside the building.  “There might be cops in there,” someone says.  Apparently, they’re unsure about whether or not bike cops should be considered real police or not.  I’m glad I’m not the only one.

It falls to Del Toro and Chris to track down Doc Mueller (Charley Lang), a paranoid electronics expert who lives in a tent on the beach.  He agreed to help disable the bank’s alarm so that the SWAT team can sneak inside.  He also taps into the head robber’s “cellular phone” so that the cops can see who he is working with on the outside.  Shows from the 90s are always amusing because everyone’s always like, “He’s got a cellular phone!”  In 1996, those were still unusual and only used by desperate bank robbers.

(On a positive note, one of the robbers is played by a handsome young actor named Walton Goggins.  What ever happened to him?  Seriously, there’s not much about his performance here that indicates the type of actor he would become but still …. WALTON GOGGINS!)

Everything works out, of course.  The main bank robber tries to escape in a helicopter but Palermo chases him — on his bike! — and manages to jump into the helicopter.  It would have been really impressive if not for the bicycle and the fact that the Pacific Blue uniforms — those shorts and those blindingly white shirts — make all of the characters look really silly.  It’s hard to take a cop seriously when he’s dressed like an aging track coach.  The important thing, though, is that Cory gets over her hatred of babies and Palermo shows that bike cops deserve as much respect as real cops.

Eh.  Who cares?

 

Music Video of the Day: Stand Up by David Lee Roth (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day is for David Lee Roth’s Stand Up.  Stand Up was the second single to be released from Dave’s second solo album, Skyscraper.  This video finds David Lee Roth driving an fancy car, picking up beautiful women, and driving to a fancy city.  It’s just a typical day in the life of Diamond Dave and a reminder that Van Halen’s original success was as much about Roth’s showmanship as Eddie’s technical virtuosity.

At 70, David Lee Roth is still with us, though he says he’s retired from touring.  Roth, by the way, is a state-trained emergency medical technician in New York, a pilot, a visual artist, and a martial artist.

Enjoy!

Scenes That I Love: The Making Of An Assassin From Executive Action

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Kennedy files were just released a few hours ago.  There’s supposedly either 8,000 or 80,000 of them, depending on which source you trust.  It’ll take a while for people to go through them and, to be honest, I’ll be surprised if anything new is discovered.  I’m pretty much a natural born skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories, even though I love reading about them.

Today’s scene that I love comes from one of the first conspiracy-themed films to be made about the Kennedy assassination, 1973’s Executive Action.  In this scene, the infamous photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding his rifle is created.

Brad’s “Video of the Day” is THE CHEAP SEATS, country supergroup Alabama’s celebration of Minor League baseball!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I was in college back in 1993 when country supergroup Alabama released the album “Cheap Seats.” I loved everything the band released, so this one was no different. The title track of the album was all about the feeling of sitting in a minor league baseball stadium and enjoying the food, the atmosphere, the beer, and the baseball. Growing up in Arkansas, we didn’t have our own Major League franchise, but we had a great minor league franchise in Little Rock, the Arkansas Travelers. Some of my favorite memories as a boy were going to watch the Arkansas Travelers with my parents or with my little league teams. I still enjoy going with my son to watch them when I want to relax and have a great time!

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy The Cheap Seats! I dedicate this song to my friend, Erin!

Maker Of Men (1931, directed by Edward Sedgwick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Bob Dudley (Richard Cromwell) is the wimpy son of Coach Dudley (Jack Holt), who is in charge of the local college’s football team.  Bob joins the team out of a sense of family obligation but he turns out to be a cowardly player who would rather fumble the ball than take a hard hit.  Coach Dudley is disgusted with his son.  Bob’s girlfriend (Joan Marsh) dumps him.  Bob drops out of school and disappears for two years and no one seems to care. Then, on the day of a big game, Bob reappears playing for another college.  Despite Coach Dudley’s team being led by All-American Dusty Rhoades (John Wayne!), Bob leads the rival team to victory.  He’s won Coach Dudley’s respect.  Coach Dudley is probably going to get fired.

This was one of the weirdest sports films that I’ve ever seen.  Usually, you would expect Coach Dudley to bring out the best in his son or to understand that his son is just not meant to be a football player.  Instead, Bob is forced to drop out of college!  Bob returns just so he can defeat his father.  The slight Richard Cromwell is not a convincing football player.  On the other hand, John Wayne is a convincing football player but his role is tiny.  The movie is a little over an hour long and 20 minutes of that running time is taking up with grainy footage of an actual football game.

The best thing about the film?  It reminds us that everyone, even John Wayne, had to start somewhere.