VOYAGE (1993) – Rutger Hauer and Eric Roberts battle it out on a boat!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

The 1993 made-for-cable television film VOYAGE opens with Morgan Norvell (Rutger Hauer) and his wife Kit (Karen Allen) headed to their 20-year class reunion. Morgan didn’t really want to go, but Kit talked him into it. It seems that Morgan was a champion diver back in high school. We know that because he’s looking at some pictures at the reunion that are meant to illustrate what a great athlete he once was. I say “meant to illustrate” because the man in the pictures looks absolutely nothing like a potentially younger Hauer would. Hauer is a big boned man, known for his blond hair. This guy in the pictures is scrawny with dark hair, but I’ll just move on, I guess. Morgan and Kit seem to be enjoying themselves, when they run into Kit’s old friend Gil Freeland (Eric Roberts) and his wife Ronnie (Connie Nielsen). It’s kind of awkward at first because Gil asks Morgan if he remembers him, and Morgan doesn’t, even though they were in the same class. Isn’t that the worst? I was recently at an Arkansas Razorbacks football game, and as I walked away from the concession area with my beverage, this lady’s voice said, “Well, if it isn’t Brad Crain.” I looked at the group of people standing in front of me, including the lady who said my name, and I immediately knew I was in trouble. They all looked kind of familiar, but a long time ago “kind of familiar,” and I knew none of their names. And then she asked that question I was hoping to avoid, “You don’t remember me, do you?” I had to admit I didn’t. We spoke for a few moments, and then I headed to my seat feeling a little embarrassed. I told my family about the exchange a few days later, and my sister Pam said that the lady was her best friend in school and that she used to spend the night at our house when we were kids. But the truth is that I still don’t really remember her, and now I’m starting to worry about how the hell I can’t remember her!

After that initially awkward moment, Morgan, Kit, Gil and Ronnie sit down together and start talking about their lives. We learn that Morgan is an architect (ala Paul Kersey), that Kit is an author, that Gil is a dentist, and that Ronnie just looks good. If she told her profession, I missed it. In a case of giving way too much information to people you haven’t seen in 20 years, Morgan and Kit tell the couple of their plans to go to Monte Carlo where they have a sailboat, which they plan to sail down the coast of Italy until they reach Malta. It seems that they purchased a hotel that is in much need of repair, and that they are going to live on the boat for a year, while Morgan puts his architect skills to good use and restores the property. The couple, who have had their share of struggles, are using this adventure as a fresh start in their marriage. Well Gil and Ronnie think this all sounds like a ball and even say that they’d love to join them for a few days if they could. No specific plans are discussed, and Morgan and Kit say that would be great, without expecting they’ll see them again after this night. Wrong! While Morgan is getting the boat ready in Monte Carlo, Gil and Ronnie show up. They have a good day on the ocean together and are enjoying some champagne that night when Gil proceeds to invite himself and Ronnie to go along with them on down the coast for a few days. She doesn’t want to be rude, but Kit is not for this idea so she kicks Morgan under the table. This is supposed to be their time to work on their relationship. Morgan should have known better than to say that Kit and Ronnie could join them for a few days, because any person who’s married or in a relationship should understand the under the table “kick to the shin.” But in a complete dumbass move, he invited them along anyway.

And this is where things really start going in a different direction. That first night, Ronnie makes a sexual move on Morgan, which he somehow has the strength to turn down, while Gil and Kit are downstairs reliving old times… Strike 1! That same night, Morgan is awakened to the sounds of a person on the deck and finds Gil up there. Gil says he was needing some fresh air and dropped his champagne, but Morgan finds the fuel cap is loose after Gil goes back downstairs… Strike 2! A couple of days later, Ronnie tries to kiss Kit, Gil catches a fish and bashes its head in instead of just throwing it back and then has the nerve to imply to Morgan that he had sex with Kit in high school… Strikes 3, 4, and 5! Morgan knocks the crap out of Gil and then makes them get off the boat when they get back to shore that day.

And from that point forward, Morgan and Kit sail on down the coast of Italy, making their way to Malta where they rebuild both their relationship and the Hotel Riviera, and live happily ever after! I’m just kidding, the rest of the movie consists of Gil and Ronnie terrorizing the couple, ultimately wanting to kill them for far more nefarious purposes than I’ll reveal here. I believe that most people in the world will fit into 2 categories: those who want to watch a movie where Eric Roberts terrorizes and tries to kill Rutger Hauer, and those who don’t want to watch such a movie. I’m really writing this up for those in the first camp, so I don’t want to spoil this movies surprises!

Back in 1993, Rutger Hauer’s run as a big-screen lead was nearing its end. With a couple exceptions, he would spend the rest of the decade appearing in made-for-cable TV films and other low budget direct-to-video type fare. Eric Roberts, who had received an Oscar nomination a decade earlier, was also mostly doing low budget direct-to-video fare, TV movies, and the occasional character part in a larger budget movie. This is an interesting time for both actors as their careers were transitioning. But we’re talking about two guys who know how to act, as evidenced by Hauer’s 174 acting credits on IMDB and Roberts’ 760 acting credits on IMDB (and counting as he has 4 credits in 2025 already). Both Hauer and Roberts are capable of playing complete psychos, so I’m not sure how they settled in on Roberts to play the psycho in this one. It may be because Hauer played a psycho stalker in his earlier movie from 1993, the made-for-HBO film BLIND SIDE, but that’s just a guess.

I enjoyed VOYAGE when I watched it the night of its premiere on the USA Network on June 2nd, 1993, and I enjoyed it when I watched it again this morning. I’m a huge fan of Rutger Hauer, and I’ve always appreciated Eric Roberts. For me, it’s a real treat seeing these two guys face off. I enjoy that Hauer gets to play the “hero” while Roberts is the dangerous creep, and Roberts is as creepy as it gets in this movie. Hauer’s role isn’t very flashy, as he’s a pretty normal guy who finds himself in a bad situation, but he is Rutger Hauer so it’s not a surprise that he’s able to summon the strength to fight for his and his wife’s lives. VOYAGE was directed by John Mackenzie. Mackenzie made some good films earlier in his career, including the phenomenal British crime film THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980), the Charles Bronson corrupt union drama ACT OF VENGEANCE (1986), and the Michael Caine / Pierce Brosnan spy thriller THE FOURTH PROTOCOL (1987). While VOYAGE is certainly not his most accomplished work, Mackenzie knows how to make a film, and he does a fine job here. And finally, I always enjoy a movie filmed in beautiful locations, and Malta definitely makes for some beautiful views.

Ultimately, I think your enjoyment of VOYAGE will come down to whether or not you like the idea of Rutger Hauer and Eric Roberts fighting it out to the death. I personally like that idea.  

See the trailer for VOYAGE below:

Film Review: Eraserhead (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jack Nance in David Lynch’s Eraserhead

I’ve been thinking about Eraserhead ever since I first heard the news about David Lynch’s passing.

Filmed in harsh but beautiful black-and-white and first released in 1977 (after a production period that lasted for seven years), Eraserhead tells the story of Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), an awkward young man who has the haircut that gives the film it’s name and who wanders through the film like an alienated character in a Kafka story.  He lives in an industrial landscape and almost every scene seems to have the sound of machinery droning away in the background.  He lives in an dark apartment and it appears that there’s a woman living in a radiator who sings that, “In heaven, everything is fine,” while stomping on sperm creatures.  Occasionally, a mysterious woman in the hallway talks to him.  Henry doesn’t seem to have a job or any sort of interests.  He doesn’t really have much of a personality.  Jack Nance, who would go on to become a member of David Lynch’s regular ensemble, has a permanently dazed expression on his face.  It’s hard not to feel sorry for Henry, even if he isn’t quite sympathetic.  In Heaven, everything is fine but in Henry’s world, it’s much different.

Henry has a girlfriend named Mary X (Charlotte Stewart).  Mary lives with her parents in an apartment near the train tracks.  When Henry goes over to her place for dinner, her father shows off how he can’t feel anything in his arm.  Eating a piece of chicken becomes awkward when it appears to be alive and bleeding.  Mary seems to have some sort of seizure.  Mary’s mother informs Henry that Mary has had a mutant baby and Henry must take care of it.  The baby (represented by a grotesque puppet) has no arms or legs or, it would appear, skin.  It cries constantly, despite Henry’s attempts to care for it.  The baby is the only truly sympathetic character in the film.

Eraserhead is often described as being a film that’s difficult to understand but, by Lynch standards, it’s not that hard to figure out.  Lynch himself said that the film was fueled by his own anxiety over being a father and, throughout the film, Henry tries to take care of the baby but everything he does just makes things worse.  As is often the case with Lynch’s film, many viewers get caught up in wondering why when they should just be paying attention to what happens.  Why is the baby a mutant?  Because it is.  Why does Henry live in the middle of an industrial park?  Because he does.  Who is the scarred man who appears at the start of the film and who apparently pushes the levers that lead to Mary’s pregnancy?  Again, it’s less important who he is and more important that he’s there and now, Henry is a father despite being woefully unprepared.  Even if the viewer learned the scarred man’s identity (or if Henry even learned of his existence), it wouldn’t change Henry’s situation.  (Technically, of course, the man is Sissy Spacek’s husband and frequent Lynch collaborator, Jack Fisk.)  Eraserhead is a visually surreal film but it’s also an very emotionally honest one.  Henry may be stuck in, as Lynch once put it, a “dream of dark and disturbing things,” but his fears and his anxiety are portrayed realistically  That emotional honesty is something that would appear in all of Lynch’s work and it’s why he was one of our most important filmmakers.

Sadly, David Lynch is now gone.  So is Jack Nance.  But their work will live on forever.

Eraserhead (1977, dir by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes, Herbert Cardwell)

Scenes That I Love: Vincent Price Performs The Raven

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As today is the anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, today’s scene that I love features Poe’s most famous interpreter, Vincent Price, reciting and performing The Raven.  This scene comes from a 1985 television special that was called The Teller and the Tale.

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Edgar Allan Poe Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

by Debbie Hughes

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

216 years ago today, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  From his humble beginnings as the son of two struggling actors, Poe would go on to become one of the first great American writers.  (It’s been said that, when Charles Dickens first traveled to the United States in 1842, he specifically wanted to meet Edgar Allan Poe.  Unfortunately, it appears that popular story my not be true but it’s still a good story.)  Poe was controversial in life and even his death generated more questions than answers but no one can deny his strength as a poet and as a prose writer.  Both the detective and the horror genres owe a huge debt to Edgar Allan Poe.

Today, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy, TSL presents 4 shots from 4 films that were inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe!

4 Shots From 4 Films

The Fall of the House of Usher (1960, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

The Raven (1963, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)

The Pit and the Pendulum (1990, dir by Stuart Gordon, DP: Adolfo Bartoli)

Music Video of the Day: Sublime Eternal Love by Chrystabell and David Lynch (2024, dir by David Lynch)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s music video of the day, we have one of David Lynch’s final short films.  From his collaboration with Chrystabell, here is the haunting Sublime Eternal Love.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Howard’s paranoid and with good reason!  They are all out to get him….

Episode 3.4 “I’m Okay, You’re A Spy”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 17th, 1987)

After the new stockboy, 12 year-old Brad (played by T and T‘s Sean Roberge), shows Howard a newspaper article about how the company that purchased Cobb’s has been sending corporate spies into its stores to evaluate management, Howard gets extremely paranoid.  He becomes convinced that there must be a spy in the store.  He gathers Brad, Leslie, Christian, Viker, and Marlene into the stockroom and asks them if they’ve noticed anyone strange in the store.  He also suggests that any one of them could possibly be the spy.

Or maybe — just maybe — the spy is the new butcher who keeps asking Howard all sorts of questions about the other employees.  He would seem to be the most likely suspect and we know it’s him because the episode opens with him getting his assignment and talking about how he can’t wait to get Howard Bannister fired.  Howard, of course, is so paranoid about the possibility of there being a spy in the store that he expresses all of his fears and frustrations to the spy.  In other words, this is yet another episode episode where Howard is a complete moron.  The previous season was split evenly between episodes where Howard was competent and episodes where Howard was an idiot.  The episodes featuring stupid Howard were always funnier than the episodes featuring smart Howard so I think the showrunners made the right decision to focus o Howard’s stupidity in the third season.  No one wants to watch a show about a good boss.  What fun is that?

(It’s kind of like how we loved The Office when it was all about Michael screwing up but, when it became about new boss Andy proving himself, we all tuned out.)

It turns out that not everyone at the new corporation is supportive of the whole spy thing.  T.C. Collingwood comes to the store and informs Howard that his butcher is the spy.  Howard replies by giving the spy a lot of work to do.  I guess that’s one way to handle it but it doesn’t change the fact that Howard told the spy that everyone at the store was incompetent and should be fired.  This episode makes less and less sense the more that I think about it.  Can’t corporate just look at whether or not the store had made any money and use that to determine whether or not Howard’s doing a good enough job?  This episode didn’t make much sense.

Incidentally, Edna was on vacation during this episode.  How many vacation does Edna get in the year?  It seems like she’s never at the store.  I have a feeling that Howard is going to run off with T.C. Collingwood at some point in the new future.  Maybe that’s for the best.  At least then Edna wouln’t have to flee to Florida every month.

Next week ….  Howard wants to be a TV star!  We’ll see what happens.

 

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 1/12/25 — 1/18/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Brandon, you are not ready to be my head chef.”

Oh my God, did Chef Ramsay really just say that!?  I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Hell’s Kitchen but I don’t think any elimination has taken me as much by surprise as the elimination of Brandon this week.  Brandon is who I expected to win this season and I know that I’m not alone in that.  That said, Brandon did struggle at service.  Of all the chefs to receive black jackets, Brandon struggled the most and, even more importantly, Brandon was really the only one to struggle.  Ramsay didn’t have much of a choice but I have a feeling Brandon will return in a future season.

Speaking of Chef Ramsay, I also caught the second part of the Kitchen Nightmares premiere.  I’m glad that Ramsay apparently thinks that he’s fixed that restaurant but I can promise that there is no way I would ever voluntarily eat at any establishment featured on this show.  I don’t care if it’s clean now.  Once a rat trap, always a rat trap.

This week’s episode of Abbott Elementary surfaced in comparison to last week’s but that’s to be expected considering the brilliance of last week’s show.  I still laughed at Ava trying to figure out what it’s like to “date the poors.”

On Peacock, I watched the three episode documentary Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story and yes, that was certainly disgusting and disturbing,  It was even worse than Hulu’s Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, which I also watched.  I guess I felt like catching up on some sordid history this week!

Speaking of sordid, Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire is on YouTube.  I watched it and I have to admit that I laughed when the “millionaire” came lurching out and started speaking in a voice that sounded exactly like Bill Hader’s.  Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire was a one-time, two-hour special that aired in 2000.  The man behind this fiasco (the marriage was annulled, the millionaire was not a millionaire but just a guy who was the subject of multiple restraining orders) went on to create The Bachelor.

Also on YouTube, I found all six episodes of The Starlet, a reality competition show where aspiring actresses competed for a walk-on role on One Tree Hill.  Stop laughing, it was a real show.  I vaguely remember watching it when it first aired.  I watched it a second time on Monday because I was bored.  One of the judges was Faye Dunaway.  Faye was surprisingly nice.  The mean judge was Vivica A. Fox.

Case and I are continuing to watch Dark, on Netflix.  What a fascinating and macabre show!  I recommend it to anyone reading.

I watched the latest episodes of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test but I don’t remember a damn thing about them, other than it amused me how everyone pretended to be taking everything so seriously.

And, as always, I watched the shows that I review on a weekly basis.  I’m not going to sit here and list them all because I’m tired.  But you can find all my reviews on this site.  Yay!

Lisa Marie Review An Oscar Nominee: The Bishop’s Wife (dir by Henry Koster)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife, Cary Grant stars as Dudley.

We first see Dudley walking down the snow-covered streets of a city that is preparing for Christmas.  He watches Julia Broughman (Loretta Young), the wife of the local Anglican bishop.  He stops to talk to Prof. Wutheridge (Monty Woolly), a secular humanist who is close to Julia and her husband, despite being irreligious himself.  Dudley seems to know all about the professor, even though the professor is not sure who he is.  The professor mentions that he was fired from a university because he was considered to be a “radical,” even though he has no interest in politics.  The professor says that the town’s church has seen better days, especially since the Bishop is more interested in raising money from the rich to build a grand new cathedral than actually meeting with the poor who need help.

The last person that Dudley visits is Bishop Henry Broughman (David Niven).  Dudley reveals to Henry that he’s angel and that he’s come in response to Henry’s prayers.  Henry has been frustrated in his attempts to raise money for a new cathedral.  Dudley has come to provide guidance.

With only the Bishop knowing the truth about Dudley, Dudley becomes a houseguest of the Broughmans.  The Bishop has become so obsessed with his new cathedral that he’s not only been neglecting his diocese but also his family.  While Dudley tries to show Henry what’s really important, he also helps Julia and her daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes) to fit in with the neighborhood.  (Bobby Anderson, who played the young George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, makes an appearance as a boy having a snowball fight who says that Debby can’t play because no one wants to risk hitting a bishop’s daughter with a snowball.)  The Bishop becomes jealous of Dudley and perhaps he should be as Dudley finds himself falling in love with Julia and considering not moving on to his next assignment.

(And now we know where Highway to Heaven got the inspiration for 75% of its episodes….)

The Bishop’s Wife is an enjoyable film, one that is full of not just Christmas imagery but also the Christmas spirit as well.  The Bishop finally realizes that his planned cathedral is more of a gift to his ego than to the men and women who look to him for guidance and comfort in difficult times.  David Niven is, as always, likable even when his character is acting like a jerk.  That said, this is pretty much Cary Grant’s show from the start.  Suave, charming, and gently humorous, Grant joins Claude Rains and Henry Travers in the ranks of great cinematic angels.  Never mind that Grant’s character is a bit pushy and has his own crisis of faith.  From the minute that Grant appears, we know that he’ll know exactly the right way to answer Henry’s prayers.

Cary Grant was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance here.  Undoubtedly, this was another case of Grant making it all look so easy that the Academy failed to realize just how good of a performance he gave.  Interestingly enough, The Bishop’s Wife was one of two Christmas films nominated for Best Picture that year, along with Miracle on 34th Street.  Both films lost to Gentleman’s Agreement.