Tag Archives: Bill Lake

Lethal Tender (1997, directed by John Bradshaw)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Montessi (Kim Coates) and his men have taken over a water filtration plant, are holding hostages, and keep threatening to poison the water supply.  Rogue cop David Chase (Jeff Fahey) and Melissa Wilkins (Carrie-Anne Moss) sneak around the plant and try to stop the terrorists.  David Chase is set up to be a John McClane type but instead, he only kills one terrorists and then lets everyone else do most of the work.  Of course, the whole water filtration hostage situation is just a distraction so Mr. Turner (Gary Busey) can steal a bunch of bonds.  Busey sits behind a computer for most of the movie, lending his name but not much else.

A good cast is wasted in what is definitely one of the worst of the many Die Hard rip-offs to come out in the 90s.  There’s not enough action, with Jeff Fahey as a passive hero and even the great Kim Coates reduced to standing around and doing a lot of yelling for most of his time on screen.  Gary Busey is the big star here but it’s obvious that he was only on the set for a few hours and his plan for stealing the bonds never makes sense.  Whenever anyone questions his plans, he says that it involves computers.  In the 90s, I guess that was enough.

Watching this last night, I realized that I had seen it on Cinemax back in the day.  It didn’t make much sense back then either.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.18 “Vote For Me”

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 and Peacock!

This week, Howard goes for a higher office!

Episode 3.18 “Vote For Me”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on January 16th, 1988)

The local Business Owners Association asks Howard to run for city council because …. well, I’m not sure why they would ask Howard.  Howard refuses but then he sees his campaign assistant Lila (Heather Smith) and changes his mind.

Howard is shocked to discover that he will be running against a former baseball player and local celebrity named Patrick O’Malley (Bill Lake).  Everyone agrees that there is no way that Howard can win and that’s pretty much the entire episode.  Howard never has a chance, he screws up every opportunity that he’s given, and he ends up getting 400 votes and running behind a write-in campaign for Edna.  (Edna answered some questions in Howard’s place when the latter was late to a campaign forum.)  Howard is stunned by his loss.  Viker says that he was not one of the people who write in Edna’s name before mentioning, “I voted for O’Malley.”  Howard promises to take his employees to the best party in town, the O’Malley victory party.

This was a weird episode.  It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work because the idea of a bumbling egomaniac like Howard running for political office definitely had potential and I will admit I did laugh at Howard’s insane explanation of why getting rid of the police would get rid of crime.  (To be honest, it really wasn’t that different from the arguments I heard during the Defund protests.)  But the show wrote itself into a corner by making Howard such an idiot that there was never any chance of him actually winning.  The entire episode was essentially scene after scene of Howard saying something dumb while everyone else rolled their eyes.  It got predictable fairly quickly.

I think if Jack Christian had been the one who was recruited to run for city council, the episode could have worked.  Christian is as much of a jackass as Howard but Jeff Pustil always manages to give the character a hint of insecurity so you root for him despite your better instincts.  Howard, on the other hand, is often portrayed as being so incredibly dumb and clueless that it’s difficult really get involved in his attempts to be something more than just a grocery store manager.

Oh well.  I would have voted for O’Malley too.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #145: The Preacher’s Sin (dir by Michelle Mower)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime film, The Preacher’s Sin!

preachers-sin

Why Was I Watching It?

What else was I going to watch?  The Democratic debate?  Not likely…

Seriously, though, everyone knows how much I love Lifetime!  Plus, the title of the film promised a sinning preacher and Lifetime has a pretty good track record when it comes to sinning preachers.

What Was It About?

Evan Tanning (JR Bourne) is a successful and popular preacher.  He has his own radio show, where he gives advice on how to raise a family.  Much like Will Ferrell in A Deadly Adoption, he is popular on the book tour circuit.  As the movie opens, he has just signed a contract with Bill Traggert (Bill Lake) and his show is about be nationally syndicated.  Sure, Bill might be a little bit sleazy but it looks like everything’s perfect in Evan’s life…

Except, of course, it isn’t.  Evan has just discovered that he has an illegitimate son (Demi Oliver) and, once Bill finds out, Evan finds himself being blackmailed.  Add to that, Evan is the legal guardian of his niece Jamie (Allie Gonino), a rebellious teenager who has recently been arrested for driving drunk.  When Jamie gets arrested a second time, Evan struggles to try to figure out how to deal with her.

What Evan doesn’t realize is that Jamie was set up by Bill’s evil daughter, Tinsley (Stephanie La Rochelle).  When Tinsley escalates her bullying of Jamie, Evan is forced to take a stand and confront his past.

What Worked

The film was well-acted and it definitely had an intriguing first hour.  JR Bourne did a good job as the preacher and so did Allie Gonino as Jamie.  (Add to that, I really liked Jamie’s hair.)  There’s been a lot of bitchy mean girls on Lifetime but few of them have been played with the amount of sociopathic panache that Stephanie La Rochelle brought to the role of Tinsley.

What Did Not Work

So, here’s the thing: with a title like The Preacher’s Sin, I was expecting the film to feature the preaching sinning.  I mean, okay — he did have an extramarital affair but that was before he even became a preacher.  He never knew that he had a son and, once he found out, Evan went out of his way to accept and help him out..

To be honest, a better title for the film would have been Tinsley’s Sin because Tinsley was the one who kept doing the wrong thing.  As a lot of people on twitter pointed out, the final 30 minutes of the film — which were pretty much dominated by Tinsley’s sins — felt like they were happening in a totally different movie.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Oh my God, I so related to Jamie!  It’s not just that we were both rebellious teenagers who had to deal with jealous haters.  It was also the fact that she was judged for having better hair than everyone else.  I have red hair and Jamie had green hair.  Judging from this movie, the only thing more difficult than being a redhead is being a greenhead.

Lessons Learned

It’s not easy being green.