Brad’s Song of the Day – “Toshiro and I” from CHARLES BRONSON – More Than a Vigilante – THE MUSICAL! 🎶

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Toshiro Mifune is one of the all time great actors in the history of world cinema, and he’s also one of my personal favorites. Charles Bronson may sit alone at the top of Mt. Bradmore, but there’s a tier of actors just below him who I also obsess over. That tier includes people like Chow Yun-Fat, Clint Eastwood, Lau Ching-Wan, Roy Scheider, James Woods, Rutger Hauer, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Toshiro Mifune. I have read voluminous books about Mifune, and I’ve collected so many of his Japanese films. His work with Kurosawa is amazing, but he’s also done impressive work with other great Japanese directors like Kihachi Okamoto, Masaki Kobayashi, and Hiroshi Inagaki.

It makes me so happy that Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune had the opportunity to make the enjoyable East meets Western, RED SUN, together. Although Mifune had more range than Bronson as an actor, they both had such a magnificent screen presence. And the one time they worked together, Bronson actually had the more showy role. Watching Bronson underplay his scalawag cowboy against the honorable samurai played by Mifune is a true delight to any person who appreciates macho cinema. Henry Brooks really hones in on their macho personas in his song “Toshiro and I” from his new musical, CHARLES BRONSON – More Than a Vigilante – THE MUSICAL. It’s my favorite song in the entire musical, and I’m glad to be able to share it on the legendary Toshiro Mifune’s 105th birthday! Enjoy!

Back to School: I Think I’m Having A Baby (dir by Arthur Allan Seidelman)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Jennifer Jason Leigh!

Seriously, whenever you watch any of the movies that Leigh made early in her career, your heart just goes out for. She was always either getting stalked or getting abused or getting lost or struggling through a pregnancy scare. In Fast Times At Ridgemont High, she actually did get pregnant and had to go to the abortion clinic on her own after Mike Damone failed to keep his promise to be there for her. It doesn’t get quite as bad as that for her in 1981’s I Think I’m Having A Baby but she still has to put up with a lot.

In I Think I’m Having A Baby, Jennifer Jason Leigh plays 15 year-old Laurie, who is not only socially awkward but also has the worst haircut that has even been inflected on an otherwise attractive person. Laurie idolizes her older cousin, Phoebe (Helen Hunt). Phoebe is dating a lunkhead jock named Peter (Shawn Stevens). Phoebe does Peter’s homework for him and Peter complains that Phoebe won’t go beyond some mild making out in his car. That’s the kind of relationship that they have. On the night of his birthday, Peter and Phoebe have an argument at the outdoor party that Phoebe went out of her way to set up. Peter drives off in his car, little realizing that the shy Laurie is hiding in the backseat. When Peter notices Laurie there, he pulls over and starts talking about how difficult (cue a massive eye roll from me) his life is. By the end of the night, Peter has revealed himself to be a whiny jerk and Laurie is no longer a virgin.

Soon afterwards, Laurie starts to feel ill. Her nerdy best friend, Marsha (Samantha Paris), thinks that Laurie might have the flu. Laurie, however, fears that it’s definitely not the flu. When Laurie tells Peter that she thinks she might be pregnant, Peter freaks out. He tells her to take care of it and makes it clear that he has no interest in being a father. Marsha says that she can’t understand why anyone would want to have a baby. She announces that she’s never going to have one. Instead, she’ll just adopt a dog. That really doesn’t help out Laurie, though. Eventually, Marsha and Laurie head to the clinic to discover whether or not Laurie is actually pregnant.

Meanwhile, Laurie’s little sister, Carrie (Tracey Gold), makes the mistake of letting her pet rabbits all socialize with each other. Carrie learns a lesson about the importance of keeping a safety barrier between male and female rabbits. At school, the students smirk as Mr. Fenning (David Birney) ties to teach a sexual education class. One of the students is played by future Breakfast Club member Ally Sheedy, making her television acting debut by uttering a handful of lines. The ultimate message is that no one knows anything and all of the education that they’ve gotten so far has been inadequate.

It’s pretty heavy-handed and some of the acting is a bit less than award-worthy. (Samantha Paris shouts nearly every line that she has.) But Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a good performance as Laurie, perfectly capturing not only Laurie’s fear of being pregnant but also the sadness that comes from being painfully shy. Your heart breaks for her when you watch this film. If nothing else, hopefully Laurie realizes, by the time the end credits roll, that she can do far better than Peter. For that matter, so can Phoebe. While everyone has a bright future ahead of them, Peter is destined to spend the rest of his life wondering why he peaked at 17.

And that’s the way it should be.

Guilty Pleasure No. 79: Kate’s Secret (dir by Arthur Allan Seidelman)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1986 melodrama, Kate (Meredith Baxter) has a secret. She may look like healthy and young and blonde. She may have a beautiful house and a handsome husband (Ben Masters). She and her fitness instructor best friend (Shari Belafonte) may spend their time making fun of how fat everyone else. But deep down, Kate is convinced that she’s overweight. She gets on the scale and that declaration of 120 pounds feels like a slap in the face.

How does Kate lose weight? She exercises frequently. And she spends a lot of time staring at herself in the mirror, as if trying to mentally burn away the pounds. Mostly, though, Kate just binges on food whenever she gets stressed and then she throws up. Kate has a lot of reasons to be stressed and they are almost entirely due to her mother (Georgann Johnson), who rarely has a nice word to say to Kate and who constantly tells Kate that she’s going to lose her husband to his assistant (Leslie Bevis).

(Who does everyone always assume that assistants are going to be homewreckers?)

Now, to be clear, eating disorders are a serious thing. I know more than a few people who have had eating disorders. During my first semester of college, I got very used to the sound of the girl in the room next to mine throwing up every morning. There’s nothing funny about the idea of someone having an eating disorder. However, there is something funny about an overwritten movie about an eating disorder that features Meredith Baxter literally attacking a chocolate cake then blaming the mess in the kitchen on the dogs. This is one of those well-intentioned programs that takes a real problem and then goes so overboard in portraying it that it’s more likely to make you snicker than feel horrified. You might not feel good about laughing but the crazed look in Meredith Baxter’s cake-filled eyes will make it difficult not to. Hence, the term guilty pleasure.

As always happens in these type of movies, Kate ends up in a treatment center where a doctor (Edward Asner) tries to reach her and the other patients are all either extremely nice or extremely rude. Kate’s roommate (Tracy Nelson) is a model with anorexia. Another patient (Mindy Seeger) harps on Kate’s “perfect life.” Meanwhile, poor Deyna (Mackenzie Phillips) freaks out when someone moves the garbage can. It’s all very well-meaning but also very over-written and overacted to the point that, once again, it’s more likely to illicit a guilty laugh than anything else.

In the end, Kate realizes that it’s all her mother’s fault. That was kind of obvious from the first time her mother told Kate that her husband was obviously planning on leaving her. “I’m getting better,” Kate says as the credits roll. Yay, Kate!

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Icarus File No. 21: Reach Me (dir by John Herzfeld)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2011 film, Reach Me, opens with a rapper named E-Ruption (Nelly) appearing on a morning show and talking about how, while he was serving a prison sentence, he read a self-help book called Reach Me. It asked him to consider whether or not his childhood self would be happy with his adult self. The book was written by a mysterious man named Teddy Raymond. No one knows who this Teddy Raymond is. He’s never appeared in public. People film themselves reading the book online and then upload to YouTube as a way of sharing Teddy’s wisdom. I honestly can think of nothing more annoying and boring than watching someone else read a self-help book but whatever. I live in Texas. The movie takes place in California.

Tabloid editor Gerald (Sylvester Stallone) takes a break from action painting to order one of his reporters, Roger King (Kevin Connolly), to track down Teddy Raymond. Roger wants to write the great American novel. He doesn’t care about self-help. He meets Teddy’s associates, Wilson (Terry Crews) and Kate (Lauren Cohan) and Wilson talks about how Teddy magically cured Kate’s stutter. Roger then wanders around the beach, asking random people, “Teddy Raymond? Are you Teddy Raymond?” Oh look! There’s a guy named Teddy (Tom Berenger) who reluctantly cures Roger of his smoking addiction by ordering Roger to yell at the ocean …. over and over and over again.

Collette (Kyra Segdwick) has just been released from prison. Reading Teddy’s book has inspired her to try to become a fashion designer. Collette’s daughter, Eve (Elizabeth Henstridge), is an aspiring actress who was earlier groped by a sleazy star named Keating (Cary Elwes). Collette and Eve literally crash their car into a car being driven by Wolfie (Thomas Jane), a sociopathic undercover cop who enjoys killing people and who goes to confession after every shooting. (At the start of the movie, he guns down Danny Trejo.) The alcoholic priest, Father Paul (Danny Aiello), refuses to hear any more of his confessions.

Meanwhile, wannabe mob boss Frank (Tom Sizemore) is upset because another mob boss, Aldo (Kelsey Grammer), doesn’t treat him with any respect. Frank sends two of his hitmen, Thumper (David O’Hara) and Dominic (Omari Hardwick), to kill a man who owes him money and to also shoot the man’s dog. Thumper has been reading Teddy Raymond’s book and doesn’t want to shoot the dog. Dominic realizes that his heart isn’t into the mob life so, taking the book’s message to heart, he calls Frank and says, “My heart’s not in it.”

(Don’t try that with any real mobsters.)

Eventually, all of the characters do come together. They don’t exactly come together in a plausible manner but they do all end up at the same location so let’s give the film credit for that. Let’s also give this film credit for leaving me seriously confused. I have no idea whether this film was meant to a parody or a celebration of the self-help industry. At first, I suspected that it meant to be a parody because all of Teddy Raymond’s advice was painfully shallow and the type of basic crap that anyone could come up with. I actually found myself losing respect for the people who claimed that Teddy had changed their lives. But at the movie progressed, I realized that I was supposed to take Teddy and his advice seriously. This was a film that I guess was meant to have something to say but who knows what exactly that was.

That said — hey, everyone’s in this movie! Director John Herzfeld was a former college roommate of Sylvester Stallone’s and, once Stallone agreed to appear, that apparently convinced a lot of other “name” actors to take the risk as well. There’s a lot of talent in this film but little of it is used correctly. Kelsey Grammer as an Italian mobster instead of the editor? Sylvester Stallone as the editor instead of the Italian mobster? Thomas Jane as a sociopath who has a girlfriend by the end of the movie, one who smiles and tells him, “Try not to shoot anyone?” Kyra Sedgwick as an ex-con? These are all good actors but just about everyone, with the exception of the much-missed Danny Aiello, is miscast.

It’s a true Icarus File. It was a just a little more self-aware, this would have been a Guilty Pleasure. But, in the end, self-help cannot help itself.

Previous Icarus Files:

Scenes I Love: Toshiro Mifune Meets Lee Marvin In Hell In The Pacific

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In today’s scene that I love, two icons of cinematic cool meet in 1968’s Hell In The Pacific.

In this scene, Lee Marvin comes across Toshiro Mifune on the island on which they have both crashed. There’s not much dialogue in this scene but, when you’ve got two actors like Marvin and Mifune, there doesn’t need to be much dialogue.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Toshiro Mifune Edition

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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 would have been the 105th birthday of the great actor, Toshiro Mifune. It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Toshiro Minfune Films

Drunken Angel (1948, dir by Akira Kurosawa)

Seven Samurai (1954, dir by Akira Kurosawa)

The Hidden Fortress (1958, dir by Akira Kurosawa)

Yojimbo (1961, dir by Akira Kurosawa)

The Eric Roberts Collection: A Talking Cat!?! (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2009’s A Talking Cat!?, an adorable kitty named Squeaky stars as Duffy, a cat who can speak with the voice of Eric Roberts! It’s all due to a magic collar that Duffy is wearing. Not only do we hear Duffy’s thoughts but he can actually talk to people. He can only do it once per person and it’s not something that he really enjoys doing. He usually prefers to keep quiet and just inspire the humans with his cuteness but occasionally, the human are so dumb that Duffy has to speak up.

Over the course of A Talking Cat!?!, Duffy helps two families become one. Phil (Johnny Whitaker) has just retired from writing code and he has a huge home, a sullen son named Chris (Justin Cone), and too much free time on his hands. Chris has a crush on Fannie (Alison Sieke), who he is tutoring in English. Frannie obviously like Chris and enjoys swimming in the house’s pool but how will she react when she discovers that Chris doesn’t know how to swim? A few miles down, single mother Susan (Kristine DeBell) is trying to start her own company while her children, Tina (Janis Peebles) and Trent (Daniel Dannas), does their own thing. Tina wants to do something with computers. Trent is still struggling to find himself. He enjoys teaching people how to swim. Hey, Phil is a programmer! Chris needs to learn how to swim! Do your thing, Duffy!

Somehow, this film has gotten a reputation for being bad. Look, as far as I’m concerned, it features two really nice houses, an adorable cat, and the voice of Eric Roberts. It’s great! From what I’ve read, Eric recorded his dialogue over the course of a few hours. His somewhat cynical and world-weary voice is actually the way most cats would probably sound. Does his tone frequently not match what’s happening on the screen? Yes, but that’s a part of the film’s charm. Someone said, let’s get the cutest cat we can find and then have him speak in the voice of Eric Roberts. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all this film needed for it to totally work. Cats have been there. They’ve seen stuff. Cats are like, “Meow, things got dark!”

Thanks, Duffy!

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Films of 2025: Flight Risk (dir by Mel Gibson)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Flight Risk, Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort since the Oscar-nominated Hacksaw Ridge, opens with Winston (Topher Grace) being arrested by Madolyn (Michelle Dockery), a U.S. Marshal.

Winston is an accountant, one who moved around a lot of money for the Mafia and who arranged for a lot of bribes to high-ranked officials. That said, Winston is not a particularly dangerous or even cunning fugitive. If anything, he’s extremely neurotic. He worries about the safety of his mother. He tells Madolyn (and the audience) way more than anyone could possibly need to know about his bathroom habits. He’s on the run because the government wants him to testify against his former employers. Winston is far more frightened of the Mafia than he is of the government and with good reason. The Mafia wants him dead. The government still needs him alive.

After Winston is arrested in Alaska, Madolyn arranges for them to be flown to Anchorage by a Texas-born bush pilot named Darryl Booth. When a man claiming to be Darryl (Mark Walhberg) shows up, Madolyn and Winston promptly get on the plane. From the minute Wahlberg started speaking, I was rolling my eyes. Wahlberg’s Texas accent was perhaps the worst that I’ve ever heard in a modern movie and that’s saying something. Fortunately, it turned out that Wahlberg’s accent was deliberately bad. The man calling himself Darryl Booth is not actually Darryl Booth. He’s not from Texas. He’s not a professional pilot. Instead, he’s a hitman who has been sent to kill both Winton and Madolyn. Unfortunately, Madolyn and Winston don’t realize that until the plane has already taken off.

Flight Risk starts out as an enjoyably silly movie but it’s ultimately done in by the limitations of its plot. Nearly the entire film takes place in that cramped and nondescript airplane and neither Madolyn nor Darryl are really compelling enough to hold onto your interest over the entire course of the film’s 90 minute running time. Winston, on the other hand, is actually a compelling character and Topher Grace shows, once again, that he deserves a bigger film career than the one he has. Unfortunately, Winston spends the majority of the film incapacitated. He’s either in handcuffs and stuck in the back of the plane or he’s sitting up front and freaking out but he never gets to do as much as one might wish. Instead, the entire film comes down to Darryl taunting his targets and Madolyn struggling to figure out how to fly the plane. To be honest, the film actually makes flying look pretty easy. I mean, Madolyn has no experience as a pilot and she somehow still manages not to crash. How difficult could it be?

Of the three main actors, Topher Grace gives the best performance, managing to give a fully-rounded performance even when Winston is incapable of moving. For the first thirty minutes or so of the film, Mark Wahlberg is enjoyably over-the-top but then his character just becomes a standard talkative villain. Michelle Dockery is stuck playing a boring character and she never brings much life to her flat dialogue. If anything, she’s outacted by an unseen Leah Remini, who provides the voice of Madolyn’s partner and proves that she can still curse like a champ.

Flight Risk continues the pattern of scripts that rank high on Hollywood’s “black list,” (that is, the annual list of the most popular unproduced scripts in Hollywood), being turned it into disappointing films. At least it’s slightly more fun than Cedar Rapids.

The TSL Grindhouse: Death Drug (dir by Oscar WIlliamas)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1978’s Death Drug, Philip Michael Thomas plays Jesse Thomas.

Jesse is a plumber with a dream. He wants to be a songwriter, a musician, and most of all, a star. His girlfriend and eventual wife, Carolyn (Vernee Watson-Johnson), stands by him as he sends his music off to record companies and waits for word. When he’s finally given a recording contract, no one is happier for him than Carolyn. Certainly, Jesse’s own father doesn’t seem to care much about his son’s success. “I have no son,” he says, even after Jesse wins a Grammy.

(To be fair, they’ll give just about anyone a Grammy.)

Unfortunately, with success comes temptation. While celebrating at a local club, Jesse is approached by a drug dealer (Frankie Crocker) who gives Jesse a cigarette that is laced with Whack. Whack, as those of us who have seen Disco Godfather can tell you, is PCP. Remember Disco Godfather‘s cry of “We’ve got to attack the whack?” Well, Jesse allows himself to become a victim of whack attack. It starts out simply enough, with a moving painting. Then, before you know it, Jesse’s hairbrush is turning into a hungry alligator and Jesse starts to become convinced that everyone is plotting against him. Even a trip to the grocery store goes wrong as Jesse spots spiders in the produce and zombies in the aisles! Jesse freaks out. He runs outside. He…. well, no spoilers for me. But let’s remember the words of Rudy Ray Moore in Disco Godfather. Put your weight on it! Yes, indeed. Put your weight on it, Jesse.

This is one of those anti-drug films that was probably best enjoyed by people who viewed it while high. It’s a rather short film, which means that Jesse goes from being a hard-working plumber-turned-musician to a ranting and raving maniac in record time. Philip Michael Thomas throws himself into the role, especially the ranting and raving part. I’ve been binging Miami Vice so seeing the usually collected and cool Thomas screaming in terror at things that aren’t there was an interesting experience. Because the film was so short, there’s some filler that’s awkwardly tacked on, presumably to bring the movie up to feature length. We get a news report about a man who went crazy from PCP-usage and had to be taken down by the cops. We get a report about Jesse Thomas’s musical career that features a much-older looking Philip Michael Thomas performing a song that’s more from the 80s than the 70s. (That was inserted into the film when it was re-released in 1985, at the height of Thomas’s Miami Vice success.) There’s a lengthy news report at the end that, hilariously, has a moment where the reporter apologizes for “technical difficulties” that were probably included just to get the movie past the 70-minute mark.

As I mentioned, this film was re-released in 1985. Philip Michael Thomas filmed a special introduction for the film, in which he played pool in his Hollywood mansion and told the viewer that, out of all the roles he had played (“cops, kings….”), none of them meant as much to him as his performance as Jesse Thomas. Philip Michael Thomas is the epitome of 80s cool in that introduction and in a short scene that appears after the end credits. Don’t worry, folks, the film is telling us. Jesse Thomas may have fallen victim to the whack but Philip is still over here putting some weight on it.

In the end, it’s all fairly silly but it does make a nice companion piece to Don Johnson’s Heartbeat. If you’re a success, you really owe it to yourself to have a vanity project. It’s what the people want.

Musical Film Review: Heartbeat (dir by John Nicolella)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1987’s Heartbeat opens with Don Johnson in an unidentified Central American country.

Rebels are moving through the jungles. Helicopters are flying over villages and firing off missiles. In the middle of it all is Don Johnson, playing a character identified as being “The Documentary Filmmaker.” Johnson carries a large movie camera with him, recording all of the violence and the carnage. Is Johnson trying to expose the evils of the government? Is he trying to expose the rebels? Is he just an adrenaline junkie who can’t help but go to the most dangerous places in the world? I have no idea and I’m not sure that the film does either.

A bomb explodes. Johnson is thrown back. Soon, Don Johnson is being carried into a dark room on a stretcher. It appears that he might be dying but, even as his heartbeat is slowing down, his spirit is still hanging around and having flashbacks to the attack on the village, which we just saw less than a minute ago. Eventually, Johnson’s spirit has other flashbacks. He remembers talking to Paul Shaffer. He remembers his strained marriage to an unnamed woman played by Lori Singer. He remembers his youth as the son of a Las Vegas showgirl who is played by Sandahl Bergman. (Bergman also played a showgirl in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and her scenes in this film often feel as if they’ve been directly lifted from Fosse’s classic film.) David Carradine shows up as someone who might be Johnson’s father or who might just be some random guy rolling dice in the backroom of a strip club. Johnson remembers his friendship with a graffiti artist (Giancarlo Esposito), who has a sister (Angela Alvarado) who was a prostitute. The main message seems to be that the Documentary Filmmaker recorded the dangers of the world while also trying to remain emotionally detached, much like Robert Forster in Medium Cool. Now that he’s dying, he’s left to wonder whether he made the right choice in refusing to get personally involved.

Oh, and did I mention that this film is basically a 65-minute music video? Don Johnson sings through the entire movie, in a style that does its best to imitate the tough growl and soulful yearning of Southern rock and roll but which ultimately only serves to show that Johnson made the right decision in focusing on acting instead of singing?

After I came across this film on Lettrboxd and then watched it on YouTube, I did a bit of research (which is a fancy way of saying that I spent a minute reading a Wikipedia entry) and I discovered that, at the height of his Miami Vice success, Johnson released his debut country rock album, Heartbeat. Heartbeat the film was something that Johnson made in order to promote Heartbeat the album. Directed by frequent Miami Vice director John Nicollela, Heartbeat the film is so self-indulgent and determined to prove that Don Johnson is a soulful artist that it becomes oddly fascinating to watch. Johnson’s Documentary Filmmaker is a bit of a cad but the film seems to argue that 1) it’s not really his fault because women find him to be irresistible, 2) it’s really his mom’s fault for getting a job, and 3) it ultimately doesn’t matter because the Filmmaker is a great artist whose work will live on even after he dies. It’s a vanity film for a vanity album and it’s all so vain that it becomes hard to look away from.

In the end, both the music from the album and the promotional film leave one feeling that, in 1987, Don Johnson might have had an unreasonably high opinion of his musical abilities. That said, as anyone who has seen Cold In July can tell you, Don Johnson eventually did become a very good actor.