Disco Baby”

Posted on June 14, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, it’s disco, high school, and alcoholism on The Love Boat!

Episodes 1.18 and 1.19 “Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Itsy Bitsy/Ticket to Ride/Disco Baby”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 3rd, 1979)

It’s time for the Haney High class reunion and one of the school’s most beloved graduate, Julie McCoy, has arranged for her former classmates to celebrate their 10-year reunion on the Pacific Princess!

This was a special double-sized episode of The Love Boat. (It was split into two episodes for syndication.) Along with being twice as long, this episode also features twice as many guest stars and a twice as much romance and drama. It turns out that Haney High’s Class of ’69 was a large one indeed.

(It’s not really made clear as to whether everyone on the cruise is there for the reunion or if there are passengers on the cruise who are just trying to enjoy a vacation. I have to say that I would be a bit annoyed if I boarded a cruise just to discover that it was being used for someone else’s loud and crowded high school reunion. Seeing as how the entire boat has been decorated with signs welcoming the “class of Haney High,” I hope that it was just Hany High alumni on the cruise. Otherwise, some people definitely ended up feeling left out of all the fun.)

Along with being a supersized episode, quite a bit of this episode was filmed while the ship was on an actual cruise. (The Love Boat would always take one or two actual cruises during each season. That was one reason why so many actors were eager to be on a show that was never really a critical favorite.) As a result, the characters in this episode spend far less time in their cabins than usual. Instead, almost every scene takes place on one of the decks. The ocean looks lovely. A scene where Doc talks to Gopher and Isaac features a striking sunset in the background.

As for the storylines, it’s a little bit hard to know where to start with this episode. Not only did the passengers all get storylines but so did Captain Stubing, Doc Bricker, and Julie McCoy. I guess as good a place to start as any would be with Malcolm Dwyer (Raymond Burr), the high school’s beloved drama teacher. Mr. Dwyer boards the ship and, rather than talk to any of his former students, he immediately starts drinking. It quickly becomes apparent to everyone that Mr. Dwyer has a drinking problem. He’s haunted by the fact that, rather than becoming a star himself, he instead just became a teacher. Fortunately, Captain Stubing immediately realizes what is going on with Mr. Dwyer and he takes it upon himself to help. When Mr. Dwyer demands to know why Stubing cares so much about his drinking, the Captain lets down his guard and reveals that he too is an alcoholic.

This episode was the first time that the show directly acknowledged that Captain Stubing was a recovering alcoholic, though it was something that was occasionally hinted at. While Raymond Burr occasionally seems to be trying too hard to turn Mr. Dwyer into a grandly tragic figure, the scene where the Captain talks about his alcoholism is still a surprisingly poignant moment. Gavin MacLeod really captures the vulnerability of the moment as the normally reserved Captain opens up about something in which he takes no pride. Gavin MacLeod was, himself, a recovering alcoholic and, when he warns Dwyer about his drinking, it’s obvious that it’s not just Captain Stubing talking to a passenger. It’s also Gavin MacLeod talking to the show’s audience. It’s a surprisingly poignant moment.

Speaking of poignant moments, Jack Forbes (John Rubinstein) is on the cruise with his wife, Kathy (Judi West). When Jack sees Mike Kelly (Michael Cole), he freaks out. Mike was the king of Haney High, the high school quarterback with a bright future ahead of him. In school, he was Jack’s best friend. After they graduated, both Jack and Mike received their draft notices. Mike went to Vietnam and returned in a wheelchair. Jack fled to Canada with Kathy. When Jack sees Mike, he feels ashamed of himself and lies about what he did during the war. Jack worries that, if everyone finds out that he was a cowardly draft dodger, they’ll toss him overboard.

(To be honest, if Jack should be worried about anything, it should be running into the guy who got sent to Vietnam in his place. When someone dodged the draft, that meant someone else has to go in his place and that person was usually someone who didn’t have the resources to just pick up and leave the country.)

With Kathy’s encouragement, Jack finally confesses to Mike and Mike tells Jack that he already knew. Mike forgives Jack and, again, it’s a surprisingly poignant moment. John Rubinstein and Michael Cole both gave heartfelt and committed performances and the show approached the issue with the type of nuance that I don’t most people would necessarily expect from an episode of The Love Boat.

While this is going on, Doc is spending the cruise with Bitsy (Conchata Ferrell). When Doc saw Bity’s high school yearbook photo, he insisted that Julie sit him up with her. (Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.) Doc is shocked to discover that Bitsy has gained weight since high school. Gopher and Isaac give Doc a hard time for dating Bitsy during the cruise. After getting to know her and discovering her quick wit, Doc announces that Bitsy is beautiful even if she is “chubby” and, believe it or not, as bad as it is to read about it, the whole thing feels even more cringey and awkward when you watch the episode. This was another storyline that existed to confirm that Doc and Gopher were walking HR nightmares.

Meanwhile, Wendy (Kim Darby) is trying to figure out which one of her former classmates anonymously paid for her ticket and sent her a love poem. Was it Ross Randall (Christopher George), who is now a television star? Was it former class clown Pete DeLuca (Kelly Monteith)? Or was it the class hippie, Jason Markham (Bob Denver)? What was odd about this storyline was that the cruise was for Julie’s ten-year class reunion but both Christopher George and especially Bob Denver were obviously quite a bit older than the other members of their class. (If either one of them was 28, one can only assume they spent the past decade drinking 24/7.) Ross, at one point, talked about how Mr. Dwyer was the teacher who inspired him but Ross appeared to be roughly the same age as Mr. Dwyer. It was weird but hey, that’s The Love Boat!

As for who sent Wendy the ticket, it turned out that her secret admirer was her husband, Tom (David Landberg). Tom and Wendy were separated so Tom decided to send her on the cruise so she could find someone better. (That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever written.) In the end, Wendy realizes that she still loves Tom. Yay!

Finally, Julie is super-excited because her ex-boyfriend, Joey (Michael Lembeck), is on the cruise. Joey is now a disco instruction (yay!) and he works with Sherry (Lisa Hartman), who was the most popular girl at Haney High. Julie wants to rekindle her romance with Joey but it soon becomes clear that Sherry has feelings for Joey too. Sherry even asks Julie to back off a little when it comes to Joey. However, when Gopher and Isaac take a break from fat-shaming Bitsy and Doc, they encourage Julie to fight for what she wants. Julie pursues Joey even more aggressively. In the end, Julie, Joey, and Sherry all realize that Joey and Sherry belong together but it was still interesting to see Julie in a less than heroic role for once.

Of course, the best thing about the Julie/Joey/Sherry love triangle is that it featured disco! Joey not only taught everyone how to dance but he also turned the ship’s ballroom into a huge discotheque. By the end of the episode, everyone was dancing while a disco version of the Love Boat theme played. It was great!

As you may have guessed, I really enjoyed this episode. Yes, the stuff with Bitsy was cringey and it was annoying that Bitsy never got a chance to really stand up for herself and tell everyone to just accept her for who she was. (Conchata Ferrell was an actress who was at her best when she was telling people off.) But the rest of the episode was surprisingly well-written and acted and the fact that the cast and crew went on an actual cruise while filming only added to the fun. If nothing else, this episode showed why the cruise industry continues to go strong, despite all of the shipwrecks, hijackings, and pandemics that have plagued it for the past few decades. This was a fun episode, one that definitely made me want to set sail for adventure!

Film Review: Atlas Shrugged, Part II (dir by John Putch)

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2012’s Atlas Shrugged: Part II picks up where Part I left off.

The time is still the near future. (Part I specifically set the story as taking place five years into the future. Part II declines to use a specific date but it does feature some news personalities playing themselves so it’s still clearly only meant to be a few years from 2012.) The economy has gotten even worse. The poor are only getting poorer while the rich are getting richer. Under the direction of Head of State Thompson (Ray Wise) and his main economic advisor, Wesley Mouch (Paul McCrane), the government has nationalized nearly every business. Halfway through the film, Thompson declares a national emergency and uses the Fair Share Law to invoke Directive 10-289. All inventors, businessmen, and other creative people are required to sign their patents over to the government and to stop trying to develop now techniques. Wages are frozen. No one can be fired and no one can be hired. Creative thinking is discouraged. Asking questions or expressing doubt is forbidden. People are encouraged to snitch on anyone not following the Directive. Thompson and Mouch insist that it’s for the “good of the people,” and anyone who disagrees runs the risk of being dragged into court and sent to prison for ten years. Meanwhile, gas now costs $42.00 a gallon. One of the funnier moments of the film features someone paying $865.72 to fill up a truck.

Dagny Taggart (Samantha Mathis), the Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental Railways, is still trying to discover who invented an experimental motor that she found hidden away in a mine. The motor could potentially change the way that goods are transported but it appears to be missing one component. Unfortunately, all of the great scientists and inventors have been vanishing, with many of them leaving behind notes that ask, “Who is John Galt?” Meanwhile, Dagny’s lover, Hank Rearden (Jason Beghe), fights to protect Rearden Metal from being taken over by the government and Dagny’s brother, James (Patrick Fabian), sells out to Wesley Mouch with the end result being that there’s no one left at Taggart Transcontinental with the intelligence or the experience necessary to keep two trains from colliding in a tunnel.

Given that Ayn Rand herself was an atheist who wrote very critically of religion, it’s interesting how much of Atlas Shrugged: Part II feels like one of those evangelical films where the Rapture comes and the entire world falls apart because all of the believers have suddenly vanished. In the case of Atlas Shrugged, the world falls apart because all of the creatives and all of the leaders of industry and all of the innovative thinkers have abandoned it so that they can create a new community with John Galt. (They’ve “stopped the motor of the world.”) In many ways, this is the ultimate in wish fulfillment, a way of declaring, “They’ll miss me when I’m gone!” Indeed, the majority of people who keep a copy of Rand’s novel displayed on their bookcase do so because they believe that they would be one of the lucky ones who was approached by Galt. No one expects that they’ll be the person left behind to try to run the railroad. It’s a bit like how like the most strident Marxist activists always assume they’ll be the ones organizing the workers as opposed to being a worker themselves.

Not surprisingly, the same critics who attacked Part I didn’t care much for Atlas Shrugged Part II. When I first saw it, I thought the film was a bit too long and I was annoyed that, with the exception of a few minutes at the end, the film didn’t really seem to move the story forward. At the same time, just as with the first film, I appreciated the fact that the second film was proudly contrarian in its portrayal of the government as being inherently incompetent. After all, this was 2012, back in the “good government” era, when a lot of people still reflexively assumed that the government was staffed only by hyper-competent policy wonks who knew what they were doing and who were only concerned with making sure that “the trains ran on time,” to borrow an old expression.

Rewatching the film this weekend, I have to say that I actually appreciated Atlas Shrugged Part II a bit more than the first time I watched it. Yes, Part II was still a bit too long and the domestic drama between Hank and his wife fell flat but Part II is still a marked improvement on the first film. Some of that is because Part II had a higher budget than Part I and, as a result, it didn’t look as cheap as the first film. The corporate offices looked like actual corporate offices and the factories looked like real factories. Secondly, the second film had an entirely different cast from the first film. Samantha Mathis, Jason Beghe, and especially Patrick Fabian were clear improvements on the actors who previously played their roles. That’s especially important when it comes to Mathis and Beghe because, as opposed to the first film, Part II convinces the viewer that Dagny and Hank actually are as important as they think they are. When the trains collide in the tunnel, the viewer never doubts that Mathis’s Dagny could have prevented the disaster if not for the government’s attempts to force her out of her own company. As well, the viewer never doubts that Beghe’s Hank would fight to the end to protect his business, even if it means prison. One wouldn’t have necessarily believed that while watching the first film.

Finally, having lived through the COVID era, the film’s portrait of government overreach and incompetence feels a lot more plausible when watched today. One doesn’t have to be a fan of Rand’s philosophy or agree with her solutions to see the parallels between Directive 10-289 and the policies that led to children being kept out of schools and numerous small business having to shut their doors. In an era when most people’s faith in governmental institutions has been broken to such an extent that it might never be fixed in our lifetime, Atlas Shrugged Part II resonates. Whereas the film once felt subversive, now it feels downright prophetic.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.16 “Photographs/Royal Flush”

Posted on April 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Smiles, everyone, smiles! Especially you, Tattoo!

Episode 2.16 “Photographs/Royal Flush”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on January 27th, 1979)

After announcing the arrival of the plane, Tattoo informs Mr. Roarke that he is reading a book on hypnotism.

“Ah, it’s hypnotism now,” Roarke replies, “To what end?”

Tattoo looks at a passing native girl as the cameraman gives the viewers a close-up of her sarong-covered behind.

Okay, 1979. We see ya.

The less interesting of this week’s two fantasies involves the Fantasy Island poker tournament. (Fantasy Island reminds a bit of Hell’s Kitchen, in that there’s always some weird theme night.) Johnny Court (John Rubinstein) is an up-and-coming player whose fantasy is to play against the greatest poker player of all time, Victor Holly (John McIntire). Johnny has borrowed a good deal of money from a group of gangsters in order to enter the tournament so, if Johnny doesn’t win, guess who is getting his fingers broken?

Complicating matters is that Victor travels with his daughter, Emily (Ronne Troup). It doesn’t take long for Johnny to realize that Emily is helping Victor cheat but Johnny has also fallen in love with Emily. To save his own life, he has to defeat Emily’s father but, if he does so, that’ll mean Victor will no longer have the money necessary to support his daughter.

This fantasy wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t particularly interesting either. Rubinstein, McIntire, and Troup all gave good performances but the poker scenes were a bit draggy. Perhaps it would have been more interesting to me if I was a poker player myself. But I prefer craps, just because you get to jump up and down before rolling the dice.

The second fantasy was a bit more intruding. Nancy Weston (Michele Lee) is photographer who has just returned from a trip to Europe and Asia, where she took many pictures. When she got the pictures developed, she discovered that a mysterious girl appeared in almost all of the pictures, even though it would have been impossible for the girl to have followed her all the way from Stonehenge to Thailand without Nancy noticing. Nancy’s fantasy is to know who the girl is and why she’s following her.

The girl shows up on Fantasy Island. Her name is Allison (Elizabeth Cheshire) and, as Roarke explains, Allison is not only the daughter of a powerful psychic but she also has the power to speak to the dead as well. And it turns out that one of the dead has a message for Nancy….

This fantasy was really well-done and nicely creepy. At heart, it was a pretty basic ghost story but Michele Lee and Elizabeth Cheshire both gave good performances and some of the imagery — particularly of a white horse running in slow motion through a green field — was surprisingly effective.

All in all, one mild but well-acted fantasy and one memorably creepy fantasy came together and added up to one good episode of Fantasy Island! These are the type of episodes that we fantasize about.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.13 “Too Hot to Handle / Family Reunion / Cinderella Story”

Posted on November 30, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s Love!

Episode 1.13 “Too Hot to Handle / Family Reunion / Cinderella Story”

(Dir by James Sheldon and Richard Kinon, originally aired on January 7th, 1978)

It’s time for another cruise with three separate stories!

Newlyweds George (John Rubinstein) and Sally Allison (a youngish Kathy Bates) board the Pacific Princess, hoping to enjoy the ideal honeymoon. Instead, it turns out to be one disaster after another. Sally gets sunburned. George gets poison ivy. Having gotten off the boat in Mexico, Sally returns to discover a totally different couple staying in what she thinks is her cabin. Uh-oh. It turns out that Sally accidentally got on the Sun Princess and the Pacific Princess has already set sail without her! This was a pretty simple storyline and, if anything, it mostly seemed to exist so that the show’s writers could see how many bad things that they could do to one perfectly innocent couple. But John Rubinstein and Katy Bates are so likable as George and Sally that the story works. You can’t help but hope the cruise gets a little better for them. Kathy Bates was 29 when she appeared on The Love Boat and there’s nothing about her performance that would necessarily make you say, “Hey, that’s a future Oscar winner!” But still, both she and John Rubinstein do a good job with the material that they’ve been given.

Meanwhile, Tommy (Bob Crane) is a middle-aged man who has been hired to work as a steward on the ship. Captain Stubing takes an immediate dislike to the irresponsible, womanizing Tommy. When he discovers that Tommy has been drinking on the job, Stubing comes close to firing him. However, Tommy confesses that he’s drinking because he’s just discovered that the daughter who he abandoned years ago is on the cruise. Wendy (Dori Brenner) has always believed that her father died in a shipwreck and she hopes that Stubing might know something about the wreck. Seeking to help out Tommy, Stubing tells a lot of lies about Wendy’s “deceased” father but Tommy finally breaks down and confesses the truth. At first, Wendy rejects Tommy but, with the help of her understanding husband (Robert Hays), she eventually forgives her father.

This storyline hinges on a huge coincidence. What are the chances that Tommy and Wendy would just happen to end up on the same cruise together and that Tommy would be assigned to serve as Wendy’s steward? On top of that, what are the chances that Wendy would just happen to have a picture of her mother sitting out where Tommy could see it? It’s all fairly predictable but, if you’ve seen Auto Focus, it’s interesting to watch Crane’s performance here. This episode aired just a few months before Crane was murdered in Arizona and it’s easy to see the charismatic but irresponsible and self-destructive Tommy as being a reflection of who Bob Crane himself had reportedly become at the time of his death. Tommy is a character who lives with a lot of emotional pain and regret and Crane is so surprisingly effective in the role that it’s hard not to wonder if perhaps, on some level, he related to Tommy.

Finally, in the show’s final storyline, Bill Edwards (Bruce Solomon) is a supermarket manager who has booked a cruise with his wife, Doreen (Judy Luciano). When a wealthy advertising exec cancels his trip, Julie and Gopher decide to let Bill and Doreen stay in the man’s luxury cabin. This, of course, leads to Stubing mistaking Bill for the ad exec! Suddenly, Bill and Doreen are sitting at the captain’s table and competing for an advertising contract! Eventually, the truth comes out but business tycoon Greg Beatty (David White) is so impressed with Bill’s ideas that he arranges for Bill to get a job with an actual advertising company. Mad Men it’s not! However, it’s still a charming little story, largely due to the performances of Bruce Solomon and Judy Luciano.

If last week’s episode was a “lesser Love Boat,” this week’s episode show just how much fun The Love Boat could be. Yes, all of the stories are fairly predictable but the guest stars all perform their roles with a lot of energy. Bob Crane brings a poignant sense of regret to his performance as Tommy while Bruce Solomon and Judy Luciano are exactly the type of attrative couple that you would want to meet on a cruise. And, as I said already, it’s impossible not to like John Rubinstein and Kathy Bates as the newlyweds who just can’t catch a break. The regular cast is used sparingly but effectively in this episode. Fred Grandy gets a nice scene where he has to explain to John Rubinstein that Kathy Bates got on the wrong boat. Bernie Kopell plays Doc Bricker as being an agent of chaos. It’s a fun episode and what more can you ask for?

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1.3 “Chapter Three: The Trial of Sabrina Spellman” (dir by Rob Seidenglanz)

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Before reading my review of the third episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, be sure to read Case’s thoughts on the first two episodes!)

Having run out on her Dark Baptism, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) finds herself put on trial. She’s been accused of breaking her promise, which is one of the worst things of which a witch can be accused (Especially when that promise was made to Satan.) Even worse, she’s been informed that, in witch court, you are considered to be guilty until proven innocent. The prosecution has her signature in the Book of The Beast. Sabrina has an attorney named Daniel Webster (John Rubinstein).

As soon as I heard the name Daniel Webster, I got excited because I assumed that Sabrina’s attorney was going to turn out to be the great Massachusetts political leader who served 19 years in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State under three different U.S. presidents. (Webster was also the subject of a short story and film called The Devil and Daniel Webster, which is briefly referenced when Sabrina is told that Webster once beat the Devil at his own game.) But no, it turned out that Sabrina’s lawyer was just a mortal named Daniel Webster, a guilt-ridden man who once sold his soul to the Devil and asked to be made the world’s greatest attorney. As Webster explains it, he used his powers to win acquittals for the worst of the worst and it wasn’t until one of them murdered his daughter that Webster realized that everything came with a cost. At first, Webster, who is played with a haunting sadness by Rubinstein, refuses to take on Sabrina’s case but then he changes his mind. Of course, this leads to Madam Satan assuming the form of Webster’s dead daughter and trying to manipulate him into dropping the case.

Speaking of manipulation, Harvey (Ross Lynch) is being manipulated by his abusive father to abandon art and work in the mines. As Harvey explained to Sabrina, he once saw a creature of unbelievable evil living underground. Ross Lynch gave an especially good performance in this episode and he and Shipka have an amazing chemistry, as displayed in a scene in which Harvey rather sweetly checked to see if Sabrina had the Spellman “family birthmark.”

That “family birthmark” is one of the key plot points of The Trial of Sabrina Spellman. With her attorney demanding that Sabrina, as a half-human, be tried by human law, Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) suggests that if Sabrina wants to be tried as a human then perhaps she should be forced to endure the degradation that humans have forced on witches over the years. Perhaps, he suggests, she should be tossed in a lake and she can judged by whether or not she floats. Or perhaps, she should be forced to strip naked so that she can be inspected for a witch’s mark. And, at that moment, Sabrina is every woman who has ever had her words or his wishes casually dismissed or who has ever been told that the burden of proof is on her and her alone. Sabrina is told that she can either be humiliated and degraded as a part of the mortal world or she can be a witch and essentially lose all of her freedom. For much of this episode, it appears that there is no middle ground.

Meanwhile, in the moral world, Rosalind (Jaz Walker) fights against school censorship and reveals that she’s losing her eyesight. Rosalind’s bravery inspires Sabrina but it also inspires Ms. Wardwell (who, of course, is actually Madam Satan). Ms. Wardwell announces the formation of a secret book society, which will allow her to continue to manipulate Sabrina.

Toward the end of the The Trial of Sabrina Spellman, Aunt Zelda (played by Miranda Otto) announced, “Praise Satan! I’m young again!” and again, I was reminded that I was no longer watching Melissa Joan Hart and Beth Broderick in Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. That’s not bad thing, of course. When I was growing up, I loved Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and now that I’m an adult, I’m enjoying Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Kiernan Shipka, Mirando Otto, and Lucy Davis are all perfectly cast and Richard Coyle and Michelle Gomez are wonderfully hissable villains.

Up next is Episode 4, which is called Witch Academy. Look for my review either later tonight or tomorrow!

Horror Film Review: The Car (dir by Elliot Silverstein)

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“THE CAR IS IN THE GARAGE”

— Captain Wade Parent (James Brolin) in The Car (1977)

Yes, that’s right! The car is in the garage and it’s hunting for blood!

The Car is a pretty stupid movie that doesn’t really work but at least it’s enjoyably stupid. From the minute I started watching this movie, I knew that the only way I could recommend it would be if James Brolin shouted, “The car is in the garage!” at some point. When he did, I had to cheer a little. I love being able to recommend a movie.

The Car takes place in the small desert town of Santa Ynez. Nothing much ever seems to happen in Santa Ynez, which perhaps explains why the police force is so large. (Why wouldn’t you want to be a police officer in a town with no crime? It wouldn’t be a very demanding job.) Sheriff Everett Peck (John Marley) keeps the peace and sends his time talking about how much he hates bullies. Wade Parent (James Brolin) is his second-in-command and has a 70s pornstache. Wade’s best friend is Deputy Luke Johnson (Ronny Cox), a recovering alcoholic with impressive sideburns. And then there’s a few dozen other cops. Seriously, this tiny town has a HUGE police force.

One day, however, the police finally get something to do. A black Lincoln Continental has suddenly appeared, stalking the roads around the town. It doesn’t have a licence plate and the windows are tinted a dark red so it’s impossible to see who — if anyone — is driving. Stranger still, the car’s doors have no handles. When the car does show up, it seems to appear out of nowhere and once it’s run someone over, it seems to vanish just as quickly.

When the car first appears, it runs down two cyclists. A few hours later, it kills an obnoxious hippie hitchhiker (John Rubinstein). The only witness was alcoholic wife beater Amos Clements (R.G. Armstrong). When Amos goes to the police, the car tries to run him over as well but instead, it ends up killing Sheriff Peck.

Now, Wade is in charge and he has to do something about the car. Unfortunately, Wade’s girlfriend, Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd), made the mistake of screaming insults at the car when the car attempted to run down the school marching band. Now, the car is stalking her. Meanwhile, Luke is convinced that the car is being driven by none other than devil. Wade says that’s impossible. Luke points out that the car refuses to drive through consecrated ground.

And eventually, the car does show up in the garage…

The Car is one of the stupider of the many Jaws ripoffs that I’ve seen. You’ll be rooting for the car through the entire film, which is good since the car kills nearly everyone in Santa Ynez. (If any of them were likable, The Car wouldn’t as much fun to watch.) It’s dumb but the film does have an appropriately silly ending and James Brolin does get to yell, “The car is in the garage!”

So, there is that.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #103: 21 Grams (dir by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember how shocked a lot of us were when we first saw Birdman? Well, it wasn’t just because Birdman featured an underwear-clad Michael Keaton levitating in his dressing room. And it also wasn’t just because Birdman was edited to make it appear as if it had been filmed in one continuous take (though, to be honest, I would argue that the whole “one continuous shot” thing added little to the film’s narrative and was more distracting than anything else.) No, the main reason we were shocked was that Birdman was directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and, when we thought of an Inarritu film, we thought of something like 2003’s 21 Grams.

It’s not easy to explain the plot of 21 Grams, despite the fact that 21 Grams does not tell a particularly complicated story. In fact, if anything, the plot of 21 Grams feels like something that either Douglas Sirk or Nicholas Ray could have come up with in the 50s. Indeed, the plot of 21 Grams is far less important than the way the Inarritu tells the story. (In that, the dark and grim 21 Grams does have something in common with the arguably comedic Birdman.)

Inarritu tells his story out of chronological order. That, in itself, is nothing spectacular. Many directors use the same technique. What distinguishes 21 Grams is the extreme to which Inarritu takes his non-chronological approach. Scenes play out with deceptive randomness and it is left to the viewer to try to figure out how each individual scene fits into the film’s big picture. As you watch 21 Grams, you find yourself thankful for little details like Sean Penn’s beard, the varying lengths of Naomi Watts’s hair, and the amount of sadness in Benicio Del Toro’s eyes because it’s only by paying attention to those little details can we piece together how once scene relates to another.

The film tells the story of three people whose lives are disrupted by the type of tragedies that the pre-Birdman Innaritu was best known for.

Sean Penn plays Paul Rivers, who is a sickly mathematician who desperately needs a new heart. He’s married to a Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who devotes all of her time to taking care of him and is frustrated by Paul’s fatalistic attitude towards his condition. When Paul does finally get a new heart, he gets a new existence but is haunted by the fact that it has come at the expense of another man’s life.

Christina Peck (played by Naomi Watts) is a former drug addict who is now married with kids and who appears to have the perfect life. That is until her husband and children are tragically killed and, in her grief, Christina falls back into her old lifestyle. The formerly stable and happy Christina becomes obsessed with the idea of getting revenge for all that she has lost. Naomi Watts was deservedly nominated for an Oscar for her work here. Her vulnerable and emotionally raw performance holds your interest, even when you’re struggling to follow the film’s jumbled chronology.

And finally, there’s Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro). Like Christina, Jack is a former drug addict. Whereas Christina used the stability of family life to help her escape from her demons, Jack uses his new-found Christianity. And just as Christina struggles after she loses her family, Jack struggles after tragedy causes him to lose his faith. Like Paul, he struggles with why he’s been allowed to live while other have not. Del Toro was nominated for an Oscar here and, like Watts, he more than deserved the nomination.

(While Sean Penn was not nominated for his performance in 21 Grams, he still won the Oscar for his role in Mystic River.)

21 Grams is a powerful and deeply sad film, one that will probably shock anyone who only knows Inarritu for his work on Birdman. 21 Grams is not always an easy film to watch. Both emotionally and narratively, it’s challenging. But everyone should accept the challenge.