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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
Consider this latest edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films to be a part of my continuing atonement for only watching reality television.
4 Shots From 4 Cinematic Films
Contempt (1963. directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
Made in USA (1966, directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967, directed by Jean-Luc Godard)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be Bring Him To Me!
If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Bring Him To Me on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
This week, Terri has a boyfriend!
Episode 3.10 “Never Gonna Give You Up”
(Dir by John Bell, originally aired on November 19th, 2003)
The truth is that Rick is controlling, arrogant, and easily offended. In private, he loses his temper fast. In Ms. Kwan’s scene-study class, he’s in a group with Jimmy, Hazel, and Terri, assigned to bring to life a one-act written by budding playwright and actor Marco. Rick wants to direct. When Jimmy takes that job, Rick agrees to be stage manager. That’s right, folks! Rick is one of those people who likes to work crew. Anyone who ever did theater in high school knows how annoying those people were. (Seriously, you’d come offstage glowing because you’d just given the best performance of your life and some lighting-crew dork would go, “You nearly missed your mark.” Like, seriously, just shut up and stay out of my way, you weirdo.)
Marco takes the lead male role. Jimmy gives the nurse to Hazel and then announces that Terri will be the female lead. Terri is stunned and excited. Rick is immediately defensive, telling her it’s obvious Jimmy “has a thing for you. Why else would he give you the female lead?” (I think it may have had something to do with Terri being the last person left.)
This episode follows a pattern that will be painfully familiar to anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship. Rick gives Terri a pile of overly technical acting notes that make her look stupid onstage. When she gets upset, he grabs her wrist and leaves a bruise. Then he buys her flowers and apologizes. When Terri says she’s having a girls’ night with Paige and Hazel and Rick can’t come because “it’s just for girls,” he backhands her and leaves her with a swollen lip. (Hazel sees the lip and immediately knows Terri is lying about a cold sore.) When Terri says she needs time to herself and that Rick is suffocating her, he shoves her against a wall. Terri announces that she’s done with him.
Unfortunately, every Degrassi watcher knows that isn’t true. This episode may end with Terri throwing away the flower Rick left at her locker, but we know he’ll be back in a few episodes. We also know Season 4 is basically the season of Rick Murray’s revenge.
It’s an episode with a commendable message and a good performance from Ephraim Ellis. That said, as I rewatched it, I found myself obsessing over just how bad Marco’s little scene was. Marco played Ray, a dying man, and spoke in an exaggerated Italian accent. Hazel was the nurse who told Terri (playing Ray’s mother) that Ray was not going to live. In the episode, Terri takes the blame for everyone laughing at the play’s big dramatic beat, but I think the real culprit was Marco’s writing. “We do not always get what we want .… or want what we get.” I’ve always assumed the play was meant as a parody of bad teenage dramatics. At least, I hope it was.
The B-plot is an amusing little prank war between Spinner and J.T. Spinner is sick of J.T. hanging around Paige, so among other things he plasters the inside of J.T.’s locker with glamour photos of Mr. Raditch and slips a romantic poem under Raditch’s office door. J.T. responds by showing up at The Dot and being such an obnoxious customer that Spinner, waiting tables, loses his temper. Spinner gets in trouble with his boss and is demoted to — get this– “dish pig.” Is that an actual job? I mean, I guess he’s washing dishes, but “dish pig” is a really vivid way to put it. It’s certainly better than anything Marco ever wrote. J.T. and Spinner call a truce, but not before Ms. Kwan gets a love poem from “Spinner.”
This week’s episode was classic Degrassi. I liked that the ultra-dark Rick Murray storyline was balanced with JT and Spinner acting like idiots. That’s high school for you.
I was sick and congested for most of this week but I still managed to get a little Horrorthon work done. Fortunately, as I type this, I’m feeling a lot better. We’ve two and a half more weeks to go until October, the greatest time of the year!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC! It can be viewed on Peacock.
This week, the Wilson case is finally resolved.
Episode 6.3 “Blood Ties, Part 3”
(Dir by Mark Pellington, originally aired on October 31st, 1997)
“Yo, Frank!” Detective Ballard yells at Pembleton at the start of this episode and I have to admit that I immediately cringed at the sound of it. The man’s name is “Detective Pembleton.” Ballard has done nothing so far to give her the right to address Homicide’s best character as “Yo, Frank!”
Of course, the main theme of this episode seemed to be all the detective who have been with the show since the beginning suck and that the new arrivals can do no wrong.
Take Falsone, for instance! After a drug dealer is murdered, Falsone proves himself to be the only one who can talk to the dealer’s traumatized child. Lewis is a buffoon in this episode, gloating over the dead dealer and traumatizing the kid while trying to lead him through the police station. But Falsone? He knows exactly what to say and, with his gentle prodding, the kid identifies the murderer of his parent as being a narcotics detective who is on the Mahoney payroll. When Lewis asks Falsone why he’s so awesome, Falsone explains that he’s divorced and he misses his own kids….
OH MY GOD! He’s a young detective who gets results and he’s divorced! For a show that previously avoided stereotypes, Homicide is going out of his way to promote a big one in the form of Detective Falsone.
Meanwhile, the Wilson case is resolved. It turns out that Ballard was totally correct and Pembleton was totally wrong. Melia was killed by a member of the Wilson family and, to the surprise of absolutely no, the murderer turns out to be Hal Wilson (Jeffrey Wright, giving perhaps the worst performance of his distinguished career), the twitchy son of Felix. Hal was obsessed with Melia and flew into a rage when he found out she was sleeping with his father. Pembleton even gets Hal to admit it but –– Law & Order plot twist time! — Felix and Hal were only willing to talk to Pembleton on the condition that they weren’t Mirandized so the confession is inadmissible. (That doesn’t seem like something that the normally meticulous Pembleton would agree to but whatever.) Felix, Hal, and the entire family leave Baltimore for San Diego.
Afterwards, Ballard track Pembleton down and tells him that she’s going to be a Baltimore homicide detective whether he likes it or not. Pembleton admits that he was wrong. Watching the scene, one gets the feeling that the show is telling us, “Who needs Pembleton and Bayliss and all those boring cops when we’ve got new cop who are young and sexy and infallible?”
And here’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with bringing in new characters. There’s nothing wrong casting attractive actors in those roles. There is something wrong with pushing the characters to whom we’ve grown attached aside and insisting that we instead embrace new characters that we barely know.
This was a disappointing ending for the first three-parter of the series. The season has just started and I’m already sick of Falsone trying to prove that the Luther Mahoney shooting wasn’t justified. I’m sick of everyone talking about George Rae Mahoney as if she’s some total badass as opposed to a plot device. And I’m tired of my favorites being pushed to the side.
Today’s scene that I love is one of the greatest television moments of the past ten years. It’s one that I still think about on a nearly daily basis.
Oddly, ever since it went off the air, there’s been an attempt on the part of the media to pretend that Selina Meyer was meant to be some sort of inspiring figure. This scenes reminds us that she wasn’t even supposed to be likable.
(I groaned when the cast of Veep reunited to support Kamala Harris in 2024 because Veep was literally the last show that Harris should have been trying to remind people of.)
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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
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 Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!
It’s the aftermath of Zack and Kelly’s break-up! Who will survive!?
Episode 3.5 “The Aftermath”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 21st, 1991)
Last week, Kelly got a job at The Max and developed a crush on her boss, Jeff (Patrick Muldoon). Zack and Kelly broke up at the school dance. Kelly asked Zack if they could still be friends. “Always,” Zack said.
It turns out that Zack was lying. This episode finds him bitter and obsessed. Screech and Slater take him out to the movies but — oh no! — Kelly and Jeff walk in. Jessie, Lisa, and Screech each set Zack up on a blind date. Zack goes out with Jessie’s fat friend and she eats all of his popcorn. Lisa’s friend is more interested in talking about the books of Jackie Collins than watching the movie. And Screech’s cousin turns out to be a perfectly nice and pretty blonde. (“She’s adopted,” Screech explains.)
Zack takes Screech’s cousin to The Max and dances with her… in front of Kelly! And they’re dancing to… A12 on the jukebox! “That’s Zack and Kelly’s song!” Screech says. Apparently, it’s a song that doesn’t have a title or much of a beat. “A12 is sacred!” Kelly says. “It was sacred until you dumped me for that jerk!” Zack says.
Now, I’m a bit torn here. Zack’s definitely in the wrong here, but is A12 actually sacred? I mean, it’s not mentioned in any other episode. And while Zack is definitely trying to make Kelly feel bad, Kelly is being pretty self-righteous for someone who didn’t break up with her boyfriend until after she kissed another guy. I guess my feeling is that sacred songs pretty much went out the window as soon as Kelly and Zack broke up.
Anyway, Screech’s cousin throws her milkshake on Zack.
Lisa’s Sweet Sixteen birthday party is approaching! Zack says he won’t come if Kelly and Jeff are invited. Lisa tells him that she’ll invite whoever she wants. At first, Zack refuses to go to the party, but then Screech has a heart-to-heart talk with him. Screech basically tells Zack that he’s being a whiny loser. Imagine what it must have been like to hear that from Screech, of all people.
Kelly and Jeff show up at the party. At first, Slater shows admirable loyalty to his friend Zack by giving Jeff the cold shoulder. Then Jeff mentions that he wrestled in high school. “Won my division a few times,” Jeff says. That’s all it takes for Slater to be like, “Zack who?”
Zack does come to the party. He apologizes for being a jerk. He tells Jeff to take care of Kelly. Zack tells us that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get over Kelly. We’re left to wonder why he doesn’t just stop time if he’s so miserable…
This episode benefits from the presence of Patrick Muldoon, who makes Jeff into a likable “frat boy babe stealer.” It’s too bad that, in his next appearance, Jeff will have had a total personality transplant, because this episode actually made a pretty good point about the importance of accepting breakups and giving people a chance.
Again, I didn’t watch much TV this week. I wish I could say that it was because I was busy watching horror movies in anticipation of Horrorthon but mostly it was just because I wasn’t feeling that good. I started out with a touch of arthritis in my big toe making it difficult for me to walk or sleep. Luckily that only lasted a day. However, as soon as that was vanquished, I ended getting hit by my allergies. I was congested all the way through Friday. On the plus side, I recovered enough that, on Saturday, I could go outside and spray a bunch of wasps that were trying to build a nest on the side of the empty house next to mine.
I did watch Big Brother. I kind of wrote about it over at Reality TV Chat Blog. The show just hasn’t done much for me this year.
I watched a few episodes of SCTV on Netflix. Love that Count Floyd!
Through the Shattered Lens 