Since today would have been Robert Altman’s 101st birthday, it only seems right that today’s song of the day should come from his best film. In this scene from 1975’s Nashville, Keith Carradine sings I’m Easy as Altman’s camera finds each of his lovers in the audience, all convinced that Carradine is singing expressly to them.
This song won Nashville it’s only Oscar. It also made Keith, who wrote the song, the only Oscar winner amongst the fabled Carradine family.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties. On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday. On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? Hell Comes To Frogtown!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Hell Comes To Frogtown on Prime or Tubi, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there happily tweeting. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
See you there!
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, we celebrate what would have been the 101st birthday of the great director, Robert Altman! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Robert Altman Films
MASH (1970, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Harold E. Stine)
The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)
Nashville (1975, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Paul Lohmann)
Short Cuts (1993, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Walt Lloyd)
Here’s a classic music video from X.
When I was looking for a music video to share today, I discovered that the majority of the music videos had recently been uploaded to YouTube were AI. It wasn’t just that the videos were made with AI. It was that the singers and the songs were often AI as well! That was disturbing, especially since most of the AI artists didn’t sound that different from their autotuned real-life counterparts.
Needless to say, I was happy to find this from Exene and X.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, it’s time for yet another student protest.
Episode 5.8 “Goodbye, Mr. Zelinka”
(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on June 23rd, 1989)
The students at Lincoln High are upset to learn that beloved English teacher Mr. Zelinka (Lew Ayres) is going to have to retire because he’s reached the mandatory age of 70. The school’s new maintenance workers — Jonathan Smith and Mark Gordon — suggest that they should all conduct a walk-out to demand that Zelinka be allowed to keep his job. The evil school board president (James Karen) says that Zelinka can stay if he takes and passes an exam. However, the exam is rigged for Zelinka to fail. Jonathan uses “the stuff” to make sure that Zelinka not only passes but that he also gets the highest score ever. In the past, Jonathan always refused to use “the stuff” to help people cheat. Instead, Jonathan would have shown the school board president the error of his ways. But, for this episode, Jonathan rigs the rigged exam and the villain is left in power so that he can presumably continue to make Mr. Zelinka’s life miserable.
I did not like this episode. Yeah, it’s heart was in the right place but the entire school walking about in support of Mr, Zelinka just felt kind of silly. I mean, did every student at the school have Mr. Zelinka for English? What did everyone’s parents think about the protest? If Mr. Zelinka had been a compelling character, may be I would have felt differently but Mr. Zelinka was instead a pretty passive character and I have to admit that I wondered about all the other good teachers who had been forced to retire at 70. Why didn’t Jonathan show up to help any of them out? What made Mr. Zelinka so special? It didn’t help that Lew Ayres was 80 years old when he played Mr. Zelinka and that he looked and sounded even older. The obviously frail Ayres comes across as someone who maybe does need to retire.
I’ve sat through a lot of Highway to Heaven episodes about clean-cut teenagers walking out of class so that they can protest injustice. Highway to Heaven was a very earnest show and that was one of the things that made it likable. But, by the fifth season, Highway to Heaven‘s formula was a bit less effective than it had been in the past. This is an episode just just seems to be going through the motions. This is also the rare Highway to Heaven episode in which I wanted someone to tell Jonathan and Mark to just mind their own business.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958. The show can be viewed on Tubi!
Casey goes under cover at yet another cocktail lounge.
Episode 1.21 “The Showplace”
(Dir by David Alexander, originally aired on March 3rd, 1958)
There’s been a murder at a cocktail lounge. One of the girls who worked there has been found in alley, strangled. That means that it’s time for Casey to go undercover as a clip-joint girl, convincing men to buy her drinks. It’s a sleazy place, run by two brothers (Bill Hayes and Lewis Troy) and featuring a sad-eyed bartender (Lou Polan) with a mysterious past. Casey’s investigation uncovers all sorts of nefarious dealings. In the end, the murderer is revealed and it’s not who you might have thought. In a cocktail lounge full of largely ugly people, the murderer is the one handsome man. Casey mentions that he may have been handsome on the outside but, on the inside, there was nothing.
This was a great episode, a moody slice of downbeat noir that featured Casey doing actual undercover work. The cocktail lounge was a wonderfully atmospheric location, the supporting cast was full of strong character actors, and Beverly Garland did a great job as Casey both empathized and suspected the men with whom she was working.
This episode ended, as the best ones always did, with Casey talking about the tragedy of it all. Casey’s New York is a city of dreams but it can also be a nightmare.
Today’s song of the day is from Crystal Method. Though Keep Hope Alive was featured in the film The Replacement Killers, it was actually inspired by a 1992 speech from Jesse Jackson, which is heard throughout the song.
102 years ago today, Lee Marvin was born in New York City. One of the great screen tough guys, Lee Marvin played stoic and determined men who you didn’t want to upset.
That was certainly true of his role as Walker in 1967’s Point Blank. A thief who was double crossed by his partner and the organization to which his partner was in debt, Walker is determined to get back the money that he stole from someone else. Relentlessly, Walker moves from one mob boss to another and repeatedly, those bosses make the mistake of thinking that they can double cross him again.
Point Blank (1967, directed by John Boorman)
In this scene, which was reportedly considered to be shockingly violent by 1967 standards, Carter (Lloyd Bochner) attempts to fool Walker, just to discover that Walker is smarter and far more ruthless than anyone realizes.
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!
John Frankenheimer was born 96 years ago today, in New York City. He got his start working in live television and went on to become one of the best directors of thrillers around. After getting off to a strong start in the 60s, directing several classic films (many of which had a political subtext), Frankenheimer struggled in the 70s (though even that decade saw him directing the classic Black Sunday) before making a comeback in the 90s. (1998’s Ronin is regularly cited as having one of the best car chases ever captured on film.) He was also one of the first film directors to make the transition to regularly working for cable channels like TNT and HBO. Indeed, the films that he made for HBO played no small part in establishing HBO’s reputation as being a “prestige” network.
It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 John Frankenheimer Films
The Manchurian Candidate (1962, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: Lionel Lindon)
Seconds (1966, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: James Wong Howe)
Black Sunday (1977, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: John A. Alonzo)
52 Pick-Up (dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: Jost Vocana)
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is the latest three-episode docuseries from Netflix. It takes a look at the history of the groundbreaking reality show that was once loved and which has since been declared problematic. It features interviews with some of the models, most of whom share some very harrowing stories about how they were treated while appearing on the show. (Shandi Sullivan’s story epitomizes everything that is exploitive about reality television.) Producer Ken Mock talks about how the show’s format was inspired by the first season of Making the Band. (Ken seems to be under the impression that O Town is currently a beloved cultural institution.) Jay Manuel talks about being a part of the show and how he was treated by Tyra Banks after he tried to leave. J Alexander talks about how, after he suffered a stroke, Tyra never reached out to him. Nigel Barker pretends to be ashamed of some of the challenges that he photographed and judged. We get clips of TikTokers watching the show during the COVID lockdown and complaining about …. well, everything.
Tyra Banks is also interviewed. The series paints Banks as a villain and yet, she not only consents to be interviewed but actually seem to enjoy it. That’s because Tyra Banks isn’t stupid. She apologizes without actually apologizing because she understands that a real apology would be seen as a sign of weakness, even by those demanding one. Even more importantly, she understands that reality television demands a villain. It demands someone who can say outrageous things with style. It demands someone that people will watch so that they can be shocked and scandalized. While being interviewed, Tyra mentions that she’s trying to put together at least one more season of America’s Next Top Model. If you look at the online reactions, you’ll find a lot of people and entertainment reporters who claim to be angered by her audacity but let’s be honest. If Tyra gets her 25th season of America’s Next Top Model, most of the people complaining about the show will watch. The sites that are currently posting lists of the “Most Disturbing Revelations From Inside America’s Next Top Model” will recap the entire season and post galleries of “Tyra’s Most Outrageous Looks.” They might complain about it. They would definitely make room in their reviews to post the usual litany of complaints. (To be honest, whenever I hit those paragraphs, I always skip over them because it’s always the same thing.) They might claim to hate the show but they would still recap it and they would still get the clicks and they would accept the money the comes from those clicks.
For all the criticism to be found in this docuseries, it was ultimately a commercial for America’s Next Top Model. There’s a reason why you can find the first sixteen seasons on Disney Plus, Hulu, and Pluto TV.
Oh yeah, I thought as I watched, I remember the crime scene photo shoot! Yeah, you’re right, that was totally insensitive. And the photoshoot were the girls had to pretend to have an eating disorder! That was so messed up! And which episodes were those again?
In the end this docuseries doesn’t so much inspire outrage as much as it inspires nostalgia for a time before outrage. Some people would consider that to be a good thing. Some people definitely wouldn’t. But the end result is the same. The viewer wants to go back and rewatch, either to bask in the nostalgia or to have an excuse to get angry.
As for the docuseries itself, it’s only three episodes long. The first episode and the first half of the second episode are effective. Then, the series falls apart as it tries to cram ten years worth of scandal and drama into the remaining 90 minutes. The interviews with Jay Manuel are interesting, though Jay seems to be even worse than Tyra when it comes to dodging responsibility for the show’s more infamous moments. (He says that he asked not to take part in a blackface challenge but, significantly, he did not threaten to quit.) My heart broke for Miss J and for Shandi Sullivan and for Dani Evans, the model who was ordered to close between her front teeth. There was so much wrong with America’s Next Top Model and yet, we’ll all be watching Season 25.
And if Tyra offers him enough money, she can probably get Jay Manuel back.
Through the Shattered Lens