Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.23 “Mannikins of Horror”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Uh-oh!  Here come the Mannikins of Horror!

Episode 1.23 “Mannikins of Horror”

(Dir by Ernest Farino, originally aired on May 20th, 1989)

In a dystopian future, a once renowned surgeon named Dr. Collin (William Prince) is a “patient” in a mental health facility that is more of a prison than a hospital.  Dr. Collin is obsessed with dying but he believes that he has found a way to transfer his soul into the very detailed, anatomically-correct clay figurines that he has made in his cell.

Dr. Jarris (Glynis Barber) thinks that Dr. Collin can be cured but the new head of the asylum, Dr. Starr (Brian Brophy), disagrees.  Starr believes that Collin is beyond saving and of no use to society.  And, in the future, those who do not have a use are euthanized.  Dr. Starr does not care that Dr. Collin once saved thousands of lives during the world’s most recent war.  He doesn’t care that Dr. Collin truly believes that he can make the world a better place through his research.  Dr. Starr has not time for imagination or speculation.  He is all about following procedure and observing protocol.  The arrogant Dr. Starr even takes away Dr. Collin’s figurines.

That’s a mistake because guess what?  Those figurines are alive!  And when Dr. Starr drinks a bit too much Vodka and passes out in his office, one of the figurines picks up a scalpel and stabs Dr. Starr in the eye, killing him.  When Dr. Jarris discover what has happened, she smashes the figurine’s head against Dr. Starr’s desk.  Dr. Collin screams in his cell as his face collapse in on itself, leaving behind a bloody mess.  Dr. Jarris huddles in a corner and starts to scream as the end credits roll.

YIKES!

Seriously, this was a really good episode.  The clay figurines were certainly creepy and the scene where they attacked Dr. Starr was so graphic that I’m a bit surprised the show was able to get away with it.  That said, what truly made this episode frightening was its portrayal of a society without compassion.  Dr. Starr, who is more of a bureaucrat than a doctor, has the power to decide who is useful to society and who is not.  And, if you’re deemed to not be useful, you’re marked for death.  It’s a harsh worldview and an example of cold pragmatism taken to its logical extreme.  It’s also feels like a pretty accurate representation of the attitude that many government and medical officials took during the COVID pandemic.  Just as many seemed to be gleeful about the idea of the pandemic wiping out those who they considered to be undesirable, Dr. Starr can barely suppress his joy in punishing Dr. Collin for not being properly compliant.  The little clay figures were scary but Dr. Starr was horrifying.

Monsters has been a fairly uneven show so far but Mannikins of Horror is a triumph.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.7 “The Horse Lover/Secretary to the Stars/Julie’s Decision/Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse/Village People Ride Again”

Posted on 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!

Come aboard, they’re expecting you!

Episode 4.7 “The Horse Lover/Secretary to the Stars/Julie’s Decision/Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse/Village People Ride Again”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 22nd, 1980)

Well, let’s see who is sailing on the Love Boat this week….

Uh-oh.

That’s right!  This week, The Village People are taking a cruise!  The disco group boards the boat while singing — you guessed it — In The Navy.  Captain Stubing is a huge fan of the Village People and he’s excited to learn that they will not only be sailing on the boat but they will also be performing their new song, Magic Night.  Stubing mentions that he wishes he could be a village person.  He’s already got a hat!  And he’s served in the Navy!  Stubing never gets around to whether or not he spent the night at YMCA and that’s probably a good thing.

This week, the boat is sailing to Acapulco for the Acapulco Steeplechase.  The Village People have entered a horse in the race, one that will be ridden by the Indian.  Gopher and Isaac have also bought a horse and entered it into the race.  They name the horse “Captain Stubing” and they go through a lot of trouble to keep the real Captain Stubing from finding out that they have snuck the horse on board.  The thing is, though — there are a lot of horses on board!  Nearly every passenger has brought a horse with them and the boat actually has a stable to hold them all during the cruise.  I’m not really sure why it’s a problem for Gopher and Isaac to have a horse, other than the fact that they both spend a lot of time checking in on the horse.  “Where is my crew!?” Stubing demands, while looking around the ship.

Paul Willis (Alan Ludden) is traveling with both his horse and his wife, Louise (Betty White).  Louise is upset that Paul seems to care more about the horse than her.  Louise even considers having a fling with Cliff (David Doyle), a man who wants to buy Paul’s horse.

Meanwhile, wealthy playboy Bret Garrett (Robert Stack) boards the ship and immediately falls in love with Julie.  Despite a 30-year age difference, Bret asks Julie to marry him.  This is the fourth or fifth times that a passenger has proposed to Julie during the course of a cruise.  Julie is happy but the crew worries that Bret might be too worldly and chronically unfaithful for Julie.

Finally, movie star Kim Holland (Loni Anderson) puts on glasses and a brunette wig and pretends to be an Englishwoman named Doris, all in order to keep people from bothering her on the cruise.  Tom Benson (Charles Frank) is obsessed, to an almost creepy extent, with Kim.  But then he falls in love with Doris, who he believes to be Kim’s secretary.  Tom fails to notice that 1) Doris looks just like Kim, just with glasses and brown hair and 2) Doris’s British accent doesn’t sound British at all.  Instead, it sounds like an American trying really hard to sound British.

The Steeplechase is won, rather easily, by Paul.  Both Gopher and the Indian end up getting thrown off their horses and they engage in a footrace to the finish line, for reasons that are not exactly clear.  After the race, Paul finally realizes how much he’s been neglecting Louise and he sells the horse to Cliff.  Meanwhile, Captain Stubing says that, next year, he’ll buy a horse with Gopher and Isaac and they’ll enter the horse into the race together.  As for Bret, he realizes that he’s not right with Julie and he pretends to cheat on her so that she’ll dump him.

And what about Kim?  Well, she tells Tom the truth and also reveals that her real name is June.  “Kim, Doris, June,” Tom says, “I can’t wait to get to know all three of you.”  Uhmm …. okay, not creepy at all.  Anyway, Tom and Kim leave the boat together but, right this episode ended, Kim appeared on an episode of Fantasy Island, in which she was again single and looking to escape her fame.  So, I guess she dumped Tom after a week.  Good for her!  Tom was super creepy.

Finally, all that is left to do is to say goodbye to the Village People.

This episode was an odd one.  Robert Stack was charming as Bret, even if he didn’t have much chemistry with Lauren Tewes.  Loni Anderson was fairly terrible as Kim, just as she would be on Fantasy Island.  And the Village People …. I mean, where do I even begin?  For a group associated with both disco and gay liberation, they came across as being an oddly dull collection of characters.  Of course, it’s doubtful that the target audience of The Love Boat knew what In The Navy was about or even understood why the members of the group were costumed the way that they were.  At one point, the Construction Worker even gives Julie an appreciate glance, as if the show’s producers were saying, “See, those rumors are just rumors!”

That said, I tend to like the odd episodes of The Love Boat and this episode functioned as a time capsule, if nothing else.  All it needed was Charo and it could have been put in a museum!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.17 “Code of Silence”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on You tube!

This week, the stars align and David Hasselhoff finally meets …. THE YAKUZA!

Episode 1.17 “Code of Silence”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on March 16th, 1996)

While her mother has a desperate conversation on a nearby payphone, young Mariko (Nicole Iiada) wanders onto the beach and spots a sea gull who has gotten tangled up in a fishing net.  Fortunately, Mitch Buchannon drives up in his red Baywatch jeep and is able to set the sea gull free.  Unfortunately, no sooner has the sea gull flown away then a bunch of Yakuza pull up and promptly kidnap Mariko’s mom.

Is there a detective in the house?

Why, yes, there is!

Well, kinda….

This is yet another episode of Baywatch Nights in which Mitch gets involved in a case as a result of being a lifeguard as opposed to being a private investigator.  Indeed, if not for the presence of Angie Harmon, there would be little to distinguish this from an episode of Baywatch.  While watching the last few episodes of Baywatch Nights‘s first season, you really can tell that the producers were desperate to bring over the audience that was watching just plan Baywatch.  If the first half of the first season was all about David Hasselhoff wearing suits and providing hard-boiled narration, the second half is more about getting everyone onto the beach as quickly as possible.

As for this week’s case, it turns out that the kidnapped woman is a geisha who has a computer disk that the Yakuza wants.  While the members of the Yakuza are busy threatening her with all sorts of violence, Mitch is teaming up with her grandfather (played by Soon-Tek Oh) and trying to discover where she’s being held.  When Garner and Mitch find out about the Yakuza’s secret headquarters, they launch an assault.  You might think that this would be difficult, seeing as how the members of the Yakuza are all ruthless martial artists.  Well, it turns out that karate is no match for Mitch’s fists.  The ancient art of combat falls before the power of the Hoff.

Somewhat inevitably, the episode ends with Mitch being given two samurai swords by Soon-Tek Oh.  When Mitch says that he can’t accept such an expensive gift, Soon-Tek Oh says that no one gets the swords as a gift.  Instead, they must be earned by truly displaying the spirit of the samurai.  Mitch looks truly touched while Angie Harmon suppresses a laugh.

David Hasselhoff vs. The Yakuza!  Well, we all knew it was going to have to happen at some point.  That said, I don’t think the Hoff was dealing with first-grade Yakuza.  It seems like the Yakuza sent the B-team to California.  Well, that was their mistake.  It didn’t take much effort for the Hoff to track them down and defeat them and in fact, it felt almost too easy.  The Yakuza probably thought the Hoff would be too busy recording a new album to care.  Again, their mistake.

Never underestimate the Hoff!

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 4.16 “Chorus Girl/Surrogate Father”

Posted on 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 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, Mr. Roarke is almost too clever for his own good.

Episode 4.16 “Chorus Girl/Surrogate Father”

(Dir by Richard Benedict, originally aired on February 21st, 1981)

Weird episode, this week.

Our first story features John Saxon, playing the role of Evan Watkins.  Evan is a compulsive gambler and his fantasy is to make one huge score.  Accompanying Evan is his young daughter, Amy (Nicole Eggert).  Her fantasy is for Evan to give up gambling and start acting like a real father.  On the Island, Evan and Amy meet Margo (Rosemary Forsyth), a social worker whose fantasy is to really make a difference in the life of someone who is in trouble.  Basically, Mr. Roarke takes all three fantasies and just crams them together.

So, Evan does win big but then some gangsters show up, searching for him.  And Amy does get her wish but not before Evan nearly abandons his family.  And Margo, after some initial hesitation, falls in love with Evan and leaves the Island with him and Amy.  It all works out but it still seems dangerous to mix together a bunch of fantasies like that.  If one thing had gone wrong, Roarke would have been left with three unhappy customers instead of just one.

This fantasy was pretty predictable but it did give Herve Villechaize a chance to actually do something more than just stand around and ask Mr. Roarke questions.  The scene where Tattoo comforts Amy by explaining that her father may be a man on the outside but is still just a scared child on the inside was wonderfully acted by Villechaize and rather sweet.  Villechaize was notoriously difficult on the set of Fantasy Island and was reportedly always on the verge of being fired for his behavior but, in this scene, he demonstrates why he was so important to the show.  Mr. Roarke may be the owner of Fantasy Island but Tattoo is the heart.

The second fantasy is kind of creepy.  Sheila Richards (Lisa Hartman) has been deaf since birth.  She was raised by Franklin Adams (Stuart Whitman), who taught her how to dance.  Unfortunately, Sheila can only dance by watching Franklin’s hand signals.  Franklin’s fantasy is for Sheila to be able to hear for a weekend so she can audition for a world-famous choreographer.  Franklin also wants to tell Sheila that he’s in love with her.

There’s a few problems here.  Franklin is in his 50s while Sheila is in her 20s and has basically been dependent on him for her entire life.  Franklin wants Sheila to hear him when he says, “I love you!” but he also goes to the Island with the knowledge that, at the end of the weekend, Sheila will again lose her hearing.  It seems a bit cruel on Franklin’s part to put Sheila through all that when 1) he knows sign language and 2) Sheila can read lips.  There’s nothing stopping Franklin from telling her how he feels.

The other problem is that the episode doesn’t seem to understand that there are many dancers who are hearing-impaired.  Because they learn the choreography and can feel the vibrations of the music, they are fully capable of dancing without being dependent on someone signing to the them from the audience.  One does not need to hear the music to be able to dance to it.  Instead, one just has to be able to keep time and remember the choreography.

Anyway, as you can probably guess, Sheila falls in love with the world-famous choreographer, leaving Franklin heart-broken.  However, at the end of the episode, Mr. Roarke introduces Franklin to a teenage girl who lives on the Island.  Roarke explains that she’s deaf and asks Franklin to look after her while she goes to school in New York.  Franklin agrees with a quickness that is a bit …. icky.

This whole fantasy felt like a mess, from Franklin’s oddly-conceived fantasy to the fact that Lisa Hartman was in no way convincing as someone who can’t hear.  Whether Sheila can hear or not, the one thing that remains consistent is Hartman’s overacting.  Even the usually reliable Ricardo Montalban seems to be annoyed by the whole fantasy.

This was a weird trip to the Island.  What will next week’s journey reveal?

Music Video of the Day: Sunglasses at Night by Heidi Klum (2024, dir by Rankin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, is there nothing that Heidi Klum can’t do?

This is, of course, a cover of a song by Corey Hart.  Heidi’s version was produced by Tiesto.  I have to say that, as a former Project Runway fan, I’d love to see Alyssa Milano try to compete with this.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.17 “Hitch-Hiking Hitch”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Baker solves everything!

Episode 1.17 “Hitch-Hiking Hitch”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on February 9th, 1978)

It’s another crazy week on the highways of California.

Baker saves a wind sailor who loses control of his boat while testing it on the freeway.  Baker saves a trucker when the brakes go out on his rig.  Baker helps out an old man (George Chandler) who refuses to leave his home until he’s promised that he and his dog won’t be put in an assisted living facility.  Baker tells two teenagers, Jenny (Lark Gein) and Marge (Stacy Nelkin), about the dangers of hitchhiking on the highways.

In other words, this is yet another first season episode of CHiPs where the main theme seems to be that Ponch is thoroughly useless.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  Ponch definitely helps out.  When Baker tells Ponch to direct traffic, Ponch hops off his motorcycle and starts waving at cars to either stop or go.  But it’s still hard not to notice that, when something needs to be done, Baker is the one who does it.  Indeed, Baker is usually the only one who knows how to do it.  You have to kind of wonder why he’s not in charge since he always knows what to do.

Still, Sgt. Getraer is the man in charge and he’s been named “Sergeant of the Month” by CHiPs Magazine.  Ponch and Baker are worried that Getraer is too humble to really enjoy the honor.  For some reason, Ponch thinks that playing a joke on Getraer by switching out his helmet will make Getraer enjoy life more.  It really doesn’t make much sense to me but this is Ponch that we’re talking about.

There’s an odd scene where Ponch and Baker are having lunch at a diner.  A man in a van pulls up and sees that their bikes are in the parking spot that he wants.  The man, who is rather large, picks up the bikes and puts them on the sidewalk.  He then picks up a car and moves it to the side.  Luckily, Getraer rolls up and gives the guy a ticket.

While Baker and Getraer are doing their jobs, Ponch is trying to get laid.  When Mary Kate (Katherine Cannon) comes to the station to bail out her sister (who is one of the hitchhikers), Ponch takes one look at her and says, “I bet you were named after your grandmother, who was also very beautiful.”  Mary Kate responds that she was named after two spinster aunts.  She goes on a few dates with Ponch and claims that her sister has been led astray by her friend.  It turns out Mary Kate is wrong and her sister is the one who keeps insisting on hitchhiking.

The hitchhiking nearly ends in disaster but fear not!  Baker is there to save Marge from some creeps driving a van.  Seriously, what would California do without Jon Baker?

Anyway, the scene with the out-of-control truck was kind of exciting but otherwise, this was a typical episode of CHiPs.  It wasn’t particularly memorable but the California scenery was lovely to look at.  Anyone want to go wind sailing?

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.5 “The Dutch Oven”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

Well, this sucks!  Tubi is no longer streaming Miami Vice.  Hopefully, the show will soon have a new streaming home.  As for the episode that I reviewed below, I had to buy it on Prime.  It cost next to nothing but still, there’s a larger issue, namely my desire to watch stuff for free.

Episode 2.4 “The Dutch Oven”

(Dir by Abel Ferrara, originally aired on October 25th, 1985)

This week’s episode of Miami Vice opens with a typical Vice situation.  Trudy is undercover as a prostitute.  Tubbs is undercover as a drug buyer.  When the dealers try to rip Tubbs off, it leads to an exciting and well-shot car chase that ends in an alley.  One of the dealers points his gun at Sonny and Trudy and, four shots later, he’s lying dead on the ground.

For once, though, it’s not Sonny who did the shooting.  Instead, all four shots were fired by Trudy.  This time, it’s Trudy who is shaken by taking someone’s life and it’s Trudy who finds herself being harassed by Internal Affairs.  Feeling lost, Trudy goes to a party hosted by her ex-boyfriend, David (Cleavant Derricks).  Soon, Trudy and David are back together but, when Trudy discovers that someone is dealing drugs at David’s parties, she is forced to confront the fact that her boyfriend might not be an innocent bystander.

A young Giancarlo Esposito appears in this episode, playing an up-and-coming dealer named Adonis.  Adonis is an old friend of David’s and he’s also the one who is responsible for selling the drugs at the parties.  (It turns out that David actually is innocent.)  Sonny, realizing that Trudy is too close to the case and still emotionally shaken by the earlier shooting, goes undercover to take Adonis down.  Of course, Adonis doesn’t surrender easily and the episode ends with him literally daring Trudy to shoot him.  Trudy hesitates so Sonny sends Adonis to the ground with one punch.  As far as endings go, it doesn’t quite feel like a Miami Vice ending.  Season one, for instance, had no hesitation about ending with gunshots.  Gina shot Burt Young in cold blood.  Pam Grier killed several drug dealers and apparently got away with it.  Bruce Willis’s wife shot him on the courthouse steps.  Dennis Farina was shot in his car at the end of Lombard.  This episode, though, ends with Sonny demonstrating that he can make arrests without killing people and with Trudy still not having to deal with her fear of using her weapon.  It feels a bit wishy-washy, to be honest.

On the plus side, Abel Ferrara does a good job directing this episode.  The opening action scene is genuinely exciting and the entire episode is permeated with a melancholy atmosphere.  This episode deserves some credit for acknowledging that the Vice detectives spend a lot of time investigating and arresting people with whom they’ve become friends.  And it’s good that, after spending so much time in the background, Trudy finally got a showcase episode and Olivia Brown got a chance to prove she could carry a story.  This is an effective episode, even if it never quite becomes a classic.

Spring Break On The Lens: The Squad (dir by Rick Walker)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Years ago, three girls were rescued from their abusive foster parents.  Under the direction of the enigmatic Alpha (Jennifer Ferguson), Gina (Meghan Carrasquillo), Dani (Grace Evans), and Bella (Alea Hansinger) have made a lot of money and they only have to work one week out of the year.  That week is Spring Break, when they hit the beach and sell drugs to all the visiting college students.

Unfortunately, a bigtime gangster known as Frosty the Snowman (Shawnee Brittan) does not want Alpha and the Squad moving in on his business.  So, along with targeting Alpha for assassination, he also sends his people down to the beach to take out the members of the Squad.  It all leads to a lot of violence, death, and bikini shots.  Everyone has their own agenda and no one can be trusted, perhaps not even Alpha.  Can the Squad survive or will they end up being dunked in acid?

Just from reading the plot description, you might think that this was a subversive, satirical film in the style of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and certainly, there are moments of deliberate humor.  The three Squad members spend a lot of time talking between jobs and making fun of the faux tough guys that they have to deal with.  There’s a slightly funny bit where one of the girls will make a snarky comment and someone else will reply by accusing them of being a very particular type of bully.  “You’re a spray tan bully,” made me laugh more than it probably should have.  (That’s probably because, as a redhead, I can’t tan to save my life.)

That said, The Squad takes itself way too seriously at certain points.  There’s all sorts of twists and turns and scenes of criminals talking about all of the unpleasant tortures that they intend to inflict until they hear what they want to hear.  This is one of those films where all the camera movements are jittery and most of the scense are so underlit that you end up straining eyes just trying to figure out who is talking to who.  For a 78-minute film, there’s a lot going on in The Squad and the plot is almost impossible to follow.  The film makes the mistake of assuming that we’ll automatically care so much about The Squad that we won’t care that their actions rarely make sense.  But since we really don’t get to know either The Squad or Alpha, it’s difficult to get emotionally involved in their attempts to corner the drug market.

For the most part, the acting is poor.  The actresses playing the members of the Squad are naturalistic and likable when they’re just lying around and gently giving each other a hard time but the minute they have to start shooting or talking tough, everyone starts trying too hard to act as if they’re in an early Tarantino film and the whole thing just feels awkward.  As Frosty, Shawnee Brittan is convincingly evil and some of the actors playing his toothless henchmen are properly creepy.  Otherwise, one would be better served by rewatching Spring Breakers.

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Malibu Express and Field of Dreams!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally 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 Malibu Express (1985), from director Andy Sidaris!

Then, on twitter, #MondayMuggers will be showing 1989’s Field of Dreams!  The film is on Prime and it starts at 10 pm et!

It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in.  If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Malibu Express on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!  Then switch over to twitter, pull Field of Dreams up on Prime, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! 

Enjoy!