Today is Oliver Stone’s birthday so, for all conspiracy-loving readers, here is a key scene from Stone’s 1991 film, JFK! In this scene, Kevin Costner’s Jim Garrison meets the mysterious man known as X (played by the much-missed Donald Sutherland). X explains the conspiracy to Garrison.
This scene certainly convinced a lot of people. Personally, I think Oswald acted alone but one cannot deny Stone’s talent as a filmmaker.
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!
132 years ago today, the great French film director Jean Renoir was born in Paris! The son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean would go on to become just as revolutionary a force in the world of cinema as his father was in the world of painting. Today, in honor of the birth and legacy of Jean Renoir, here are….
4 Shots From 4 Jean Renoir Films
Grand Illusion (1937, dir by Jean Renoir, DP: Christian Matras)
The Rules of the Games (1939, dir by Jean Renoir, DP: Jean-Paul Alphen, Jean Bachelet, Jacques Lemare, Alain Renoir)
The Southerner (1945, dir by Jean Renoir, DP: Lucien N. Adroit)
The Woman On The Beach (1947, dir by Jean Renoir. DP: Leo Tover and Harry J. Wild)
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 Prime!
This week, Ponch falls in love.
Episode 6.8 “Head Over Heels”
(Dir by Richard Irving, originally aired on December 5th, 1982)
Ponch falls in love.
Well, of course he does.
Listen, it’s not like Bobby is going to be allowed to fall in love. Bruce isn’t going to fall in love. Grossman? He’s been on this show since the beginning and he’s still struggling to even get a date. Nope, if anyone on CHiPs was going to fall in love, it was going to be Ponch. Watching this episode and taking the last few seasons into account, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was specifically written into Erik Estrada’s contract.
We all know what we’re watching.
Ponch falls for Vanessa (Beverly Adams), a teacher who he meets while speaking at a Mothers Against Drunk Driving meeting. It’s a whirlwind romance. Sure, they have their problems. Vanessa isn’t sure that she can handle falling in love with a “street cop” who puts his life in danger every day. Ponch gets mad when he sees Vanessa talking to her ex (Dennis Holahan). But eventually, Vanessa realizes that Ponch will always be a cop and Ponch is informed that talking does not necessarily equal cheating. Ponch asks Vanessa to marry him. He gives her a “space puppy” that he buys from a kid on a street corner. (“He’s not really from space,” the kid says. Hey, kid, we saw Ponch battle a UFO a few weeks ago.) Everything is perfect….
And then, during a big picnic to celebrate the engagement, Vanessa gets run over by a drunk driver. Vanessa dies with Ponch holding her. It should have been a big dramatic and emotional moment and perhaps it would have been if the show had let the scene play out as opposed to dropping in a montage of flashbacks to scenes that we had just watched ten minutes ago. Perhaps if the episode had been scored to the unnerving silence that comes with most tragedies, it would have brought tears to my eyes in a way that the adult contemporary romantic ballad did not. We get the full Erik Estrada experience as Vanessa dies, with Erik trying so hard to force us to cry that the performance runs the risk of having the opposite effect. Ponch is distraught but Estrada still makes sure that the camera gets his good side.
I’ll say this. I appreciate that the show’s anti-drunk driving message. (Rumor has it that this episode was specifically made in an attempt to turn down the heat after Tom Reilly was arrested for driving under the influence and the real Highway Patrol threatened to pull their sponsorship as a result.) Imagine the episode’s impact if the victim had been someone we actually knew as opposed to a one-off character who was so obviously being set up to tragically die that she might as well have had “Doomed” stamped onto her forehead. As it is, Vanessa ends up feeling more like a plot device than an actual human.
That said, don’t drink and drive. It’s not worth it.
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 Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!
This week, things get dark.
Episode 1.19 “The Pinncale”
(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on February 27th, 1987)
When an earnest businessman named Pete Bauer (Bob Stupak) decides to open up a casino with Luca’s help, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Pete’s vision is a fun tourist destination where a chicken plays tic-tac-toe and the biggest loser at a table is still given $5,000 for being a good sport. Luca’s vision is to drive Pete out of business by skimming all of his profits, fixing his slot machines so that they always pay off, and sending Pauli, Holman, and Jack Claymore over to make sure everything goes off as planned.
As we learned last week, Jack is an FBI agent working undercover. Being sent over to Pete’s casino gives Jack a chance to see how Luca and his people rip off others. One night, when Pauli has a date with a showgirl, Jack is the one who gets to take the envelope containing the cash over to Luca. Jack hands it over. Luca gives him a $500 tip, little realizing that he’s also given Jack enough evidence to take back to Torello and Abrams.
Unfortunately, Pete is forced to sell his casino to Luca before Jack’s next meeting with Torello and Abrams. Pauli and Holman decide to celebrate. They stop off at Jack’s apartment complex to pick him up. Unfortunately, they arrive just in time to catch Jack in a phone booth leaving a message for Torello. They beat up Jack and then drag him off to a deserted construction site, where he’s tied crucifixion-style to a casino sign.
When Luca finds out, he leaves a meeting with Manny Weisbord so that he can personally shoot Jack in the back of the head. As Luca explains to Steve Kordo, there are some things that he simply has to do himself. Even though Luca may be recreating himself as a businessman in Las Vegas, he’s still a Chicago gangster at heart.
When Abrams and Torello find Jack’s body, Abrams says that whatever chance they had to arrest Luca was just blown out of Jack’s head. Yikes! That’s a graphic way to put it, but Abrams isn’t wrong.
This episode was a case of tonal whiplash, starting out as a comedy but ending in tragedy. For the first 30 minutes, it was hard not to be amused by how efficiently Luca and his men ruined Pete’s business. (Holman even convinced Pete to book a polka band.) However, the final few minutes reminded us that Luca, Holman, and even Pauli are all ruthless murderers. It doesn’t matter if you were a likable character like Jack Claymore. If you betray Luca, you’ll regret it.
As for Torello, this is the second cop he’s lost in his pursuit of Luca. His entire obsession with taking down Luca started with the murder of Detective Wes Connelly in the pilot. How will he react now that he’s seeking justice not just for Wes but for Jack as well?
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on twitter, I will be hosting one of my favorite films for #MondayMania! Join us for Dying For A Bid!
That’s right, it’s sorority drama!
You can find the movie on Prime and then you can join us on twitter at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) See you then!
I’ve always liked this song, perhaps even more so than The Wallflowers’s best known song, One Headlight. Jakob Dylan (who certainly has the talent necessary to be worthy of being known as something more than just “Bob’s son”) was inspired to write this song by a homeless man who he used to see on 6th Avenue. One day, the homeless man was gone but all of his possessions were still sitting on the sidewalk. As the days passed, the man’s possessions disappeared one-by-one. Jakob considers this to be the first true song that he ever wrote.
This music video was directed by David Fincher, who you may have heard of.
Today’s scene that I love comes from the greatest show ever made about my home state of Texas, Mike Judge’s King of the Hill.
Listen as Jeff Boonhaumer explains the Internet!
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)
Weekend (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!
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 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)
Hey, it’s Rick Murray!
When last we saw Rick (played by Ephraim Ellis), he was the shy, nerdy-but-cute guy leaving flowers at Terri’s locker. When this episode starts, Terri and Rick have been dating for a while. From the outside, Rick seems sweet, romantic, and utterly devoted to Terri. Jimmy and Spinner both think he’s a little weird, but Hazel and Paige insist he’s perfect for her.
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.
Next week, it’s Christmas in Canada!
