The video feels very Rollinesque.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman
Film Review: White Men Can’t Jump (dir by Calmatic)
Hulu’s White Men Can’t Jump is the story of two aging basketball players who have never lived up to their potential but who have yet to totally give up on their dreams.
Even when he was in high school, Kamal Allen (Sinqua Walls) was considered to be one of the best basketball players in the country. A lot of that was due to how he was raised by his father, Benji (Lance Reddick, giving a strong performance in one of his final roles). Benji was a basketball star himself and, as we see in several flashbacks, he trained Kamal to be the best. Benji was so obsessed with turning Kamal into a great player that he even drove away Kamal’s mother. Benji taught Kamal all that he needed to know about playing basketball but not enough about how to survive once his playing days were over. Unfortunately, after Benji was diagnosed with MS, Kamal lost his concentration. When he responded to being taunted during a game by going into the stands and punching a guy out, Kamal ended up getting arrested and he also ended up losing his chance of entering the NBA.
Jeremy (Jack Harlow) was a college basketball star who blew out his knee and lost his chance to go pro. He makes his living hustling other basketball players, knowing that they’ll assume that he can’t shoot because he’s white. He also sells highly suspicious health tonics and he spends a lot of time meditating. Though he can barely walk without taking his pain pills first, Jeremy still wants to make the NBA. When he hears that stem cell treatment might help his knee, Jeremy starts to scheme to win the money to cover the cost.
Together, Jeremy and Kamal hustle other players, make some money, and become unlikely friends.
It took me three days to get through White Men Can’t Jump, largely because the film itself was so boring that I struggled to actually pay attention to it for more than a few minutes at a time. This film is a remake of a 1992 film that starred Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. I have not seen the original White Men Can’t Jump but I have seen enough films featuring both Snipes and Harrelson to know that they are both talented and charismatic actors who both have strong comedic timing. In short, they don’t have much in common with the two leads of the new version of White Men Can’t Jump. In the role of Kamal, Sinqua Walls is solid but dull. Walls is convincing but he’s never particularly interesting. Making his film debut in the role of Jeremy, rapper Jack Harlow is so incredibly obnoxious that I found myself wanting to throw something at the screen whenever he popped up. The film repeatedly emphasizes that no one wants to play with Jeremy because he’s white but I think it’s equally probable that they’re just reacting to the fact that he is an incredibly annoying human being. Director Calmatic does all the usual choppy editing and slow-motion dunking that most viewers have come to expect from movies about basketball but with little chemistry between the leads and a script that tends to repeat the same jokes over and over again, this film never takes flight.
Retro Television Reviews: City Guys 4.26 “Blast From The Past”
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 City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Today, we say goodbye to season 4!
Episode 4.26 “Blast From The Past”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on February 24th, 2001)
The final episode of season 4 opens with the City Guys still at the Hamptons. (Wow, I guess this must be a really long weekend or something.) Chris is trying to plan “this one month anniversary surprise for Cassidy” and, for some reason, he thinks that it’s a good idea to ask Jamal and L-Train for advice. “Come on, dawg,” the very white Chris says, “a brother needs some advice here.”
“First piece of advice,” Jamal says, “don’t talk like that.”
Jamal tries to argue that anniversaries aren’t a big deal. Cassidy then enters the living room and announces that today is the 17-day anniversary of the first time that she and Chris said the same word at the same time and jinxed each other. She got Chris a card and everything. Anniversaries are very important and not just on this show. I have an entire calendar full of anniversaries and if you want to be a part of my life, you better be prepared to memorize it.
Meanwhile, on the beach, Al and Dawn are hanging out with Ms. Noble and Billy, which makes absolutely no sense. Al and Dawn make fun of Ms. Noble and Billy for being old. “Anything you and Dawn can do, Billy and I can do better!” Ms. Noble indignantly declares.
“Is that a challenge?” Dawn asks.
“Oh, it is on!” Ms. Noble replies.
Uhmm….I’ve said this before but MS. NOBLE IS THE PRINCIPAL! She shouldn’t even be hanging out with her students on the weekend, let alone challenging them on the beach!
Meanwhile, back at the vacation home, Chris has finally decided that he and Dawn will have a romantic dinner on the beach for their anniversary. (There’s nothing more romantic than sand and sea crabs!) The doorbell rings and, when Chris answer it, he’s surprised to see a girl named Nicole. They hug and Nicole announces, “When I heard you were in town, I had to come see you and say hi!”
“When you’re done saying hi,” Jamal announces, “Maybe you can introduce a brother.”
Chris explains that Nicole is his ex-girlfriend. Cassidy then enters the room and is a little less than happy to discover that Nicole is Chris’s ex-girlfriend and that Nicole lives in the Hamptons. Cassidy says she’s from the city. “I always wondered what it’s like to live in the city,” Nicole says, as if this episode is taken place in Appalachia as opposed to the Hamptons.
Somehow, Jamal and L-Train get roped into judging a dumb competition to determine whether Ms. Noble and Billy are a better couple than Dawn and Al. Let’s just ignore the whole principal thing. Billy and Ms. Noble are in their late 40s. They are challenging two seventeen year-olds.
Back at the vacation home, Nicole and Cassidy return from shopping. They’re getting along great until Cassidy asks why Nicole and Chris broke up. “Chris was a cheater,” Nicole says. Cassidy thinks that Nicole is referring to cheating at school. Nicole explains that Chris also cheats on his girlfriends. He’s a double cheater!
(But if Chris was such a cheater, why was Nicole so happy to hear that he was back in the Hamptons?)
Nicole reveals that when she confronted about Chris about being a cheater, Chris called her “the c-word.”
Cassidy gasps and I’ll admit that I gasped a little too.
“Yes,” Nicole says, “Clingy.”
(Interestingly, there’s no laughter or anything of that sort when Nicole says “clingy” so who knows? Maybe that’s what the C-word referred to back in 2000.)
You can probably guess what happens next. Chris is trying to set up the dinner without Cassidy finding out and Cassidy is convinced that Chris is cheating. Jamal and L-Train attempt to help Chris out by announcing that the three of them just want to hang out as guys but, when Cassidy doesn’t get the message, Chris tells her, “This week will go a lot better if you try not to be so …. so …. so …. CLINGY!”
OH MY GOD, HE SAID IT!
While Cassidy worries about whether or not Chris is cheating on her, the dumbass Best Couple Competition continues. Ms. Noble and Billy come over to Chris’s vacation home and they play a game where they try to guess what movie their partner is referring to. Ms. Noble and Billy easily win so I guess it’s time for Al to transfer to another school.
Later, Cassidy tells Dawn that Chris used “the c-word.”
“Oh my God,” Dawn replies, “Clingy!?”
And again, there’s no laughter. Either the joke went over the heads of the studio audience or it wasn’t a joke to begin with.
A deliveryman stops by and drops off some flowers. He explains that Chris paid him money to deliver flowers for “a secret rendezvous on the beach.” Cassidy, who is anniversary-obsessed, does not link this to their upcoming anniversary. Jamal, however, tells Dawn (but for some reason, not Cassidy) that Chris is planning on a diner for Cassidy.
Cassidy confronts Chris about the flowers and breaks up with hi,. Knowing that their friend is in pain, Jamal and L-Train promptly leave so that they can judge a tug-of-war competition between Ms. Noble and Billy and Dawn and Al. Fortunately, Dawn takes a break from pulling on the rope to let Cassidy know about the surprise dinner.
(For the record, Billy and Ms. Noble win the tug-of-war and the title of best couple. I’m not sure what pulling on a rope has to do with being the best couple but whatever. It’s a dumb plot anyway.)
Cassidy meets Chris on the beach and they forgive each other. And season 4 ends. Yay!
The first half of season 4 was fairly weak but the show kind of improved once Chris got his hair cut. Certainly, City Guys was not the best of Peter Engel-produced NBC shows but it wasn’t One World either. The biggest flaws remains the unrealistic depiction of Ms. Noble. The show’s biggest strength, at the end of season 4, is that the actors have finally stopped looking straight at the camera while delivering their lines.
Next week, we begin the final season of City Guys.
Music Video of the Day: The Best by Tina Turner (1989, dir by Lol Creme)
Tina Turner, R.I.P.
Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.15 “My Sister, Irene / The ‘Now’ Marriage / Second Time Around”
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, The Love Boat becomes …. THE DIVORCE BOAT!
Episode 2.15 “My Sister, Irene / The ‘Now’ Marriage / Second Time Around”
(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on January 13th, 1979)
Dr. Todd Gardiner (Peter Marshall) is the author of a best-selling book that advocates for open marriage but he’s never had one himself. He’s determined to finally have an affair while sailing on The Love Boat and, just to prove that he’s not a hypocrite, he’s brought along his wife, Eleanor (Barbara Rush), and he’s encouraging her to have an affair as well! Initially, Eleanor is not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of cheating on her husband, with or without his permission. But then she meets Captain Stubing!
The Captain and Eleanor have a very chaste shipboard romance. He gives her a tour of Puerto Vallarta but that’s it. As the Captain explains it, he’s a traditionalist at heart and, even though he’s fallen in love with Eleaonor, he’s not the type to take part in an adulterous affair. Eleanor realizes that the same is true for her. And, of course, Todd realizes that he doesn’t want an open marriage either!
However, it’s too late for Todd. Both Eleanor and Todd’s cruise girlfriend, Nancy Bishop (Phyllis Davis), reject him. Eleanor announces that she’s going to file for divorce. Since that was The Love Boat, I was expecting Eleanor to suddenly change her mind but the episode ended with Todd alone and Eleanor promising that she would see the Captain again in the future.
I believe this is the first episode of The Love Boat to end with a breakup instead of a romance. This episode also came out very much against open marriage, which isn’t surprising. For all the innuendos and the jokes about people hooking up during each cruise, The Love Boat was a pretty conservative show at heart. If you hooked up on the boat, you were expected to get married on shore.
Speaking of marriage and divorce, another passenger on this cruise was Doc Bricker’s ex-wife, Betty (Tina Louise). Doc Bricker found himself falling once again for Betty, which was a problem as Betty was traveling with her fiancé, Lance (Lyle Waggoner). Except, of course, Lance was just an actor that Betty hired to make Doc jealous. But then Lance and Betty fell in love for real and decided to get married. It was incredibly silly but Lyle Waggoner’s dumb-but-earnest actor schtick did make me laugh.
Finally, Irene Austin (Martha Raye) boarded the ship with plans to reunite with her old college classmate, Andy (Ray Bolger). However, upon discovering that Andy was still as spry and funny as he was in college, Irene panicked and introduced herself as being her own sister. Andy saw through the ruse and he and Irene left the ship as a couple, which was sweet. I mean, it was another silly story but the old school, showbiz veteran charm of Raye and Bolger carried the story.
All in all, it was a good cruise this week.
Scenes that I Love: Tina Turner is The Acid Queen in Tommy
This scene is from 1975’s Tommy and was directed by Ken Russell.
Tina Turner, R.I.P.
Film Review: Missing (dir by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson)
Single mother Grace Allen (Nia Long) goes on a week-long vacation to Colombia with her boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung). In doing so, she leaves her 18 year-old daughter, June (Storm Reid), alone at the house. She tells June to be responsible. She tells June to only use the emergency cash in case of emergencies. She tells June not to throw any wild parties. She tells June to clear out her voice mail so Grace can actually leave a message. As soon as Grace leaves, June starts spending the emergency money on beer and parties and she also fails to clear out her voice mail.
It’s hard to blame June, however. She’s 18 and she’s rebellious and it doesn’t help that her mother is extremely overprotective. June feels that there is something off about Kevin and his awkward attempts to talk to her do nothing to make her like him. June spends most of her time wishing that she could have spent more time with her father, James (Tim Griffin), a man who she can barely even remember.
At the end of the week, June drives out to the airport. She makes a sign that reads, “Welcome back from prison,” and she stands in the airport, waiting to see her mom and Kevin. However, neither one of them shows up. The plane has landed. The passengers have disembarked. But Grace and Kevin are nowhere to be seen. June realizes that they are …. MISSING!
Missing was made by the same production team behind Searching and, like that film, it’s a screenlife thriller, one that is told via computer desktops, security cameras, smartphones, and a smartwatch. Early on, June watches an episode of a true crime show called Unfiction, which is based on the missing person case at the heart of Searching, establishing that the two films take place in the same universe. Much as with Searching, the app-heavy visual style of Missing feels a bit gimmicky but it’s also undeniably effective. Indeed, it’s interesting to think that, even as technology connects us in new ways and as cameras film our every move, people can still somehow disappear off the face of the Earth. As June goes through both Grace and Kevin’s social media and email accounts, the film’s format lets us view the world through her eyes. Like her, we read every email and search for hidden meanings and missed clues.
The mystery at the heart of Missing is an intriguing one and the film is full of twists and turns. Unfortunately, many of the film’s later twists are more improbable than clever. For all of the film’s strengths, things pretty much fall apart during the film’s final third. That’s when the film comes up with a twist that’s surprising only because of how little sense it makes. It’s one thing to fool an audience by being clever. It’s another thing to fool an audience by just pulling a plot point out of thin air. The final big twist requires a huge suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience but Missing isn’t a horror or a sci-fi or a Fast & Furious-style action film. It’s a mystery and anyone who was actually trying to look for clues and come up with the solution on their own would have every right to be annoyed by the way the film handles its finale.
That said, it’s a well-acted film and, much like John Cho in Searching, Storm Reid deserves a lot of credit for bringing some genuine emotion to the lead role. With Reid in the lead role, Missing manages to become something more than just the latest twist on the found footage genre. I also liked the performance of Joaquim de Almeida as Javi, the local Colombian who aids June in the search for her mother. (As long as we’re going to keep spinning off new Searching and Missing films, I think the next one should be about Javi.) There are some genuinely funny moments in the film. Be sure to keep an eye on the messages that June gets from Angel (Michael Segovia) over the course of the film. Despite its flaws, Missing is an enjoyable thriller and, undoubtedly, it will make a good episode of Unfiction.
Music Video of the Day: Muscle Museum by Muse (1999, dir by Joseph Kahn)
Oh, the suburbs aren’t that bad!
Enjoy!
Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.23 “Cornelius and Alphonse/The Choice”
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! This week, we visit the other side of the Island.
Episode 2.23 “Cornelius and Alphonse/The Choice”
(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on May 6th, 1979)
This was a bit of an odd episode.
First off, the official title of the show, for this episode, was Fantasy Island Sunday Special. Usually, Fantasy Island aired on Saturdays. This episode, as you can guess by the title, aired on a Sunday. Secondly, this episode does away with both the plane and Tattoo’s signature cry of “Da Plane Da Plane,” and instead has the guests arrive on the island in a hot air balloon. Tattoo (who is once again seen driving his little car, so I guess he finally recovered it after it was stolen earlier in the season) and Mr. Roarke are joined by a second assistant, Cindy (Kimberly Beck, who readers of this site will probably recognize as the likable lead in films like Massacre at Central High and Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter). At one point, Roarke says that “Cindy helps me on this side of the Island.” If nothing else, this episode confirms that Roarke has multiple assistants and the Island is really, really big.
Actually, it’s a good thing that Cindy is there because Cornelius (Red Buttons) and Alphonse (Billy Barty) have kidnapped Tattoo! Cornelius is a former employee of the Island but he was fired for stealing. When he returns to the Island, he says that his fantasy is to just have a pleasant holiday with his friend Alphonse. However, Cornelius’s real fantasy is to get revenge on Mr. Roarke by abducting Tattoo and holding him for ransom!
Of course, anyone who has been paying attention to the show up to this point knows that Cornelius and Alphonse have made a mistake. Mr. Roarke and Tattoo obviously loathe each other. When Mr. Roarke finds out that Tattoo is being held captive in a conveniently deserted castle, he doesn’t really seem that concerned about it. And Tattoo turns out to be such a disruptive presence that Cornelius is soon begging Roarke to take him back. In the end, Roarke demands money to take Tattoo off of their hands and Cornelius and Alphone end up paying off their debt by working in Fantasy Island’s kitchen. Tattoo is amused by the whole thing, despite the fact that Mr, Roarke was essentially willing to let him die.
Meanwhile, two orphans (Kyle Richards and Michael Anderson, Jr.) are given a chance to pick their new parents. They spend time with two sets of prospective parents. (One of the potential fathers is a magician played by a youngish Regis Philbin.) From the start of the fantasy, it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to ask to be adopted by Ruth (Juliet Mills), the head of the adoption agency. And that’s exactly what happens. The episode ends with Ruth and the children boarding a hot air balloon and flying all the way back to America.
As I said, this was a bit of a weird episode, with a new assistant and a hot air balloon. “The other side of the Island” looks a like a theme park. This episode was obviously designed to appeal to children and, for what it’s worth, the IMDb trivia section states that this episode was meant to be a “backdoor pilot” for a version of Fantasy Island that would appeal to children. (I assume Cindy would have been the main character.) Unfortunately, the kidnapping humor is a bit too broad and the adoption storyline is a bit too predictable. Hopefully, next week’s episode will take place on the adult side of the Island.
Music Video of the Day: Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue (2023, dir by Sophie Muller)
Today’s music video of the day finds Kylie Minogue in what appears to be yet another post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Personally, I appreciate this video because of all the red. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world dominated by my favorite color?
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 