Tag Archives: review

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.19 and 7.20 “Hong Kong Cruise: Polly’s Poker Palace/Shop Ahoy/Double Date/The Hong Kong Affair/Two Tails of a City”

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!

This week, The Love Boat goes to Hong Kong!

Episodes 7.19 and 7.20 “Hong Kong Cruise: Polly’s Poker Palace/Shop Ahoy/Double Date/The Hong Kong Affair/Two Tails of a City”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on February 4th, 1984)

This week, the Love Boat crew has been assigned to command a cruise to China.  And while the boat might be docked in Hong Kong instead of the usual Mexico, the question remains the same:

Yes, how coked up is Julie?

Well, she’s not as coked up as usual.  In fact, this is the rare Season 7 episode in which Julie actually gets to do something more than just smile at people as they board the ship.  So, I’d say this episode only rates a 7 out of 10 on the How Coked Up Is Julie scale.

As for Julie and Vicki, they fall for two brothers (Leigh McCloskey, Lee Majors II).  As always, Julie serves as Vicki’s mentor while Captain Stubing runs the ship.  However, this time, it turns out that the guy that Julie likes actually likes Vicki instead.  Vicki really likes him too.  I would point out that Vicki is likely either 16 or 17 in this episode.  (Jill Whelan was 18.)  So, really, she and Julie probably shouldn’t both be after the same man.  The guy is closer in age to Vicki than Julie but still, watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think that it might be time for Vicki to get off the boat and actually experience life on dry land.  Seriously, she’s nearly 18 and she still spends all of her time talking to elderly passengers.  Leigh McCloskey and Lee Majors II are literally the only two people close to her age to board the ship.  She really doesn’t have much choice but to fall in love with one of them.

Meanwhile, a senator (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) fell in love with Donna Reed, despite the misgivings of his closest advisor (Ben Murphy).  A retired spy (Gene Kelly) fell for a mysterious woman (Yvette Mimieux) and this somehow led to Gopher and Isaac putting on trench coats and following the couple through Beijing.  And Brenda Vaccaro tried to stop using her credit card.  The crew, for some reason, tried to help her.

None of these stories were very interesting, though I did relate to Brenda Vaccaro’s passenger.  This was a travelogue episode, with the boat sailing to Hong Kong and the crew somehow managing to see every famous sight in China over the course of two days.  This episode was shot on location.  I always enjoy it when I can tell the actors are actually delivering their lines in the middle of the ocean.  At the same time, the scenes that took place in China did not make me want to visit the country.  If anything, they left me feeling bad for Hong Kong.  This episode was filmed before the British handed Hong Kong over to China and it was a shame to think that all the little kids who appeared in the episode were fated to eventually become citizens of a communist country.  Needless to say, the name Mao was never mentioned during this episode.  Neither was the Cultural Revolution.

Come back to America, Captain Stubing.  The country needs you.

Brad takes on THE WHITE BUFFALO (1977), starring Charles Bronson and Will Sampson!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Charles Bronson as Wild Bill Hickok

Back in 2023, my family visited the Black Hills of South Dakota. The first thing we did was visit Mount Rushmore. The second thing we did was visit the Mount Moriah Cemetery and the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok. Situated on the top of a hill overlooking the city of Deadwood, it’s a beautiful place that also includes the graves of Calamity Jane and Sheriff Seth Bullock. I insisted that we see the location for possibly the most superficial reason possible… because Charles Bronson played Hickok in THE WHITE BUFFALO.

Based on a novel by Richard Sale, the story opens with Hickok having a recurring nightmare of a snowy showdown with a giant white “spike.” And if he has pistols handy, he wakes up firing them uncontrollably and you’d better not be nearby. Determined to face his fear, he heads out into the hills with his friend Charlie Zane (Jack Warden), hoping to find the albino buffalo, so he can put him down and end the nightmares. Around the same time, the great beast has stampeded the camp of Crazy Horse (Will Sampson) killing his child in the process. Convinced that the child cannot have peace in the afterlife, Crazy Horse sets out to kill the buffalo so he can wrap his child in its white “robe” and free her spirit. With Hickok a prolific killer of Indians, and Crazy Horse a brave Lakota Oglala warrior, the two men seem to be on a deadly collision course in those snowy hills.

Charles Bronson’s final western, THE WHITE BUFFALO has a lot of the scenes you’d expect. With Bronson playing a famous gunman, we get to see several gunfights as he makes his way through various Wyoming towns, featuring well-known actors like Clint Walker and Ed Lauter. We also get to see him visit various saloons, as well as the widow Schermerhorn, played by Kim Novak. When he really “knew” her, she was a prostitute named Poker Jenny. Along with those I’ve already mentioned, it’s an all-star affair as we see such familiar faces as Stuart Whitman, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, and even a young Martin Kove sprinkled throughout the film. And of course, we get to see Bronson take on the gigantic white buffalo of the title, first in his dreams, and then later in reality! Directed by veteran filmmaker J. Lee Thompson, these scenes are staged and executed well, with Hickok’s nightmares given an especially eerie quality.

Will Sampson as Crazy Horse

While the movie has the expected scenes, it’s the unexpected character moments that sets THE WHITE BUFFALO apart as a uniquely strong entry in Bronson’s filmography. Hickok may be a man haunted by dreams of a monstrous white buffalo, but Bronson plays him in such a way that we can feel his exhaustion and literal sickness from too many years of a dangerous and difficult life. The buffalo is more than just an animal… it’s a symbol of guilt, fear and the coming of death itself. Bronson could always underplay a role better than just about anyone else, but here he’s reflective and haunted in way that I’ve not seen before, and he’s really good.

I also think the movie gets better every time Bronson shares a scene with Will Sampson. Sampson brings dignity and intelligence to Crazy Horse. His mission is more noble than Hickok’s, and an unexpected friendship develops between the two men, despite their vast differences. Ultimately, it’s this relationship that provides the film an emotional weight that sneaks up on you by the end, even if it’s not meant to last.

THE WHITE BUFFALO is not a perfect film. The animatronic buffalo may look a little hokey, and the film may seem a little slow at times for those expecting an action-packed western or monster movie. However, Bronson and Sampson are so good in their myth-making performances that the film eventually becomes something more. It’s the idea of watching two aging warriors, bound together through the bravery of confronting death, that I found to be more interesting and compelling than anything else on display.

THE WHITE BUFFALO is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, PlutoTV, and The Roku Channel.

Wild Bill Hickok’s gravesite in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota

Villain Of The Day: Willie Cicci (The Godfather & The Godfather Part II)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Willie Cicci. Was he a villain or was he a hero?

It depends on how look at it.

Played by the legendary character actor Joe Spinell, Willie Cicci made his first appearance in The Godfather. For whatever reason, Spinell isn’t credited in The Godfather. In fact, we don’t even learn that name of his character until the sequel. Unlike Tom Rosqui’s Rocco Lampone and Richard Bright’s Al Neri, he spends the majority of the film standing in the background. However, he definitely makes an impression. With his acne-scarred face, his thin mustache, and his menacing stare, Willie Cicci is probably the menacing Corleone soldier not named Luca Brasi.

Towards the end of the film, as Michael settles all accounts, it falls on Willie Cicci to assassinate one of the heads of the rival families. Cicci traps the man in a revolving door and then guns his helpless victim down. In a finale that is notable for its violence, Cicci’s sadism leaves the viewer shaken. It’s all in the eyes. Other soldiers kill as a part of the job. Cicci seems to enjoy his work.

Later, Willie is among the soldier who stands in the background while Tom Hagen informs Tessio that he can’t get him out of trouble for old time’s sake. Willie doesn’t necessarily look happy about taking Tessio on a final ride but one gets the feeling that it’s still not going to keep him up at night.

And yet, Willie Cicci is not quite a villain in The Godfather, mostly because he works for the Corleones. By the end of the first film, it’s impossible not to cheer a little when the Corleones get their revenge. As savage as it is, they’re taking out people who tried to take them out. The Corleones may have been bad but Barzini, Cuneo, Stracci, and Tattaglia were far worse.

Willie Cicci really doesn’t achieve true villain status until The Godfather, Part II. That’s when, having been arrested after the attempt by the Rosato brothers to kill Frankie Pentangeli, Willie Cicci resurfaces as a witness at the congressional hearings on organized crime. Cicci, obviously enjoying the attention, testified about the Family’s activities. “Yeah,” he says, with a laugh, “the family had lots of buffers.”

That’s the moment that Willie truly becomes a villain. In a gangster movie, you can do a lot of bad things and still be a hero. But the minute you turn rat, it’s over.

Willie Cicci doesn’t get a lot of screentime in either Godfather movie. In The Godfather Part II, he’s even spared Michael’s vengeance. While Hyman Roth, Frankie, and Fredo Corleone all die on-screen, we never see what happened to Willie. It’s as if Michael doesn’t even consider Willie worth worrying about. For viewers, though, Willie Cicci is one of the many unforgettable characters to show up over the course of the film. A lot of Willie’s unexpected popularity is due to the memorably unhinged performance of Joe Spinell. If one was not familiar with Spinell’s other films, one might be forgiven for assuming that he was an actual mob associate who just happened to be hanging out on the set.

Willie Cicci was originally slated to appear in the third film. By this point, his character would have been one of New York’s most feared mob bosses. (I guess the whole testifying before Congress thing wasn’t held against him.) However, Spinell died before shooting began and Willie Cicci was replaced by Joey Zasa, the debonair mobster played by Joe Mantegna.

Personally, I’ll never forget Willie Cicci. He’s one of the unforgettable characters who makes The Godfather special.

Villain of the Day

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.3 “Seduced”

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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, the bicycle cops clean up Malibu.

Episode 4.3 “Seduced”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on August 9th, 1998)

Last week, I said that it appeared that the Pacific Blue recruits were no longer living in their funky loft.  Well, it turns out I was wrong.  This episode opens with Granger at the funky loft, hosting a party.  Unfortunately, the party comes to an abrupt end when Granger tries to play an adult movie on his totally hip VCR.  Uh-oh — it turns out that the lead actress in Barely Legal is the 16 year-old sister of one of Granger’s (dead) friends!

(She’s also played by Alison Lohman, a reminder that everyone had to start somewhere.)

Granger and Bobby Cruz set out to take down Malibu’s adult movie underground.  TC agrees to help by telling Jamie Strickland to go undercover as a film student who needs a job.  Strickland says that she’ll do it but she’s not going to have sex on camera.  However, once she reaches the set, the sleazy director decides to put her in the film.  Strickland calls Cory.  Cory says, “We can’t pull you out now.”

Really?  You can’t?  Why are bicycle cops even going undercover?

Meanwhile, Playpen magazine offers Monica money to pose for them.  They offer even more money if Monica can get the other women of Pacific Blue to pose as well.  Needless to say, the other women of Pacific Blue are not willing to pose and they talk about how demeaning Playpen is for women.  (Cory, who is pregnant but not showing, is at least tempted.)  But the show still features a lengthy montage of Monica’s photoshoot.  This show always tries to have it both ways.

This episode probably would have worked better if Granger was actually an interesting character but he’s not.  It also would have helped if we knew anything about Strickland’s character, beyond the fact that she’s super-competent, but we don’t.  Even the veteran characters — TC, Chris, and Cory — don’t really have any personality.  Thankfully, this season has got Mario Lopez playing Bobby Cruz like A.C. Slater on a bicycle and Shanna Moakler, playing Monica as a scheming agent of chaos.  Only Lopez and Moakler seem to to have really understood what type of show they were on.

 

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.2 “All Work No Play”

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 Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

This week, the Gang gets a summer job!  Why would anyone want to work during the summer?  What a bunch of losers.

Episode 2.2 “All Work And No Play”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 10th, 1994)

It’s summer time!  (During its second season, Saved By The Bell: The New Class aired two episodes each Saturday morning.  One episode would be a high school episode while the other would feature the Gang off-campus.)  Mr. Belding has been hired to manage the Palisade Hills Country Club.  The first mistake that Belding makes is that he hires Screech to be his assistant.  Then he allows Screech to hire Brian, Bobby, Tommy, Rachel, Megan, and Lindsay as his staff.

Thinks quickly go downhill.

  1. While trying to show-off for Rachel, Brian attempts to drive a golf cart with his feet.  (“This is how I steered snowmobile in Switzerland,” Brian says.)
  2. Assigned to wash and wax the car belonging to club owner Ed Harrington (Frank Bonner), Tommy D and Lindsay instead take the car for a joyride, which leads to Brian denting it with the golf cart.
  3. The car has a dent and the paint job is scuffed. Tommy works out the dent and then repaints the car with Rachel’s nail polish.  To help the polish dry, Tommy and Brian remove the car’s front panel, take it to the country’s club’s kitchen. and unplug the freezer so that they can instead plug in a huge fan.
  4. Whoops!  They forget to plug the freezer back in and $4,000 worth of food goes bad.
  5. Bobby can’t drive but still tries to cover valet parking.
  6. Screech is too busy falling in love with Ed’s daughter, Allison (Clare Slastrom), to be of any help.

Mr. Belding does the right thing and fires all of them.  But then the Gang decides to throw a Luau for the club’s members (instead of the county and western barbecue that was originally planned) and it’s such a hit that Belding hires them back.

Seriously, what the Hell?  Yes, the Gang saved the day but they only had to save it because they were so grotesquely immature and irresponsible in the first place.  This was one of the worst recurring plotlines to appear on Saved By The Bell: The New Class.  Someone would get a new job, they would totally screw it up, they would get fired, and then they would get rehired just because they felt bad after the fact.  Personally, I think that if you steal a car, destroy a golf cart, and cause $4,000 worth of meat to go bad, you should be fired.  I don’t care if you then put on a hula skirt and play a ukulele and and put on a little Hawaiian performance on a sweltering day in the middle of the desert.  You’re fired.

GO HOME!

This episode annoyed the Hell out of me.  I can accept a lot from this show but what I can’t accept is a plot where every complication could have been avoided by everyone not being a massive dumbass.

Brad revisits A BETTER TOMORROW II (1987), starring Chow Yun-Fat & directed by John Woo!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

John Woo’s A BETTER TOMORROW was such a gigantic hit in Hong Kong cinemas when it came out in 1986 that you had to know that a sequel would soon follow. A BETTER TOMORROW II would open a year later, bringing back all the stars from the original. This film would go even bigger with both the action and the melodrama, with varying levels of success, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.

The plot seems familiar at first, as ex-gangster Ho (Ti Lung) is let out of prison to work with the police to dig up dirt on his old friend Lung (Dean Shek), a former criminal who’s trying to run a legitimate business down at the shipyard. The main reason he agrees to help though, is because his younger brother / undercover cop Kit (Leslie Cheung) is working on the case and Ho wants to protect him. After a series of double-crosses and betrayals, it seems that we’re in for the same type of story that we got in the first film. Key differences emerge when Lung is framed for murder and escapes to New York City. There we meet Ken Gor (Chow Yun-Fat), the conveniently discovered twin brother of tragic hero Mark Gor. Ken tries to help Lung, who has fallen into a state of catatonic shock upon learning that his daughter has been killed. When death squads come after him in New York, Ken shows his badass cred and saves his ass. Lung eventually snaps out of it and the two head back to Hong Kong together. There they team up with Ho and Kit to exact bloody vengeance on all who have gotten in the way of their efforts at personal reform!        

The first thing I’ll say about A BETTER TOMORROW II is that the film has some incredible action sequences, some of the best you’ll ever see, and some of Woo’s best work. The finale where the trio of Ken, Ho and Lung storm the bad guy’s mansion is a masterpiece of extended and creative bloody violence. I 100% recommend the film for the action.

The second thing I’ll say about A BETTER TOMORROW II is that it has some of the most over the top melodrama that you’ll ever see. My comment is mainly aimed at the section of the film where Ken tries to get Lung to snap out of his shock. I really don’t enjoy these scenes, with my least favorite being the scene where Chow Yun-Fat tries to force a completely zoned out Dean Shek to eat. There is a lot of good-looking food wasted in that scene, and I cringe every time I watch it!   

I’ve read that the film was a troubled production, and that John Woo and producer Tsui Hark had very different ideas on the type of movie that each wanted to make. Both tried to produce different edits of the film, and with too many cooks in the kitchen, we ended up with this glorious Frankenstein. When the dust settled, John Woo mostly disowned the film except for that majestic, crimson-stained finale. Tsui Hark would take over the series and turn out A BETTER TOMORROW III a couple of years later, while Woo would move on to THE KILLER.  

There are interesting ideas here, and the film almost wants to turn into a comic book. For example, the scene that first introduces us to Ken Gor, Mark’s twin brother, features an old man who’s devoted his life to drawing storyboard illustrations of the adventures of Mark, Ho and Kit. He even has Mark’s trademark sunglasses and blood-stained, bullet-riddled coat, which you know Ken will put on at some point. This seems appropriate to many of the shenanigans that go on, but then the film will switch its focus to extended scenes of a depressed Kit or a drooling Lung, and it seems like we’re in a different movie. There are parts of this film that I love and there are parts that I just want to be over.

At the end of the day, if you’ve come to A BETTER TOMORROW II for the promise of John Woo’s awesome action, you will get your fill. You’ll get to see Chow Yun-Fat at his charismatic best, wearing his long coat and sunglasses, and wielding twin barettas as he takes out hordes of henchmen. You’ll get to see Ti Lung swinging a sword that might bring back images of his Shaw Brothers heydays! Just be prepared to watch Dean Shek spill milk, eat through an orange (peel and all), and gnaw on a piece of frozen meat along the way.       

A BETTER TOMORROW II is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and Plex.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 5.19 “Silent Partner”

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 Prime!

This week, the California Highway Patrol is thoroughly incompetent.

Episode 5.19 “Silent Partner”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on February 28th, 1982)

This is one of those episodes of CHiPs where two “comedic” car thieves are stealing cars and it takes three high-speed, accident-filled chases before the Highway Patrol finally manages to catch them.  Episodes like this are always fairly odd to watch.  I’m not really sure if the show’s producers really understood what they were implying with an episode in which a bunch of professional law enforcers can’t seem to catch two buffoons who have no idea what they’re doing.

The first chase leads to an accident that leaves Grossman injured.  He doesn’t break his neck but he does have to wear a neck brace, which temporarily keeps him from talking and eating.  Those are Grossman’s favorite activities!  These car thieves must be stopped!

(Seriously, Grossman was usually the most entertaining thing about this show.  Taking away his ability to speak was not a good idea.  Needless to say, Ponch can still talk.)

Meanwhile, Baker arrests a man at the scene of Grossman’s accident.  Baker thinks that the man (Saul Brandt) must be drunk, just because the man did not react to Grossman’s sirens and he also doesn’t follow any of Baker’s orders.  Uh-oh, it turns out that man was deaf and now he wants to file a complaint against Baker!  And really, the man is totally justified in doing so.  Baker was pretty rough when he tossed him around and Baker really had no evidence that the man had been drinking.  Despite being totally in the wrong, Baker is still upset about being written up.  Luckily, Ponch starts dating a deaf social worker (Dawn Jeffory) and she helps the man to understand that Baker just made a mistake and he was only in a bad mood because he has to work with Ponch.  The complaint is dropped.

This episode featured two good car crashes and a lot of bad acting.  It was well-intentioned but I am starting to wonder if maybe the people of California deserved a better highway patrol.

 

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.3 “Shadow Dancer”

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 Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988.  The entire show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Torello’s war on Luca continues!

Episode 1.3 “Shadow Dancer”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on September 26th, 1986)

With the frequency killer now dead, Torello and his men are once again free to focus on trying to bust Ray Luca. The sooner they do it, the better. For one thing, Torello is becoming so obsessed that, even though his wife is pregnant, Torello’s dreams are still dominated by Luca taunting him. Also, Luca’s latest robbery has resulted in a death. Vincent Noonan (Michael Kemmerling), a former cellmate of Frank Holman’s (Ted Levine,) lost it during their latest home invasion and beat to death Mrs. Novak (Nancy Sheeber).

(Noonan, it turns out, has a history of losing control. It probably wasn’t a good idea to hire him in the first place but, with Luca no refusing to personally take part in robberies, the crew had to find a third man and quickly. Holman recommended Noonan because of how loyal Noonan was to him in prison)

Eager to solve the case and take down Luca, the Major Case Unit starts to put pressure on Luca’s boss, Phil Bartoli (Jon Polito). After his weekly craps game is broken up by Danny Krychek, Bartoli tells Luca that he has to do something to get the police to back off. Bartoli orders him to turn Noonan over to the police. Luca, who no longer handles dirty work himself, tells Holman to take care of it. Holman sends Noonan on a job and then tips off Torello. Despite Danny telling him that Noonan would die before turning into a rat, Torello is convinced that, if he takes Noonan alive, he’ll be able to get Noonan to give up Luca. (What Torello doesn’t realize is that Noonan has never actually met Luca. To quote Willy Cicci, “The family had lots of buffers.”)

It’s all for naught, though. Torello and the cops chase Noonan all over the streets of Chicago and, in the end, Noonan dies while trying to escape. Much like Homicide’s Luther Mahoney, Luca appears to be untouchable …. for now.

This episode worked best as a character study. After last week’s somewhat over-the-top villain, this episode reminded us that Luca and Torello are two tightly-wound men who struggle with emotion. Beyond his own self-absorption, Luca lacks the emotions necessary to truly understand his fellow humans. Torello, meanwhile, gets too emotional. Whether he’s pursuing Ray Luca or snapping at a condescending salesman, Torello is a self-styled crusader who appears to be going slowly but surely insane. This wasn’t a particularly complex episode but it felt important. It was a reminder of what this show is all about.