Tag Archives: review

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.19 “Edward/Extraordinary Miss Jones”

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.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR …. nearly being the word to remember.

This week, Sammy Davis Jr. comes to Fantasy Island.

That’s be cool, right?

Episode 6.19 “Edward/Extraordinary Miss Jones”

(Dir by Don Ingalls, originally aired on April 9th, 1983)

Or, it would have been cool if my DVR had actually recorded this episode!

Sorry, it’s the curse of the DVR.  This is one of the episodes that my DVR did not record.  I’m not sure if it’s a case of the episode not being aired or perhaps the cable itself was out when it should have been recording but, for whatever reason, I do not have this episode and I also don’t remember having watched it in the past.

For now, I can’t review it.  But I’m going to leave this here as a placeholder, in case the show ever starts streaming again.

Again, I regret not being able to review this episode at this time.  But, as Mr. Roarke always says, “Smiles, everyone, smiles!”

Brad reviews DONATO AND DAUGHTER (1993), starring Charles Bronson & Dana Delany!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

DONATO AND DAUGHTER tells the story of Los Angeles Police detectives, Mike Donato (Charles Bronson), and his daughter Dena Donato (Dana Delany). The two have a strained relationship mainly due to the mysterious death of Dena’s brother, Tommy, and Mike’s unwillingness to discuss the circumstances surrounding his death with her. When a serial killer (Xander Berkeley) begins targeting nuns, brutally raping and murdering them, Dena is asked to lead a task force to catch the killer. Her supervisor not-so-subtly requires that she include her father, a tough-as-nails and experienced cop, as part of the team. The remainder of the story focuses on two elements: 1) The investigation as it closes in on the extremely dangerous serial killer and 2) The family drama as Mike and Dena deal with their relationship issues. The two worlds eventually collide when the killer goes after Dena! 

While he did work on a couple of theatrical films in the 1990’s, like Sean Penn’s THE INDIAN RUNNER (1991) and DEATH WISH 5: THE FACE OF DEATH (1994), Charles Bronson spent most of the decade making made-for-TV movies. Of course, as his biggest fan, I would always watch the movies on the night they premiered on TV, with THE SEA WOLF (1993) being the only exception as we didn’t have cable TV in Toad Suck. That means on September 21st, 1993, I was glued to my television set as the latest Charles Bronson film, DONATO AND DAUGHTER, premiered to a national TV audience on CBS. I specifically remember the network running warnings due to the disturbing and violent content of the movie. I also remember enjoying that first viewing, and I still enjoy the film to this day. 

Even though he was in his early 70’s at the time, Charles Bronson still looked great in DONATO AND DAUGHTER. He gives a strong performance as both the cop trying to catch the killer and as the dad who doesn’t know how to open up to his successful, adult daughter who needs him more than he can comprehend. Dana Delany is an excellent actress, and she is able to balance her character’s determination to be the best cop possible to “show her dad,” with the vulnerability of a daughter who just needs to know he loves her. Their relationship has to work for the movie to work, and I think they both do a great job. The other standout performance in the film belongs to Xander Berkeley. His portrayal of a husband and businessman, who also happens to be a vicious serial killer, is truly creepy and gives the movie a disturbing edge. On a side note, Berkeley’s “wife” in the film is played by actress Kim Weeks. She and Charles Bronson would get married in 1998, and they would be together until his death in 2003.

Overall, I think DONATO AND DAUGHTER is well worth watching as both a cop thriller and a family drama, although I do think the thriller elements work the best. It’s not the most groundbreaking or original story you’ll ever see, but the film is elevated greatly by the iconic presence of Charles Bronson and the strong performances by Dana Delany and Xander Berkeley. I give it a solid recommendation! The trailer is included below:

Song of the Day: Main Theme From Zombi 2 by Fabio Frizzi

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Zombi 2 (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio Salvati)

For today’s song of the day, we celebrate the birthday of Lucio Fulci with Fabio Frizzi’s main theme from 1979’s Zombi 2.  If you’ve ever seen the film, it’s impossible to hear this piece of music without imagining hundreds of zombies walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.23 “Nightengale”

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, someone is performing emergency surgery on the street!

Episode 3.23 “Nightengale”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on March 23rd, 1980)

Something strange is happening in Los Angeles.  Every time there’s a serious accident, a middle-aged woman (Louise Latham) appears and provides medical help to the injured.  At the start of the episode, she even performs an emergency tracheotomy on the side of the freeway.  Whenever the highway patrol officer on the scene asks her for her name, she avoids the question.  And, whenever an ambulance shows up, she always manages to slip away.  As Jon and Ponch discover, the woman is named Lucy Kenton and, even though she’s a medical expert, she’s not a doctor.  With the help of the always-understanding Sgt. Getraer, Jon and Ponch help her to get her medical license so that she can legally perform surgery on the street.  Good for them!

This was a bit of an odd episode.  It seemed strange that the woman somehow always seemed to be around whenever there was an accident.  A car would crash and suddenly, Lucy would come running up, almost as if she had been patiently waiting.  The show acted as if it was just a coincidence but what are the chances that the same woman would be present at the sites of multiple accidents over the course of just a few days?  And what are the chances that Ponch would just happen to be the responding officer at two of those accidents?

To be honest, that’s one of the things that always struck me as being strange about CHiPs.  Somehow, the same people keep running into Ponch and Jon over and over again.  I mean, Los Angeles is a big city and it’s home to a lot of people.  But if you run into Ponch and Jon once, it seems you’re destined to keep seeing them for at least a week.  Once they get that first speeding ticket or stern warning, people literally can’t step outside of their house without Ponch and Jon just happening to be somewhere nearby.  That’s the sort of thing that would make me paranoid.

The B-plot of this episode featured a teenage couple whose van kept breaking down whenever they tried to run away from home.  There wasn’t much to this story but it did feature “special guest star” Dana Plato as the younger sister of the female half of the couple.  Plato delivered all her lines as if she was auditioning for a school play.  Oddly enough, Dana Plato appeared at the start of this season as herself.  She was one of the many celebrities to show up for the roller disco episode.

There really wasn’t much to this episode.  It wasn’t terrible but it did feel somewhat insubstantial.  We’re coming up on the end of the season and, from the last few episodes, I get the feeling the show’s writers just wanted to wrap things up and start their vacations.  I don’t blame them!

Next week, the third season concludes!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.7 “Missing Hours”

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!

This week, it’s the most infamous episode of Miami Vice ever!

Episode 4.7 “Missing Hours”

(Dir by Ate De Jong, originally aired on November 13th, 1987)

This is an episode that I had been waiting for years to see.  From the moment I decided to review Miami Vice, I started to read about and hear about this seventh episode of the four season.  This was the episode was supposedly so bad that many people consider it to be the point that Miami Vice “jumped the shark.”  This is the episode were James Brown plays a white-suited singer named Lou de Long, who has going from performing songs to giving lectures about UFOs.  (James Brown is essentially playing himself, right down to the presence of I Feel Good on the soundtrack.)  This is the episode where Trudy disappears for 12 hours and then returns with no firm memories of where she was.  This is the episode where even Crockett and Tubbs see a UFO.  Even though his appearance here does not receive as much attention as much a James Brown’s, Chris Rock made his television debut as a nerdy technician named Carson who was into UFOs.  Carson mentions getting his information for “computer bulleting boards” and everyone looks at him as if he’s speaking Esperanto.

This is the episode that is frequently cited as being the worst in Miami Vice history and really, who am I to disagree?

It pains me to say that.  I really wanted to like this episode, just because it is so strange and and I’ve always been a bit of a contrarian at heart but …. no, this episode really doesn’t work.  The sad truth of the matter is that, for all of his other talents, James Brown was a lousy actor and, with the exception of Michael Talbott and Philip Michael Thomas (who both appear to be having fun), the regular cast gives performance that suggest they all knew this episode was a bad idea.  Miami Vice was at its best when it was a cynical and downbeat show about the futility of the war on drugs.  There’s really no reason for Miami Vice to ever do a science fiction-themed episode.  Somehow, this is the second such episode to air during the fourth season.

Of course, the episode’s most unforgivable sin is that it ends with Trudy waking up in bed.  Not only is that ending a cop out but it’s also pretty rude to anyone who was actually trying to follow the plot or who was actually worried about whether or not Trudy had been brainwashed by the aliens.  Perhaps if this had been a Halloween episode, all of this could have been excused but apparently, this episode aired in the middle of November.

Poor Trudy.  Seriously, Olivia Brown didn’t really get many episode built around her character.  It’s a shame that, when they gave her one, it was this one.  Next week on Miami Vice, who knows?  I’m on vacation.  We’ll see what happens!

Lifetime Film Review: Kidnapped By A Killer: The Heather Robinson Story (dir by Lee Gabiana)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

John Robinson has been described as being the Internet’s first serial killer.

I don’t know if that’s an accurate description but it is true that Robinson, who most of his neighbors and family knew as just being a somewhat eccentric businessman who always seemed to be in trouble with the IRS, did make contact with several of his victims in online chatrooms.  No one is quite sure how many women Robinson killed in the 80s and the 90s.  Robinson himself has given contradictory numbers.  What is know is that Robinson started out by luring women to his home by claiming that he had a job for them.  Many of the women who accepted his job offer were either never seen again or their bodies were eventually found on his properties in Kansas and Missouri.  Eventually, after serving time on fraud conviction, Robinson started to use internet chatrooms to find his victims.  He used the screenname Slavemaster, something that would have undoubtedly stunned all of his neighbors.

In Kidnapped By A Killer, Steve Guttenberg plays John Robinson.  Now, it should be noted that Guttenberg doesn’t get much screentime and he’s also nearly unrecognizable under a ton of old age makeup.  Guttenberg plays Robinson as being a creepy old man who uses the fact that he walks with a cane to put people at ease.  The film doesn’t spend much time with Robinson and it doesn’t show any of his murders.  Instead, the focus is on the police who investigated Robinson and also on Heather Robinson, a young woman who was Robinson’s adoptive niece but who was also the daughter of one of Robinson’s victims.  After killing her mother, Robinson “gave” Heather to his brother and sister-in-law, telling them that her mother had been a drug addict who abandoned her baby.

The majority of the film focuses on Heather (Rachel Stubington), who is a teenager when John is arrested for the murders that he committed.  Heather struggles to come to terms with the knowledge that her uncle — who seemed kindly, if a bit corny — murdered her mother and that she was essentially kidnapped and given away.  What seemed like an act of kindness — Uncle John not wanting a drug addict’s daughter to get lost in the system — was actually John Robinson’s attempt to cover up his crimes.  Much like the criminal who starts a business to launder money, Heather’s adoption was John’s attempt to launder evidence.  Stubington does a good job as Heather, capturing her struggle to come to terms with her identity.  The scenes of her dealing with her feelings towards John and the scenes of hardened detectives recoiling in shock as they discover the remains of John’s victims all serve as a reminder that murder is not an isolated crime.  It’s something that effects communities and families long after the act itself has been completed.

Kidnapped By A Killer deserves credit for focusing on a victim instead of on John Robinson, himself.  Too often, when it comes to true crime movies, the victims are forgotten while the serial killer gets all the best lines and the big moments.  Kidnapped By A Killer presents John Robinson as being a rather pathetic old man and that’s perhaps the best thing about it.

The Films of 2025: Emmanuelle (dir by Audrey Diwan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This film is taking itself way too seriously….

I had that thought 16 minutes into Emmanuelle.  A remake of the wonderfully trashy 70s film that made a star (of sorts) out of Sylvia Kristel, this version of Emmanuelle takes itself way too seriously.  It should be noted that no one is under the impression that the original Emmanuelle films or any of the unofficial spin-offs were high art.  The first film may have pretended to be about something but, ultimately, it was a trashy sex romp that was made because some folks wanted to make a lot of money.  That’s one reason why the original film and Kristel’s version of the character continue to be popular.  Both were totally shameless and unapologetic.

The remake, though, is boring.  Emmanuelle (played by Noemie Merlant) even has a boring job.  She works in quality control for a large chain of luxury hotels.  That’s right, quality control.  This film reimagines Emmanuelle as being the female version of Creed from The Office  Emmanuelle has been sent to Hong Kong so that she can evaluate a hotel that is being managed by Margot (Naomi Watts).  The company has tasked Emmanuelle with finding an excuse to fire Margot and Emmanuelle is feeling conflicted about it.  Let me tell you, there’s nothing sexier than quality control.

Emmanuelle has several sexual experiences while staying at the hotel.  The sensuality of Hong Kong gets to her.  While wearing a towel, she flirts with a nervous room steward.  She touches herself in front of an escort who hangs out at the hotel’s pool and she gets upset when Margot sends the escort and her friends away.  Emmanuelle wanders through the film with a blank expression on her face, staring at things that are often happening off-camera.  Hong Kong is presented as being a world where everything is for sale and no desires are forbidden.  If this was one of Joe D’Amato’s Black Emanuelle films, the decadence would probably be strange and entertaining.  However, since this is an Emmanuelle film that takes itself seriously, it’s kind of boring.

In fact, this film really does get caught up in the whole “Will Emmanuelle get Margot fired?” plot.  That is probably the least interesting part of the movie but the filmmakers really do want us to understand that Emmanuelle could lose her job if she doesn’t give Margot a bad report.  But honestly, who cares?  This film makes the mistake of assuming that “quality control” is a lot more exciting than it actually is.

Emmanuelle does fall in love over the course of the film.  Kei (Will Sharpe) is an enigmatic guest who hasn’t had sex in “two or three years” because he lost his desire.  He’s suffering from ennui!  Emmanuelle yells at Kei for smoking in the hotel but she’s attracted to him as well.  At least, that’s what the film wants us to believe.  Merchant and Sharpe have so little chemistry — romantic or sexual — that it’s hard to really care.  They have some philosophical discussions, the type of stuff that even Zalman King would have dismissed as being rather pretentious.

The main problem, as I said before, is that this film just isn’t fun.  It gets bogged down with its plot and Merlant, Watts, and Sharpe all sleepwalk through their roles.  This film should have been glorious trash.  Instead, it’s just dull.

#MondayMuggers present THE MECHANIC (1972) starring Charles Bronson & Jan-Michael Vincent!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday June 16th, we are showing THE MECHANIC (1972) starring Charles Bronson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Keenan Wynn, Jill Ireland, and Frank DeKova.

In THE MECHANIC, Charles Bronson plays a hitman who takes on a young apprentice (Jan-Michael Vincent) and trains him to be a professional assassin. But in their world, you never know when you’ll go from being the killer… to becoming the next target!

I reviewed THE MECHANIC for The Shattered Lens back on New Year’s Day!

THE MECHANIC (1972) – Celebrate the New Year with one of Charles Bronson’s most iconic roles!

Join us tonight for #MondayMuggers and watch THE MECHANIC! It’s on Amazon Prime. The trailer is included below:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrasssi Hibh 2.6 “Crossed Wires”

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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi

In yourself, you must believe …. let’s return to Degrassi High.

Episode 2.6 “Crossed Wires”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on December 10th, 1990)

Alex is dating Tessa but he has yet to kiss her and Tessa’s getting tired of waiting for him.  Arthur and Yick (remember them?) both tell Alex that he’s a total wimp.  Myself, I’m just wondering how Alex somehow went from being a background character to suddenly getting storylines.  For the record, Alex does eventually kiss Tessa and he leaves her breathless, which seems like a bit of an overreaction.  I mean, it’s just Alex….

Of course, any Tessa storyline that doesn’t involve Joey is going to feel somewhat odd because true Degrassi fans know that Tessa is eventually going to end up pregnant after sleeping with Joey, leading to a jealous Snake dropping the first F-bomb ever heard on Canadian television.  But, that was all far in the future.  When this episode aired, Tessa was still just the girl who apparently only owned that one blue dress.

Alex and Tessa’s rather silly storyline is matched with one where Liz, after going on a date with Tim (Keith White, finally getting a storyline after spending so much time as a background character), freaks out after Tim attempts to kiss her goodnight after taking her to a Pogues concert.  Liz eventually tells Spike that she was sexually abused by her mom’s ex-boyfriend and that’s why Liz doesn’t allow anyone to get close to her.  (In many ways, this episode feels like a dry run for the Jane Says episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation.)  This episode handles the subject with sensitivity, as Degrassi (to its credit) always did.  Tonally, it can be a bit of shock to go from the silliness of Tessa’s story to the seriousness of Liz’s but that’s kind of the way it is when you’re a teenager.  One minute, you’re in a sitcom.  The next minute, you’re in the most depressing drama ever.  That’s certainly the way it was for me when I was in high school.  I preferred the sitcom moments but the fact that I can cry on cue came in useful whenever things started to get serious.

Finally, Dwayne’s moronic friends are upset because Dwayne will no longer let them beat up on Joey.  Dwayne doesn’t care.  Joey’s the only person that knows that Dwayne is HIV positive.  Joey has kept his word and not revealed Dwayne’s secret.  Dwayne helps Joey fix his car and Joey, in return, gives Dwayne a life home.  Dwayne going from being a bully to a sensitive guy is another character arc that would become a Degrassi tradition.

Next week, Kathleen finds some marijuana.  Oh no!

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 3.13 “The City That Bleeds”

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, it’s another red ball on Homicide!

Episode 3.12 “The City That Bleeds”

(Dir by Tim Hunter, originally aired on January 27th, 1995)

This week’s episode opens with Bolander, Munch, Howard, and Felton having a morning meeting outside of an apartment building.  They put on bullet-proof vets because they (and several uniformed officers) are about to arrest Glenn Holton, a sex offender who is believed to have murdered a child.  Unfortunately, because of a transcription error on the warrant, the detective go to Apartment 201 instead of 210.  As they knock on the door to 201, someone on the stairwell opens fire on them.  Bolander, Howard, and Felton are hit.  Munch somehow avoids being shot.

It’s red ball time!  We’re only 12 episodes into season 3 and this is our third “all hands on deck” red ball of the season.  NBC reportedly wanted showrunner Tom Fontana to give them more drama in return for renewing the low-rated Homicide and Fontana delivered.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  This was a compelling episode, featuring Pembleton tracking Glenn Holton across the city while Bayliss tried to deal with his guilt over being relieved that he wasn’t shot.  After visiting the hospital, Giardello had an emotional breakdown while Lewis was driving him back to the station.  Felton’s wife returned from Philadelphia to visit him in the hospital.  Gloria Reuben and Tony Lo Bianco guest-starred as detectives who came in to help with the case and, for both of them, this episode felt like an audition to join the cast.  Things ended with a cliffhanger.  Holton is still at large.  Felton is awake but hospitalized.  Bolander and Kay are still in critical condition.  It was an exciting episode.

And yet, one can understand why Ned Beatty later said, in an interview, that this was one of the episodes that eventually led to him leaving the show.  First off, why the detectives would be serving the arrest warrant as opposed to the uniformed cops or, considering Holton’s crimes, even the SWAT team, I’m not sure.  Munch makes a comment about how the four of them had served hundreds of arrest warrants in the past but it’s not something that we’ve ever seen them do on the show before.  That the nonstop emotional drama was compelling was due to the strength of the cast and not the strength of the script, which was occasionally so overwrought that it felt almost like a parody of a cop show.  This episode worked but, after it ended, I found myself thinking about how different it felt from the deliberately-paced and moody episodes the aired during the first and second seasons.

And finally, it’s hard not to get annoyed that, with everything going on, we still had to deal with all of Felton’s stupid domestic nonsense.  I’m tried of hearing about Felton’s wife and kids and how he can’t make his marriage work.  I’m even more tired of Megan Russert, a character who could be a total badass, being solely defined by her relationship with Felton.

This episode, the first of a three-parter, held my attention while I was watching it and it was only afterwards that I realized I kind of had mixed feelings about it overall.  Homicide is changing.  We’ll see where it goes.