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

Posted on June 15, 2025 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.

Brad reviews MEN & CHICKEN (2015), starring Mads Mikkelsen!

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Bradley Crain

MEN & CHICKEN (2015) is the story of two estranged, and flat out strange, brothers, Gabriel (David Dencik) and Elias (Mads Mikkelsen), who find out a family secret when their father passes away. It turns out that their “dad” is not their biological father, so the two brothers head out to find their real one. They know he’s a reclusive scientist named Evelio Thanatos, and that he lives on a remote island. When they arrive on his island, they meet their three half-brothers Josef (Nicolas Bro), Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Franz (Soren Malling), who are some real weirdos, and who are prone to violently beat visitors in the head with heavy cookware and stuffed beavers. After taking a couple of beatings from their brothers, Gabriel and Elias are able to work their way into their family’s dilapidated mansion where they find that it is filled with chickens, pigs and a bull named Isak. This is a strange group, with each brother exhibiting certain physical abnormalities and odd behaviors. There’s something dark going on here… and why won’t their new brothers let Gabriel and Elias meet their dad, who apparently sleeps all day in an upstairs room? The remainder of the film deals with the brothers getting to know each other and discovering their family’s deep, dark, animalistic secrets!

I’ve presented a plot summary of MEN & CHICKEN above, but no summary can really do this film justice. It’s a film that has to be seen to be believed. The first thing I really noted about the film is its complete commitment to its weird tone and a twisted sense of humor. We meet Mikkelsen’s character Elias on the most awkward date ever, which he follows up by going to the bathroom and immediately masturbating. We soon learn that masturbating is just something he always has to do. The way his brother accepts the behavior as if it’s no different than him tying his shoes is odd and funny at the same time. There’s also a sight gag early in the film where Gabriel is watching from afar as his brother is being beaten repeatedly in the head by kitchen pots the size of bathtubs that made me laugh out loud. Of course, it’s meant to be funny, but the film’s visuals are also realistic enough that when we see Elias up close his face is a bloody mess! I haven’t watched a lot of Danish films in my life, but I’m starting to get a sense of just how twisted their senses of humor can get! Director and writer Anders Thomas Jensen is somehow able to balance the dark comedy of his setup, the strange nature of the characters he’s created, and the grotesque, horrific visuals that we see inside their family home in a way that’s both absurd and increasingly poignant as the film continues on. I’m so used to movies that follow the same plot points and formulas, but Jensen’s films are wildly unpredictable. You truly never know what you’re about to see next, to both good and bad effect, but it’s definitely not boring!

Mads Mikkelsen is incredible as brother Elias. This role could not possibly be farther away from his repressed badass in Jensen’s RIDERS OF JUSTICE, but you can’t take your eyes off of him. As odd and repulsive as his character can be, the actor’s instincts for absurd comedy are perfectly on display and he’s incredible. I also liked actor David Dencik as his brother Gabriel. His more “normal” character grounds the film as all sorts of craziness is going on around him. They complement each other well. I also recognized Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro as two of the odd brothers, who were also in RIDERS OF JUSTICE. It’s fun seeing Jensen’s stock players in such unique and versatile performances.

After having now watched Jensen’s films MEN & CHICKEN and RIDERS OF JUSTICE, one of the things I’m picking up on is his ability to create an endearing “family” out of almost any kind of circumstances. These are some of the most strange and troubled people that you will ever see on screen, but beneath the perversity of it all, a theme emerges on the power and acceptance that can be experienced inside of a family, and, ultimately, on the nature of humanity itself. It may not be altogether realistic, but there’s an idealism and hope that resonates with me.

As I wrap this up, let me just say that MEN & CHICKEN is not for everyone, so I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly. It goes to some deep, dark places in both its humor and the revelation of their dad’s disturbing scientific experiments. However, adventurous viewers with a perverse sense of humor and a willingness to follow a story wherever it may lead will be rewarded by this wholly unique film. A 25 year old me would have probably not been a fan, but 50+ year old me thinks it’s great!!

Lifetime Film Review: My Amish Double Life (dir by Cooper Harrington)

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2025’s My Amish Double Life, Lexi Minetree plays Emma, a young Amish woman who suspects that her father was murdered and who starts sneaking into the city so that she can see for herself what life is like amongst the English.

While hanging out at the club with her friend Rebecca (Rebecca Coopes), Emma meets the handsome and charming Heath (Ty Trumbo). When Emma, much like Cinderella at midnight, announces that she has to go home, Heath asks her to meet with him the next day. He says he really likes her. Even though it goes against her way of life, Emma does so. In fact, Emma even ends up at Heath’s large and beautiful home. Unfortunately, when another woman is murdered by a scythe-wielding assailant, Emma finds herself trapped in a web of deception and danger!

Oh, the Amish! I feel kind of bad for them. For the most part, they just want to be left alone but, over the past few years, Lifetime and Hallmark have become obsessed with them. As a result, we’ve gotten several movies about life amongst the Amish. On Hallmark, Amish men and woman are falling in love with the English. On Lifetime, young Amish women are having to solve murders and stand up to condescending male elders. For the most part, most of these films present the Amish as just being a bunch of people who wear old timey clothes and work on farms. And certainly, I imagine that the farms and the clothes are an important part of Amish life but it’s still hard not to feel that most of these movies are simplifying things a bit. If nothing else, they tend to ignore the huge role that both religion and pacifism play in the Amish community. There’s also a tendency to assume that every Amish person secretly yearns to sneak off to the big city. In the movies, the Amish obsess about life amongst “the English.” In reality, it seems to be the other way around.

(I should mention that there’s a fascinating documentary called Devil’s Playground, which follows a group of Amish teenagers on Rumspringa. I recommend it for anyone who is curious about the Amish.)

But what about My Amish Double Life? Is it an entertaining film? Heck yeah, it’s an entertaining film. I mean, let’s set aside the question of accuracy. This is a Lifetime film. You’re not watching it for accuracy. You’re watching it for the melodrama. You’re watching it for the mystery. You’re watching it for the clothes and the houses. That’s why we watch Lifetime films. My Amish Double Life had a good mystery, one that features several viable suspects. Clothes? Not only did we get old timey Amish clothes but we also got sneaking off to the club in the middle of the night clothes! Houses? Heath lives in a mansion and the Amish farmhouses were pretty cozy too! And melodrama? This film totally embraced the melodrama! Lexi Minetree was a sympathetic lead, Lesa Wilson did a good job as her overprotective mother, and Rachel Coopes was a force of chaos as the Amish girl who liked to break the rules. It was an entertaining film, which is the main thing that a Lifetime film should be.

Seriously, though — if you’re in Pennsylvania and you see a horse-drawn buggy on the road, be polite when you pass and don’t gawk. The Amish are just living their lives.

The Films of 2025: The Surfer (dir by Lorcan Finnegan)

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Surfer (Nicolas Cage) is an American who has returned to the Australian beach where his dad used to surf. He wants to buy a home overlooking the ocean. Even more importantly, he wants to surf with his teenage son (Finn Little). As the Surfer and his son walk towards the water, they are confronted by three men. The leader of the men goes by the name of Pitbull (Alexander Bertrand).

“Don’t live here,” Pitbull says, “don’t surf here.”

The Surfer assures Pitbull that his son is an amazing surfer. (The Surfer’s son looks embarrassed.)

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” Pitbull replies.

Pitbull is a member of a cult of local surfers, all of whom follow Scally (Julian McMahon), a self-appointed guru who recites his rules with a ruthless but charismatic intensity. Scally brands his followers, burning their flesh in a ritual to announce that they are now a part of his family. “Before you can surf, you must suffer,” Scally says.

Now, to be honest, I would just go to a different beach. I’m not a surfer. I’m not even that much of a swimmer. I do, however, enjoy laying out on a nice beach or by a big swimming pool. One thing that I’ve learned is that, when the cult arrives, you leave. Seriously, there’s always somewhere better to go. Any place that does not have a cult will be infinitely better than a place that does.

The Surfer’s son agrees with me and suggests just going to another beach but that’s not an option for the Surfer. The Surfer is obsessed with Scally’s beach and he’s determined to surf it. It was on that beach where the Surfer made his best childhood memories. It was on that beach where his father died. The Surfer sends his son back home and then the Surfer literally moves into his Lexus. He sleeps in the parking lot and he keeps an obsessive eye on the beach.

People come and go. The Surfer meets the Bum (Nic Cassim), who claims that Scally is responsible for the death of both his dog and his son. A local cop comes by and is quickly revealed to be a member of Scally’s cult. The Surfer become more and more disheveled. He loses his money. He loses his car. He runs into his real estate agent (Rahel Romahn) but the agent says that he’s never seen the Surfer before. The Surfer starts to hallucinate and can no longer keep straight who is who. What at first seemed like an intense midlife crisis and a desire to reclaim one’s youth starts to seem like something much more troubling and potentially psychotic. Everyone tells The Surfer to leave. Everyone tells him that he’s never going to get his house and he’s never going to surfer the beach. But, like the Bum, the Surfer is a man obsessed.

The Surfer is an intriguing film. At first, it seems like it’s going to be another Nicolas Cage revenge film. Then, it becomes a surreal head trip, one that leaves you wondering just who exactly Cage’s surfer actually is. Unfortunately, the film loses it’s way during its final third and instead becomes a rather mundane thriller. That said, the cinematography is gorgeous and, if you’re a fan of Cage’s unique style (as I am), this film allows him a chance to get totally unhinged. I wish the film had stuck with its surreal implications rather than chickening out during the final third but still, The Surfer and Nicolas Cage held my interest.

Song of the Day: Life In The Fast Lane by The Eagles

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For this Father’s Day, I’m dedicating today’s song of the day to my father. I miss you, Dad.

He was a hard-headed man
He was brutally handsome, and she was terminally pretty
She held him up, and he held her for ransom in the heart
of the cold, cold city
He had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude
They said he was ruthless, they said he was crude
They had one thing in common, they were good in bed
She’d say, ‘Faster, faster. The lights are turnin’ red.”
Life in the fast lane
Surely make you lose your mind, mm
Are you with me so far?
Eager for action and hot for the game
The coming attraction, the drop of a name
They knew all the right people, they took
all the right pills
They threw outrageous parties, they paid heavenly bills
There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face
She pretended not to notice, she was caught up
in the race

Out every evening, until it was light
He was too tired to make it, she was too tired
to fight about it

Life in the fast lane
Surely make you lose your mind
Life in the fast lane, everything all the time
Life in the fast lane, uh huh
Blowin’ and burnin’, blinded by thirst
They didn’t see the stop sign,
took a turn for the worse

She said, “Listen, baby. You can hear the engine
ring. We’ve been up and down this highway;
haven’t seen a goddam thing.”
He said, “Call the doctor. I think I’m gonna crash.”
“The doctor say he’s comin’, but you gotta pay him cash.”
They went rushin’ down that freeway,
messed around and got lost
They didn’t know they were just dyin’ to get off
And it was life in the fast lane
Life in the fast lane

Songwriters: Joseph Fidler Walsh / Glenn Lewis Frey / Donald Hugh Henley

Music Video of the Day: CPR by Wet Leg (2025, dir by ????)

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I are on vacation for the next two week and I imagine it’ll be something like this, except with no bearded guys and maybe a nicer car. That said, I love the dream-like feel of this video. It’s like driving into another dimension.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 3.18 “Vote For Me”

Posted on June 14, 2025 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and Peacock!

This week, Howard goes for a higher office!

Episode 3.18 “Vote For Me”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on January 16th, 1988)

The local Business Owners Association asks Howard to run for city council because …. well, I’m not sure why they would ask Howard. Howard refuses but then he sees his campaign assistant Lila (Heather Smith) and changes his mind.

Howard is shocked to discover that he will be running against a former baseball player and local celebrity named Patrick O’Malley (Bill Lake). Everyone agrees that there is no way that Howard can win and that’s pretty much the entire episode. Howard never has a chance, he screws up every opportunity that he’s given, and he ends up getting 400 votes and running behind a write-in campaign for Edna. (Edna answered some questions in Howard’s place when the latter was late to a campaign forum.) Howard is stunned by his loss. Viker says that he was not one of the people who write in Edna’s name before mentioning, “I voted for O’Malley.” Howard promises to take his employees to the best party in town, the O’Malley victory party.

This was a weird episode. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work because the idea of a bumbling egomaniac like Howard running for political office definitely had potential and I will admit I did laugh at Howard’s insane explanation of why getting rid of the police would get rid of crime. (To be honest, it really wasn’t that different from the arguments I heard during the Defund protests.) But the show wrote itself into a corner by making Howard such an idiot that there was never any chance of him actually winning. The entire episode was essentially scene after scene of Howard saying something dumb while everyone else rolled their eyes. It got predictable fairly quickly.

I think if Jack Christian had been the one who was recruited to run for city council, the episode could have worked. Christian is as much of a jackass as Howard but Jeff Pustil always manages to give the character a hint of insecurity so you root for him despite your better instincts. Howard, on the other hand, is often portrayed as being so incredibly dumb and clueless that it’s difficult really get involved in his attempts to be something more than just a grocery store manager.

Oh well. I would have voted for O’Malley too.

Retro Television Review: The American Short Story 1.2 “Parker Adderson, Philosopher”

Posted on June 14, 2025 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we have an adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story.

Episode 1.2 “Parker Adderson, Philosopher”

(Dir by Arthur Barron, originally aired on January 8th, 1974)

This adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce short story takes place during the Civil War. Parker Adderson (Harris Yulin) is a Union spy who is captured behind Confederate lines. Brought into the ramshackle Confederate camp, he’s put into a small cabin. He knows that, as a spy, he’s going to be executed in the morning and he seems to be at peace with that. For the most part, his captors treat him humanely. Though they may be at war, there doesn’t seem to be any real animosity between Adderson and the Confederate general (Douglass Watson) who is in charge of the camp. They are two men who have a job to do and they both seem to respect each other. At night, the General and Adderson have a conversation, talking about the war and mortality. Adderson gets a last meal. Everything seems to be strangely peaceful …. until Adderson discovers that he’s not going to be executed the way that he wants to be executed. By the time the morning sun rises, three men are dead. The formerly philosophical Adderson dies in a rage against his captors while the General dies with the peace and grace that Adderson originally envisioned for himself.

This was an effective and melancholy adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, one that captured both Bierce’s anti-war sentiments and his cynical view of the human condition. For all of his efforts to put himself above the realities of war, Adderson falls apart once the reality of his impending death becomes obvious. Meanwhile, the previously boorish general finds a certain redemption in his death, perhaps because the General, unlike Adderson, never tried to rationalize the violence of war or the cruelty of fate.

It’s a nicely-done episode, featuring good performances from both Watson and Yulin. I’ve gotten so used to seeing Yulin cast as corporate and government villains that it was really eye-opening to see him playing a complicated character for once. Clocking in at a little over 30 minutes, Parker Adderson, Philosopher is a thought-provoking look at war and the men who fight it.

Brad reviews RIDERS OF JUSTICE (2020), starring Mads Mikkelsen!

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Bradley Crain

RIDERS OF JUSTICE (2020) is the genre-bending story of Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), a badass soldier who returns to his home in Denmark after his wife dies in a train accident. His daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), who survived the accident that took her mother’s life, needs her dad to help her through this difficult time, but he has no idea how to process what happened and is failing miserably. Enter Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a data analyst and another survivor of the train crash. Otto tells Markus that his mathematical analysis indicates that the “accident” was actually the staged assassination of a person on the train by a group of criminals who go by the name “Riders of Justice,” and that his wife was an innocent casualty of that attack. Otto also brings along his eccentric, intelligent and emotionally troubled friends Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro) to help convince Markus of their findings. Markus accepts their premise, mainly because he wants someone to blame and take vengeance upon. Soon, the badass and the unlikely trio of nerds set out to kick ass, compute probabilities, hack computers, and get in touch with their innermost feelings. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride, with both blood and tears flowing like raging rivers!

I must admit that prior to sitting down with a group of friends and watching RIDERS OF JUSTICE this weekend, I had never heard of the film. It came out during the COVID lockdown periods of 2020 and 2021 and somehow flew completely under my radar. I’m so glad my friend Stewart chose the film for us to watch because it’s filled with awesome action sequences, absurdist comedy, and real human emotions. I also give it bonus points for being a Christmas movie, as it begins and ends with musical renditions of “The Little Drummer Boy,” even featuring Mads Mikkelsen wearing an ugly Christmas sweater!

I’ll start my discussion of the film with Mads Mikkelsen, an actor I’ve always appreciated, as the emotionally repressed and extremely lethal soldier, Markus. Usually a film like this would star someone like Jason Statham or Liam Neeson and focus solely on his quest for vengeance and not detour too much from those goals. This movie leaves us with no doubt of Markus’ killing abilities, but it also forces him to deal with his daughter’s feelings, as well as her sensitive boyfriend’s attempts to help him heal. Men who try to push Markus into revealing his feelings usually end up with a black eye or broken nose. But to his credit, he usually does feel bad about it afterwards. Next we have Otto, the nerd whose math calculations convince Markus that the riders of justice need to die. Otto is a sweet guy who truly wants to help Markus and Mathilde, but we find out over the course of the film that beneath his pleasant personality is a life fueled by guilt and shame. And then there’s Otto’s nerdy friends Lennart and Emmenthaler. I won’t go into all of the details of their lives, but these guys are also revealed to be thoughtful, kind, angry, funny, and extremely damaged depending on the time and the circumstances. On a funny side note, Emmenthaler’s unexpected ability to assemble a weapon is second to none. RIDERS OF JUSTICE pulls off the genuinely surprising feat of creating a “family” out of this mismatched group, and we see how they come to help each other and depend on each other. This makes the stakes so much higher when they inevitably must battle the evil riders of justice. The movie is funny, dramatic, and badass in equal measures and somehow it all works!

RIDERS OF JUSTICE was written and directed by a Danish filmmaker named Anders Thomas Jensen. I’m going to be emotionally vulnerable here and admit that I was completely unaware of Jensen, and that he and Mikkelson have an ongoing director / star, filmmaking collaboration that extends back to 2000 and currently includes six movies, with their latest, THE LAST VIKING (AKA BACK TO REALITY), set to be released in the fall of 2025. This collaboration also includes the actors Nicolaj Lie Kaas, Nicolas Bro and, with increasing frequency, Lars Brygmann. Based on my appreciation of RIDERS OF JUSTICE, I will be going back in time and watching some of their previous films to see how they stack up, and I’ll be looking forward with great anticipation to the release of their most recent work later this year. One of the great joys of cinema is the discovery of something new and special. I feel like this may have just happened for me again with a late night viewing of RIDERS OF JUSTICE!

Song of the Day: Atomic by Blondie

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Our song of the day is my favorite of Blondie song (and, believe me, there were many to choose from), Atomic! This song, which was subsequently covered for Trainspotting by Sleeper, is one that I often find myself not only quoting but also hearing in my head.