Tag Archives: review

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out 3.1 “The Umpire Strikes Out”

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 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, we begin the third and final season of Check It Out!

Episode 3.1 “The Umpire Strikes Out”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 4th, 1987)

Marlene is nervous because her father, Charlie (Michael Donaghue), is coming to visit.  Charlie is professional baseball umpire and Marlene has always had a strained relationship with him.  She feels that Charlie always wanted a son and that he resented her for not being into sports.  After Edna allows Marlene to use her apartment to throw a small party for Charlie, Marlene suddenly starts dressing conservatively and her childhood stutter returns.  She also stops dying her hair.

Agck!  Poor Marlene!  I could very much relate to her in this episode, largely because I had a pretty bad stutter up until I was 12 and sometimes it still kicks in if I haven’t gotten enough rest.  Fortunately, Charlie does eventually realize that he was always too hard on Marlene and they agree to work on their relationship.  Yay!

Meanwhile, Leslie’s feeling insecure about his age so he tries to wear a wig.  It’s not a very good wig.  It’s a pretty simple and obvious joke but Aaron Schwartz did a really good job selling it.  Both Aaron Schwartz and Kathleen Laskey were capable of getting laughs out of the mildest of jokes and they both got a chance to show off their abilities in this episode.

This was the first episode of Check It Out!‘s third season and, from the start, it is obvious that some changes were made after the end of the previous season.  Simon Reynolds is no longer in the cast, which is a shame because Reynolds was a good actor but it’s also somewhat realistic as Reynolds was playing a high school kid who, presumably, moved on to better things (like college).  Whereas Howard always wore a suit during the second season, his work attire is now a dorky smock that is labeled “Howie, Store Manager.”  Howard’s office now overlooks the salesfloor and, in this episode, there were enough extras in the background to convince me that Cobb’s was an actual grocery store as opposed to just a soundstage.  I don’t know if this is going to be a permanent change or not but Howard was a bit less silly and more of a manager in this episode.  It felt like a change for the better.

Believe it or not, this was actually a pretty good episode.  Especially when compared to some season 2’s lesser episodes, the third season premiere was consistently funny and well-acted and the story actually made sense.  Is this a fluke or did Check It Out! finally get itself together during the final season?

We’ll find out in 2025!  Due to the holidays, this is my final Check It Out! review for 2024.  These reviews will return on January 4th.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 12/8/24 — 12/14/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, other than the shows that I watch for my Retro Television Reviews, the only other thing that I watched was Hell’s Kitchen.  Brittany was eliminated.  Who was Brittany?  Was she on the show earlier?  Sometimes, with these reality shows, it feels like contestants just pop up out of nowhere so that they can be eliminated at the end of the episode.  That said, I did feel bad for Brittany when she was eliminated.  No one on the Red Team could really explain why they nominated her.  It certainly was not Brittany’s fault that the Red Team lost that night’s dinner service.

I did smile when I saw that Penn and Teller were guests at the dinner service.  I kept waiting for Teller to complain about the food but he kept quiet.

Well, it’s the holidays and earlier today, I filed and scheduled my final Retro Television Reviews for 2024.  Those reviews will return on January 1st, 2025!  I’ve got a lot of films and other things to catch up on before the New Year.  Wish me luck!

 

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.11 “Frog Day Afternoon”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime.

This week, Horshack takes center stage.  You’ve been warned.

Episode 4.11 “Frog Day Afternoon”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on November 25th, 1978)

This week’s episode of Welcome Back, Kotter does not feature Mr. Kotter.

It does not feature Vinne Barbarino.

It doesn’t even feature Beau, the new Sweathog.

It does feature a lot of the show’s two most annoying characters, Arnold Horshack and Julie Kotter.

Horshack doesn’t want to dissect a frog because he’ll be required to kill the frog before cutting it open.  Did they really used to require students to personally kill their own frog in biology class?  That’s a little extreme.  I always assumed that everyone just got frogs that were already dead.

Julie, of course, support Horshack’s right to not open up a frog and argues with Woodman about it.  I’m not really sure what Julie actually does at the school.  Sometimes, she appears to be a guidance counselor.  Other times, she appears to be a receptionist.  She’s been called Woodman’s “secretary” a few times but we don’t ever actually see her doing any sort of secretarial work.  I guess that, when Gabe Kaplan announced he wouldn’t be appearing in the majority of the 4th season episodes, they had to put Julie in the school so that there would still be a Kotter in Welcome Back, Kotter.  But Julie’s originally from Nebraska so it’s not like she’s the one being welcomed back to Brooklyn.

Anyway, Horshack argues that frogs don’t get a say in whether or not they want to die and he refuses to kill them.  His teacher (Dena Dietrich) says that she’ll have to give Horshack an F.  Washington says, “You better lay one of those F’s on me too.”  Epstein also decides to take the F.  The entire class is so moved by Horshack’s stand that they all ask for an F as well!

Normally, this would be very moving but since every student at the school appears to be in their 30s, it’s pretty obvious that none of them are that worried about their grades.  When you’ve already been held back twelve times, it’s not like another F is going to make a difference.

This episode …. yech.  I mean, to be honest, I had sympathy for Horshack’s position.  I certainly wouldn’t want to kill a frog or any other animal and I agree that students who object should be given an alternative assignment.  I mean, unless you’re planning on actually going into the medical field, I don’t really see what the point is in dissecting things in school.  But Horshack has become such an annoying character that it didn’t matter that I agreed with him.  I just wanted him to stop talking!

During the first season, Ron Pallilo actually did a pretty good job playing Horshack.  Horshack was strange but he wasn’t a cartoon.  But that changed somewhere around the middle of the second season and, with each episode since then, Horshack has progressively become more and more annoying.  He’s not a proper replacement for Barbarino.

Anyway. bless the frogs.  They’re nice creatures if you don’t bother them.

This is my final Welcome Back, Kotter review of 2024.  These reviews will resume after the holidays, on January 4th.

THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA (2009) – Is this your family?!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

My wife was born and raised in the great state of West Virginia. It’s one of the most beautiful states in the country. I’ve enjoyed visiting awesome places like the New River Gorge Bridge, Kanawha Falls, the Greenbrier Resort, the Mothman museum, Reddish Knob, Seneca Rocks, and Hillbilly Hot Dogs over the years! Five or six years ago, I was browsing through the movies available on Amazon Prime and I came across this documentary called THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. Being a fan of my wife and fascinated by the state, I thought I’d check it out.

But first, a little back story…. in 1991, Jacob Young, a director and producer for two seasons of a PBS documentary series called DIFFERENT DRUMMER, made a documentary short for the series entitled DANCING OUTLAW. The subject of the documentary is a man from Boone County, WV named Jesco White. Jesco is a talented “mountain tap dancer,” a skill that was passed down to him from his father D. Ray White. Jesco is also a hard-living, hellraising, gas-huffing law breaker! The documentary would go on to win a 1992 Emmy Award, as well as a 1993 American Film Institute Award for “Best Documentary.” It would also make Jesco a celebrity and pop culture figure in the state.

Now, back to THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. This 2009 documentary, directed by Julian Nitzberg and executive produced by Johnny Knoxville, takes us back to Boone County to revisit Jesco White, as well as to introduce us to a whole bunch of his extended family. I’ll just say up front that I was fascinated by this family, but I would never in a million years trust a single one of them. Jesco is in the new documentary, but there isn’t a lot of time spent with him. He did perform some of his special mountain tap-dancing as Hank Williams III sang his song “Straight to Hell” during the opening credits. I enjoyed seeing his special talent prior to the movie turning into the documentation of a slow-motion, extended family train wreck. Here are a few of the people we spend time with:

  1. Mamie White – This is Jesco’s sister. Her thoughts on life are pretty scary. Based on her own words, I have no doubt that she would steal from me and possibly kill me if it would help her get ahead in any way. She would then brag about dumping my body in a local “holler.” It was not a surprise when a portion of the running time dealt with her daughter’s release from prison.
  2. Sue Bob White – This is also Jesco’s sister, “the sexy one of the family,” according to her own words. The primary events we see in her life concerns her interactions with her son, Brandon Poe. Poe is currently in jail for shooting his own uncle multiple times in the face.    
  3. Susan Ray (Kirk) White – This is Jesco’s niece, the daughter of his sister Bo White. When we meet her, she proudly tells us the story of when she attempted to kill her husband Dennis, the father of her hyperactive son Tylor, by slashing him with a knife because she “hated that son of a bitch.” Cut to six months later and she’s in the hospital delivering a beautiful baby girl. While she’s still in the hospital we see her snorting crushed up prescription pills. Her child is promptly taken from her by social services. Her story is ultimately the most interesting, because we get to see her attempts to get clean and get her child back.
  4. Poney White – This is Jesco’s brother. After some legal trouble in the past, when we meet Poney he’s living in Minnesota where he seems to have a good job and a relatively well-adjusted family. His story seems quite successful in comparison.

We meet many more of the Whites, but I think you can see where this is going. This is a family in distress, and we see extreme examples of a culture of horrific decisions that continue to yield horrific results. With that said, I also saw bits and pieces of my own family in the Whites, and while I won’t condone a single one of their bad decisions, I won’t pass judgment on them either. During the year that the filmmakers hung out with the Whites, the matriarch of the family, Bertie Mae White, turned 85 years old. Based on some of the things she said, as well as some of her mannerisms, she reminded me a little bit of my own Grandma Crain from the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. We see the family as they celebrate Bertie Mae on her 85th birthday. They love their mother, but they do drugs and smoke pot at her party even though she clearly doesn’t want any of that “stuff” around her. A sad section of the film is Bertie May’s passing while the documentary was being made. I know of instances where drug and alcohol abuse have wreaked havoc inside of my own family. There have been instances where extended family members have committed acts of violence that have sent them to prison. I think the fact that I can see certain characteristics of my own family through the craziness of the Whites is what fascinated me the most when I was watching. These are real people, and because of that, we know people like them, with some of them being our own family members if not ourselves. I’m not qualified to speak on how certain socio-economic factors affect any of this kind of behavior, so I won’t even try.  

Back in 2020, my wife and I visited the courthouse in Madison, WV, which is the county seat of Boone County, and a place that is shown multiple times throughout the documentary. I’ve included a picture below. We ate at a local grocery store in town that served a nice bologna sandwich for lunch. This is a very normal town and county, yet this is also where almost all of the action in the wild and wonderful Whites takes place. One of my takeaways from THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA is my continued amazement of the types of things us “normal” people are capable of. 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th 2.21 “Wedding in Black”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, the departed return!

Episode 2.21 “Wedding in Black”

(Dir by Rodney Charters, originally aired on May 8th, 1989)

In South America, a man named Calvin Collier (Stephen Meadows) is carrying around a snow globe and strangling women.  After he kills a young Jill Hennessy (credited here with playing “Spanish Hooker,”), Calvin is taken to prison.  However, an ominous voice says that it has need of Calvin’s soul.

In Africa, Brother Antonio (Guy Bannerman) is caught trying to rape a woman and is promptly set on fire.

In America (or maybe Canada), Maya Zedler (Carolyn Dunn) is released from prison and promptly kills herself.

What do all three of these people have in common?  They all know the folks at Curious Goods!  Calvin is a friend of Micki’s.  Brother Antonio is an acquaintance of Jack’s.  Maya used to be Ryan’s girlfriend.  And even though all three of them are now dead, Lucifer sent them back into the world of the living because he’s decided that he wants Micki to give birth to his child.

Calvin and Antonio show up and draw Micki and Jack out of the store and into a sudden blizzard.  Suddenly, all four of them find themselves in the castle that sits in the middle of Calvin’s snow globe.  Calvin sets about trying to seduce Micki on behalf of Lucifer.

Meanwhile, Maya shows up and tries to keep Ryan distracted so that he won’t go looking for Micki and Jack.  However, it turns out that Maya still has a conscience and eventually, she turns on Lucifer and sacrifices herself to help Ryan.

This episode was an interesting change of pace.  The snow globe may have been an antique but wasn’t one of the antiques and instead of Micki and Ryan stumbling into whatever terrible thing was happening, Lucifer instead came directly for them.  If nothing else, this episode showed that the producers of Friday the 13th: The Series understood the danger of falling into a rut and that they were capable of changing things up without losing the overall macabre atmosphere of the show.  The scenes in the castle were appropriately surreal and both Chris Wiggins and the often underused Robey gave good performances.  Of the three souls, Guy Bannerman made the strongest impression just by playing his character as being totally and unashamedly evil.

At the same time, it was hard not to feel that this episode was a bit of a missed opportunity.  While it was interesting to have Micki, Jack, and Ryan meet up with three spirits of people who they used to know, it’s hard not to feel that the episode would have worked better if the producers had reached into the past and brought back some of the show’s former guest stars.  Not an episode passed in which Micki, Jack, or Ryan doesn’t lose someone that they cared about and it would have been fun to see some of those people come back.  Imagine the emotional impact if John Stockwell or Catherine Disher or maybe one of Jack’s old war buddies had returned to life.

All in all, this was a good episode that could have been even better.

Due to the holidays, this is my final Friday the 13th review for 2024.  These reviews will return on January 3rd!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.5 “Samuels and the Kid”

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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Hulu!

This week’s episode of St. Elsewhere featured Dr. Craig winning an award.  Good for him!

Episode 1.5 “Samuels and the Kid”

(Dir by Thomas Carter, originally aired on November 30th, 1982)

This week’s episode of St. Elsewhere was kind of boring,  It wasn’t a bad episode because the show was well-acted and even the boring subplots felt as is they were part of a bigger whole but, especially when compared to last week’s episode, Samuels and the Kid just wasn’t as compelling.

The Kid of the title is Robbie Durant (Jeremy Licht), a young patient who needs to have some minor surgery done on his ankle.  Dr. Samuels take a really intense interest in the kid, bonding with him and even offering him tickets to a Patriots football game.  At first, it seems like Samuels is just trying to be nice to a kid who is in a scary situation.  (When I was growing up, I spent a few nights in the hospital because of my asthma and it always scared me to death.)  But, at the end of the episode, it is revealed that Samuels had a son who was Robbie’s age who died in a freak accident.  As for Robbie, the operation is a success but he still dies as the result of an embolism.  It was sad but, at the same time, I knew Robbie was going to die as soon as he showed up in the hospital.  I’ve seen enough medical shows to know.

Dr. Cavanero was at a bed-and-breakfast when she learned that one of her patients had gone into labor and was at her apartment alone.  Cavenro had to beg people for change so that she could use a pay phone to call the patient’s neighbors so that she could talk them through delivering the baby.  Seen today, the most interesting thing about this storyline is that it takes place at a time when people had to carry around quarters so that they could call each other in case of an emergency.  (There is a very dusty old payphone a few blocks away from my house.  I assume it doesn’t work and I don’t think it’s been touched by human hands since the 90s — and I’m certainly not going to touch it! — but it’s always interesting to see it sitting there like some haunted beacon of the past.)

Dr. Fiscus continued to have sex with Kathy Martin.  Good for them but I really don’t know that I need to spend a good deal of time listening to Howie Mandel talk about his sex life.

Dr. Chandler (Denzel Washington) accused a nurse of being incompetent.  Nurse Rosenthal (Christina Pickles) got mad at him for yelling at the nurse in the hospital hallway.  Dr. Westphall mediated and agreed to move the nurse to another floor.  Denzel Washington is always fun when he’s yelling at people.

There was one very funny scene.  Dr. Craig won an award for surgeon of the year and gave an extremely long, pompous, and rather bitter acceptance speech.  (The award was a plaster cast of his own hands.)  William Daniels played the scene perfectly and I have a feeling that Dr. Craig is going to end up becoming my favorite character.  As a bonus, Daniels’s wife, Bonnie Bartlett, appeared as Craig’s wife.  By the middle of Craig’s speech, even she had stoppled listening and lit a cigarette.

As I said, this was a little bit of a boring episode.   Still, I look forward to the future of the show!

Speaking of the future, this is my last St. Elsewhere review of 2024.  My next review of this show will post on January 3rd!

 

MURPHY’S LAW – Don’t F#&k with Jack Murphy!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I became obsessed with actor Charles Bronson in 1986 after receiving a VHS copy of DEATH WISH 3 as a Christmas present. Going along with that obsession was my desire to see every Charles Bronson movie that had ever been made. As much as I enjoyed re-watching DEATH WISH 3, it was always a treat when I could rent a different Bronson film at the video store. The current Bronson movie at the video store in 1987 that appealed to me as a 13 year old boy was MURPHY’S LAW, so I wanted to rent it as often as possible. There were even a couple of times when different friends asked me to spend the night, and I had one requirement for saying yes… that we rent MURPHY’S LAW! Y’all, don’t think too bad of me for this admission. Remember, I was only 13 years old, I couldn’t drive, and I didn’t have a job so if I had to use a friend’s mom to get my Bronson fix, that’s just what I had to do! Based on the timing of my initial Bronson obsession, DEATH WISH 3 and MURPHY’S LAW are 1-2 in the films that I’ve watched the most times during my life.

In MURPHY’S LAW, Charles Bronson plays Jack Murphy, a tough cop who seems to be experiencing a series of unfortunate events:

  1. A thief named Arabella McGee (Kathleen Wilhoite) tries to steal Murphy’s car and drives it through the window of a pizzaria. We know that’s his car because he loudly proclaims, “That’s MY car!!” He even wastes money on a sack of groceries by throwing it at his car while she’s driving away. He’s able to chase her down on foot, but she kicks him in the testicles and runs off leaving him doubled over in pain, grocery-less, and clutching the family jewels!
  2. A mafia kingpin named Frank Vincenzo (Richard Romanus) wants to kill him because Murphy was forced to shoot and kill the kingpin’s brother. We know the cop and the kingpin don’t like each other, because a little before the shooting they have a slight disagreement in front of the mafioso’s mother over whether the brother is a scum-sucking pimp or a talent agent. Unable to resolve the debate amicably, the mafioso inquires as to whether or not Jack has ever heard of “Murphy’s Law, if anything can possibly go wrong it will?” Murphy responds with an alternative version of Murphy’s Law, the only law that he knows, and one that I greatly prefer. You get the feeling that this argument may be revisited later in the film.     
  3. Murphy’s now ex-wife Jan (Angel Tompkins) is performing extremely artistic striptease routines at a local club called Madam Tong’s. She’s also making love to the manager of the club. Rather than drinking at home alone until he passes out like most depressed men, Murphy hangs out at Madam Tong’s watching her shake her goodies for a bunch of horny lowlifes, before following them home and watching from outside until they turn off the bedroom lights. Very sad indeed.
  4. And here’s the worst part, on one of those typical nights where he’s obsessively stalking his wife, another mystery woman (Carrie Snodgress) knocks him in the head, shoots the slimy manager and Mrs. Murphy with his gun, and then frames him for their murders. Arrested for the murders and subsequently handcuffed to the thief who tried to steal his car, Murphy must stage a daring helicopter jailbreak in order to find out who framed him and clear his name before everything and everyone he holds dear is taken from him!

There are several reasons that I loved MURPHY’S LAW back in the eighties, and that I still enjoy it now. First, of course, is Charles Bronson. He was around 64 years old when he filmed MURPHY’S LAW, but he’s still in great physical condition in 1986. One of Bronson’s greatest strengths is his screen presence, and he still dominates each frame he’s in. Second, the film has an excellent supporting cast. Carrie Snodgress is having a ball playing the main villain in the film. I’ve seen her in quite a few movies, like PALE RIDER with Clint Eastwood, and 8 SECONDS with Luke Perry, but I’ve never seen her in a role like this. Snodgress was nominated for an Oscar for her role in a 1970 film called DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE. I’ve never seen that one before, but I should probably check it out! I love Kathleen Wilhoite as Arabella McGee, the thief who ends up handcuffed to Bronson. Her vocabulary, while probably not very realistic for the streets of LA at the time, was hilarious to me as a teenager. I enjoy calling the people I love “snot licking donkey farts” on occasion to this very day. It’s Kathleen Wilhoite singing the title song over the closing credits! And Robert F. Lyons is very special to me in his role as Art Penney, Jack Murphy’s partner. We got to interview him on the THIS WEEK IN CHARLES BRONSON podcast about his roles on DEATH WISH 2, 10 TO MIDNIGHT, and MURPHY’S LAW. He was so generous with his time, and just a hell of a nice guy! I’ve attached a link to the YouTube video of the interview with Mr. Lyons if you’re interested in the great stories he tells us about his time in Hollywood! Finally, MURPHY’S LAW was directed by J. Lee Thompson, my personal favorite director who worked with Bronson. Thompson directed Bronson in 9 different films, beginning with ST. IVES in 1976 and ending with KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS in 1989. No matter the material, you always knew that Thompson would deliver a film with a certain quality that made Bronson look good!

I’ll always be a fan of MURPHY’S LAW, partly for nostalgic reasons, but mainly because I think it’s an entertaining mid-80’s action film for Bronson at a time when he was one of the kings of the video store!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.5 “That’s Our Dad”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark are in Hollywood …. again!

Episode 3.5 “That’s Our Dad”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 29th, 1986)

Two orphans, Sarah (Kelley Parker) and Joey (R.J. Williams), are upset because they’re about to be split up.  A family wants to adopt Sarah but they don’t feel like bringing along her best friend, Joey.  Joey and Sarah wish that they could live with Bill Cassidy (Ned Beatty), the star of America’s favorite sitcom, That’s My Dad!

Sarah and Joey run away from the orphanage and end up at the studio at the exact same time that Bill is holding auditions to find a new co-star for That’s My Dad.  Sarah and Joey tell Bill about their tragic backgrounds and how they each lost their parents.  Bill, thinking that the kids are doing audition pieces, is so impressed that he tells his producer that he wants the kids to be hired immediately.  The kids think that this mean they’re being adopted!  Yay!

Unfortunately, Bill is a bitter man who, in private, doesn’t behave like the perfect father that he plays on television.  Adopt two kids?  Why would Bill want to do that!?  Fortunately, Jonathan and Mark just happen to be installing a new security system at Bill’s home.  Jonathan helps Bill to see that, even though he’s bitter, he could still redeem himself by adopting two random children.  The end result is an episode that pretty much epitome of Highway To Heaven, shamelessly sentimental but heartfelt enough to be effective.

This was not Ned Beatty’s first appearance on Highway to Heaven.  During the first season, he played two roles in The Banker and the Bum.  Beatty does a pretty good job in this episode, playing Bill Cassidy as someone who can be unpleasant but not so unpleasant that his later change of heart doesn’t feel credible.  From the first minute we meet Bill, we know he’s going to turn out to be not such a bad guy, if just because that’s what always happens on Highway to Heaven.  On this show, even the most unlikable of characters usually achieve some sort of redemption.  The main theme is the no one is bad as they originally seem.  That’s actually a pretty sweet message when you think about it.

Highway to Heaven did quite a few shows about show business.  I’ve read that Michael Landon was something of a workaholic and, as a result, he later felt that he missed out on spending time with his children.  Certainly, that would explain why almost every Hollywood episode of Highway to Heaven seems to feature an actor or director who needs to learn to make time for the people in their lives.

Speaking of making time for the people in your life, it’s the holidays.  This is going to be my final Highway to Heaven review for 2024.  These reviews will return on January 2nd!

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.21 “Scott’s Secret Dream”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, I continue I wonder why I ever started reviewing this show in the first place.

Episode 1.21 “Scott’s Secret Dream”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 18th, 1999)

This week’s episode of this terrible show revolves around the local television news.  Everyone is looking for a job.

Traycee, for instance, gets a job as the weather girl and spends her time saying that she doesn’t want it to rain in Malibu so she’s decided that it will be sunny instead.  The judgmental and humorless station intern is not amused by any of this.  Anyone who has watched this show should have little trouble guessing that the intern is Stads.

(It’s kind of sad how, in just a few episodes, Stads went from being the fun, kooky lifeguard to being a hyperjudgmental killjoy.)

Jason is excited because the station is sponsoring a jingle contest.  He wants to be a professional songwriter so maybe this could be his chance!  Jason does manage to win the contest but he spends so much time working on the jingle that he keeps his brother, Scott, from getting so much-needed sleep.

Scott has a secret dream.  He wants to be the station’s sports reporter.  (How about finishing high school first, Scott?)  Even Stads thinks that Scott would be a good sports reporter.  Unfortunately, Scott shows up for his audition exhausted and blows his big chance.  The station hires someone over the age of 17 to be the sports reporter.

Fortunately, for Scott, the newly hired sports reporter turns out to be a sexist pig and he’s fired after he follows Jason’s advice and hits on the station manager.  (Why is anyone following Jason’s advice about anything?)  So, Scott gets another chance to audition but this time, he drinks too much coffee and ends up jumping on the news desk and dancing.

(Because, y’know, that’s something you totally do if you drink a lot of coffee.)

Can Jason and Stads get Scott a third audition?  Yes, they can but the way they do it is so stupid that I don’t even want to talk about it.  The important thing is that Scott gets the weekend sports job and …. well, I guess he’ll just work as a busboy at the restaurant for the rest of the week.

(I’m starting to think this show isn’t very realistic.)

Meanwhile, Peter is upset because he’s single and he’s taking out his frustration on Murray.  So, Murray sends Peter a note from a secret admirer and …. you know what?  This is too stupid to talk about.  Brandon Brooks, as always, deserves some credit for bringing a touch of genuine sweetness to Murray’s odd behavior but …. no, no, I’m not going to talk about it.  This whole subplot was just too stupid.  Brandon Brooks and Ed Blatchford were probably the closest thing this show had to genuinely talented actors but the show always wasted them in the dumbest B-plots.

When I first started reviewing this show, I disliked both Scott and Jason equally.  As this season has progressed, Scott has grown on me a little because, unlike his brother, he’s not a total sociopath.  Scott, at the very least, seems to want to be a good person.  Jason, on the other hand, just seems like he’s destined to go to prison for cheating someone out of their life savings.

Thank God, it’s the holidays!  This is my last Malibu, CA review for 2024.  My reviews of this show will return on January 2nd.  Until then, I’m free from the Collins brothers!

RUSH HOUR – 1998, a special year for this fan of Hong Kong action cinema!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

1998 was certainly a special year for me as a fan of Hong Kong cinema but first let me provide a little context… After 150 years of British rule, Hong Kong was being handed over to communist China on July 1, 1997. This left a lot of uncertainty in Hong Kong’s local film industry. Because of that uncertainty, many of Hong Kong’s most popular filmmakers decided it was time to take their talents abroad. Director John Woo had already left for America in the early 90’s and had made successful films like HARD TARGET, BROKEN ARROW and FACE/OFF. This gets us to 1998, the year that many of Hong Kong’s biggest action stars would release their first American films. Chow Yun-fat would reprise his popular, honorable hitman role in his first American film, THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS, which was produced by John Woo and directed by Antoine Fuqua. Jet Li would make a strong impact as the badass villain in the 4th installment of the LETHAL WEAPON franchise. And then there’s Jackie Chan, probably the biggest of all the Hong Kong movie stars. Jackie had been banging around Hollywood as early as 1980 without a lot of fanfare in the west. But in 1996 Chan had a solid American box office hit when his Hong Kong production RUMBLE IN THE BRONX was dubbed and released in America. Armed with that success and a sizable budget provided by an American studio, Chan would get his own big release in 1998, the action-comedy RUSH HOUR!

In RUSH HOUR, Jackie Chan plays inspector Lee, a Hong Kong police detective who’s also a friend to Chinese Consul Han (Tzi Ma), currently serving in Los Angeles. When Consul Han’s daughter Soo Yung is kidnapped, he asks Lee to come to America to assist him and the FBI in rescuing her. The FBI doesn’t really want Lee’s help so they ask the Los Angeles police department to assign someone, anyone, to stay with Lee and keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get in the way of their investigation. Enter fast-talking, LAPD Detective James Carter. After some initial clashes and disagreements, the mismatched duo eventually begins working together to find the criminal mastermind behind the kidnapping, Juntao.

I watched RUSH HOUR at the movie theater on my birthday in 1998. I loved every second of it. A few weeks later I was on a business trip in Chicago, I told my boss how good the film was, and we went to see it as well. I enjoyed it just as much the 2nd time. I’m a big fan of “buddy cop” films like LETHAL WEAPON and BAD BOYS, and RUSH HOUR is an excellent addition to that sub-genre of action films. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker have an excellent chemistry together. Their comedic interplay is hilarious and entertaining. It’s one of the main reasons I enjoy the movie so much. Jackie Chan was 44 years old when RUSH HOUR was released, but he was still extremely athletic so his brand of martial arts action and comedy still worked. The movie would go on to gross just short of $250 million at the worldwide box office and establish Jackie Chan as a bonafide star in the American film market. 2001’s RUSH HOUR 2 would be an even bigger hit, making almost $350 million worldwide. No one works harder or gives more of himself to his film productions than Jackie Chan, and it was nice seeing him achieve the truly worldwide success that he had earned!