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Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 1.4 “Dream On”

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!

Love is in the air …. for some.

Episode 1.4 “Dream On”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on November 20th, 1989)

I hate bullies.

Sadly, bullies are a part of life and they have been since the start of recorded history.  I imagine that even cavemen had their own versions of bullies and nerds.  Bullies deal with their own insecurities by picking on outsiders.  Most people hate bullies but they keep quiet when they see bullying because the unspoken threat is that, if they speak up, they could be the next one to be targeted.  That’s especially true in high school.

Degrassi High has its own set of bullies.  The episode features Tabi (Michele Johnson-Murray), who has decided to spend all of her time standing in front of the ninth grade lockers and refusing to allow the niners to use them.  When Kathleen and Melanie walk by Tabi, Tabi sprays her hairspray in Melanie’s eyes.  That’s not just rude but it’s also potentially dangerous.  Kathleen is usually not a particularly likable character but, when she finally stood up to Tabi at the end of this episode and yelled at her to get away from the lockers, I wanted to cheer.  Kathleen stands up to Tabi and a stunned Tabi walks away, saying something about niners being crazy but surrendering nonetheless.  Yay, Kathleen!

Where did Kathleen find the confidence to stand up to Tabi?  In this episode, she finally gets a boyfriend!  Scott Smith (Byrd Dickens) is an 11th grader with a really ugly mustache.  Looking at Scott, one can automatically smell the beer and see a future in which he spends all of time getting drunk at hockey games.  That said, he seems to like Kathleen and he encourages her to try out for the school play.  He even escorts her across the quad, which Tabi and her friend Dwayne previously declared to be off-limits for anyone in the ninth grade.  Kathleen has a boyfriend and there’s no way this could go wrong, right?  I mean, it’s not as if the Degrassi franchise has a long history of episodes in which insecure girls end up with older boyfriends who turn out to be abusive, right?

Meanwhile, Arthur has a crush on Caitlin and he’s overjoyed when he overhears Caitlin talking about how she’s getting tired of dating Joey, who is insensitive and only cares about his “dumb band.”  However, it turns out that Caitlin is not interested in Arthur.  Instead, she likes Claude, who has a goat-tee and is massively concerned about the environment.  Claude (pronounced “Klohd” because he’s either really pretentious or he’s from Quebec and maybe both) invites Caitlin to a French movie.

“Do you know Jean-Luc Godard?” Claude asks.

“No, does he go here?” Caitlin replies.

It’s okay.  When I was fourteen, I didn’t know who Jean-Luc Godard was either.  That said, I am old enough now to know that Godard’s post-70s films were not exactly date material.  Maybe Claude is asking her to a showing of Breathless.  Still, I think Claude should have waited for a Truffaut and a Lelouch film to come to town.

My point is that Claude is kind of a douchebag.  It’s obvious to everyone but Caitlin but sometimes, relationships are like that.  That’s especially true when there’s an age and educational difference.  I can understand Caitlin liking Claude, even if Claude seems pretty annoying to everyone else.  But I can’t see this relationship ending well.

Oh well — at least Joey has time to work on the band!  We all know from watching Degrassi: The Next Generation that Joey’s future lies in selling cars, not playing the keyboards.

And don’t worry about Arthur.  He may get his heart-broken in this episode but the actor apparently had a growth spurt between Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High and he now basically towers over everyone in the cast.  No one is ever going to bully Arthur again.

Next week, the drama continues!

 

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 1.9 “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

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, season one comes to a close.

Episode 1.9 “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

(Dir by Wayne Ewing, originally aired on March 24th, 1993)

It’s another day in Baltimore.

While the rain falls and the cold wind blows, Detectives Howard and Felton investigate another murder and, for once, it’s Detective Howard who is getting distracted and irritable.  Felton lights a cigarette.  The witnesses all light cigarettes.  The uniformed cops light cigarettes.  The medical examiner looks over a body and lights a cigarette.  Howard bites into a celery stick.  To his horror, Felton realizes that Howard is trying to quite smoking and, therefore, she is going to be Hell to work with until she eventually gives up.  Howard swears that she’s not going to give up,  She’s dating State’s Attorney Ed Danvers and he’s not a huge fan of smoking.  Howard later assures Pembleton that sex with Danvers is so mind-blowing that it’s worth giving up cigarettes.

Bayliss is trying to give up cigarettes as well.  He’s doing it for his health.  (Sorry, Danvers!)  His attempt to go smoke-free lasts for a day or two.  He gives in while on a stake-out with Howard, Pembleton, and Felton.  Bayliss is so desperate to bum a cigarette that detectives nearly miss capturing their suspect.

Meanwhile, Lt. Giardello is shocked to discover that the upper flood of the building, the floor right above his department, has been closed for asbestos removal.  No one bothered to tell the detectives that they were working in a toxic environment.  Actually, with all the cigarette smoke, I doubt they would have noticed.  As always, Yaphet Kotto’s performance was one of the highlights of this episode.  Both his outrage over the asbestos and his joy about having found something to hold over the head of Captain Barnfather were wonderful to watch.

Finally, Munch and Bolander investigate the death of a 14 year-old boy who was beaten to death as a part of a gang initiation.  Fortunately, the members of the gang are not very smart.  One suspect confesses all that he knows after Munch and Bolander hook him up to what they claim is an atomic-powered lie detector that causes sterility.  (It’s actually the xerox machine.)  The head of the gang turns out to be a snot-nosed, middle class kid who says that the murder was an act of kindness.  A disgusted Bolander ends the episode, sitting in a bar and talking about how American society destroyed Elvis.  The bartender is played by a bemused John Waters.

This episode was originally meant to be the final episode of season one.  NBC, not wanting to end the first season on such a downbeat note, instead decided that Night of the Dead Living should be the finale, despite the fact that moving the episodes around caused all sorts of continuity problems.  For the purpose of the site, I’m reviewing the episodes in the order that they were meant to be shown.  So, for us, this is indeed the season finale.

And what a dark way to end the season!  But it also feels like the right way to end season one.  In its first season, Homicide was not an optimistic series.  The murder of Adena Watson went unsolved.  Bolander is alone and still pining for his ex-wife.  No matter how many murders are solved, there’s always another one right around the corner.  The first season of Homicide would have been downright depressing if not for the sense of humor of the detectives.  It was gallows humor, of course.  But it was very much needed.

Season one featured some great episodes (Three Men and Adena, the pilot, Night of the Dead Living) but it faltered towards the end.  Bolander’s relationship with Carol was never as interesting as the show’s writers seemed to think and the whole plotline with Chris Thormann getting shot went for an at least one episode more than necessary.  But still, the first season was challenging and frequently compelling.  It was also very low-rated.  Homicide came close to being canceled after the first 9 episodes.  When it did return for a second season, it was only given four episodes in which to prove itself.

We’ll start looking at those four episodes next week.

#SundayShorts with THE HITCHER!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is driving a car across the country to San Diego. Tired and needing some help staying awake, he makes the major mistake of picking up a hitchhiker, the psychotic John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). Through a stroke of luck, he’s able to knock the “Hitcher” out of his car and keep going. Unfortunately, John Ryder isn’t content with being dumped by young Jim Halsey. Rather, he decides to stalk Jim and frame him for a cross-country murder spree.

I first saw THE HITCHER at a friend’s house when I was in the 4th grade. It scared the ever living crap out of me. I have never even pondered the possibility of picking up a hitchhiker because there’s always a chance that it could be a psycho like John Ryder. The genius of THE HITCHER is how it taps into the horror of everyday life. We pass by strangers every day. Who’s to know if there’s a John Ryder in our presence just waiting for us to invite them into our lives?! 

What can I say about Rutger Hauer as John Ryder?! He absolutely owns the film. There’s no wonder his roles in BLADE RUNNER and THE HITCHER would come to define his career. He was one of the great artists, and I’ve missed him ever since I learned of his death while I was sitting on the beach in Perdido Key, FL in 2019. C. Thomas Howell & Jennifer Jason Leigh are excellent as well. As a big-time Rutger Hauer fan, THE HITCHER is an intense film that I watch at least once a year. 

Five Fast Facts:

  1. C. Thomas Howell admitted that he was actually afraid of Rutger Hauer on and off the set because of Hauer’s general intensity.
  2. Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT, OPPENHEIMER) has listed THE HITCHER as one of his favorite movies.
  3. Entertainment Weekly ranked THE HITCHER as the nineteenth scariest movie of all time.
  4. Gene Davis, the psycho killer from Charles Bronson’s 10 TO MIDNIGHT plays Trooper Dodge in this movie. Based on my love of the Bronson Cannon classic, I love seeing Davis in any film. 
  5. President George W. Bush served on the board of the company that lent money to HBO to finance this movie. During the 2000 presidential election, Bush’s critics used his involvement in this film to discredit his stance on “family values” and his criticism of pervasive violence in Hollywood movies.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.22 “Put Your Best Face Forward”

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!

This week, season two of this show finally comes to an end.

Episode 2.22 “Put Your Best Face Forward”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on March 22nd, 1987)

The second season of Check It Out! ends by revealing a little bit more about the origin story of Howard Bannister.

Howard’s stint at hotel management school has been mentioned several times throughout the series.  In this episode, he is upset because his reunion is coming up and he’s the only members of his graduating class to have not made a success of himself.  One of his classmates owns several motels.  Another manages a popular bed and breakfast.  Lester Pinkus (Alan Jordan) has had the most success of all.  He is the manager of a 5-star luxury hotel.  Meanwhile, Howard is just the manager of a small grocery store in Canada.

Howard explains to Edna that he was always at the top of his class but somehow, he flunked the final exam.  Lester, who was previously always at the bottom of the class, got the highest score on his final and received a great job right out of school.  With the reunion coming up, Howard is feeling inadequate.  When he sees that Lester still looks young and happy, Howard decides to take Lester’s advice and get a facelift.

Or, at least, that’s Howard’s plan until he actually meets the doctor (Jack Northmore) and learns what a facelift entails.  The doctor explains he’ll be peeling back Howard’s entire face and then breaking his nose. Agck!  Howard faints and goes to his reunion with a black eye.

(For the record, there was a time when I was determined to get a nose job but then I considered that I had inherited my nose from my mom and it would be disrespectful to do anything to it.  Big Nose Crew forever!)

At the reunion, Lester accepts an award for all of his success.  He then announces that he doesn’t feel like he can accept the award because he cheated on the final.  He stole Howard’s exam paper, put his name on it, and turned it in as his own.  As such, Howard was actually the one who got the best score on the exam while Lester was the one who should have flunked.  Lester says that he’s happy now because he’s rich, successful, and has a newly cleared conscience.

I have to admit that made me laugh.  Howard’s life sucks and it’s all because of Lester.  Lester’s girlfriend throws champagne in his face and then leaves him.  Howard thanks Lester’s girlfriend so Edna throws champagne in Howard’s face and season two comes to an end.

What a strange show.  Edna learns why Howard is so miserable and instead of offering him any sympathy over the fact that he’s doomed to spend the rest of his life as a grocery store manager, she throws champagne at him and accuses him of cheating.  Howard can’t win but that’s okay because Howard really isn’t that likable of a character.

Season two was …. well, yes, it was inconsistent and frequently downright bad.  But the show occasionally showed some sparks of life, usually when the focus was on the supporting cast.  Jeff Pustil, Kathleen Laskey, Aaron Schwartz, and especially Gordon Clapp were able to generate some laughs, even from the weakest of material.  The season season suffered because Howard’s personality seemed to change from episode-to-episode.  It’s hard to root for a guy who doesn’t behave in a consistent manner.

Will the third and final season be an improvement?  We’ll start finding out next week!

Lisa Marie’s Week Television: 12/1/24 — 12/7/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I watched the classic holiday specials this week!

In order of quality (from best to not-quite-as-good-as-its-reputation), I watched:

  1. A Charlie Brown Christmas Special (Apple+)
  2. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (NBC)
  3. Frosty the Snowman (NBC)
  4. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (NBC)

I have to admit that Rudolph has always left me feeling anxious.  I think it’s because Santa kind of comes across as being a jerk in that one.  The main message seems to be the Santa is a harsh taskmaster and the other reindeer are all jerks.  Poor Rudolph!

That said, I will always be happy to watch Charlie Brown learn the true meaning of Christmas.  And the Grinch remains a true classic, thanks to Boris Karloff.  Frosty always makes me cry, largely because I’ve lived a life largely bereft of snow.  In the end, I enjoy watching all four of those specials because it’s a part of my holiday tradition, just like Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, and It’s A Wonderful Life!

The other thing that I’ve been watching this week is an 80s miniseries called Amerika, which imagines what our country would be like if it was ruled by communists.  It would be pretty bad, what with the combination of oppressive politics, drab clothing, and mandatory struggle sessions.  Then again, it’s also really not that much different from America today.  Anyway, Amerika is interesting but it’s also 13 hours long and, as of this writing, I’ve got five hours to go.  (It’s on YouTube.)  So, I guess I’ll write more about it next week!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.10 “Washington’s Clone”

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, Washington gets an admirer.

Episode 4.10 “Washington’s Clone”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on November 11th, 1978)

Arthur (Ron Dennis) is a nerdy student who worships Freddie and desperately wants to be a Sweathog.  When Freddie tells Arthur that he’s too smart and clean-cut to be a Sweathog, Arthur reacts by dressing like Washington and trying to act just like Washington.  At first, the Sweathogs are amused and Washington is slightly flattered.  But then Washington discovers that Arthur is stealing watches and selling them in the school courtyard.  Washington tells Arthur that Sweathogs don’t commit crimes, which is certainly a change from the first season of the show.

After Julie tells Washington that Arthur’s grades are slipping and he’s throwing away his future, Washington goes to Barbarino for advice.  The audience goes crazy for Babarino’s cameo but I have to admit that I cringed the whole time.  I don’t like the idea of Barbarino working in the hospital.  Every time Barbarino makes an appearance, he’s making life difficult for a patient.  In this case, he spends so much time thinking about Washington’s problem that he doesn’t realize he’s spilling food all over a hungry man in a hospital bed.  It was nerve-wracking to watch and not particularly funny.

(Again, in all fairness, it’s hard for me to see any scene set in a hospital room without thinking about my Dad.  So, your mileage may vary as far as Barbarino’s cameo is concerned.  For me, it still hits too close to home.)

Eventually, Washington and the other Sweathogs dress up like members of a street gang (which, again, is what the Sweathogs were supposed to be during the first two seasons of the show) and they tell Arthur that he’s going to have to help them attack Mr. Woodman in order to become a Sweathog.  (Uhmm …. this seems like a bad idea.)  Arthur says he has no problem with that but, in the end, he defends Woodman when the Sweathogs pretend to attack him.  Arthur goes back to being himself and somehow the Sweathogs are not expelled.  Julie tells them that she “can’t believe I’m saying this,” but she’s mildly impressed with how they handled Arthur.  Julie is even bitchier without Gabe around than when he was forcing her to listen to his jokes.

Indeed, Gabe does not appear in this episode and there’s no reference made to where he might be.  You would think that, being vice-principal, he would be the one who would be talking to Arthur about his grades.  Gabe Kaplan, of course, was not on the show because he was upset that the network and their refusal to allow the Sweathogs to graduate high school.  In-universe, one can only guess that Gabe Kotter just doesn’t like to come out of his office.

For a fourth season episode, Washington’s Clone wasn’t bad.  Ron Dennis’s performance as Arthur made me smile.  The fact that he was dramatically shorter than Washington made his attempts to imitate Washington a lot more humorous than they would have been otherwise.  Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs gave a good performance as Washington, even if his sudden concern about following the law went against everything that the show had previously established about the character.  This episode was amusing (with the exception of Barbarino’s cameo) and Horshack didn’t say much.  You can’t complain about that.

JACK FROST – should Frosty the Snowman be worried?

Posted on by Bradley Crain

My wife and I have been watching a Christmas movie every night for the last week or so. We’ve already watched DIE HARD 1 and 2, LETHAL WEAPON, HOME ALONE 1 and 2, CHRISTMAS VACATION, YES VIRGINIA THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS, FOUR CHRISTMASES and a Hallmark movie called THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR with Fonzi. She’s been wanting me to watch JACK FROST with her for a while now. I’ve been somewhat hesitant because a movie about a talking snowman not named Frosty doesn’t seem that appealing to me. I was explaining this reluctance to a couple of my co-workers at the accounting office, and they both assured me that it’s a good movie. With this newfound confidence that I would enjoy the film, my wife and I settled in to watch JACK FROST a couple of nights ago…

JACK FROST is about a guy named Jack Frost who is having a difficult time with his work life / home life balance. He loves his wife Gabby (Kelly Preston) and his son Charlie (Joseph Cross) very much, but his musical group, The Jack Frost Band, is taking up a lot of his time. He’s one of those dads who says he’ll “for sure” be at his son’s hockey game but then misses it because the band’s recording session runs late. It’s always something like that with Jack Frost. Tragically, before Jack can get this stuff figured out, he dies in a car accident on Christmas Eve. Jump forward a year later where a depressed Charlie decides to build a snowman like he and his dad always did together for Christmas. Just go with me here… through the magic notes of Jack’s old harmonica as played by his son Charlie, Jack’s spirit is transferred to the snowman, and the two have another chance to bond like they always wanted to. Will Jack be the father he should have been now that he’s a magical snowman dad? How long will he be around this time? Will an abnormally warm Colorado winter melt him? Will he get to watch Charlie play one more hockey game? These are just a few questions to be answered over the course of the film’s 100-minute running time.

I have always been drawn to movies that focus on the relationships between fathers and their sons. For example, FIELD OF DREAMS and FREQUENCY are two of my very favorite films. The reason I love both films is that dads and their boys are able to reconnect and experience each other in a way that resolves pain or regret from the past. The movies may not be realistic in how that happens, but I think each of the films tap into a universal truth about the connections between kids and their parents. If you want to see me cry, just watch either of those movies with me. JACK FROST seems to have this noble intention of magically re-connecting a father and his son for a second chance, and I give it credit for that. Only the most cold-hearted cynic would blow off the scene where Jack’s wife and son get to see him in his human form just one last time. It was touching. I also enjoy some of the songs on the soundtrack. I was able to take my wife to see Stevie Nicks in concert here in Little Rock earlier this year. I enjoyed when her “Landslide” played as Charlie made a snowman for the first time after his dad passed away. I thought that was a strong scene. With that said though, for me, JACK FROST doesn’t come together in a way that packs much of an emotional punch even though it’s clearly going for the heart. Part of that could be the fact that Michael Keaton turns into a snowman, and statements like “snow-dad is better than no-dad” are made. When I think of the other films, sure there are supernatural elements at play, but they’re still set in the real world, even if that place is in Iowa! In the case of JACK FROST, neither the comedy nor the drama worked well enough for me to get emotionally invested. The filmmakers overestimated the comedic nature of a snowman in general, and they seemed to dwell on that one note way too long, and to the film’s detriment. I did think a scene where Charlie’s hockey coach, played by Henry Rollins, refuses to allow the word “snowman” to be spoken in his presence was funny, but that was the exception and not the norm. 

After watching JACK FROST, I do understand why Frosty has retained his place as the world’s favorite talking snowman even after this film’s 1998 release. I think the idea of a talking snowman works much better in Frosty’s context. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll go ahead and watch Frosty the Snowman again when I’m done here. But you never know, JACK FROST just may grow on me. Since my wife loves it, I know we’ll be watching it this same time next year! 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

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, things get dark.

Episode 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired by May 1st, 1989)

Howard Moore (Martin Neufeld) is the latest in a long line of nerdy Friday the 13th villains.  With his long hair, unwashed appearance, and crazy eyes, Howard is an easy target for some of the less compassionate citizens of Canada.  Of course, Howard doesn’t help things by having a totally creepy personality.  He works in a vinyl record store, where he offers up unsolicited music advice to the teenage customers, the majority of whom giggle awkwardly whenever he’s nearby.  Howard is obsessed with a singer named Angelica (Vanity) but there’s no way Howard could ever actually meet her.

Or at least, that’s the case until he finds Mesmer’s Bauble.  Having once belonged to the inventor of hypnotism, this crystal pendant grants Howard anything that he asks for, as long as he first uses it to hypnotize people and then kill them.  (It turns out that merely looking at the pendant is enough to send someone into a hypnotic trance.)  As with so many Friday the 13th villains, Howard quickly comes to love having the power to kill people.  I’ve always felt that the majority of this show’s villains are basically addicts.  Instead of being addicted to drugs, they’re addicted to the rush of power that comes with using a cursed antique to get what they want.  That’s certainly the case with Howard.

At first, Howard thinks that he wants Angelia to love him.  He kills both her publicist and her manager in order to get closer to her.  But, once he’s finally close to her, Howard apparently realizes that he actually wants to be Angelica.  In an effectively nightmarish sequence, Howard and Angelica’s body appear to merge into one.  Howard literally turns into Angelia while Angelica presumably withers away into nothingness.  Howard is now Angelica, which will undoubtedly upset Ryan, who has bought two tickets for Angelica’s latest show.

It’s up to Micki and Ryan to recover the pendant and they manage to do so in the most anticlimactic way possible.  They go to Angelica/Howard’s concert and Micki grabs the pendant while Angelica/Howard is singing.  Without the pendant, Angelica dissolves into Howard and then a panicked Howard is promptly electrocuted on stage.

Howard’s dead but so are a lot of other people.  At the shop, Micki and Ryan confess to Jack that they feel that they failed because so many people died before they got the pendant.  Jack shrugs and basically tells them “that’s life.”  What a dark ending!  Actually, it was rare that Friday the 13th didn’t end on a dark note.

This was an effectively creepy episode, one that worked because of just how dark it allowed things to get.  Even Jack pointed out that the pendant’s powers didn’t always make sense, which made it even more dangerous in the hands of someone like Howard.  There were a few loose ends.  I found it a bit odd that there wasn’t a bigger public reaction to a famous black woman turning into an ugly white guy and then dying in front of a crowded club.  In fact, the show left it a bit unclear as to what actually happened to Angelica after Howard transformed into her but I’m going to guess it was nothing good.  In the end, though, this episode was effectively macabre.

THE DEAD POOL – the 5th and final Dirty Harry adventure!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Dirty Harry Callahan has brought so much joy into my life. I remember when I was in 5th Grade in 1983, the hot phrase was “Go ahead. Make my day.” You heard that phrase everywhere. It may have been said by Dirty Harry in the 4th Harry Callahan adventure, SUDDEN IMPACT, but it transcended the movie and became a cultural phenomenon. Somewhere between 1983 and 1988, I was able to watch all of the Dirty Harry films, DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE, THE ENFORCER and SUDDEN IMPACT. I just loved Harry. He was always sticking it to his superiors, and then doing whatever it took to take out the bad guys. That was an amazing combination for me. I was 14 years old when the 5th and final Dirty Harry film, THE DEAD POOL, was released into the theaters in July of 1988. This was the first Dirty Harry film to be released after our family got our VCR in the mid 80’s. I couldn’t wait to rent it. 

In THE DEAD POOL, Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) finds himself the target of crime boss Lou Janero, as Harry was crucial in his arrest and subsequent conviction. This high profile news story has caught the attention of the horror film director, Peter Swan (Liam Neeson). It’s seems Swan and some of his friends are playing a twisted game called “the dead pool” where they predict the deaths of certain celebrities based on various factors going on in their lives. Harry Callahan is a local celebrity and Swan includes him on his list due to his role in the Janero conviction. This “dead pool” game is leaked to reporter Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson) after the murder of Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey), who’s on Peter Swan’s list. As celebrities who are on Swan’s list continue to die, Harry and his partner Al Kwan (Evan C. Kim) try to figure out if Swan is behind the killings, or if someone else is trying to frame him, all while trying to keep themselves alive!

There are so many cool and interesting things about THE DEAD POOL. First, there has never been a character any more awesome than Harry Callahan, as played by Clint Eastwood. He will do whatever it takes to get the bad guys, regardless of what his superiors think. As a rule follower, I absolutely love Harry’s approach to life and live vicariously through him. Only vigilante Paul Kersey, played by Charles Bronson in the DEATH WISH films, rivals Callahan in his willingness to fight for justice, everyone else be damned! Second, future superstar actor Jim Carrey has the role of Johnny Squares, the drug-addicted rocker whose death kicks off the public’s knowledge of the dead pool. In hindsight, it’s fun seeing Carrey as a working actor in 1988, while also knowing that he’d become one of the biggest stars in the world over the next decade. It’s also pretty cool seeing a pre-superstar Liam Neeson as horror director Peter Swan. Third, in the late 80’s, I loved the rock group Guns N Roses. The group members are in this film in two places. They’re in the sequence where a harpoon stunt goes wrong, as well as at the funeral of Johnny Squares. Hell, guitarist Slash gets to fire the harpoon! Their hit song “Welcome to the Jungle” also has a prominent part in the film. I loved their other hits “Sweet Child of Mine,” and “Paradise City,” when I was a teenager. Fourth, I always love Harry’s catchphrases from the films. Each Dirty Harry film has its own catchphrase, including examples like “Do you feel lucky?” and “Go ahead. Make my day.” In THE DEAD POOL, various bad guys get “you’re shit out of luck.” Shit is a favorite curse word of my family, so I like this one. Fifth, THE DEAD POOL has a crazy car chase sequence. In this sequence, Harry and his partner Al Kwan find themselves chased by a remote-controlled car packing a bomb. It makes for some interesting visuals as the tiny car chases them through those familiar streets of San Francisco. It’s not often that filmmakers can come up with a new way to present a car chase, but they do a great job here. Finally, I enjoy seeing the media getting skewered in THE DEAD POOL. Patricia Clarkson’s reporter character has a solid arc as she goes from someone at the beginning of the movie who will do anything to get an exclusive story, to someone who is even willing to forego the exclusive if it’s the “right thing to do.” Our media is a hopeless mess these days where opinion is treated as facts, and actual facts are treated as an option. Where’s Dirty Harry to clean this up in 2024? 

I’m a fan of THE DEAD POOL, and I probably watch it every year or two. If you haven’t ever seen it, or if it’s been a while, I’d definitely recommend it! 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

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 bring together a family.

Episode 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

(Dir by Dan Gordon, originally aired on October 15th, 1986)

Clancy (Eugene Roche) is an old man who has never gotten over the death of his son in Vietnam.  He lives alone in an apartment in Los Angeles.  His only friend is Guido Liggio (Ernest Borgnine), an Italian taxi driver who lives next door.  Guido, who came to this country as a refugee during World War II, is the type of salt-of-the-Earth character who says stuff like, “Clancy, how come you no be a-nice to the people?”  And Clancy is the type of bitter old man who says stuff like, “Don’t ask me for money, ya bum!”

Jonathan and Mark show up at Clancy’s apartment and inform him that they work for an agency that brings refugees to the United States.  They explain that Clancy’s son had a child in Vietnam.  Now, both Clancy’s grandchild and the grandchild’s mother are in the United States and they need somewhere to stay.  Clancy is angered by the news, claiming that the mother is lying and just trying to get into the country.  But eventually, he agrees to allow Lan Nguyen (Haunani Minn) and Michael Nguyen (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) to stay in his apartment.  He even agrees to give Michael lunch money so that Michael won’t starve at school.  Otherwise, Clancy says that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with either of them.

Guido, on the other hand, is more than willing to host Lan and Michael.  He’s a refugee himself and, even more importantly, he’s everyone’s favorite character actor, Ernest Borgnine!  But Jonathan and Mark understand that their assignment is to bring together Clancy and his grandson.  Guido is a nice guy but he’s not Michael’s grandfather.

At school, a bully (Adam Gifford) is stealing Michael’s lunch money.  When Michael says that he needs the money for food, the bully threatens to hurt Clancy.  What a jerk!  Seriously, check out this totally 80s bully:

When the principal tells Mark and Jonathan that Michael has been spending his lunchtime searching for food in the school dumpsters, Jonathan tells Clancy.  Clancy, angered that his money is being wasted, heads down to the school and confronts the bully.  Jonathan briefly gives Clancy and Michael “the stuff,” which allows them to beat up the bully and his entire gang.  This experience brings grandson and grandfather together.  So, I guess the message here is that violence is the answer.  Forget about that turning the other cheek stuff.  Instead, just throw your bully through a car window.

This episode was pretty much what most people picture when they think of a typical Highway to Heaven episode.  It was unabashedly sentimental and a bit simplistic in its approach.  It was earnest enough to be likable though a bit too heavy-handed for its own good.  Any show that features Ernest Borgnine as a special guest star is not exactly going to deliver anything resembling a subtle story.  While this episode was never quite as good as I wanted it to be, I was still glad that Michael and his mother found a home.