Today is Faye Dunaway’s birthday and today’s song of the day is The Happening, which was the theme song of Dunaway’s first movie, 1966’s The Happening! Faye played a hippie who, with George Maharis and Michael Parks, kidnapped Anthony Quinn. The film wasn’t a hit but the song was.
Here are The Supremes with The Happening.
Hey, life, look at me I can see the reality ‘Cause when you shook me, took me out of my world I woke up Suddenly I just woke up to the happening When you find that you left the future behind ‘Cause when you got a tender love You don’t take care of Then you better beware of the happening
One day you’re up, then you turn around You find your world is tumbling down It happened to me, and it can happen to you
I was sure, I felt secure Until love took a detour Yeah, riding high on top of the world It happened, suddenly it just happened I saw my dreams fall apart When love walked away from my heart And when you lose that precious love you need To guide you Something happens inside you, the happening
Now I see life for what it is It’s not all dreams, ooh, it’s not all bliss It happened to me and it can happen to you
Once Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened
Is it real, is it fake Is this game of life a mistake? ‘Cause when I lost the love I thought was mine For certain, suddenly I started hurting I saw the light too late When that fickle finger of fate Yeah, came and broke my pretty balloon I woke up Suddenly I just woke up to the happening
So sure, I felt secure Until love took a detour ‘Cause when you got a tender love you don’t Take care of, then you better beware of
Songwriters: Alex Mungo / David Taylor / Jasper John Nielson Stainthorpe / Mark Robert Tiplady / Rob Downes / Stephen Wren
I mean, it’s such a cliché, isn’t it? Tourists always fall in love with Venice, even though the majority of us really don’t know much about the city beyond the canals and the gondolas. I spent a summer in Italy and Venice was definitely the city that had the most American visitors. Sadly, the majority of them didn’t do a very good job representing the U.S. in Europe. One night, a bunch of drunk frat boys approached me, all wearing University of Texas t-shirts. One of them asked, “Are you from Texas?”
“No,” I lied.
“You sound like you’re from Texas!” his friend said.
“No, ah’m not from Texas,” I said, “Sorry, y’all.”
That’s not something that would have happened in Florence or even Naples! In Rome, handsome men on motor scooters gave me flowers. In Venice, on the other hand, I had to deal with the same jerks that I dealt with back home!
I still fell in love with Venice. And yes, it did happen while riding in a gondola. At that moment, I felt like I was living in a work of art. I can still remember looking over the side of the gondola and watching as a small crab ran across someone’s front porch. That’s when I realize that, by its very existence, Venice proved that anything was possible.
It is said that Venice is slowly sinking. That Venice has a reputation as being a dying city would probably have come to a surprise to the drunk Americans who were just looking for a girl from Texas that summer. And yet, Venice has always been associated with death. Just consider Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and the subsequent film adaptation from Luchino Visconti. Consider the controversial Giallo in Venice and Don’t Look Now.
Venice is a city that is beautiful at day and ominous and menacing at night. That’s certainly something that’s captured in Alone in Venice.
Made for an obviously low-budget but featuring some stunning shots of its title city, Alone In Venice tells the story of Saul Larson (Apollo Luce), a young actor who has spent the last year in Venice. He says that he was told to stay in the city by a Chinese film director who is in love with him. He says that he’s waiting for her to come out to Venice to join him. At one point, he says that she has even arranged for him to be classified as a permanent resident of the city so that he doesn’t have to worry about his visa expiring. How she did that is never really explained, though its implied that, while she’s arranged for him to stay in Venice forever, she’s also trapped him there. He can live in Venice but he can’t leave it.
A friend from America (played by Lisa Jacqueline Starrett) visits him and tells him that she thinks that he’s being used. She points out that he’s living in a crummy apartment that doesn’t even have a good view and that the director is 1) married and 2) hasn’t contacted him in months. A man named Tommaso (Luca Rosini) invites Saul back to his place and it’s implied that the two have a brief affair, though Saul continues to obsess over the director and her love of orchids. When the prostitute who lives down the hall offers herself to Saul for free, Saul appears to have a panic attack. Saul insists that the director exists and that she will be coming for him in just a few days.
The majority of the film is made up of scenes of Saul walking around and sometimes running through Venice. The city is the main attraction here. At day, the city is vibrant and full of life. At night, the city is full of shadows and a frightening clown makes an appearance. There’s more than few shots that owe a debt to Don’t Look Now and its sequences of Donald Sutherland chasing after the figure in the red raincoat.
What does it all mean? The film largely leaves that up to the viewer. Whether or not the film works will depend on how much tolerance the viewer has for open-ended storytelling and unanswered questions. (As you may have guessed, neither one is particularly an issue for me.) Saul is committed to believing that his director is coming for him and occasionally, there’s something a bit disturbing about his obsession with her. Throughout the film, he’s given plenty of opportunities to move on, whether it’s returning to America with his friend or pursuing a new relationship. Instead, he chooses again and again to be alone in Venice.
My wife and I love movies based on real-life stories. We were looking for something to watch this afternoon on the MAX app and came across their “Real Life Dramas” section. One of the movies we saw listed was CONVICTION (2010) starring 2-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. My wife loves Hilary Swank so we decided to give it a spin.
Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) watches as her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) is convicted of the murder of Katherine Brow on May 21st, 1980 in Ayer, Massachusetts and sentenced to life in prison. Even though she knows he’s a troublemaker, Betty Anne is convinced that he’s not a murderer, so she gives up everything in her life to try to prove his innocence, especially after she learns that he tried to kill himself while in custody. Her husband (Loren Dean) divorces her and takes their kids with him. This doesn’t stop her. She goes back to school, eventually making her way to law school for the sole purpose of helping to exonerate her brother. In a positive turn of events, Betty Anne realizes that the new field of DNA testing could be the key to overturning her brother’s conviction. She contacts attorney Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher) from the “Innocence Project” who assists those who believe DNA testing can help overturn previous convictions. Will Betty Anne finally be able to prove Kenny’s innocence, or will he have to spend the rest of his life in jail for a crime she doesn’t think he’s capable of committing?
Movies like CONVICTION are such an interesting watch for me, especially since we can know how these stories play out with a simple google search. When I see a movie is based on a real story, I purposefully avoid the facts of the actual events so I can see the events depicted on screen without my own internal bias taking front and center. I enjoyed watching how the events unfolded in CONVICTION. Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell are such good actors, and I appreciate the work they put in here. I don’t pretend that everything depicted on screen is exactly how it was in real life, but I do believe that the actors portray the essence of truth, and I must admit to a tear in my eye when that truth is finally acknowledged for Kenny Waters at the end of the film. I also enjoyed telling my wife that the director of CONVICTION is Tony Goldwyn, the bad guy in the blockbuster film, GHOST. I just thought that was kind of cool, and so did she.
The real truth of Betty Anne Waters and Kenny Waters is ultimately bittersweet, but their story is both a testament to, and an indictment of, the American judicial system. As a person who truly loves our country, I think it’s important to realize that things aren’t always perfect, even in the United States of America!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!
This week, CHiPs deals with the oil crisis!
Episode 3.4 “High Octane”
(Dir by John Florea, originally aired on October 6th, 1979)
Tonight’s episode of CHiPs is a real history lesson.
The episode was aired at a time when the U.S. was suffering from a shortage of gasoline. Conflict in Iran had led to both the Shah fleeing the country and Americans being taken hostage. Oil production fell, OPEC raised its prices, and people panicked and started to hoard gasoline. Many states instituted odd-even gas rationing, which meant that only people with an odd-numbered license plate could purchase gas on an odd-numbered day and only people with an even-numbered license plate could purchase gas on an even-numbered day. As so often happens when the government attempts to micromanage a crisis, this only made things worse as there were soon long lines at the pump and reports of fights breaking out between people at gas stations. Even with the rationing, many gas stations ran out of gasoline before they could serve every customer. If you didn’t arrive early enough, chances were that you would not be able to put gas in your car,
California was one of the many states to institute odd-even rationing and this episode of CHiPs is all about the battle over gasoline. Two crooks are siphoning gas from independent gas stations and then reselling it to other stations. (Their biggest customer is played by veteran screen tough guy, Aldo Ray.) Getraer is injured when he crashes his bike while chasing the two crooks, which makes this case personal for Ponch and Baker. Meanwhile, Ponch and Baker have to break up fights at the gas station, chase yet another guy who was caught siphoning gas from a car, and save yet another motorist who passes out from the fumes of all the gas cans that he had in the backset of his car. Ponch even starts to date Beth (Ellen Bry), because she works at a gas station and can tell him the best time to show up to make sure that he and Baker are able to fill up their bikes. Meanwhile, at headquarters, Harlan is giving lessons on the best way to keep unused fuel from evaporating.
Of course, it wouldn’t be CHiPs if there wasn’t also a light-hearted sports angle. This week, everyone’s into roller hockey. Ponch serves as the referee for the CHP-sponsored kids’ roller hockey game and everyone agrees that he’s the best referee that they’ve ever seen. And why not? He’s Ponch and, by the time the third season rolled around, CHiPs was definitely The Ponch Show. Later, the adult officer play roller hockey as well. It’s the show’s way of saying, “California’s still fun, even with the gas rationing!”
I enjoyed this episode because I’m a history nerd and it was interesting to see how the show dealt with the 1979 oil crisis while it was occurring. It’s interesting that this episode was a bit cynical about rationing, as CHiPs was usually a show that portrayed the government and its policies as positively as possible. In 1979, even the audiences of CHiPs was fed up with having to pay — let me check my notes to make sure I have this right — nearly a dollar a gallon for gas.
Really? Just 90 cents for a gallon gas? Get me a time machine. I’m going to 1979!
Released in 2013, Gravity is largely a two-person film. There are a few other characters who appear at the start of the film and we hear different voices throughout the movie (including the voice of Ed Harris, cast once again as the voice of NASA) but, for the most part, this film centers on George Clooney and Sandra Bullock floating through space. Clooney is Kowalski. Bullock is Stone. They’re two astronauts who are in space trying to fix the Hubble Telescope when their shuttle is struck by a wave of space debris. When the shuttle inoperable and the rest of the crew dead, Kowalski and Stone try to figure out how to get back down to Earth.
Space, it turns out, is not as empty as we tend to assume. Along with the space debris that caused them to get stranded in space in the first place, there’s also a lot of abandoned equipment and outposts that they can use to get back to Earth. Unfortunately, they’ve got limited oxygen and limited time with which to reach any of that equipment and, even if they do reach it, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to get any of it to work. After Kowalski sacrifices himself to help Stone reach the International Space Station, Stone alone must find a way to return to Earth before the space debris complete their orbit and again threaten to send her hurtling into space.
Gravity is one of those films that demands to not only be seen on the big screen but also to be seen in 3D. (I say this as someone who was not exactly a fan of the post-Avatar 3D boom. Too often, 3D felt like a distraction. In Gravity, it feels like a key part of the story.) The film not captures the terror of being alone in the emptiness of space but, at the same time, it also captures the beauty of having the entire universe in front of you. It’s a visually stunning and beautiful film. Kowalski says, at one point, that he has a hell of a view and it’s hard not to agree with him. Space may be deadly but it’s beautiful as well. Stone finds herself tempted to simply allow herself to spend the rest of eternity floating lifelessly in space but ultimately, she embraces life. She refuses to give up and the film refuses to give up on her or, by extension, the rest of humanity. Gravity celebrates the beauty of space and creation while also showing that life on Earth has its own beauty as well. By the film’s end, one can argue that Stone has literally been reborn.
It’s a powerful film, one that is well-acted by both Bullock and George Clooney, both of whom have the star power necessary to hold our interest even when the overwhelming grandeur of space threatens to steal our attention. (I would argue that Bullock’s performance here is far superior to her Oscar-winning turn in The Blind Side.) Gravity received ten Oscar nominations and it won seven of them, including the Best Director award for Alfonso Cuaron. However, it lost Best Picture to another powerful film, 12 Years A Slave.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!
This week is all about justice for Zito!
Episode 3.13 “Down For The Count: Part Two”
(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on January 16th, 1987)
Picking up where last week’s episode ended, Down For The Count: Part Two finds almost the entire Vice Squad mourning the death of Larry Zito. I say “almost” because, as usual, Castillo refuses to show any emotion or even look anyone in the eye. When he first appeared, Castillo’s stoicism made him an interesting character but I have to admit that I’m starting to get a bored with the character and his refusal to speak in anything more than terse growls. ZITO’S DEAD! WAKE UP, CASTILLO!
Switek, needless to say, is heart-broken. Trudy tells Gina that she had a totally meaningless one night stand with some guy she met at a club because she was depressed. (“Did it make you feel better?” Gina asks. “No!” Trudy wails.) Crockett is determined to take down crooked boxing promoter Oswaldo Guzman (Pepe Serna) and prove that Zito was not a junkie but that he was instead murdered by Guzman’s goons. As for Tubbs, he makes a few jokes. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, TUBBS!? ZITO’S DEAD!
Crockett and Tubbs go undercover as Burnett and Cooper and, once again, I find myself wondering how they can keep successfully doing that when their cover has gotten blown over a dozen times over the course of the series. Do criminals in Miami not talk to each other? This time, Crockett pretends to be involved with a cable sports network that wants to make a deal to air the fights that Guzman sponsors. When a Las Vegas gangster named Guilinni (former Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro) shows up looking to kill Guzman, Crockett and Tubbs effortlessly manipulate both sides. It turns out that criminals aren’t that smart.
Meanwhile, Trudy and Gina meet one of Crockett’s associates from the Vietnam War. His name is Danny Allred (Chris Elliott) and he’s a former CIA agent who now lives in an abandoned airplane. Danny is a codebreaker and he helps them to figure out the code that Guzman was using to keep track of all of his crooked fights. Danny is a fun character and I hope he shows up in more episodes. He added some moments of levity to what was otherwise a pretty grim episode.
This episode had plenty of good moments. The scene where Crockett and Tubbs visited Zito’s apartment was both poignant and nicely-acted by both Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. The final shoot-out was violent even by the standards of Miami Vice. That said, I’m a bit surprised that the episode didn’t revolve around Switek. Switek gets to express his anger and argue with Internal Affairs at the start of the episode and gets to repeatedly shoot Guzman at the end of the episode but he’s largely absent for the middle part of the story. As Switek was both Zito’s partner and his best friend, it really does seem like he should have been at the center of the entire episode.
Still, I was glad that Zito’s name was cleared and that Guzman ended up getting shot multiple times until he fell out a window. The show’s final credits featured still shots of John Diehl as Zito. I’m going to miss Larry.
Today the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. Our song of the day is The Golden Path, a collaboration between Wayne and The Chemical Brothers.
As I walked along The supposed golden path I was confronted By mysterious spectre He pointed to the graveyard Over on yonder hill I paused in cosmic reflection Confused on wondering Of how I came to die
Hm! I was confused Coz if I was dead How and why did I die And I composed myself And decided I should face it
Then I stood paralyzed On the supposed golden path And I was confronted By powerful demon force And there was the devil And we spoke his words Flowed like glowing lava from the mouth of a volcano And I said: Help me, Lord!! I found myself in some kinda hell But I did not believe in heaven and hell World in opposites kind of reality
But I gained control of myself And decided to press on
As I walked along The supposed golden path I was trembling with fear All the lions and the wizards yet to come I seen in the distance Silver mountains rising high in the clouds And a voice from above did whisper Some shining answer from the moon
Please forgive me I never meant to hurt you
Songwriters: Edmund John Simons / Steven Gregory Drozd / Thomas Owen Mostyn Rowlands / Wayne Michael Coyne
When it Rains In LA features Eric Roberts as Nate.
Nate is a happy man who lives in a big house and who obviously has a lot of money. He’s even got a much younger trophy wife, a Russian named Sasha (Monroe Cline). One day, Nate receives an odd package, a box that contains a rather hideous mask. Nate looks at the mask and then takes a sip of tea. He promptly drops dead.
After Nate’s funeral, the suddenly widowed Sasha flies to Los Angeles to see her friends from college. (Or, at least, that’s how I assume she met these people. At times, it’s difficult to really keep track of how anyone in this film actually knows anyone else.) Though she’s just buried her husband, she still flirts with the pilot of her airplane, the likably dorky Harry (Tom Gipson). She also meets a mysterious woman named Anna (Leslie Stratton) and doesn’t seem to notice that she’s being watched by a mysterious, bearded man (Mike Ferguson) who continually hides his face inside of his hoodie.
From the minute that Sasha lands in Los Angeles, it starts to rain. Everyone that Sasha meets mentions how strange it is that it’s raining in Los Angeles. Some people say the rain is probably no big deal. Other people act as if the rain has some sort of secret meaning. Sasha keeps her opinions to herself.
Her friends seem to be curiously unconcerned with Sasha suddenly being a widow. One of them won’t stop talking about the death of his former lover. They go to a club, where the bartender gives out free drinks and the owner seems to be strangely hostile. Sasha meets Harry. Characters appear and then disappear without anyone seeming to notice. Everyone comments on the strangeness of rain in Los Angeles. People start to die in brutal ways but again no one seems to really care. It’s a slasher film where societal detachment is the biggest threat.
It’s an odd film. The budget was obviously low and the majority of the performances are a bit amateurish but, whether it was intentional on the part of the filmmakers or not, the film often plays out like a surreal dream. Sometimes, the film moved at an almost rushed pace and then other times, a heavy sense of ennui seems to descend over the action and the characters. Characters repeatedly do things that don’t make any sense but they do it with such determination that it becomes rather fascinating to watch. The film’s final moments are surprisingly effective, certainly more effective than you might expect from all the moments that came before them. Visually, this low-budget film has moments of almost ghostly beauty. The scenes of the rain falling in Los Angeles are effectively atmospheric and ominous. In the end, the film qualifies almost as a work of outsider art.
And, let’s not forget, Eric Roberts is in it! This was the first Eric Roberts film to be released in 2025. Nate dies before the opening credits and Eric still gets top billing. I imagine it will be the first of many.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
This morning I got up to make coffee for me and my wife. When I came back to our room, she had started the movie ENOUGH (2002) with Jennifer Lopez on the new projector that she bought me for Christmas. I’m not that big of a fan of Lopez, but I decided I’d go ahead and sit down to sip on my coffee prior to starting my day. I ended up watching the whole movie!
Jennifer Lopez plays Slim, a waitress in a diner in L.A., who meets a rich guy named Mitch Hiller (Billy Campbell) who impresses her when he gets rid of this rude jerk (Noah Wyle) trying to hit on her. Mitch and Slim get along famously, eventually getting married and having a cute little girl named Gracie. Everything seems perfect in their little world. Unfortunately, things aren’t what they seem, and one night Slim checks her husband’s pager. She calls the number and discovers Mitch has been cheating on her. When she confronts him about the affair, his entire countenance changes, and he begins beating the crap out of her. After the altercation, and before heading out to continue his affair, Mitch warns Slim not to leave because he refuses to live without her. With the help of her friend Ginny (Juliette Lewis) and a couple of others, Slim takes Gracie and they escape from Mitch. With all his money and connections, Mitch is able to track her down no matter where she goes. Feeling like she has no other options, Slim turns to her wealthy, estranged father, Jupiter (Fred Ward). He provides her the funds she needs to set up a new life and identity. Unfortunately, that damn Mitch tracks her down again. Narrowly escaping, Slim decides that she’s done running. She sends Gracie away with Ginny and begins training rigorously in self defense techniques. This time she’s taking the fight to Mitch with plans to end this shit once and for all.
If you’re looking for a realistic drama about the effects of spousal abuse on the family unit and then across the larger society, ENOUGH is not the movie for you. This movie is more for the Charles Bronson crowd, where the bad guys are truly evil and the audience is in complete agreement with their need to perish. This is a formula that continues to work even if you have to completely suspend your disbelief. For example:
-Is it realistic that Mitch would be able to conceal what a complete and total asshole he is for many years from Slim, but then one night turn out to practically be the sidekick of Satan?
-Is it realistic that Mitch would be able track Slim and Gracie down time and time again, no matter where she goes across the country, even after she uses her Dad’s resources to change her identity?
-Is it realistic that Slim would be able to get enough self defense training in a short period of time to be able to confront the extremely fit Mitch at the end and kick his ass?
While the setup is probably not the most realistic, we have to see images of Mitch beating up Slim on multiple occasions, even trying to kill her at one point. We also see him knock little Gracie to the ground and hurt her. We see him terrorizing her and anyone who tries to help her. This audience member just wanted to see Mitch pay.
I don’t really have any close connections to the main actors in ENOUGH, but they all do their jobs well enough to keep me involved. I have always been a fan of its director, Michael Apted. He’s made a few movies that I really like in CLASS ACTION (1991) with Gene Hackman, THUNDERHEART (1992) with Val Kilmer, and BLINK (1993) with Madeleine Stowe. He’s a more than competent director who knows how to get a reaction from his audience. This certainly may not reflect his best work, but he still handles the material in a professional manner.
My final word on ENOUGH… I enjoyed the film in the same way I like the 3 piece combo at KFC, which I really do enjoy. I know it’s probably not the best stuff out there, but the classic formula still works, and I’m satisfied when it’s all gone!
Through the Shattered Lens 