Decadence, 2024-style.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: review
DRUNKEN MASTER – Jackie Chan gets soused!
The first Hong Kong actor I ever heard of was Bruce Lee. After that, it was Jackie Chan. I remember in the mid-90’s when RUMBLE IN THE BRONX opened in America and became the number 1 movie at the box office on its opening weekend. Jackie Chan had been trying out for U.S. stardom since the early 80’s with BATTLE CREEK BRAWL, THE CANNONBALL RUN movies and THE PROTECTOR. Now, all of a sudden he was a hot property. Some of Chan’s older movies, like OPERATION CONDOR (1991), SUPERCOP (1992) and DRUNKEN MASTER (1994) were being dusted off the shelves and re-released in America. The entire world was witnessing just what an amazing talent Jackie Chan truly was.
But long before he became a star in America, Jackie Chan was already one of the biggest stars in Asia. In DRUNKEN MASTER from 1978, Chan plays the martial arts hero Wong Fei-hung. Although Wong Fei-hung was a Chinese martial artist, physician & folk hero in real life, in DRUNKEN MASTER he’s played as a mischievous & arrogant young man who thinks he knows way more than he actually does. He’s such a pain in the butt that his dad, Master Wong, sends for his Uncle So to train him. Uncle So has a reputation as a master teacher who has been known to physically cripple his students in order to teach them the discipline it takes to learn his drunken kung fu. One day, after constantly rebelling against his uncle’s teaching, Wong escapes and runs into the mysterious assassin, Thunderleg. Not realizing who he’s dealing with, the disrespectful young man gets his ass kicked and is thoroughly humiliated. It’s so bad that he goes back to his uncle’s house and submits to his teaching. He finally realizes just how much he has to learn. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s also about this time that Thunderleg is commissioned to kill Master Wong. It seems a greedy guy named Mr. Lee wants access to land under Master Wong’s control for the sole purpose of removing its natural resources without regard for how it affects the other people in the area. When Master Wong says no, he unknowingly signs his death sentence. Will young Wong Fei-hung be able to learn the secrets of drunken kung fu in time to save his dad from the man who had soundly defeated him a short time ago? You’ll just have to watch and find out!
Jackie Chan is amazing as Wong Fei-hung. I’ve read about the rigorous training and harsh conditions that Chan himself endured in the Peking opera school that he attended as a child and teenager. The positive from that difficult situation is that he learned a brand of acrobatics and martial arts that helped make him an international movie star. As a 24 year old at the time of filming DRUNKEN MASTER, he’s in peak physical condition. As great as he is in his later American movies like RUSH HOUR and SHANGHAI NOON, his athleticism is off the charts here. When you combine Chan’s physical talents with the martial arts director Yuen Woo-ping, you can expect special results. The fight scenes are the primary draw here and they deliver. There’s a reason that filmmakers like the Wachowski’s, Ang Lee & Quentin Tarantino would ask Yuen Woo-ping to choreograph the martial arts in movies like THE MATRIX, CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, and the KILL BILL’s.
DRUNKEN MASTER would be a huge financial success and its combination of action and comedy would be the blueprint for success throughout the rest of Jackie Chan’s career. It’s one of the best of its kind.
Music Video of the Day: When The Earth Swallows Us by Sludge Mother (2024, dir by Jared Robinson)
It’s been a while since I shared any songs about the end of the world. Will you be watching Inception when the Earth swallows us? I’ll probably be watching It’s A Wonderful Life for one last time.
Enjoy!
Retro Television Reviews Will Return On December 2nd!
Happy Thanksgiving! Due to the holiday, Retro Television Reviews will be taking a few days off! This feature will return on Monday, December 2nd, with Miami Vice and CHiPs!
Have a great Thanksgiving weekend everyone!
Music Video of the Day: Turkey’s Anthem by Margaret RUS (2024, dir by ????)
I’m from the Southwest. I’ve always preferred fried chicken to turkey.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Enjoy!
Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.24 “The Family Man”
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.
This week, the second season of Monsters reaches its conclusion!
Episode 2.24 “The Family Man”
(Dir by Michael Warren Powell, originally aired on June 3rd, 1990)
Neil (Calvin Armitage) is not happy. The young son of Angie (Annie Corley), Neil is upset that she is dating a condescending psychologist named Warren (Michael O’Gorman). Making things even worse is that Neil seems to be the only person who dislikes Warren. Even Neil’s older sister, Terri (Kelli Rabke), thinks that Warren is a great guy and would be a wonderful stepfather.
Adding to Neil’s problems is his terrible eyesight. He’s recently gotten new glasses, which he cannot stand. He would rather wear the glasses that once belonged to his late father. When Neil puts those old glasses on and looks at Warren, he is shocked to see that Warren is actually a lizard-like alien with sharp teeth. It doesn’t take long for Warren to figure out that Neil has seen through his human disguise but, as Warren explains it, no one is going to believe Neil. Instead, Warren is just going to drain the life forces of Angie, Neil, and Terri, killing them as he’s killed so many other humans.
At first, it looks like Warren is correct. Angie refuses to listen to Neil and she also refuses to put on the glasses. As for the glasses themselves, they are eventually shattered by Warren. What can Neil possibly do!? Luckily, the glasses were not the only thing that Neil’s father left behind….
The second season finale of Monsters owes a great deal to They Live, with the exception being that, instead of seeing how he’s being manipulated by the media, Neil uses his glasses to discovers that his potential stepfather is actually a murderous lizard person. I think that anyone who has ever watched in horror as their divorced or widowed mother dated a new weirdo will be able to relate to this episode. I remember, immediately after my parents got divorced, I tended to view almost every guy that my mom talked to as being a potential lizard person. Eventually, of course, I came to accept that not all strangers were alien beings. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual alien or an actual lizard person. That’s good luck on my part, I suppose.
As for this episode, the lizard person makeup was effective and Michael O’Gorman certain gave a good performance as the manipulative Warren. Probably the most disturbing thing about Warren was the he didn’t seem to be particularly worried about Neil discovering his true identity because he knew there was no way anyone was going to believe a word that Neil said. That said, the episode really was a bit too much of a rip-off to be totally successful. Still, if you’re going to rip someone off, you might as well rip off the best.
The second season of Monsters ends on an above average note. The season itself was, overall, uneven. There was some very good episode and, unfortunately, there were also some very bad ones. I guess that’s to be expected with anthology shows.
Next week, we’ll begin the third and final season of Monsters!
Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.7 “The Lady from Laramie/Vicki Swings/Phantom Bride”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
The Love Boat promises something for everyone!
Episode 5.7 “The Lady from Laramie/Vicki Swings/Phantom Bride”
(Dir by Jack Arnold, originally aired on November 14th, 1981)
As I did with this week’s episodes of Miami Vice, CHiPs, and Fantasy Island, I’m going to save time by doing this one bullet point style.
- Before getting to the storylines, I want to point out that this week’s episode was directed by Jack Arnold. Jack Arnold may not be a household name but he directed some of this site’s favorite science fiction and monster movies, including Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man, It Came From Outer Space, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon!
- As always, this cruise presents us with three stories. One of the three stories definitely does benefit from Arnold’s macabre touch. Juliet Mills and Buddy Hackett play Kate and Julian Garfield, who are married psychic researchers. The board the boat in search of a ghost. Captain Stubing doesn’t believe in ghosts and good for him! (Neither do I!) However, Gopher is totally convinced and he’s soon wandering around the boat with a bunch of garlic hanging around his neck. Gopher, they’re looking for ghosts, not vampires!
- At one point, Gopher is convinced that he’s managed to take a picture of a ghost but it’s actually just Kate looking through a porthole.
- I have to admit that I groaned a bit when I saw that Juliet Mills was going to, once again, be a passenger on The Love Boat. But then I remembered that Hayley is the Mills sister that gets on my nerves. Juliet and Buddy Hackett had a surprising amount of chemistry. They were likable together.
- It is kind of funny that there are certain guest stars — like Juliet Mills — who show up over and over again but who always play different characters. I’m always waiting for someone on the boat to be like, “Hey, weren’t you here last week?”
- The least interesting story featured Nancy Dussault as a plain-spoken (or maybe just annoying) widow from Wyomin’ who fell in love with an Italian gigolo (Cesare Danova) who was on the boat with a rich socialite (Marti Stevens). Cesare Danova played the mob boss in Mean Streets and the mayor in Animal House. He did not look happy at all to be on The Love Boat.
- Poor Vicki! In this episode, 14 year-old Vicki pretended to be 18 in an attempt to flirt with Todd Andrews (Patrick Labyroteaux), a teenager who was traveling by himself. The Captain grew very worried about Vicki, especially after he heard Todd suggesting that he and Vicki had fooled around late into the night. (Todd was lying and, oddly enough, everyone seemed to be strangely forgiving of Todd’s actions.)
- At one point, The Captain tells Vicki that he wanted her to spend time with people her own age. Vicki replies that she was the only fourteen year-old on the ship. And, seriously, Vicki has a point.
- Vicki living on the ship has always seemed kind of strange to me and I always appreciate the episodes that try to honestly deal with the situation. How can you not have mixed feelings about spending your teen years on a boat, largely surrounded by people who are quite a bit older than you? That said, Gavin MacLeod was always at his best when he was playing Stubing as a father and Jill Whelan was refreshingly non-cutesy in the role of Vicki. As a result, you couldn’t help but feel that, ultimately, the Captain and his daughter were right where they belonged.
- This was an okay cruise. The ghost storyline was fun. MacLeod and Whelan tugged at the heartstrings. When it comes to good stories on The Love Boat, two out of three is not bad at all!
Next week — The Love Boat goes on a Thanksgiving cruise! (If only I had started reviewing The Love Boat a week earlier than I did, the timing would have been perfect.) ‘Til then, set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance….
Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.20 “Hot Winds”
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, the world goes mad!
Episode 2.20 “Hot Winds”
(Dir by Parker Stevenson, originally aired on May 3rd, 1997)
A hot wind is blowing down from the hills and into Los Angeles.
People are going crazy in the streets. Strangers are attacking each other for no reason. Riots are breaking out. The world seems like it’s gone off its axis and no one knows how to react. Is the heat driving everyone mad or is it something else? Diamont Teague tells Mitch and Ryan that he suspects that something supernatural is happening. Mitch, as usual, argues that people in Los Angeles have always been crazy. Not like this! Diamont says.
Is Diamont correct? As he, Mitch, and Ryan leave the office, they run into an aggravated man who proceeds to beat on a brick wall until his hands are covered in blood. Mitch assumes that the man must be on drugs. Diamont says that they need to drive out to the desert so that they can find the source of the wind. Mitch is skeptical until he starts seeing a ghostly image of a robed man carrying a scythe.
It’s a long trip out to the desert, made even longer by the rioting and the madness all around. Mitch stops long enough to keep a woman from throwing her baby over a ledge. But, as soon as Mitch grabs away her baby, the woman jumps anyway. It’s quite a fall and somehow, the woman survives. Luckily, Mitch is there to render CPR while the crazed crowd watches. The world may going mad but Mitch is still a lifeguard, dammit.
Driving through the desert, Ryan wonders why she, Mitch, and Diamont aren’t going crazy like everyone else. It’s a good question. Seriously, last week was a lot of fun because it gave us a chance to watch the Hoff got possessed by a demon. It’s hard not to regret that he didn’t get a chance to go crazy in this episode.
In the desert, the robed man with the scythe dances. The scythe apparently is what sends down the hot air. If Mitch can get the scythe away from the man, the violence can stop. Who is the man? Apparently, he’s a devil worshipper. Ryan suspects that there might be hundreds of similar people out there. Maybe they’re the ones who are responsible for all the madness in the world! Has Ryan already forgotten that, a few episodes ago, it was established that the Knights Templar secretly controlled the world?
This episode was actually not bad. The scenes of people suddenly going mad were effective and the man in the desert was actually a pretty ominous image. Even the show’s overreliance on Dutch angles felt effective for once, drawing the audience into a world that was permanently off-balance. I enjoyed this episode and I’ll remember it the next time I see a stranger yelling on a street corner.
Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.19 “Face of Love/Image of Celeste”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.
This week …. hey, where’s Tattoo!?
Episode 5.19 “Face of Love/Image of Celeste”
(Dir by Don Chaffey, originally aired on March 20th, 1982)
Once again, as I did with Miami Vice and CHiPs, I am going to save time by doing this review bullet-point style. It’s the holidays, after all.
- After two (or was it three) weeks of just Roarke and Tattoo, this episode features only Julie as Roarke’s assistant. Apparently, Tattoo has been busy helping a guest fulfill a “Cinderella fantasy” but things have gone wrong. The carriage turned back into a pumpkin. The horses turned back into mice and are now running all over the Island. Tattoo is not seen in this episode, which is a shame because the last few episodes (featuring only him and Roarke) really did feel like a throw-back to the first two seasons of the show.
- It’s been kind of weird during this season, continually hearing that various fantasies are going wrong. That’s not the Fantasy Island that we all know. Fantasy Island has previously been portrayed as a place where Roarke would never allow anything to truly go wrong.
- Julie doesn’t really do anything as Roarke’s assistant in this episode. Roarke tells her who each guest is and gives her the details of their fantasy but that’s pretty much it.
- Laura Jensen (Erin Gray) has spent her life with a face that was scarred during a housefire. She’s grown up to be bitter and angry. She’s just gotten out of prison and she’s brought to the Island by her parole officer, Ron (Monte Markham). Ron’s fantasy is for Laura’s scars to go away so that Laura can let go of her anger and live a norma;l life.
- Though initially weary, Laura is amazed when Roarke gives her a magical cream that causes her scars to temporarily vanish. In fact, Laura appears to be ready to get on with her life and accept that she and Ron are in love. But then Laura’s sleazy ex (Larry Manetti) shows up and tempts her back to her old ways. Don’t worry. It all works out in the end and Ron and Laura leave as a couple. However, I get the feeling that Ron’s going to lose his job as a parole officer. Falling in love with a parolee and taking a tropical vacation with her seems like something that would go against every rule in the book.
- The other fantasy was slightly more interesting, if just because it featured Paul Gauguin. When Celeste Vallon (Joanne Pettet) discovers that Roarke owns a Gauguin portrait of a woman who looks just like her, Celeste requests to go back to the past and be that woman. Roarke agrees, even though he warns her that she will also have to make a very serious decision, one that could change history.
- Right away, this fantasy ran into a major stumbling block. The Gauguin painting looked absolutely nothing like something that Gauguin, one of the great post-impressionists, would have painted. Instead, it’s a very conventional painting.
- The second stumbling block is that the legendary and charismatic Gauguin is played by the handsome but mild-mannered Robert Goulet.
- What Celeste discovers is that she is directly descended from the woman in Gauguin’s painting. The woman was Gauguin’s mistress and was engaged, against her will, to marry a soldier (Christopher Stone). If Celeste agrees to remain with Gauguin, then Gauguin will never paint another painting. If Celeste agrees to return to France, her ancestor will lose the love of her life but Gauguin will continue to paint.
- Celeste chooses not to change history. Good for her! Of course, that’s kind of an easy decision to make when Celeste isn’t the one who is actually going to have to live the rest of her life in Paris, dreaming of returning to Tahiti and Gauguin.
- I wanted to like this episode more than I did. The parole officer bringing one of his parolees to the Island felt strange to me and the Gauguin story would have worked if the painter had been anyone other than the Paul Gauguin. If they had come up with a fictional painter, perhaps Goulet would have seemed more appropriate in the role. As it was, this episode felt bland and miscast.
- Herve Villechaize was an accomplished painter so it’s a shame he wasn’t present for the Gauguin story. It’s previously been established that Tattoo is quite a painter himself so this episode definitely feels like a missed opportunity.
LAST OF THE DOGMEN – One of my favorites!
I don’t hear a lot about LAST OF THE DOGMEN, the 1995 modern day western starring Tom Berenger, Barbara Hershey and Kurtwood Smith. I love the movie, and I have for years. My buddy Chuck, his son Carter, and I recently drove up the hill to Fayetteville to watch the Arkansas Razorbacks play football. We had a great day! We ate at the Catfish Hole for lunch and then watched the Razorbacks beat Louisiana Tech 35-14. It was fun (See picture below for the happy crew). We had about a 3-hour drive home so we were talking about things we both love, like the Andy Griffith Show. Out of nowhere, Chuck said, “Do you want to know a movie I love? It’s called the LAST OF THE DOGMEN.” It was the last thing I was expecting to hear. I also love the movie. We talked about it and had a good time, but I made a mental note to watch it again soon. So here we are.
LAST OF THE DOGMEN opens with Sheriff Deegan (Kurtwood Smith) trying to find three escaped convicts in Northwest Montana. Deegan calls in the best tracker he knows, Lewis Gates (Tom Berenger), to go into the mountains to find the convicts. The two men have a history as Gates was married to the sheriff’s daughter, and the daughter died. The sheriff clearly doesn’t like Gates and blames him for his daughter’s death, but he knows he’s the man for the job. With Gates and his genius dog Zip right on their tails, the convicts are mysteriously killed by a group of men on horses who shoot them with arrows. Gates see the men riding off through a fog and is convinced they are Indians. He ends up seeking out the help of Native American historian Lillian Sloan (Barbara Hershey) to help him understand what he may have seen. He’s able to convince Lillian to ride into the mountains with him because he needs a translator if he actually finds anyone, and the two head off into the Oxbow. After a week of roughing it, they’re about to give up when they suddenly find themselves surrounded by the Indian dog soldiers. They’re taken as prisoners to the Indian camp, where the leader of the dog soldiers, Yellow Wolf, has a sick son. It seems he was shot by one of the escaped prisoners. Gates heads back to town to get penicillin for the son, which ultimately saves his life. Gates and Lillian spend some time getting to know and respect this isolated Cheyenne tribe. Meanwhile, Sheriff Deegan, unable to forgive Gates for the death of his daughter, gathers a group of men and they head into the Oxbow to find Gates. Will the Indians be able to have peace and live their lives like they did in the 19th century, or will they be discovered and forced to live out the fates of their ancestors? Well, if you haven’t seen it, just watch and enjoy!
As I said earlier, I’m a big fan of LAST OF THE DOGMEN. I was initially interested in the movie because I like Tom Berenger as a leading man. His SHOOT TO KILL with Sidney Poitier is a big time personal favorite. I also like him in PLATOON, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, BETRAYED, MAJOR LEAGUE, SHATTERED, SNIPER and THE SUBSTITUTE. He had been a big sex symbol earlier in his career. By the time of this film, he’s getting a little too old and heavy to be a sex symbol. In THE LAST OF THE DOGMEN, he’s actually very funny, and I really enjoy watching him have fun on screen. I’ll also go ahead and say that I’ve never been a huge fan of the actress Barbara Hershey, but she keeps showing up in movies I love. Outside of this, she’s also in HOOSIERS, and it’s one of my favorites. While there’s something about her I don’t really like, she is pretty good, and I do like her chemistry with Berenger. When they finally share a big smooch towards the end of the film, I liked it. And what can I say about Gates’ Australian cattle dog Zip? He’s an integral part of the story and saves Gates & Lillian’s asses on multiple occasions. At one point in the story, Lillian says “it’s disconcerting to know that the smartest member in our expedition is a dog!” It’s true!
I think the thing I like the most about the LAST OF THE DOGMEN is the idea that a group of Cheyenne Indians could be living out their lives the way they did a century ago. Something about that is romantic and magical to me, and it gave me an emotional interest in the film. Isn’t that why we really love movies? The best ones can reach into our souls and find something that’s valuable to us. I love the idea of Cheyenne Indians living out their heritage and protecting it at all costs. There’s something simple and meaningful about that. Director Tab Hunter really leans into this emotional truth. It’s the only film he would direct, and it seems to share the one message that meant the most to him. Most of us would give anything to have an opportunity to share with the world who we really are. Hunter got that opportunity and shared this movie. That’s pretty cool to me.
Through the Shattered Lens 