Retro Television Review: Broken Angel (dir by Richard T. Heffron)

Posted on May 19, 2024 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 the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1988’s Broken Angel! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Chuck Coburn (William Shatner) has a nice house in the suburbs, a nice job, a nice car, and a nice Bruins jacket. He’s hoping that he can once against have a nice marriage with his wife (Susan Blakely), despite the fact that she cheated on him and she still thinks that he spends too much time at work.

Chuck is proud of his teenage daughter, Jaime (Erika Eleniak). Jaime seems like the perfect suburban and angelic teenager. But then Jaime goes to prom and her best friend, Jenny (Amy Lynne), is gunned down in front of her. Jaime runs from the scene and vanishes. As Chuck searches for his daughter, he is stunned discover that Jaime, Jenny, and their boyfriends were all a part of a gang! His perfect daughter was smoking weed, doing cocaine, selling crack, and taking part in rumbles with a rival Asian gang. Even worse, Jaime’s gang was called …. LFN!

LFN? That stands for Live For Now. The Live For Now Gang. Whenever we see the members of the gang preparing to get into a fight with another gang, they all chant, “LFN! LFN!” LFN is a gang of white suburban teenagers and they look just as dorky as they sound. I mean, I think it would be bad enough to discover that your child is in a gang but discovering they were in a dorky gang would probably make it even worse.

The majority of Broken Angel is made up of scenes of Chuck searching the mean streets of Los Angeles. He partners with a social worker (Roxann Dawson) who is herself a former gang member. Chuck discovers that his daughter’s street name was — *snicker* — Shadow. He also befriend a member of the LFN’s rival Asian gang and tries to encourage her to go straight. This leads to scene in which he is attacked by Al Leong. Somehow, middle-aged William Shatner manages to beat up Al Leong. That, in itself, is worth the cost of admission.

Broken Angel deals with a serious issue but it does so in such an overwrought and melodramatic fashion that most viewers will be moved not to tears but to laughter. In Broken Angel, William Shatner gave the type of overly dramatic and self-serious performance that he routinely pokes fun at today. If you’re one of those people who enjoys listening as Shatner emphasize random syllables and takes meaningly pauses, this movie will give you a lot to enjoy. In every scene, Shatner seems to be saying, “Notice me, Emmy voters! Notice me!” Of course, it wouldn’t be until Shatner learned how to laugh at himself that the Emmy voters would finally notice him.

The film ends on an abrupt note but with the promise of better days ahead. Just remember — keep an eye out for the LFN!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.7 “A Chocolate Chip Off The Old Block”

Posted on May 18, 2024 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, Cobb’s needs cookies!

Episode 2.7 “A Chocolate Chip Off The Old Block”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on November 14th, 1986)

Strange episode.

When a homeless woman named Gert (Lynne Gorman) starts hanging out in the store’s parking lot, Howard’s first instinct is to force her to go away. He’s especially annoyed when Gert starts sleeping in his parking space. However, Edna takes sympathy on Gert and practically adopts her. It turns out that Gert makes the best cookies that anyone has ever tasted!

That’s good news because Grandpa Morgan’s Cookies can no longer be sold in Cobb’s because the company has signed an exclusive contract with Flechman’s Grocery Store. Jeremy Corbyn (Grant Cowan), who works at the head office and who is a real jerk, is looking for a scapegoat and Howard seems like a likely target. But then Howard decides to start selling Grandma Gert’s Cookies in the store. When it comes time to sign Gert to an exclusive contract, Gert’s business manager, who happens to be the store’s assistant manager, Jack Christian, drives a hard bargain. Gert being managed by someone who works for the people who want to sign her to an exclusive contract sounds like a massive conflict of interest but it doesn’t matter because Gert has disappeared.

Desperate to sell cookies, Howard dresses up like a carnival barker and tries to get the customers interested in Uncle Howie’s Cookies. A homeless man named Lester (Warren Van Evera) interrupts Howard’s presentation to tell him that Gert died. It turns out that Gert was a millionaire and she left her money to not only her friends at the shelter but also to several charities. Lester hands Howard an envelope from Gert. Howard is excited because he thinks Gert left him money. Edna opens the envelope and reveals that Gert left him a cheap ring as a symbol of friendship.

Disappointed, Howard returns to trying to get people to buy Uncle Howie’s cookies and the episode ends.

Seriously, what a strange episode. After all the panic over the cookies, the episode ends without a resolution. The recipe for Gert’s cookies dies with her and I guess Cobb’s is just not going to be able to sell cookies. (Seriously, though, what type of store only sells one brand of cookies? What type of cookie company would only want their product to be sold in one store?) As well, this was another episode where Howard behaved in a way that totally went against what we’ve previously seen of the character. This show has never seemed to be sure whether or not Howard is supposed to be a well-meaning, somewhat hapless manager or if he’s meant to be an arrogant buffoon. This episode finds him in buffoon mode and his callous and greedy reaction to Gert’s death feels totally wrong.

It’s probably best to just move on from this episode and pretend like it didn’t happen. So, let do just that.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 5/12/24 — 5/18/24

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This was a week of season finales. I watched two of them.

On Wednesday, I watched the third season finale of ABC’s Abbott Elementary. While I certainly had my issues with this season, I did really enjoy the finale. Jacob tried to set up the perfect field trip and, needless to say, things did not go as planned. My favorite part of the finale was, not surprisingly, Ava standing up for her school. I know some would complain that the show is dragging out the will they/won’t they stuff with Janine and Gregory (and sometimes I get annoyed with the deliberate pace myself) but I think the show is avoiding the mistake that The Office made when it got Jim and Pam together too quickly. Janine and Gregory are destined to be together but I think, as characters, they’re more fun when they’re single.

On Thursday, I watched the season finale of NBC’s Law & Order. Together with last week’s episode, the finale erased any doubt I may have had about Tony Goldwyn as the new District Attorney. In fact, there’s a part of me that kind of wishes the Nick could somehow step down as D.A. and take over Price’s job because Goldwyn is believable and compelling on this show in a way that Hugh Dancy never has been. (Dancy is a fine actor but, as a character, Price is just too wishy washy.) Price could become second chair and Maroun, who spent the entire third season whining about having to do her job and prosecute people, could join the Public Defender’s Office.

On Thursday, I also watched Spacey Unmasked on Max. Spacey Unmasked is the latest documentary to feature people sitting on an empty soundstage and talking about how badly they were treated by a celebrity. The ten men featured in the documentary all told stories about their encounters with Kevin Spacey. Some of the men were compelling but it still felt as if the main reason this documentary was made was because Kevin Spacey is currently an easy target who really doesn’t have the resources to retaliate. I’d have more respect for a documentary that exposed someone who is currently in power as opposed to someone who is already on his way to obscurity.

On Friday and Saturday, I binged a few episodes of Seinfeld on Netflix. George obsessively wanting to tell someone that the “Jerk Store called and they’re all out of you!” was definitely the highlight of the episodes I watched. I also enjoyed Kramer turning his apartment into a talk show set.

Finally, on Friday Night, I watched an old 90s talk show called Night Music on YouTube. David Sanborn interviewed musicians and performed with them. Sting, who I usually can’t stand, performed a really good version of Ain’t No Sunshine.

Watched And Reviewed Elsewhere:

Baywatch Nights (YouTube)
Check it Out! (Tubi) — My review should be dropping in about an hour!
CHiPs (Freevee)
Degrassi Junior High (YouTube)
Fantasy Island (DVR)
Friday the 13th: The Series (YouTube)
Highway to Heaven (Tubi)
The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)
Malibu, CA (YouTube)
Miami Vice (Prime)
Monsters (YouTube)
T and T (Tubi)
Welcome Back, Kotter (Tubi)

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.22 “What Goes Up”

Posted on May 18, 2024 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 is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Freddie gets hooked on pills!

Episode 3.22 “What Goes Up”

(Dir by Jeff Bleckner, originally aired on February 9th, 1978)

At the new, big, how-does-he-afford-that-on-a-teacher’s-salary apartment, Gabe tries to avoid taking out the trash by telling Julie a joke about his Uncle George. Julia tells Gabe to shut up and take out the damn trash.

Meanwhile, at school, Freddie has a problem. After injuring his knee while playing basketball, Freddie is given a prescription for pain killers. But the pain killers leave him feeling groggy so he also starts taking pills to give him energy. The other Sweathogs are concerned. Freddie insists that he’s just taking vitamins. Horshack insists that Freddie would never lie to him. If Freddie says that the pills that he’s buying in the bathroom and carrying around in his shoe are harmless vitamins than Freddie is telling the truth!

Woodman, however, is concerned. He tells Kotter that Freddie entered the cafeteria, took off his shoes, and said, “Ho ho ho, I’m the Jolly Black Giant.” “Is he on the dope!?” Woodman demands to know.

Epstein and Barbarino decide that the best way to handle this problem is to act like they’re on drugs as well so that Freddie can see how dumb he looks. Epstein tries to act spacey. Vinnie walks around hunched over and repeating, “Give me drugs …. give me drugs …. give me drugs….” Freddie doesn’t buy it for a second but then …. what’s going on with Horshack!? Horshack explains that he took some of Freddie’s special vitamins and then he tries to jump out of the classroom window!

(What the Hell was in those pills? I pretty much take the same thing for my ADHD and I have never been tempted to jump out a window.)

That’s all it takes for Freddie to realize that it’s time to stop taking the pills. Gabe encourages him to flush them down the school’s toilet and Freddie agrees to do while the studio audience watches in reverent silence.

Back at the apartment, Gabe tells Julie a joke about his Uncle Luther. Julie does not care.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this episode. On the one hand, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs was often underused by the show so it’s always nice when he gets a chance to show off the fact that he was one of the better actors on the show. That said, the show’s portrayal of drug use was so cartoonish that it ultimately kind of made being a speed freak look kind of fun. If nothing else, this show left me wondering how a bunch of teenagers in the late 70s could be so naive about drugs.

Of course, if Barbarino had been the one who nearly died, I imagine the audience would have been more upset. If Epstein had gotten hooked due to Freddie’s lies, it could have led to some drama. But Horshack? Eh, who cares? When the show first started, Ron Pallilo was often given an opportunity to show that there was some hidden depths underneath Horshack’s eccentricity. But, by the time the third season rolled around, Horshack had become such a cartoonish character that it’s impossible to take anything involving him seriously.

To give credit where credit is due, John Travolta made me laugh with his delivery of “Give me drugs …. give me drugs….” Travolta appeared to be having a lot of fun in this episode, perhaps because he knew he wouldn’t be on the show much longer.

Anyway, for someone who couldn’t go an hour without popping a pill, Freddie got over his addiction pretty quickly. That’s good because next week, Vinnie is going to have to deal with the death of one of his teachers and Freddie’s going to have to be there for him. As for Horshack, this episode ends with him being taken to the school nurse but I assume he’ll eventually make a full recovery as as well. It takes more than pills to keep the Sweathogs down.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

Posted on May 17, 2024 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, a flip of the coin leads to tragedy!

Episode 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

(Dir by Mark Sobel, originally aired on October 21st, 1988)

Finally, Jack, Micki, and Ryan have a night to relax. Jack does some reading while Micki poses for Ryan, who is apparently a sculptor now. Micki says that it’s unfortunate that Ryan is stuck having work at Curious Goods when he has so much artistic talent. Micki has a point, even if this is the first time that we’ve heard about Ryan’s artistic interests.

Suddenly, the phone rings. A reporter named Tom Hewitt (Bill MacDonald) is calling because he’s heard that Jack is an expert in the occult. Tom says that he’s tracked down a Satanic cult that is planning on doing something big. He tells Jack where he can find all of the evidence that Tom has gathered over the course of his investigation. While Jack and Ryan head over to the bus depot where Tom has hidden his research, Micki stays at the store. As for poor old Tom, he ends up dead with the image of a bloody ram’s head imprinted on his forehead.

Looking through Tom’s papers and photographs, Jack discovers that the head of the Satanic cult is a taxidermist named Sylvan Winters (Colin Fox) and that Sylvan is in possession of a coin that is imbued with Satanic energy. When the owner of the coin flips it, it leads to the death of whoever is standing nearby. After the coin kills someone, it can be used to bring someone back to life.

First, Jack goes to the taxidermy shop with Ryan but the two of them fail to find the coin. Later, Jack returns with Micki and the two of them stumble on a Satanic ceremony. When they are spotted by Sylvan and the cultists, Jack and Micki make a run for it. Sadly, they get separated. While Jack manages to escape from the cultists, Micki is caught by Sylvan. Sylvan flips the coin and …. KILLS MICKI!

Seriously, Micki’s death took me totally by surprise and it actually left me feeling really upset. I’ve got red hair. Micki has red hair. Micki tends to be a skeptic. I tend to be a skeptic. Micki was pretty much me on this show! And now she’s dead? Agck!

Arriving at the taxidermy place, Ryan sobs over Micki’s body and then tells Jack that, after he gets the coin and destroys Sylvan, he is done with the cursed antiques business. Ryan says that he’s ready to live his life and he can’t handle losing anyone else close to him. (Remember that Ryan’s father was killed by a cursed pipe last season.)

Returning to the taxidermy studio, Ryan and Jack discover that Sylvan is planning on using the coin to raise two powerful warlocks and a witch so that they can combine their power to bring Satan into the world. However, Ryan and Jack steal Micki’s body from the morgue, put a mask on her to make her look like the witch that Sylvan wants to raise from the dead, and then the replace the witch’s body with Micki’s body. As a result, Sylvan brings Micki back to life. (Ryan and Jack’s plan is incredibly complicated and I’m kind of surprised that they were able to pull it off. But who cares as long as Micki is no longer dead.) Satan gets angry, the taxidermist studio collapses. and Ryan grabs the coin and flips it in front of Sylvan. Sylvan dies but the coin is still out there.

But no matter! The important thing is that Micki comes back to life! Yay! And Ryan decides not to leave Curious Goods, mostly because he’s in love with his cousin, though that’s something that the show rarely acknowledges.

By the time this episode came around, Robey, Chris Wiggins, and John D. LeMay had developed into a tight enough ensemble that Ryan’s tears and Jack’s anger over the death of Micki felt very powerful and very real. As well, Colin Fox was a wonderfully hissable villain. He was so smug that I couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance. This was an excellent episode.

Next week, Ryan falls in love with a cursed violinist because Ryan is never allowed to be happy for long.

The Films of 2024: He Went That Way (dir by Jeffrey Darling)

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1964. Kennedy is dead and Johnson is president. American troops are in Vietnam but the American public is not yet concerned with that conflict. Instead, it’s the British Invasion that has intrigued the youth of America. People know that times are changing but they have no idea just how much change is waiting for them in the future.

Jim Goodwin (Zachary Quninto) is a meek animal trainer who is driving across the country with his chimpanzee, Spanky. At one time, Spanky was a celebrity. He ice skated with the stars. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone loved Spanky but now, it appears that his time has passed. People are more interested in Beatles than chimps. With Spanky no longer in demand, Jim’s marriage is failing and he’s struggling to pay the bills.

At a Nevada gas station, Jim sees a young man named Bobby Falls (Jacob Elordi) trying to hitch a ride. Assuming that Bobby is a college student and wanting someone to talk to during the long drive to Chicago, Jim offers him a ride. Bobby is reluctant at first and demands to know if Jim has some sort of sinister motive for picking him up. After Jim promises that he doesn’t, Bobby gets in the truck with him.

What Jim doesn’t know, but eventually learns, is that Bobby is a criminal. Using a derringer, Bobby has been robbing gas stations and executing the gas station attendants. Their journey becomes a rather macabre road trip, with Jim and Bobby bonding despite the fact that Jim is scared of Bobby and Bobby always seems to be one step away from snapping. Bobby encourages Jim to stop being such a wimp and Jim encourages Bobby to maybe not be such a violent sociopath. Though Bobby and Jim come from different worlds, they both have one thing in common. They really like the chimpanzee.

I have to admit that I liked the chimpanzee as well. Bobby’s a killer so it’s impossible for me to like him. Jim is a wimp who fails to take advantage of several opportunities to escape so it’s impossible for me to respect him. But Spanky is an innocent animal who likes to eat apples and who sincerely cares about both his owner and the hitchhiker who keeps losing his temper. I watched the film dreading that something bad would happen to Spanky. In fact, the only reason I stuck with the film for its entire running time was because I wanted to make sure Spanky survived.

(SPOILER ALERT: He did. Whatever other flaws this film may have, there is no deliberate animal cruelty.)

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this movie. There was a lot that I didn’t like about the film. I never bought the relationship between the two main characters (though I should also acknowledge that the film is loosely based on a true story and ends with an interview with the real life model for Jim). The performances felt a bit one-note. And, to be honest, I’m a bit bored with movies about people who spend the majority of their time killing other people. At the same time, the film looked great. Visually, it really captured the arid beauty of the American desert. And the film’s final twist was just bizarre enough to make me smile. Tragically, director Jeffrey Darling died shortly after completing production of this film. (It was his feature directorial debut.) And while I didn’t care much for the film, there were moments where I could see the talent of the director peeking through. I would have liked to have seen what Darling’s second film would have been.

As for He Went That Way, it’s not a disastrous film but it’s also not one that I will probably ever feel like rewatching.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.9 “Movie Madness”

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get really, really silly.

Episode 3.9 “Movie Madness”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 3rd, 1990)

Fritz and Nobby are back!

Who?

Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Nobby (Avery Saltzman) are two criminals who appeared in two episode of the second season of T and T. The first time they appeared, they pulled a gun on T.S. Turner and threatened to kill him, The second time, they were portrayed a bit more comedically as lovable bunglers. This third episode finds Fritz and Nobby at their most cartoonish.

Fritz wants to rob a Chinese jewelry store that happens to be right next to Decker’s gym. So, he and Nobby walk into the gym and tell Decker that they’ve reformed and they want to shoot a boxing movie starring him. Decker agrees to act. (“I could have been a contender!” he announces.) Then Terri shows up and demands to know what Fritz and Dobby are doing at the gym so they ask her if she wants to be the female lead. (“I have always depended on strangers being kind,” she says.) The boxing movie becomes a love story. Then, when the gym starts shaking due to the efforts to break through the wall that the gym shares with the jewelry store, Fritz explains that they’re testing the special effects for the big earthquake scene. It’s a boxing love story disaster film!

Where is T.S. Turner during all of this? Well, he doesn’t show up until the final 10 minutes of the episode. He immediately suspects that Fritz and Nobby are up to no good. “I’m going to pull the plug on your permanently!” he growls.

One would think that Fritz and Nobby would be smart enough to get out of the gym but they still try to blow up the wall, even with Turner nearby. That’s a big mistake as Turner proceeds to grab them and turn them over to the police.

What a weird episode. First off, Decker has been dumb in the past but he’s never been this dumb. Secondly, Terri apparently knows Fritz and Nobby despite the fact that she wasn’t around during the second season. Not only has this show failed to explain why Amy is no longer on the show but it also continually acts as if Terri has always been present despite not showing up until the start of third season. We’re just mean to accept that Teri has always been the second T in T and T. (How Orwellian.) Finally, T.S. Turner is absent for most of the episode. Why would you go to the trouble to build a show around Mr. T and then not use him?

This was all pretty silly and pretty dumb, even by T and T standards. Remember when this show at least pretended to be a crime drama?

Oh well. There’s only a handful of episodes left! We’ll make it.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.10 “The Monster: Part One”

Posted on May 16, 2024 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!

Scottie returns! Unfortunately, he’s a drunk now.

Episode 2.10 “The Monster: Part One”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on December 4th, 1985)

It’s another week and another visit to a small town for Jonathan and Mark.

This time, Mark thinks that they are only in town to visit his cousin, Diane (Margie Impert), and her husband, Scottie (James Troesch), the quadriplegic attorney who appeared in a few episodes during the first season. Mark tells Jonathan that, when he last spoke to Diane, she said that she had something important to talk to him about. Mark assumes that Diane is pregnant but actually, it turns out that Diane and Scottie’s marriage is in trouble. Scottie may be an attorney but he has no clients and Diane has gone back to work to help pay the bills. Feeling like a failure, Scottie has taken to drinking.

While Mark deals with Diane and Scottie, Jonathan has an assignment. He working as a handyman for Ella McCullough (Barbara Townsend) and her blind daughter, Rachel (Annabella Price). At first, Rachel is bitter and stand-offish but Jonathan wins her over by encouraging her to leave her little cottage and explore the world. While relaxing at a nearby creek, Rachel meets a man (Jeff Kober) who is out for a walk. Rachel tells the man that he startled her and then mentions that the neighborhood kids talk about a monster named Julian. Julian lives in the woods and drags off bad kids.

“My name’s Clark,” the man lies.

Actually, the man’s name is Julian but you can understand why he might not want to admit that after listening to Rachel describe him as being a monster. Julian is not a monster, of course. He’s a sensitive sculptor who just happens to have a very large birthmark covering half of his face and neck. Having been ridiculed all of his life, Julian lives with his mom (Ann Doran) and rarely talks to anyone. Still, Julian falls in love with Rachel and Rachel falls in love with …. Clark.

Julian finally finds the strength to visit Rachel at her cottage. However, when she tells him that she will be having an operation to resort her sight, Clark yells that he’s Julian and then he runs back into the woods. Rachel chases after him. When she trips and hits her head on a rock, Julian runs over to her and tries to help. Unfortunately, that’s when the police arrives and promptly arrest Julian for assault.

Julian’s going to court! Hey, does anyone know an attorney who needs a shot of confidence and who has a unique understanding of what it’s like to be an outsider? We’ll find out next week because this is a two-part episode!

Reviewing a two-parter is always difficult. Tonight’s episode ends with the story nowhere close to being finished. I can’t judge the overall story but I can say that Jeff Kober gave a touching performance as Julian and he was the best thing about the first part of The Monster. As for Scottie, he needs to stop blaming everyone else for his own lack of confidence. Hopefully, that’s a lesson he’ll learn during the second part of this episode.

We’ll find out next week!

The Films of 2024: The Painter (dir by Kimani Ray Smith)

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Painter tells the rather predictable story of Peter.

Orphaned by a terrorist attack when he was a child, Peter (Charlie Webber) was raised by a CIA agent named Byrne (Jon Voight). Realizing that the attack had left Peter with superhearing, Byrne raised Peter to be a CIA assassin. But after a failed mission led to the shooting his pregnant wife, Elena (Rryla McIntosh), an embittered Peter retired from the agency. Now, going by the name of Mark, he paints!

Why do retired CIA agents always end up living in a cabin and obsessively pursuing only one hobby? This feels like the 100th film that I’ve seen about a former assassin living in a cabin. Some retired agents keep bees. Some become bricklayers. Some become painters. Oddly, none of them seem to become both bricklayers and painters.

Anyway, Peter is happy with his isolated life but then, everything is upended when a 17 year-old girl named Sophia (Madison Bailey) follows him to his cabin and claims to be his daughter. She says that Elena has vanished and she needs Peter’s help to find her. Peter insists that his name is Mark until his superhearing picks up the sound of heavily armed men gathering outside of his cabin.

This is another one of those action films where the main character is someone who kills without the slightest hesitation and who has trouble showing his emotions. Naturally, there’s a conspiracy inside the CIA and this leads to several scenes of people saying stuff like, “Copy that.” The only fictional character who ever sounded cool saying, “Copy that,” was Kiefer Sutherland on 24. All the rest of these people are just pretenders.

The Painter is pretty stupid. It won’t take you long to guess who the main villain is going to turn out to be and it also won’t take you long to guess how the final showdown is going to go. The action scenes are so haphazardly edited that it’s difficult to keep track of who is actually fighting who and, even if you did know who was fighting who, you wouldn’t really care because none of these people are particularly compelling.

In general, if your main character is going to be remorseless killer, it’s a good idea to cast a charismatic actor in the lead role. Audiences will forgive a lot as long as their watching someone with a compelling screen presence. Unfortunately, both Charlie Webber and Madison Bailey give rather bland performances and neither Peter nor Sophia are particularly likable characters. In particular, Peter drags one innocent computer store owner into his mess and then doesn’t seem to be particularly upset when the poor guy ends up with a bullet in his brain. It’s one thing to be an assassin. It’s another thing to be a jerk about it.

On the plus side, Jon Voight is enough of an old pro to understand that this is a movie that does not reward subtlety and he gives a performance that is totally over-the-top but which is also more than appropriate for the material with which he’s working. (Voight is still a talented actor and it’s a shame that, due to voting for different candidates than the majority of Hollywood, he’s pretty much going to end his career appearing in movies like this.) As well, Max Montesi gives such a cheerfully bizarre performance as a rival assassin that he actually bring the movie to life whenever he’s on the screen.

Unfortunately, the lunacy of Voight and Montesi is not enough to save The Painter. At one point, someone dismisses Peter’s paintings as being “derivative.” They could have been talking about this film as a whole.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.3 “Miss Malibu”

Posted on May 16, 2024 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!

I was warned about this episode.

Episode 1.3 “Miss Malibu”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on October 25th, 1998)

Wow, check out these two douchebags!

On the left, we’ve got Scott, who is supposed to be the studious brother. On the right, we’ve got Jason, who is supposed to be the cool brother. It can be difficult to keep the two of them straight, even though they don’t really resemble each other physically. The problem is that neither really has much of a personality, beyond taking off their shirt and staring at girls.

Their father is going to convention in Las Vegas so he leaves the twins in charge of the restaurant. Why would he do that? We’re only three episodes in Malibu, CA but every episode so far has featured these two idiots doing something stupid with the restaurant. Does the restaurant not have an assistant manager who could run the place?

Before leaving, their father tells Scott and Jason to be sure to feed the fish in the restaurant’s aquarium. Dumbass Scott (or maybe it was Jason) is so distracted by Samantha and her friends that he accidentally dumps a bunch of bacon bits into the aquarium and kills a goldfish. Scott and Jason assume that they’ve killed their father’s favorite fish, Goldie. They’re worried that their father is going to be mad at them. Personally, I think they should think about the fact that they killed an animal that was depending on them to do the bare minimum to keep it alive.

Maybe they can buy a new fish! The only problem is that the goldfish was an extremely rare breed and it will cost them $500 to get a new one. How can they raise $500? Maybe they should take it out of the restaurant’s cash registers. Maybe they should pawn some of their expensive belongings. Maybe they should ask their rich friend Murray for a loan. Maybe they should just tell their Dad the truth because, sadly, fish do die. They can leave out the fact that they murdered the fish, if they want.

Instead of doing any of that, they decide to throw a fake beauty contest.

WHAT!?

They’ll charge every one an entry free and advertise the contest as coming with a $500 prize. But, since Jason, Scott, and Murray will be the judges, they’ll just announce that Sam is the winner and then Sam will give them back the prize. Seriously, this is the plan they come up with. Out of everything that they could have done, this is what they do.

Here’s why this is a dumb plan. To let people know about the fake Miss Malibu contest, they have to print up signs. They have to find time to hang up the signs around town. They have to print up entry forms. In fact, if they’re going to get enough people to enter to raise $500, they’re going to have to print up and copy a lot of entry forms. They’re going to have to rent out a spot on the beach to hold the contest. They’re going to have to install a lighting and sound system for the pageant. It’s going to cost them way more than just $500 to hold a fake beauty contest. If they have $500 for this, why don’t they have $500 for a new fish?

Sam is reluctant to go along with the plan so Scott and Jason, as if they weren’t already unlikable enough, lie to her and tell her that their father is a recovering alcoholic and losing the fish will cause him to start drinking and driving again. Seriously, what the Hell? Sam agrees to enter the pageant but then the plan hits another snag when Sam has an allergic reaction to her tanning lotion and her face turns orange. Jason and Scott decide to asks Stads to enter as their ringer. When Stads says she doesn’t like the way beauty pageants demean women, Scott removes his shirt and shows off his muscles until Stads agrees to help. Wow, Scott — way to take advantage of the fact that a really nice person has a crush on you. WHAT A DOUCHEBAG!

Anyway, I feel like I’ve already wasted too much time on this so I’ll cut to the chase. The pageant does not raise enough money to pay for the new fish but Stads once again demeans herself and pretends to be Jason and Scott’s younger sister when she asks the fish salesman to give them the replacement fish at a lower price. (Does Stads have any self-respect?) Scott and Jason put the new fish in the aquarium but then it turns out that Goldie wasn’t the fish that died. Instead, Goldie is a big gray fish that their father named after Goldie Hawn.

Wow, funny.

You may have guessed I did not care much for this episode. The main problem is that Jason and Scott are so incredibly unlikable that it’s impossible to root for them. They did the wrong thing, they exploited their friends, and they didn’t even really seem to appreciate the fact that Stads abandoned her principles to help them out. Zach Morris and even California Dreams’s Sly Winkle would have at least felt a smidgen of guilt. But Jason and Scott are just jerks.

Ugh, what a terrible 23-minute viewing experience!

Will next week be better? Probably not.