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Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.24 “Paquito’s Birthday/Technical Advisor”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, season 4 comes to an end.

Episode 4.24 “Paquito’s Birthday/Technical Advisor”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on May 23rd, 1981)

This week, Tattoo is stunned to see Manuel (A Martinez) and Consuelo Lopez (Linda Cristal) get off the plane with their young son, Paquito (Anthony Trujillo).  Tattoo immediately guesses that Mr. Roarke must have given them a special deal so they could come to the Island and he snaps that Roarke is too nice.

Roarke, never one to worry about being nice when it come to Tattoo, replies that young Paquito nearly died earlier in the year and now, Manuel and Consuelo are on the verge of losing their frame.  Manual and Consuelo wanted to give Paquito a wonderful birthday party before they end up homeless.  Take that, Tattoo!

Manuel’s wealthy relative, Dona Delores (Victoria Racimo), is also on the Island and Paqutio soon starts hanging out with her, despite Manuel resenting her for having money.  Delores, who cannot have children of her own, has an idea.  Maybe she could adopt Paquito and give him the life that Manuel and Consuelo never could.  In return, she could help Manuel’s out with his money problems.

Don’t worry!  Manuel and Conseulo don’t lose Paquito and they even get to stay on Fantasy Island.  And it also turns out that Delores isn’t so bad after all.  This is Fantasy Island and nothing bad has happened on Fantasy Island since that hunter died at the end of his fantasy.  The ending is happy and the fantasy is ultimately pleasant and kind of forgettable.  In the end, what I’ll always remember is that the voice of young Paquito was obviously dubbed by an adult woman trying to sound like a child.  That was kind of weird.

Of course, it wasn’t as weird as the other fantasy.

Nancy Harvester (Randi Oakes) has spent the past few years of your life taking care of her terminally ill uncle.  After her uncle passed, he left her a fantasy in his will.  He wants Nancy to enjoy life and finally get a boyfriend.  When Roarke informs Nancy why her uncle wanted his will to be read on Fantasy Island, Nancy replies that she’s never even been with a man and there’s no way she can make her uncle’s last fantasy come true.  (Her uncle’s last fantasy was for his niece to lose her virginity?  That is definitely kind of creepy….)  Fortunately, Nancy’s childhood crush, Gene (Jim Stafford), is on the Island and Roarke summons a special friend to give Nancy advise.

Meet Helen of Troy (played by Jill St. John)!

Yes, the same Helen of Troy who inspired one of the bloodiest and most tragic wars in ancient history is the person that Mr. Roarke recruits to give advise to Nancy.  I mean, was the mermaid busy?  What about Aphrodite?  Remember how Aphrodite lives on Fantasy Island?  Couldn’t Mr. Roarke have asked them to help out?

Interestingly enough, the dialogue between Helen and Roarke indicate that they are lifelong friends, which would indicate that Mr. Roarke is several thousand years old.  Helen also makes a few comments that suggest that she and Roarke were once quite close.  Was Mr. Roarke involved in the war with Sparta?  I wonder which side he was on.

But what about Nancy?  Does Helen help out Nancy?  Yes, of course she does.  This is Fantasy Island so, of course, Nancy and Gene depart on the same plane.

All fantasies come true on Fantasy Island, which is one reason why the original show continues to be so loved. I would argue that the reason why the recent Fantasy Island reboot failed was because it complicated things by attempting to explore the lives of the people who lived and worked on the Island, as opposed to just focusing on fantasies with happy endings.  For all the time that I’ve spent speculating about what the Island actually is and how it works, it ultimately doesn’t matter.  No one cares how Fantasy Island works.  All that matters is that it does.

So ends season 4 of Fantasy Island.  It was a bit of an uneven season.  The obvious hostility between Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize made more than a few scenes a bit awkward to watch.  I miss the playfulness that defined their interactions during the earlier seasons.  But still, the Island is lovely and it’s fun to imagine what it would be like to really go there.

Next week, Roarke and Tattoo are joined by a new helper as the fifth season begins!

The TSL Grindhouse: Locked Up (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2017 film Locked Up tells the story of Mallory (Kelly McCart).

Mallory is not having a great life.  Her wealthy father has relocated to an unnamed county in Southern Asia.  (The film was shot in Thailand but the uniforms that we see various officials wearing seem more appropriate for North Korea.)  Mallory lives with her Uncle Tommy (Jared Cohen), who is Mallory’s legal guardian while her father is off doing whatever it is that he does.  Mallory goes to a school where she is the only American and certainly the only redhead.  She is bullied to such an extent that she finally snaps and punches another student.  Mallory is promptly arrested and sentenced to the country’s version of reform school.

When Tommy and Mallory first arrive at the facility, it seems to be clean and welcoming.  The Warden (Maythavee Burapasing) appears to be friendly and compassionate.  It seems like the type of place that all of us bleeding hearts are always insisting that we need here in America.  It’s only after Tommy leaves that the truth is revealed.  The reform school is actually a prison and the Warden is a sadistic tyrant.  Mallory is tossed into a filthy cell with several other girls and ordered to strip while everyone watches.  One of Mallory’s cellmates, Kat (Katrina Grey), orders Mallory not to cry because Kat doesn’t want the sound of her tears keeping her awake at night.

After manipulating Mallory into signing a document that says she doesn’t want her uncle to visit her in prison, The Warden reveals that she enjoys watching the prisoners fight.  She informs Mallory that she has two weeks to prepare for her first fight and that, if Mallory doesn’t fight, she will be gang raped twice a week for as long as she remains in the prison.  Mallory, having no experience with fighting (despite having hit that one student hard enough to get sentenced to confinement), begs Kat to train her.  At first reluctant, Kat eventually agrees.  But can even Kat’s training prepare Mallory for a fight against the fearsome Riza (Anastasia Maslova)?

If this all sounds rather exploitive, that’s because it is.  The film hit every sordid women-in-prison cliche with the efficiency of well-wound clock.  In fact, it’s so dedicated to hitting all of the expected beats that it actually becomes a bit comical at times.  Less than a minute after she enters her cell, Mallory has another inmate talking about how cute she is and sniffing her neck.  Mallory and Kat’s fight training inevitably leads to a shower room sex scene and Kat talking about how she’s in prison because her boyfriend convinced her to be a drug smuggler.  Meanwhile, because she is determined to turn Riza into a killing machine, The Warden personally injects steroids into Riza’s neck.  It’s all so shameless that you can’t help but appreciate the film’s audacity, even if there are several scenes (most of which involve the Warden’s threat to have the guards rape Mallory) that cross the line from being merely tasteless to being actually offensive.

Locked Up is an Asylum Production.  Like most Asylum films, it makes no excuses or apologies for being what it is.  (Regardless of how you feel about their films, it’s hard not to appreciate The Asylum’s honesty.)  In most ways, Locked Up is a pretty dumb movie but director Jared Cohen keeps the action moving quickly and The Warden is a properly hissable villain.  The Warden tells Mallory that her problem is that Americans have allowed themselves to become weak and, even if the film’s portrayal of Asia makes Midnight Express‘s portrayal of Turkey seem fair and balanced, it’s hard not to feel that the Warden has a point.  Get out there and fight, America!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.3 “Family Crisis”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, a Partridge leads a Brady into a life of crime!

Episode 2.3 “Family Crisis”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on September 30th, 1978)

Tired of being confined to a police car, Officer Sindy Cahill (Brianne Leary) cannot wait to graduate from motor school so that she can become the Highway Patrol’s first female bike cop.  She’s so eager for the job that, when she’s off-duty, she rides around Los Angeles on a motor scooter and occasionally even makes an arrest.  Most of the other motorcycle cops are skeptical about Sindy …. because she’s a woman.  But Ponch is supportive of Sindy’s ambition …. because she’s a woman who he likes to look at.  Ponch spends the majority of this episode standing behind Sindy and leering.

A fancy black Trans Am has been stolen from a movie set and it is being used in a series of robberies.  The thieves have made no effort to disguise the car.  They didn’t even bother to paint over the very noticeable green racing stripe that, in theory, would make impossible for them to drive around without being spotted.  However, it doesn’t matter because the car is so fast and it can do so many fun movie tricks (like covering the street in smoke and oil) that no one can stop it.  Sindy has come up with a plan to catch the thieves but Getraer doesn’t want to hear it and we all know why.  In fact, when Sindy crashes her car while chasing the thieves, Getraer tells her that she needs to get checked out by the doctors before she goes back on duty.  “If I was a man, you’d let me right back out on the street!” Sindy snaps.  Sindy knows that Getraer is treating her differently …. because she’s a woman!

Fortunately, Getraer’s boss somehow finds a copy of Sindy’s plan and he decides that it’s brilliant.  With both the LAPD and the Highway Patrol working together, they manage to ambush and corner the Trans Am on the Los Angeles docks.  The two thieves push the wrong button in the car and they end up getting ejected from their seats and landing in the ocean.  Baker and Ponch share a laugh while the two men probably drown.

The two nameless thieves are not the only ones stealing cars.  Fred (Danny Bonaduce), a high school senior, is also stealing cars and — oh no! — he’s convinced his friend Wes (Christopher Knight) to go joyriding with him.  What Fred didn’t count on was Wes being the nephew of Officer Jon Baker.  Baker isn’t going to let anyone corrupt his nephew.  When Ponch and Baker eventually catch Fred and Wes and their girlfriends in a stolen car, they put the handcuffs on everyone, even though only Fred is going to be charged with a felony.  Baker tells Wes that he put the handcuffs on him to show him where his life is heading.  Wes thanks his Uncle Jon and hopefully, he’s learned an important lesson about why the Bradys didn’t hang out with the Partridges.

Finally, Ponch has finally moved out of his RV and into a swinging new apartment!  He’s got a view of the pool, so he’s happy.  Good for him.

This episode …. actually, this episode wasn’t that bad.  I liked Sindy because, if i was waiting to find out if I was going to be a motorcycle cop, I would probably ride around on a motor scooter too.  And having Danny Bonaduce leading Christopher Knight astray appealed to me as a student of pop culture.  There were some nice chase scenes.  The Trans Am was cool.  The California scenery was lovely.  It was a fun episode.

The Films of 2024: Late Night With The Devil (dir by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Late Night With The Devil is a truly frightening film.

Jack Deloy (David Dastmalchian) is the host of Night Owls, a late-night talk show.  Deloy has spent his entire television career competing against The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.  Deloy has a loyal audience.  He has several Emmy awards.  But he has never been able to beat The Tonight Show in the ratings.  Even when he interviewed his dying wife (Georgina Haig) and got the biggest ratings of his career, he still finished second to Johnny Carson.  After his wife died, Deloy went into seclusion before eventually returning to his show.

It’s Halloween night in 1977 and Deloy is hosting a live broadcast of Night Owls.  He and his producer (John Quong Tart) are convinced that they’re finally going to achieve their goal of winning the ratings race.  On the show, they have the medium Christou (Faysal Bazzi).  They have Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), a pompous former magician who now makes his living by exposing charlatans.  They have parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), a young woman who claims to be possessed by a demon that she calls Mr. Wiggles.  Deloy’s sidekick Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri) fears that it’s not a good idea to mess with the occult on Halloween night but Deloy is determined to get those ratings.  In fact, Deloy is willing to do just about anything for the ratings.

Opening with narration from Michael Ironside and introduced as being a documentary about what happened that mysterious night, Late Night With The Devil is a found footage horror film but, unlike a lot of films of the genre, it doesn’t get bogged down with people saying stuff like, “Are we recording?” or “Are you getting this?”  Instead, the film’s directors actually make good use of the format, suggesting that there might still be a spark of inspiration to be found in the found footage genre.  The contrast between the grainy color of the show and the stark black-and-white footage of what went on whenever the show went to commercial is one of the things that makes Late Night With The Devil so memorable.  It keeps the audience from getting too comfortable with what they’re watching and it’s a reminder that what one sees in a controlled environment (like a talk show) is often meant to hide the chaos lurking under the surface.  Towards the end of the episode, when the color footage goes from being grainy to suddenly being very bright and vivid, it’s truly unsettling.  (The film does such a good job of keeping the audience off-balance that the directors can even get away with abandoning the found footage format at a key moment.)  Late Night With The Devil does a wonderful job recreating the look and feel of an old late night talk show.  One look at the Night Owls set and you can literally smell the combination of stale cigarettes and outright desperation.  Looking at the ugly set and the tacky clothes, it’s easy to buy that we actually are watching some long-buried archival footage from 1977.  One reason why the film is frightening is because it feels authentic.

(And yes, it feels authentic despite the inclusion of some AI-images.  AI was used to create the intertitles that appear whenever Night Owls goes to commercial.  They appear for less than a minute and, if not for the online controversy, I never would have noticed them.)

David Dastmalchian plays Jack Deloy as being a showman who is an expert at manipulating the audience and who will do anything to get people to watch.  Still, even the most jaded horror fan will be shocked to see how far Jack Deloy is willing to go to win the ratings race.  (For all the supernatural elements of the film, nothing is more disturbing than its portrayal of human avarice.)  A major subplot deals with Jack’s membership in the Grove, a society of the wealthy and powerful that is based on the very real Bohemian Grove.  Bohemian Grove is, of course, a favorite of conspiracy theorists who assume that the rich and famous are up to all sorts of nefarious deeds whenever they gather for their annual meeting.  Those conspiracy theorists will find much to appreciate about Late Night With The Devil and Dastmalchian’s performance.  (Of course, one can also read Jon Ronson’s Them, which features an entire chapter about Ronson traveling to Bohemian Grove and discovering that what was advertised as being a day of dorky fun for the rich and powerful actually was just that.)

Obviously, many films did influence Late Night With The Devil.  The end credits begin with a land acknowledgment but it could have just as easily contained a film acknowledgment.  “The filmmakers acknowledge the influence of The Exorcist, Cannibal Holocaust, The Last Exorcism, the careers of James Randi, Uri Geller, and Sylvia Browne, Michelle Remembers, The Conjuring franchise, The Larry Sanders Show, the films of David Cronenberg, and Ghostwatch.”  It’s a testament to the skill of the directors and the cast that, despite all the obvious influence, Late Night With The Devil stands as an original and genuinely unsettling work of art.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.13 “Definitely Miami”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

Things get weird this week.

Episode 2.13 “Definitely Miami”

(Dir by Rob Cohen, originally aired on January 10th, 1986)

This week’s episode of Miami Vice is all about heat.

Seriously, it literally starts with a shot of a solar flares erupting off the surface of the sun.  The camera then pulls away, letting us see what the sun looks like a cloudless blue sky.  Finally, we find ourselves in Miami, where the sky is clear and a heat wave is raging.  The camera focuses on the beads of sweat forming on skin.  Every pastel shirt is stained with sweat and everyone is wearing sunglasses.  When a drug dealer drives out to a quarry to meet connection, the heat seems to radiate out of the screen.  When he’s shot and killed by Charlie Basset (Ted Nugent — yes, the musician and gun enthusiast), the dust that rises up looks like smoke rising from a burning planet.

Sonny and Rico are working undercover as Burnett and Cooper, hanging out at a hotel pool and complaining about the heat.  Their target is Sergio Clemente (Roger Pretto) but Sonny is actually more interested in Callie (Arielle Dombasle), a beautiful blonde who he spots laying by the pool.  Callie sees Sonny watching her and brings him a drink.  Sonny introduces himself as Sonny Burnett.

Clemente is willing to turn himself in but only if he can see his sister, Maria (Kamala Lopez), and know that she’s still alive.  Maria testified against her brother at a trial and is currently in the witness protecting program.  Joe Dalva (Albert Hall), an arrogant Department of Justice official, is willing to bring Maria to Clemente, despite the fact that Maria indicates that Clemente used to sexually abuse her.  Castillo thinks that it’s a terrible idea and tries to use a decoy.  In the end, the government orders Castillo to do what Dalva wants.  Castillo stands in a corner and stares down at the ground, which viewers of the show know is something Castillo does whenever he knows just how badly things are going to turn out.  When the meeting finally happens, Tubbs, Castillo, and Davla can only watch as Maria pulls a knife and stabs her brother to death.

Sonny is not there to see Clemente die.  Callie has told him that her husband is physically abusive and she wants Sonny — as Burnett — to meet him in a quarry, make a drug deal with him, and then kill him.  Sonny suspects that he’s being set up and he’s right.  Callie’s husband is Charlie and he only hits her when she tells him to.  Callie seduces drug dealers and then Charlie kills them.  Sonny, however, is smart enough to bring Zito with him to the quarry.  During a shoot out, Charlie ends up dead.  While the police dig up the quarry and find body after body, Sonny goes to the beach so that he can arrest Callie.  When Sonny approaches Callie, she’s making a sand castle that looks exactly like the quarry.  At first, Callie thinks that Sonny is Charlie but then she forces herself to smile when she sees that Charlie is dead.  She assumes Sonny will be her new partner.  Instead, Sonny calls in a police helicopter and Callie is taken into custody by two cops.  Callie flirts with one of the cops while she’s being led to the helicopter.

And the sun continues to burn in the sky….

This was an odd episode, one that put far more emphasis on vivid and sometimes surreal imagery than it did on telling a coherent story.  That’s not a complaint, of course.  This episode had a dream-like intensity to it that I really appreciated.  It was weird but entertaining, with the grinning Ted Nugent popping up like a gleefully evil goblin.  Sonny is targeted because Callie thinks that he’s a drug dealer when he’s actually a cop.  The idea of Sonny being able to maintain his undercover identity despite having personally arrested or killed a countless number of Miami drug dealers has always been one of the stranger elements of Miami Vice.  This episode, though, it makes a strange sense that Sonny could be mistaken for a drug dealer despite always acting like a cop.  That’s definitely Miami.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.3 “A Big Girl Now”

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 Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, Lucy learns that she has the worst friends in the world.

Episode 3.3 “A Big Girl Now”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on December 5th, 1988)

Lucy is totally in love with Paul, her older boyfriend from the high school.  At first, all of her friends are excited for her but then Lucy stops spending time with them and they start to get jealous.  When Lucy misses L.D.’s big soccer game because she already has plans with Paul, Lucy promises to make it up to L.D. and everyone else by letting them have a party at her house.

But then Paul and his high school friends discover that Lucy’s parents are out of town and they decide that they should throw a party of their own.  And when they announce that they don’t want any “niners” other than Lucy at the party, Lucy agrees to lie to her friends.  She tells them that the party’s been cancelled because of a family crisis.

Needless to say, both L.D. and the Farrell twins discover that Lucy lied to them.  (It doesn’t help that Paul and his friends chant, “Party!  Party!” when they pull up in front of Degrassi.)  Lucy loses their friendship and, because she doesn’t want to have sex and risk getting pregnant like Spike did, Lucy also loses her boyfriend.  What she does get is a “reputation” because everyone assumes she had sex with Paul even though she didn’t.

Poor Lucy!  Listen, Lucy should not have lied about the party.  And Paul really was a jerk.  But her friends need to cut Lucy some slack.  Lucy’s parents are never home, she’s still dealing with the trauma of being groomed by that creepy substitute last season, and she’s not even allowed to shoplift anymore.  So, Lucy made some mistakes.  Everyone makes mistakes!

Why can’t Lucy’s friends be as forgiving as Wheels?  During this episode, Snake finally approaches Wheels and apologizes for not talking to him since the funeral for Wheels’s parents.  Snake admits that he didn’t know what to say and Wheels admits that he’s struggling with depression.  Wheels explains that he no longer wants to go to school and he certainly doesn’t want to be a part of the Zit Remedy.  Still, Wheels is clearly touched by Snake’s apology.  Both Neil Hope and Stefan Brogren did a good job of portraying the combination of awkwardness and sincerity that lies at the heart of their friendship.

.Finally, the results of the student election are announced.  To the surprise of no one, Nancy Kramer defeats Kathleen for student council president.  Kathleen becomes Vice President.  Melanie begs Kathleen to nominate her for the dance committee.  Kathleen, however, tells Nancy that only niners (and Melanie is not a niner) should be allowed to serve on a committee.  Melanie overhears and proceeds to pour a carton of milk in Kathleen’s hair.  Poor Kathleen!  Seriously, ladies, be more like Snake and Wheels and support each other!

This episode felt like it was setting up a lot of future storylines.  Will Lucy get her friends back?  Will Wheels ever regain his love of life?  Will Kathleen be able to get all the milk out of her hair?  We’ll find out next week!

The Films of 2024: Unfrosted (dir by Jerry Seinfeld)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Unfrosted is a thoroughly amiable and goofy comedy about the invention of the Pop Tart.

Taking place in an imaginary 1963, Unfrosted tells the story of the Cereal Wars.  Kellog’s and Post are competing for dominance in the kids breakfast food market, dominating the scene while the dour folks at Quaker can only shake their heads in holier-than-thou shame.  Bob Cabana (played by the film’s director, Jerry Seinfeld) is a Kellog’s exec who spends his day dealing with pompous cereal mascots (led by a hilarious Hugh Grant) and the somewhat random whims of his boss, Edsel Kellog III (Jim Gaffigan).  He dreams of someday having a lawn made out of sod and also having enough money to send his kids to a good college.  “Those colleges can cost $200 a year!” he says, at one point.

Life is good until he discovers that Post — headed up by Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) — is developing a type of new breakfast food that could revolutionize the industry and dethrone Kellog’s as America’s top cereal company.  Bob gets Edsel’s permission to try to create something that will beat Post’s new product to the shelves.  But first, Bob has to go to NASA and convince brilliant engineer Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) to abandon the moon project and return to Kellog’s.  “You know we’re never going to land on the moon,” Bob tells her.

Soon, the entire nation is riveted by the competition between Post and Kellog’s.  Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan) reports on every development, in between complaining about his wife and playing with silly putty.  The Russians decide to help Post, leading the world to the brink of nuclear war while President Kennedy (Bill Burr) spends his time with the Doublemint Twins.  Harry Friendly (Peter Dinklage), head of the milk syndicate, warns that kids better not stop eating cereal while Bob finds himself being menaced by a sinister milkman (Christian Slater).  A German scientist (Thomas Lennon) and Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) combine a sea monkey with a square of ravioli, leading to a new life form that lives in the Kellog’s ventilation system.  Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), the bicycle guy, risks his life to test a prototype while a super computer is shipped to Vietnam and turns into Colonel Kurtz and….

Okay, you’re getting the idea.  This is a silly, joke-a-minute film that is in no way meant to be taken seriously.  It’s obvious that Seinfeld and his co-writers greatly amused themselves while writing the script and your amusement will depend on whether or not you’re on the same wavelength.  I enjoyed the film, because I love history and I love pop culture and I like random homages to other films.  Not all of the jokes landed.  There’s a lengthy Mad Men parody that, while funny, still feels several years too late.  But, for the most part, I enjoyed the amiable goofiness of it all.

Unfrosted is currently getting some savagely negative reviews but that has more to do with Seinfeld’s recent comment that the “extreme left” was ruining comedy.  Though most people would probably consider Seinfeld’s comment to be common sense (and would also realize that Seinfeld was condemning the “extreme” as opposed to liberalism in general), the online folks, many of whom were already angry over Seinfeld’s outspoken support of Israel, were scandalized and most mainstream film reviewers today never want to get on the bad side of an online mob, regardless of how annoying that mob may be.  (Even a positive review in The Hollywood Reporter contained an odd passage in which the reviewer seemed to beg forgiveness for giving a non-condemnatory review to a film made by someone on the other side.)  Of course, there are also some reviewers who are currently overpraising this film as a way to “own the libs.”  The fact that a film as silly and inoffensive as this one could suddenly find itself at the center of the culture war tends to prove Seinfeld’s point.

The important thing is that Unfrosted is amusing and, in the end, rather likable.  I enjoyed it.

Retro Television Review: Playmates (dir by Theodore J. Flicker)

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 the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1972’s Playmates!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

Playmates tells the story of two divorces.

Marshall Barnett (Alan Alda) is an attorney.  He went to Yale and Harvard.  He has a successful career.  He has rich and educated friends.  He has a nice bachelor pad.  He also pays hundreds of dollars in alimony.  He and Lois (Barbara Feldon) got divorced 3 years ago and Marshall is still bitter.  He’s bitter that he has to pay her so much money.  He’s bitter that he only gets to see his son on the weekends.  He’s bitter that he can’t seem to start a new, meaningful relationship with anyone.  He’s bitter that his wife still asks him to critique her modernist paintings.

Kermit Holvey (Doug McClure) is a blue collar welder.  He has only been divorced for a few months and his relationship with ex-wife Patti (Connie Stevens) is nowhere near as contentious as Marshall’s relationship with Lois.  Still, Kermit is struggling to adjust to being single and to only seeing his son on the weekends.

Marshall and Kermit meet one weekend while they are both taking their sons to the Kiddieland Amusement Park.  Marshall is so overjoyed to meet someone else who is dealing with divorce that he comes on a bit strong in trying to get to know Kermit.  Kermit, however, does eventually get over his initial weariness and soon, he and Marshall are best friends.  It doesn’t matter that Marshall has a tendency to be a little bit condescending and that Kermit often can’t follow what Marshall is talking about.  They spend most of their time talking about their ex-wives.

But then Kermit meets Lois and he discovers that her paintings really aren’t as bad as Marshall made them out to be.  And Marshall meets Patti and he discovers that she’s not as dumb as Kermit made her out to be.  Soon, Kermit is secretly dating Lois and Marshall is secretly dating Patti and anyone who has ever watched a comedy before knows that there is a big mess waiting in the future.

Playmates was one of those films that pretended to be a lot naughtier than it actually was.  For all the winking and the occasional sly smiles, all that happens is that Kermit and Marshall both end up going out with women with whom they really don’t have much in common.  And while it’s tempting to read a lot into how quickly Kermit and Marshall become friends and how they both end up dating the other’s female equivalent, I think that might be giving this film too much credit.  (If it were made today, things might be different.)  In the end, the film really has more to say about class than it does marriage, as both Marshall and Lois obviously view spending time with Kermit and Patti as being a way of slumming and building up some working class bona fides without actually having to be working class.  Patti, to her credit, calls Marshall out on this.  Marshall admits that she has a point but he still come across as if he’s talking down to her, largely because he’s played by Alan Alda, an actor who is a master at being somehow both likable and condescending at the same time.

Playmates is a well-acted film and there are some funny lines.  The four main characters are all ultimately likable, even if they all have their moments where you can tell why they would be difficult to live with.  It deserves some credit for following its story through to its natural conclusion, with one couple realizing that they still love each other while the other realize that they are better off divorced.  The film may not be as radical as it pretends to be but it still doesn’t cop out on the ending.  In the end, Playmates is probably best watched as a time capsule.  It’s here if you ever want to experience 1972 firsthand.

Insomnia File #65: Girl Lost (dir by Robin Bain)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Tubi or Prime and watched 2016’s Girl Lost.

Girl Lost tells the story of Shara (Jessica Taylor Haid), who we first see being abused by her mother’s boyfriend and then retreating outside to a pool so that she can run a razor blade over her thigh in peace.  Shara is only 15 but she’s had to deal with things that no one should ever have to experience in a lifetime.  Her mother, Kim (played by Robin Bain, who also directed the film), is a sex worker who expects her daughter to follow in her footsteps and who encourages Shara to pose for risqué photos that Kim then posts online.

Shara spends almost the entire film fleeing.  At first, she and Kim flee Kim’s boyfriend.  Eventually, Shara and her boyfriend, the well-meaning but not particularly bright Jamie (Felix Ryan), end up running away from Kim.  They live on the streets and discover just how difficult it can be to survive on your own.  In the end, no one can survive without money and Shara, just like her mother before her, comes to realize that there’s one guaranteed way to make that money, whether it’s waiting for a creepy guy in a back alley or getting a job talking on the phone to some pervy loser living in his mother’s basement.  Eventually, Shara runs away from even Jamie and ends up working at a Russian-owned brothel.  Throughout it all, her life continues to unravel.  It’s a harsh world that Shara has been born into and it’s one where you either do what you have to do to survive or you end up imprisoned or worse.  The film’s ends on a dark note.  At first, I thought the ending was perhaps a bit too dark.  After all that had happened, I wondered, what it have killed the film to end on a note of hope?  But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the film ended in the the only way that the story could have ended.  From the minute she was born, poor Shara never really had a chance.

It’s a deeply unsettling film.  In fact, if you are trying to find something to help lull you into sleep, this is probably not the best film to go with unless you’re prepared to have some fairly upsetting dreams.  Though shot on a low budget, the film captures the harshness of life on the fringes of society and both Jessica Taylor Haid and Robin Bain deserve a lot of credit for their performances as two characters who are not always likable but who are very recognizable.  It’s a sad film that also serves as a tribute to every lost and forgotten soul out there.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary

May Positivity: Round Of Your Life (dir by Dylan Thomas Ellis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2019’s Round Of Your Life tells the story of the Collins family.

Carl Collins (Boo Arnold) is a retired PGA golfer who is still considered to be one of the best to ever play the game.  He’s put a lot of pressure on his two sons to follow in his footsteps.  Tucker (Tim Ogletree), who likes to tell jokes and doesn’t always follow the best golf course etiquette, has just started on the PGA tour.  Meanwhile, 15 year-old Taylor (Evan Hara) would rather play video games than stick with all of the hard work needed to become a golf pro.

When Taylor fails to make the Varsity Golf Team at his high school, an angry Carl goes for a late night drive.  Unfortunately, his car is hit by another car, this one being driven by a teenage girl who was too busy texting to pay attention to the road.  Carl ends up in a coma.  And Taylor ends up determined to join the golf team and make his father proud.

Coach Wilson (Richard T. Jones) is skeptical about giving Taylor a second chance to play for the school.  But then Wilson sees Taylor playing a round with his best player, Connor (Blair Jackson, who gives the film’s best performance).  Realizing that Taylor actually is a good golfer, Wilson allows him to join the junior varsity team.  When one of the varsity players is caught cheating, Taylor moves up to varsity.  He also starts a tentative relationship with Bailey (Alexandria DeBerry), even though Connor considers Bailey to be his girlfriend.

Tucker, meanwhile, starts going out with Minka (Katie Leclerc), a nurse at the hospital.  A surprisingly large amount of screentime is devoted to Tucker and Minka’s romance, despite the fact that there’s not really much of a story there.  Both Tucker and Minka are single and they start dating.  One gets the feeling that the main reason this storyline was given such prominence in the film is because the actor playing Tucker also wrote the film.

This is a faith-based film, so there’s naturally a lot of emphasis on everyone praying for Carl’s recovery.  This is the type of film where people discuss attending a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting without a hint of irony.  This is also the rare high school film where no one ever curses, there’s no drinking to be found, and all of the relationships are relatively chaste.  Whether or not the viewer finds this to be realistic would depend on what type of high school they went to.  My high school experience was a bit different.

When the film started, I had a problem with the amount of pressure that Carl put on his sons to follow in his footsteps.  That was especially true in the case of Taylor, who seemed to be a good kid who just happened to be a bit more laid back than either his father or his brother.  Though it’s not made apparent until the film is nearly over, Round Of Your Life did share my concerns.  Visually, Round of Your Life is fairly bland and the twist at the end won’t be a huge shock to anyone who has ever seen one of these films before.  But there is a likable earnestness to this movie.  And, needless to say, the golf courses were lovely.