Tag Archives: review

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know by Britney Spears (2001, dir by Herb Ritts)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s Britney on the beach!  This video was controversial when it was first released.  It seems rather tame now.

This video was directed by photographer Herb Ritts and Britney’s boyfriend was played by French model Brice Durand.  Supposedly, neither Justin Timberlake nor Lynne Spears were happy with this video.  Lynne felt it was too explicit and Justin apparently had an issue with Britney kissing another guy, even though Britney was just acting, it was just for the music video, and it’s not as if Justin wasn’t messing around behind Britney’s back.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.3 “Bless The Boys In Blue”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark become cops!

Episode 2.3 “Bless The Boys In Blue”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 2nd, 1985)

Well, here’s an episode that would never be made today.

While driving through Los Angeles, Mark talks about a story that has been in the news.  A police sergeant shot a young black teenager outside of a crack house.  The teenager was holding a gun but it was subsequently discovered that the gun was unloaded.  The policeman has been suspended from the force.  Mark, a former cop, is on the sergeant’s side.  Jonathan argues that the sergeant could have tried to talk to the teenager instead of shooting him.  Mark claims that Jonathan has no idea what it’s like to be a cop because he’s an angel.  Mark makes the mistake of saying that he wishes Jonathan could experience what it’s actually like to be a cop.

God — or “The Boss” as the show calls him — hears Mark’s wish and makes it come true.  Mark and Jonathan’s assignment is to become cops and, just to make things interesting, God takes away Jonathan’s special powers.  Jonathan becomes human, once again.  If Jonathan gets shot, he’ll actually get wounded.  One gets the feeling that Jonathan is being punished for his pride, though the show never comes out and says it.

On the first day on the job, Jonathan tries to talk a burglar into putting down his gun and it doesn’t go well.  If not for Mark surprising the burglar, Jonathan probably would have gotten shot.  Having learned his lesson, Jonathan is given back his powers so that he can convince the dead teenager’s father to forgive the cop who shot him….

If any show aired an episode like this today, it would be greeted with howls of protest and those howls wouldn’t necessarily be unjustified.  The episode is unabashedly pro-cop, to the extent that it doesn’t even seem to consider the countless number of police shootings that have been ruled unjustified over the years.  As well, asking the teenager’s father to forgive the man who shot his son so that the man himself can work through his guilt feels incredibly selfish on the part of Jonathan.

Then again, the police that we see in this 1985 show have little in common with the police we see in 2024.  For the most part, the cops in this episode walk a beat or drive around in their squad cars.  They’re normal, blue collar folks who are doing their job and who do their best to be polite to everyone.  There’s no body armor.  No one looks like they’ve spent weeks in the gym.  There’s no shaved heads or terse military-style lingo.  There’s no dismissive talk of “bad guys” and “good guys.”  There are no tanks rolling down the city streets.  In many way, this episode feels like it’s taking place in a different reality and, to an extent, I guess it is.  This episode is 39 years old but it feels like a work of ancient lore.

Retro Television Review: Sawdust 1.1 “Pilot”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Sawdust, which aired on CBS in 1987.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

From executive producer Ed Zwick, we have a show about a really terrible father.

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Jeffrey Hornaday, originally aired on July 3rd, 1987)

We bought a circus!

That’s the premise behind Sawdust, in which an accountant named Max Galpin (James Eckhouse) buys a circus after the owner dies.  He then pulls his teenage children out of school and, along with his wife, he decides to live with and run the circus.

What!?

Like seriously, why would he do that?  Unfortunately, the purchase of the circus and the moment when Max tells his family that he’s ruined their lives all take place off-screen.  Max mentions them in his voice-over narration and he says something about how, at an auction of the former owner’s possessions, he bid on the circus but he was surprised when he won.  So, I guess maybe Max wasn’t actually planning on buying the circus but he just bid on it to …. what?  I mean, as a part of my day job, I have been to auctions before and I’ve bid on stuff for my boss.  It was fun and yes, sometimes people do make bids just to run up the price of something.  But I still find it hard to believe that someone could 1) accidentally buy a circus and 2) justify uprooting his family to run the circus.

At first, Max’s wife (Marsha Waterbury) and his daughter (Kellie Overbey) and his son (Bradley Gregg) are not happy with him but that changes once they actually arrive at the circus and get caught up in the excitement of putting on a show.  Max’s daughter takes the longest to come around, mostly because Max wants her to wear a skimpy outfit while walking across a tight rope that is suspended above the ground.  His daughter probably wouldn’t die if she lost her balance but still, it would be embarrassing and what type of father does that to his daughter?  I mean, is walking across a tight rope an easy thing to do?  Meanwhile, Max gets shot out of a cannon, his wife works with an elephant, and his son dresses up like a gorilla.  Max is willing to risk his daughter’s dignity but his son just has to dress up like a gorilla.  What the Hell?

Max gets to know the ringmaster, Serge (Elya Baskin), who quits in a huff but then comes back because the circus is all he knows.  And Leslie Jordan shows up, not saying a word but playing various musical instruments.  We also meet a man who has been hired to serve as the tutor for Max’s kids because again, Max has pulled them out of school so that they can join the circus.  Max really is a terrible father.  What a jerk.  Seriously, his children have not only left behind all of their friends but also whatever hope they may have had of getting into an Ivy League college.  Now, they’ll have to settle for a state school.  And why?  Because their father, despite having no circus experience, decided to run a circus.

This pilot was so weird.  There was a laugh track but the show took itself oddly seriously.  Max is a character to whom most viewers would have mixed feelings and the rather frantic performance of James Eckhouse does little to make him sympathetic.  There would not be a second episode.

Music Video of the Day: Moonflower by Blackbriar (2024, dir by Cinebuds)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video has a very ominous atmosphere to it.  In fact, the feeling that I got, while watching it, was that it was taking place maybe a day or two before the end of the world.  That’s appropriate, considering that the name of the song’s record label is Nuclear Blast Records.

Speaking of nuclear blasts, I’m thinking of following the lead of someone who I saw on TikTok and becoming a self-employed nuclear disarmament consultant.  I don’t know that I would be all that good at the job but it sounds like I would have fun finding out.  I imagine that I would start the day by calling up world leaders and saying, “Have you disarmed yet?”  I know I’m at least half-as-smart as that woman on TikTok so …. I mean, how hard can it be?

If only there was a movie that could educate me about nuclear missiles and stuff….

AGCK!  Okay, maybe I should just leave that job up to the experts….

Anyway, enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.1 “The Face”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, we start the second season of Monsters!

Episode 2.1 “The Face”

(Dir by Allen Coulter, originally aired on October 1st, 1989)

The second season of Monsters opens with two redneck brother, Ray (Gregory Grove) and Clifford (Gary Roberts), breaking into a house that is owned by an old widow (Imogene Coca).  Because the woman is known for paying for everything in cash and doesn’t even have a bank account, the brothers suspect that she has a fortune stashed away somewhere in the house.  (I’m not really sure how the brothers know that she doesn’t have a bank account and, for that matter, neither one of them really come across like they could open a bank account either.  Maybe just don’t judge people on whether or not they have a bank account, you know?)  When the dumbass brothers stumble across the woman in her bedroom, a struggle leads to Ray suffocating her but not before she bites a chunk out of his hand.

The wound on Ray’s hand refuses to heal.  Instead, it starts to resemble the face of the old woman and soon, Ray is hearing her voice and the wound itself appears to be talking.  Yikes!  Is Ray being driven mad by his own guilt and paranoia or is the woman’s spirit truly haunting him?  And will Ray ever be able to get the voice to stop or will he end up doing something unthinkable to his hand?

Either way, that talking hand wound is not particularly pleasant to look at.  The second season premiere of Monsters takes it cue from both the body horror of David Cronenberg and the comedic grotesquerie of Sam Raimi and that means that we get a lot of closeups of Ray’s bloody hand and we also see every detail of the lengths that Ray goes to try to silence the wound.  I started this episode cringing and, by the end of it, I had my own hands over my eyes because some of the imagery was just way too …. icky.

While the imagery was undeniably effective in its nauseating way, the overall story really didn’t carry much of an impact.  Ray and Clifford were both such idiots that it was difficult to really care about any story involving them.  In the end, they weren’t even interesting enough to make their downfall fun to watch.  This episode worked best as an example of gross-out horror and, if I had to guess, I think the episode’s main aim was to let viewers know that season 2 was going to be even more graphic than season one.  The episode makes for a fine highlight real for the show’s VFX and makeup teams but, as a story, it just falls flat.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.9 “She Stole His Heart/Return of the Captain’s Brother/Swag and Mag”

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 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 Stubing Brothers are together again!

Episode 4.9 “She Stole His Heart/Return of the Captain’s Brother/Swag and Mag”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 8th, 1980)

This week, Captain Stubing’s no-good brother — Marshall Stubing — returns!  That means that it is once again time for Gavin MacLeod to put on a toupee and a fake mustache and to play a dual role.  (And, once again, he is credited as O.D. Warbux when playing Marshall.)

This time, Marshall is actually on the boat with the best of intentions.  He wants to marry Natalie Martin (Arlene Dahl) and, amazingly enough, Natalie wants to marry him as well.  Except — oh no! — it’s Zsa Zsa Gabor!  Gabor plays Marshall’s ex-girlfriend.  The character has a name but we’ll just call her Zsa Zsa because she’s basically playing herself.  Marshall is certainly tempted by Zsa Zsa but, in the end, he does the right thing and he marries Natalie.  In fact, the third Stubing brother, Milo Stubing (Sonny Wilde), shows up for the wedding.  Wait a minute, Sonny Wilde?  OH MY GOD, IT’S GAVIN MACLEOD IN ANOTHER WIG!

Gavin MacLeod plays three characters in this episode and let’s give him some credit.  It’s all very, very silly and Zsa Zsa Gabor is not for everyone but Gavin MacLeond pulls it off.  (Admittedly, there is one awkward scene where Merill has a conversation with Marshall and it’s obvious that no one told MacLeod where the other version of him would be standing so, as a result, Merrill appears to be looking over Marshall’s head while speaking to him but even that is kind of charming in its low-rent way.)  Gavin MacLeod appears to be having fun in this episode and that was definitely the correct approach to take to this show.  It keeps the story entertaining, even though not that much really happens with it.

As for the other stories …. eh, who cares?  I mean, when you’ve got Gavin MacLeod talking to himself and Zsa Zsa Gabor making a grand entrance into every scene, do you need any other stories?  Okay, okay, I’ll still talk about them, even though neither one is really that interesting.

Joan Van Ark plays a kleptomaniac from Oklahoma who falls for a psychologist played by Stephen Keep Mills.  Whenever she flirts with him, she ends up walking away with his wallet or his wristwatch.  Fortunately, they find romance and good mental health together.  The doctor could have just called the police and had her arrested but that would have made for a depressing ending.

Darryl Brewster (Ron Ely) is Vicki’s favorite actor.  He plays private detective Steve Swaggart on television.  Swaggart can win any fight but when Darryl is challenged to a real fight by another passenger (William Boyett), Darryl ends up trying to pay the guy off.  The passenger reveals Darryl is a coward and, for a while, everyone is disillusioned.  But then Darryl gives a speech about the difference between playing a brawler and being one and everyone forgives him, including his agent and soon-to-be lover, Maggie (Erin Gray).  The big problem here is that we’re asked to believe that Stubing would allow two passengers to schedule a fistfight on his ship without any repercussions.  That would be the sort of thing that I think would get most captains fired.  Obviously, Merrill was pre-occupied with his brothers but that’s really no excuse for putting the cruise line in legal jeopardy.

In short, it may be time to fire Stubing and let Gopher take over.

We’ll see if Stubing has gotten any better at his job next week.

Music Video of the Day: Mission Impossible, performed by Tomoyasu Hotei (2016, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my sisters and I watched and very much enjoyed Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.  In honor of those 3 hours of sisterly bonding, here is the great Tomoyasu Hotei performing the Mission Impossible theme song.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.19 “Epilogue”

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 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 You tube!

This week, Griff gets a storyline!  Who?  Oh yeah, Griff!  He’s like the photographer who hangs out at the detective agency sometimes.  He was played by Eddie Cibrian and he was listed in the opening credits so I guess he was supposed to be a major character, despite never doing or even saying anything.

Anyway, on to this week’s episode….

Episode 1.19 “Epilogue”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on April 27th, 1996)

Griff is concerned about his old friends, RJ (Jared Murphy) and Rene O’Gill (Julianne Morrs).  Their mother has just recently died and Rene suspects that she was murdered by their stepfather, Robert Houston (Ben Murphy).  RJ, meanwhile, is a junky for both adrenaline and amphetamines and his girlfriend, Candy (Carmen Electra), seems like she might be a bad influence.  Both RJ and Rene are due to receive a good deal of money from their trust funds and, if anything happened to them, that money would go to Robert.

Wanting to learn the truth about her mother’s death, Rene hires Mitch and Ryan to investigate.  Because Mitch is a terrible private eye, he decides to have Donna go undercover to discover if Robert is hiding anything.  Keep in mind that Donna does not work for the detective agency, has got a club to run, is already training to become a lifeguard, and has absolutely no investigative experience.  And, of course, it turns out that there really wasn’t any need to have Donna go undercover because, just as Mitch is terrible at investigating stuff, Robert is terrible at covering up the fact that he’s a murderer.

How does Mitch solve this case?  When he discovers that someone has been calling Rene’s answering machine and getting her messages without her knowledge, Mitch says, “Dial Star 69.”  That’s the extent of Mitch’s detective work in this episode.

(Answering machines and Star 69, could this show be any more of a product of the 90s?)

The main problem here is that the episode revolves around Griff and his romantic feelings for Rene but since Griff is a character who has only appeared in a handful of episodes and never really made much of an impression, it’s hard to really get either emotionally or mentally involved with his story.  When RJ is killed during a jet ski race, Griff gets upset and blames Robert but again, we don’t know Griff, we don’t know RJ, and we don’t know Robert.

The best that can be said about this episode is that it features some fun flirtation between David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon, though not nearly enough.  Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is that it tries to be noticeably more racy than previous episodes and the editing often feels so abrupt that it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there was a more explicit version of the episode made for Europe.  Carmen Electra plays a femme fatale here and she does do a good job of being playfully evil.  Later, she would join the cast of regular Baywatch, playing a different character who didn’t murder anyone.

Next week …. oh, who knows?  I just want to get to the second season already.  That’s when all the aliens and undead Vikings start to show up.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.18 “The Searcher/The Way We Weren’t”

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.

Oh my God, this week’s episode….

Episode 4.18 “The Searcher/The Way We Weren’t”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on March 7th, 1981)

This week’s episode was just silly and it’s going to be a struggle to even come up with the usual 500 words to say about it.

Fred Cooper (Jerry Van Dyke) is worried that married life is losing its spark so he wants to relive the early days of his marriage to Dottie (Laraine Stephens).  After going through a magic time travel cloud, Fred and Dottie find themselves living in their old house, which they share with Fred’s aunt.  Their neighbors are Vic (Jack Carter) and Myra Fletcher (Dawn Wells).  Vic is Fred’s boss.  He and Myra are also swingers!  Apparently, Fred forgot about that but I have to wonder how anyone would forget that?  Anyway, Vic offers Fred a promotion but only if Fred will allow Vic to sleep with Dottie.  Fred responds by punching Vic out while Vic is hosting a Swingers Convention on Fantasy Island.  (Tattoo must have been very happy this week.)  Vic realizes that he was in the wrong and Fred still gets his promotion.  But is it a real promotion or just a fantasy promotion?  Seriously, what the Hell is going on here?

Meanwhile, young heiress Karen Saunders-Holmes (Laurette Spang) comes to the island with her husband, Brian (James Darren).  Brian thinks that they’re just on their honeymoon but Karen actually has a fantasy.  She wants to be reunited with her father, a man named Noah who supposedly abandoned her when she was an infant and whom she has never met.  Mr. Roarke arranges for Noah (Paul Burke) to be released from prison for the weekend and….

PRISON!?  Yep, Noah is a convicted murderer and has spent the last two decades in a prison camp.  Noah claims that he was innocent of the crime.  Anyway, Mr. Roarke introduces Noah to Karen and Brian and says that Noah will be their guide on the Island….

Brian freaks out!  It turns out that Brian is actually the man who Noah was framed for murdering.  Brian went off and got plastic surgery after faking his own murder, which is why Noah doesn’t recognize him.  But Noah soon learns the truth when Brian tricks him into entering a bog of quicksand!

Does Noah survive the quicksand?  He does but we’re never told how.  Does Brian then freak out and run into the quicksand as well?  Of course.  Fantasy Island is such a dangerous place!

This was a silly episode.  Brian apparently not only had plastic surgery to change his face but also to reduce his age because there was no way he was old enough to a contemporary of Noah’s.  And for the swinger’s convention on Fantasy Island …. I mean, what?  Mr. Roarke is suddenly okay with a big key party on his Island?  How do you forget that you used to live next door to a swinging couple?  Like I said, this was just silly.  One fantasy features Jerry Van Dyke being way too goofy and the other features James Darren being way to obviously sinister.  Neither worked.

So far, the fourth season has really been a mixed bag, hasn’t it?  Hopefully, things will improve next week.

Music Video of the Day: Run Your Mouth by The Marias (2024, dir by Bethany Vargas)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s late and I have to be up early tomorrow so I’m just going to let you know that today’s music video of the day is from The Marias, a band featuring lead singer Maria Zardoya and her partner, drummer Josh Conway.  I always like the fact that the entire band is like, “We are all Maria’s,” as opposed to doing something like, “Maria and The Three Notes” or something.

Enjoy!