Tag Archives: review

The TSL Grindhouse: Killing American Style (dir by Amir Shervan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1988 but apparently not released until 1990, Killing American Style is a low-budget variation on The Desperate Hours.

The film opens with a ruthless criminal named Tony Stone (Robert Z’Dar, of Maniac Cop fame) leading a daring robbery of an ice cream truck depot.  All of the ice cream trucks have come back for the day and, when Tony and the boys show up, the money is still being counted.  Tony quickly takes control of the situation, intimidating everyone with both his weaponry and his amazing jawline.

Unfortunately, for Tony, the robbery is not as successful as he thought.  Yes, he gets away with a lot of money but the police quickly track him down to his home, where he’s in the process of having sex with his stepmother.  Tony is arrested and, in record time, sentenced to a maximum security prison.  (Seriously, the arrest, conviction, and sentencing all seem to happen on the same day.)  Tony is put on a prison bus but then the bus itself stops to help out a stranded motorist.  The motorist turns out to be Tony’s brother, Jesse (Bret Johnston).  In the resulting shootout, all of the guards are killed but Jesse is wounded.  Tony and his associate, Lynch (John Lynch …. hey, I wonder if that’s just coincidence?), take Jesse to a nearby ranch house.

The house belongs to John Morgan (Harold Diamond), who is a long-haired kickboxing champion.  When Tony arrives, John is out of the house and beating up the dad of a kid who bulled Morgan’s son, Brandon.  John is not happy to come home and discover Tony holding his entire family hostage.  For that matter, Morgan’s son isn’t amused by it either.

Because they are being pursued by a grim and determined police detective (played by Jim Brown …. yes, the same Jim Brown who starred in countless blaxploitation films in the 70s), Tony and his men do not want to run the risk of leaving the house to retrieve the loot from the robbery themselves.  So, they send Morgan out to pick up the suitcase from Tony’s stepmother.  I guess they assume that Morgan will be able to move around inconspicuously despite the fact that Morgan is a 6’1 kick boxer with long hair.  I mean, there’s no way that Morgan is going to be able to move around without being noticed by the cops.

Of course, before Morgan can get the money, he also has to get a doctor for Jesse.  Dr. Fuji (Joselito Rescober) agrees to help, despite the fact that he never seems to be quite sure what’s actually going on with all the angry men who keep pointing guns at each other.  When Dr. Fuji mentions that he wants to kill Tony “Japanese style,” Morgan promises that he’s going to kill Tony “American style.”  It’s never really made clear what the difference is between the two styles, though the American version does seem to involve a bit more kickboxing.

Anyway, this is an incredibly cheap and dumb movie but Robert Z’Dar seems like he’s having fun as Tony and …. well, to be honest, Robert Z’Dar is really the only reason to recommend this film.  He gives an enjoyably over-the-top performance, one that certainly contrasts with the more subdued performance of Harold Diamond.  (For his part, Diamond often seems to be struggling to stay awake.)  Hostage movies usually bore me to tears and this one had a lot of slow spots but it also had shots like the one below:

Eh.  Let’s call it even.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.14 “Julie Falls Hard / Double Wedding / The Dummies”

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!

Welcome aboard.  Don’t expect much from your cruise this week.

Episode 2.14 “Julie Falls Hard / Double Wedding / The Dummies”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on December 16th, 1978)

Agck!  It’s the most horrifying episode in the history of the Love Boat!

Your eyes do not deceive you.  There are indeed two ventriloquists on this week’s cruise.  Married entertainers Patti Harmon (Ruth Buzzi) and Michael Harmon (Sid Caesar) have been hired to amuse the ship’s passengers.  Unfortunately, they’ve recently separated.  Patti thinks that Michael is incapable of expressing his emotions unless he’s carrying around his dummy.  And it turns out that she’s right because Michael really does carry that dummy around with him everywhere and he has frequent conversations with it.  Even when Michael inevitably apologizes for being a bad husband and asks Patti for another chance, he has to use the dummy to do it.

Seriously, it’s creepy!  I mean, everything works out in the end.  Michael and Patti decide to give their marriage a second chance and their dummies end up kissing as well.  But seriously, ventriloquist dummys are just weird.  Have you seen that episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy tries to switch one dummy out for another so the original dummy gets mad and destroys his replacement?  Have you seen the classic Anthony Hopkins film, Magic?  CREEPY!

Of course, this episode features not just the scariest story in Love Boat history.  It also features the stupidest.  Two twins (Cyb Barnstable and Trish Barnstable) board the cruise with their fiancés (played by David Nelson and Fred Travelena).  No one can tell the twins apart!  Not even Isaac!

Anyway, the twins worry that they might be making a mistake because it seems like each one is marrying a man with the opposite personality.  The twin who likes to stay up late is engaged to the man who goes to bed early.  The twin who likes to be responsible and level-headed is engaged to man who is wild and unpredictable.  So, when the twins disembark the boat so that they can get married in Mexico, they decide to switch places on their wedding day.  But then when the twins return to the boat with their new husbands, they decide that they made a mistake so they switch back.  They can do that because they’re twins!  Seriously, that’s the entire story.

Bleh!  This was so stupid.  Even writing about it was painful.

Finally, Julie’s in love!

Jack Chenault (Tony Roberts) is taking the cruise with his two young daughters and, when he sees Julie, it’s love at first sight.  The daughters wants their Dad to marry Julie as well.  One of the daughters is played by a very young Melora Hardin, who would grow up to play Jan Levinson on The Office.

After knowing Julie for one day, Michael announces that he’s in love with her and he wants her to come live with him in Alaska.  Julie is tempted but ultimately, she can’t leave her life on the boat behind.  Jack is heart-broken but Julie promises to see him the next time that she’s in Alaska.  So, I imagine we will never hear about Jack again.

This third storyline wasn’t bad.  Especially when compared to the other two, it was actually sweet and rather touching.  It helps that Tony Roberts gave a convincing performance Jack.  That said, asking someone to marry you after only knowing them for one day?  Unless you’re a young king looking to legitimize the Treaty of Troyes, that’s never a good idea.

This week’s cruise was not a good one.  Hopefully, next week’s will be less scary and less dumb.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.22 “The Comic/The Golden Hour”

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 1986.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Fantasy Island brings us a mix of crime and comedy!

Episode 2.22 “The Comic/The Golden Hour”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired May 5th, 1979)

Since this series began, I’ve been wondering what the legal status of Fantasy Island is.  Is it a territory of the United States?  Is it a part of the British Commonwealth?  Is it an independent nation?  Finally, in this episode, the question is answered.  Fantasy Island is an independent nation, though one that appears to be closely aligned to the United States.  And Mr. Roarke is the sole legal authority.  In short, Mr. Roarke is a bit of a dictator and the Island’s laws are pretty much determined by his whims.

This becomes apparent when a plane is forced to make an emergency landing on the island.  The plane is carrying a prisoner named Mike Banning (Michael Parks) to the United States.  When Federal Marshall Victor Grennan (Morgan Woodward) announces that there is no way he’s going to let Mike out of his handcuffs, Mr. Roarke announces that he’s in charge of the Island and, on the Island, no one is handcuffed.  Reluctantly, Grennan sets Mike free.

It also turns out that Mr. Roarke had a specific reason for wanting Mike on the island.  While in prison, he developed a pen pal relationship with a woman named Sandy Larson (Toni Tennille).  Mike’s letters provided a lot of comfort to Sandy after an auto accident left her in a wheelchair.  In fact, Sandy is in love with Mike and she’s on the Island!  Roarke arranges for Mike and Sandy to finally meet face-to-face.  Unfortunately, Sandy is self-conscious about her wheelchair and Mike feels like he’s a loser with no future.  Mike even tries to escape at one point, running through the jungle until he’s eventually captured by the Marshal.  Still, despite all of that, Mike and Sandy realize that they really do love each other.  Mike is willing to finish out his three years in prison if it means that Sandy will be waiting for him on the outside.  Fortunately, a bit Deus ex Machina comes into play as evidence is miraculously found that proves that Mike wrongfully convicted.  Yay!

While all of that’s going on, joke writer Jerry Burton (Fred Grandy) fantasizes about quitting his job working for comedic legend Danny Baker (Jack Carter) and instead pursuing a stand-up career of his own.  Mr. Roarke arranges for Jerry to perform at a bar on the northside of the Island.  Roarke explains that the bar is popular with the workers at the local pineapple plantation.  (See?  We’re learning even more about the Island!)  However, when the bar is shut down due to a brawl, Jerry instead finds himself performing at the big Fantasy Island talent show.  In fact, he’ll even be substituting for Danny, who was scheduled to host but has been held up on another part of the Island.

At first, Jerry bombs.  He has no confidence.  But then Danny joins him on stage and they bring down the house.  Jerry and Danny arrived on the Island as employee and employer but now, they’re leaving a comedy team.  Yay!  Plus. Jerry reconnects with his old high school girlfriend (Pat Klous).  Yay again!

The comedy stuff was fun, largely because Fred Grandy was as likable and goofy here as he was as Gopher on the The Love Boat.  However, what really made this episode memorable was the method intensity that Michael Parks brought to the role of Mike Banning.  While all the other guest stars goof around and enjoy the scenery, Parks plays his role with a seething rage.  It’s unexpected but it works.

All in all, this was a good episode.  The combination of Fred Grandy and Michael Parks turned out to be just what Fantasy Island needed.

Film Review: Your Place or Mine (dir by Aline Brosh McKenna)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Your Place or Mine asks the eternal question: Can a woman and man be best friends without also being lovers?

The answer to that is that of course they can.  It happens all the time.  The more important question is whether or not to physically attractive people can be friends without eventually falling love.  The answer there is of course not.  Being the most attractive person in your social circle means that you eventually have no choice but to pursue a relationship with the second most attractive person around.  That’s just the way it works.

Your Place or Mine opens in 2003, with two attractive 20 somethings named Peter and Debbie having sex for the first and what they initially believe will be the final time.  The action than jumps forward to 2023.  Peter (Ashton Kutcher) lives in New York City and has seemingly given up his dream of being a writer.  Instead, he makes a lot of money doing …. well, I’m not really sure what Peter’s job was.  It had something to do with banking and it allowed him to afford a really big apartment.  Meanwhile, Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) lives in Los Angeles.  Recently divorced, she is the overprotective mother of 13 year-old Jack (Wesley Kimmel) and she is a teacher.  Apparently she’s not supposed to be as rich as Jack but, for a teacher, she has a surprisingly big house.  She also has eccentric neighbor, played by Steve Zahn and an eccentric co-worker played by Tig Notaro.  Everyone was so eccentric that it made me miss the days when the lockdowns gave me an excuse not to talk to anyone.

Peter and Debbie are still best friends, even though they haven’t actually been in the same room together since 2008.  Still, that’s about to change.  Debbie’s coming to New York so that she can complete an accounting program and get a better job.  (Ha!  Take that, teachers!)  However, when her eccentric babysitter is cast in a movie, it looks like Debbie will have to cancel because there won’t be anyone around to keep Jack from accidentally eating something with nuts in it.  Peter, who has recently been dumped by his eccentric girlfriend and who is having a bit of a midlife crisis, volunteers to come to Los Angeles to look after Jack while Debbie goes to New York and stays in his apartment while taking her super-exciting accounting class.

Okay, let’s pause while I catch my breath.  This is one of those comedies where it takes way too long to set up the central premise.  Sometimes, it’s best to keep things simple.

Anyway, Peter bonds with Jack and helps him to find some confidence.  Living in Debbie’s house, Peter realizes that he has always loved Debbie.  Meanwhile, Debbie goes to New York, bonds with Peter’s eccentric ex-girlfriend (Zoe Chao), and discovers that Peter has written a novel!  Debbie takes it upon herself to read the novel.  She takes manuscript out of Peter’s apartment and is seen reading it at various New York locations.  I found myself cringing as I worried that a sudden gust of wind would blow the pages away or maybe someone would spill coffee on it.  (For all of Debbie’s happiness to discover that Peter is still writing, she’s not particularly careful with his manuscript.)  Without talking to Peter, Debbie gives the manuscript to an eccentric publisher named Theo Martin (Jesse Williams) and explains that the story is about a 13 year-old boy who can’t go out in the sun.  It sounds like an extremely dreary read but Theo is impressed with both the manuscript and with Debbie.

I usually enjoy romantic comedies and I like Reese Whitherspoon and I’m coming around on accepting the idea of Ashton Kutcher being a movie star (especially after his excellent performance in Vengeance) so I was really hoping that I would enjoy Your Place or Mine.  Unfortunately, the film itself suffered from what I call the Apatow Syndrome, in that every character had to be quirky, every joke had to be repeated ad nauseum, and there was a deliberate awkwardness to the dialogue that got old pretty quickly.  As individuals, Witherspoon and Kutcher were likable but I never really bought them as lifelong friends, much less a romantic couple.  They just didn’t have the right spark.  Unfortunately, Your Place or Mine just didn’t work for me.

Retro Television Reviews: Hang Time 4.19 “Rocky Road To The Playoffs” and 4.20 “Kristy Nightingale”

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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

The championship is approaching, yet again!  Hang time!

Episode 4.19 “Rocky Road To The Playoffs”

(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 14th, 1998)

It’s that time of year again!  The team just has to win one more game to make it to the playoffs.  Unfortunately, because Michael has been distracted, it’s starting to look like it might not happen.  It turns out that Michael has gotten a really bad report card, one that has more C’s than B’s.  His father has said that Michael can only play basketball as long as he keeps his grades up.  Technically, C’s are passing so I’m not really sure what the problem is but whatever.

After Michael has a shouting match with his father, Coach K says that, while he sympathizes with Michael, he can’t let him play in the big game because Michael has got too much on his mind.  As a result, the Tornadoes finish the first half of the game with the score tied!  Fortunately, Michael’s father shows up during halftime and has a conversation with his son.  Michael agrees to go to summer school and his father says that Michael can keep playing.  Michael enters the game during the second half and — yay!  The Tornadoes win!

Actually, that’s not a surprise.  The Tornadoes haven’t lost an important game since the second season.

While this is going on, Mary Beth and Kristy play a game of one-and-one basketball in order to win a car.  It wasn’t a terrible B-plot.  Megan Parlen and Amber Barretto were always at their best when they got to do something ridiculous together.

This wasn’t a bad episode.  I don’t think there was ever any doubt that the Tornadoes would win that game but the episode finally gave Adam Frost something to do and Frost proved himself to be a better actor than one might have previously expected.  All in all, this was a good episode.  Even Julie was a little less self-centered than usual.  Way to go, Hang Time!

Episode 4.20 “Kristy Nightingale”

(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 14th, 1998)

Meanwhile, back at the camp….

KRISTY NEARLY KILLS RICO!

Well, seriously, can you blame her?  I mean, what do we know about Rico?  First, he got addicted to marijuana.  (Seriously, do you have any idea how much weed you have to smoke to get addicted to a non-addictive drug?)  Secondly, he freaked out because he was dating a tall girl.  Finally, at camp, Rico got stung by a bee.  Kristy, who is apparently now working as the camp’s nurse, removes the stinger but she doesn’t realize that you’re supposed to keep an eye on someone after they get stung by a bee.  Instead, she sends Rico back to his cabin, where Rico nearly dies as a result of an allergic reaction!  Luckily, there’s a real doctor at the camp and she gives Rico a shot that saves his life.

Kristy feels terrible.  Everyone tells her that she’s being too hard on herself, despite the fact that Kristy did nearly kill someone.  Kristy worries that she might not be cut out to be a doctor and, again, that would seem like a fair assessment considering that she nearly killed someone.  Still, all the members of the team start faking injuries so that Kristy can fix them.  Awww, that’s nice of them!  Unfortunately, Kristy overhears everyone talking about how they faked all of their injuries and she loses her confidence again.  Fortunately, Michael makes himself useful by breaking his arm for real and Kristy gets to help him and regain her confidence.

WAY TO GO, MICHAEL!

While all of this is going on, the counselors engage in a prank war and remind me of why I’m glad to have never gone to any sort of camp.

As far as the basketball camp episodes are concerned, this was an okay one.  But Hang Time is a show that is at it’s best when it focuses on high school.  Hopefully, this is the last of this season’s camp episodes.

We’ll find out next week!

Film Review: The Girl On A Motorcycle (dir by Jack Cardiff)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who would have guessed that a film from 1968, starring Marianne Faithfull and Alain Delon, would be a little bit pretentious?  I’m as shocked, as anyone.

The Girl On A Motorcycle is Rebecca (Marianne Faithfull), the wife of Raymond (Roger Mutton).  One day, Rebecca wakes up, puts on a black leather jumpsuit, and gets on her motorcycle.  Abandoning her husband and her home, she rides through France and eventually reaches Germany.  Along the way, she thinks about how the motorcycle represents freedom and how no one is truly free unless they’re doing what they want to do.  We hear her inner monologue and it’s hard not to notice that, for someone riding a motorcycle across two countries, she often doesn’t seem to be paying that much attention to the road.  Rebecca has more important things to think about, like free love and Vietnam.  She watches as a transport of soldiers drive past her and she silently tells them not to look at her.  She drives through a city and starts to laugh while shouting “Bastard!” at the top of her lungs.  Pedestrians, all of whom are unhappy and middle-aged, stare at her in shock.

Along the way, Rebecca thinks about her life.  She’s married to Roger, who is a mild-mannered teacher who is so ridiculed by his students that even the local gas station attendant mentions how little respect anyone has for him.  However, Rebecca is haunted by memories of Daniel (Alain Delon), who is very, very French.

How French? This French.

Rebecca first met Daniel while working in her father’s bookstore and they had a passionate affair, despite the fact that Rebecca was already engaged to boring old Raymond.  Daniel even taught her how to ride a motorcycle.  When Rebecca got married, Daniel sent her the motorcycle that she is now riding as a wedding gift.  Rebecca is racing through Germany to be reunited Daniel, though it’s never quite clear if she’s truly leaving her husband or if she just wants to have a quick tryst before returning home.  Will Rebecca make it or will the unpredictable whims of fate intervene?

The Girl on a Motorcycle was directed by Jack Cardiff, a veteran cinematographer who first found acclaim working with directors like Michael Powell, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.  Not surprisingly, the film is full of striking shots.  Unfortunately, Cardiff was 54 when he directed The Girl On A Motorcycle and he had been involved in the film industry since he was a child.  Watching the film, one gets the feeling that Cardiff was trying a bit too had to appeal to a young counterculture audience that he didn’t really have much of a natural affinity for.  As such, Cardiff drags out every psychedelic trick in the book.  Do you want excessive use of the zoom lens, ludicrously skewed camera angles, pointlessly surreal flashbacks, portentous narration, extreme close-ups, retina-burning solarization effects, and an ending that feels like it was stolen from Godard?  The Girl On A Motorcycle has all of them!  For every impressive shot of Rebecca riding on her motorcycle, there are several more shots that feel as if they were filmed in migrainevision.

There’s also quite a few shots that make remarkably poor use of rear projection.

The Girl On A Motorcycle is definitely a film of its time.  To give credit where credit is due, Alain Delon is handsome and charismatic as the enigmatic Daniel.  The viewer gets the feeling that Rebecca is probably idealizing him and assuming that he has more depth than he actually does but it’s still easy to understand why she would not be able to resist the temptation.  Marianne Faithfull seems a bit lost as Rebecca.  She smiles a lot and she laughs a lot but her inner monologue is flatly delivered and, as a result, the character comes across as being vapid.  The ideal Rebecca probably would have been a young Helen Mirren.

As it is, The Girl On A Motorcycle is a time capsule of the 60s aesthetic (albeit an aesthetic translated through the lens of a director who seems to be trying too hard to remain relevant).  Due to a few flashes of nudity and some sex scenes that are so psychedelic that they’re nearly impossible to watch, Girl On A Motorcycle was the first film to be slapped with an X rating in the United States.  It seems rather tame today.