Lisa Marie’s Week In Television — 3/6/22 — 3/12/22

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched this week!

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

The Resistance was finally able to smuggle the Enigma machine out of Rene’s Cafe. The effort, of course, led to lot of costume changes and many scenes of Rene rolling his eyes in exasperation. But the important thing is that the plan worked and Michelle had to “say this only once.”

American Idol (Sunday Night, ABC)

The judges were in Nashville and almost everyone who auditioned wanted to be country music star. It got kind of boring. A former Miss America auditioned and Katy tried to steal her crown. That was pretty cool. I relate to Katy Perry far more than I relate to Taylor Swift. Eventually, one girl sang while playing the piano and was declared to be the industry’s next big superstar so I guess the show’s over now. Oh well.

Baywatch Hawaii (Prime)

I finally decided to return to my Baywatch Hawaii binge after taking about two months off. To be honest, the only reason why I returned is because I’m a completist and it’s hard for me to abandon anything. It’s certainly not because this show is particularly good or anything like that. There’s a reason why, after months of watching, I’m still struggling to finish up the first season.

Sunday morning, I got things started with an episode in which Jason was sent to the Big Island of Hawaii, where he got in touch with his native heritage by making his own canoe. A grumpy old man assisted him. Seriously, that was the entire episode. This was followed by an episode in which Sean and Jenna teamed up to rescue a few people and to argue about whether or not it was even necessary for the Baywatch Hawaii training facility to even exist. Sean thought it was necessary, which makes sense when you consider that he would be out of a job otherwise. Jenna felt it was a waste of money. Despite being attracted to each other, Sean and Jenna fought and fought. Despite being first-billed in the credits, David Hasselhoff was nowhere to be seen in either of these episodes.

Later that evening, I watched the next episode, which didn’t really have a plot beyond Kekoa and Dawn having a crush on Sean and Jason and JD trying to hit on every woman they saw. This episode basically felt like it had been put together out of scenes that had been edited out of previous episodes. Perhaps it was. Again …. no Hasselhoff!

And, for the rest of the week, I kind of forgot about the show. So, I guess I’ll get back to binging it tomorrow.

The Brady Bunch (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

On Sunday, I was too congested to change the channel so I lay on the couch and I was tortured by the Bradys. The Brady kid fought over a clubhouse. The Brady Kids fought over trading stamps. The Brady Kids fought over a lost wallet. The Brady Kids fought over feminism. The Brady Kids spent a lot of time fighting. I blame the parents.

Court Cam (Wednesday, A&E)

Court Cam has finally produced some new episodes and, as a result, I was shocked to actually see some new footage on Wednesday. For instance, I saw the Naked Cowboy getting detained in Daytona. Court Cam remains an odd show to me, largely because of how worshipful it is of the legal system. The judges are portrayed as being modern day super heroes, quick to exercise their power to find anyone in contempt. The unquestioning embrace of the court system is, overall, probably not a good thing but that’s the way of the world nowadays. My inner libertarian will always have a hard time accepting it, though.

The Dropout (Hulu)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Dropout here!

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

MeTV is currently showing episodes from the first season of Full House. I watched four on Sunday. Every episode has a sort of bizarre train wreck appeal to it, never more so than when Uncle Jesse gets as serious storyline. First, Stephanie cut Jesse’s hair while Jesse was sleeping so Jesse had to go get a real haircut and this led to him crashing his motorcycle and breaking both his arms. Then, Jesse decided that he would rather pursue music with his dorky band than work in the family garage. Jesse’s father was not happy about this but Uncle Jesse was like 40 years old so who cares?

Meanwhile, on another episode, Danny was hired to co-anchor a talk show with Becky (Lori Loughlin). I believe this was Loughlin’s first appearance on the show but she didn’t share any scenes with Jesse. In fact, it almost seemed as if the show was trying to set her up as a future girlfriend for Danny. While this was going on, DJ threw a party and had to kick out several of her guests when they started drinking beer. Fortunately, in the next episode, she got a horse to make up for losing all of her friends.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

Ripped from the headlines! This week’s Law & Order was based on the Gabby Petito case and took a look at the difficulty of solving crimes and getting convictions in the social media era. It wasn’t a bad episode but I still don’t know how I felt about it or this revival overall. The episode was so obviously based on the Petito case that it actually felt a bit exploitive. I mean, I doubt Gabby’s parents took much comfort from the fact that their daughter’s death inspired a TV show.

The Love Boat (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

On today’s cruise: Willie Aames, Morey Amsterdam, Richard Deacon, Elaine Joyce, Susan Lucci, Rose Marie, Michelle Phillips, Tristan Rogers, and Jerry Van Dyke! That’s quite a lineup! Willie Aames thought he could steal Dr. Bricker’s girlfriend! A psychiatrist tried to take a vacation from his therapy group but the group decided to tag along! And, best of all, Susan Lucci played a soap opera writer who fell for Tristan Rogers. This was a cruise to remember!

The Office (Sunday Afternoon, Comedy Central)

I watched the two-part season three finale on Sunday. Jim, Karen, and Michael all went up to New York to interview for a corporate position. Michael withdrew when he realized that Jan was going to get fired. Karen showed zero sympathy for Jan so Jim apparently abandoned her in New York and drove back to Scranton so he could ask Pam out on a date. And, of course, Ryan got the job.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Arkwright and Granville pursued a mouse that had invaded the store. Arkwright continued to obsess on Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. It’s odd that this show apparently ran for 10 years, despite producing only 20 or so episodes.

Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

I reviewed the finale of Pam & Tommy here!

Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I reviewed the season premiere of Survivor here!

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Yay! Talking Dead has returned to the studio. This week’s episode was pretty good, as any episode featuring Chris interviewing Josh McDermitt tends to be. It was also nice to see the return of Michael Cudlitz to the interview couch.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I reviewed the latest episode of The Walking Dead here!

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.11 “Rogue Element” (dir by Michael Cudlitz)

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Whatever else you may or may want to say about The Walking Dead, you’ve got to love Josh McDermitt and his performance as Eugene Porter.

Eugene has consistently been one of the most interesting characters on this show. He’s gone from being an untrustworthy coward to being one of the strongest people on the show. He’s also gone from being the weirdo who made your skin crawl to being the weirdo who you secretly hope will find everything that he’s looking for. The fact of the matter is that, if there was an actual zombie apocalypse, the majority of the survivors wouldn’t be Darryl or Morgan or Carol or Michonne. The majority would be people like Eugene, people who survive through luck and who still hope to find some sort of normalcy. There’s something very touching about the fact that, even in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, Eugene is writing a science fiction novel.

There were a few plotlines playing out in this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. The two reporters tried to investigate what led to Tyler snapping at the Masquerade Ball. Mercer walked around and glowered in his threatening way. Lance took Carol out to the opium camp and made an effort to win her loyalty for the Commonwealth. (At some point, people will learn to stop trying to recruit Carol to their pet causes.) But the episode’s heart was with Eugene and his attempts to discover what had happened to Stephanie. And that’s really were it should have been. Against all odds, Eugene has emerged as the show’s symbol for every person who is trying to survive the zombie apocalypse without surrendering their emotions and their humanity. Back when Eugene first appeared on the show and was lying about being a scientist, who could have guessed that he would still be around? Who would have guessed that he would have outlasted not only Rick but also Carl? Eugene survives.

This episode was directed by Michael Cudlitz, who previously played Abraham on the show. (You may remember that Abraham was murdered by Negan. It was kind of unfair, I thought, that Abraham was sacrificed in order to make it even more shocking when Negan then killed Glenn but that’s The Walking Dead for you. It’s cold world.) Cudlitz brought a lot of noir style to this episode. I especially liked the scene at the end, with Eugene huddled in that dark alley, burning his dreams, while Max emerged from the shadows and introduced herself as being the real Stephanie. If nothing else, this scene showed that The Walking Dead can create an haunting atmosphere, even without using walkers and blood.

The episode was, of course, dominated by Josh McDermitt’s poignant performance as Eugene but I also liked Paola Lazaro’s work as Princess. She and McDermitt make a good team, as do Eugene and Princess. Josh Hamilton continues to do great work as Lance Hornsby. His rather casual dismissal of Eugene’s outrage was one of the episode’s highlights and it brought up an interesting point. Everyone knows the Commonwealth is corrupt but everyone also knows that they’re safer in the Commonwealth than outside of it. People will accept a lot when it comes to staying safe.

Though it took me a few days to find the time to watch it, this was a good episode. I look forward to seeing what happens next!

Spring Break On The Lens: Aileen Wournos: American Boogeywoman (dir by Daniel Farrands)

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021’s Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman, Peyton List stars at Aileen, who prefers to be called Lee. Lee has fled an unpleasant and abusive home in Michigan and she has made her way down to Florida. With no money and no formal education, she’s been forced to make a living as a truck stop prostitute. However, on July 4th, 1976, she happens to stumble across a party on the beach. She befriends Jennifer (Lydia Hearst), who invites Lee to stay at her beach house. Though Lee quickly overstays her welcome, she does meet Jennifer’s widowed father, Lewis Fell (Tobin Bell). Lewis is enchanted by Lee’s crude but enthusiastic personality. Lee is enchanted by Lewis’s money. Soon, they’re married. But when Lewis’s daughter and friends start to dig into Lee’s mysterious past, Lee resorts to murder to protect her secrets.

The idea of making a movie about future serial killer Aileen Wournos hanging out around the Florida beach and marrying the kindly president of a yacht club may sound like an unlikely one but when has that ever stopped anyone? Oddly enough, American Boogeywoman is loosely based on the truth. Before she became the fraggle-toothed serial killer who was immortalized in two Nick Broomfield documentaries and by Charlize Theron in Monster, Aileen Wournos was briefly married to a yacht club president named Lewis Fell. The marriage was even announced in the society pages. Of course, the marriage didn’t last long. Aileen was accused of striking Lewis with his own cane and the two of them ended up getting a divorce. That said, it would appear that the majority of American Boogeywoman was fictionalized. Aileen was never accused of murdering anyone before she started the killing spree that eventually landed her on Florida’s crowded death row. In the film, Aileen also claims to have murdered her own brother after he suddenly turned up in a cheap Florida motel and demanded money. In real life, Aileen’s brother died in Michigan, long after Aileen had cut off contact with her family.

The film opens with Aileen already on death row, talking to a documentarian about her marriage. Occasionally, throughout the film, the documentarian will interrupt Aileen’s story and he’ll point out that what she’s saying doesn’t really make sense. (For instance, he points out that there’s no way that Aileen’s brother could have died in both Florida and Michigan.) For the most part, Aileen shrugs off his comments but the character of the documentarian is an important one. His character serves to comment on the strange nature of fame and crime in America. Aileen Wournos may be an unbalanced killer but she’s also a celebrity. She’s enough of a celebrity, the film tells us, that even after her death, two films will be made about her. One of those films will win an Oscar. The other film will be American Boogeywoman. At its heart, American Boogeywoman is an examination of the morbid streak that secretly runs through American culture. As such, it is slightly more interesting than the typical serial killer exploitation film.

American Boogeywoman was directed by Daniel Farrands, who has recently made a career out of directing somewhat distasteful true crime thrillers. His most famous film, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, is surprisingly effective. His worst film, The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, is perhaps one of the most offensive films made over the past decade. Farrands is not a bad director but his choice in material will always be problematic for many viewers. American Boogeywoman is one of his better films, if just because it has enough self-awareness to realize how ludicrous it all is.

Music Video of the Day: My Love by Florence + The Machine (2022, dir by Autumn de Wilde)

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s music video of the day, we have another atmospheric and rather ominous new video from Florence + The Machine.

Enjoy!

I always able to write my way out
The song always made sense to me
Now I find that when I look down
Every page is empty
There is nothing to describe
Except the moon still bright against the worrying sky
I pray the trees will get their leaves soon
So tell me where to put my love
Do I wait for time to do what it does
I don’t know where to put my love
And when it came,
it was stranger than I had ever imagined
No cracking open of heaven
But quiet and still
All my friends are getting ill
So tell me where to put my love
Do I wait for time to do what it does
I don’t know where to put my love
So tell me where to put my love
Do I wait for time to do what it does
I don’t know where to put my love
My arms emptied, the skies emptied
The billboards emptied
My arms emptied, the skies emptied
The buildings emptied
So tell me where to put my love
Do I wait for time to do what it does
I don’t know where to put my love
My arms emptied, the skies emptied
The billboards emptied
My arms emptied the skies emptied
The buildings emptied

TV Review: The Dropout 1.4 “Old White Men” (dir by Michael Showalter)

Posted on March 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If the first three episodes of Hulu’s The Dropout occasionally seemed as if they might be a bit too sympathetic to Elizabeth Holmes (played, brilliantly so far, by Amanda Seyfried), the fourth episode presented us with Elizabeth in full supervillian mode.

Gone was the socially awkward but well-meaning Elizabeth. Now speaking with her trademark deep voice, wearing her black turtlenecks, and possessing the wide-eyed stare of someone who rarely blinks, Elizabeth spent the fourth episode conning Walgreens into investing in her worthless blood testing machine. When she wasn’t manipulating the Walgreens execs, she was coldly firing poor Ian Gibbons (Stephen Fry) and only bringing him back after the rest of the lab team threatened to quit in protest. Of course, it wasn’t Elizabeth who placed the call to Ian and asked him to return. It was Sunny (Naveen Andrews) and, when Ian returned, he was taken out of the lab and given a desk job.

Yes, it quickly became obvious that Theranos had changed a lot since the previous episode. Security was everywhere, befitting a company that claimed to have come up with revolutionary technology. People in different departments were not allowed to talk to each other. The earnest and free-wheeling atmosphere had been replaced by a slick but curiously impersonal office. Even the quote from Yoda now felt out of place. Yoda would have been fired for asking too many questions.

Of course, the majority of the episode dealt with Elizabeth and Sunny’s attempts to sell their “wellness center” concept to Walgreens. It was an obvious con but the Walgreens execs eventually fell for it. One of them, Jay Rosen (Alan Ruck), fell victim to Elizabeth’s flattery and a belief that Elizabeth represented the future. (In a rather endearing scene, Jay compared Elizabeth to a Katy Perry song.) Another exec, Wade Miquelon (Josh Pais), initially understood that Theranos’s claims were too good to be true but, ultimately, he set aside his concerns when it appeared that Theranos might make a profitable deal with CVS instead. Only Kevin Hunter (Rich Sommer) was able to see through Theranos and, ultimately, his concerns were ignored. Ruck, Pais, and Sommer were all wonderfully cast and they all did a good job of showing how Elizabeth, Sunny, and Theranos were able to con so many people who should have known better. By the end of the episode, Elizabeth has tricked former Secretary of State George Shultz (Sam Waterston, radiating gravitas as only he can) into joining the Board of Directors. While the Walgreens corporate leaders performed an endearingly dorky version of What I Like About You, Kevin Hunter curiously looked at the Edison blood testing machine and Elizabeth coldly looked at him.

After being so disappointed with both Inventing Anna and Pam & Tommy, I resolved to be a little bit more cautious when it comes to overpraising the early episodes of The Dropout. And I do think you could probably make the argument that devoting an entire episode to Walgreens is an example of how a miniseries will occasionally drag a story out and will devote an entire episode to something that could have been handled with just one five-to-ten minute scene. But, when you’ve got a cast this good and writing this sharp, it almost doesn’t matter. Director Michael Showalter did a wonderful job of balancing the cringey humor of the Walgreens plotline with the more emotional moments in which Ian Gibbons dealt with his frustrations over the direction in which Sunny and Elizabeth took Theranos. Even if you don’t already know the details about what ultimately happened to Ian Gibbons, Stephen Fry’s performance will still break you heart. Fry plays Gibbons as a man who, despite advancing age and poor health, refuses to surrender his idealism. That makes him a good scientist but also the perfect victim for Elizabeth and Sunny’s syle of manipulation.

Old White Men was a well-done episode, perhaps one of the best that I’ve seen so far this year. I look forward to seeing where the show takes us next week.

TV Review 1.8 Pam & Tommy “Seattle” (dir by Gwyneth Horder-Payton)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Pam & Tommy comes to an end, not with a hard bang but instead with a flaccid whimper.

The final episode of Pam & Tommy opened with Seth Rogen’s Rand Gauthier wandering around with a pained expression on his face. Apparently, this was the one thing that Rand was good at. Rand has been beating up people who owe Butchie money but it’s starting to trouble him. Rand believes in karma and thinks that being a glorified mob enforcer will turn karma against him. Or maybe being a glorified mob enforcer is karma’s way of punishing Rand for stealing a sex tape and trying to sell it online in the first place. It’s hard to say. All I know is that there was way too much Rand and way too much karma talk for me. The show may be based on what Rand claims actually happened to him but the idea of Rand, with his mom jeans and his mullet, becoming a feared debt collector is simply a bit too much. Perhaps because he was just as sick of listening to Rand whine as the rest of us, Butchie offered to let Rand off the hook if Rand would simply pay him $10,000. Rand, of course, doesn’t have $10,000, despite being responsible for coming up with the most profitable and lucrative use of the internet ever. Loser!

Meanwhile, Tommy attempts to make a musical comeback by imitating the 90s Seattle sound while an actual resident of Seattle, Seth Warshovsky (Fred Hechinger), offers to buy the rights to Pam and Tommy’s sex tape. On the one hand, selling the rights to Warshovsky will allow Warshovsky to sue anyone who is distributing and making money off of bootlegged copies. On the other hand, it will also lead people to assume that Pam and Tommy were behind the video’s initial release. Pam wants to do it. Tommy refuses. Their marriage starts to crumble. The episode insinuates that the tape caused Pam to miss out on opportunities to appear in both L.A. Confidential and Austin Powers which …. yeah. I’m honestly going to say that, as far as Pam not becoming a movie star and losing roles to Kim Basinger and Elizabeth Hurley, there may have been factors in play other than the sex tape and hypocritical American puritanism. One can sympathize with what Pam went through while also still being honest about the fact that she was never a particularly good actress. If anything, her talent and persona were perfect for television.

After 8 hours, the finale of Pam & Tommy didn’t add up too much. We start to see that Pam is getting sick of Tommy’s immaturity and that Tommy can’t control his temper, even around Pam. But it’s not until the end title cards that we’re informed that Pam and Tommy divorced after Tommy was arrested and did jail time for spousal abuse. (We’re also told that both Pam and Tommy consider each other but the love of their lives, which is kind of a bold statement to make when neither Pam nor Tommy had anything to do with the production of Pam & Tommy.) Seth Warshovsky pays Rand a total of $10,000 for the original copy of the sex tape and then goes on to make several million dollars off of it. Rand considers using the money to settle his debt with Butchie but instead he gives the money to his ex-wife because that’s what karma would want him to do. (One has to wonder if anyone involved with Pam & Tommy ever watched a little show called My Name Is Earl.) Those helpful title cards inform us that Rand moved to North California and now works as a marijuana grower and that he still struggles to get people to believe that he’s the man who actually stole the tape. It doesn’t mention whether he did anything about his hair.

The main problem with Pam & Tommy is that the story itself just wasn’t interesting enough to demand 8 hours of screen time. The second biggest problem, and this is a problem with a lot of streaming miniseries, is that the show itself never really settled on a consistent tone. Was it a drama or was it a live action cartoon? The show couldn’t seem to make up its mind. Themes were raised and then abandoned, as if the show itself was desperately trying to justify its existence. Lily James gave a good performance as Pam. Sebastin Stan has a few good moments as Tommy Lee. Seth Rogen, Taylor Schilling, Andrew “Dice” Clay, and Nick Offerman all gave their characters one-note interpretations that didn’t add up too much. Considering the talent involved, it’s all a bit of a shame.

Oh well. It’s over now.

Spring Break on the Lens: You Get Me (dir by Brent Bonacorso)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, the beach.

The beach is a beautiful and fun place and the perfect location to celebrate a spring or summer break. But beware of getting carried away with your youthful revelries because it can lead to complications that will follow you into the fall. And those complications can be deadly….

BLEH!

Okay, sorry for all the drama. I’m just trying to make myself feel some sort of enthusiasm for reviewing the 2017 Netflix film, You Get Me. You Get Me is technically not a spring break movie but it does take place on the beach and it does feature a moderate amount of drinking, drug-taking, and partying so, it’s close enough. It also features a cast of 20-something actors cast as high school students. Some are more believable than others.

Basically, dumb and dull teenager Tyler (Taylor John Smith) is having the best summer of his life because he has a girlfriend named Ali (Halston Sage), who he is totally in love with. (Ali could probably do better but whatever. Everyone makes mistakes in high school.) Tyler is also frustrated because Ali wants to wait before having sex with him and she also doesn’t understand why Tyler has been so hesitant to introduce her to his dysfunctional family. When Tyler goes to a party and runs into a guy from Ali’s past, he learns that Ali used to be much wilder. Angry that Ali hasn’t been honest with him, big dumb Tyler gets drunk and runs off with Holly (Bella Throne), a girl who he has only known for an hour. They go dancing. Holly offers Tyler a pill. Tyler isn’t sure he’s ready for that. “You swallow, I swallow,” Holly tells him. Tyler and Holly spend a passionate weekend together but, afterwards, Tyler and Ali get back together, with Ali promising that she’ll tell Tyler everything about her past. “No more secrets,” Tyler agrees, despite the fact that he’s now keeping a secret of his own.

Fortunately, Holly was only visiting for the summer and it’s not like Tyler will ever see her again so …. OH MY GOODNESS, LOOK WHO JUST SHOWED UP AT TYLER’S HIGH SCHOOL! Holly now goes to the same school as Tyler and her new best friend is Ali! Tyler asks Holly not to tell Ali anything about their weekend together. Holly, however, has stopped taking her meds (seriously, that’s a plot point) and has decided that if she can’t have Tyler, no one will. Soon, Holly is claiming to be pregnant and serving peanut-laced smoothies to people with food allergies. Have you ever noticed how people in movies like this always have a best friend who suffers from a food allergy?

I’m probably making You Get Me sound more fun than it actually is. It’s actually an extremely bland movie and a surprisingly tame one. At her best, Bella Thorne is less an actress and more an agent of chaos. She gets a few opportunities to be enjoyably evil in You Get Me but the script, for whatever reason, often seems to be more concerned with boring old Tyler. Perhaps if Taylor John Smith and Halston Sage had at least a little bit of romantic chemistry, we would care about what happens to Tyler and Ali but they don’t. Since they don’t really seem to be that into each other, it’s a little bit hard to get upset when Holly comes between them.

The beach, I will say, looked lovely. And I really liked Holly’s house. And, as I mentioned earlier, there were a few moments when Bella Thorne’s demented performance brought some life to the anemic proceedings. But, for the most part, You Get Me is forgettable. It did not get me.

Spring Break On The Lens: Shag (dir by Zelda Barron)

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the setting of the 1989 film, Shag: The Movie!

We know that we’re in South Carolina because everyone is speaking with the type of overbaked Southern accents that you only hear in the movies. And you know it’s the beach because of all the sand, the bathing suits, and the spring breakers. Everyone’s listening to that rock and roll music. Everyone’s dancing. There’s a lot of Confederate flags around, mostly because the movie was made in the 80s and it’s taking place in the South. If the movie were made today, it would probably take place in New Jersey and everyone would be debating whether or not Christopher Columbus was a hero or not.

Though the movie was made in 1989, it takes place in 1963. We know that the movie takes place in 1963 because everyone in the movie keeps mentioning how it’s 1963. One character mentions having sexual fantasies about President Kennedy, which scandalizes all of her friends. Another character won’t stop talking about how much he enjoyed Paul Newman’s performance in The Hustler. (The Hustler came out in 1961, though, so I think the dude needs to get with the times and watch Tom Jones.) Everyone’s dancing the Shag. Of course, since this is a film about how innocent the world was in 1963, there’s no talk of the growing American presence in Vietnam or anything like that. This is the 1963 of the popular imagination, the 1963 that one visualizes after watching a hundred movies about spring break in the early 60s.

Anyway, Shag follows four friends as they have a wild week in Myrtle Beach. They’re recent high school graduates. Melaina (Bridget Fonda) is the wild preacher’s daughter. Louanne (Paige Hannah) is the responsible one, who wears horn-rimmed glasses. Pudge (Annabeth Gish) is the friend who needs better friends or, at the very least, friends who won’t give her a cruel nickname. Carson (Phoebe Cates) is the responsible girl who is about to marry the level-headed Harley (Tyrone Power, Jr.) After telling their parents that their going to Ft. Sumter to learn about the Civil War, they instead head down to Myrtle Beach. Melania enters a beauty contest. Pudge enters a shag contest with Chip (Scott Coffey). Carson finds herself tempted by Chip’s friend, the Yale-bound Buzz (Robert Rusler). And Louanne is tempted by Harley, who eventually comes to Myrtle Beach himself to try to understand why Carson is being so irresponsible.

There aren’t really many surprising moments to be found in Shag. From the minute that we first see Carson trying on her wedding dress, we know that there’s no way she’s still going to be engaged by the time the movie comes to its conclusion. By that same token, we also know that Melaina is not going to be as wild as she tries to present herself as being and that Pudge is going to find her confidence and that Louanne is eventually going to let her hair down, if just for a few minutes. It’s a predictable movie but the cast is likable and there’s a lot of dancing, which is always a plus as far as I’m concerned. Admittedly, Cates and Rusler are a bit bland as the main couple. Instead, Annabeth Gish and Scott Coffey are the cast stand-outs. I also have to say that I really liked the performance of Tyrone Power, Jr. Harley is kind of a thankless role but Power manages to make him at least a little sympathetic. At the very least, Carson doesn’t come across like a fool for considering him as a possible husband.

Shag is a likeable film, even if it’s not exactly groundbreaking. And did I mention that there’s dancing?

Spring Break On The Lens: The Real Cancun (dir by Rick de Oliveira)

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember The Real Cancun?

This 2003 film tells the story of 16 good-looking and not particularly intelligent college students who go to Cancun for spring break. For 8 days, they all live in the same beach house and they get to know each other. They drink. They flirt. A few of them hook up but perhaps not as many as you would expect. The dorky virgin dude says that he just wants to see “boobies” and then gets drunk off of one shot. Two platonic friends debate whether they should take their relationship to the next level. The women wear bikinis. The men wear speedos. There are bare boobs and behinds galore. Snoop Dogg makes a special guest appearance. One spring breaker get stung by a jelly fish so her new roommate pours a cup of urine on her ankle. Good thing he had already had ten beers that morning! What fun!

If this sounds like a typical spring break film, that’s because it is a typical spring break film but with one big difference. It was produced by the people behind MTV’s The Real World and, as such, the 16 spring breakers are sold as being real people who are spontaneously acting like a bunch of movie characters. In 2003, reality tv was still a relatively exotic concept and this film was an attempt to take the genre’s cheap aesthetic to the cinematic level. Even more importantly, it was an attempt to duplicate the success of Girls Gone Wild, without actually admitting to being inspired by that sleazy enterprise. As such, there’s a lot of nudity but there’s a strange lack of actual sex. There’s a lot of drinking but there’s not much drunkenness. It’s an oddly tame look at spring break, one that promises debauchery but which doesn’t deliver anything that would have kept the film out of theaters or off the cable networks. I got more wild on my spring breaks than anyone in this film and I don’t even drink.

The film’s “stars” are all pretty bland and it’s not a surprise that, with one exception, none of them have appeared in anything other than The Real Cancun. (That one exception is Laura Ramsey, who went on to have a somewhat busy acting career after appearing as herself in this film.) The film manages to make nudity boring. Seen today, The Real Cancun works best as a time capsule, largely because it was filmed at a time when there was no social media and, even more importantly, no phones. Everyone is attracted to the crew and their bulky film cameras because there aren’t any other cameras around to record them and make them famous. Today, anyone can make their own Real Cancun and post it to YouTube. In 2003, if you wanted a shot at that type of fame, you had to audition and be selected to appear in a “documentary.”

Apparently, The Real Cancun was meant to be the first part of a Real World cinematic franchise. The first Jackass film had come out the previous year so MTV was enthusiastic about producing cheap reality movies. However, The Real Cancun was such a huge flop at the box office that it killed those plans. There would be other Jackass films, of course. But the Real World Cinematic Universe imploded as soon as it began. And for that, we should probably be thankful.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/27/22 — 3/5/22

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yes, I watched a lot this week. Here’s some thoughts:

Allo Allo (Monday Morning, PBS)

Rene attempted to abandon his wife and his café so that he could elope with Yvette but Michelle had one “last” mission for him. It involved smuggling the Enigma machine to the British via the sewer system and, needless to say, it involved a lot of digging. It made me laugh, that’s what is important.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

You can read my thoughts on the finale here! I wasn’t particularly happy about who won but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

American Idol (Sunday Night, ABC)

I am as stunned as anyone by the fact that American Idol still exists. I stopped caring about the show a lifetime ago but I still watched the premiere of the latest season on Sunday because I was cleaning around the house and I thought it would make for acceptable background nose. I love Katy Perry but the rest of the judges are pretty dull. No one’s willing to be as mean as Simon Cowell was back in the day. The whole thing is just too damn positive.

The Bachelor (Monday Night, ABC)

I haven’t really been keeping up with this season but I did watch Monday’s episode, just to see if the Claytonbot had developed any sort of individual personality over the past few weeks. He has not but apparently, everyone can still see themselves falling in love with him and spending the rest of their life with him.

Bar Rescue (Friday Morning, Paramount)

It had been a while since I watched Bar Rescue so I watched the Friday morning bloc of reruns. I guess, due to the fact that I don’t drink, I always find it amusing how worked up everyone on the show gets over the mismanaged bars. Whenever Taffer starts to yell about a bartender not knowing how to make a certain cocktail, I’m always like, “Well, can’t you just order something else?”

Couples Court With The Cutlers (Sunday Afternoon, OWN TV)

I had forgotten this show existed but when I stumbled across it on Sunday, I have to admit that I immediately got sucked into the case of Bacon vs. Bacon and the question of whether or not Mrs. Bacon was cheating on Mr. Bacon. They even brought in a cybersecurity expert to go through Mrs. Bacon’s phone and it was discovered that she was using an app to send out secret text messages! Mrs. Bacon claimed she was talking to other men but not actually cheating with them. However, “licensed polygraph examiner Kendall Shull,” (as he’s called in every single episode) determined that she was cheating. Mr. Bacon walked out on her husband while the audience gasped. Poor Mr. Bacon! I later looked this episode up on the imdb and I discovered that it was 5 years old so I can only imagine how the Bacons feel whenever they come across it playing on TV.

Court Cam (Wednesday, A&E)

To be honest, I thought this show had been canceled but, on Wednesday, I discovered that it still exists and it’s going strong. Featuring actual court footage and breathlessly narrated by Dan Abrams, Court Cam is the equivalent of true crime junk food. I watched about four episodes. Judges yelled. Defendants yelled. The bailiffs were ready to spring into action. The lawyers were usually smart enough to stay out of the way.

The Dropout (Hulu)

I wrote about the latest Hulu miniseries here!

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

Uncle Jesse was upset that he wasn’t getting to spend as much time with his cool friends as he wanted to because he was always spending all of his time taking care of Danny’s children. So, Jesse went skiing with his old friends but they all turned out to be just as dorky as Joey and Danny so I kind of think Jesse was fooling himself as far as the old gang was concerned. Jesse’s life didn’t get any better in the episode that followed, as he was forced to take a job as an Elvis impersonator to pay the bills. Poor Jesse! At least he had adequate hair.

Inventing Anna (Netflix)

I watched episodes 3, 4, and 5 of Inventing Anna early Monday morning. They didn’t do too much for me, largely because Vivian isn’t a very interesting character and every minute that we have to spend listening to her whine about her career is a minute that we’d rather be spending with Anna and her wealthy friends. This show makes a lot more sense once you know that the journalist upon whom Vivian Kent is based is also one of the producers. She made the mistake of thinking she was the star of the story.

King of the Hill (Hulu and FXX)

On Sunday morning, I watched three episodes of King of the Hill on Hulu. The first featured the possibility of Bobby being a reincarnated holy man. The second found Peggy getting involved with a pyramid scheme. (“No, it’s a triangle.”) And the third featured Hank getting a haircut from Bill and then demanding that the Army charge him for it. It turns out that it costs $900 for the army to give a man a haircut.

I watched two episodes of FXX on Wednesday. One episode featured Hank becoming the substitute shop teacher and teaching the kids how to fix things. Unfortunately, he had the kids bring tools from home and that got him fired. I love this episode, largely because of the wonderful voice over work of the late Dennis Burkley, who played Principal Moss. This was followed by Aisle 8A, in which Connie spent a memorable few days with the Hills and Hank had to find the courage to take a trip down Aisle 8A.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

I watched the latest episode of Law & Order to see if McCoy had gotten around to firing his ludicrously idealistic Executive D.A. yet. He had not.

This week’s episode was based on the relationship of Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani so it was interesting to watch it after having binged the first three episodes of The Dropout. It was an okay episode, even if it still sometimes seemed to be trying a bit too hard. The Law & Order revival needs to calm down a little and give the new characters (and the actors playing them) a chance to define who they are.

I kept hoping the ghost of Adam Schiff would materialize and rasp, “Take the deal….”

Law & Order: SVU (Thursday Night, NBC)

What if Joe Rogan confessed to a decades-old murder!? Well, I guess you’d have to send someone in undercover to catch him. This was not one of SVU‘s better episodes.

The Love Boat (Sunday Evening, MeTV)

On Sunday’s cruise, Kim Richards played a 13 year-old who, after putting on a good deal of makeup and taking off her glasses, could pass for a 22 year-old. Fortunately, Gopher found out the truth about her age before committing a crime. Meanwhile, Eve Plumb learned to forgive the man who she thought was her father for walking out on the family 20 years earlier. Yay! Quite a cruise.

Open All Hours (Monday Morning, PBS)

A woman wished Granville a happy birthday so Arkwright pushed Granville off of a step ladder. This is something that appeared to happen fairly frequently with Granville. He was always getting shoved off something. Poor guy.

Pam and Tommy (Hulu)

I reviewed the latest episode of Pam & Tommy here. Unfortunately, the character of Rand Gauthier has returned. I’m glad this show is almost over.

The SAG Awards (Sunday Night, TNT)

I caught the second airing of the awards. It was nice to see CODA win the award for Best Ensemble. I loved Marlee Matlin’s speech.

Secrets of Playboy (Monday Night, A&E)

This A&E docuseries is all about exposing Hugh Hefner as being kind of a creep. The episodes that I saw on Monday certainly accomplished that goal. It’s kind of amazing that, for years, Hefner was able to get away with presenting himself as being some sort of benevolent father figure when basically, he was just a jerk with a mansion and smoking jacket.

Silk Stalkings (IMDB TV)

On Wednesday, I returned to binging Silk Stalkings. I started with the 35th episode of the series, which was called Dead Weight and featured Chris and Rita investigating the murder of a businessman who was played by John O’Hurley. I was pretty sure that I had seen this episode before but no matter. It was fun and trashy and O’Hurley played his brief role like a soap opera villain come to life. The 36th episode was called Kid Stuff and it told the story of a 17 year-old prostitute who shot her older lover’s wife. The older man was a doctor who was played by the great Andrew Stevens. Even by the standards of Silk Stalkings, this was a sordid episode but that’s one of the fun things about Silk Stalkings. It may have been shameless but it also clearly wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. Later, that night, I watched the 37th episode, in which Chris and Rita investigated a shooting that was connected to a couple’s kinky sex game. That said, Chris was more concerned that Rita might accept a job offer and move to San Diego. Awwwww! No need to worry, Chris! Rita would never leave you!

Thursday, I watched Episode #38. After a murder turned out to be connected to a shady modeling company (which was actually a front for a trafficking scheme), Chris and Rita went undercover! Chris pretended to be a mobster! Rita pretended to be a model! Any episode in which Chris and Rita go undercover is guaranteed to be a gem, especially if it requires Chris to wear a red suit and talk tough. This was followed by an episode in which Chris and Rita investigated a death at a birthday party and Rita dealt with some issues from her traumatic childhood. It was actually a pretty effective episode. As silly as the mysteries on the show were, both Mitzi Kapture and Rob Estes were good actors who managed to find a sort of emotional reality amongst all the neon and lingerie.

Finally, on Friday, I watched Episode #40, “Soul Kiss.” Chris and Rita investigated what appeared to be a suicide but what was actually a murder that was connected to a tantric sex seminar. Rita was intrigued but Chris thought it was silly to suggest that he needed a seminar to learn anything new. Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture both kind of laughed their way through this episode.

Snowpiercer (Sunday Night, TNT)

I watched Snowpiercer while waiting for the second showing of the SAG Awards to begin. Visually, it’s an impressive show and there’s a lot of actors in the cast who I like. And I also liked the movie upon which the show is based. That said, I don’t have the slightest idea what was going on in the majority of the episode.

South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)

This week, South Park not only took on Russian aggression but it also took a look at the way adults specialize in scaring and emotionally traumatizing children “for their own good.” As usually happens in a time of crisis, South Park was the only show to come across as being the least bit sensible. The new episode was followed by the “Zipline” episode from 2012. That episode was only ten years old but seemed to come from a totally different universe.

The State of the Union (Hulu)

I skipped the State of the Union address on Tuesday and I wasn’t planning on watching it at all but then I heard from several people about how weird it was so I decided to give it a watch. And yes, it was very, very weird. All of our leaders are very, very weird and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. What’s the deal with Biden’s creepy whispering thing? Can no one tell him not to do that? For that matter, most of the members of Congress appear to be deeply weird as well. As much as we Americans love watching British and Canadian lawmakers heckle their prime ministers, we’re still not used to the idea of people in Congress doing it to the president. At times, I felt like I was watching a sci-fi film in which society had moved underground.

My main impression is that this country is led by a group of very old people. Maybe we should try electing some younger people the next time we have the opportunity. Just a thought.

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Just like last week, Talking Dead did not feature a studio audience and, as a result, it fell somewhat flat.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I like the Commonwealth. Their Halloween looked fun and I don’t really care about the income inequality. The world’s ending. Let people enjoy themselves, Carol. I reviewed the latest episode of The Walking Dead here.

Worst Roommate Ever (Netflix)

Netflx’s latest true crime series tells the story of four terrible roommates. Three of them turned out to be murderers. The other one attempted to kill two people that we know about and the fact that both of them survived is something of a miracle. I binged this frequently fascinating but often disturbing series on Tuesday morning, before Erin and I left to the vote in the Texas primaries. The fact that this series is only five episodes long and doesn’t resort to dragging out any of the stories that it tells should really serve as a lesson for some other showrunners out there. That said, I also have to say that the final two episodes, which dealt with the nightmarish crimes of Jamison Branch, left me feeling deeply unsettled and there’s a part of me that wishes that I hadn’t watched them.