Tag Archives: review

Film Review: Rambo: First Blood Part II (dir by George Pan Cosmatos)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Three years after blowing up the town of Hope, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is …. workin’ on the chain gang…. (I hope you sang it.)  However, Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) has a suggestion for Rambo.  He can get a full pardon if he infiltrates Vietnam and investigates what might be a POW camp….

So begins 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II!

When viewers first met John Rambo in 1982’s First Blood, he was a drifter who was obviously uncomfortable with dealing with other people.  Haunted by both his experiences in Vietnam and the way he was treated when he returned to his own country, Rambo was someone who largely wanted to be left alone.  He was the ultimate outsider.  When he asked Brian Dennehy’s Sherriff Teasle where he could get a cop of coffee, Teasle told him to go over the border and have his coffee in Canada.  (Is there anything more insulting than to tell a Vietnam veteran to go to Canada like a draft dodger?)  Rambo was someone who could take care of himself.  He was someone who knew how to survive in the wilderness.  But, in the first movie, he was not superhuman.  Rambo was considerably banged up by the end of First Blood.  The other thing that is sometimes overlooked is that, as far as his time in Hope was concerned, Rambo never deliberately killed anyone.  The only person who died in First Blood was a sadistic police officer who was so determined to get a shot at Rambo that he accidentally tumbled out of a helicopter.  When Rambo fought, it was in self-defense.  Rambo had plenty of opportunities (and, by today’s cultural standards, reasons) to kill Sheriff Teasle and his deputies but he didn’t.  Things are a bit different in the sequel.  Rambo: First Blood Part II transforms Rambo from a relatively realistic character into the comic book action hero that everyone knows today.  Rambo’s gone from being a hulking drifter to being a muscle-bound warrior.

The film doesn’t waste any time getting Rambo out of prison and over to Thailand.  The obviously duplicitous Murdock (Charles Napier) tells Rambo that his mission is solely to take pictures and not to engage with the enemy.  (You may be wondering why anyone would recruit Rambo for a mission that doesn’t involve engaging with the enemy and it’s a fair question.)  Soon, Rambo is in the jungles of Vietnam, meeting up with a rebel named Co (Julia Nickson), and heading up river with a bunch of pirates.  Needless to say, Rambo is soon engaging with the enemy.

Rambo: First Blood Part II is an undeniably crude film.  Clocking in at 96 minutes, the film makes it clear that it doesn’t have any time to waste with characterization or debate.  Sylvester Stallone rewrote James Cameron’s original script and he gives a performance that has little of the nuance that was present in the first film.  And yet, the film has an undeniable hypnotic power to it.  It’s pure action.  Rambo exists to blow up his enemies, whether it’s with a gun or an explosive arrow or the missiles fired from a stolen helicopter.  Because the bad guys are all arrogant sadists who exist to remind American viewers of the humiliation of its first military defeat, there’s an undeniable pleasure in watching them get defeated by one motivated warrior who refuses to be held back by the paper pushers in charge.  Murdock tells Rambo not to rescue any POWs.  Rambo responds by machine gunning Murdock’s office.  It’s pure wish fulfillment and it is cathartic to watch.  It’s perhaps even more cathartic to watch today, after the twin traumas of the COVID lockdowns and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Murdock becomes a stand-in for every incompetent bureaucrat who ever let America down.  The Murdock who tells Rambo not to rescue any Americans is little different from the men who told business that they had to close and who tried to dictate whether or not people could leave their homes.  The Murdock who was prepared to leave American behind is the same person who did leave Americans behind in Kabul.  Rambo’s anger is the anger of everyone who values freedom above obedience.

Rambo kills a lot of people in the sequel but none of them are American.  He’s a patriot, albeit an angry one who will never forgive his country for not caring about its veterans as much as they cared about it.  “Do we get to win this time?” Rambo ask Trautman and it’s a moment that, like much of the movie, is both crudely simplistic but is powerful in its refusal to be complicated.  Rambo: First Blood Part II is a fantasy but it’s also a plea to be allowed to succeed.  Forget the rules.  Forget the regulations.  Just allow the people to win.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Jack Cardiff)

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (dir by David Wain)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was recently trying to remember if I had ever seen a truly great (as opposed to just good) film about a comedian.  The closest I could come up with was the original Fame but, while that film does feature Barry Miller as an aspiring comedian, he’s only a part of the ensemble.  He’s not the sole focus of the film and his most memorable moment is when he get taunted by Richard Belzer and then bombs on stage.

Why do movies about comedians often seem to fail?  Some of that is because they star people who aren’t necessarily believable as comedians (The Comedian) and they try to cover up that fact by including way too many shots of people laughing uproariously in response (Man of the Year, the HBO television series I’m Dying Up Here).  Another major problem is that comedians themselves tend to be a bit difficult to take when they’re not on stage.  Having to spend 90 to 120 minutes hanging out with a group of emotionally closed-off people who won’t stop trying to be funny can be exhausting.  It’s really not as surprise that many movies  (Lenny, Funny People, Joker) about comedians tend to portray them as being seriously damaged people.  Punchline is an interesting example of a film that managed to feature not only a miscast and not particularly funny star (Sally Field, in this case) but also a group of comedians (led by Tom Hanks) who come across as being a real chore to hang out with.

All of that brings us to 2018’s A Futile And Stupid Gesture, an exhausting biopic about National Lampoon-founder Doug Kenney.  The film establishes itself from the start by featuring a gray-haired Martin Mull as who Doug Kenney would have grown up to be if he hadn’t died mysteriously at the age of 33.  While Mull narrates, Will Forte (who was so brilliant in Nebraska) plays the youngish Kenney.  Meanwhile, a host of 21st century comedy all-stars play the comedy all-stars of the 1970s, with only Joel McHale’s Chevy Chase and Nelson Franklin’s PJ O’Rourke making much of an impressions.  Our narrator mentions that most of the actors don’t look like the characters that they’re playing because this is the type of movie where the fourth wall is repeatedly broken.  A lot of people credit Adam McKay with making it trendy to break the fourth wall.  In reality, it was Michael Winterbottom with 24-Hour Party People.  Either way, it’s one of those things that’s been done so many times that it no longer feels the least bit subversive.  A Futile and Stupid Gesture is so extremely stylized (here comes another fantasy sequence!) that it actually feels more desperate than clever.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture is a tiring film, largely because everyone in the movie is such a quip machine that you get sick of listening to them after the first few minutes.  The film makes the argument that Kenney’s refusal to stop making jokes was because of the trauma of losing his brother when he was younger but that still doesn’t make the film’s version of Kenney any less exhausting as a character.  To be honest, though, just about every character in the film is exhausting.  So many famous lines are uttered that I was ready to throw a shoe at the television by the time Michael O’Donoghue (Thomas Lennon) said, “I don’t write for felt.”  Between this film and Saturday Night, I’ll be very happy to never see another movie featuring someone playing Michael O’Donoghue.

It’s a shame it’s not a better film because one does get the feeling that the film was coming from a place of love.  Director David Wain has directed some funny movies and he was one of the people behind Children’s Hospital, one of my favorite shows.  I wanted to like this film and I feel a little bit guilty that I didn’t.  But, in the end, it’s hard not to feel that maybe a better tribute to Doug Kenney would have been to have filmed Bored of the Rings.

Song of the Day: El Chacal by Carlos Puebla

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With today being May Day, it seems appropriate that today’s song of the day should be this blistering attack on Che Guevara, a racist and misogynistic sociopath who far too many people view as being a hero just because his face looks good on a t-shirt.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.3 “The Hot Grounder”

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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the police commissioner is suspected of murder!

Episode 1.3 “The Hot Grounder”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on October 5th, 1984)

After the police commissioner’s wife is blown up by a car bomb, all the homicide detectives hide out in the bathroom because they don’t want to get assigned the case.  Captain Cain still manages to track them down and gives the case to Hunter and McCall.  When McCall asks Hunter why he didn’t do a better job hiding, Hunter replies, “I’m too tall!”

Hunter and McCall soon come to suspect that Commissioner Crenshaw (William Windom) had his wife killed.  Because Crenshaw was being blackmailed with photographs of him with another man, his wife was threatening to divorce him.  Despite all of the evidence against Crenshaw, the police chief (Jason Bernard) tries to protect him.  Hunter and McCall find themselves suspended from the force.  They still manage to prove Crenshaw’s guilt.  Crenshaw goes to prison and Hunter and McCall get their badges back.

This episode felt like a rough draft.  I enjoyed the humor at the start of it.  All of the detectives trying to hide felt very realistic.  Dryer was always obviously still getting comfortable with the role when this episode was shot but his jokes were well-delivered.  That said, the mystery itself felt half-baked and William Windom was not particularly believable in his role.  By the end of the episode, Hunter had been reduced to repeating, “Works for me,” over and over again.

This episode didn’t really work for me.  It was obvious that the show was still trying to figure out who Hunter and McCall were and how they would react to each other.  As such, their chemistry felt off in this episode and the end result was forgettable.

Retro Television Review: Decoy 1.29 “Cry Revenge”

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 Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958.  The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, Casey gets involved in a domestic drama.

Episode 1.29 “Cry Revenge”

(Dir by David Alexander, originally aired on April 28th, 1958)

Mrs. Hart (Fran Carlon) has been getting threatening phone calls from criminal James Anderson (Lee Bergere), who is trying to keep Mrs. Hart from testifying against him in court.  Casey is sent over to the Hart home to provide 24-hour protection.  It’s there that she meets Norma (Zohra Lampert), Mrs. Hart’s club-footed daughter.  Norma blames her mother for both her father’s death and her disability.

Norma stuns everyone when she announces that she has married Howard Farley (Lonny Chapman), one of Anderson’s criminal associates.  Norma is getting back at her mother but what she doesn’t realize is that Howard only married her so that he and James could rob the family business!

Casey didn’t really get to do much in this episode, as she herself admitted at the end of the episode.  (In her closing  monologue, she tells us that she’ll always think of the Harts whenever she wonders what happens behind the curtains of a seemingly perfect home.)  This episode is a bit of a soap opera, with Norma eventually discovering the truth about her alcoholic father and how he was responsible for her twisted foot.

Zohra Lampert, who previously appeared on this show as the victim of a heroin dealer, gives a good performance as Norma, playing her as being both vulnerable and vindictive.  This episode eventually got a bit too overwrought for its own good but Lampert made the episode worth watching.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.12 “Of Scalpers and Superstars”

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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, OJ’s in trouble!

Episode 3.12 “Of Scalpers and Superstars”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 9th, 1987)

O.J. Simpson gets arrested!

Okay, technically, OJ Simpson is not the one being arrested.  He’s just playing TD Parker, the Bulls’s general manager.  TD is the one who is arrested at the end of this episode after being framed for stealing 5,000 ticket to the Championship Game and selling to a ticket scalper.  Still, as is so often the case with this show, the casting of OJ Simpson does bring a while new layer to the action of meaning to the action onscreen.

Who framed TD?  The answer is Dolph Crane (Forry Smith), a former player who was cut from the team.  Dolph has never appeared on the show before but, judging from what TD says when he sees Dolph hanging around the stadium, it seems that Dolph was cut last season.  One of the things that I’ve noticed about 1st & Ten is that new characters will often pop up out of nowhere and people will act as if they’ve been there the whole time.  Dolph appears to be one of those pop-up character.  Dolph mentions that he’s now dating TD’s former mistress.  Dolph and the owner of Arizona’s team are the ones who conspire to take out TD.  Hopefully, they didn’t plant a bloody glove anywhere in the office.

The Bulls are going to the Championship Game …. again!  Maybe they’ll actually win this time.  This is their third trip to the game, after all.  It’ll be kind of sad if they win without Coach Denardo, though.  Coach Grier just isn’t as much fun as foul-mouthed Ernie Denardo.

The entire team gets mad at Yinessa.  After getting injured during a game, he decides that he needs to make as much money as possible so he allows his agent (Bobby Hosea) to promote him as being the “star” of the team.  The rest of the team feels that isn’t fair.  The thing is, though …. Yinessa is kind of the star.  He’s the quarterback.  If he has a bad day, the team doesn’t win.  The Bulls are a bunch of crybabies.  When they find out that a team music video is being reimagined as a Yinessa music video, they literally look like they’re about to break down in tears.  No wonder they always lose the Championship Game.

This episode ended wth the Bulls heads to the Championship and OJ heading to jail.  That seems about right.  Good luck to the team!

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.17 “Aunt Emma, I Love You/Hoopla/The First Romance”

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!

Set sail for adventure, your heart on a new romance….

Episode 7.17 “Aunt Emma, I Love You/Hoopla/The First Romance”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on January 21st, 1984)

This episode is just silly.

Sid Casear and Rose Marie play newlyweds who are on their honeymoon cruise.  The only problem is that Rose Marie has brought along a picture of her Aunt Emma, who never approved of Sid Caesar.  Aunt Emma always wanted to go on a cruise but having her picture around is seriously cramping Sid Caesar’s style.

Teenage Philip McKeon is expecting to meet his father (Bert Convy) on the boat.  Instead, he meets Convy’s secretary (Irena Ferris).  Son and secretary fall for each other.  The only problem is that the secretary has already fallen for the father!  And soon, the father is on the boat as well!

That said, neither one of those stories really matter.  This episode’s main focus is on the Harlem Globetrotters, who are taking the cruise to Mexico, where they’re supposed to play an exhibition game.  Isaac’s friend (Darrow Igus) is the manager of the Globetrotters and he’s already sold a lot of tickets to the game.  Unfortunately, when the stadium is flooded, the game is cancelled.  It looks like Igus is going to be broke and fired.  Wait a minute — what if the Globetrotters play a game on the boat?  And what if the other team is made up of the Love Boat crew!?

Uhmm …. would that really be a workable solution?  I mean, imagine that you spent a lot of money to see a basketball game in a stadium.  Now, imagine being told that the game will instead take place in a small dining room on a cruise ship and that one of the teams is going to be exclusively made up of middle-aged white people, with the exception of one unathletic teenage girl.  I might not demand all of my money back but I would probably ask for at least half of it.

Needless to say, the Globetrotters win the game.  The Love Boat band plays a really sad-sounding version of Sweet Georgia Brown.  The whole thing is just odd.

As I said, it was a very silly cruise.

Song of the Day: Main Title Theme From Dirty Harry by Lalo Schifrin

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day comes from 1971’s Dirty Harry. Composer Lalo Schifrin’s moody score remains one of the best cop film scores of all time.  It’s efficient, relentless, and deceptively low-key, just like “Dirty Harry” Callahan himself.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.1 “Glass Houses”

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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, we start season 4!

Episode 4.1 “Glass Houses”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on July 26th, 1998)

The fourth season of Pacific Blue opens with many changes.

Palermo and Victor have retired.  Cory is now dating Doug Fraser (Owen McKibbin).  At the start of the episode, Cory and Doug accompany TC and Chris to Vegas, where they are married by — you guessed it! — an Elvis impersonator.

TC is now in charge of Pacific Blue and, while Chris and Cory both make plans to take the sergeant’s exam, TC focuses on bringing in some new blood.  At the police academy, he recruits two recent graduates — hyper-competent Jaime Strickland (Amy Hunter) and edgy rebel Russ Granger (Jeff Stearns).  He asks and gets undercover cop Monica Harper (Shanna Moakler) transferred to Pacific Blue so that she can go undercover to break up a meth operation at the local college.  Everyone is shocked when Monica turns out to be young and blonde.  Were they expecting a 40 year-old undercover college student?

Not happy about having to ride a bicycle, Russ decides to insert himself into Monica’s undercover operation.  Monica and Russ meet the two main dealers, Quincy (Joe Michael Burke) and Cherry (Michelle Beauchamp).  They discover that they’re getting their drugs from a chemistry professor (Robin Thomas).  What they don’t do is make an arrest.  Quincy and Cherry murder the professor and escape after setting off a bomb in the chemistry lab.

TC is not happy with his new cops.  In fact, the episode ends with him telling them that he has doubts about whether or not to keep them at Pacific Blue.  Fortunately, we the viewers know that they’ll be okay because they are all now listed in the opening credits.

Also listed in the opening credits is Bobby Cruz (Mario Lopez), the campus cop who drags Monica out of the laboratory right before it explodes.  Bobby has a history.  He was a member of the LAPD but, disgusted by the anti-Mexican racism that he saw, he became a campus cop instead.  (Where I went to college, the campus cops were the biggest joke around.)  TC offers Bobby a chance to be a member of Pacific Blue.  Bobby says that he’ll think about it.  We all know that means yes.

And that’s a good thing because this show could definitely use more Mario Lopez!  In fact, the only reason I started reviewing this stupid series was because I knew Mario would be joining the cast eventually.  Let’s hope Mario’s magic starts to make things better soon!

As for this episode, it was …. well, it wasn’t good.  Other than Lopez, none of the new characters really made much of an impression.  But, I am an optimist.  I have hope.

Never give up hope.