Tag Archives: review

Brad reviews SHOWDOWN (1993), starring Billy Blanks and Patrick Kilpatrick!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Are you a fan of THE KARATE KID? If you are, then I have the movie for you… SHOWDOWN (1993)! What’s better is that it’s now streaming on Amazon Prime, so you can go watch it right now!

SHOWDOWN is primarily the story of Ken Marx (Kenn Scott), a high school student who has recently moved to a new city with his mom. When he enrolls in the local high school, he catches the eye of the beautiful Julie (Christine Taylor), unaware that her boyfriend is a bullying asshole named Tom (Ken McLeod), a young martial artist trained by the ruthless sensei Lee (Patrick Kilpatrick). SHOWDOWN is also the story of ex-cop Billy Grant (Billy Blanks), who accidentally killed evil sensei Lee’s brother seven years earlier when breaking up a wild party one night when he was on duty with his partner Spinelli (Mike Genovese). Unable to cope with killing a man, Billy is now working as a janitor at the high school. The two main characters come together one afternoon when Tom gives Ken a good beating for having the nerve to talk to his property, I mean his girlfriend, Julie. Billy sees Ken doubled over in pain after taking a shot from Tom in the face and the gut, so he reluctantly decides to help the new kid, eventually introducing him to self-defense techniques and martial arts that will help him stand up to the bully. His teaching methods are quite unconventional and include such humbling tasks as cleaning toilets and urinals. The stories all come to a head one night when Ken and Tom fight it out in the ring. When evil sensei Lee tries to involve himself in the battle between the students, Billy gets his own shot at redemption when he steps in to enforce law and order for the first time in many years!

Based on the plot description above, it’s evident that SHOWDOWN is not afraid to wear its “Karate Kid” influences on its sleeve! I had never seen this 1993 B-movie before, so I found a lot of nostalgic fun in its familiar underdog story, with characters even specifically referencing key moments from the 80’s classic. Even if he’s somewhat limited as an actor, Billy Blanks just has this likable presence about him, and he’s definitely believable as a martial arts master. I enjoy watching him. Kenn Scott carries on the tradition of being a 25-year-old man playing a high school student, but he seems much older to me than Ralph Macchio did in THE KARATE KID. Scott in 1993 was much more physically developed than Macchio was in 1984, so while he doesn’t seem reasonable as a high school student, he does seem more reasonable as a fighter. Continuing my comparisons, Christine Taylor is cute as the love interest, but a fifth grade Brad Crain fell head over heels in love with Elizabeth Shue as “Ali with an I.” That’s not Christine’s fault though, and she’s fine here. Finally, I have to give a shoutout to Patrick Kilpatrick as the evil sensei Lee. In a career defined by playing bad guys, his deliriously unhinged, over-the-top performance here is a true highlight of the film.

As for the fight choreography in SHOWDOWN, it’s serviceable and delivered with conviction, but it’s not that great when viewed in 2025 and compared to the better movies of the genre. But that’s okay because the movie does what a lot of movies can’t do… it entertains and moves by at a fast pace. I enjoyed it, and I can easily recommend it to any person who enjoyed THE KARATE KID series or low budget, early 90’s, direct-to-video action.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.6 “Second Time Around/Three’s A Crowd”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, the Island is kind of dull.  Tattoo is missed.

Episode 7.6 “Second Time Around/Three’s A Crowd”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on November 19th, 1983)

Love is in the air again at Fantasy Island!  Remember when this show used to feature mermaids and Greek Gods and ghosts and gothic mansions and stuff like that?  Those were good times!

Kate Tucker (Cristina Ferrare) comes to the Island to confront her husband, Gary Tucker (Geoffrey Scott, the quarterback from 1st and Ten), about his infidelity.  Roarke decides to bring Gary’s mistress, Helen (Michelle Phillips, who once played the mermaid on this very show), to the Island as well!  It’s all a part of Roarke’s plan to show both women that Gary’s not worth all the trouble.  Kate realizes she doesn’t want Gary and Helen doesn’t want him either.  Kate leaves the Island a single woman.  Good for her!

Meanwhile, widowed Joan (Dorothy McGuire) comes to the Island and falls for handsome Alan Reynolds (Craig Stevens).  Joan’s son (Stuart Damon) is upset at the idea of Joan marrying someone else.  Eventually, he comes to see the error of his ways and smiles as Joan and Alan find happiness.

This may have been an episode of Fantasy Island but it felt more like The Love Boat.  Roarke helped everyone find true love and Lawrence …. Lawrence was just kind of there.  At this point, I kind of feel that, if they were determined to get rid of Tattoo, they should have just had Roarke running the Island by himself.  Lawrence’s presence doesn’t accomplish anything beyond making the viewer miss Tattoo.

This was a pretty forgettable trip to the Island.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.9 “Crash Course”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

A recently released thief and a bank error are no match for the smiley charisma of Erik Estrada!

Episode 4.9 “Crash Course”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on January 4th, 1981)

Former getaway driver Sonny Matson (Don Stroud) has just been released from prison and he’s fallen back into his old habits.  Everyday, he steals a different car and then robs a different business.  His crimes are getting progressively more bold and Baker is determined to catch him.

Meanwhile, Ponch notices that he has an extra $4,000 in his bank account.  Trying to do the right thing, Ponch reports the discrepancy.  The bank accidentally drains all the money from his account.  With his checks bouncing all over town, Ponch tries to get the bank fix their error.  Good luck with that, Ponch!  Luckily, when one of Sonny’s associates tries to rob the bank, it gives Ponch a chance to play the hero….

It’s The Ponch Show!  Baker may be the one with a personal stake in capturing Sonny but Ponch is the one with big grin and the majority of this episode’s screentime.  Whether he’s thwarting a bank robbery or recruiting all of his co-workers to help him find proof of the bank’s error, Ponch dominates.  Poor Baker.

The best thing about this episode was Don Stroud’s performance as Sonny Matson.  Stroud played a lot of low-level criminals over the course of his career.  With his quick but unfriendly smile, his paranoid eyes, and his cocky attitude, Stroud is actually rather intimidating as Sonny.  Whenever Stroud is onscreen, CHiPs actually feels a little bit dangerous!  That this episode was memorable was largely due to Don Stroud and the hideous 70s decor of Ponch’s bank.  Tacky and dangerous, that’s our CHiPs!

Brad reviews the romantic comedy THE OTHER END OF THE LINE (2007)! 

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Back in 2019, I took my wife to Dallas, and while we were there, she asked if we could visit the South Fork Ranch. As many of you probably know, this is the setting for the wildly popular TV series DALLAS, that originally ran from 1978 through 1991 producing 356 episodes. She loved the series growing up and especially enjoyed watching it with her “granny” back in West Virginia. When we got back home from the trip, I hopped onto Amazon and purchased the entire original series for her, a set of TV movies, and even the series reboot that ran from 2012 through 2014, producing another 40 episodes. We watched everything over the next 6 months. The rebooted series starred, among others, Jesse Metcalfe as the grown up version of Christopher Ewing. My wife really liked him in the series, so he’s become one of our favorites that we like to watch on Hallmark and many other movies. The other day I watched a romantic comedy Jesse starred in called THE OTHER END OF THE LINE (2007). It’s currently streaming on Prime, so I decided to write up my thoughts on the film. 

In THE OTHER END OF THE LINE, Shriya Saran plays Priya Sethi, a young woman working at a CitiBank call center in Mumbai, India. One day she gets a phone call from Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe), an American advertising executive, when he becomes a victim of identity theft. While working to resolve the situation, sparks being to fly during their conversations, and Priya, quite smitten with the handsome American, decides to travel to San Francisco to meet him in person. Through a variety of rom-com type circumstances, Priya ends up creating a false identity that she uses as she meets and spends time with Granger. As they continue to hit it off, her deception begins to create some serious complications. These issues come to a head when her very traditional dad, who expects her to marry a guy he’s chosen for her back in India, shows up in San Francisco. The blissfully ignorant Granger is suddenly made aware of Priya’s real life, and the two are faced with rather awkward and difficult decisions for how to move forward. Will Priya choose true love over cultural tradition? Will Granger take a chance and pursue her even though she’s been deceiving him? This is a romantic comedy, so you probably have a good idea how it might play out! 

I enjoyed THE OTHER END OF THE LINE mainly because I’m an undemanding sucker for rom-coms, and I liked Jesse Metcalfe and Shriya Saran in the lead roles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Saran on-screen before, but she’s extremely beautiful and charming, and I can definitely see why Metcalfe’s character would fall in love with her. I did! Metcalfe is good as the business obsessed American who has a bit more depth and heart than you might initially suspect. The leads carry what story there is just fine, and I found myself with a smile on my face as the end credits appeared. With that said, the story itself could be a bit of a problem to more demanding viewers. This has all been done many times before, and there isn’t anything unique to differentiate this film from countless others. Cliches abound as you can pretty much guess what’s going to happen from frame to frame. And the supporting characters aren’t much to write home about either. The “best friends” are exactly what you’d expect them to be, and not really in a good way. The supporting character that had the most potential for me was Saran’s dad. Unfortunately, he was set up to be a goofus for most of the film, so when he gets to flex his acting muscles at the end, the character’s more serious scenes don’t really hit home for me. On another positive note, I did enjoy seeing the contrast in the film’s settings in San Francisco and Mumbai, India. One of the funniest moments in the movie involves Metcalfe’s character’s attempt to get across Mumbai as quickly as possible while navigating different forms of the city’s public transportation. 

Overall, I recommend THE OTHER END OF THE LINE to undemanding viewers who enjoy sweet, cookie cutter romantic comedies. I think there’s plenty to enjoy. However, if you watch the movie with one of those people who likes to make fun of everything, that person will have plenty of material as well!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, a man kills for his dolls.

Episode 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves?”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 4th, 1988)

A serial killer named Paul Delgado (John Bowman and no, we’re not related as far as I know) is killing girls in Miami.  He believes that he’s being ordered to kill by his collection of dolls and, when he’s speaking as a doll, he uses a high-pitched voice.  He picks women up at carnivals or on the beach and he kills them by injecting them with 100% pure cocaine.  He poses their bodies with a doll beside them.

Because of the cocaine connection, homicide detective Jarrell (Dylan Baker) approaches Castillo.  Castillo explains that his best men are working deep undercover, trying to take down a drug lord named Palmo (Ramy Zada).  That’s right, this is yet another episode where Crockett pretends to be Burnett and Tubbs pretends to be Cooper and somehow, they’re able to get away with it despite the fact that their cover has been blown in almost every previous episode.

Delgado works for Palmo and things get even more complicated when it turns out that Delgado is Crockett and Tubbs’s connection inside Palmo’s operation.  When Palmo discovers that Delgado is the killer, he puts Delgado on trial.  The jury is made up of other drug dealers.  Since Crockett is pretending to be a lawyer, he’s assigned to serve as Delgado’s defense counsel.  Palmo tells Crockett that, unless he’s acquitted by the drug dealer jury, he’ll reveal that Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover….

This was a weird episode,  It didn’t really work because Delgado was a bit too cartoonish to be taken seriously.  Perhaps if the show had just made him a serial killer who killed women with cocaine, it would have worked.  But the show had to go the extra step and have him talk to his dolls in a high-pitched voice.  As well, this was yet another episode where we were forced to wonder if people in the Miami underworld just don’t communicate with each other.  After all the drug lords that have been busted by Crockett and Tubbs, you would think that word would eventually get out about “Burnett” and “Cooper.”  I mean, their cover gets blown in nearly every episode.  Frank Zappa put a bounty on Crockett’s head in season 2!  And yet somehow, Crockett and Tubbs are still able to walk into a drug lord’s mansion, introduce themselves as Burnett and Cooper, and not automatically get shot.

There were some definite problems with this episode but it was weird enough to at least hold one’s attention.  As opposed to the episodes with the aliens and the bull semen, this episode didn’t seem like it was trying too hard to be weird.  Instead, it just was genuinely weird.  It was watchable and, as far as the fourth season of Miami Vice is concerned, that definitely counts as an accomplishment.

Music Video of the Day: Natural One by The Folk Implosion (1995, dir by Michael and David Udris and Larry Clark)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This song was written for the soundtrack of the 1995 film, Kids, and the video if made up of scenes from the Larry Clark-directed film (along with another story about space exploration).  Oddly enough, the song itself doesn’t actually appear in the film.

Enjoy!