Tag Archives: Suzy Amis

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.3 “Heart of Darkness”

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 is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Crockett and Tubbs drive into the abyss and discover what happens when you lose yourself in vice.

Episode 1.3 “Heart of Darkness”

(Dir by John Llewellyn Moxey, originally aired on September 28th, 1984)

The third episode of Miami Vice appears to be take place at least a month or two after the end of the pilot.  Tubbs is not only now a member of the Miami Vice Squad but he and Crockett are now best friends.  Gone is all the animosity and mistrust that characterized their initial relationship.  Now, Crockett is willing to open up to Tubbs and Tubbs is willing to defend Crockett’s pet alligator, Elvis, when Sonny briefly flies into rage mode and threatens to throw away its favorite blanket.

(Sonny is upset because Elvis, who doesn’t like being left on the boat alone, ate one of Sonny’s records.)

Though Tubbs has been accepted by the Vice Squad, he’s still struggling to adjust to Miami, which is a bit more laid back than New York.  Early on, he complains to Lt. Rodriguez about his apartment.  Rodriguez just rolls his eyes.  Sorry, Tubbs.  Only one Miami cop gets to live with an alligator on a houseboat.  Everyone else is stuck with a one-bedroom.

Crockett and Tubbs’s current assignment is to penetrate the world of Southern Florida porn kingpin, Walter Kovics (Paul Hecht).  Kovics is involved with the Mafia and is suspected of having ordered several murders.  When one of his actresses (played by Suzy Amis, making her television debut) is not only murdered but also turns out to be an underage runaway from Kansas, the case becomes personal.  Crockett and Tubbs want to take down Kovics but the only way to get to Kovics is through his second-in-command, Artie Rollins.  At first glance, Artie seems to be a typical coked up criminal but, upon further investigation, Crockett and Tubbs learn that Artie Rollins is actually Arthur Lawson, an FBI agent who has spent the last few years of his life working undercover.  Now, no one is sure if Artie is still working undercover or if he’s truly gone over to the other side.  Artie claims that he’s still working to bring down Kovics but when Kovics discovers that Crockett and Tubbs are undercover cops, Artie is the one who is ordered to shoot them.  Which side is Artie on?  Not even he seems to know for sure.

Artie is played by Ed O’Neill.  The future star of Married With Children and Modern Family star was in his mid-thirties when he appeared in Miami Vice and this was one of his earliest television roles.  O’Neill gives an unpredictable performance, one that is often frightening and sometimes even a bit poignant.  As played by O’Neill, Arthur is a man who has truly lost himself and the character is compelling because Arthur himself doesn’t seem to know what he’s going to do from minute-to-minute.  He may want to take down Kovics but he’s also spent so many years in Kovics’s world that he knows he won’t ever be able to adjust to anything else.  In the end, Arthur does the right thing but he sacrifices his soul as he does it and his joy at gunning down Kovics is almost as disturbing as the look he had in his eyes when he was previously considering whether to execute Crockett and Tubbs.  The show’s final moments find Crockett and Tubbs sitting in a cop bar.  Crockett confesses that he saw a lot of himself in Arthur Lawson.  Rodriguez approaches them and informs them that, while being debriefed at FBI headquarters, Arthur committed suicide.

This was an interesting episode.  The plot was a bit conventional but it was elevated by Ed O’Neill’s performance as the unstable Arthur.  (O’Neill kept the viewer guessing, along with Crockett and Tubbs, as to who Arthur really was.)  And, of course, just when it seems like everyone’s gotten their happy ending, Rodriguez reminded us that happy endings are never guaranteed.  Everything comes with a price.  Indeed, that’s one of the major themes of Miami Vice.  Arthur sacrificed his identity, his soul, and ultimately his life to see that justice was done but, in the end, someone will quickly replace Kovics and the business of vice will continue with little interruption.  Arthur will be largely forgotten and only mentioned as a cautionary tale.  Can anyone blame Sonny for wanting to spend all of his time on a boat with an alligator?

Horror Film Review: Nadja (dir by Michael Michael Almereyda)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When we first meet Nadja (Elina Löwensohn), the title character of this odd, 1994 film, she is walking around New York, wearing a cape and picking up men in bars.  She speaks with a thick, Eastern European accent and when she’s asked what she does, she explains that she comes from an old and very wealthy Romanian family.  As we quickly guess, Nadja has lived for centuries.  She’s a vampire, a daughter of Count Dracula.  Everything she says and everything she does is drenched in the ennui of someone who wishes to be set free but who knows she is destined to live forever in the prison of her existence.  Even when she has visions of her father getting a stake through the heart, it doesn’t provide her with the relief for which she was hoping.

It probably won’t come as a surprise to learn that it was a member of the Helsing family that drove the stake through Dracula’s heart.  However, having killed the vampire, Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) finds himself in trouble with the police.  Apparently, the cops don’t believe Van Helsing when he insists that he was just killing a vampire.  As far as they can tell, Van Helsing just killed a man with a sharp piece of wood.  Fortunately, Van Helsing’s nephew, Jim (Martin Donavon), also lives in New York and can bail his uncle out of jail.

While Jim is dealing with his uncle, Nadja is meeting a woman in a bar, a woman named Lucy (Galaxy Craze).  Both Lucy and Nadja feel empty and unfulfilled.  Lucy, who happens to be married to Jim, is soon inviting Nadja back to her home and becoming obsessed with her.  However, Nadja is more concerned with her brother, Edgar (Jared Harris).  Edgar lives in Brooklyn with his lover and nurse, Cassandra (Suzy Amis).  When Nadja visits Edgar, she decides to take Cassandra away from him.  Of course, Cassandra just happens to be Van Helsing’s daughter and Jim’s cousin!

Nadja is an odd film.  On the one hand, it’s pretentious in the way that only a mid-90s, New York art film can be.  Director Michael Almereyda shot the majority of film at night and a good deal of it with a PXL-2000, which was basically a toy video camera that was specifically marketed to children.  As a result, the black-and-white images are usually dark and grainy.  Sometimes, it’s a bit of struggle to tell just what exactly is happening on-screen.  And yet, at the same time, it kinda works.  Those hazy images, combined with the largely deadpan performances of the cast, give the film an undeniably dream-like feel.  When we see Nadja walking through the city, we feel her ennui and otherworldly presence.  At its best, the film achieves a hypnotic visual beauty.  If ever there was an American city that benefits from being filmed in grainy black-and-white, it’s New York City.

The film plays out like a satire of the typical decadent vampire film.  (Nadja even has a Renfield of very own.)  Nadja is so obviously a vampire that it’s impossible not to be amused by the fact that hardly anyone else seems to pick up on it.  However, the film’s most subversive element is Peter Fonda’s performance as Van Helsing.  With his long hair and a demented gleam in his eye, Fonda totally upends all our assumptions about who someone named Van Helsing should be.

In many ways, Nadja plays out like an elaborate inside joke but it’s just strange enough to always be watchable.  David Lynch, whose influence is obvious, has a cameo as a morgue attendant and he feels right at home.  This deadpan vampire film many not be for everyone but then again, few worthwhile films are.

A Movie A Day #298: Watch It (1993, directed by Tom Flynn)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In Chicago, three men all live in the same house and try to avoid growing up.  Rick (John C. McGinley) and Mike (Jon C. Tenney) are old friends while Danny (Tom Sizemore) works on stolen cars.  When Mike’s estranged cousin, John (Peter Gallagher), moves in with them, John is drawn into a steadily escalating game of pranks.  The game is called “Watch It” and the rules are simple.  No one can take anything personally and each prank must be followed by another, bigger prank.  While the four men takes turns trying to one up each other, they also deal with women who wish that they would all just grow up.  When John starts to date Mike’s ex-girlfriend, Anne (Suzy Amis), the men are forced to come to terms with their extended adolescence.

Watch It is an awkward combination of two stories.  One half of the film deals with the pranks, which get so outlandish that it is impossible to believe that a group of blue collar roommates in Chicago could pull them off.  One of John’s pranks involves imitating a police detective on a local news broadcast and saying that Danny has had a warrant issues for his arrest.  Even if John could pull that off, it seems like he would get in so much trouble that it would not be worth the effort.  (Never mind that the city of Chicago now thinks that Danny is wanted by the police.)  At the same time, Watch It also wants to be a fairly realistic relationship dramedy, with Suzy Amis and Cynthia Stevenson trying to get Gallgher and McGinley to grow up.  Despite some very good performances, Watch It is too uneven to work.  The best thing about Watch It is that it offers a chance to see actors like McGinley, Tenney, Sizemore, and Gallagher all playing quasi-normal, relatable people for once.

What Lisa Watched Last Night: The Ex (dir. by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched The Ex on the Lifetime Movie Network.

Why Was I Watching It?

As I was feeling ill, I had already made myself a little pillow fort in the living room and I was curled up with my wonderfully soft Hello Kitty pillow.  It just seemed, at that moment, that watching the Lifetime Movie Network was really the only appropriate thing to do.  (Plus, quite frankly, my options are limited now that we’re between seasons of Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and Hell’s Kitchen.)

What’s It About?

Psychotic Yancy Butler, having already committed two murders, decides to move to New York and stalk her ex-husband (played by Nick Mancuso).  Since leaving Butler, Mancuso has married Suzy Amis and now has a five year-old son who is dealing with rage issues of his own.  After befriending Amis, Butler forces her way into Mancuso’s life and kills a lot of people.

 What Worked:

Yancy Butler gives a wonderfully over-the-top, campy performance that is full of arched eyebrows and sardonic smirks.  She delivers every line as if she’s auditioning for a community theater production of Double Indemnity.  She appears to be having so much fun with her role that you actually end up hoping that she’ll manage to kill both Mancuso and Amis (both of whom are far less entertaining). 

Director Mark L. Lester is an exploitation vet (he’s best known for directing The Class of 1984) and, as a result, this film has a bit more flair than what you typically find on the Lifetime Movie Network.

What Didn’t Work

This is a Canadian film that apparently went straight-to-video in the States.  As a result, New York City looks a lot like Toronto.

“Oh My God!  Just Like Me!” Moment

I have almost the exact same outfit hanging in my closet that Yancy Butler wears in the 1st few scenes of this movie.

Lessons Learned:

Your man’s ex really is as much of a psycho bitch as you think she is.