Tag Archives: Ted Demme

Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life on the Street 3.2 “Fits Like A Glove”

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, the investigation into the Catherine Goodrich murder continues.

Episode 3.2 “Fits Like A Glove”

(Dir by Ted Demme, originally aired on October 21st, 1994)

Last week’s episode ended with Bayliss and Pembleton discovering that a supply shed had been broken into near the Goodrich scene.  This episode opens with Bayliss and Pembleton talking to the groundskeeper, who explains that he came across the shed earlier.  He reported that the shed had been broken into to the primary on the case, Detective Gaffney.  Gaffney never bothered to follow-up and the shed has since been cleaned up.

That’s it for Gaffney!  Lt. Russert calls him into the office and tells him he’s no longer heading up the investigation.  She tells him to take a few days off and then to transfer to another department.  She promises him a “fair recommendation.”  Gaffney replies that Russert only get her job because of her sex.  He goes as far as to compare her to a statue of a woman on a boat, except she’s not a mermaid.  “You’ve got legs,” he says.  It’s an odd bit of dialogue and I kind of wish that Gaffney had delivered it Al Pacino style.  “You’ve …. GOT …. LEGGGGGS!”

Pembleton is now the primary and not a moment too soon because another murdered woman has been found, again left in a dumpster outside a Catholic church and only wearing long white gloves.  Pembleton theorizes that the killer hates Catholics.  (So …. Matin Luther, maybe?)  Pembleton continues the investigation but clues are hard to come by and smarmy reporter Matt Rhoades (Tony Todd) keeps threatening to reveal that the killer puts gloves on the victims.  At one point, a murder memorabilia collector (Hugh Hodgin) shows up and claims that the murders are connected to a nationwide crime spree.  The collector turns out to be a flake, exactly the type of person who Russert believes would be driven to give false evidence if the news about the gloves got out.

Meanwhile, Kay finds herself being used as a messenger service by both Beau and his estranged wife.  Beau’s wife, Beth (Mary B. Ward), wants to surprise Beau with a romantic dinner so she asks Kay to tell Beau that Beth wants him to come by and see the kids.  Beau tells Kay to tell Beth that their son needs to tighten the laces on his baseball glove.  (Poor Kay!) Beau goes to the house to see the kids, just to discover that Beth lied and sent them away so she could make Beau dinner.  Beau gets mad and leaves.  Mary feeds Beau’s dinner to the dog.

Bayliss, Munch, and Lewis put in for a liquor license for the bar.  Lewis interrogates Munch as to whether or not he was ever arrested in the 60s but — surprise! — Bayliss is the one with the criminal record, an arrest and conviction for misdemeanor gambling while Bayliss was in college.  Bayliss, you never cease to surprise me!

This episode was a bit frustrating because Pembleton doesn’t seem to be any closer to solving the murders.  As well, Felton’s domestic drama would be a bit more compelling if Felton himself was a more likable character.  But, I still liked this episode.  The season 3 ensemble is amazing and just the pleasure of watching actors like Andre Braugher, Melissa Leo, Yaphet Kotto, Ned Beatty, Clark Johnson, Kyle Secor, and yes, even Daniel Baldwin all on the same show is more than enough of a reason to watch.  Everyone was at the top of their game in this episode.

Will Pembleton catch the killer next week?  I have faith and, judging by the way Pembleton crossed himself when looking at the second victim, so does he.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Gun 1.5 “The Hole”

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 Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, the gun ends up at the bottom of a swimmin’ hole!

Episode 1.5 “The Hole”

(Dir by Ted Demme, originally aired on May 24th, 1997)

Yep, this episode of Gun centers around an old country swimming hole.  Every day, teenage Sondra (Kirsten Dunst) and her younger brothers, Brendan (Drake Bell) and Tad (Joe Pichler), head down to the Hole.  For Sondra, swimming in the Hole is a chance to escape from her life of living in a trailer park with her trashy mother (Carrie Fisher) and her pervy stepfather (Cliff Bemis).  For Brendan and Tad, going to the Hole is a chance to look for the treasure that they are convinced is at the bottom of the water.  It is true that there is something shiny in the Hole.  Sondra thinks that it might be the diamonds that she could use to finance an escape from the trailer park and a one-way trip down to Florida.  Actually, it’s the pearl-handled gun that’s been at the center of every episode of Gun.

(In this episode, it’s suggested that the gun has been at the bottom of the hole for over a year.  So, how did it end up in that town in the first place?  Is this episode taking place before or after the previous episodes?  I guess the simple solution is that it’s not the same gun as the gun seen in the previous episodes but the part of me that loves continuity is having a hard time accepting that.)

The gun belonged to James Munday (Johnny Whitworth), who has only recently been released from prison.  He was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and only the fact that he was a minor at the time kept him from being given a life sentence.  James claims that his girlfriend died as a part of a failed suicide pact and he’s convinced that the gun in the Hole can prove his innocence.

When James and Sondra meet, it doesn’t take long for them to fall for each other.  Sondra remains James of his dead girlfriend and Sondra, like of all of us, is attracted to brooding rebels.  However, when the rest of the town hears that James has been going to the Hole, a lynch mob is formed.  Dick Sproule (Max Gail), the father of the girl that James was convicted of killing, is soon at the Hole with a rifle in his hands.  Can James prove his innocence and will the town even care?

This episode was extremely overwrought and it featured every flaw that tends to turn me off of anthology shows in general.  All of the characters were broadly drawn.  The dialogue was way overwritten.  Director Ted Demme told the story with a heavy-hand and used slow motion as if he was under the impression that he was the first director to ever consider heightening the drama by slowing things down.  The whole thing just felt like a bad creative writing assignment.  Out of the cast, only Kirsten Dunst was able to really create a character who felt as if she had a life outside of the demands of the story.  Everyone else seemed to be a caricature.  In the end, James may have been a hot, brooding rebel but he was also kind of whiny.  That got old pretty quickly.

*Sigh*  Well, that’s another disappointing episode of Gun for you!  Next week, I’ll be reviewing the series finale.  Hopefully, this show will at least end on a worthwhile note.

Music Video of the Day: Push It by Salt-N-Pepa (1987, dir. Ted Demme)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Sorry I didn’t get this post up yesterday. I stupidly set the computer I realistically can only do these posts from to perform an all day and all night task that was both CPU and I/O intensive on Sunday. The last time I tried to interrupt it while doing something like that to do just about anything, the computer glitched out to you-need-to-restart-me levels. I was going to let it go. Of course, Lisa noticed, and jumped into action. I think a thank you goes without saying, but thank you nonetheless.

Okay, so it’s Black History Month. I already did Funkadelic last week. I hope to get in a variety of black artists this month. If I can, I am going to try to do one from all sorts of different genres, along with a few legends that I can find made it into some music videos despite their age. Doing nothing but rap would kind of miss the point of the month. Unfortunately, I can’t find a music video from country artist Charley Pride. Maybe I’ll find a way of sneaking him in anyways as a bonus on another post.

Up till now, I have hit Beastie Boys, N.W.A., and Run-D.M.C. That leaves me with just Public Enemy and Salt-N-Pepa in order to really hit the major groups of what I call the second-wave of post Rapper’s Delight rappers. The very first rap song I remember memorizing was Shoop. I learned it while I was in elementary school, and would have the lyrics playing on an endless loop in my head. Which of course is why I am not doing Shoop, but Push It instead.

The first thing I want to get out of the way is that director Ted Demme is the nephew of Jonathan Demme. This video is Demme’s first music video after starting Yo! MTV Raps, according to a quote from editor Glen Lazzaro on mvdbase.

Now lets get to the obvious. Salt-N-Pepa are known for songs about sex. In 1991 they would do a music video for their song Let’s Talk About Sex and would even follow that up a year later with the song called Let’s Talk About AIDS. That makes the GEICO commercial they did using this song especially perfect and extra hilarious. This early song talking about sex would, without changing anything, become a song about pushing one of the possibilities of sex back out of what this song was talking about putting something into. You have to love that. In fact, Let’s Talk About Sex brings up the possibility of pregnancy if you don’t practice safe sex, so it fits that they would be singing this song in a birthing class at one point.

According to mvdbase, this video was recorded live. It’s a pretty standard stage performance all things considered. You can tell that Demme, like his brother, knew the artists he was filming, and catered it to their style. There’s a little Easter Egg in here. At about 3 minutes and 9 seconds, you can see that they tilted the frame upwards toward the right.

Tom Demme would go on to direct a couple other feature films before passing away in 2002 at the age of 38.

James Neihouse was the assistant cameraman on this and at least two other music videos. He has gone on to do a fair amount of work as a cinematographer. It looks like a lot of them are documentaries such as those you would see on the Discovery Channel.

Glenn Lazzaro has done some work outside of music videos, but they seem to have been his primary thing. He has edited somewhere between 75 and 80 music videos. Not small ones either. We’ll see his work again. In fact, I guarantee we’ll see his work again come March Madness.

Enjoy!