10 Movies For The Week (7/12/25)

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?

Tom Hanks celebrated his birthday this week. Here’s a few of his films that you can find online.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, Sully (2016) features Tom Hanks in the role airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger. The film not only recreates Sullenberger’s famous landing in the Hudson but also the subsequent attempts by the government to scapegoat Sully for the incident. This film features one of Hanks’s best performances, bringing humanity to a man who, on cultural level, was viewed as being almost a mythological hero. Hanks is likable and, this being an Eastwood film, the government is portrayed as being both corrupt and incompetent. What’s not to like? Sully is on HBOMAX.

When it comes to Tom Hanks, it’s hard to pick his best performance. I would probably go with Captain Phillips (2013), featuring Hanks as the captain of a boat that is taken prisoner by modern-day pirates. Like Sully, this film is based on a true story and, as he did in Sully, Hanks brings to life a character based on a real-life person. The final scene is devastating and features some of the best acting that I’ve ever seen from anyone. Somehow, Hanks was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance here. Captain Phillips can be viewed on Netflix.

Punchline (1988) is a bit of an oddity. Sally Field is miscast as a housewife trying to make it as a stand-up. That said, Tom Hanks gives a strong and dramatic performance as a self-centered and self-destructive comic. Punchline can be viewed on Tubi.

It’s Summer!

It’s summer! I just got back from my vacation. (I took it a month early because I needed to be back here to start my summer job of covering Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.) If you can’t get to the beach this summer, you can at least watch both Beach Party (1963) and Bikni Beach (1964) on Tubi and discover how people used to celebrate the summer months. Yes, both of these films are undeniably dated and a bit corny but who cares? Sometimes, it’s fun to watch something from a more innocent era. Beach Party and Bikini Beach are both on Tubi.

If you want a slightly racier beach party, The Beach Girls (1982) is a Crown International production that features all of the nudity (male and female), raunchy humor, and drug jokes that you could hope for. That said, it also features a very likable and energetic cast. It can be viewed over at the Internet Archive.

If you’re looking for a slightly more sinister vacation, Last Summer (1969) features Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Barbara Hershey as three rich kids and Catherine Burns as the insecure girl who tries to hang out with them. Hershey and Burns both give outstanding performances and the end result is a creepy and disturbing coming-of-age story. It can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Odds and Ends

Enter The Ninja (1981) features my man, the one and only Franco Nero, as a ninja! This is a film that represents everything that made Cannon great. Plus, how can you resist Franco, literally winking at the camera? Enter The Ninja is on Prime.

Skatetown USA (1979) is the greatest film that “ever rolled!” Okay, maybe not the greatest but can you resist Patrick Swayze cracking a whip while rolling around on roller skates? Skatetown USA can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Finally, if you want to see just how strange fame can be, check out Ringmaster (1998), a film that “celebrates” Jerry Springer. (Jerry appears as a version of himself.) Bizarrely enough, this film does feature two truly good performances, from Jaime Pressly and Molly Hagan as a trailer park mother and daughter who appears on Jerry’s show. Ringmaster is on Prime.

Click here for last week’s recommendations!

6 Trailers Full Of Laughter And Somewhat Good Cheer

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it’s Sunday again and that mean that it’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers!

Usually, on Sunday, I share trailers that feature a lot of violence. That’s just the nature of grindhouse trailers. But, today, I’m not in the mood for violence, even if it is deliberately over-the-top grindhouse violence.

That’s why these 6 trailers are all for comedic films. They are full of the promise of laughter and good cheer. Well, somewhat good cheer. There really aren’t that many truly cheerful grindhouse trailers.

Laughter, of course, is not the solution to the world’s problems. But, at the very least, it can make it easier to live from day to day.

Even the grindhouse understands that!

1. Beach Ball (1965)

2. The Groove Tube (1974)

3. The Chicken Chronicles (1977)

4. The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Our own Gary Loggins reviewed this film last year!

5. The Beach Girls (1982)

I reviewed this one last year as well.

6. Young Doctors In Love (1982)

Life is a Beach #3: The Beach Girls (dir by Pat Townsend)

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You louse! You hussy!”

“What’s a hussy?”

“Who’s loud?”

— Typical dialogue from The Beach Girls (1982)

As you may have guessed from the combination of the film’s title, the film’s poster, and the film’s dialogue, the 1982 comedy The Beach Girls is yet another production from Crown International Pictures.

And if you had any doubts, The Beach Girls quickly erases them by not only featuring the exact same songs that were heard in both The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach but by also reusing a good deal of beach footage that originally appeared in Malibu Beach. Remember that dog in Malibu Beach that kept stealing everyone’s bikini top? Apparently, the folks at Crown International really liked that dog because all of his scenes are awkwardly inserted into The Beach Girls.

In between all of the Malibu Beach footage, The Beach Girls tells the story of three girls who have a nice beach house for the summer and who proceed to throw a party. That is literally the plot of the entire film. Two of the girls — Ginger (Val Kline) and Ducky (Jeana Tomasina) — are up for anything while their best friend, the shy and intellectual Sarah (Debra Blee), desperately needs to relax and have a good time. Fortunately, there’s a sensitive musician at the party. His name is Scott and he’s played by James Daughton, who was also in Malibu Beach. With Scott’s help, Sarah starts to come out of her shell, which largely means that she starts to progressively wear less and less clothes.

Just when it looks like the party might be on the verge of concluding, six garbage bags of weed wash up on the beach. That comes in handy once all of the uptight authority figures start to show up and demand that the party end. Fortunately, the super weed inspires everyone to just relax and have fun. Not even the eventual arrival of the Coast Guard can stop this party…

The Beach Girls is pretty much your typical Crown International teen sex comedy. The main thing that distinguishes it from The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the main characters in The Beach Girls are all female. And while the three main characters all still required to spend a good deal of the film undressed, this is a rare teen comedy where the guys are just as likely to get naked as the girls and where the girls have as much fun as the guys. As a result, there’s little of the misogyny that lay underneath the surface of The Pom Pom Girls and, to a lesser extent, Malibu Beach.

Don’t get me wrong. The Beach Girls, which is currently available Hulu and has also been included in a few Mill Creek box sets, is hardly a great or even a good film. It’s pretty much a standard sex comedy where both the characters and the jokes are predictably dumb. But, when taken on its own modest terms, it’s an inoffensive little time capsule.

Plus, the film’s beach house is really nice! Seriously, that’s one thing that I love about films from the 80s. Even the low-budget comedies always take place in the nicest houses!