Tag Archives: Tracey Gold

October True Crime: Stolen Innocence (dir by Bill L. Norton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1995’s Stolen Innocence opens with 18 year-old Stacy Sapp (Tracey Gold) trying to sneak back into her house after a long night of drinking and partying.  Unfortunately for her, Stacey isn’t very good at sneaking around and she’s caught by her mother (Bess Armstrong) and her father (Nick Searcy).

“I’m 18!” Stacy argues.

“You’re going to end up pregnant!” her mother yells.

Stacy says that that her mother is just scared that she’s going to end up a loser “like you!”  Well …. yeah, Stacy, that’s kind of the point.  If your mother has experience with the life decisions necessary to become a loser, maybe you should listen to her warnings.

Anyway, Stacy runs away with a friend of her’s.  After her friend decides to go back home, Stacy hitches a ride with a trucker.  When the trucker stops off at a truck stop so he can get his brakes looked at, Stacy meets Richard Brown (Thomas Calabro, wearing a really bad wig).  Richard is long-haired and has got a tough guy beard and a cheesy tattoo of a heart on his scrawny forearm.  Stacy, of course, is totally smitten and she goes off with Richard and his “friend,” Eddie (Matt Letscher).

It doesn’t take long for us to figure out what Richard is bad news.  He carries a gun.  He’s financing his trip through stolen checks.  He might not even own the truck that he’s driving.  He and Eddie have a bizarre relationship in which Richard continually abuses Eddie but Eddie refuses to leave.  Richard is obviously a bad guy and we can all see it.  When Stacy finally calls her parents from the road, they immediately figure out that Stacy is in trouble.  However, it takes Stacy forever to figure it out because Stacy’s kind of an idiot.

I cringed a lot while watching Stolen Innocence, not so much because of the film’s depiction of Richard’s criminal lifestyle but because I used to have a definite weakness for bad boys and I could kind of understand what was going through Stacy’s mind when she first met Richard.  That said, I’m pretty sure that I would have figured things out a lot quicker than Stacy did.  Stacy quickly goes from being a somewhat sympathetic rebellious teenager to being someone who you really start to get annoyed with.  Oh, he’s threatening you with a gun?  Okay, that’s when you leave!  That’s when you start plotting your escape.  You don’t make excuses for him.  He’s financing his trip with stolen checks?  I’m sorry, is that not a red flag?  Add to that, as played by a miscast Thomas Calabro, it’s not like Richard is some boiling cauldron of charisma.  From the first minute we see him, with his long hair and his cowboy hat and his tattoo, the guy seems like a joke.

Eventually, Stacy does figure out the truth but, by that point, Richard and her are holed up in a motel room and Richard is exchanging gunfire with the FBI.  The film ends with a title card, reminding us that this was a true story.  “He’s not a bad person!” Stacy wails to the police.  I guess some people really are that stupid.

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.

Back to School: I Think I’m Having A Baby (dir by Arthur Allan Seidelman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Poor Jennifer Jason Leigh!

Seriously, whenever you watch any of the movies that Leigh made early in her career, your heart just goes out for.  She was always either getting stalked or getting abused or getting lost or struggling through a pregnancy scare.  In Fast Times At Ridgemont High, she actually did get pregnant and had to go to the abortion clinic on her own after Mike Damone failed to keep his promise to be there for her.  It doesn’t get quite as bad as that for her in 1981’s I Think I’m Having A Baby but she still has to put up with a lot.

In I Think I’m Having A Baby, Jennifer Jason Leigh plays 15 year-old Laurie, who is not only socially awkward but also has the worst haircut that has even been inflected on an otherwise attractive person.  Laurie idolizes her older cousin, Phoebe (Helen Hunt).  Phoebe is dating a lunkhead jock named Peter (Shawn Stevens).  Phoebe does Peter’s homework for him and Peter complains that Phoebe won’t go beyond some mild making out in his car.  That’s the kind of relationship that they have.  On the night of his birthday, Peter and Phoebe have an argument at the outdoor party that Phoebe went out of her way to set up.  Peter drives off in his car, little realizing that the shy Laurie is hiding in the backseat.  When Peter notices Laurie there, he pulls over and starts talking about how difficult (cue a massive eye roll from me) his life is.  By the end of the night, Peter has revealed himself to be a whiny jerk and Laurie is no longer a virgin.

Soon afterwards, Laurie starts to feel ill.  Her nerdy best friend, Marsha (Samantha Paris), thinks that Laurie might have the flu.  Laurie, however, fears that it’s definitely not the flu.  When Laurie tells Peter that she thinks she might be pregnant, Peter freaks out.  He tells her to take care of it and makes it clear that he has no interest in being a father.  Marsha says that she can’t understand why anyone would want to have a baby.  She announces that she’s never going to have one.  Instead, she’ll just adopt a dog.  That really doesn’t help out Laurie, though.  Eventually, Marsha and Laurie head to the clinic to discover whether or not Laurie is actually pregnant.

Meanwhile, Laurie’s little sister, Carrie (Tracey Gold), makes the mistake of letting her pet rabbits all socialize with each other.  Carrie learns a lesson about the importance of keeping a safety barrier between male and female rabbits.  At school, the students smirk as Mr. Fenning (David Birney) ties to teach a sexual education class.  One of the students is played by future Breakfast Club member Ally Sheedy, making her television acting debut by uttering a handful of lines.  The ultimate message is that no one knows anything and all of the education that they’ve gotten so far has been inadequate.

It’s pretty heavy-handed and some of the acting is a bit less than award-worthy.  (Samantha Paris shouts nearly every line that she has.)  But Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a good performance as Laurie, perfectly capturing not only Laurie’s fear of being pregnant but also the sadness that comes from being painfully shy.  Your heart breaks for her when you watch this film.  If nothing else, hopefully Laurie realizes, by the time the end credits roll, that she can do far better than Peter.  For that matter, so can Phoebe.  While everyone has a bright future ahead of them, Peter is destined to spend the rest of his life wondering why he peaked at 17.

And that’s the way it should be.

The Best Of Times (1986, directed by Roger Spottiswoode)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For years, banker Jack Dundee (Robin Williams) had been haunted by a pass that he dropped in high school.  The pass was perfectly thrown by quarterback Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell) but Jack couldn’t bring it in and, as a result, Taft High lost to its rival, Bakersfield.  Adding to Jack’s humiliation is that he now works for The Colonel (Donald Moffat), a confirmed Bakersfield fan who also happens to be Jack’s father-in-law.  When Jack visits a “massage therapist” (Margaret Whitton) and tells her about his problems, she suggests that he needs to replay the game.  Getting everyone interested in replaying the game is not easy.  No one wants to be humiliated a second time and Reno, who now fixes vans for a living, fears the he’s lost his edge.  Jack dresses up in the Bakersfield mascot’s uniform and vandalizes the town.  Finally, everyone is ready for the game.  Now, it’s a matter of town pride.

The Best of Times is a likable comedy about getting older and wishing you could have just one more chance to be young again and to have your entire future ahead of you.  Jack is haunted by that one dropped pass, feeling that it has cast a cloud over his entire life.  Reno is still a town hero but he’s struggling financially and in debt to Jack’s bank.  Replaying the game isn’t going to fix their lives but it is going to give them one last chance to relive their former glory and maybe an opportunity to learn that, even if they are getting older, they’re still living in the best of times.  The world that these two men live in is skillfully drawn and believable, with character actors like Moffat, M. Emmet Walsh, R.G. Armstrong, and Dub Taylor adding to the local color.  Jack and Reno’s wives are played by Holly Palance and Pamela Reed and they are also strong and well-developed characters.  Finally, Robin Williams and Kurt Russell are a strong comedic team.  Russell is perfectly cast as the aging jock and Williams gives one of his more restrained performances as Jack, allowing us to see the sadness behind Jack’s smile.

The stakes aren’t particularly high in The Best Of Times.  It’s just a football game between some middle-aged men looking to regain their youth.  But the story sticks with you.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.9 and 3.10 “Drive, Lady, Drive”

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!

This week, it’s a special two-hour episode of CHiPs!

Episodes 3.9 and 3.10 “Drive, Lady, Drive”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on November 10, 1979)

The police at nearby Palma Vista are on strike and the state of California has agreed to allow some members of the Highway Patrol to patrol the town until the strike is over.  Getraer assigns Baker, Ponch, Bear, and some new guy named Lenny (Leon Isaac Kennedy) to head over to the town,  Baker is named the OIC, which I eventually figured out stood for “Officer in Charge.”  Getraer knows better than to give the job to Ponch.

Ponch, by the way, is back!  After being absent for two episodes due to Erik Estrada actually injuring himself in a motorcycle crash, Ponch returns in this episode and he goes through the entire episode with this huge grin on his face as if he’s saying, “You know you missed me.”  Ponch’s return means that Baker is once again relegated to being the strong, silent partner who doesn’t really get to do anything.  In fact, Baker crashes his motorcycle early on in this episode, as if the show was trying to tell us, “See?  It could happen to anyone!”

The striking cops accuse Baker, Ponch, Bear, and Lenny of being scabs and strike breakers.  I’m not really a fan of public sector unions.  (When it comes to the police striking, my hero is Calvin Coolidge, who came to fame when he broke up a policeman’s strike in Massachusetts.)  Still, it felt strange to watch the show’s heroes cross that picket line.  That would definitely not happen on television today.

There’s a lot going on in Palma Vista.  There’s some rich kids who keep joyriding in a dune buggy and who think they can escape prosecution by crossing the city limits.  (Joke’s on them!  The Highway Patrol has jurisdiction everywhere!)  There’s some truck hijackers who are setting up a headquarters in town.  There’s an angry city councilman (Michael Conrad) who doesn’t feel his children should be held accountable for their actions.

That said, the majority of this two-hour episode centered on a stock car race and one of the racers, Candi Wright (Kelly Harmon).  Will Candi win the big race or will she lose to her friendly rival (and possible future romantic partner) Don Croyden (Jordan Clarke)?  Will Ponch be able to both date her and do his job?  And most importantly, will she be able to adopt a traumatized little girl (played by Tracey Gold) who Candi discovered outside of a burning house?  That’s a lot of storylines for someone who wasn’t even a regular cast member and a part of me wonders if maybe this episode was meant to be a secret pilot for a Candi Wright television series.  It would explain a lot.

This really was a basic episode of CHiPs, with the only real difference being that it was two-hours long for some reason.  A lot of what happened in the episode, especially the racing footage, felt like filler.  There was really no need for this to be a double-sized episode.  It also doesn’t help that, as opposed to the lovely Los Angeles scenery that we usually see, this episode took place in a rather ugly town.  There was some appropriately spectacular crashes but, in the end, this episode ran too long and felt a bit pointless.  Get the Highway Patrol back on the highways!

Retro Television Review: Dance ‘Til Dawn (dir by Paul Schneider)

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 the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1988’s Dance ‘Til Dawn!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

It’s prom time and the seniors at Herbert Hoover High School are excited!  Patrice Johnson (Christina Applegate) is especially excited because not only did she organize the prom but she’s also the leading  contender to be elected prom queen.  She’s looking forward to having a wonderful night with her boyfriend, Roger (Matthew Perry).

Patrice is especially excited because her only real competition for prom queen, Shelley (Alyssa Milano), has broken up with her jock boyfriend, Kevin (Brian Bloom).  Shelley has declared that she will instead be attending a very mature and very fun college fraternity party.  Meanwhile, Kevin will be attending prom but he will be coming with Angela (Tracey Gold), who has a reputation for being a bit nerdy.  Kevin only asked Angela to prom because he was under the false impression that she’s easy but he soon finds himself falling for her for real.

Meanwhile, Shelley doesn’t really have a party to attend.  Instead, she decides to spend prom night avoiding her friends and watching an old movie at the town’s movie theater.  Shelley is convinced that no one from school will be at the theater.  Instead, she runs into nerdy Dan (Chris Young), who also came to the theater because he didn’t have a prom date.  Dan and Shelley end up having a fun time hanging out together.

While this is going on, all of the parents are having dramas of their own.  Patrice’s embarrassing parents (Cliff de Young and Mary Frann) relive their own youth.  Dan’s father (Alan Thicke) is convinced that Dan is not only the most popular kid at school but that Dan is also having a wonderful prom.  And Angela’s parents (Edie McClurg and Kelsey Grammer) are so paranoid about the idea of Kevin trying to sleep with their daughter that they actually sneak into the prom to try to keep them from getting too close.  Of course, they are mistaken for waiters and are immediately put to work.

I watched this two weeks ago, when I was still struggling to process the shock of Matthew Perry’s passing.  Unfortunately, Matthew Perry is not in much of the film and it’s not really until the end of the film that he really gets a chance to show any of the sardonic wit for which he was best known.  That said, Christina Applegate appears to be having fun as the snooty mean girl and she and Perry do make for a cute couple.  Actually, all of the couples in the film are cute, with Alyssa Milano and Chris Young especially making for an adorable couple.  This is a pleasant and, for many, nostalgic diversion, as long as you’re willing to accept that there is absolutely nothing go on beneath the film’s slick and occasionally colorful surface.  The humor is broad, the messages are obvious, and, as always, it’s amusing to watch Kelsey Grammer running around in a panic.

Dance Til Dawn doesn’t really bring anything new to the high school genre but it’s still worthy of the name of Herbert Hoover.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.25 “Amusement Park/Rock Stars”

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 1986.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, season 2 comes to a close as we take another trip to the other side of the island!

Episode 2.25 “Amusement Park/Rock Stars”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on May 13th, 1979)

Oh crap, it’s another Fantasy Island Sunday Special!

Apparently, in 1979, Aaron Spelling wanted to do a Fantasy Island spin-off for children, one that would have aired on Sunday nights.  The spin-off would have taken place on “the other side of the Island,” which was apparently designed to be very family-friendly.  The previous Sunday Special featured Kimberly Beck as Mr. Roarke’s assistant on the other side of the island.  In the second Sunday Special, Kimberly Beck is nowhere to be seen and the hosting duties are handled by Roarke and Tattoo.

As usual, Tattoo starts the episode by revealing his latest scheme.  He’s read a book on Sherlock Holmes and has decided that he wants to be a master of disguise.  He begins the show by disguising himself as Sherlock Holmes.

Later, he sneaks into Mr. Roarke’s office while disguised as a one-eyed, hook-handed pirate.

By the end of the episode, Tattoo has been reduced to dressing up like a chicken.

Mr. Roarke sees through all the disguises and, as usual, he comes across as being more annoyed than amused by his assistant.  It’s often been said that Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize could not stand working together on Fantasy Island and, having spent nearly a year watching this show, I can say that it’s pretty obvious that was the case.  Even while trading jokes, there’s an undercurrent of hostility to all of their interactions.

But what about the fantasies?  Well, they’re a bit childish but let’s get to them.  As with the previous Sunday Special, the children arrive via hot air balloon.  No, Tattoo does not yell, “The balloon!  The balloon!”  In fact, the whole thing with the balloon seems to be silly and incredibly impractical.  I mean, where is the balloon taking off from?

Departing from the balloon are the Collins Family.  Robbie (Scott Baio), Willie (Jimmy Baio), Scooter (Keith Coogan), and Jodie (Jill Whelan) have come to the Island because Robbie has a fantasy about all of them becoming rock stars.  Upon arrival, Mr. Roarke tells them that he has already taken the demo that they sent him and turned it into an album.  They’re a big hit in the UK and on Fantasy Island.  But can they impress the American record executive that Mr. Roarke has invited to hear them?

It’s going to be difficult because, as Robbie discovers, the album features a remastered version of their demo, one that makes them sound like better musicians than they actually are.  Robbie panics.  “How are we going to sound like that?”  Mr. Roarke tells them to figure it out.  Robbie’s solution is to just lip-sync to the album.

Now, to be honest, this seems like not only a practical solution but it’s also what a lot of bands do in real life.  But Mr. Roarke is scandalized to discover that the kids paid Tattoo ten dollars to play the album back stage while they pretended to perform.  Robbie’s conscience gets the better of him and he confesses his crime to the record exec.  The record exec doesn’t care.  He hires the kids on a songwriters, because who wouldn’t want a bunch of pre-teen songwriters on the payroll?

However, the Collins Family has another problem.  It turns out that they’re runaways!  After their parents were lost at sea, the Collins kids were sent to four different orphanages.  The kids escaped to Fantasy Island but now, Mrs. Ridges (Joanna Barnes) has come to the Island and is planning on taking the kids back.  Fortunately, Mr. Roarke explains that he is the ruler of Fantasy Island and that the law doesn’t apply in his domain.  Even more fortunately, a telegram suddenly arrives, informing the kids that their parents did not drown but instead washed up on an isolated beach in Mexico.  Their parents have been rescued and the kids are no longer wards of the state!  Yay!

(That’s some incredible Dues ex Machina there, no?)

While this is going on, Darius (Jarrod Johnson) wants to run the Fantasy Island Amusement Park.

Wait …. Fantasy Island has an amusement park?

Yep, and it’s kind of a dump.  Seriously, the park looks like it reeks of spilled beer, stale weed, and lost dreams.  It’s a true nightmare alley.

Darius’s main reason for wanting to run the park is so he can give his dad, motorcycle stunt driver The Great Scott (Ted Lange), a job.  The Great Scott is hired to jump over the Fantasy Island lagoon but, when he sees Darius nearly fall off the Ferris wheel, he realizes that it’s more important to be there for his son than to risk his life.  (That said, The Great Scott does risk his life by climbing up the Ferris wheel to save Darius.)  Mr. Roarke then offers The Great Scott a new job, as the manager of the amusement park.  Of course, I watched this whole fantasy thinking to myself that The Great Scott already had a great job, working as a bartender on the Love Boat.

That said, let’s give some credit to Ted Lange, who actually gives a pretty emotional and kind of touching performance as The Great Scott.  Lange may be best known for playing Isaac but he’s also a graduate of London’s Royal Academy and I’ve heard that he was a wonderful Othello on stage.  My point is that, even if he is best known for the way he would point at people while serving drinks, Ted Lange can act and this episode certainly proves that.

Overall, this episode was clearly meant to appeal to kids and, as a result, it felt a bit childish.  This was not only the last episode of season 2 but it was also the last of the Sunday Specials and that’s probably a good thing.

Next week, we start season 3!

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #19: I Know Where Lizzie Is (dir by Darin Scott)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR!  It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet.  So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR!  She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Wednesday, November 30th!  Will she make it?  Considering that she only has a day left, probably not.  But keep checking the site to find out!)

i_know_where_lizzie_is_2016_9643847

I recorded I Know Where Lizzie Is off of the Lifetime Movie Network on July 31st.  I also watched it while recording it and it’s a pretty good thing I did because, as the result of a glitch with the DVR, I only recorded the final hour!  So, when you read this review, be aware that at least half of it is being done on the basis of my possibly faulty memory.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is a hybrid of two popular Lifetime genres.  On the one hand, you have an abducted child storyline.  Teenager Lizzie Holden (Madison Iseman) has a fight with her mom, sneaks out of the house, and never comes home.  Her amicably divorced parents, Judith (Tracey Gold) and Martin (Richard Rucculo), desperately try to track down their daughter.  What they don’t know is that Lizzie is being held prisoner by a man wearing what appears to be a Michael Myers mask.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an unwanted guest film.  In an unwanted guest film, a seemingly friendly but secretly malicious stranger moves into an otherwise stable household and tries to destroy the family unit.  In the case of I Know Where Lizzie Is, the stranger is a phony psychic named Tracy (Nadia Bjorlin).  Tracy shows up and claims that she’s had visions of Lizzie.  She knows where Lizzie is!  Of course, the reason that Tracy knows all of this is because she’s in on the kidnapping.

(Before you start screaming at me about spoilers, this is all revealed early on in the film.)

On top of all that, I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an anti-media film.  A somewhat smarmy reporter (Robert Scott Wilson) also movies into the Holden household and he is soon providing nearly 24 hour coverage of the Holdens, the kidnappers, and especially Tracy.   I imagine that a lot of viewers will probably respond to the anti-media message.  I mean, the media is pretty much everyone’s favorite scapegoat at the moment, right?

(It’s hard to believe that just 9 months ago, Spotlight was winning best picture and everyone was talking about how much they loved the media.  It’s amazing how quickly things change.)

Anyway, I Know Where Lizzie Is was very much a typical Lifetime film and how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Lifetime films in general.  On the plus side, both Robert Scott Wilson and Nadia Bjorlin did well with their untrustworthy characters.  Plus, the kidnapper in the mask was genuinely creepy!

If you like Lifetime movies, keep an eye out for it.