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 Broken Angel! It can be viewed on YouTube.
Chuck Coburn (William Shatner) has a nice house in the suburbs, a nice job, a nice car, and a nice Bruins jacket. He’s hoping that he can once against have a nice marriage with his wife (Susan Blakely), despite the fact that she cheated on him and she still thinks that he spends too much time at work.
Chuck is proud of his teenage daughter, Jaime (Erika Eleniak). Jaime seems like the perfect suburban and angelic teenager. But then Jaime goes to prom and her best friend, Jenny (Amy Lynne), is gunned down in front of her. Jaime runs from the scene and vanishes. As Chuck searches for his daughter, he is stunned discover that Jaime, Jenny, and their boyfriends were all a part of a gang! His perfect daughter was smoking weed, doing cocaine, selling crack, and taking part in rumbles with a rival Asian gang. Even worse, Jaime’s gang was called …. LFN!
LFN? That stands for Live For Now. The Live For Now Gang. Whenever we see the members of the gang preparing to get into a fight with another gang, they all chant, “LFN! LFN!” LFN is a gang of white suburban teenagers and they look just as dorky as they sound. I mean, I think it would be bad enough to discover that your child is in a gang but discovering they were in a dorky gang would probably make it even worse.
The majority of Broken Angel is made up of scenes of Chuck searching the mean streets of Los Angeles. He partners with a social worker (Roxann Dawson) who is herself a former gang member. Chuck discovers that his daughter’s street name was — *snicker* — Shadow. He also befriend a member of the LFN’s rival Asian gang and tries to encourage her to go straight. This leads to scene in which he is attacked by Al Leong. Somehow, middle-aged William Shatner manages to beat up Al Leong. That, in itself, is worth the cost of admission.
Broken Angel deals with a serious issue but it does so in such an overwrought and melodramatic fashion that most viewers will be moved not to tears but to laughter. In Broken Angel, William Shatner gave the type of overly dramatic and self-serious performance that he routinely pokes fun at today. If you’re one of those people who enjoys listening as Shatner emphasize random syllables and takes meaningly pauses, this movie will give you a lot to enjoy. In every scene, Shatner seems to be saying, “Notice me, Emmy voters! Notice me!” Of course, it wouldn’t be until Shatner learned how to laugh at himself that the Emmy voters would finally notice him.
The film ends on an abrupt note but with the promise of better days ahead. Just remember — keep an eye out for the LFN!
As I type this, it is a little after midnight which means that technically, I did watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show last night.
Why Was I Watching It?
To be honest, this was the first Super Bowl I’ve ever actually seen. I’m not totally sure but I think this was also the first time that I’ve ever actually seen an entire football game. I wasn’t planning on watching the Super Bowl. As a matter of fact, I had already turned down an invitation to go to a super bowl party at my sister Megan’s precisely because I had decided I had no interest in watching the game. I also turned down an invitation to go watch the game with Jeff’s family. Instead, I thought I’d simply take advantage of everyone else watching the game by spending all of Sunday on a nice, big shopping spree. However, about two hours into that spree, my asthma started to act up so I came home early, turned on the TV, and there was the game. So, I left the game on while I did some online shopping (I nearly bought this until I noticed that it cost $725!) and then once I got onto twitter, everyone was talking about the game so I continued to watch the game and I ended up having so much fun commenting on it that I ended up watching the entire thing. I do have to admit that I was, for the most part, completely and totally lost as to what was going on but no matter. I had fun.
Anyway, once I started kinda watching the game, I realized there was no way I couldn’t watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show.
What’s It About?
Apparently, every year, some other band plays the Super Bowl during half-time. This year, the band turned out to be the Black-Eyed Peas. I have something of a girlcrush on Fergie. Or at least I did until I saw the half-time show.
What Worked?
Uhmm…maybe this would work better if we start with what didn’t work.
What Didn’t Work?
Pretty much the entire show. The Black Eyed Peas have been performing this exact same show for a few hundred years now and they could pretty much do it in their sleep which is what they appeared to be doing here.
However, just saying that the Black Eyed Peas looked bored — well, that doesn’t begin to explain why this show inspired thousands of people to stare at their TV and scream, “Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!” like George C. Scott in Hardcore. It’s not just that the show was bad — it was that it was bad in so many different ways and, in each case, it stretched the boundaries of what had previously been considered to be a believable level of failure.
Hence, Will.i.am not only appeared to have been replaced by a robot but he appeared to have been replaced by a robot that was actually Cartman underneath a cardboard box. Fergie — who, in the past, I felt never got enough credit (her performance in Nine was one of the few exciting moments in that film) — was not only pitchy but actually sounded like she was auditioning for American Idol. The two other Black-Eyed Peas were — well, who really cares about them?
Then you had the dancers in the neon costumes who all looked like they had wandered off of the set of Tron. And, seriously, do we really want to be reminded of Tron at this point?
And then, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Usher showed up. “Look,” I said to my cat, “Usher’s still alive.” “Meow,” the cat replied. Usher sang a few notes that pretty much evaporated in the stadium and then jumped in the air and did the splits. Which I guess would have been impressive except for the fact that he’s Usher and guys aren’t supposed to be able to do the splits like that.
I’m sure I could come up with a few more things that didn’t work but, quite frankly, I think my mind is repressing them right now.
What Worked?
Twitter. In the nearly two years that I’ve been on twitter, I have never seen everyone as united as they were in their general ridicule of the Super Bowl halftime show. So, in a strange way, the Black Eyed Peas brought the world together for about 15 minutes.
Here’s a few of my own tweets from the Half-Time Show:
Uhmm…is the half-time show a tribute to Tron? Where’s Jeff Bridges?
lol, Fergie couldn’t wait to get away from the rest of the Black Eyed Peas.
The Black-Eyed Peas are reminding me of that Stop Smoking Act from that episode of South Park.
The reason the crowd is cheering is b/c they can’t hear the Black Eyed Peas. That stadium is huge.
Oh good. I was just thinking that only Usher could save the half-time show.
And so, sadly, ends my girlcrush on Fergie.
Oh My God! Just Like Me! Moments
I can’t sing that well either.
Lessons Learned
The Black Eyed Peas are about to reach that point where they end up with a reality show on VH1.
As we were sitting in one of the theaters at the AMC Valley View, waiting for Tron: Legacy, I leaned over to Jeff, placed my head on his shoulder, and told him that he should feel very special.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Because there’s like a hundred guys in this theater and you’re the only one here with a girl.”
And it was true! The theater was full of guys who all looked like Jesse Eisenberg but there were literally only three or four other girls in the audience and I think they were all together.
Now, one thing I’ve always wondered — why are guys so scared to sit next to each other in the movies? Seriously, there were all these little Jesse Eisenberg-looking guys out in the audience but each one had to have an empty seat on either side of him. Yet, it was obvious that they all knew each other because they were loudly shouting comments to each other through the entire film and, once the movie was over, they all left together. So, guys, sorry but it was a group date regardless of how many empty seats there were between you.
So, that’s one of two things I learned from seeing Tron: Legacy: boys who look like Jesse Eisenberg are homophobic.
What else did I learn? Well, whenever the hero of Tron: Legacy started fighting or talking about fighting or driving too fast, Jeff would go, “Let’s do this — LEROY JENKINS!” And I was like, “Who the frickin frack is Leroy Jenkins!?” Anyway, after the movie, Jeff showed me this video on Youtube. So, now I kinda know who Leroy Jenkins is.
Anyway, if I seem like I’m talking about everything but Tron: Legacy that’s because Tron: Legacy really didn’t make much of an impression on me.
Tron: Legacy is a sequel. The original film was called Tron and I’ve never seen it but I have seen the You Have 0 Friends episode of South Park and Jeff says that’s close enough.
Tron: Legacy is one of those movies that are mostly made to show off what can be done with CGI and the CGI is impressive in this film for about fifteen minutes. Then, after those 15 minutes, the CGI starts to get repetitive (I mean, there’s only so many times I can be impressed by the big orange space ships coming up over the horizon) and now you’re going to have to pay attention to things like plot and acting and that’s when everything pretty much falls apart.
Anyway, the plot of Tron: Legacy goes something like this: Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who is apparently some sort of video game guru who vanishes when Sam is 7. 20 years later, Sam is an angry young man who rides a motorcycle and posts silly Youtube videos of his dog and somehow he ends up getting sucked into a really old computer where he discovers the Matrix.
And wow, is the Matrix boring. There’s like these gladiator style games going on and all the citizens are actually computer programs and they’re ruled over by CLU (also played by Jeff Bridges) and everyone keeps calling Sam a “user” and then there’s this club that’s ruled over by a Castor (Michael Sheen) who is portrayed as being extremely fey and treacherous which I guess is meant to show that even computer programs can be homophobic.
Anyway, Sam is tossed into one of the gladiator games and then he’s rescued by a program named Quorra (Olivia Wilde) and it turns out that Quorra lives offgrid with Sam’s father! It seems that Kevin has been trapped in this world for the past 20 years and now Sam only has a few hours left to get out and Kevin wants to make sure Quorra gets out as well and this is important because Quorra has some sort of digital DNA that’ll end all world suffering but CLU wants to kills Quorra because she’s “an imperfection” and…
Oh, who cares? Well, the filmmakers apparently because this is an amazingly talky film. For all the emphasis put on the CGI and the endless stream of action sequences (Sam gets into either a fight or a chase every 10 minutes or so), this is a really verbose film. Once Sam finds his father, all of the action suddenly halts as the audience is subjected to a seemingly endless monologue that is designed to explain how CLU was created, why CLU looks like a young, sexy Jeff Bridges, and how Quorra can synthesize religion and science and philosophy. The dialogue brings up all these intellectual and philosophical questions but why? It’s all very shallow, like listening to someone who just finished an Intro. To Philosophy class trying to explain the work of Jean-Paul Sartre. (“Hell is other people! Shit, man…”) I mean, the explanations make little to no sense yet they keep going on and on! It’s one thing to make a movie with a nonsensical plot. It’s another thing to not only continually call attention to that fact but do so in a way that is so humorless and so lacking in any self-awareness that the plot goes from being silly to stupid to borderline offensive.
Anyway, I know this review has been pretty negative so far so instead of dwelling on everything that didn’t work in this movie, I’m going to mention some good things about Tron: Legacy.
Let’s see — well, I think I may have a girlcrush on Olivia Wilde now. She kicks ass with style and bring a sly sense of humor to her role. Unfortunately, she has next to no chemistry with either Bridges or Hedlund.
As CLU, Jeff Bridges is made up to look young and sexy and is obviously being filmed through a lens that has been coated with vaseline.
It’s always nice to see one of my favorite actors, Michael Sheen. Even though his role here is kind of a waste of his talents, at least he’s not playing Tony Blair again.
Speaking of Michael Sheen, Tron: Legacy might not be a good film but it’s still more entertaining than Frost/Nixon.
Some of the CGI is cool in a “Hey! Look! CGI!” sorta way.
However, the best thing about Tron: Legacy is the original score by Daft Punk. Seriously, this might be the best film score of the year. The score is a mixture of electronic and orchestral music and it has a perfect sort of other worldliness to it. To a large extent, the music provides the emotional highs and lows that the rest of the film fails to supply.
My final verdict on Tron: Legacy: Skip the film, buy the soundtrack.
Through the Shattered Lens 