Tag Archives: Vanity

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.20 “By Hooker by Crook”

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 can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Sonny falls for a madame.

Episode 3.20 “By Hooker by Crook”

(Dir by Don Johnson, originally aired on March 20th, 1987)

Here I am, halfway through the third season of Miami Vice and it still amuses the Heck out of me how shocked Crockett and Tubbs are whenever their cover gets blown.

As far as  I can tell, neither Crockett nor Tubbs make much of an effort at maintaining their cover, beyond using the names Burnett and Cooper.  (Tubbs occasionally uses a fake Jamaican accent.)  They dress exactly the same as cops as they do when they’re criminals.  They hang out, in public, with the other members of the Vice Squad.  They occasionally respond to “all unit” calls, which means that anyone in the area at the time will recognize them as being cops.  Add to that, Crockett is supposedly a minor Florida celebrity, a former football star who went to Vietnam.  In short, these two have the worst covers ever but they’re still stunned when the criminals see through their “Burnett and Cooper” identities …. even though it happens in every episode!

This time, it’s George Takei, playing a viscous crime lord, who sees through their cover and orders his men to attack.  It leads to a shoot-out, much of which is filmed in slow motion.  It would be pretty exciting and dramatic, except for the fact that one of Takei’s henchmen is played Captain Lou Albano, the rubber band-wearing wrestler.  It also doesn’t help that Takei is …. well, he’s Takei.  He camps up his villain role to such an extent that it’s impossible to take him seriously as any sort of threat.  Even though he orders his men to kill an escort played by Vanity, he still comes across as being flamboyant, eccentric old George.

This episode was directed by Don Johnson and, as often happens when a cast member first tries his hand at directing, it’s filled with shots that are supposed to make you go, “Hey, this guy’s got a vision!”  The slow motion gunfight is an example of this.  An extended scene that is filmed with a fish-eyed lens (the better to represent Izzy’s point of view as he looks through a peephole) is another example.  A sex scene between Crockett and a madame who is played by Melanie Griffith is filmed in soft focus and lit in such a way that it looks like the entire set is about to burst into flame from the heat.  Johnson the director seems to be saying, “Dang, Don Johnson’s hot!”

At the time of this episode, Melanie Griffith was divorced from Don Johnson and married to Steve Bauer.  Later, she would divorce Bauer and remarry Johnson.  Johnson and Griffith do have amazing chemistry in this episode so kudos to Johnson the Director for making a good casting choice.  Johnson the actor owes him one.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, things get dark.

Episode 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired by May 1st, 1989)

Howard Moore (Martin Neufeld) is the latest in a long line of nerdy Friday the 13th villains.  With his long hair, unwashed appearance, and crazy eyes, Howard is an easy target for some of the less compassionate citizens of Canada.  Of course, Howard doesn’t help things by having a totally creepy personality.  He works in a vinyl record store, where he offers up unsolicited music advice to the teenage customers, the majority of whom giggle awkwardly whenever he’s nearby.  Howard is obsessed with a singer named Angelica (Vanity) but there’s no way Howard could ever actually meet her.

Or at least, that’s the case until he finds Mesmer’s Bauble.  Having once belonged to the inventor of hypnotism, this crystal pendant grants Howard anything that he asks for, as long as he first uses it to hypnotize people and then kill them.  (It turns out that merely looking at the pendant is enough to send someone into a hypnotic trance.)  As with so many Friday the 13th villains, Howard quickly comes to love having the power to kill people.  I’ve always felt that the majority of this show’s villains are basically addicts.  Instead of being addicted to drugs, they’re addicted to the rush of power that comes with using a cursed antique to get what they want.  That’s certainly the case with Howard.

At first, Howard thinks that he wants Angelia to love him.  He kills both her publicist and her manager in order to get closer to her.  But, once he’s finally close to her, Howard apparently realizes that he actually wants to be Angelica.  In an effectively nightmarish sequence, Howard and Angelica’s body appear to merge into one.  Howard literally turns into Angelia while Angelica presumably withers away into nothingness.  Howard is now Angelica, which will undoubtedly upset Ryan, who has bought two tickets for Angelica’s latest show.

It’s up to Micki and Ryan to recover the pendant and they manage to do so in the most anticlimactic way possible.  They go to Angelica/Howard’s concert and Micki grabs the pendant while Angelica/Howard is singing.  Without the pendant, Angelica dissolves into Howard and then a panicked Howard is promptly electrocuted on stage.

Howard’s dead but so are a lot of other people.  At the shop, Micki and Ryan confess to Jack that they feel that they failed because so many people died before they got the pendant.  Jack shrugs and basically tells them “that’s life.”  What a dark ending!  Actually, it was rare that Friday the 13th didn’t end on a dark note.

This was an effectively creepy episode, one that worked because of just how dark it allowed things to get.  Even Jack pointed out that the pendant’s powers didn’t always make sense, which made it even more dangerous in the hands of someone like Howard.  There were a few loose ends.  I found it a bit odd that there wasn’t a bigger public reaction to a famous black woman turning into an ugly white guy and then dying in front of a crowded club.  In fact, the show left it a bit unclear as to what actually happened to Angelica after Howard transformed into her but I’m going to guess it was nothing good.  In the end, though, this episode was effectively macabre.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.6 “A Secret No More”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, things get muddy!

Episode 2.6 “A Secret No More”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 7th, 1988)

“On this episode….”

No, sorry, Mr. T does not utter those words at the start of this week’s episode of T and T.  Starting with the second season, the show did away with the practice of Mr. T introducing each episode.  It’s a shame because that was always one of the best parts of every episode.  I especially would have liked to have heard how Mr. T would have introduced this episode, which features a lot of mud wrestling.  “On this episode, Amy and I explore the world of mud wrestling and everyone gets dirty.”

This week’s episode find Amy and T.S. hired by an insurance company after a Canadian Senator named Sam Smale (Leon Pownall) is apparently killed by a car bomb.  If the insurance company can prove that the car bomb was planted by gangsters instead of terrorists, the company can get out of paying any money to the senator’s wife.  Wait?  What?  How does that work?  Is that really something that would be put into an insurance policy?  I guess the idea is that terrorists would be targeting Sen. Smale because of his job while gangsters would be targeting Sen. Smale because he was corrupt.  I don’t know.  It’s weird.

Sen. Smale was frequently seen hanging out at Toronto’s busiest mud wrestling club.  The club is owned by the Granger Brothers, Charlie (Michael Copeman) and Red (Ric Sarabia).  (“Those are two bad brothers,” T.S. says.)  A review of the senator’s assets reveals that he was nearly broke.  (“Senator business must be bad,” T.S. says.)  Could Sam Smale have gotten into debt with the loan-sharking Granger brothers?

T.S. heads over to the club, where he meets the newest mud wrestler, K.C. Morgan (special guest star Vanity).  K.C., however, is no ordinary mud wrestler.  Instead, she’s a reporter working undercover and she’s uncovered evidence that the Senator was doing business with the Grangers!  Needless to say, this leads to Amy, K.C., and T.S. all getting into a fight with the Grangers in the mud pit.  It also leads to Senator Smale suddenly showing up and revealing that he faked his death and was planning on running off with the insurance money.  T.S. promptly punches the senator and the corrupt politician ends up in the mud pit.  Later, at the gym, T.S. talks about how silly Amy looked covered in mud and K.C. goes out on a date with T.S.’s best friend, Decker.  (We learn, from K.C., that Decker’s first name is actually Danforth.)  And that’s the end of that!

This episode packed quite a bit into 22 minutes.  In fact, it was all a bit too rushed.  This is one of those episodes that would have benefitted from an hour’s running time.  I have to admit that I laughed out loud when the supposedly dead senator suddenly showed up with a gun on his hand, just because it was such an out-of-nowhere yet kind of lovable plot development.  This was a totally ridiculous episode but that’s what made it fun.  T and T is at its best when it embraces its own absurdity.

Next week, T.S. battles a crack dealer.

“On this episode, Amy and I attack the whack….”

Horror on TV: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.20 “Mesmer’s Bauble” (dir byArmand Mastroianni)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, for our horror on the lens, we have the twentieth episode of the 2nd season of Friday the 13th: The Series!

In tonight’s episode, an obsessive weirdo named Howard (well-played by Martin Neufeld) uses a curse antique to try to get close to a rock star named Angelica (played by real-life rock star, Vanity).

This episode originally aired on May 1st, 1989. Happy May Day, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd30EiQqDxw

Action Jackson (1988, directed by Craig R. Baxley)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jericho Jackson (Carl Weathers) is the tough Detroit cop who everyone calls “Action” because I guess Jericho was just too normal a name.  He’s a legend in the department and on the streets of the Motor City.  “Some people say his mother was molested by Bigfoot,” one patrolman says but the truth is simpler.  Jackson was a high school football star before he went to Harvard Law and got his degree.  He could have been an attorney but he decided to become a cop instead.

Unfortunately, Action Jackson is currently Desk Duty Jackson.  When he arrested Sean Dellaplane, the pervert son of auto manufacturer Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson), Jackson “nearly ripped off the boy’s arm.”  (“He had a spare!” Jackson snarls.)  Everyone says that, since his son’s arrest and his marriage to the beautiful Patrice (Sharon Stone), Peter Dellaplane has turned over a new leaf and is now an honest businessman.  Action Jackson doesn’t buy it.  In fact, he suspects that Dellaplane is responsible for the brutal murder of a union rep.

Though he may be married, Dellaplane still has a mistress.  Sydney Ash (Vanity) is a heroin-addicted singer.  After Dellaplane watches her sing a song, Sydney tells him, “I was expecting a standing ovation.”  “You’re getting one,” Dellaplane replies.  Jackson knows the best way to get to Dellaplane is to get his hands on Sydney.  He better hurry because Action Jackson has been framed for a murder that he didn’t commit and now he’s got every cop and criminal in Detroit after him.

A lot of people will tell you that Action Jackson is a bad movie but I like it.  It’s a tribute to the classic blaxploitation films of the 70s and though the violence may be excessive, it’s all played tongue-in-cheek.  Carl Weathers first suggested the movie to Joel Silver while the two of them were filming Predator and, from the start, Action Jackson is proud to be a B-movie.  There’s no subtext or deeper meaning involved, beyond Action Jackson cleaning up the streets.  Taking it seriously would be a crime.  This is probably the only film where you will ever be able to see Apollo Creed and the dad from Poltergeist face off in hand-to-hand combat.  Of course, whenever Craig T. Nelson throws a punch or a kick, the scene cuts away to disguise the fact that a stuntman is doing most of the work but even that becomes fun to watch for.  Some B-movie have a visible boom mic.  Action Jackson has a stuntman disguised to look like Craig T. Nelson from behind.

If I do have a complaint, it’s that the script is heavy on the one-liners, which makes sense as this film was made shortly after Schwarzenegger revolutionized action film dialogue with “I’ll be back.”  Unfortunately, Weathers wasn’t as good at handling one-liners as Arnie and Bruce Willis were.  As anyone who has seen the first four Rockys can tell you, Carl Weathers was an actor who could create art from a monologue of non-stop trash talk.  As I watched the film, I kept wishing that Action Jackson would do some Apollo Creed-level trash-talking whenever he was fighting the bad guys.  Maybe if he had, there would have been an Action Jackson 2.

Horror Film Review: Terror Train (dir by Roger Spottiswoode)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow.  Fraternities are mean!

How else do you explain the prank that begins the 1980 slasher film, Terror Train?  At a party, awkward pledge Kenny (Derek MacKinnon) is told that Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis) is waiting for him in an upstairs bedroom and she totally wants to have sex with him!  Poor Kenny.  Really, he should have been able to figure that this was a prank but I guess he’s just naive.  Anyway, he goes upstairs, strips down to his underwear, and listens as Alana says, “Don’t be shy …. kiss me!”

Kenny thinks that Alana is waiting for him in the bed but actually, she’s hiding behind a curtain.  So, what’s in the bed?  Well, as Kenny soon discovers, it’s a limbless corpse!  Oh, those wacky pre-med students!  Under the direction of Doc (Hart Bochner), they’ve stolen a cadaver from the medical school and they’ve used it to play the joke of the century!  Everyone bursts into the room, laughing.

Ha ha!  Funny joke, right?

Well, not to Kenny.  Kenny totally freaks out and starts spinning around and gets all wrapped up in the sheets.  Needless to say, Kenny does not get laid that night.

In fact, Kenny ends up losing his mind.  And that’s unfortunate but, as they say, life goes on.  Three years later, the pranksters are all due to graduate so they’re going to throw a costume party on a train!  The conductor (Ben Johnson) watches as these rich, costumed college kids get on his train and you can just tell that he’s thinking, “There better not be no funny business.”  He need not worry!  Alana is on the train and she still feels so bad over what happened to Kenny that you can be sure that there won’t be any pranks during this graduation party!

Unfortunately for everyone else, Kenny’s decided to get on the train as well.  While his former classmates are smoking weed, getting drunk, dancing to the best disco music of 1980, and taunting a magician (David Copperfield), Kenny is killing people and stealing their costumes.

Kenny’s first victim actually dies before the train leaves.  When he comes staggering up to everyone with a sword sticking out of him, everyone assumes that it’s just another joke.  Nope!  Turns out the sword is real but everyone’s too busy boarding to notice as the guy collapses to the ground and is promptly dragged underneath the train.  In a scene that always makes me cringe, the train slowly crushes him as it starts to move forward.  I mean, seriously …. Agck!

So, now Kenny is wandering around the train, dressed like Grouch Marx and killing people.  It takes people a while to notice because we’re not exactly dealing with the smartest group of college graduates.  And, once they do realize …. well, what are they going to do?  They’re stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere!  Even if they do get off the train, it’s snowing and below freezing outside!  I mean, it’s almost as bad as Minnesota in January out there….

Of the many slasher films that Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in after Halloween, Terror Train is definitely the best.  After making his directorial debut here, Roger Spottiswoode went on to become one of the busiest directors in Hollywood and you can tell why when you watch this movie.  Spottiswoode’s makes great and atmospheric use of the train and Kenny’s habit of constantly changing his costume keeps you guessing just where he might be at any given time.  Even more importantly, Spottiswoode takes the time to develop the characters so that they become more than just cardboard victims.  Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, Sandee Curris, and Timothy Webber all give excellent performance as the objects of Kenny’s wrath while old veteran Ben Johnson brings some gravitas to the film as the wise conductor.

(My only objection is that the worst of the pranksters is named Doc, which happens to be the name of our cat.  And let me just say that Doc the cat would never pull as cruel a prank as Doc the medical student.)

As we all know, Jamie Lee Curtis will be returning to the horror genre later this month.  She’ll be playing Laurie Strode in David Gordon Green’s Halloween remake or reboot or sequel or whatever it is.  Famously, Curtis refused to appear in horror films for several years, saying that she didn’t want to be typecast.  That was understandable on her part and, as much as I love horror movies, it was probably a smart career move.  That said, the slasher films that Curtis appeared are some of the best of the genre.  Halloween, Terror Train, and even Prom Night are all classics of their kind.  Terror Train is a suspense masterpiece, perfect for any cold and snowy night when you want to scream a little.

A Movie A Day #316: 52 Pick-Up (1986, directed by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a businessman who has money, a beautiful wife named Barbara (Ann-Margaret), a sexy mistress named Cini (Kelly Preston), and a shitload of trouble.  He is approached by Alan Raimey (John Glover) and informed that there is a sex tape of him and his mistress.  Alan demands $105,000 to destroy the tape.  When Harry refuses to pay, Alan and his partners (Clarence Williams III and Robert Trebor) show up with a new tape, this one framing Harry for the murder of Cini.  They also make a new demand: $105,000 a year or else they will release the tape.  Can Harry beat Alan at his own game without harming his wife’s political ambitions?

Based on a novel by the great Elmore Leonard and directed by John Frankenheimer, 52 Pick-Up is one of the best films to ever come out of the Cannon Film Group.  Though it may not be as well-known as some of his other films (like The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds, Black Sunday, and Ronin), 52 Pick-Up shows why Frankenheimer was considered to be one of the masters of the thriller genre.  52 Pick-Up is a stylish, fast-paced, and violent thriller.  John Glover is memorably sleazy as the repellent Alan and the often underrated Roy Scheider does an excellent job of portraying Harry as a man who starts out smugly complacent and then becomes increasingly desperate as the story play out.

One final note: This movie was actually Cannon’s second attempt to turn Elmore Leonard’s novel to the big screen.  The first attempt was The Ambassador, which ultimately had little to do with Leonard’s original story.  Avoid The Ambassador but see 52 Pick-Up.