Artwork of the Day: Space Detective (by Everett Raymond Kintsler)

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Dazzling Erin

by Everett Raymond Kintsler

This cover is from 1952.

Music Video of the Day: The Angel and the Gambler by Iron Maiden (1998, directed by Simon Hilton)

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day comes from Iron Maiden’s Blaze Bayley Era. The video and the aliens that appear in it were almost entirely computer generated at a time when that was still considered to be unusual.

Director Simon Hilton has also done videos for Mark Ronson, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Robert Plant, The Black Crowes, and many others.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.4 “Season’s Greetings”

Posted on May 12, 2024 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 Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989! The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, Arthur and Yick experience memories of the way they were.

Episode 3.4 “Season’s Greetings”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on December 12th, 1988)

It’s Christmas time!

In the school cafeteria, the students have gathered for lunch and gift-exchanging. For the first time, Spike brings baby Emma to school and Shane finally sees his daughter. Meanwhile, Snake and Joey talk to Wheels, who is facing his first Christmas without his adopted parents. Joey invites Wheels to spend Christmas at his house. Wheels replies that he’s going to be spending Christmas with his grandparents and a social worker. Yikes!

Unfortunately, those interesting storylines are only given a few minutes of screentime. Instead, the majority of this episode is about Yick thinking that Arthur has let being rich go to his head. The two exchange presents but then refuse to open them. Arthur’s annoying cousin Dorothy (Annabelle Waugh) encourages them get over being mad by reminding them of all of their previous adventures….

Yep, it’s a clip show. There’s Arthur meeting Yick for the first time! There’s Yick trying out for basketball! There’s Arthur giving Yick one of Stephanie’s old term papers! Most of the clips come from the first season and they’re interesting as a reminder of the fact that, when this show started, Arthur and Yick were at the center of almost every first season episode. Of course, eventually, Arthur and Yick would both be pushed to the side by characters like Spike, Caitlin, Joey, Snake, and Wheels. Even in this episode, it’s hard not to notice that,while Yick and Arthur are remembering the past, Spike and Wheels are the one dealing with present storylines.

After remembering the past, Arthur and Yick decide to remain friends. Good for them! Upon opening the presents, Arthur discovers that Yick got him an expensive calculator while Yick gets an extremely cheap band that he can use to keep his glasses from sliding off his face. Seriously, Arthur? You’re the richest kid in school and you only spent three dollars on your best friend’s Christmas present? No wonder Yick was mad!

Clip shows are difficult to review. This episode was about showing clips and that’s what it did so I guess it accomplished its goal. But I’m still looking forward to reviewing a real episode next week.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Review: 5/6/24 — 5/12/24

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What a sad week! On May 9th, Roger Corman passed away. Earlier today, producer and film distributor Mark Damon also passed. Corman and Damon were two men who revolutionized both the film industry and the way that movies were distributed in the pre-Streaming era. Both of these men were famous for their Cannes deals and both passed away a few days before the opening of the 2024 Festival.

Closer to home, my Dad was in a car accident on Thursday morning. He’s okay and the car survived as well but still, that’s not the type of call that you like to get at 4:30 in the morning. I feel like I’ve been a little bit off my game ever since getting that call.

On a positive note, Cannes starts on Tuesday! I can’t wait for the the news to start to coming in from France!

Here’s what I watched and listened to this week:

Films I Watched:

Television Shows That I Watched:

Abbott Elementary
Baywatch Nights
Check It Out!
CHiPs
Coronation Street
Degrassi Junior High
Dr. Phil
Fantasy Island
Friday the 13th: The Series
Highway to Heaven
Law & Order
The Love Boat
Malibu, CA
Miami Vice
Monsters
Snub
T and T
Welcome Back Kotter

Music To Which I Listened:

Adi Ulmansky
Amy Winehouse
Blanck Mass
Britney Spears
The Chemical Brothers
Eden Golan
ELO
Flossie
Katy Perry
Kedr Livanskiy
Kelly Clarkson
Saint Motel
Taylor Swift
Twenty One Pilots
X

Live Tweets:

News From Last Week:

Links From Last Week:

Links From The Site:

Erin shared Eyeful, Beauty Parade, The Americanization of Emily, Astounding Science Fiction, Detective World, Future Science Fiction, and Remember When?
Erin shared the covers of Mammoth Mystery!
Jeff shared music videos from Metallica, AC/DC, Saxon, Queensryche, Ratt, Van Halen, and WASP!
Jeff reviewed Trail to Laredo, Prairie Roundup, The Rough Tough West, Enemy, Real Men, Mission of Justice, and Aftershock!
I reviewed Degrassi Junior High, Miami Vice, CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Baywatch Nights, The Love Boat, Monsters, Malibu CA, Highway to Heaven, T and T, Friday the 13th: The Series, Welcome Back Kotter, and Check it Out!
I shared my week in television and 12 Roger Corman trailers!
I shared scenes from Citizen Kane, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Open City, Scrooge, Royal Wedding, Dazed and Confused, and The Philadelphia Story!
I paid tribute to Orson Welles, Ruggero Deodato, Roberto Rossellini, J.A. Bayona, David MacKenzie, The Twilight Zone, Roger Corman, and Jesus Franco!
I reviewed Late Night With The Devil, Locked Up, Lights Out, The Rebels of PT 218, One More Shot, Pink Floyd: Live in Venice, The Beautiful Game, Bob Marley: One Love, Sixty Minutes, Divine Will, Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night, and The Courier!

More From Us:

At her photography site, Erin shared Possum, Growing, Clouds, Carts, Relief, Bird on a Wire, and Tipped Over!
At my music site, I shared songs from Eden Golan, Katy Perry, Amy Winehouse, X, Flossie, Kelly Clarkson, and Twenty-One Pilots!

Want to see what I did last week? Click here!

The Films of 2024: The Courier (dir by Daniel Calparsoro)

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 2002 and countries across Europe are giving up their old currencies and making the transition to the Euro. The future looks bright, especially for Ivan (Aron Piper), a young man from Spain who has gotten a job as a courier. He drives around Europe, often at lighting-fast speeds. He takes money across the continent so that it can safely be hidden away in Switzerland. Along with his lover and boss, Leticia (Maria Pedraza), Ivan quickly rises through the ranks of an international cartel. Helping others stay wealthy leads to Ivan becoming wealthy as well. Soon, he has fast cars, fast friends, a cocaine habit, and a mustache that makes him look like a 1990s NASCAR driver.

With its constantly moving camera and its voice-over narration, this Spanish film owes more than a little to the films of Martin Scorsese, Ivan’s descent into drugs will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas. Unfortunately, Ivan is never quite as interesting a character as either Jordan Belfort or Henry Hill, largely because Aron Piper is not as charismatic an actor as either Leonardo DiCaprio or Ray Liotta. Ivan comes across as just being a punk who wandered into something that temporarily made him rich and his narration often descends into shallow psychobabble. As a character, Ivan would never have the confidence to throw hundred dollar bills off of his boat. He also wouldn’t have the creativity to pull off the Lufthansa heist. He’s boring and all the cocaine in the world isn’t going to change that.

Interestingly enough, the film also borrows from Adam McKay, with an ending that highlights a lengthy list of consequences of Ivan’s money laundering operation. Much as with the films of McKay, The Courier makes the mistake of assuming that everyone watching shares its dreary Marxist outlook and is going to be outraged. The truth of the matter is that most people would probably love to hide their money from the government because only weirdos enjoy paying taxes. The film assumes that the audience will be demanding revolution whereas the majority will probably be saying, “Hey, money laundering seems like a good idea and you get a nice car out of it! How do I get in on that?”

(Scorsese, at the very least, understands and admits that most people would rather be Jordan Belfort on a yacht than the FBI agent on a subway. Most people would rather be Henry Hill living in New York as opposed to being Henry Hill living in the suburbs of Indianapolis and being an ordinary schnook.)

The Courier does have its moments. Maria Pedraza gives a good performance as Leticia, though you do have to wonder why she should would ever waste her time with someone as boring as Aron Piper’s Ivan. Carlos Jean’s score is wonderfully propulsive and provides them film with a needed rush of adrenaline. In the end, though, The Courier never really escapes the shadow of the films that came before it.

Trail to Laredo (1948, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

On the frontier, everyone has gold fever. People are trying to find gold and steal gold and it falls to brave Treasury agents like Steve Ellison (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnette (played by Smiley Burnette) to keep things safe. When Steve needs to find out who is trying steal gold, he puts on his mask and assumes the identity of The Durango Kid.

Near Laredo, a shipment of government gold has been stolen. Dan Parks (Jim Bannon) is arrested after the gold is found in his wagon but Steve knows that the Durango Kid earlier warned Dan about traveling with gold. Durango and Smiley set out to prove that Dan was set up by his business partner, Fenton (Hugh Prosser).

This yet another Durango Kid movie where Steve gets a job working for the bad guy while Durango works to thwart his plans. (Remarkably, no one ever puts two and two together and notices that Steve, Smiley, and Durango always seem to show up in town at the same time.) Fenton is just one of a long line of corrupt businessmen and land barons that Durango has had to deal with. Fenton is not above threatening Dan’s young son (Tommy Ivo) to get Dan to do what he wants. Given that Dan is just trying to make a good life for his family in a rough world, it’s satisfying when Fenton gets his comeuppance.

Almost every Durango Kid film featured at least one good fight scene. In Trail to Laredo, the big fight takes place in a saloon and it’s pretty exciting. Not only does the saloon get trashed but there’s a moment where one of the bad guys actually seem to fly through the air. Even Virginia Maxey, playing Classy the saloon singer, gets in on it.

Both Virginia Maxey and Smiley Burnette get to sing a few songs. As always, there enough gunfights and horse chases to keep fans of the genre happy. Charles Starrett was a great cowboy.

Retro Television Review: Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night (dir by Allen Reisner)

Posted on May 12, 2024 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 1977’s Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Damn.

I mean, seriously! I have seen some depressing films before but nothing could have quite prepared me for Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night.

Susan Dey stars as Rowena, a young single mother whose 3 year-old daughter, Mary Jane Harper (Natasha Ryan), is taken to the hospital with a broken arm. Dr. Angela Buccieri (Tricia O’Neil) doesn’t believe Rowena’s claim that Mary Jane is just accident prone and when she discovers what appears to be cigarette burns on the little girl, Dr. Buccieri goes to the head of pediatrics (played by veteran screen villain John Vernon) and requests a full set of X-rays to see if there are any previously healed injuries. Buccieri’s request is denied. It turns out that Rowena comes from a wealthy family and her father (Kevin McCarthy) is a trustee of the hospital. Even after Dr. Buccieri opens up about her own experiences as an abused child, she is told to drop the matter.

She doesn’t drop it. Instead, she goes to a social worker named Dave Williams (Bernie Casey). Dave does his own investigation but none of Rowena’s neighbors want to talk about all of the crying and the screaming that they hear coming from Rowena’s apartment. Rowena presents herself as being a stressed but loving mother. Dave suggests a support group that she can attend. When Rowena goes to the group, she opens up a little about how overwhelmed she feels. Unfortunately, she leaves Mary Jane in the apartment alone and, when a fire breaks out, Mary Jane is lucky to survive.

As intense as all of that is, it’s also only the first half of the movie. The second half is even more intense and emotionally draining and it all leads up to one of the most devastating final lines ever uttered in a movie. Throughout the film, the system fails both Rowena and Mary Jane. Mary Jane is failed when all of the evidence of the abuse that she has suffered is either ignored or shrugged away by the same people who are supposed to be looking out for her. Rowena is failed when no one pays attention to her obvious emotional instability. When she finally does have a breakthrough during a therapy session, her psychiatrist (played by James Karen) curtly tells her that they’ll have to talk about it next week because their hour is up.

Rowena is a character who I both hated and pitied. Like many abusers, she herself was a victim of abuse. Even when Rowena tries to get support, no one wants to admit that a mother is capable of abusing their own child. That said, Mary Jane Harper is at the center of the film. She’s a little girl who is desperate to be loved by a woman who often terrifies her. She is continually failed by the people who should be looking after her and it’s just devastating to watch. I’m sure I’m not the only person who was moved to tears by this film.

What a sad film. At the same time, it’s also an important one. If the film takes place at a time when no one wanted to admit to the abuse happening before their eyes, we now live in a time when people toss around allegations of abuse so casually that it’s led to a certain cynicism about the whole thing. Even when seen today, Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night works as a powerful plea to watch out and care for one another.

12 Roger Corman Trailers

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Roger Corman in The Godfather Part II

Today we pay tribute to the legacy of Roger Corman with a special edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers.

Five Guns West (1955)

This western was the first film that Roger Corman was credited with directing.

2. The Day The World Ended (1955)

Though Corman worked in almost every type of film genre imaginable, he’s probably best remembered for his science fiction and horror films. This was one of the first of them.

3. Not of this Earth (1957)

Not of this Earth was not only one of Corman’s better sci-fi films but this also the first film in which Corman really took full advantage of character actor Dick Miller. (Miller, a longtime friend of Corman’s, largely improvised his role as a hip vacuum cleaner salesman.)

4. Machine Gun Kelly (1958)

Along with westerns and sci-fi films, Corman also directed several gangster classics. Machine Gun Kelly is remembered as one of his best.

5. Bucket of Blood (1959)

In Bucket of Blood, Roger Corman gave Dick Miller a starring role and also mixed comedy and horror in a way that influence many future horror directors.

6. Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Roger Corman famously shot Little Shop of Horrors in just two days. The end result was a mix of comedy and horror that continues to be influential to this day. The musical is very good but I still prefer the cheerful low-budget aesthetic of the Corman original.

7. The Intruder (1962)

Corman was an exploitation filmmaker with a conscience. At a time when other films were avoiding social issues, Corman dove right in with challenging films like The Intruder.

8. The Terror (1963)

Corman was famous for his ability to spot new talent. His 1963 film The Terror starred a then unknown actor named Jack Nicholson.

9. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

In the 60s, Corman was also well-known for his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, the majority of which starred Vincent Price. With these colorful and flamboyant films, Corman showed himself to be a pop artist at heart.

10. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre featured Corman directing a film for a big studio. The film recreated the gang war between Al Capone and George Moran while also finding room for Corman regulars like Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, and Jonathan Haze.

11. The Trip (1967)

Roger Corman was always sympathetic to the counter-culture, which led to the remarkably nonjudgmental nature of The Trip, a film in which Peter Fonda drops acid under the guidance of Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper. Jack Nicholson wrote the script.

12. Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

In the 1970s, Corman retired from directing and instead focused on producing and distributing movies. In 1990, he briefly came out of retirement and directed his final film, Frankenstein Unbound.

Scenes That I Love: Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, 117 years ago, Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She would go one to become a cultural icon, a performer who survived being labeled box office to poison to eventually become one of our most acclaimed actresses. Hepburn was a total of four acting Oscars over the course of her career, a record that has yet to be topped.

Today’s scene that I love comes from 1940’s The Philadelphia Story and it features Katharine Hepburn acting opposite another one of my favorite performers, the great James Stewart.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jess Franco Edition

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today is the 94th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Franco! One of the most prolific filmmakers of all time, Franco made movies that …. well, they’re not easy to describe. Jess Franco was responsible for some of the most visually striking and narratively incoherent films ever made. He made films that you either loved or you hated but there was no mistaking his work for being the work of someone else.

Today, in honor of his birthday, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Films