Gopher Meets The Monsters
Following up on my KIDS FROM C.A.P.E.R. post from weeks ago, here's another TV series I used to watch on Saturday mornings. And like C.A.P.E.R., I think it was only on about a year. I'd like to see it again though. THE MONSTER SQUAD had a great premise: a nebbishy caretaker of a wax museum had a super-duper "crime computer" that brought to life statues of Count Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man. Naturally, he used them to fight crime.

Of note is that the caretaker, Walt, was played by Fred Grandy, only about a year or so before he began his long-running gig as Gopher on THE LOVE BOAT (and long before he became a U.S. Congressman from Iowa).

Here's the opening titles to THE MONSTER SQUAD (no relation to the "Wolfman got nards" movie of the same name):

Does He Talk Or Just Hit?
Now Playing: THE ROCKFORD FILES
Juanita Bartlett’s dialogue for “Find Me If You Can” features another great “Rockfordism” that adds much to actor James Garner’s portrayal of the character. While fussing over his son, who has come home from another night at work sporting a cut next to his eye, Rocky (Noah Beery, Jr.) sputters, “Another two inches to the left, and you’d be missing that eye.” Without missing a beat, the optimistic Jim responds, “Well, look at it this way. Two inches to the right, and it woulda missed me altogether.”

“Find Me If You Can” stars two guests who would go on to amass tremendous success on television: Joan Van Ark (her name is misspelled “Arc” in the titles), who spent more than a decade as one of the original stars of the nighttime soap KNOTS LANDING, and Paul Michael Glaser, whose megahit STARSKY & HUTCH debuted on ABC less than a year after this episode aired on NBC.

A young woman (Van Ark) drops by Rockford’s trailer late at night and hires him to find a missing person: herself. Obviously frightened and on the run from somebody, she gives Jim three days pay to see if he can track her down, presuming that if Rockford can find her, then so can whomever she’s running from. Rockford, with a bit of help from police buddy Sgt. Becker (Joe Santos), learns her name, address and basic information, but the case doesn’t stop there. Someone else is on Van Ark’s trail: her ex-boyfriend, a mobster named Ralph Correll (Glaser), who wants back the $50,000 she stole from him.

NBC and the ROCKFORD production team were still battling each other over the humor content of the series with Garner, producer Stephen J. Cannell et al. wanting more (a la MAVERICK) and the network wanting a straight-forward detective show like MANNIX. That probably explains the climax, which offers a seriously tough Rockford pointing guns at mobsters and nearly choking the life from Correll. Garner is very good in the scene, but it’s not what he--and we--really wanted from the character.

It’s a good episode with a good gimmick, one that story writer Roy Huggins must have been enamored with. The plot bears a resemblance to GIRL ON THE RUN, a 90-minute TV-movie (before there was such a thing) that served as the pilot for the esteemed ‘50s private-eye series 77 SUNSET STRIP, which was produced by Huggins and written by Marion Hargrove from Huggins’ story.

Idiots!
I just watched the trailer for an upcoming Nicolas Cage movie titled THE WICKER MAN. It's a remake of a British movie from the early 1970's, which was not widely seen at the time, due to distribution troubles, but has since grown a reputation as a cult favorite. The original WICKER MAN stars Edward Woodward, later an American household name as the star of THE EQUALIZER, and Christopher Lee, and it was written by the renowned Anthony Shaffer, whose credits include the brilliant mystery SLEUTH.

The remake, directed by Neil LaBute, appears awful, judging from the trailer and from comments by LaBute about changes he has made to the source material. One such change, making the Cage character a father, sounds like a deadly one. Woodward was a virgin in the original picture, a character trait that was of utmost importance both to his character's reactions to the situation he was in and to the plot. I can't go into much more of THE WICKER MAN without getting into spoiler territory, but LaBute's updating of Shaffer's original screenplay (which was sensitively directed by Robin Hardy) seems on initial reflection to be fatal. The trailer goes to great lengths to make the remake look stupid, including a car crash, killer bees, and a gender switching of Lee's character, who is portrayed by Ellen Burstyn in the new film.

THE WICKER MAN by Hardy, Shaffer, Woodward and Lee is a unique horror film and a thoughtful one that delves into a peculiar culture--Paganism--and dares to pit that religion against Christianity, personified by Woodward's uptight policeman. The plot finds Woodward arriving on a remote Scottish island to search for a missing little girl and getting a complete runaround from the entire village, including the girl's mother, a sexy barmaid who performs a wild naked dance (Britt Ekland), and Lord Summerisle (Lee), who owns the island. Shaffer structures it as a mystery and keeps the audience--and Woodward--guessing right up to its powerful climax.

Thinking back on THE WICKER MAN, it seems likely that almost everything about it that makes it unusual and fascinating will likely be jettisoned by a Hollywood studio attempting to dumb it down for the 16-year-olds: the lead's virginity, the otherworldly Scottish locations (the new film is set in the U.S., but filed in Canada), the nudity and eroticism (extremely important to the story), the unusual folk songs, the downbeat ending.

Perhaps the marketing people are making the new WICKER MAN look stupider than it really is (it wouldn't be the first time), but I hold out little hope that it will be a good movie.

Fight! Fight!
A few days ago, I wrote about watching TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER, which is a terrible Canadian action movie starring a pair of twin martial artists, Michael and Martin McNamara. Something I didn't mention was the ridiculous theme song. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard. It's called "Right to Fight" or something like that and repeats lyrics like, "We're gonna fight for our right to fight." I don't know what that means, but it's a remarkably cheesy '80s power rock tune and you need to hear it. So here's the opening title sequence of TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER. It'll also give you the chance to witness the McNamara brothers and how desperately they tried to model themselves after the great god Lee Horsley.

And don't forget--you got to fight...for your right...to fight.

A Talking Monkey?
I don't want to write too much about it now, because I've written a review to appear in next week's The Hub, but let me highly recommend to you KISS KISS BANG BANG. Fucking jagoff Champaign-Urbana theater managers never brought this terrific movie to town late last year, I guess because they had to have 8 or 9 screens free to play KING KONG on. KISS KISS BANG BANG is a lot better than KING KONG, and it didn't help its cause that Warner Brothers gave it an arthouse-type release. That made no sense, as it's definitely a mainstream action/comedy, albeit a very quirky, offbeat one that may not mesh well with the dopier among us. Regular arthouse patrons probably had little patience for the violence and raucous humor, meaning it probably played in a lot of empty movie houses.

KKBB was written and directed (his first time) by Shane Black, who wrote LETHAL WEAPON, LAST ACTION HERO and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT and became one of Hollywood's most expensive screenwriters. KKBB is a perversion of sorts of those dumbass action movies that made him rich. It spins '80s buddy-cop movies and '40s detective mysteries with high style and humor.

Robert Downey, Jr. stars as a petty thief who becomes the reluctant partner of "Gay Perry", an L.A. private eye, played by Val Kilmer. The two stumble onto a twisty murder plot reminiscent of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and like that movie, the plot plays second fiddle to the broad cast and rat-tat dialogue. Michelle Monaghan, whom I recall from her brief stint as a regular on BOSTON PUBLIC, is the female lead, and does a surprisingly professional job keeping up with her fast-talking male costars. Corbin Bernsen, of all people, has a terrific role that might very well be, with the exception of MAJOR LEAGUE, the best part he's ever had in a feature.

At home tonight, I began watching POLICE WOMAN, thanks to Netflix. I have no idea why Sony decided to put this '70s cop show on DVD, but I'm glad they did. I really don't recall seeing much of it when I was a kid, even though it followed THE ROCKFORD FILES on Friday nights for awhile. I'll write more on POLICE WOMAN after I've had a chance to watch a few episodes, but it seems pretty solid. Angie Dickinson, 42 at the time and looking stunning, starred as an undercover cop with trusty Earl Holliman as her boss and Ed Bernard (THE WHITE SHADOW) and Charles Dierkop as her colleagues.

Won't Kill For It, Won't Marry For It
“The Big Ripoff” contains one of the great ROCKFORD FILES lines. After getting his ass kicked by a pair of thugs, Rockford is tended to by a young woman whom he had picked up hitchhiking that day. As she examines his cuts and bruises, she asks Rockford, “Is there anything you won’t do for money?” His reply: “Well, I won’t kill for it, and I won’t marry for it. Other than that, I’m open to about anything.” That explains the Jim Rockford character about as well as any lengthy backstory could.

The hitchhiker is played by Jill Clayburgh, just two years before breaking into motion picture stardom in GABLE AND LOMBARD and SILVER STREAK and four years before her first Academy Award nomination for AN UNMARRIED WOMAN. Her guest role here, despite getting top billing for it, is actually quite slight and tangential to the story. She’s cute and appealing, though.

Robert Hamner’s script, based on a Roy Huggins story reportedly recycled from the Darren McGavin series THE OUTSIDER, which also was about a down-on-his-luck private eye, finds Rockford (James Garner) talking his way into an insurance case where the company paid off a $400,000 life insurance policy. Jim believes the victim, Steve Nelson (Fred Beir), may have faked his death and split the purse with his wife (a young Suzanne Somers), who’s living it up alone in Europe. Rockford’s nose for money (more specifically, a 5% recovery fee) takes him to Almeria, California, where he (again) runs afoul of the local fuzz (Kelly Thordsen) and a couple of gun-waving goons while following clues.

ROCKFORD writers were frequently unwilling to wrap their mysteries up in neat packages, and “The Big Ripoff” ends with its plot just barely complete. Character-actor fans will enjoy Bruce Kirby (Bruno’s dad) as an art gallery owner and frequent heavy Warren Vanders as a mechanic. Also of note is Mike Post and Pete Carpenter’s better-than-average score, which plays beautifully over the otherwise-silent prologue set in Europe (but shot on the Universal lot).

The Best Of Times, The Almost Worst Of Times
Here's a public thank you to my friend Steve Stewart, who hosted my friends and me for a fun weekend of Reds baseball at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park. Unfortunately, my Reds did not look good, losing three straight from the White Sox. Saturday night's game was at least exciting, and Sunday afternoon saw a scoreless tie (that's for you, Steve...) for half the game before the Reds self-destructed.

Other than the Reds' dismal on-field performance, the weekend was great. We got in several hours before game time on Saturday, which allowed Stiner and me to walk around downtown Cincinnati before meeting up with J Brown and Rock Goddess at their hotel. A nice stroll back to GABP and nice baseball weather by the time of the 6:10pm start. It was very hot earlier in the day--too hot perhaps to be walking around the city--but it was a nice night. We had terrific seats behind first base about halfway up the bottom section. I missed catching a foul ball by about five feet, which is closer than I have ever come. At least we were close enough to get a decent look at the Reds cheerleaders.

After the game, Steve gave us a "nickel tour" (which was worth a thousand times that) of the stadium, including the broadcast booths, the scoreboard, the press box, luxury boxes, private clubs, players' parking lot, etc. I also met my first Baseball Hall of Famer, thanks to Steve: legendary Reds play-by-play man Marty Brennaman, who has been broadcasting Reds games on radio since 1974. That's the year before I became a Reds fan, so it was a great thrill to shake hands and say hello to him. I told him I had been watching the '75 World Series on DVD, which I think amused him.

After the stadium lights shut down, Steve took us over to Kentucky for a couple of drinks at a sports bar down on the levee. I think all of us were too tired to do much more partying than that, but it gave Steve and me a chance to do some catching up, and I think my friends got a kick out of him. He was interested in them and their lives, and we all had a nice relaxing time. Steve and I got a chance to do more catching up back at his place, where I spent the night, not just talking about old memories, but also about baseball and the broadcasting business.

Sunday afternoon, we were right back at GABP for a 1:15 start, but with even better seats. These were directly behind home plate and were very hoidy-toidy: an usher that wipes down the padded seats, a private restroom, bar and concession area, even a wait staff that takes your food order on a Palm Pilot and has it delivered straight to your seat. Very nice, indeed. Steve also took us up into the WLW radio suite for an inning, where we got to enjoy some air conditioning and some of the free food and drinks at the buffet.

Leaving the game was a breeze. We had a good parking spot and were able to get right out on the interstate. From the time the last pitch was thrown until we got safely out of the city and onto the highway, it was less than 30 minutes. No problem or stress at all. We hit some very heavy rains driving back to Champaign from Ohio, but nothing to deter the fun weekend. Except, of course, the asskicking the Reds received at the feet of the Chicago White Sox.

And when I got home, I still had more fun ahead. Kevin was in town and stopped by for a Crappy Movie. I pulled one out I hadn't seen before: TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER. This one sucks, but we did laugh. I gotta thank Will Wilson for sending this one my direction. TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER stars Michael and Martin McNamara, two real-life twin brothers and kung fu instructors in Canada with curly hair and mustaches. They apparently thought they could also make movies, and this was their first. They play Michael and Martin McNamara, two tools who take their girlfriends on a rustic vacation in the woods, where they encounter punker survivalists who fuck with them and kidnap their women. The brothers return from fishing to find their girlfriends gone, but just think the girls are hiding to play a trick on them. Hours go by, and the twins only figure out something is wrong when one discovers that the poster of themselves they have hanging in their cabin is missing.

The homoeroticism is hilarious. One scene finds the girls wearing bikinis pleading with their boyfriends to come swimming, but the McNamaras are too busy cutting wood, shirtless, with an old-fashioned two-man hacksaw. "Leave us alone, we've got work to do!"

TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER is not very good, mainly because the brothers, despite their background, are shitty fighters, and it shows in the dumbass decision to shoot the fights in clunky slow-mo. The sequel, which is more like a remake, DRAGON HUNT, is better in this regard. It still sucks, but not as much as TWIN DRAGON ENCOUNTER.

Will put some bonus material on the DVD-R he sent me, including the trailer to a marvelously crappy action movie called DESERT WARRIOR. I've never seen it, but I won't rest until I do. It looks hilariously awful and stars Lou Ferrigno (!), who also provides his own voice, and Shari Shattuck, who I have to believe shows some boob.

Two baseball games, a shitty kung fu movie, and a Baseball Hall of Famer. Not a bad 36 hours.

Taking A Nothing Day
Twice a year, Deep Discount DVD offers a big across-the-board 20% Off sale, which is always a choice opportunity to nab some larger-ticket DVDs you've been holding off on. One of my shipments arrived today, and inside was THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON. I already have the First Season and I believe Seasons 3 and 4 are out now too.

I've written before about THE MTM SHOW (and may again), and you should know by now how brilliantly warm and funny it was. I took a look at some of the extras and found something interesting and likely obscure. Before the series started its fourth season on CBS, THE BOB NEWHART SHOW creator David Davis took a crew, including MTM creator James L. Brooks, and cast members Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper to Minneapolis (where the show was set) to film a new opening title sequence. A local Minneapolis news crew tagged along with its cameras and filmed the filming for a WCCO-TV documentary. It's interesting to see how the MTM crew spent four days and $15,000 on a title sequence, to see the level of commitment and care they demonstrated to prevent the show from getting stale. Nowadays, nine out of every ten shows don't have opening titles, and the shows that do cobbled them together in a couple of hours. I believe good opening titles can really help an audience grow comfortable with a TV series, particularly shows with lots of characters who need introductions or shows with an elaborate premise that a title sequence could explain. Network TV ratings are about a third of what they were when THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW was on the air, but, hey, what the hell do I know?

My big Deep Discount DVD purchase was THE AVENGERS: THE COMPLETE EMMA PEEL MEGA-SET, which is a 17-disc box set including all 51 episodes of THE AVENGERS in which Diana Rigg appeared as Mrs. Emma Peel, the slinky spy sidekick to Patrick Macnee's John Steed. Macnee had several female co-stars, but Rigg was the most famous, the most popular, the sexiest and the best. THE AVENGERS was a major success in its native England before ABC imported it to play in prime time during the late 1960s. Most of the episodes, which veered from straight espionage to out-and-out fantasy during the Rigg years, hold up quite well today, and it's cool to have them all together. Now I just have to figure out where to store the damn thing.

I will likely be away from the Crane Shot this weekend. I'm heading to Cincinnati for the Reds/White Sox series at the Great American Ball Park. I expect a really good time...and some Reds victories!

P.S. Shit. I just realized that my AVENGERS box set is the original release, which contains just 16 discs. The more recent version has a Bonus Disc with some really interesting extras, plus the discs are in easily storable thinpaks. Ah, well, at least I have the shows, which is what's important.

On iTunes
This saves me from having to actually create real content.

KNIGHT RIDER--Stu Phillips
"Song Sung Blue"--Neil Diamond
"Seeger's Theme"--The Monkees
"Midnight Caller"--Badfinger
"The Saint"--dance remix of Edwin Astley's theme by Mike Townsend
"Bad Little Woman"--The Shadows of Knight (was Van Morrison still with them?)
"77 Sunset Strip Cha Cha"--Warren Barker
"Barazinbar"--Jade Warrior (this cut runs over 14 minutes!)
THE INCREDIBLE HULK--Joe Harnell
"Long, Long, Long"--The Beatles (from the White Album)
"Hey, Joe"--The Stillroven
"The Fun Zone"--Mike Curb from the MARYJANE soundtrack
"You'd Better Think Twice"--a young Rick Springfield from the MISSION MAGIC soundtrack
"Flower Girl"--Ron Dante (catchy bubblegum)
HELLTOWN--Sammy Davis, Jr. (from the TV series that starred Robert Blake as an ass-kicking crimefighting priest!)
"Like A Prayer"--Madonna (I don't even know how this got on my computer)
"Split Decision"--The Penny Arkade
"Calvera's Return"--Elmer Bernstein from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
"Cylon Attack"--Stu Phillips from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
"Departure"--Bernard Herrmann from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
GET SMART--Al Hirt
"Quanto Costa Morire"--Francesco de Masi
"Ballad of Easy Rider"--Roger McGuinn
"Open Up Your Door"--Richard and the Young Lions
"Don't Mess with Mister T"--Marvin Gaye from TROUBLE MAN
WILLIE DYNAMITE radio spot
"Apache"--The Shadows
"Down on the Corner"--CCR (live)

The New Boss: Nothin' Like The Old Boss
Now Playing: 16 BLOCKS
If I had forgotten why I have more or less given up on new movies coming out of Hollywood, this week was a reminder. I Netflixed two 2006 studio thrillers--FIREWALL and 16 BLOCKS--and considered both mediocre.

FIREWALL commits the blasphemy of wasting a terrific supporting cast. One scene finds Alan Arkin, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster and Harrison Ford sharing a scene, and I'll be damned if director Richard Loncraine couldn't find anything cool for them to do together.

Ford plays a Seattle bank manager whose family is kidnapped by Standard Effete Eurotrash Villain #354 (Paul Bettany), who forces Ford to tap into his bank's computer system and transfer $100 million to an offshore account. In their effort to make all movies inoffensive to everybody, Hollywood has become extremely bland when it comes to casting heavies. Aren't you tired of snobby Brits in business suits waving guns? Particularly when they're played by Paul Bettany, who is about as threatening as a junebug. I can think of about 100 actors off the top of my head who would have not only been more charismatic than Bettany, but would have the screen presence to hold the screen opposite Ford, who looks tired and bored in FIREWALL, but is still believable kicking Paul Bettany's ass.

FIREWALL is neither very good nor very bad--both of which would have made it more fun to watch. The same goes for 16 BLOCKS, which is a blatant (and uncredited) ripoff of THE GAUNTLET, a 1977 Clint Eastwood picture that is ten times better, even if it does co-star Sondra Locke.

16 BLOCKS' "Locke" is Mos Def, who may actually be a more obnoxious performer. Bruce Willis, who is very good, plays Burned-Out Alcoholic Big-City Cop #729 (I wonder if BOABCC has ever appeared in a film with SEEV. What am I saying? Of course, he has!). Willis is assigned the shit detail of transporting a petty thief (Mos Def) from jail to the courthouse so he can testify before the grand jury in two hours. The courthouse is only 16 blocks away, but gunmen attack Willis' sedan on the street in broad daylight. A drunken Bruce somehow kills one attacker and wounds another before grabbing Mos and splitting. From there, it's a chase (but not much of one) to the grand jury chambers with the two heroes being pursued by murderous corrupt cops (seemingly the whole damn precinct) led by David Morse, who is excellent (and would have been better in FIREWALL than Paul Bettany, come to think of it...).

Morse is one of those guys who has been an amazing actor for a very long time, but who knows who he is? He spent two seasons on CBS headlining a good crime drama called HACK in which he played--hey, how about that--a corrupt cop. He has the presence and the physical size to dramatically battle Willis on-screen, and their scenes together cook.

The rest of the film is not much. Director Richard Donner doesn't seem interested in the action, and gives us a lot of Mos Def chattering about bullshit. The gimmick of getting a witness to the courthouse by a certain time limit is tried and true, but I've never seen a film where the courthouse was just down the street. There could have been a suspenseful thriller made from this premise, but 16 BLOCKS ain't it.