Perhaps you remember a little late night (crime time after prime time to be specfic) guilty pleasure called Silk Stalkings? My mom and I used to watch it all the time and I thought a revisit to the 1991 tight shirts and shoulder pads series might be in order for this week's blog. When the intro sequence began with it's stock photography images of romance novel meets Florida violence, Jim and I settled into some prime early nineties nostalgia.

The show stars, a woman named Mitzi Kapture (seriously) as street tough cop Rita Lee Lance aka “Sam” and the man with the best agent in Hollywood (next to the king of infinite chances, Steven Weber) Rob Estes as Chris Lorenzo aka “Sam” as well. Estes will spend a career familiar with guilty pleasures. he was on Melrose Place before he entertained Jim and I in the wee hours of underemployment in Suddenly Susan and recently starred in Jim's dearly department Women's Murder Club before picking up a role in the new 90210. Kapture's career, though has been less visible.

Looking like a Fashion Bug hooker with a Fredrick's of Hollywood face, Kapture captures the shows essence of surreal neo noir with her nonsensical narration, consisting almost entirely of golf metaphors that make one feel uncomfortable – as if you're left alone nodding and grinning to a crazy woman stuck inside her head trying to talk to you about country club golf versus?other kinds of golf as a metaphor for murder.?/p>

Always rocking mini skirts, double breasted jackets in long dead colors and scrunchies, her character is tough and willing to push the boundaries of police work. If I wrote a script I'd have her say “Ok, I got the bra top on, what do you need me to do with it”. The answer to that question more often than not is to trick a suspect (one with the stunning TV name “Gator Ramsey”) into a potentially dangerous sexual situation with an overplayed Southern accent.

Estes plays her best friend and partner, a more vulnerable guy who always there for a woman and need, particularly if they need a man decked out in Z Cavaricci's most flamboyant threads to stare at them with eyes of a vapid Ken doll. There policing might need work – they often gather evidence without gloves and break and enter constantly, but I have to admit, they have a charming chemistry that helps keep the show fun despite weird attempts at gravitas (she has an inoperable aneurysm that could kill her at any moment and major daddy issues).

While the cast is special, the other special component to the shows success is it's audacious stylized sets. Whether imagining a piano lounge, a Dominatrix's apartment, a police department, they manage to build a world straight out of a Duran Duran video and beyond. The art direction is so wild, the police chief even rails against it in one of the first scenes. Pillars and neon lights have become common enough (CSI might have taken their cues of darkened police offices from here) and even head scratching sets like a basement sex dungeon and the hot pink psychedelia of a swingers club called Nightmare Cafe can be accepted, but some choices are so mind blowing that I am left in awe.

Like the one time shot of two police dispatchers who apparently work in a submarine, or the police station mural, that at first in previously scenes looks like a painting of a screen saver but is actually of a jazz man holding the hand of a child's ghost. Do I need to repeat that – it's a painting of a jazz man holding the hand of a child's ghost. Why would you add the effect of painting the Palm Beach sky hot pink? Or add some maroon organza bows to the coroner's office? The art directors here ask why not? And it's that attitude that created a hit show that lasted, can you believe it, eight seasons for everyone that wants brainless, sexed up guilty pleasure fun.

FYI, mom the early seasons are on DVD and available through netflix.

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Posted on March 30, 2009

Since our good friend Mike introduced us to early 80's oddity Thundarr the Barbarian, Jim and I have been bingeing on the show like a couple of college freshman. With its wildly inconsistently scaled animation and far out and often non sensical concepts, it's easy to assume that Thundarr were a cheapy Japanese show, but it in fact it comes from Ruby-Spears, the American production team behind some Space Ghost writing and Scooby Doo Where Are You?, as well as the Q*Bert cartoon that I vaguely remember.

When I try to imagine the creative duo I see a pair of men reclining in the Hollywood hills, drinking scotch in the afternoon (pretty much exactly like Dudley Moore would have, if he had had a song-writing partner in 10 — which is exactly how I envision every creative duo from the 70's and 80's) but, according to their official site, they more closely resemble twelve-year-olds with balls for chins and giant brains.

But to continue to indulge my own imagination, I see Ruby and Spears hanging out on shag carpets in front of a yarn-art strewn wood paneled wall punctuated by a huge picture window that affords a splendid view of the naked women sunbathing next door as they hash out crazy ideas like: an evil wizard finds a experimental miniaturized city that was shrunken in 1994 by Harvard scientists, a city called the City of Thieves, which the evil wizard will only agree to enlarge if the residents will help him enslave all mankind which, of course, being a city of thieves, they agree to (City of Evil).

Or how about Mindok, a floating green brain that unfreezes a group of ancient scientists in order to create a robot body to house his brain. “If you refuse”, he screeches, “I won't protect you, not even from me!” (Mindok the Mind Menace)

Or how about a post apocalyptic Atlanta run by corrupt lawmen, actual pig-men, who are secretly servicing a tiny blue wizard with a Prince Valiant haircut and a very odd pelvic strut. (Trial by Terror)

Or a bunch of cultists who kidnap the residents of an ancient landlocked cruise ship (the community's elder sports and admiral's hat) in order to make sacrifices to longevity-bestowing vapors (Raiders of the Abyss).

Even the show's premise seems wildly absurd, despite the fact that's it's just a mash up the most popular concepts the producers swiped from Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian. This is a transcription of the introductory narration:

The year: 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruin!
Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn…
A strange new world rises from the old: a world of savagery, super science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sun Sword against the forces of evil.
He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!

The idea of super science alone is flabbergasting, but Thundarr's companions are equally stunning. Ookla is a Mok – and as we find out in one episode, the tribe of the Moks (who are a blatant rip off-off Wookies) are hairy beast-men who horde gold for no purpose (except to bait pirates into attempts at stealing it) and live in Carribean-like shacks cobbled together with millennia old relics like Jaws and Oreo cookies advertisements.

Princess Ariel is a sometimes vulnerable woman whose feelings gets hurt when Thundarr refuses to admit she's pretty (he's kind of a jerk, but we'll tackle that next) but she is far, far more powerful than the titular character — when she can be bothered. She's a really skilled wizard who can create and control tornadoes, turn objects to dust and reflect magic spells, but most of the time she waits around for Thundarr to hack at things with his fabulous Sun Sword for a while before she even lifts a finger.

She's also way more educated than he is, and she's constantly explaining what a train, car, or animal is (functioning cars and trains have miraculously lasted two thousand years) and sometimes, much to her frustration, she has to explain even more complex concepts. “Baa-ter-eee, what is “bat-er-eee?””, “Spaaace?? What is spaace?” are typical of the questions Thundarr will frequently pose.

Aside from being a moron, Thundarr also follows in the great 1980s children's entertainment tradition of kind of jerky heroes. In Thundercats, this snippy attitude is explained away by the fact that Lion-O is a child in a man's body. Here, Thundarr is short with people just because. I mean hey, he is a barbarian.

You can enjoy this forgotten bit of fun on Boomerang, which has no commercials and some great interstitials showcasing vintage toys. Soon, you too will be using Thundarr's go-to expletive, Demon Dogs!

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Posted on March 16, 2009

On December 9th 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of her staircase covered in blood. Soon after, her husband, Mike would be arrested for her murder. French documentarian, Jean Xavier de Lestrade chose this compelling case for the in depth series, The Staircase, that originally aired on the Sundance channel. It's a compelling case because it is a truly perplexing one. Both sides have equally reasonable and equally flawed accounts of what happened and even the couples' children are divided on his guilt.

Lestrade, who is also well known for the Academy Award winning film Murder on a Sunday Morning, creates an interesting depiction of all the ins and outs of a defense team facing a very difficult trial. Without much style and fancy cinematography, the events are presented simply but throughly. No where else has the audience been taken into the confidence of all the preparations.

From surveys of the public to see how certain evidence will be construed, to vocal and acting coaching for the defendant in the court room before trial, from interviews with the accused and his family, to graphic evidential photographs of the crime scene (not used here gratuitously like American Justice, but as necessary parts to tell the whole story) – every aspect of the crime is documented.

That being said, it's all pretty focused on the defense, and therefor lends a bit of a bias to their side of the story simply because you're spending time with them and hearing at times only their complaints, theories, and feelings.

I have only watch so far the first disc that takes us to the beginning of the trail, but even knowing what is going to happen (I've seen the story told on some other true crime show) I am drawn in to the series and eagerly await disc two from Netflix.

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Posted on March 2, 2009

Why do I mention it now?

Because I am still Still! looking for copies of this spectacular teen show.

Originally recommended 4/24/06:

I don't usually like to recommend things that can't be found, but this is more than a recommendation – it is a plea. If anyone knows how to get ahold of this amazing, dramatic, teen soap opera please let me know!! I used to know a guy that had every episode – and do you know what he did with them? He destroyed them before his obsession with Swan's destroyed his life. That moment is one of the only ones in my life I would go back and change – I would have saved those tapes from destruction.

Here are a few elements to this stupendous classic – a young Sarah Michelle Gellar, evil Russian scientists, forbidden love through a chink in a garden wall, and an ugly but supposed to be hot girl that lives in a submarine and so much more make this (drum roll) the BEST teen show ever.

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Posted on February 16, 2009

Rediscovering these psychological thriller anthologies has been yet another benefit of the Roku. I remember watching these, which reran frequently, as a kid – in awe of his paunchy silhouette and witty commentary.

Actually, his introductions and closings still make me laugh and even though the clever plays in between are thoroughly entertaining, he's the best part of the show. It's amazing how well these hold up, just like the more super natural Twilight Zone. Sure, not all are exceptional but after almost five hundred episodes, a dud here and there can be forgiven.

I've found this to be a comforting way to pass wintry Sundays with old famous guest stars like Cloris Leachman, Ed Asner, and Roddy McDowell who I just saw as a guest star on the Buck Rogers episode entitled Planet of the Slave Girls.

It was revised in the 80's and I think I was a pretty big fan of that too – I remember an episode where a man is fooled into thinking he's being arrested, but it's just a ruse to surprise him with a birthday party, but the shock ends up giving him a heart attack. Isn't it strange the things you carry with you and remember for decades? But, as fans of the show probably know, Alfred Hitchcock Presents was full of little stories that echo.

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Posted on February 2, 2009