Seth Harris

Movie Review – The Legend of Billie Jean

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal
Directed by Matthew Robbins

On paper, the concept for The Legend of Billie Jean sounds fantastic, yet what ended up on the screen was a tonal mess and thematically murky. It’s a shame because the story being told was relevant in 1985 and continues to be timely. The more you unpack the picture, the more frustratingly confounding it becomes, allowing what should be direct and straightforward to become bogged down by side characters and subplots. What this could have been was a superhero origin story, but instead, we get a half-assed “girl power” movie that doesn’t do anything meaningful with the material.

TV Review – Jeeves & Wooster Season One

Jeeves & Wooster (ITV)
Season One, Original airdates: April 22 – May 13, 1990
Written by P.G. Wodehouse and Clive Exton
Directed by Robert Young

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were a very well-known comedy duo in the U.K. coming out of the late 1980s. They had a top-rated skit comedy series, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, while making appearances in Rowan Atkinson’s Black Adder show. When it came time to cast the iconic English valet and his buffoonish employer Fry & Laurie were hesitant to step into such significant roles. When it became apparent the show was going to be made whether they were in it or not, they took the parts believing they could do the original text justice.

Movie Review – The Sure Thing

The Sure Thing (1985)
Written by Steven Bloom and Jonathan Roberts
Directed by Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner had just come off of his debut film, the hilarious This Is Spinal Tap. His next project was The Sure Thing, a teen sex comedy, seemingly very different from that first feature. Reiner decided to make it the kind of movie he was interested in and played down the bawdy elements to focus on the dynamics of the two lead characters. As a result, he made what could be considered a modern remake of the classic screwball comedy It Happened One Night, following a similar plot structure and back and forth between the leads. The Sure Thing stands out from the crowd at the time, other films more influenced by Porky’s or John Hughes’ high school work. The Sure Thing feels like a classic movie, a connecting thread to the films of the 1930s and 40s.

Comic Book Review – Stargirl by Geoff Johns

Stargirl by Geoff Johns (2020)
Reprints Stars and STRIPE #0-14, JSA: All-Stars #4, excerpts from DCU Heroes Secret Files and DCU Villians Secret Files
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Lee Moder

I can remember buying the first issue of Stars and STRIPE when it came out. I was an awkward eighteen-year-old in the summer before college, I cannot believe how much I’ve changed as a person. This comic was on sale at Piggly Wiggly, one of the few stores in my rural American Southeast town that still sold comics. I was excited to get in on the ground floor of a brand new character and especially loved the connection to the Golden Age heroes. Anytime I read a comic that embraces the depth of a universe’s history, I get happy. I kept picking up the title as it came out until I moved off to college and began going down a different path for a while. Eventually, I would come back to the character through Geoff Johns’ JSA run. With the debut of Stargirl’s series on The CW, DC Comics has collected her earliest appearances and repackaged them here.

TV Review – Best of Moonlighting Part 3

Come Back Little Shiksa (Season 4, Episode 2)
Original airdate: October 6, 1987
Written by Jeff Reno & Ron Osborn
Directed by Allan Arkush

In the wake of season three’s conclusion, nothing was holding back David and Maddie from being together. However, the writers seemed to know that breaking that simmering tension took away an element that the viewers loved. So, they decided to send Maddie away from Los Angeles as a curveball to David. She goes home to Chicago, staying with her parents, and tries to explain to David she needs time to figure what this is and where it is going.

Movie Review – Tampopo

Tampopo (1985)
Written & Directed by Juzo Itami

Food has been the subject of many films over the century. Sometimes, it is a central part of the story, like in Babbette’s Feast or Ratatouille, or just part of memorable scenes like Matilda or Hook. When a filmmaker gets food right in their work, they can activate your senses, taking images on a screen and turning them into a hunger for the dishes on display. Tampopo does this while remaining a nearly uncategorizable film. It’s a comedy and a drama and a strange series of vignettes about people’s love of food stuffed in around the edges.

TV Review – Tales from the Loop Season One, Episode Seven

Tales from the Loop (Amazon Prime)
Season One, Episode Seven – “Enemies”
Written by Nathaniel Halperin
Directed by Ti West

Ti West is a director that came across my radar back in 2009 with his Eighties horror homage, The House of the Devil. I enjoyed his follow-up films, The Innkeepers and You’re Next. Since the early 2010s, he’s done a few other lesser movies and started to pick up more television work. I personally enjoy his filmmaking style because it is nostalgic without being shallow, West understands how to set a mood and sit in that space instead of leaning into endless, unearned jump scares. His contribution to Tales from the Loop actually borrows more from the artbook’s sequel Things From the Flood and brings some very subtle horror elements to the series.

Movie Review – Crimewave

Crimewave (1985)
Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, & Sam Raimi
Directed by Sam Raimi

A slapstick crime-comedy written by the Coens and directed Sam Raimi sounds like a perfect movie. This was before an era where these names were associated with the sorts of film perfection we talk about now. However, Crimewave is an extremely disappointing picture that has hints of later brilliance. It’s most definitely a Coen Brothers story with Raimi’s style overlaid, which isn’t a combination that works out as good as it sounds. Raimi opts to go for a Tex Avery angle with characters existing in a cartoonish world, yet there are some terrifying and dark aspects in the mix.

Movie Review – Spies Like Us

Spies Like Us (1985)
Written by Dan Aykroyd, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel
Directed by John Landis

John Landis is a filmmaker that helped shape American wide-release movies for decades that followed the 1980s. His own career hasn’t gone in a direction that matches, but his influence has resonated. He directed Animal House & The Blues Brothers, starting the transition of former Saturday Night Live cast members to movies. Landis helmed Trading Places and Coming to America, which set Eddie Murphy into a stellar trajectory. Beyond films, Landis directed Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and “Black or White” music videos, which have a hallowed place in the pop culture Hall of Fame. Most of his work, though, falls into the “okay” or “terrible” categories with Spies Like Us being one of those.

Comic Book Review – Absolute Carnage

Absolute Carnage (2020)
Reprints Free Comic Book Day 2019: Spider-Man/Venom #1, Absolute Carnage #1-5
Written by Donny Cates
Art by Ryan Stegman

During the 1990s, there was a character I disliked even more than Venom, Carnage. If you aren’t familiar with Carnage, he is Cletus Kasaday, a serial killer whom Eddie Brock shared a prison cell with. When the symbiote returned to bond with Eddie and break him out of prison, it also gave birth to another symbiote. This organism bonded with Kasaday to create Carnage. I always felt like the character’s only selling point is that he was “edgy” in look and behavior. He was just teeth and claws who killed people, a villain that felt more at home in Image Comics than at Marvel. Apparently, he is very popular because Marvel has sold many titles based on Carnage being there, definitely not as much as Venom but still enough to make me think he must have some sort of fanbase.