Acts of Vengeance (2017)

I say this a lot, but this is one I'd been meaning to do for some time now. It's directed by Isaac Florentine, and he's one I want to do all the films of. The problem was, it was on Netflix, then dropped; then it was on Prime, then dropped. Finally, it was on Tubi, but this time, when I saw the 5-day warning before it was removed, I made it happen. Out of the 40+ critic reviews, this has also been covered by Chad Cruise at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum.

Acts of Vengeance has Antonio Banderas as a defense attorney whose wife and daughter are killed. In his misery, first he puts himself through getting his ass kicked in underground fights, and then actually learns to fight for real. He also takes a vow of silence and reads Marcus Aurelius's Meditation, and strikes out to find out who killed his family. Could it be the Russian mob? Maybe a case of wrong place at the wrong time? But would that make for a good movie? Well, at that point the only other two named actors we have are Paz Vega and Karl Urban, which one do you think did it?

Look at the font on that title screen! Is this a DTV actioner released on Netflix in 2017, or a 1992 TV movie of the week? "This week on the CBS Movie of the Week: Acts of Vengeance: A Perry Mason Mystery." Now granted, Isaac Florentine is bringing it from an action standpoint, especially when we have Tim Man as the fight choreographer--obviously you're not getting that in a 1992 Perry Mason TV movie, though William R. Moses could mix it up a bit if you need him. The other thing is we start out of the gate with a fight, but then we get the dreaded freeze frame with narration that tells us it's time for flashback mode. I don't need my Isaac Florentine actioner told in flashback mode. It's fascinating in something like Tough Guys Don't Dance, which is like this mess of a thing that all works in spite of itself, but an Isaac Florentine actioner starring Antonio Banderas doesn't want to work in that kind of energy, it's supposed to be a 90-minute action fest that I can relax and watch with a bag of Doritos and a Dr. Pepper on a Saturday night. And ultimately this has enough of those moments, especially with the Florentine-Man combination on the fight scenes, that it does what I need it to do, even if other aspects didn't work for me.

With his 13th directed film on the site, Florentine is in a five-way tie for third most all time for directors. Also, once I watch Hounds of War, his latest film, I'll have seen each of his last 10 directed movies (11 if you count Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon, which he had a part in directing with Albert Pyun), and I'll only have three more of his directed films to watch after that, at which point I'll have done them all. As a DTV action fan, he's the kind of director that you want to have seen everything by, and this movie, despite its flaws, is a great example of why. Yes, I could've done without the flashback-narration style of storytelling that this employs, as it does get in the way of the action; but the action is another level. I don't care that I'm on a Bulgarian back lot posing as Pittsburgh when the fights look nice. This might not be one of his best films, but Florentine's movies have a higher floor than most other filmmakers in the DTV world, which is what you want when you're watching a film from a director of his caliber--don't let that title screen fool you!

This is our third Antonio Banderas film here at the DTVC, the others being Machete Kills and The Big Bang, which, if you're wondering, is now joint-most on the site among Antonios with Antonio Fargas, and one ahead of Antonio Margheriti's two. Anyway, he does enough of what you want from a lead in a movie like this, he's sufficiently Antonio Banderas, so when you see him on the tin, you're not disappointed. It looks like he's been doing more DTV stuff recently, especially with a director I haven't explored yet, Jon Keeyes, but that means we can expected to see more of him on here, which I'll be excited for. My favorite stuff of his is his Almodovar, especially the films from the late 80s/early 90s. What a career arc for him, from Almodovar, to one of the biggest names in Hollywood, to DTV flicks with Isaac Florentine, imagine the film fests you could do with his work. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Desperado, and Acts of Vengeance would make for an interesting night one, right?

Among the other names in this, we have Karl Urban and Robert Forster who we've seen on the site before. Urban plays the cop who helps Banderas out when he's getting over his wife, and then we find out he also dabbles in underground fighting. Can't see him doing a heel turn, can you? Then Forster has one scene as Banderas's father in-law, and he gives him a hard time at the funeral. While it was fun to see Forster, if I were Banderas's character I wouldn't have taken any shit from him the way he did, but that's just me. Someone we haven't seen here yet--and another Almodovar alum--is Paz Vega, though we did cover Rambo: Last Blood for the DTVC Extra podcast, and she was in that. She's really good here, and with Banderas gave this an elevated feeling--which was betrayed by that opening title screen, but what can ya do?

Finally, you'd think with the song "All I Have to Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers featured that that would be the focus of this penultimate paragraph, as I'm a big fan--and who wouldn't be, they were the greatest rock duo ever, even Rolling Stone agreed (though that list is pretty dubious beyond them at the top. Like no Hall and Oates at all, the duo that broke all the records the Everly Brothers set, or Steely Dan all the way down at 15? Classic Rolling Stone, I guess we should just be happy they didn't put Outcast and the White Stripes above the Everly Brothers too!). At this stage you could say I've already done the paragraph on the Everlys, but I needed to also mention that Urban's character was named "Strode," which is similar to "Stroad," a term in Urbanist circles that refers to a thoroughfare that tries to be both a multi-access street and a limited-access high-speed road, and ultimately fails at both. America is teaming with them, and as someone who doesn't drive, they're a menace. Four, sometimes six lanes of traffic, flanked by massive strip malls, fast food drive-thrus, and big box stores, all with massive parking footprints, none of which is intended for someone like me on foot. The stroad is American car dependency at it's most bonkers, and while you'd think living in a city like Philadelphia I can avoid them, unfortunately not quite, as Roosevelt Boulevard is the most dangerous stroad in the country, and even Oregon Avenue here in South Philly turns into one on both it's east and west termini, and while it's not as bad as the stroad of the suburban sprawl, if we have a housing emergency after the local hardware stores have closed, I need to navigate that mess of cars and parking and dangerous intersections to get what we need at Home Depot, and then navigate it all home. Every time Banderas said Urban's character's name, "Strode," I just thought of massive intersections with short, or maybe busted walk signals, and cars coming in and out of entrances that I need to dodge. It made my pulse elevate.

And with that, we leave my treatise on the stroad and American car dependency, and I'll wrap this up. It looks like no sooner than this was dumped from Tubi that Prime, Plex, and the Roku Channel picked it up, so you can catch it there. It probably fits better in an Isaac Florentine movie night than an Antonio Banderas one, but who knows, maybe pair it with Matador or Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down and it may work.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6288694

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Island (2023)

This is one I'd been meaning to do since it came out in 2023, but it's spent its entire streaming life on STARZ, which I lovingly refer to as "STARZ Purgatory," because that's one of the streamers I don't subscribe to. As luck would have it though, my cable company gave us a free week of STARZ, and I was able to make it happen. None of the other names we follow have covered this yet, perhaps owing to its status in STARZ Purgatory.

The Island has nothing to do with the Aldous Huxley novel Island, or the Peter Benchley novel The Island, and instead follows LAPD detective Mark (Michael Jai White), whose brother is murdered by a cartel leader (Edoardo Costa) on the small Caribbean island Mark grew up on. He returns home to find out what happened, and discovers that the cartel leader rules the island with an iron fist, and the local police are afraid to challenge him. Enter Mark, who is a bad, bad man, and will stop at nothing to take this cartel down. Will he succeed? And if so, at what cost?

This isn't a bad deal. White is exactly what you need as the lead, and then supporting characters played by Jackson Rathbone and White's wife Gillian are solid too, as is our baddie played by Edoardo Costa. We also have some really nice action sequences, again anchored by White, but also Rathbone and Gillian White do a great job as well. I also liked the setting on the Caribbean island, and the story thread about White having left and now coming back, and the tension that was there between him and some of the people he left behind. Beyond the unique location and the cultural Caribbean themes, this doesn't do much to step outside of the usual action film paradigm, but when I'm looking to spend 90 minutes to watch Michael Jai White and company beat up a bunch of baddies, I just want it to deliver, and this definitely does that.

With 28 films on the site now, the 30 Club is in sight for Michael Jai White, and he has a bunch of stuff on free streamers that I can cover, so we should see him get there by the end of the year. He has another film in STARZ Purgatory, MR-9: Do or Die with Frank Grillo, which I wasn't able to get to during the STARZ free week we had, so maybe if we get another free week I'll be able to make it happen. Either way, White proves again why he's one of the best in the business with this movie. He's the star, he knows what we want when we see his name on the tin, and he delivers. In my DTV top ten stars, I have White at 10th, behind Van Damme at 9, Dudikoff at 8, Lamas at 7, and Seagal at 6. It could be a bit before he passes any of those, but I think he's also been doing enough lately to keep himself above my number 11 all-time, Scott Adkins. Another great performance by him to add to an already Hall of Fame resume.

 
I was thinking this was our first film with White's wife Gillian, but she was also in Welcome to Sudden Death, which we've also covered. First one where she has a bigger role let's say, and she's great here, perfectly at home in the action and martial arts world. Thinking about someone we lost recently, Richard Norton, and the iconic pairings he had with Cynthia Rothrock, I could see the Whites carving out something similar here in the modern DTV world, fighting the good fight to keep DTV action viable and entertaining in a world of shrinking budgets and shrinking screentime for stars. One that I definitely need to get to now is Take Back, because it looks like she has a bigger role in it--not that her role here is insignificant by any means. I'm excited to dive into more of her stuff after this, and see what she has in store for us in the future as well.

As I mentioned above, this also has Jackson Rathbone of Twilight fame. His character early on is kind of a cross between a young Eminem and maybe a Simon Sez Dane Cook, complete with the beating up the perp while reading him his rights--you know that routine, "You have the right to remain silent..." punch... "you have the right to an attorney..." kick to the ribs... and so on. He redeems himself later and is a bit more easy to manage, but it got me thinking, just what hath Twilight wrought on the DTV world? Beyond Rathbone, we also have Kellen Lutz and Ashley Greene doing a bunch of DTV flicks, and as far as I can tell for all three, the main selling point for them is the fact that they were in Twilight. You could also tack on Cam Gigandet, though I feel like that's more of a stretch because he was only in the first one. Some enterprising DTV director should make a movie with all three of them, maybe with Peter Facinelli as the head baddie. They could be like a crack team of spies who travel the world and do action stuff. Perfect for Millennium Films to produce in Bulgaria, right?

Finally, I want to get back to the STARZ Purgatory thing. If you look in our tags you'll see the "Starz Play 11" (which I'm discovering now I misspelled "STARZ," that it's supposed to be all caps--who knew?), which was when STARZ was pulling all of their movies off of what was then called Netflix Instant. Initially STARZ was using Netflix as their streaming outlet, and it worked well for both Netflix and their burgeoning streaming service, and us subscribers who were just getting used to the idea of a streaming service to have all that content, which complimented the DVDs we were already getting as part of our subscription. STARZ eventually went out on their own, and they're a bit of a lone wolf in the streaming world, below all of the big names, they don't have any major properties to tie themselves to, or even a major technology like Apple+, yet somehow they've managed to get themselves exclusive rights to some of these DTV actioners, plus, before Sony struck a deal with Netflix recently, they also were doing Sony's streaming for them--hence Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home also being stuck in STARZ Purgatory as opposed to joining other Sony Spider-Man/Spider-Verse without Spider-Man titles on Disney+ or Netflix. And this wouldn't be so bad 15 years ago, when I would've just added The Island to my Netflix DVD queue, and watched it for the site that way, but now that's no longer an option. First, Netflix no longer does DVDs; second, this movie wasn't released on DVD in the States, as far as I can tell; and third, computers no longer come with DVD players, so how would I get images for the site? So unless I want to shell out $3.99 to rent it on Prime, STARZ Purgatory it is, and every once in a while my cable provider gives us a free week of STARZ so I can venture into that liminal world, watch as many films as I can, and then return to tell everyone the tale.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As I said above, here in the States, this is in STARZ Purgatory until further notice, so if you don't have STARZ, you'll need to rent it on Amazon. While I think it's a good time, I don't know that it's worth a rental when there are so many things available on free streamers, or on streamers you're probably already subscribed to. That said, hopefully it'll make its way out of STARZ Purgatory soon, because it's a solid film, and worth everyone checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21853596

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Not Another Mistake aka Cross Fire (1989)

With the sad news that another legend had left us, this time Richard Norton, it was necessary to do a post in his honor, and I thought this would be a good one. I found it on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subtitles, which is all the better. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance have covered this too.

Not Another Mistake is a 'Namsploitation flick (hence the first letter of each word in the title spelling "NAM") where Norton, a former POW who escaped his captors, only to have his wife and daughter killed years after the war in a home invasion, has been called back into action when some intel tells the US military that the unit he left behind in the POW camp might still be alive, and they want him to go in and get them out. It won't be easy though, as he only has a rag-tag group of young recruits to help him, and if he's caught, Uncle Sam will disavow any knowledge of him or his team. As they slog through the jungle, dodging traps and ambushes, they're captured by some baddies. Is this where his old unit is being held? And will he be able to escape and save them?

Maybe not the best film, as it's a bit sloggy in points and a bit all over the place, but it gets the 'Namsploitation job done. Norton is exactly what you want out of him for the lead, it's his film, and he carries it accordingly, like he's hoisted one of his fallen comrades on his back and is lugging them to safety in the jungle. We also get a random recognizable face, in this case Wren T. Brown, plus all the requisite hut explosions, jeep and other vehicle flips--which also explode--and bad guy soldier shimmies as they're mowed down with M-16 fire--the only thing we were missing was a helicopter explosion, but man do they tease us with that! The interesting thing is it's long, 99 minutes to be exact, only like 90 seconds of which was credits; but it's a weird, almost fascinating kind of long. Director/writer Anthony Maharaj makes some interesting decisions, the kinds of things that American screenwriting schools would say you shouldn't do, like randomly showing us cattle crossing a dirt road that has no impact on the story at all, or a real-time shot of Norton packing up and hiding his parachute. Even the ending was off, because we have this clear ending point at the 69-minute mark, where Norton vanquishes the baddie, but then there's this 30 minutes of escaping by train, then a shoot-out on a hill while trying to get onto the rescue helicopter. It made no sense that they did that, but in a way it made it more fun. And that's ultimately what this film is about for me, beyond the great Norton, even when it's making the wrong decision, somehow it works in spite of itself.

Richard Norton is one of the best to do it, and I think this film is a great example of what he brought to the table. It feels like he knew exactly what a movie needed from him, and he knew how to deliver it. It's not just being a professional actor, though that's part of it. It's like he knew what a low-budget 'Namsploitation film was, why he was there, and what he needed to do to make it as entertaining as possible, which turns something like this from unremarkable into a fun time. He could do that in a post-apocalyptic Cirio H. Santiago film, a modern team-up actioner with Cynthia Rothrock, or a Hong Kong flick too. I'd say they don't really make 'em like Norton anymore, but the truth is, they never made 'em like him back then either, he was a one-off, but we as low-budget action fans are lucky we had him, and have so many great films of his to enjoy, like this one. Here's to you Mr. Norton, you're one of the greatest to do it, and you will be missed.

The idea that there were POWs in Vietnam who were still being held long after the war was debunked long ago, but in the late 80s, after the First Blood: Part II and Missing in Action boom, low-budget filmmakers based in the Philippines could pump tons of these babies out based on this myth, and Anthony Maharaj was no different. Now the new debunked hoax that's all the rage for movies is middle class white women and/or their daughters getting kidnapped at Hobby Lobbies and trafficked into Mexico. Maybe I'm biased, but the POW-MIA 'Namsploitations seem more fun, but maybe in twenty years there will be a kid born in the 2000s who starts the Straight-to-Streaming Connoisseur, and they'll be all over the trafficking films from the 2010s to the 2020s the way we are these Vietnam films made in the Philippines from the 80s to the 90s. While a lot of these are available on free streamers, many more are from rare VHS rips, like this one on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subs, which just makes it all the more fun when someone says something and we see it in Dutch on the screen below it. "They got Pappas." "Pappas is getroffen." That's another area where these 'Namsplotations beat their modern trafficking counterparts, a serious collector can find them on rare, foreign VHS, while the trafficking films often don't even have a physical media release. It begs the question: would I like some of these tired trafficking movies more if instead of streaming on Tubi or Hulu, I was watching VHS rips of them on YouTube with hard-coded foreign language subs? At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to try.

As many tropes as this film had, it also had a lot of trope teases. We mentioned the helicopter explosion tease above. I don't know how many of those we had, whether it was just helicopters looming in the vicinity while our heroes had explosive firearms, or situations like the train chase that just lent themselves to a helicopter in pursuit that could meet an explosive end, but there were many moments that would've led to a helicopter explosion in a similar film, but didn't bear fruit here. Another is the Presidential Portrait, there were multiple foreign US offices that scenes took place in, complete with American flags standing near the actors and bare walls behind them, just screaming out for a Bush 41 portrait, or maybe a Reagan depending on when this was shot. When we watch movies like this, we have boxes we need to check off (or tick off if you speak the King's English), and to come so close on some, only to be left wanting, is frustrating. I'm not usually an advocate of Lucasing films, but if you're still with us, Mr. Maharaj, I feel like maybe you should right some of these wrongs with a new version of the film. Just a thought.

Finally, as this is an in memoriam post, we need to give Mr. Norton a second paragraph. We often talk about the period from the mid-80s to the mid-90s as the Golden Age of DTV action, and no one was more instrumental in making that so than Richard Norton. He was larger-than-life, but could use that presence as either the hero, like he was in this film, or the head baddie, like in Lady Dragon or City Hunter. For me, it didn't get any better than him in a Canadian tuxedo beating the crap out of baddies in Rage and Honor 2, culminating in him taking down Patrick Muldoon while taunting him, "come on Tommy!" And that was the thing, even with that larger-than-life presence, he also seemed very down-to-earth, like after he cleaned out a bar full of heavies, you could sit down and have a beer with him. While he will most certainly be missed, the contributions he made to the world of cinema we love so much can't be understated, and as I said above, we're so lucky to have them.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on VHS, or on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subtitles. If you've seen all of Norton's other big ones, this is a fun one to watch in honor of him. We'll miss him, but definitely not forget him. Thank you Mr. Norton, you were one of the greatest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094920

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Pure Danger (1996)

This is one that I probably should've seen a long time ago, let alone covered by now, but I hadn't, until Jon from The After Movie Diner had me on his show to discuss it--which, as of my writing hasn't been released yet, but it was a fun conversation, so keep an eye on our socials for when it is live, possibly on his new PM Entertainment Podcast instead. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Pure Danger has Howell (who also directed) as Johnie Dean (yes the name on the cover--"Between the two stars' names there is THE MAIN CHARACTER'S NAME"), a short-order cook on parole, who, with Becky (Teri Ann Linn), the server at the diner he works at, come into possession of a sack of diamonds. They're on the run from competing gangs of criminals that want to get their hands on them, and when Howell goes to his old friend (Rick Shapiro) to try and fence the ice, they end up back in the orbit of the gangsters that want to kill them. It's a wild, Spiro Razatos-action-directed ride as Johnie and Becky try to survive and get a better life for themselves. Oh, and Carrot Top appears in the final chase.

This is the fun PM ride you came for, but also it has other elements that make it even better. The C. Thomas Howell direction is fascinating. It's not like the ones Wings Hauser did, this is like wacky Tarantino, with his main character Johnie yucking it up with his mustache. Then there's the Italian gangster stereotypes, which PM was always kind of fond of anyway, but Howell has them ramped up to eleven--and perhaps 9 or 10 would've been better, because part of that ramping up to 11 is them using the N word a lot, especially directed at Leon, who's the leader of the other gang. While it feels like it's biting on Tarantino's use of the word in Pulp Fiction, in a way it also reveals how bad that was too, if that makes sense. Speaking of "if that makes sense," Carrot Top is driving a delivery truck in the big finale chase sequence. Yes, you read that right, and it's not someone who looks like Carrot Top that I'm calling Carrot Top for laughs. And the thing is, this is Carrot Top in a Spiro Razatos-action-directed chase, so it's next-level on its own, but then you add in Carrot Top and you have the kind of bonkers beauty you only find in the world of DTV. I don't put it above The Sweeper, but once you've seen that, you have to see this.

We're now at 48 PM flicks on the site. That's right, the 50 Club is in sight, and I have Steel Frontier already in the can from my guest spot on Jon Cross's PM Entertainment Podcast (episode number 3 in his archives), so we already have 49 slotted in. I recently updated my PM Letterboxd list to go from 10 to 15 movies, and this one slots in at 14 all-time. In the post-Pulp Fiction era, where the world of DTV was under constant attack by indulgent filmmakers trying to make talky, ironic gangster flicks, PM told Howell he could make his own, as long as it fit PM's rule of having action sequences every 15 minutes or so. Then they gave the action sequences to Spiro Razatos to direct, so that alone meant this was going to be great. From there though, because Howell was given the freedom to do what he wanted outside of the action, he could really go for it, with these crazy caricatures that both mock and pay homage to the genre he's working in. I think if this were made today, they'd tone down the use of the N word by the Italian gangsters--and maybe make them less stereotypical too--but outside of that, I don't know that something this fantastic would be made in the modern DTV world, which is too bad, but at least PM made it in 1996.

Spiro Razatos is closing in on the 30 Club, now with 27 films on the site, and according to IMDb we still have a lot of stuff of his from the 90s to cover, so the 30 Club shouldn't be a problem, maybe even this year. He brings it again in this one, with action sequences that lead to action sequences, shootouts that turn into foot chases, then car chases, which culminate in massive explosions. One thing he did a lot of in the final car chase was have two cars come together to smash into a third car in between them. It looked a lot like what he did in the Venom car chase, where Venom used his tentacles to smash cars together. I think that's part of what's so fun about his PM work, beyond how bonkers and beautiful it was, is you can see how he took some of these things in 90s DTV flicks, and used them in major productions that were earning $750 million to $1 billion at the box office in the 2010s. As a fan of the action genre, Razatos is just at another level, it's the kind of stuff where I'm like hook me up to an IV and mainline it right into my veins, and that's the action he gives us here.

It is kind of crazy that we're not getting to Howell until the sixth paragraph, but it just kinda worked out that way with PM and Razatos as our two Hall of Famers. That begs the question: should Howell get in? And it's a fair question, because he has some classics, to which I think we can add this one. We've inducted people with fewer films than him, and he now has two signature films in this and The Sweeper, so it's worthy of consideration, but we also have a stacked line-up of inductees for 2025 already, like Cole S. McKay--who we discovered upon finally tagging him belongs in the 50 Club!--Imperial Films, Daniel Bernhardt, and Kathleen Kinmont. That kind of locks things up for 2025, but there's always 2026, right? And if you're looking for Hall of Fame caliber Howell, after The Sweeper this is it. He's yucking it up with his mustache, but at the same time he's giving us a unique perspective, taking full advantage of the leeway PM gave him. This is the fourth Howell-directed film we've seen on the site, after The Day the Earth Stopped, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, and The Land That Time Forgot, all of those being Asylum films, and so it's probably no surprise that the first of his two PM films he directed that we're covering here shoots to the top of the list.

Finally, when we see Donny "Don" Most as Howell's parole officer early in the film, I figured he'd have this seventh paragraph locked up, and I'd spend it talking about Happy Days, maybe getting into how the "Jump the Shark" episode didn't kill the show, that they actually went on for another 5 seasons, many of which as the top-rated comedy in America. I was mentally drafting the paragraph as the film went on, only to discover Carrot Top--yes, the Carrot Top, Scott "Carrot Top" Thompson--driving the delivery truck in the final chase scene. What do you do with that? You just sit back and love it, that's all you can do. Looking at his IMDb, he was also in the Howell-directed Hourglass, so they must have been, or maybe even still are, friends, which may explain something else. Courtney Thorne-Smith appeared with Howell in the volleyball classic Side Out (another plus for Howell's Hall of Fame case). When Carrot Top was making Chairman of the Board, did Howell suggest Thorne-Smith for his leading lady in that film? Which would mean Side Out set in motion a series of events that led us to Thorne-Smith going on Conan O'Brien to do publicity for the season finale of Melrose Place, where Chairman of the Board was mentioned, and Norm MacDonald famously took it down. Also mentioned in that appearance, Donny "Don" Most, so it all comes full circle.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is on YouTube, Fawesome, Plex, and the Roku Channel here in the States. I mention all of these, because some have edited-for-TV versions, so you want to be careful of that. The YouTube one is uncut, so that one's safe. This is another fun PM ride, well-worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117406

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!