The Innocents (1961)

Who's in it?: Deborah Kerr (The King and I, the '60s Casino Royale), Martin Stephens (Village of the Damned), Pamela Franklin (The Legend of Hell House, The Food of the Gods), Megs Jenkins (Ivanhoe), and Michael Redgrave (The Lady Vanishes)

What's it about?: The definitive, classic adaptation of The Turn of the Screw.

How is it?: I've watched The Innocents three times over the last couple of months. Like the novel it's based on, it haunts me. I can't stop thinking about it, wondering what and how much it's trying to say and what I need to do with what it doesn't say. Are the ghosts real? Is the governess insane? I think I've come to some answers to those questions where the novel is concerned, but do those same answers apply to Jack Clayton's film?

Possibly not. Clayton's adaptation, based on a script that was touched by a few people, including Truman Capote and Clayton himself, keeps the basic premise and setting of Turn of the Screw, but also makes some notable changes. It raises the age of the main character (Deborah Kerr), which is significant, and it muddies her mental state by removing some of the novel's scenes and having her react differently to some things than the way she does in the book.

A big example is how it casts ambiguity on the existence of the ghosts by almost always showing the governess' reaction to the ghosts before seeing the ghosts themselves. When we see them, are we only seeing them through her eyes? The film also adds a scene where the governess sees a photo of the deceased groundskeeper before she sees his ghost. How much has her vision of his spirit been influenced by the photograph? She never sees a photo of the former governess, but when she sees that ghost it's always at a distance with unclear features.

The one exception to this uncertainty is at the very end of the film. The last time she sees the ghost of the groundskeeper, the audience sees him first, leading us to believe that he's real. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I like the doubt created through most of the film and part of me hates to see it done away with. On the other, part of me likes that after setting up this puzzle, the film actually offers a subtle solution.

Another change from book to film is the death of the little boy, Miles (Martin Stephens). They both happen basically the same way: when the governess forces Miles to face his demons and speak the name of the groundskeeper who both mentored (in a twisted way) and tormented him. Miles falls down dead and it's always unclear exactly why. I love this essay by Muriel West for constructing a solid argument about what actually kills Miles in the novel. Based on the governess' behavior throughout the book as well as quiet clues that Henry James plants in the scene itself, West believes that the governess literally (but accidentally) smothers Miles to death after figuratively doing it the whole story. The film doesn't block the scene that way, so Kerr's character isn't physically suffocating Stephens', but the symbolism is still there. It's a metaphor that somehow manifests itself physically. Maybe the ghost has something to do with it.

Clayton clearly wanted to leave the viewer a lot of options in interpreting The Innocents. Even the title can be taken a couple of different ways. Does it apply to the entire household (including the governess) or just Miles and Flora (Pamela Franklin)? If it's just the kids, does the title claim that they're truly innocent as the housekeeper Mrs Grose (Megs Jenkins) insists, making how the governess treats them even more tragic? Or is the title ironic and the children have already been somehow corrupted by the deceased groundskeeper and governess?

However you interpret it, as pure film-making, The Innocents is superb and deserves its status as a classic. When Truman Capote took a run at the script, he added lots of symbolism about death and decay: wilting roses everywhere and bugs crawling out of statues' mouths, for example. And Clayton and cinematographer Freddie Francis create a creepy, haunting atmosphere that's perfect for James' gothic story.

Rating: Five out of five ghostly governesses.

Fourth Chair Army Invasion | A Tribute to Nerd Lunch

On this final episode of Fourth Chair Army Invasion, members of the Nerd Lunch Fourth Chair Army talk about what they love about Nerd Lunch, their favorite episodes, and say goodbye to the show. But all is not done. Stay tuned to the very end for details about the new monthly show that will replace Invasion on the Nerd Lunch feed.

Western History | Zorro (1990)

Who's in it?: Duncan Regehr (Wizards and Warriors, V, The Monster Squad), Patrice Martinez (¡Three Amigos!, Beetlejuice), JG Hertzler (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Efrem Zimbalist Jr (Batman: The Animated Series), and Henry Darrow (The New Adventures of Zorro, Zorro and Son).

What's it about?: Zorro returns to live-action TV on The Family Channel.

How is it?: I was initially skeptical about the quality of The Family Channel's Zorro. The money-making channel had legally separated itself from the non-profit Christian Broadcasting Network by the time this came out, but it was still being run by people associated with CBN and my perception was that it was going to be ultra- tame and family friendly. Not that Zorro is an edgy character, but I expected the CBN version to be especially cheesy and moralistic.

Contributing to my expectation of goofiness was the casting of Duncan Regehr as Zorro. Regehr is a good-looking guy, but he's more soap-opera handsome than ruggedly dashing. I expected a lot of mugging for the camera and Joey Tribbiani "smell the fart" faces from him.

Watching the show for this project, though, I enjoyed it quite a bit. There's a lot of quick editing to hide cheap stunt-work, but I'm used to that from other '90s adventure shows like Xena and Conan the Adventurer. And while the show can be cheesy, it's charmingly cheesy in the same way those other shows are.

There are 88 episodes if you don't count the pilot (and you shouldn't, for reasons I'll get into), so I didn't watch the whole series. But I watched the pilot and the first episode and then several other episodes from among the show's four seasons. These weren't really random; I picked them for particular storylines or guest-stars that I wanted to see. I got a good sense of the show and if it were more easily available to watch than just on YouTube, I'd be interested in going back for a complete look at some point.

The pilot is almost completely different from what the show would become. It stars an actor named Patrick James (this is his only acting credit), not as Don Diego, but as a new character who takes on the identity of Zorro after the aging Diego is mortally wounded in action. It's not good. Thanks to Zorro: The Gay Blade and the Antonio Banderas movies that we'll get to later, I'm used to the idea of Zorro passing on his mask to a younger hero. So the premise doesn't bother me, but James isn't charismatic enough to play a swashbuckling hero. The costume is also shoddy and I groaned when the climax had Zorro ride a homemade hang glider into battle.

Thankfully, the actual show recast almost everyone and even took a more traditional approach to the legend, so Regehr is actually playing our beloved Diego de la Vega. I say they recast "almost" everyone, because one actor from the pilot does return, although as a different character. That's Patrice Martinez, who was the aristocratic love interest in the pilot, but is now the owner/operator of the local cantina. Business owner Victoria Escalante is a much cooler role and gives the show the chance to explore some feminist themes as people (not Diego and his family) constantly underestimate Victoria and she stands up for herself.

Another character I like a lot is Felipe, Zorro's mute servant. He's basically the Bernardo character from the books, but borrows some elements from other, earlier TV versions. Like Bernardo on the Disney TV show, Felipe pretends to be deaf as well as mute in order to listen in on bad guys' conversations without their being suspicious. But he's also a young ward of the Vega family, like Miguel in the Filmation cartoon. He's a good-looking kid and an asset to Zorro's campaign. I like him a lot. He even mimes the Z-shape like his Disney predecessor did when he's asking Diego if Zorro will be going into action.

The rest of the characters are pretty traditional. Efrem Zimbalist Jr plays Diego's dad in the first season, but was replaced by Henry Darrow for the rest of the show. Zimbalist is fun, but Darrow is even cooler, especially considering that he'd been the voice of Zorro on the cartoon and played Zorro in the short-lived sitcom series, Zorro and Son.

The evil alcalde was played by Michael Tylo for the first two seasons until the character was killed off and replaced in season three by a new villain (JG Hertzler). Tylo and Hertzler are both great and their characters have slightly different personalities, so it's hard to pick a favorite between them. Tylo's character wasn't exactly bumbling, but he was a guy that Zorro could manipulate without too much trouble. Hertzler's character feels more deadly, but he's also given some unexpected background and motivation that makes him surprisingly relatable.

Finally, there's the Sgt Garcia/Gonzalez character, renamed Mendoza for some reason. He's played by James Victor and is rather unremarkable, but fills in just fine as the slightly overweight, incompetent leader of the alcalde's troops.

A very fun aspect of the show though is all the guest-stars. Jim Carter (Rustlers' Rhapsody, Downton Abbey) played an especially ruthless Spanish officer who was so nasty that he came back later for a second episode. And Daniel Craig was in a couple of fourth season episodes with all his James Bond intensity as the henchman to another villain. Philip Michael Thomas (Miami Vice) had an episode as a free Black man who has to endure bigotry from the alcalde and his men. Warwick Davis (Return of the Jedi, Willow) plays the leader of a dishonest circus in an episode. But my very favorite guest star was Adam West as an inventor named Dr Henry Wayne who is especially impressed when Zorro escorts him (blindfolded, of course) to his secret cave headquarters.

Possibly because an origin story had already been attempted by the never-shown pilot, the first episode of the series doesn't bother going into how Diego became Zorro. Which is fine. Fans already know that story and casual viewers likely don't care. But there is a four-episode origin story later in the first season, where a badly injured Zorro reminisces about how he became the hero. It's not bad and way more traditional than the unaired pilot, though some of the pilot's footage is used - including the hang glider!

Rating: Three out of five rapiers.

Hellbent for Letterbox | Quigley Down Under (1990)

Pax and I revisit the '90s classic about a sharpshooting cowboy (Tom Selleck) who teams up with a troubled woman (Laura San Giacomo) to fight a ruthless land baron (Alan Rickman) over his treatment of Aboriginal Australians.

There's also a quick review of the graphic novel The Grave Doug Freshley by Josh Hechinger and mpMann.

Little Women (1933)

Who's in it?: Frances Dee (I Walked with a Zombie), Katharine Hepburn (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), Jean Parker (The Gunfighter), Joan Bennett (Bulldog Drummond), Spring Byington (Werewolf of London), Samuel S Hinds (Rhythm on the Range), Douglass Montgomery (Mystery of Edwin Drood), Henry Stephenson (Tarzan Finds a Son), John Lodge (Bulldog Drummond at Bay), and Paul Lukas (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)

What's it about?: The first major adaptation of the novel, but also a vehicle for rising star Katherine Hepburn.

How is it?: George Cukor's version leaves out some story points that I miss, particularly in the rivalry between Jo (Katharine Hepburn) and Amy (Joan Bennett) and Amy's burning Jo's writing. As a writer who's sometimes had to start manuscripts over due to computer crashes or whatnot, I understand Jo's horror and frustration over that in the book. And it's especially heinous to think that Amy did it on purpose. But Amy is still a self-absorbed brat at that point, and it sets a bottom level that she's able to rise from as she grows up. Without that - or really any special conflict between Amy and Jo - the story loses impact when the sisters are not only able to get past their differences, but Jo can sincerely be happy when Laurie marries Amy.

Cukor's version also fails the Amy/Laurie story by having it develop mostly off camera. Their story is one of my favorite things about the novel, so this is disappointing. But the '33 Little Women is all about Katherine Hepburn and Jo.

That would be okay, I guess, if there weren't other, later versions that manage to balance Jo's story with the other characters'. If you have to pick one character to focus on though, Jo is it. And she's a great character, don't get me wrong. She's just not my favorite, so Cukor's movie is already going to have limited appeal to me. It's made worse though, by the way that Jo is portrayed.

Jo should be ungraceful, but Hepburn exaggerates her voice and movements to make a lumbering, boisterous oaf. She mellows out over the course of the film, but she's hard for me to watch in the early scenes. I also don't see any chemistry between her and Laurie (Douglass Montgomery).

Montgomery is heavily made up with eyeliner and lip rouge (the only male in the cast to get that treatment), so while Montgomery plays him just fine, he comes across like a dandy. He's also an angrier character than I want Laurie to be, though I respect the choice to make him that way. In the novel, Laurie has been through a lot and his relationship with his grandfather is strained at first (something they both have to grow out of), so there's reason for him to have some anger at his core. And I don't think Montgomery goes too far with it. My biggest problem is that I just never feel any heat between his Laurie and Hepburn's Jo. Both of them are good-looking, but neither is the least bit attractive, if that makes sense.

I have the same problem with Jo and Professor Bhaer (Paul Lukas), but that's always going to be the hardest relationship to sell in the story. In the novel, Bhaer comes in late and he's kind of pitiable and there's an age difference, so it's hard work getting me to root for them, even if you're Louisa May Alcott. She pulls it off by making the professor charming, the age gap vague, and by surrounding the relationship with a lot of other, more compelling activity. If we're mostly focused on Jo, like this version is, that relationship becomes hyper important. I never get into it, though. Partly because I associate Paul Lukas most with kindly, old Professor Aronnax in 20,000 Leagues and he's not doing much different in Little Women. It's also unhelpful that he constantly refers to Jo as "my little friend," emphasizing the age difference even more.

But my complaints about the Jo parts aren't to say that everyone else is completely sidelined. The other characters may not get as many great moments as they deserve, but they do all get moments. Joan Bennett is a particularly good Amy and there's a nice scene where the sisters each get a dollar for Christmas and choose to spend it on their mother. At first, Amy decides to split the dollar between some perfume for mom and some drawing pencils for herself, but later returns the pencils and buys a larger bottle of the perfume. That's the essence of Amy right there and Bennett is lovely with it.

Frances Dee's Meg is beautiful and subtly resentful about the March family's reduced finances. She doesn't outright complain, but she makes comments that are clues to how she's feeling, especially if you know her from the book. And her romance with Laurie's tutor, Mr Brooke (John Lodge) is sweet. They're a handsome couple and get a nice scene together, even though mostly the movie cares about how their romance affects Jo.

Jean Parker's Beth has a couple of great moments with Laurie's grandfather (Henry Stephenson), as it should be. Their relationship is one of the sweetest, especially in the Greta Gerwig movie, but also here, although this one's more subtle. I love the escalating gift-giving between the two of them. Mr Laurence invites Beth to come play the piano at his house (paying off a wonderful scene earlier where Beth is playing the March family's piano and frustrated because one of the keys doesn't work), then Beth thanks him with a gift of handmade slippers, which he responds to by giving her his piano, and she goes to thank him for that, can't really find the words, and just sits on his lap and hugs him. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, especially knowing what's going to happen to her later in the story.

A second moment just has Mr Laurence, but it's all about his relationship with Beth. It's when she's sick the first time and no one expects her to live. He's by himself in the Marches' sitting room and just sort of pacing. At one point, he walks over to his old piano and puts a hand on it before wandering away again. Understated and lovely.

Samuel S Hinds is barely present as the girls' father, but Spring Byington is a lovely, matronly Marmee. She's noble and convincing as a woman who's struggling in the absence of her husband, but also quite adept at supporting and raising her daughters and holding the household together.

I almost forgot to mention Mabel Colcord as Hannah, the Marches' domestic helper. She's fine as a stereotypical Irish housekeeper, but not really memorable. I only bring her up, because I'm curious to compare her with other versions and see how the character might be given more life. I feel the same way about Edna May Oliver's Aunt March. She's a grumpy old woman, but nothing more than that. Definitely room for other actors to do more with that role.

So to sum up, there are exquisite elements in Cukor's adaptation, but I wish that the film focused on providing more of those and less of Jo just being loud and awkward, especially in the early parts of the film.

Rating: Three out of five Amys.

Mystery Movie Night | Poltergeist (1982), The 'Burbs (1989), and Casper (1995)

Erik picks some creepy house movies that also have another, mysterious connection. We got clowns, cul-de-sacs, and cameos in this episode.

00:01:45 - Review of Poltergeist (1982)
00:21:28 - Review of The 'Burbs (1989)
00:33:20 - Review of Casper (1995)
00:53:03 - Guessing the Connection

Pretty in Pink: The TV Series | The Concept

On the most recent episode of the Nerd Lunch Fourth Chair Army Invasion, I pitched an idea for turning John Hughes' teen movies into a TV show. I titled my imaginary show Pretty in Pink, but it's really about all the characters from Hughes' fictional Shermer High in Shermer, Illinois. Hughes set his teen movies there, but never tried to create a serious, shared universe. So that's what I tried to do.

I'm a huge fan of these movies and a huge fan of shared universes and making connections between things, so I've always thought this would be a fun experiment. The podcast finally gave me the motivation to figure out how it could work. And while I'm really happy with how the podcast episode turned out, I didn't have time to flesh out the idea as much as I wanted to. Which brings me to this first in a series of posts where I try to do just that.

John Hughes made six teen movies between the years of 1984 and 1987: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful. That's a span of four years, which serendipitously turns out to be a high school career. So it's pretty easy to imagine someone starting at Shermer High as a freshman in the 1983-84 school year, who was there during the events of all six movies that took place over the next four years, and then graduated in the Spring of 1987.

My original thought was to call the series Shermer High, since that's what ties all of these movies and characters together. But imagining it as an actual TV series, I decided that Shermer High doesn't have enough name recognition. It's better marketing to name it after one of Hughes' films.

I eliminated The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller for being too specific about a particular group of characters. Weird Science gives the wrong impression about what the series is. And Sixteen Candles is too specific to one year of the student's life; it won't work for all four years. That left Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful, which are both broad enough to work. And I chose Pretty in Pink as being the more iconic of the two. In a minute, I'll get to how that affects the show. I don't want the name to be meaningless.

As I hinted above, it would be a four-season TV series chronicling the high school journey of a group of characters. Those who start the series as freshmen will graduate in the final season. I love the idea of limiting it that way, which is what Felicity did with the college career of its main character. That way, we don't have a bunch of characters hanging around their high school long after they should have graduated. If the show became super popular, the broadness of the title would let us follow the main character to college, but my idea is to end it after four seasons.

If this existed, I think that network TV would be the best place for it, as opposed to cable or streaming. It feels like the kind of thing the CW might air. Having it on network TV means that its seasons would start just as school is starting for the year, with a break at Christmas, and then ending the season just as school is getting out for summer vacation.

We'd have to do 20+ episodes a season that way, but our cast is going to be big enough that there's plenty of drama to make that work without feeling like we're spinning wheels or doing filler episodes.

It's also important to me that the show be set in the '80s and feature a lot of music from that time period, especially New Wave and Alternative. Music was super important to John Hughes and all six of these soundtracks are good. But the Pretty in Pink soundtrack was especially important to me. It let me know that I wasn't the only person listening to The Psychedelic Furs and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, while also introducing me to The Smiths and Echo and the Bunnymen. That music needs to be a big part of this show.

Since we're calling it Pretty in Pink, the main character has to be Andie Walsh, who was played by Molly Ringwald in the movie. And that's great. Andie's one of my favorite characters in any John Hughes movie. She's smart, talented, conflicted, and has a lot of drama not just at school, but also in her home life and with her best friend. She's a great person to build the show around.

Casting her is easy, too. It can only be Sophia Lillis, who was in the recent couple of It movies as well as last year's Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase and this year's Gretel and Hansel.

That's plenty long for this post, so in the next post I'll talk about the various locations where characters will hang out, as well as the main adult cast members who'll be with the show all four years.

The Brontes: Infernal Angria by Craig Hurd-McKenney and Rick Geary

As I mentioned earlier, Isabel Greenberg's Glass Town got me wanting to read Craig Hurd-McKenney and Rick Geary's version of the story, which also explores the Brontë siblings' obsession with the fictional world they created as kids. I read the first part when it was released back in 2004 and was fascinated by it. It was my first exposure to the Brontës childhood creations and I was curious to learn more. It took a while for Hurd-McKenney and Geary to finish the story though (no judgment; graphic novels are monsters to produce), so I'd forgotten all about it until Glass Town reminded me. Thankfully, Infernal Agria was finished a couple of years ago and was all ready for me to dig in.

It's a cool companion to Glass Town. The art style is very different with Geary being perfect for nineteenth century atmosphere and details. It doesn't have the maps or clear geography that Greenberg provides in Glass Town though, so the versions compliment each other. They're doing different things.

Hurd-McKenney and Geary's story also makes Angria/Glass Town a real (though fantastical) place. It's like Wonderland, Narnia, or Oz in that it's separate from the real world, but fairly easy for the kids to access. But like Greenberg's story, Hurd-McKenney and Geary's take focuses on the obsession that the Brontë kids had with the place. Not just Charlotte - who's the focus for Greenberg - but all of them. Infernal Agria argues that this obsession was heightened by tragedies in the Brontë family, and the obsession itself becomes its own kind of tragedy piled onto past ones. It's a bleak take that I didn't enjoy as much as Greenberg's more universal one. I don't always agree with the actions of Greenberg's Charlotte Brontë, but I understand them and see myself in a lot of what she does and thinks. I mostly just feel really bad for Infernal Agria's Brontë kids.

I'm absolutely glad I read it though. I'd love to see the story and world expanded even further and am super curious now about seeing the 2016 biopic, Walk Invisible.

Hellbent for Letterbox | Gun Fury (1953)

On the new Hellbent for Letterbox, Pax continues his series of Westerns Starring People Not Necessarily Known for Westerns, with Donna Reed in Gun Fury. Also starring Rock Hudson.

I talk about some of the Zorro adaptations I've been watching and Pax makes progress with his reading of Xavier Dorison and Ralph Meyer's Undertaker comics.

Western History | The New Adventures of Zorro (1981)

Who's in it?: The voices of Henry Darrow (a prolific character actor in the '70s and '80s who went on to play Zorro again in the short-lived CBS live-action comedy Zorro and Son - which I won't be covering - and also played Zorro's dad in the much longer '90s live-action series), Julio Medina (another busy character actor on TV in the '70s), and Don Diamond (I know him best as Corporal Reyes on Disney's live-action Zorro show in the '50s).

What's it about?: Filmation's animated version, originally ran alongside their Saturday-morning Tarzan and Lone Ranger cartoons on The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour.

How is it?: I expected it be similar to Filmation's other adventure cartoons like Tarzan, Lone Ranger, and Star Trek, but Zorro is actually a bit different from those. It's the only one Filmation farmed out to another animation studio, which happened to be in Japan. The anime influences are really apparent, especially in the look and comedy antics of Sergeant Gonzalez (Don Diamond). And while the budget is kept under control with reusable action animation, it's not the same animation that I'm used to seeing in the other Filmation cartoons where Tarzan, Lone Ranger, Captain Kirk, and Flash Gordon all run in exactly the same way. The most noticeable reused animation is in the sword fights, but there are lots of different stock moves that the studio rearranges enough to keep interesting. And they're good, creative moves. Sometimes fights last a little longer than my older, short-attention brain wants them to, but when I was a kid, this is what I showed up for.

New Adventures of Zorro also uses some of the same music from those other Filmation shows (which I love, by the way; it's part of the soundtrack of my childhood), but it's rare. Most of the Zorro soundtrack is made of Spanish guitar and other Latin-inspired music. It's exciting and good.

The mythology is mostly the same as previous versions with one, huge exception that I'll get to in a minute. It's heavily inspired by the Disney show which played up the secret identity and Zorro cave to basically turn Zorro into a Western superhero.

Most versions have a female character that Don Diego is either engaged to or interested in, but Filmation's is remarkably chaste. Diego (Henry Darrow) hangs out with a woman named Maria whom I think is the daughter of the local governor. They may have said for sure and I missed it, but that's what I think I've figured out. At any rate, their relationship seems to be purely Platonic.

Like other versions, Diego lives at home with his father, but his dad isn't as exasperated with Diego's apparent laziness as he is in other versions. There's a certain amount of eye-rolling, but he seems to have mostly accepted Diego's flaws.

And like other versions, Zorro's chief adversary is the captain of the local guard who collects taxes for the greedy, selfish governor. The captain also has a fat sergeant, named Gonzalez. That character is right out of the original Johnston McCulley stories and appears in most adaptations. He was renamed Garcia in the Disney series, but Filmation uses the original name. And they have Don Diamond provide the voice in sort of a promotion from his role as Garcia's sidekick in the Disney show.

The big change to all earlier versions is that Zorro's sidekick is no longer a mute servant, but a bona fide costumed adventurer named Miguel (Julio Medina). Zorro frequently calls him Amigo in battle and I wondered whether that's his official superhero name. I don't think it is; I think Zorro's just not calling him Miguel when they're both in costume. But I wish that Amigo was his superhero name, so bad guys could say, "Oh no! It's Zorro and Amigo!"

It sounds silly, but it's no sillier than Miguel's pastel-colored costume, which looks like it was inspired by Zorro, the Gay Blade. He just needs little dingle-ball tassels hanging off the brim of his hat.

There are only 13 episodes of the series and they're all pretty good. The plots are generally Robin Hood style stories where the governor and Captain Ramon overtax the people, so Zorro and Miguel steal the taxes back. But there are always fun twists like Ramon hiring his own Zorro to defeat the real one, or natural disasters like flash floods and earthquakes complicating everyone's missions. There's also a great recurring character, Lucia, a swashbuckling pirate captain who uses her crew to either help Zorro or oppose him depending on her needs at the time.

Rating: Four out of five Miguels.

FCA Invasion | Turning Movies into TV Shows 3

Mike Westfall, Michael DiGiovanni, Annaliese Trammel, and Paxton Holley join me for another round of the classic Nerd Lunch feature: "Turning Movies into TV Shows." After a discussion of what movie-based TV shows have worked (and which haven't), we pitch TV shows based on A League of Their Own, Gremlins, Xanadu, Tomorrowland, and Pretty in Pink.