Amazing Stories (1985) 1.09

Guilt Trip

starring Dom DeLuise, Loni Anderson, Charles Durning

written by Gail Parent, Kevin Parent 

directed by Burt Reynolds

The Big Guy (Charles Durning) sends Guilt (Dom DeLuise) on a cruise because he's been working too had and screwing things up. Guilt meets Lovely (Loni Anderson) while on the cruise and falls in love with her.

Thoughts

This episode doesn't really go anywhere. I think it might have been a little too cute for it's own good. It didn't help that the characters were kind of paint by numbers.

Shōgun 1.02

Servants of Two Masters

The episode opens up with a flashback to one year prior, when the Taikō was dying but not quite dead. He calls for Toranaga and suggests to him that he could appoint him to be the sole regent while his son is still a minor. Toranaga advises against that course of action. The Taiko concurs.

Blackthorne is called before Lord Toranaga. Father Marin Alvito, a Portuguese priest serves as a translator. Blackthorne explains that England, his country, is at war with Portugal. The priest translates truthfully. The meeting is interrupted by a visit from one of the other regents, Lord Ishido. The result of the meeting with Ishido is that Blackthorne is thrown into a prison cell.

Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

starring Victor Mature, Susan Hayward, Michael Rennie

directed by Delmer Daves

101 minutes

Demetrius (Victor Mature) a free man, who was once a slave, is sentenced to the arena after he refuses to help the Roman Emperor Caligula get his hands on Peter (Michael Rennie) or the robe of Jesus Christ. He refuses to fight at first, because he is a Christian, but subsequently decides that he will kill if his survival depends upon it. He continues to be a follower of the faith that Jesus espoused until his lover Lucia is killed by one of the other gladiators.

The Seven Samurai (1954)

The Seven Samurai (1954)

starring Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura

directed by Akira Kurosawa

207 minutes

The villagers of a small farming community hire a group of Samurai to defend their village from a gang of bandits who have promised to return once the grain has been harvested to take lion's share of what the villagers gather up.

There are basically three acts to this film. The first focuses on the recruitment of the samurai, the second on the preparation of the village for the return of the bandits, and the third on the fight with the bandits. There is a little more to the story such than that. Most notable to me was the maturation of the youngest of the samurai which is expressed both through his relationships with the other samurai and his romance with one of the women from the village.

Yojimbo (1961)

Yojimbo (1961)

starring Toshirō Mifune, Eijirō Tōno, Tatsuya Nakadai

directed by Akira Kurosawa

110 minutes

A rōnin (Toshirō Mifune), in 1860,  arrives by chance in a small town that would be in in the midst of a gang war if it weren't for the fact that both gang leaders are hesitant to brake the stalemate that currently exists. The rōnin sees an opportunity and, rather than leave town, plays both sides in the gang war off against one another. Eventually they get wise to what he is doing after he pushes his luck by helping a couple and their young son escape town.

Ballard 1.02

Haystacks

Ballard looks into the death of the cleaning woman from the motel, unofficially. Naylin, the detective working the case, gets prickly about her poking her nose around. She gets a picture of a possible suspect and tracks him down to a crack house. She captures him with some help from Parker and Rawls but he's got mental problems and not very helpful.

A tip from Councilman Pearlman combined with some DNA evidence leads Ballard to believe that Brian Richmond didn't kill Sarah Pearlman or Laura Wilson, a case that Bosch worked years before.

Ballard has a date with Aaron, her lifeguard friend. He sleeps over but the next morning she leaves before he gets up. She was called into a meeting with LAPD Captain Berchem and Detective Naylin. Berchem gives her a hard time for stepping on Naylin's toes but then hands the case over to her because she made some progress on it while Naylin did little to nothing with it.

The Twilight Zone 1.22

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

starring Claude Akins, Barry Atwater, Jack Weston

written by Rod Serling

directed by Ron Winston

The power goes out suddenly on Maple Street after an unknown object passes overhead. Nothing works including things that aren't plugged in like portable radios and cars. The residents don't suspect anything strange until really strange things start happening: cars starting by themselves, lights coming on in just one house. The residents of Maple Street grow increasingly paranoid as to whom they can trust.

The tension turns to hysteria when someone is spotted walking down the darkened street. One man brings out his shotgun. Another man takes it and shoots the approaching man, killing him. It turns out to be someone they all knew. Things get progressively worse as more weird things happen.