Hallmark Review: On the Twelfth Day of Christmas (2015, dir. Harvey Crossland)

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Well, I was gonna review a Late Night Cable movie next, but unfortunately I watched Serena The Sexplorer (2013). It was horrible! Same writer and director as the also terrible Monster Of The Nudist Colony. *Shudders*

So instead I watched the next Hallmark movie on my DVR. The movie opens and we meet our two leads in college. This is Mitch (Robin Dunne).

This is Maggie (Brooke Nevin).

This lady reminds me of a online friend I met about 6 years ago who also used to work as a small town reporter like this character will. By the way, she runs a great movie blog over at Comet Over Hollywood. One of the most wonderful people I know online and a far better writer than I will ever be. But back to the movie.

She needs to get home for Christmas and he agrees to give her a ride home so she doesn’t miss it despite the storm. They get stuck in a traffic jam along the way so they can spend some time together to setup the plot for later in the movie. One little problem here. They are clearly just sitting in a car that isn’t moving which isn’t uncommon in movies, but when they say they are going to get off the highway it immediately cuts to them getting out of a stationary car. The movie really could have benefitted by a shot of the car going onto an offramp before that shot. Well, they make snow angels, build a snowman, and ride a toboggan. Finally, he gets her home and before you can say When Harry Met Sally (1989), it cuts to 10 years later.

We are now in a small town called Harrison. And by Harrison they mean Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Also, they go a little northeast to Toronto.

By the way, it’s nice to know that Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery also took place in Harrison.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas (2015)

Maggie is now a small town newspaper reporter and subscriptions are down so the head of the paper informs them the paper will be joining the Wrightsbridge family of publications. Those damn kids and their Internet that no newspaper makes heavy use of and never makes all their reporters have social media accounts. They now need to be at their best. Maggie turns on the radio…

and either she is thinking her life might turn into Ron Howard’s The Paper (1994) and she too will have to ask why the bullet came out of the wall or she recognizes the name Mitch O’Grady.

Mitch has moved to the small town of Harrison from L.A. to be a disc jockey. He is a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. He doesn’t want to play any Christmas music because he thinks it’s overplayed on the radio during the season. Tell me about it! And much to my surprise the film will treat him respectfully. We will kindly be taken through a series of events that culminate with us finding out why Christmas is a painful time for him now. Oh, and notice the sweet three monitor setup he has there complete with the monitor on the far right that I believe is using Audacity. Not sure what the other monitors are showing, but it doesn’t matter cause all you need to remember is there are three of them and the monitor on the right has nothing underneath it.

Oh, and kudos to the production crew for a well faked website.

Now Maggie is having lunch when of course Mitch comes in and joins her to catch up. Unfortunately, the local flirt shows up to hit on Mitch. You can tell how important she is because I am not even going to include a screenshot of her. Maggie goes home and gets a brilliant idea. The title of the movie mentions the 12 days of Christmas so she’s going to send 12 gifts to Mitch as a Secret Santa. They are inspired by the things they did together on their way to her home 10 years prior.

Back at work a guy from the parent company shows up and I thought he was going to be like the “evil” reporter from The Note, but nope. He’s barely in the movie and very reasonable. He’s just there to drop the line that people like personal interest stories so that she will let the Secret Santa thing go further than she probably should.

Meanwhile, back at Mitch’s office. Somebody has moved his far left monitor to the far right and put a book under it.

The first gift comes and it’s the eyes he and Maggie used 10 years prior to make a snowman. And this is Rita (Geri Hall).

She will be your Beth from NewsRadio for the movie, but more useful and less annoying. Oh, and his monitor’s are back the way he likes them.

Now Mitch decides to talk about the Secret Santa thing on the radio, turns out KCNQ is a “bronze-level” advertiser with the paper, and the presents are now on the radio’s website. There’s your setup. She keeps sending him stuff, there are red herrings about who could be the Secret Santa, and they spend time together because she needs to cover the story for the paper. One more thing, I forgot that each present comes with instructions of what he is to do with the present. For example, make a snowman to use the eyes on. Of course Maggie is more than willing to help out.

He eventually figures it out and does the third act misunderstanding bit before things turnaround for the best. While Maggie pouts, we get a cameo we all knew was coming.

That’s right! A cameo appearance by the can of Folgers coffee from The Nine Of Christmas.

The Nine Lives Of Christmas (2014)

Okay, nobody expected it, but there it is.

Seeing as I did like this one, I won’t spoil why he is a bit of Christmas grumpus. It’s a standard Hallmark cliche, but I won’t say. This was reasonably well acted, it didn’t have its characters act in weird unexplainable ways, none of that Christmas Land crap, and it knew it was a small scale story and made it fit that format.

However, there is one thing I want to know. I mean aside from why he suddenly only has two monitors near the end of the movie with the book back under the far right one. I thought people who break into places to rearrange furniture only existed in the movie A Chorus Line (1985). Must be the same person who did it in 12 Gifts Of Christmas.

What I want to know is where was actor Don Allison in this movie? He is credited as playing Mitch’s father, but I didn’t see him. Don Allison is the actor from Christmas Magic that in his few minutes of screen time gave a real heartfelt performance with barely two words. If anyone knows, then please tell me because I didn’t see him.

This isn’t an amazing Hallmark movie, but it’s a nice little story that one could certainly sit through the next time it comes around on Hallmark. I do recommend it.

Shakespeare in Space: FORBIDDEN PLANET (MGM 1956)

Posted on January 2, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Well, not quite. FORBIDDEN PLANET is very loosely based on The Bard’s THE TEMPEST, drawing on some of its themes and characters, and putting them in an outer space setting. But the film is much more than that. It’s full of screen firsts, and one of the most influential science fiction movies ever. While watching I was more than reminded of STAR TREK, and wasn’t surprised while doing research that Gene Roddenberry cited it as “one of his inspirations”.

Today no one thinks twice about movies being set completely in outer space, but FORBIDDEN PLANET did it first. The art and set direction by MGM vets Cedric Gibbons and Arthur Lonergan are wonders to behold, shot in beautiful CinemaScope and Eastmancolor by George J. Folsey. The cinematographer began in silent pictures, and carved a niche with big, splashy musicals like MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES, TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL…

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My Top 15 Metal Albums of 2015

Posted on January 2, 2016 by necromoonyeti

Fourteen years posting a year-end list somewhere, and the rule never changes: odd-numbered years produce more good music. Thankfully, we just concluded 2015. 🙂

15. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
14. Peste Noire – La Chaise-Dyable
13. Mgła – Exercises in Futility
12. Veilburner – Noumenon
11. Botanist – Hammer of Botany

10. Enslaved – In Times (track: Building With Fire)

It’s amazing that after 24 years and 13 studio albums, Enslaved still routinely make it into my year-end top 10. They have continually evolved without letting go of their black metal roots, and the consequence lately has been a long stretch of memorable, prog-rock infused releases that keep up with the times and never grow stale no matter how often I resurrect them. If In Times won’t stick with me quite so permanently as Vertebrae in 2008, it still achieves everything I’ve come to expect of them lately and has managed to entertain me more than the vast majority of other albums I have heard this year. I think I have a bit of a subconscious inclination to prioritize newer bands, but #10 was as low as I could justify dropping this one.

9. Krallice – Ygg Huur (track: Wastes of Ocean)

Like any Krallice album, Ygg Huur takes dozens of listens to ingest. What struck me at first as a rather disappointing, spastic blathering of sound comes together much more coherently if you give it its due time. That being said, it is still a sharp break from their previous four albums, and it lacks that element of progression and overarching vision that has traditionally made this band, for me at least, infinitely repeatable. (I have listened to Krallice more than any other band in my life by a large margin, and they only came into existence in 2008.) Ygg Huur is a brief an meandering mood piece that does not, perhaps, maximize the band’s song-writing talents, but I’ve enjoyed it plenty never the less. More avant-garde than post-black metal, am I allowed to love it and still hope it was just a one-time experiment?

8. Ghost Bath – Moonlover (track: Golden Number)

This is a pretty gorgeous post-black metal album that I’m surprised more sites haven’t picked up on for their year-end summaries. It lacks a touch of refinement that might have earned it higher standing, but the song writing is fabulous. Moonlover delivers a well-rounded package of post-rock infused metal that seems to pay a good deal of respect to Alcest and Amesoeurs, but their undertone is bleak and depressing. It’s a sad album in a way that makes me think of Harakiri for the Sky’s Aokigahara last year, but peppered with little bursts of joy that will bring a smile to your face.

Oh yeah, metal’s not supposed to make me smile. Check.

7. Sumac – The Deal (track: Thorn In The Lion’s Paw)

I never really got into Old Man Gloom. Make what you will of that. The Deal certainly wasn’t Aaron Turner’s most well-received album, but I personally enjoyed it more than anything he’s contributed to since Oceanic. A lot of that has to do with Nick Yacyshyn’s brilliant mastery of the drum set, but I also feel like Turner’s chugging out riffs that really sink into my head more than I’m used to. It’s like a doom metal reinterpretation of Isis, albeit with less progression, and I love the subtle stylistic diversity he brings to the field on this one. It has moments that remind me of everything from black metal to Converge. (And it probably wins this year’s ‘most listened to in my car’ award. <_<)

6. A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See (track: Virtus Sola Invicta)

Beware the Sword You Cannot See is one of the most eclectic albums I have heard in a long time that I still managed to really enjoy. If I could begin to put a finger on how to describe it, I would have reviewed it ages ago. Black metal at its heart, it weaves a wild mix of strings and spoken word and avant-garde breaks around that core. I like it, quite a bit, and I think the vocals and lyrics (at least, what I can make of them) might be its strongest selling point. I really don’t know what to say about this album. Hear it for yourselves, and be prepared to give an attentive listen–possibly many–if you want to soak it all in.

5. Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror (track: Grand Parade)

It’s pretty hard to measure the worth of an epic power metal band on a list that is heavily dominated by innovative new styles of music. I don’t think I would have felt entirely comfortable with my positioning of this album no matter where I put it, but I tried to make the cutoff a sort of drifting point between albums that really made me reflect and albums that I just really enjoyed, because there’s never going to be a particularly deep hidden truth to a Blind Guardian track, but they’ve proven a dozen times over to be the ultimate kings of all fantasy-themed music. In the broad scheme of BG’s vast discography, I would probably place Beyond the Red Mirror fourth, after Nightfall in Middle-Earth, At the Edge of Time, and A Night at the Opera. That translates roughly to: it’s awesome.

4. Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours (track: A Subtle Change)

Am I a little biased since I got my initial rip of this direct from frontman Bryan Manning? Probably not, but in my weird little world that’s still a bragging point. 😉 Like Cara Neir’s Portals to a Better, Dead World in 2013, All Fours takes everything I love about screamo and turns it into post-black metal. This might be a coincidence. I’m pretty sure the band claims no direct screamo influence (don’t quote me on that), but the consequence is the same. These guys have worked their way into the top-tier of bands pushing metal in new directions today, and, more so than their previous albums, All Fours really strikes me as a well-rounded composition that possesses the maturity to fully deliver its vision. And Manning has a way with lyrics that’s… well… you just have to read them.

3. Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs (track: Orphic Rites Of The Mystic)

When I first heard Obsequiae, it was one of those rare moments where I went a-ha, you are that band that’s going to pioneer the style I have always desired but been too inept to create myself. I can guarantee you without much doubt that, of all of the albums of 2015, Aria of Vernal Tombs will find its way into my playlist the most for the longest period of time. Ten years from now, I will probably still be listening to this album when its competitors are all but distant memories. Like Summoning, they fit a unique mood for me that no other band has really begun to approach. (Perhaps Opeth’s Orchid crosses into this terrain, briefly and insufficiently.) A collection of captivating medieval melodies that press themselves upon you by-and-large through euphorically well-mixed guitar and bass (the bass on this album is absolutely gorgeous) rather than traditional instrumentation… my god, I’ve been waiting so long for a band that sounds like this, and they’re easily my favorite new discovery of the year.

2. Panopticon – Autumn Eternal (track: The Wind’s Farewell)

It’s amazing to think that, in the absence of one album this year that won my heart in a landslide, Panopticon could have taken my #1 slot in 3 out of the last 4 years. To put it bluntly, Autumn Eternal is Austin Lunn’s best album to date, and Austin Lunn is arguably the most accomplished metal artist of the 2010s. An incredibly versatile musician who can sample uninhibited from the melting-pot of styles that is post-black metal, Lunn’s newest offering is a mindblowing amalgamation of post-rock and black metal that leaves the more popular bands of this persuasion choking on his dust.

1. Liturgy – The Ark Work (track: Kel Valhaal)

What can I say…. it didn’t make Pitchfork’s top 25? I will probably look back on The Ark Work as one of the most underrated albums ever recorded, and I think its merits have more in common with Radiohead than with anything that has ever derived from heavy metal. It constantly threatens to collapse into a blundering mire of amateur garbage, from the excessive bell tones to Hunter’s marshmallow-mouthed rap vocals. This might be the turn-off for so many listeners, but it is necessary, and the key to this album is in how Liturgy always manage to somehow hold it together. It’s the musical equivalent of your kindergartener handing you a crayon scribble that, on second glance, turns out to be a Picasso.

On Aesthethica, Liturgy explored a very explicit reinterpretation of black metal that found quite a bit of inspired company among bands who were beginning to recognize and explore the similarities between black metal and post-rock. That album helped to define a movement, but it only achieved the band’s vision in a very direct sort of way: through rhythm and melody and progression. The Ark Work nails Hunter’s vision home with an extremely more robust and precise pallet, bringing lyrics and glitch effects and atypical instrumentation and a totally unorthodox approach to metal vocals into the fray. If you listen to a track like “Vitriol” and can barely take it seriously, that’s part of the point, but barely is the key word. Every risk and gamble they take ultimately works, and I am unabashedly unashamed to blare Hunter’s trap beat ‘occult rap’ at max volume out my car stereo. 😀

You might listen to The Ark Work and hear some childish clusterfuck, but I hear absolutely brilliant attention to detail–a musician completely in control of the degree to which his work teeters on the brink of nonsense. Top 20 all-time contender? I could go there. Leave your fear of speaking too fondly of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix at the door and just embrace this album with the assumption that he knew exactly what he was doing. You won’t be disappointed.

Previous years on Shattered Lens:

2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014

Playing Catch Up: Welcome to New York (dir by Abel Ferrara)

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Gerard Depardieu is naked a lot in Welcome to New York and I know you’re probably being snarky and sarcastically thinking, “Well, then I’m definitely going to track down this film…” but actually, the frequent display of Depardieu’s body gets to the heart of what makes his performance so memorable. Playing an extremely unsympathetic role, Depardieu doesn’t hide the character’s depravity from the audience. He reveals every inch of the character, from his flabby body to his empty soul. It takes courage to bring such an unsympathetic character to life and talent to keep the audience watching and fortunately, Depardieu has both of those.

Welcome to New York opens with Depardieu (as himself) talking to a group of reporters and explaining why he’s decided to play a character based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Abel Ferrara’s upcoming movie. It’s an interesting way to start, both because it features Depardieu’s scornful opinion of politicians and because it leaves no doubt that, even if Depardieu’s character has been renamed Devereaux, Welcome to New York is directly based on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case.

(Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of course, was the wealthy French socialist who many thought was going to be the next President of France until he was arrested after raping a hotel maid in New York City. As a wealthy and well-connected white man, he was acquitted of raping the maid, who neither wealthy, well-connected, or white. Throughout the trial, the usual collection of elitists complained about how Americans just didn’t understand French culture but, ultimately, Strauss-Kahn’s political career was ended by the scandal.)

Welcome to New York closely follows the facts of the Strauss-Kahn case. Wealthy banker and politician Devereaux is in New York on business. When he meets his daughter and her boyfriend, he spends the entire lunch asking them about their sex life. When he returns to his hotel, he and his business associates hire a group of prostitutes and have one of the most depressing orgies ever captured on film.

I have to admit that during these first part of the film, I was often tempted to turn off Welcome To New York. No, it wasn’t that the film was too explicit. Instead, my problem was that Devereaux was such a dull character. Devereaux has a lot of sex during the first third of the film but, at no point, does he seem to enjoy it. Instead, he is detached from everything happening around him and it doesn’t exactly make for compelling viewing.

But, as the film played out, I realized that we weren’t supposed to find Devereaux in any way compelling. Instead, Devereaux is portrayed as a hollow and empty shell. For him, sex is all about entitlement and power. After his is arrested for raping the hotel maid, Devereaux appears to be more surprised than anything else. Rather than feeling regret at being caught or even fear that he might be convicted, Devereaux seems to be shocked that a man of his wealth would be held responsible for his actions.

After Devereaux is arrested, the film’s pace picks up a bit. Devereaux’s wife, Simone (Jacqueline Bisset), flies to New York and takes over her husband’s defense. It’s not that Simone feels that Devereaux has been wrongly accused. In fact, Simone really doesn’t seem to care much for her husband in general. However, Simone is determined that Devereaux is going to be the next president of France and she certainly has no intention of allowing some American criminal case to stand in his way. Bisset gives a chilling performance as the almost fanatically driven Simone.

Soon, Devereaux is under house arrest and staying at a rented house. (For these scenes, Welcome to New York filmed in the same house that Strauss-Kahn stayed at during his trial.) It’s while locked away in the house that Devereaux finally starts to realize that he has gone too far. It’s in the house that Devereaux remembers the man he was once was and is forced to confront the man that he has become.

Welcome to New York is not always an easy film to watch but, thanks to Depardieu and Bisset’s ferocious performances, it’s a film that will reward patient viewers.