What Lisa Watched Last Night #155: Backstabbed (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Backstabbed!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime and, as everyone knows, I love anything on Lifetime. The other reason is that I haven’t done many entries in What Lisa Watched Last Night this year. I wanted to correct that!

(And here we are…)

What Was It About?

It’s about lies, love, sex, murder, and the crazy world of real estate. Whenever I watch a movie about real estate, I always wait for someone to yell, “You moved the headstones but you left the bodies, didn’t you!? YOU LEFT THE BODIES!” That didn’t happen in this movie but seriously, real estate is crazy!

Paulette Bolton (Josie Davis) is one of the top real estate people in California but the people who work for her have a tendency to end up dead. That’s because Paulette kills them and a lot of other people.

Paulette has a new protegé: Shelby (Brittany Underwood). Shelby has just received her real estate license and … oh no! Is she thinking of going into competition against her psychotic mentor?

Well, that might not turn out for the best…

What Worked?

One of my favorite things about Lifetime movies is that everyone always lives in such a nice house. Lifetime understands that its audience not only likes to see what people are wearing but where they live as well. Backstabbed was pretty much all about houses. Paulette had a great house. She and Shelby were competing to sell an even better house. Even Shelby’s house was nice and she was supposed to be poor!

In the role of Paulette, Josie Davis was totally and completely insane. She delivered one of the greatest over-the-top performances in Lifetime history and the film was all the better for it! Among the supporting cast, Kevin Spirtas was fun as a decadent home owner and, oddly enough, former Texas Congressman Henry Bonilla had a role as well.

What Did Not Work?

I have to admit that I struggled to follow the plot. It may have been because it’s the Labor Day weekend and I was dividing my attention between the film and my niece and nephew but still, I had a hard time keeping track of why, exactly, Paulette kept killing people. Fortunately, Josie Davis killed people with such panache that it wasn’t a major problem.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

“That’s my dress!” I yelled when, at one point, Paulette showed up wearing a pretty red dress that looked identical to one that I have hanging in my closet. Then Shelby showed up, also wearing a red dress that looked identical to another one that I have hanging in my closer and again, I yelled, “That’s my dress!”

At that point, my niece pointed at the TV and went, “That’s Lisa Marie’s dress!” She’s so cute.

Lessons Learned

Real estate is murder!

And I look good in red…

Stranger Things- The Body, S1 E4; ALT Title: Hop says to the world – WTF?!!!

Posted on September 4, 2016 by casewright

stranger things titles

Cold Open: Hop is at Joyce’s home and she is acting way crazy and the decor doesn’t help her case for her sanity. She explains that Will must be alive because she talks to him through the Christmas lights – as one does. He explains that when his daughter died, he saw her everywhere and she will go crazy if she keeps this up.

Mike’s House: Mike’s pissed at El. El is playing with the Walkie Talkie and doesn’t understand his outrage. He yells at her, making her focus even more. She hones in on Will’s frequency in the shadow world with her mojo and he is singing The Clash. She nose bleeds. Good call back! Mike calls Lucas and explains that Will is alive.

Roll Credits

Mike gets the guys together and convinces them that Will is alive and El can communicate with him.

Hop talks to Creeper as the State medical examiner is showing Joyce her dead son. She storms out convinced that the body is not Will’s.

High School: Steve is concerned that Nancy will reveal that he was drinking. Nancy acts all high and mighty chastening Steve for being self-centered. Word, Nancy?! Really?! WORD?! WORD?! The Hypocrisy Gods all just had a collective stroke! WTF???!!! Nancy storms off (we hope that she will look up the words Hypocrisy and Frenemy!)

Creeper argues with his mom in public. She screams that she saw a monster without a face and that Will is still alive.

The boys decide to dress up El up like a girl to infiltrate the school’s AV Club tech room because the transmitter is stronger. This has created a number of E.T. comparisons, but honestly, so they put her in a dress?! Big Whoop! Mike says that she is pretty. This leads to a very sad moment when El looks into the mirror. She sees the girl, the normal girl, that she could’ve been, if not for Evil Modine. Evil Modine better hope he never crosses paths with El again.

Evil Modine’s Government Facility: They send a tethered Red Shirt into the evil membrane to explore the shadow world.

High School: Nancy is being questioned by the deputies. They treat her like the bad friend that she is. We learn that Barb’s car is gone.

Hop is interviewing his local medical examiner and learns that the State Police took over the autopsy and it was all kinds of fishy.

The boys nearly secret El into the AV Club to do her mojo and communicate with Will, but they are stopped by Mr. Clark. He insists that they all attend the assembly and then the AV Club is theirs to use.

Nancy gets home and Karen disappoints me as well. Karen is mostly concerned with her daughter’s promiscuity and not the disappearance of Barb – Nancy’s purported best friend. Apparently, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the bob. Maybe, Nancy’s sociopathic selfishness was learned behavior. Karen, you’re in a timeout! Nancy storms upstairs and looks at Creeper’s photo of Barb and notices the Monster in the side of the photo.

Evil Modine’s Government Facility: Evil Modine is able to communicate with the Red Shirt. Red Shirt is a term of art from Star Trek TOS. When a person in a Red Shirt was sent to investigate something, the result was a dead Red Shirt. Red Shirt exclaims that he is not alone. The tether jerks wildly, they attempted to pull the Red Shirt back, but all that is retrieved is a bloodied harness. Yeech.

High school: The bullies are joking and laughing about Will. Mike confronts the World’s Shortest Bully (WSB) and, when he turns, Mike shoves him. The WSB attempts to attack Mike, but is frozen in place by El who also makes him urinate on himself. Then, a teacher appears and breaks up the altercation. I guess since it was the 1980’s the teachers were all doing cocaine somewhere and were too busy to monitor a gymnasium full of students.

Funeral Home: Nancy is talking to Creeper. She shows him the Monster figure and he can’t explain it. He’s about to blow her off, but she mentions that she saw something in the woods. Creeper asks if it didn’t have a face? Nancy freezes. They are starting to believe.

Hop is questioning a guy at a bar; the bar guy reveals that he was the one who found the Byers boy. Hop discerns that the man was lying to him because he claimed that quarry was owned by the government, but infact it was privately owned. Outside, Hop lays a serious beat down on this bar guy who really spills the beans. Bar guy reveals that he was told not to let people too close to the body. There’s a 1980s creepy sedan in the background that Hop chases with his pistol drawn. Hop realizes that he is firmly in the deepest of shit.

Meanwhile, at the coolest thing to ever happen in an AV Club Room anywhere … ever: El is honing in on Will. She flashes back to when Evil Modine has her look at a picture of a man. She thinks he wants her to kill him. Not a big stretch to think that. Evil Modine wants her to hone on him and have her repeat back what she hears. We travel to a room where the man in the photo is saying a series of random words. Back to El, she not only hones in on him, but broadcasts it on the PA system. VERY COOL! Evil Modine realizes that El is way beyond his understanding.

We return to the AV Club room. They hear banging. Will and his mom are talking through the wall. Will goes to the tear that the monster created the night before. Briefly, they can see each other and the boys and El can hear the communication. Joyce hears the monster coming and she tells Will to run. Then, BOOM – the equipment shorts out! Joyce grabs a sledgehammer from her Shed and breaks a huge hole in her wall, but all she sees is the cold and all she hears is winter birdsong.

High school darkroom: Creeper and Nancy are in the darkroom and he enlarges the portion of the photo of the monster. While they are waiting for the enhancement to develop, he describes how he likes to observe people. Creeper, please stop saying things like things like this. It’s creeping me out. It’s not really creeping Nancy out. I do not understand Nancy – AT ALL. The picture develops and the Monster is in focus. YIKES!

Hop goes to the morgue. The State Trooper on guard is reading “Cujo” – AWESOME! Hop is crossing the Rubicon! He punches out the Trooper, enters the morgue, and struggles with what must be done. He takes Will’s body out and pauses and then, takes out his knife. Hop must know if this is actually Will and he is throwing everything away to find the answer. His knife is above the deceased boy’s chest and he makes his incision. No blood. He cuts deeper and finds- cotton. It’s not Will. Hop’s face says everything- WTF?!!!

Joyce’s house: Lonnie, the deadbeat dad, returns to Joyce. They hug.

Hop walks up to the Evil Modine Government Facility with bolt cutters and breaks in!

Thank you for reading!!! LIKE IT!!! I am also glad because technically I might be a Millennial. I’m young again!

HOP Believes

Stranger Things-Holly, Jolly S1 E3; ALT Title: Joyce seems bonkers!

Posted on September 4, 2016 by casewright

stranger things titles

Cold Open: Barb wakes in the shadow world, covered in goop, and hunted. The scene is juxtaposed between Barb being hunted by the Monster and Nancy having awkward relations with Steve. Barb tries to make it out of the empty pool that is covered in evil mucky vines. Barb looks like she might make it out, but the monster grabs her legs and yanks her into the doom. Poor Barb.

Roll Credits.

Post-coitus, Nancy can’t wake Steve up and wonders if she is just a notch for him. Nancy goes home and is confronted by her mom. Nancy, you are running for sociopath levels of douchebaggery.

We arrive at Joyce’s house of insanity. Creeper wakes up to his mom talking to herself. Joyce tries to explain to Creeper that it’s fine because she can talk to her dead son through the Christmas lights. Creeper is truly devoted to his mom.

Basement: The boys prepare to look for Will, with El as their guide. Lucas brings practical things: compass, knives, and a slingshot. Dustin – the fat kid – brings snacks. Groan. They devote a lot of time to Lucas’ wrist rocket; this better payoff later! Dustin emotes that none of their weapons matter because they have El the Jedi with them. There are a number of great shots in this show of ladies trying to hold back their disbelief- this is no exception. Dustin tries to make his point how Yoda El is by having her levitate a toy Millennium Falcon. Her expression is priceless! We see later that levitating a toy is small potatoes for El.

High school: Nancy is concerned for Barb. No, just kidding; she’s worried people think she’s a skank.

Hop takes his deputies to the Evil Modine’s Government Facility. He gets some static from the guard, but Hop smooth talks his way through the gates – that’s how it’s done son!

El’s hanging out alone at the house, levitating the Falcon as an afterthought. She heads upstairs and has a PTSD flashback of Evil Modine having her use her Mojo to crush a coke can. She does and her nose bleeds.

Joyce heads to her job and gets christmas lights, christmas lights, and more christmas lights. Donald does his best to not say anything horrible for a moment and mostly succeeds.

Evil Modine’s Government Facility: Hop and his deputies are being shown around. Hop sees the tunnel that he believes provided ingress for Will. Hop notices video cameras and asks to see the tapes. They oblige him with some doctored tapes. Hop notices immediately that there’s no rain in the background of the video. This begins Hop’s inexorable journey down a path from which he cannot return. After Hop and the deputies leave, we push in on the vent that leads down to the basement portal to the shadow dimension.

Mike’s house: El is exploring Nancy’s room. A life of a normal girl is laid before her. A life with girlfriends and music boxes that was stolen from her by Evil Modine.

High school: The boys are looking for rocks for the sling shot. They get bullied by the world’s shortest bullies … again. Mike gets shoved and literally takes it on the chin. Creeper is developing his pervy photographs and gets totally busted by another student photographer.

Joyce’s house: Joyce has finished decorating her home for Insane Homes and Gardens: Christmas Issue.

Hop goes to the library and we discover that at some point he slept with the librarian and never called back. She sasses him, but he and the deputy continue researching and discover MK Ultra and a connection to Dr. Brenner. Side Note: MK Ultra was actually a real thing. The US Government sought out highly intelligent children and had them exposed to drugs. One of their notable alumni was none other than The Unabomber; they left a lot of wreckage in their wake. For the budding creatives out there, if you are writing a historical fiction of any kind, tether your story to something that actually happened; it will allow your entire story to ring true. Hop is convinced that these government people have Will and suspects the boy might not even be dead. He sees that Brenner is linked to a number of missing children. Hop is gonna lay down a smackdown! BTW, Hop’s slow arc back to the living is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

I am going to make a critique about this scene. Hop pulls into the library parking lot front-end first; cops and uniformed people don’t do that. It makes egress that much more difficult. If you’re a director, back the cop cars into the spaces. Thanks!

Karen shows up at Joyce’s house with a casserole and tries not get too much crazy on herself. Karen’s toddler sees the lights blink on. She follows them to Will’s room and begins to see the monster push through the wall. She’s gonna need some therapy!

High school: Nancy, showing a scintilla of humanity, calls up Barb’s mom and then lies that she saw Barb at school. Side note: Gentle Readers, if you have a “friend” like Nancy in your life, save yourself some anguish and cut them out like the cancerous tumors that they are.

Creeper sees the photographer colleague with Steve and his crew. They mock creeper and take his creepshots. Nancy arrives to see this. She watches as Steve breaks Creeper’s camera. Nancy notices a picture of Barb and shows renewed concern.

El is near power lines waiting for the boys to arrive. She sees a cat and flashes to when Evil Modine tried to make her kill a cat with her mind because I assume … Evil Modine is a “Dog Person.” He orders goons to drag her into solitary. El kills one by smashing him against a wall and the other with a neck break that she does with her mind! YIKES. After El dispatches the goons, Evil Modine shows her what appears to be the first real affection that she has ever seen and says, “Incredible.” CHILLING!!!! Side note to Mike: Mike, if you ever plan on breaking up with El, DON’T!

High school: Nancy is hanging with her lame group and decides to try to look for Barb.

El and the boys are walking the woods. Mike tries to play off his chin wound as an accident, but El gets him to share and Mike teaches her the term “Mouth-breather.”

Nancy finds Barb’s car. She hears rustling and briefly sees the monster who only kills at night. Ahem.

Joyce tries to talk to her son through the lights. Then, she writes the alphabet on the wall in a move that starts 10,00o gifs and communicates with Will Ouija Board style.

Nancy goes to her mom and admits that Barb is missing…. Finally!

Hop is called to the quarry. They leave in a hurry.

El leads the boys to Will’s house. She has tracked him there through her mojo, but can’t explain the concept of parallel transdimensional movement and the boys get annoyed. Sirens are spotted and the boys see Will’s body recovered from the quarry.

Joyce is talking Ouija board style to Will and he tells her to R U N!!! Then, the monster with no face pulls its way through the wall and she leaves.

The Quarry: When the boys see that it is Will’s body, they get pissed at El, because they thought she would be able to find him alive.

We hear Peter Gabriel singing Bowie. *Sniff* Creeper arrives home and hugs his mom as the police sirens approach to tell her the grave news.

Cheers!!!!

stranger-things-xmas-lights1

Back to School Part II #20: Secret Admirer (dir by David Greenwalt)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Girls Just Want To Have Fun, it was time for the 1986 film, Secret Admirer!

Secret Admirer is a fairly good example of a film that is dependent upon the idiot plot. Every plot complication could have been avoided by the characters not being idiots. The entire storyline could have been resolved within five minutes if some of the characters had been willing to ask questions before jumping to assumptions. Idiot plots tend to fun when they deal with teenagers, largely because, when you’re that age, you can get away with being an idiot. That’s part of the charm of being a teenager and why nobody ever wants to grow up. When you’re a teenager, you’re not expected to have any common sense or knowledge of the real world so you can get away with a lot more. At the same time, idiot plots involving adults tend to be annoying because adults really should know better. The idiot plot of Secret Admirer involves both teenagers and adults and, as a result, the film is half-charming and half-annoying.

Smart but shy Toni (Lori Loughlin) has a crush on her lifelong friend, the sweet but kinda stupid Michael (C. Thomas Howell). So, Toni writes Michael an incredibly eloquent love note and slips it into his locker. When Michael finds the note, he assumes that it was written by Debbie (Kelly Preston), who is pretty and popular but only dates college students. When Michael attempts to write a response to Debbie, he is sabotaged by his limited vocabulary, lack of eloquence, and general dimness. Luckily, Toni finds the note and, wanting to spare Michael any embarrassment, rewrites it for him. Debbie is so touched by Toni’s note that she goes out on a date with Michael. Toni is forced to stand in the background and watch while the boy she loves falls for a girl who is obsessed with shopping. (Secret Admirer suggests that this obsession indicates that Debbie is shallow but seriously, who doesn’t love to shop?) Will Toni tells Michael that she loves him or will she leave him so that she can spend a year studying abroad? (Personally, I would leave and have fun exploring Europe but then again, I also love to shop so obviously, Toni and I have conflicting worldviews.)

But that’s not all! Michael’s dad, George (Cliff DeYoung), also finds the note and assumes that it was written to him by Debbie’s mom, Elizabeth (Leigh Taylor-Young). Of course, Debbie’s father, a police detective named Lou (the always gruff Fred Ward), also comes across the note and becomes convinced that George and Elizabeth are having an affair. He somewhat forcibly recruits George’s wife, Connie (Dee Wallace Stone), to help him expose George and Elizabeth for being the cheaters that he believes them to be….

I got annoyed with the parents fairly quickly. It’s always fun to watch Fred Ward grimace and glare at people but otherwise, all of the adults were way too stupid and their behavior reminded me of that terrible episode of Saved By The Bell where the exact same thing happens to Mr. Belding. Secret Admirer works best when the adults are pushed to the background and the film concentrates on the relationship between Toni and Michael. They’re a sweet couple and you really want to see them end up together. Michael may be stupid but he’s still really cute and the film is perfectly charming whenever it concentrates on him and Toni.

Incidentally, Michael has several friends. They all ride around in a van and look through old issues of Playboy together. Most of the friends are interchangeable but I did like Ricardo (Geoffrey Blake), just because he was wearing a suit and a fedora for no particular reason. Ricardo didn’t really get to do much but his fashion sense made a definite impression.

By the admittedly high standards of 80s teen films, Secret Admirer is a minor film. It’ll never be mistaken for Sixteen Candles or Pretty In Pink. That said, it’s still an entertaining and occasionally sweet film. You’ll want to skip over the scenes involving the adults but the scenes involving C. Thomas Howell and Lori Loughlin are perfectly charming.

Back to School Part II #19: Girls Just Want To Have Fun (dir by Alan Metter)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For our next film in this series of Back to School reviews, we take a look at 1985’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

And you know what?

It’s true — we do just want to have fun!

The fun in Girls Just Want To Have Fun is pretty much defined by dancing, which is okay with me because I love to dance. However, Girls Just Want To Have Fun had the misfortune to be made in the mid-80s. I have lost track of many 80s films that I’ve watched but I’m still always shocked at how undanceable most 80s music truly was. This film, of course, does contain a cover version of the famous song by Cyndi Lauper and that’s actually a pretty good 80s song. However, the rest of the music (and, by that, I mean the music that everyone in the movie is actually dancing to) is incredibly bland in the way that only music from the decade of We Built This City could be.

As for the film itself, it takes place in Chicago. Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the newest student at the local Catholic girls school. Janey’s overprotective father (Ed Lauter) is in the army and Janey has lived all over the world. Despite that, Janey is not at all worldly. In fact, when she tries to introduce herself to her classmates, all she can get out is that she’s a gymnast and she loves to dance. (When we actually see Janey dancing or doing any sort of gymnastics, Sarah Jessica Parker’s hair always seems to fall in her face, which is certainly one way to hide a stunt double.)

Janey makes one friend at the school. Lynn (Helen Hunt, looking like a teenager but already sounding like a hung over 40 year-old) is about as wild as a girl can be in 1980s PG-rated film. That’s to say, she wears a leather skirt when she’s not in school and, when she babysits, she orders pizza and then allows the baby to sit on it. (Ewwwwwww! There’s a reason why babies wear diapers….) Lynne and Janey are automatically BFFs because they both love Dance TV!

That’s right — it’s DTV! I wonder what that’s supposed to be based on…

It turns out that DTV is having a contest to pick two new dancers! Disobeying her strict father, Janey sneaks out of the house and joins Lynn in auditioning! Lynn’s partner turns out to be so spastic that Lynn doesn’t make the semi-finals. Later, Lynn discovers that her partner was bribed by rich bitch Natalie Sands (Holly Gagnier). I’m not sure why Natalie felt the need to do that since Lynn wasn’t that impressive to begin with. She’s about as good a dancer as you would expect Helen Hunt to be.

However, Janey does make it to the semi-finals, where she’s partnered with Jeff. Jeff is tough and blue-collar and, at first, it doesn’t seem like he and Janey will get along. So, of course, they end up falling in love and, of course, Natalie’s father tries to force Jeff out of the contest by threatening to put his father out of work. Jeff, incidentally, is played by Lee Montgomery. Years before appearing in Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Montgomery played the little kid who gets crushed by a chimney at the end of Burnt Offerings. Burnt Offerings is a really crappy film but I watch it every time that it comes on TCM just so I can see that chimney crush Lee Montgomery. That said, Montgomery actually does a pretty good job of Jeff. You never quite buy him as a rebel without a cause but he still seems like an authentic and likable teenager. Jeff and Janey are a cute couple and that’s all that really matters.

Just as Janey has a best friend, Jeff also has a best friend. Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman) talks too much, tries to sell t-shirts from the trunk of his car, and there’s also a scene were he grabs a random girl’s breasts and makes a comment about using her nipples to tune a radio. Drew is annoying and, once you get over the fact that she’s being played by a young Helen Hunt, so is Lynn. Watching the movie, you kind of want to tell both of them to just calm down for a few minutes.

But you know who is not annoying? Jeff’s younger sister, Maggie, who is played by none other than a very young Shannen Doherty. Maggie was my favorite character because she alone seemed to understand how stupid everyone else in the film was. And she was willing to call them out on it.

ANYWAY — Girls Just Want To Have Fun is one of those movies where next to nothing actually happens. There is an extended sequence where our heroes destroy Natalie’s snooty party with the help of a bunch of punks and female body builders but otherwise, it’s remarkable how little actually happens. That said, some of the dancing is good (even if most of the music is totally bland in the way that only 80s music can be) and it’s interesting to see Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt when they were young. Sarah Jessica Parker actually gives a surprisingly likable performance here, even if it is often way too obvious that a body double is doing the majority of her dancing. That said, you really can’t get any further away from Carrie Bradshaw than Janey Glenn.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun is a time capsule of the decade in which it was made and that is definitely the main reason to watch it. Until time machines are a reality and we can experience the past firsthand, we’ll just have to keep getting our information from movies like this one.

Music Video of the Day: No Rain by Blind Melon (1992, dir. Samuel Bayer)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

As a kid, this music video was simple and uplifting. It’s about a little girl who is laughed off stage because she is dressed like a bee and can’t really dance. She wanders around meeting more and more people who don’t really understand her. Then after reaching her lowest, she finds a place with others like herself. Recently I read a comment on the music video. There is another way you can think of it.

A little girl is laughed off stage because she is dressed like a bee and can’t really dance. She wanders around meeting more and more people who don’t understand. Then after reaching her lowest, she finds peace in killing herself. She opens a pair of heavenly gates with other people in an Elysian field like place that is filled with other people the world rejected to the point where they severed their ties with the harsh world as the music video depicts.

Personally, I think it is a bit of both. It is meant to be uplifting in that it does show the little girl eventually finding a place filled with people who accept her for who she is. I also think it is a cautionary tale about how people who are different from some sort of non-existent norm can be so marginalized by the world that they are pushed to an extreme limit where we lose them. They may find a wonderful place where they are with others of their kind, but what makes them unique leaves the world devoid of what they had to offer.

The fact that lead singer Shannon Hoon died three years later of a cocaine overdose lends credence to this interpretation. The timing of the lyrics and the lyrics themselves also point towards this as well. It’s bittersweet.

Samuel Bayer of Smells Like Teen Spirit directed the video.

Heather DeLoach played the little girl. She has done a handful of things over the years such as Camp Nowhere (1994) and The Beautician and the Beast (1997).

Jeremy Stuart edited the music video. He did a handful of music videos. I couldn’t find an entry on IMDb for him seeing as his name is rather generic.

Artwork of the Day: The Speed Set

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Dazzling Erin

Artist Unknown

Secret Agent Double-O Dino: THE SILENCERS (Columbia 1966)

Posted on September 3, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Out of all the James Bond-inspired spy spoofs made in the Swingin’ 60’s, one of the most popular was Dean Martin’s Matt Helm series. Based on the novels of Donald Hamilton, the films bore little resemblance to their literary counterparts, instead relying on Dino’s Booze & Girlies Rat Pack Vegas persona. First up was 1966’s THE SILENCERS, chock full of gadgets, karate chops, and beautiful babes, with sexual innuendoes by the truckload.

Our Man Matt is a semi-retired agent of ICE (Intelligence and Counter-Espionage) living in a Playboy Mansion-style pad, and working as a globe-trotting photographer. He’s luxuriating in his bubble bath pool with sexy secretary Lovey Kravezit (“Lovey Kravezit? Oh that’s some kinda name!”) when former boss Mac Donald calls. Evil spy organization Big O (Bureau for International Government and Order) is once again plotting world domination, and the reluctant Helm is pulled back into service.

Matt is teamed with his former partner Tina…

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Film Review: Jane Got A Gun (dir by Gavin O’Connor)

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jane Got A Gun, which was released with little fanfare in January and is now available on Netflix, could just as easily have been called This Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck?

In fact, I like that title better than Jane Got A Gun. As far as I’m concerned, I am no longer reviewing Jane Got A Gun. Instead, I am going to tell you about a film called The Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck?

The film is a western, taking place shortly after the end of the Civil War. (Isn’t it interesting how every western recently produced has taken place shortly after the Civil War? Way to avoid awkward historical truths, Hollywood.) Jane (Natalie Portman) lives on an isolated farm, with her daughter and her husband, Bill Hammond (Noah Emmerich, who is wasted both figuratively and literally). Hammond used to be an outlaw but now, he’s a pretty good guy. But the Bishop Boys are still after him!

Who are the Bishop Boys?

Well, John Bishop is Ewan McGregor. He’s an evil businessman and a bounty hunter and he used to be in love with Jane but now it seems that he mostly just wants to collect the bounty that’s on Hammond’s head. I love Ewan McGregor but, as we all should have learned from his performance in Haywire, he doesn’t make the most convincing villain. McGregor is one of those actors who radiates an inner humanity. No actor falls in love as convincingly as Ewan McGregor. That’s what makes him a compelling actor but it also means that he’s totally miscast as a bounty hunting sociopath.

Anyway, the Bishop Boys end up putting five bullets in Hammond so he goes home to die. “The Bishop Boys are coming,” he says and Jane has to prepare for the upcoming siege. Fortunately, her surly neighbor, Dan (Joel Edgerton, who seems to be bored with the whole thing), just happens to be her former fiancée and he’s still in love with her, though he tries to hide his love behind bitterness and pithy one-liners. It also turns out that Dan was a hero in the Civil War but he’s weary of violence.

Don’t worry, though! Dan is still willing to kill. After all, not much would happen in the movie if Dan wasn’t willing to shoot people…

Anyway, The Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck only lasts for 98 minutes but there’s a lot of hints that there was originally supposed to be a lot more to the movie than actually showed up on screen. We get a few lengthy flashbacks, all of which hint at a story that actually explores what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society and which, if properly handled, would have made The Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck the feminist western that it’s attempting to be. Watching this movie, you get the feeling that a lot of the original storyline was either not filmed or left on the cutting room floor.

To be honest, I really wanted this to be a great movie or, at the very least, a decent showcase for Natalie Portman, who was one of my favorite actresses even before Black Swan. However, I officially gave up on this film after 50 minutes. That was around the time that Dan started to ramble about life, death, and doin’ the ratt thang. It was all just so clichéd and the rest of the film wasn’t any better.

The Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck? did receive some attention because its screenplay was included in the Black List, which claims to be an annual survey of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. The Black List is one of the greatest con jobs ever perpetrated by the film industry. While it’s true that American Hustle and The King’s Speech appeared on the Black List, a typical Black List screenplay usually turns out to be something like The Beaver, Broken City, or Cedar Rapids. You can add The Bishop Boys Are Coming And Who Gives A Fuck? to the long line of Black List scripts that became utterly forgettable movies.

Back to School Part II #18: Not My Kid (dir by Michael Tuchner)

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Not My Kid, a made-for-television from 1985, opens with 15 year-old Susan Bower (Viveka Davis) in a car with her friends. They’re drunk. They’re stoned. They’re laughing. And soon, they’re screaming as the driver loses control and the car ends up getting overturned! (I’ve had that happen before. It wasn’t fun but I survived with only a few cuts and bruises.) Susan isn’t seriously hurt but, at the hospital, it’s discovered that she has alcohol and drugs in her bloodstream.

“NOT MY KID!” her father, surgeon Frank Bower (George Segal), declares.

“NOT MY KID!” her mother, Helen Bower (Stockard Channing, totally wasted in a thinly written role), agrees.

“Totally your kid!” her younger sister, Kelly (Christa Denton), says before then revealing where Susan hides her drugs. This leads to Kelly getting beaten up by Susan and her drug addict boyfriend, Ricky (Tate Fuckin’ Donavon, decades before playing a hostage in Argo.).

Anyway, neither Frank nor Helen want to admit that Susan has a drug problem so instead, they go to see a smug family counselor who tells them that they are both being too hard on their daughter and that they need to just let Susan be Susan. That sounds like a good (and easy) plan but then Susan runs away and disappears for two days. After she’s finally found, stoned and hiding out in the family’s boat, her parents finally decide to send her to rehab.

The rehab is run by Dr. Royce. Dr. Royce is played by Andrew Robinson and it took me a while to recognize him as being the same actor who played the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry. Perhaps that explains why Dr. Royce came across as being such a creepy character. As I watched this movie, I kept waiting for the big reveal where Dr. Royce would turn out to be a murderer or something. That never happened, of course. In the world of Not My Kid, the harsh and confrontational Dr. Royce is the only thing keeping the entire teenage population for shooting up heroin.

The majority of the film takes place at the rehab and it gets annoying pretty quickly. This is one of those places where everything is done as a group activity. Whenever someone says something, everyone in the group replies with, “We love you, so-and-so.” When Susan doesn’t act properly ashamed of herself, the group gangs up on her. “You’re a phony!” someone says. “You’re full of crap!” another person adds. “We love you, Susan,” the group chants.

AGCK! Seriously, the rehab scenes totally freaked me out because it came across less like therapy and more like brainwashing. I spent the entire movie waiting for Susan to escape and when she did, I was happy for her. She may have been a self-destructive drug addict but at least wasn’t a mindless zombie like everyone else in the movie! But then she ended up getting caught by her father and taken back to the rehab.

Meanwhile, her parents are going through therapy as well. Again, it’s all group therapy. When Frank tries to talk about how Susan’s behavior makes him feel, someone says, “You’re a phony!’ Another person adds, “You’re full of crap!” And the group chants, “We love you, Frank.” Okay, to be honest, I’m taking some dramatic license with the dialogue here but hopefully, you get the general idea.

I mean, seriously — I understand that I was supposed to be like, “Yay rehab!” while watching the movie but the rehab came across more like some sort of creepy cult. It reminded me of both a Canadian film called, Ticket To Heaven and a Texas film called Split Image. As I watched Not My Kid, I kept waiting for James Woods to show up as a cult deprogrammer.

Anyway, don’t worry. Everything turns out well in the end. This was a made-for-TV movie, after all. Not My Kid is way too heavy-handed for its own good and it lacks a certain self-awareness. On a more positive note, George Segal does a good job in the role of Frank.

You can watch Not My Kid below!