Yearly Archives: 2017

TV Review: The Walking Dead 8.4 “Some Guy” (dir by Dan Liu)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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(YOU GET THE IDEA?)

My heart is broken.

It’s funny.  If Ezekiel had been the one to die, I don’t think it would have upset me as much.  If Carol had died, I would have been sad but tears would not have sprung to my eyes.  Rick?  Hey, Rick should have died a long time ago.  I wouldn’t have gotten upset.  I would have said, “That’s life.  No one’s safe.”

Instead, Shiva died and now my heart is broken.

What’s funny is that TSL co-founder and editor-in-chief Arleigh Sandoc warned me that Shiva was probably not going to survive.  Based on what he had seen in the comic, he told me exactly what was going to happen to her.  So, I can’t say that I was totally surprised.  Even if Arleigh hadn’t warned me, I remember the walkers eating that horse during the first season.  I know that animals aren’t safe in the world of The Walking Dead.

Still, it broke my heart.

Maybe it’s because I’m a cat person.  Maybe it’s because Shiva died protecting her master, which is not exactly typical cat behavior.  Ezekiel was at his weakest when Shiva sacrificed her life for him.  And now that Shiva’s gone, Ezekiel is going to have to learn how to be a leader without her help.  Before she died, he was shouting that he wasn’t a king.  He shouted that he was just some guy who found a cat.  The cat’s gone.  Can Ezekiel prove that he deserves to be known as “your majesty?”

If not, maybe Jerry can step up and lead The Kingdom.  Tonight, I was really impressed with Jerry and the actor who plays him, Cooper Andrews.  They both did a great job.  I know some people would say that Ezekiel should give the keys of the kingdom to Carol but I wouldn’t suggest that.  Carol’s a badass but I still get the feeling that she’s just a day or two from snapping and killing everyone she sees.

As for the rest of tonight’s episode … who cares?  Shiva’s dead…

Okay, okay, I know.  I’m a semi-professional blogger!  I need to get through this post and mourn later.  Okay, just a few observations:

Does everyone just have an unlimited supply of bullets all of the sudden?  One of the few things that I liked about the previous season is that the show did try to realistically deal with the fact that there aren’t many supplies in the post-apocalyptic world.  But this season, everyone just seems to be shooting guns for the Hell of it.  I’m not an expert on firearms but I do know that bullets aren’t like knives or arrows. They can only be used once.

So, I guess Rick is suddenly an action hero!  I’m not complaining.  A Rick who can suddenly jump into a speeding jeep is still preferable to a mopey, indecisive Rick who can’t bring himself to fight back.

Let’s give it up for Khary Payton, who did a great job tonight!  Ezekiel is a character who I’ve sometimes found to be annoying but Payton did a great job.  I think one reason why it was so unsettling to see Ezekiel acting so desperate was because The Kingdom has always provided the grim world of The Walking Dead with a little bit of fantasy.  It’s always served as an escape from all the terrible things going on in the rest of the world.  It’s very existence is a tribute to the power and importance of imagination.  Seeing the fantasy shattered was not easy and that’s something Payton wonderfully captured in his performance.

This season’s flashback structure actually paid off tonight.  I’m occasionally skeptical of shows that do the whole nonlinear timeline thing because I often feel that it’s just a gimmick, as opposed to really necessary storytelling device.  But tonight, seeing the contrast between the confident Ezekiel and the nearly defeated Ezekiel was undeniably powerful.

Speaking of nearly defeated Ezekiel, what about that Savior asshole who was holding him prisoner?  Oh my God, that guy had to be the most annoying bad guy ever!  I was so happy when Jerry split him in two.

Tonight’s episode was not bad.  It was exciting.  The pace didn’t drag.  And it made me cry.

Shiva, R.I.P.

Stranger Things S2 Ep5 “Dig Dug”; Alt Title: Bad Ideas

Posted on by casewright

ST2

Cold Open:  The Evil Vines cover up the entrance Hop dug and he is trapped.  He leaves a trail of cigarette butts for himself or someone.  Then, the evil caves puff out some knock gas and Hop is on his back.

Nancy and Creeper get a room together and it’s more boring than awkward.

Hop wakes up and makes a quasi-gas mask and goes spelunking- Bad Idea #1.

There’s a subplot where Louis gets advice from his dad about girls and he tries to explain to Max last years events.  It’s kinda boring.  For the completists, Louis contrives a meeting with Max to explain all last year’s jazz.

There is a moment where Mullet Guy kinda comes on to Steve in the shower (At least, that’s how it came across to me).  Who knows, maybe Steve and Mullet guy will find love?  Honestly, it would be the first unpredictable twist of the season.  I hope those crazy guys make it work!  Steve, I get that you’re really into Nancy, but she’s in a motel room with Creeper.  You could do worse than Mullet Guy.  He works out and is a work in progress with great hair!

Dylan lures the teenage Demimoorgorgan into the storm cellar with baloney and it’s actually kinda scary.

Nancy and Creeper arrive at The Crank’s home.  There are cameras outside and he opens the door in a t-shirt, robe, and I’m certain dirty underwear.  They go into his lair to talk- Bad Idea #2.  They enter for some reason and he even has a steel door creeper room.  REALLY?!  REALLY?!  They play the tape Nancy made of Reiser totally incriminating the lab and they come up with a mediocre plan to discredit the lab and create a scandal not mentioning the monsters.  That should work. 

Bob stops by Joyce’s home and she creates excuses to keep him from coming in, but decides – Why not let him see my crazy house? He’s gonna find out we’re all nuts anyway and he’s into puzzles.  He takes a couple of minutes to absorb in all the crazy- You did these drawings?  Why…. exactly? BEST LINES OF THE SERIES!!!!

Bob realizes: 1) the vines are a map of the town. 2) the vines are hydrophobic.  E-Will trips out and sees Hop is in trouble.  Yep, Hop is enveloped by the vines and it appears to be the end of our intrepid Sheriff.

El gets to her Aunt, meets her catatonic mom, and realizes just how much her mom has gone crazy.  There is no there there, or so it seems.  Her mom indicates that she is ready to communicate with some flickering lights.  El goes into the imbetween and her mother show’s El: her birth, her abduction, another psychic playmate, a botched rescue, her mother’s ECT treatment by Evil Modine, and tonight’s winning lotto numbers- guess the fake!!!!

Bob creates a map to scale to find Hop with coordinates divined from E-Will’s drawings.  Pretty cool, Hop was last season’s breakout- this year is All About Bob!!!

Evil Reiser learns that the Hawkins soil is ALIVE!!!!!!  That’s pretty much it for him this episode.

Bob figures out Hop’s rough location and is amazed they bring him along to help.  Awwwww.   E-Will, Mike, Joyce, and Bob are looking for Hop and E-Will goes into his head and says to make a right.  Joyce and Bob arrive at the cave entrance for Hop and Bob doesn’t seem phased that he’s going into another dimension.  Good for you, Bob! Thanks for taking this in stride.  They rescue Hop.  The vines are about to overtake our trio, but the government arrives with flamethrowers and start burning the vines, sending E-Will into a painful seizure.

Steve and Dylan are paired up to deal with the teenage Demimoorgorgan, but it’s escaped!!!! WHA?!!! It has broken out into the evil caves and is now loose in our world.  Dylan, this is 100% your fault! You are the biggest bad idea of them all! – Bad Idea #3.

This episode wasn’t too bad.  People acted kinda stupidly as is usual this season, but at least Bob acted as a counter-weight to all the dumbassery.  Cheers!!!

 

A Movie A Day #307: River of Death (1989, directed by Steve Carver)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the Amazon, natives are dying of a mysterious disease.  Could it have anything to do with a German war criminal named Wolfgang (played by Robert Vaughn) who is living in a cave that is decorated with a Nazi flag?  A scientist (Victor Melleney) and his daughter, Anna (Sarah Maur Thorp), are determined to find out.  They hire a tough explorer, John Hamilton (Michael Dudikoff), to lead them up the river but John does not do a very good job because the scientist ends up dead and Anna ends up kidnapped.

Everyone tells John to forget about Anna.  Colonel Diaz (Herbert Lom) says that she is dead.  John’s best friend, an arms dealer named Eddie (L.Q. Jones), says that she’s dead.  John refuses to accept that and he organizes an expedition to help track them down.  A strange man (Donald Pleasence) and his assistant (Cynthia Erland) approach John and offer to help.  What John does not know is that the man is actually Heinrich Spaatz, yet another Nazi war criminal.

River of Death is a ridiculous movie but it is entertaining in a way that only a late 80s Michael Dudikoff movie can be.  Though River of Death was a Cannon film, it was produced by the legendary Harry Alan Towers, which is probably why the production standards are higher than the average Menahem Golan quickie.  Dudikoff does a passable imitation of Indiana Jones (and he even gets to do some Apocalypse Now-style narrating) but the real reason to watch the film is to watch veteran actors like Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, Herbert Lom, and L.Q. Jones ham it up.  Vaughn doesn’t even attempt to sound German while Pleasence gives a performance that is strange even by his own considerable standards.

One final note: River of Death was the second-to-last film directed by Steve Carver, who also did Capone, and Big Bad Mama, along with helping to make Chuck Norris a star by directing Lone Wolf McQuade and An Eye For An Eye.

Stranger Things S2 Ep 4 “Will the Wise”; ALT Title: Everything that is WRONG with season 2

Posted on by casewright

ST2

Cold Open: Joyce is trying to find Will who is busy getting possessed by black smoke “Supernatural” style.  The Smoke Monster fully enters Will and he becomes…. YES—

E-Will. —You’re Welcome, America.

Analysis: The smoke monster is everything that is wrong with Season 2.  Season 1: the big bad was a predator- corporeal, eating, breathing, and reproducing.  This season: it’s a smoke monster- ethereal and spooky, essentially an evil spirit.  Evil spirits are fictional and it destroys the idea of the Upside Down.  The Upside Down is a PARALLEL universe: what is here is there, but different because it evolved without the sun.  There aren’t spirits here running about, so there shouldn’t be spirits there running about.  That’s why season 2 fails! The creators undermined their own mythology for the sake of creative expedience and it drains the scares right out of us.

Joyce tries to wake Will, but he can’t remember what happened because E-Will is being all E-Will.

Hop sees El and is justifiably pissed, but imprisoning a teenager is just not a workable solution.  Hop tries to ground El and it goes…about as well as can be expected with a teenager with terrible super powers.  She hits Hop with a book, throws furniture around, and blows the windows out.  They’re also a lot alike; they both react without thinking.

Hop, you’re not the best Dad.  You take crazy risks without the slightest concern whether or not you will come home to your ward.  Grow up!

Nancy easily lies to the now placeholder Cara Buono that she’s staying at Stacy’s…. and it works. UGHHH.  It’s actually a plot to catch the lab guys red handed and give the data to the Crank from episode 1.  She and Creeper are faux-waiting for Barb’s mom and then get “captured” by the government guys.  It’s legit 1980s creepy and one of the few good scenes of the episode.

Joyce is trying to nurse E-Will back to health.  His temperature is below normal and she tries to give him a bath.  Joyce you should really read- Chicken Soup for the Demonic Soul.

We get a very hamfisted clue as to how to defeat the smoke monster: E-Will is scared of the bath water.  Side note: there is a cool juxtaposition with Mr. Clarke describing fear responses in organisms.

Hop is with Joyce and Will and trying to get him to describe his E-Willness and he can’t unless he uses …..crayons?  Will, I get it- you’re the artsy one of this D&D tribe, but as Daniel Tiger tries to instruct my girls- Use your words…. Use your words.  There we go. Will uses drawing to craft what is revealed to be a network of vines.  Joyce uses the drawings as her latest Crazy Home Journal interior decorating and puts them up everywhere.

We return to El cleaning up the house and finding The Trapdoor of Contrivance.  We see a box labeled Vietnam.  So, Hop is a Vet, not a surprise.  El discovers the evil lab box and finds stuff on her mom.  El uses her mojo to go to the imbetween and make contact with her.  El’s quest begins to find her mom.

Hop reveals that he might be the worst Dad/Cop ever and realizes E-Will’s drawings are vines and he takes E-Will’s statement that they are killing to be literal and rushes off without consulting anyone about his plans or whereabouts or any backup whatsoever civilian or otherwise.  Hop, how did you get through Vietnam or even your teen years?! 

Dylan looks for his “pet”.  His poor mom is a fright looking for their cat.  Dylan finds Dart eating Mr. Snuggles or whatever he’s called.

Hop digs down into the pumpkin patch and enters a tunnel of Upside Down and for hamfistedness the camera rotates making him upside down on the screen.

NOTE: smoke from Supernatural and this show below….

 

Music Video of the Day: Smashed Blocked by John’s Children (1967, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Lisa here with today’s music video of the day!  It’s an old one, one that comes to us all the way from 1967!  I present to you: Smashed Blocked by John’s Children!

John’s Children were an English band who were together for about two years, from 1966 to 1968.  By most accounts, they didn’t make much of an immediate impact, despite Smashed Blocked finding some popularity in the States.  (However, they would later receive some retroactive recognition as one of the major influences on early punk rock.)  Perhaps unfairly, they were better known for their antics on and off the stage than for their music.  For instance, they opened for The Who until they were got kicked off the tour for being too wild.  They frequently posed naked for the press.  They named their first album Orgasm, which was a sure way to generate controversy in the 60s.  Marc Bolan, who would later find fame as the frontman for T. Rex, was briefly a member of the group, though he wasn’t involved with the recording of Smashed Blocked.

Anyway, this video for Smashed Blocked was apparently filmed in 1967, in the basement of the Establishment, a popular London nightclub.  That’s ainger Andy Ellison, drummer Chris Townson, and bass guitarist John Hewlett in the video.  According to some comments that Ellison posted on YouTube, the song’s title comes from “mod” slang — Smashed meaning to be drunk and Blocked meaning to be high on amphetamines.  That’s certainly the feeling that I get from this song, which really does seem to scream out “1967!” in every way that it can.

Interestingly enough, there’s a second video for Smashed Blocked on YouTube.  This one was not an official release.  Instead, it’s made up of footage that was left on the cutting room floor after the first video was put together.  Here it is:

Enjoy!

 

Lifetime Film Review: Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer (dir by Norman Stone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The latest Lifetime “true crime” movie goes a little something like this:

We start with a clip from a South African news program.  The anchorman talks about how much everyone loves Oscar Pistorius, the man who lost his legs when he was 11 months old and then went to compete in both the Paralympics and the Olympics.  In both his home country and abroad, Oscar is known as the Blade Runner.

Cut to:

Oscar Pistorius (played by Andreas Damm) running across South Africa.  A man in a pickup truck honks at him.  Oscar holds up his hand in greeting.  A group of children stop playing soccer long enough to watch Oscar run by.  No matter what, Oscar never stops running.

Cut to:

Oscar in his kitchen, on the day before Thanksgiving.  A title card tell us that we are seeing “the day before Reeva’s death.”  Reeva Steenkamp (Toni Garrn) is Oscar’s girlfriend and a model.  They talk, they laugh, they make love on a kitchen counter.  It seems like the perfect relationship.

Cut to:

Night.  The outside of Oscar’s house.  There are gunshots.  Reeva screams for help.  Oscar shouts “No!”

Cut to:

The morning after Reeva’s death and Oscar telling the police how he accidentally killed his girlfriend.

Cut to:

A few months before Reeva’s death.  Reeva tells her mother that she wants to move in with Oscar.

Cut to:

A few more months before Reeva’s death.  Reeva meets Oscar Pistorius and, for Oscar, it’s obsession at first sight.

And so the movie goes from there, hopping back and forth through time and telling the story of Oscar and Reeva’s ill-fated relationship.  Oscar turns out to be jealous and controlling.  Reeva is always a bit too quick to accept the blame for all of Oscar’s tantrums.  Oscar confesses to her that he’s always felt like he’s been alone in the world.  Reeva’s friends tell her that they think Oscar is creepy.  Reeva says that they don’t know him the way that she does.  Reeva mentions that she smoked weed while doing a shoot in Jamaica.  Oscar totally freaks out, as if he simply cannot believe that someone would smoke weed while in Jamaica.  (I mean, wouldn’t it be rude not to?)

And eventually, it all leads to Oscar shooting Reeva and the trial that captivated the world.  Did Oscar intentionally shoot her while in a jealous rage or, as he claimed, did he accidentally shoot her?  The film refuses to give us a definitive answer, leaving it up to the viewer to decide.  That seems to be a bit of a cop-out but then again, that’s the way it usually is with these true crime films.  They never definitely validate one side or the other.  It’s just like how last week’s Robert Durst movie couldn’t come right out and show Durst killing his wife even though everyone knows that’s probably what happened.  Ambiguity can be good but sometimes, you just want the movie to have the courage to offer up an answer.

Anyway, as for the rest of Blade Runner Killer, it was a bit too slow and disjointed to really work.  As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but feel that, unlike the Durst case, there really wasn’t enough to the Pistorius case to justify an entire, 90-minute movie.  Though the script never really dug far beneath the surface, both Andreas Damm and Toni Garrn did a good job as Oscar and Reeva.  Otherwise, this one was pretty forgettable.

A Movie A Day #306: Platoon Leader (1988, directed by Aaron Norris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Having just graduated from West Point, Lt. Jeff Knight (Michael Dudikoff, the American Ninja himself) is sent to Vietnam and takes over a battle-weary platoon.  Lt. Knight has got his work cut out for him.  The VC is all around, drug use is rampant, and the cynical members of the platoon have no respect for him.  When Lt. Knight is injured during one of his first patrols, everyone is so convinced that he’ll go back to the U.S. that they loot his quarters.  However, Knight does return, determined to earn the respect of his men and become a true platoon leader!

Though Cannon was best known for making B action movies (many of which starred either Chuck Norris or Charles Bronson), they occasionally tried to improve their image by releasing a prestige film.  Platoon Leader is somewhere in the middle between Cannon’s usual output and their “respectable” films.  It is based on a highly acclaimed memoir and, though the film was made in South Africa, it does a good job of recreating the look of Vietnam.  For instance, Platoon Leader‘s version of Vietnam is more convincing than what Cannon later presented in P.O.W.: The Escape.  Platoon Leader also spends some time developing its characters.  Lt. Knight is more than just a stoic action hero, which already distinguishes it from 90% of Cannon’s usual output.  At the same time, Platoon Leader was directed by Chuck Norris’s brother, Aaron, and he doesn’t hold back on the explosions and the gunfire that everyone had come to expect from a Cannon war film.  The end result is an enjoyably hokey film that has a few more layers than the typical Cannon production but not too many.

This film was originally titled Nam but, after the success of Platoon, the title was changed to Platoon Leader.  In typical Cannon fashion, Platoon Leader plays like a more jingoistic and even less subtle version of Stone’s film.  The main difference is that Platoon‘s Lt. Wolfe never won the respect of his men and ended up getting killed with almost everyone else while Lt. Knight beats back the VC and shares a celebratory embrace with his sergeant.

One final note: keep an eye out for genre vet William Smith, who starred in The Losers (a film about a group of bikers who are recruited by the CIA and sent to Vietnam), in the role of Dudikoff’s superior officer.  If Platoon Leader had been made in the 70s, Smith would have played Dudikoff’s role so his appearance here is almost a passing of the B-movie torch.

Special Veteran’s Day Edition: THE STORY OF G.I. JOE (United Artists 1945)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

William Wellman’s THE STORY OF G.I. JOE tells the tale of boots-on-the-ground combat soldiers through the eyes of war correspondent Ernie Pyle, Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist for Scripps-Howard newspapers. The film was one of the most realistic depictions of the brutality of war up to that time, and made a star out of a young actor by the name of Robert Mitchum . In fact, this was the one and only time Mitchum ever received an Oscar nomination – a shocking fact given the caliber of his future screen work.

Burgess Meredith  plays Pyle, who embeds with the 18th Infantry’s ‘C’ Company in order to give his stateside readers the grim realities of war from the soldier’s point of view. The men accept him, affectionately calling him ‘Pop’, as he shares their hardships, heartbreaks, and victories. Meredith’s voice over narrations are taken directly from Pyle’s columns, detailing the cold nights, dusty…

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Cleaning Out The DVR: Off The Rails (dir by David Jackson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there!  So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR.  Seriously, I currently have 205 things recorded!  I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not.  So, that means that I’ve now have only two months to clean out the DVR!  Will I make it?  Keep checking this site to find out!  I recorded Off The Rails off of the Lifetime Movie Network on March 26th!)

Oh, poor Nicole (Hannah Barefoot)!

When we first meet her, Nicole is recovering from amnesia.  She knows that she was injured in a catastrophic train derailment.  She knows that she’s married to Mark (Thomas Beaudoin), who seems like the perfect husband.  She knows that her therapist is Dr. Teres (Andrea Cirie).  She knows that she’s oddly obsessed with maps and that she teaches at the local college.  However, she is still not totally sure what her life was like before the accident.  And sometimes, she wonders if she can actually trust Mark.  For instance, she suspects that, while she was in her coma, Mark added onto the deck in the back yard.  Mark swears that it was her idea but why would she want to do that?

Nicole is also convinced that she has never had a Facebook account.  She swears that she’s never been on Twitter.  She doesn’t even know what Instagram is!  “You call me a Luddite!” she says to one of her friends, “I do remember that!”  But, if that’s true, why do all of her friends swear that they’ve talked to her on Facebook?  And why are all sorts of sleazy men approaching her, all claiming that they met her online?

That’s not all Nicole has to worry about.  There’s also the weird visions that she’s having, many of them involving being watched by a menacing-looking raven.  And then there’s the French Canadian photographer (Andreas Damm).  Nicole is not sure who he is but she sure did take a lot of happy pictures with him.  Could it be that she wasn’t as happy in her marriage as both Mark and her therapist insist?

There were some parts of Off The Rails that I really liked.  The story was, at times, genuinely intriguing and I always appreciate it whenever Lifetime films mix a little surrealism in with the melodrama.  The first part of the film does a very good of creating a properly ominous atmosphere and Hannah Barefoot does a good job portraying Nicole’s confusion and paranoia.  Obviously, it demanded a considerable suspension of disbelief to buy into the idea that Nicole could possibly be so ignorant of social media in 2017 but then again, that’s Lifetime for you.  Social media is always the source of all evil in the world of Lifetime.

Unfortunately, there’s a twist at the end of Off The Rails that simply does not work and it actually cheapens the film a bit.  I understand that it’s a Lifetime film and that, therefore, things can never end on too dark of a note but, in this case, the movie’s story demanded and deserved an ending that was just a bit more bittersweet.

Still, I’d recommend Off the Rails.  Up until that final shot, it’s a nicely done Lifetime mystery.  You’ll probably figure out the solution early but it’s still entertainingly melodramatic and just weird enough to be worthwhile.