Monthly Archives: July 2018

Lisa’s Week In Review: 7/23/18 — 7/29/18

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Busy, busy week but at least the outside temperature is no longer in the 100s.  I spent most of this week tired, cranky, and not feeling well.  Hopefully, this upcoming week will be better!

Movies I Watched:

  1. Blockers (2018)
  2. The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)
  3. Diamonds are Forever (1971)
  4. High-Ballin’ (1978)
  5. It (1927)
  6. Live By Night (2016)
  7. Path of the Wind (2009)
  8. Raiders of the Living Dead (1986)
  9. Streets of Fire (1984)
  10. Unsane (2018)
  11. White Line Fever (1975)
  12. The Wrong Cruise (2018)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. Ancient Aliens
  2. Atlantis Rising: Secrets Decoded
  3. The Bachelorette
  4. Bar Rescue
  5. Big Brother 20
  6. Big Brother After Dark
  7. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  8. King of the Hill
  9. Lost Cities of the Amazon: The Legend is Real
  10. The Love Boat
  11. Prohibition
  12. Relic Hunter
  13. 60 Minutes — I caught the final 20 minutes of 60 Minutes, specifically the story about Marius, a 2 year-old giraffe who was murdered by the Copenhagen Zoo.  After watching that story, all I can say to that Danish zoo is, “Fuck you and all your Darwinian bullshit.”
  14. Sharp Objects
  15. South Park
  16. Strange Inheritance

Books I Read:

  1. License Renewed (1981) by John Gardner

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Adi Ulmansky
  2. Big Data
  3. Calvin Harris
  4. The Chemical Brothers
  5. Daya
  6. Deadmau5
  7. Jakalope
  8. Lily Allen
  9. Mika Sade
  10. Saint Motel
  11. Soccer Mommy

Links From Last Week:

  1. From Erin’s photography site: Another Fountain!
  2. Les Moonves and CBS Face Allegations of Sexual Misconduct
  3. “My Kid Could Paint That!” The Latest Update On This Terrific Documentary! Artist Marla Olmstead Was A Child Prodigy – Or Was She?
  4. From my dream journal: Last Night’s Snippet of a Dream

Links From The Site:

  1. Erin shared the covers of Strange Detective Mysteries  and artwork from Don Neiser, James Avati, Perl Owen, and two unknown artists.
  2. Gary reviewed Countess Dracula, Diplomaniacs, The Last Stand, and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane!?
  3. Jeff shared music videos from Aaron Lewis, Bruce Willis, U2, Color Me Badd, Paul Simon, Gary Numan, and David Lee Roth!  He also shared our weekly trailer round-up!
  4. Ryan reviewed The Warlok Story and 8 Million Ways To Die, along with sharing his weekly reading round-up!
  5. I paid tribute to my pre-code role model, Clara Bow, and I shared my Oscar predictions!

(Want to see what I did last week?  Click here!)

What Lisa Watched Last Night #187: The Wrong Cruise (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, The Wrong Cruise!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, the obvious answer is that it was on Lifetime and I always watch Lifetime original films.  I’m running a little bit behind in reviewing all of them and, for that, I apologize.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get caught up next week!

The other reason that I was watching The Wrong Cruise was because it was a “wrong” movie.  As any regular Lifetime watcher knows, there are several different genres of Lifetime movies, each with their own quirks and rules.  There’s the “Killer” movies, which usually feature Barbie Castro.  There’s the “at 17” movies.  There’s the “Deadly” movies.  And then there’s the “Wrong” movies.  Several of these films — including The Wrong Cruise — were directed by David DeCoteau and usually featured Vivica A. Fox and William McNamara in memorable supporting roles.  The “Wrong” movies are always a lot of fun.

What Was It About?

Ever since her father died, teenager Sky Tanner (Sidney Nicole Rogers) has been acting out.  After throwing a punch at track meet, Sky finds herself on the verge of being expelled from school!  Uh-oh!

Fortunately, for Sky, it looks like she’s about to get a break from the stress of dealing with high school.  Her mother, Claire (Vivica A. Fox), is booked on a cruise to Mexico and there’s no way that Claire’s going to leave Sky home alone.

At first, it seems like the perfect vacation!  Claire meets a man named Dante (Andres Londono).  Sky meets a teenage boy named Rico (Adrian Quinta).  Love is in the air!  Dante is charming and quite insistent that Claire go sailing with him.  As for Rico, he’s willing to buy drinks for the underage Sky and he’s more than happy to show Sky around Mexico.

If, at this point, you’re saying, “I don’t trust either of them!,” you’re not alone.  After you’ve seen enough Lifetime films, you know better than to trust any charming stranger.  Add to that, while Sky is drinking with Rico and Claire is flirting with Dante, there’s a creepy ship’s mate (played by William McNamara) who seems to be determined to keep an eye on both of them.  What’s up with that?

What Worked?

This one was a lot of fun, largely because Vivica A. Fox and Sidney Nicole Rogers were totally and completely believable as mother and daughter.  Every time that Claire said something overprotective and Sky reacted by sighing and rolling her eyes, the more you found herself believing in their characters.  When they inevitably ended up getting into trouble, the stakes felt real because the mother/daughter relationship felt real.

Londono and Quinta both did work as Dante and Rico but the film was ultimately stolen by William McNamara.  For such a handsome actor, he’s really good at playing creepy Lifetime movie villains.

What Did Not Work?

I would have liked to have spent a little more time on the cruise ship.  For a film called The Wrong Cruise, it seemed like the boat was a little underused.  Then again, maybe I just want to go on a cruise…

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I didn’t run track in high school but, if I had, I would hope that I would have had just as combative an attitude towards my competitors as Sky had towards her’s.

Also, like Sky, I spent a lot of my teenage years rolling my eyes at overprotective parental figures.

Lessons Learned

Never get out of the boat.

4 Shots From 4 Clara Bow Films: It, Wings, Dangerous Curves, Call Her Savage

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.

Happy birthday to my pre-code role model, the amazing Clara Bow!

4 Shots From 4 Clara Bow Films

It (1927, dir by Clarence G. Badger)

Wings (1928, dir by William Wellman)

Dangerous Curves (1929, dir by Lothar Mendes)

Call Her Savage (1932, dir by John Francis Dillon)

 

Weekly Trailer Round-Up: Alita: Battle Angel, Mid 90s, Love Gilda, Final Score, Hunter Killer, Iron Fist

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome to this week’s trailer round-up!

What do you get when you combine a script co-written by James Cameron with the direction of Robert Rodriguez?  We’ll find out when Alita: Battle Angel is released into theaters on December 21st!

A24’s latest period piece, Mid90s, will be released into theaters on October 19th.  This film is the directorial debut of Jonah Hill and, judging from the trailer, his film has got the 90s down.

SNL comedienne Gilda Radner gets a much deserved tribute in Love, Gilda.  This documentary will be in theaters on September 21st.

Judging from the trailer, Final Score looks like it might be the best action film of 1992.  It’s Die Hard in a stadium.  The Eurotrash villains take 35,000 football hooligans hostage but everyone’s too much into the match to notice.  At first, I thought this trailer had to be a parody.

Speaking of things that seem like parodies but are actually meant to be taken seriously, Hunter Killer is a real movie starring two real Oscar winners.  Keep an eye out for Gary Oldman and Common in theaters on October 26th.

Finally, proving that not even bad reviews can keep a Marvel hero down, Netflix’s Iron Fist returns for a second season on September 7th.

 

 

 

Weekly Reading Round-Up : 07/22/2018 – 07/28/2018, Elijah Brubaker’s “Reich,” Issues 5-8

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Picking up right where we left off at last week —

Underneath the sleek, art deco cover to Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #5, we find a story that’s actually pretty heavy on intrigue — both of the political and sexual variety. On the sexual front, our guy Wilhelm’s insatiable appetites are finally straining his largely-sham marriage to the breaking point, even as his philosophy of, for wont of a better term, scientific libertine-ism begins to bear fruit in terms of small-scale social changes in Germany. His “success” is not without its detractors, though, one of them being his then-beloved Communist party, who sever ties with him in the face of the right-wing repression sweeping the country. Which brings us, I suppose, to the political intrigue, as this installment sees both Hitler’s rise to power and, subsequently, the totalitarian measures enacted in the wake of the Reichstag fire, necessitate Reich’s flight from…

View original post 805 more words

Music Video of the Day: California Girls by David Lee Roth (1984, directed by Peter Angelus)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

David Lee Roth first came to prominence as the lead singer of Van Halen.  Famously, he and Eddie Van Halen did not get along but the band’s early success was definitely due to the combination of Eddie’s technical virtuosity and Roth’s unabashed stage presence.  For better or worse, Roth earned the right to be known as Diamond Dave.  When Roth left Van Halen (for the first time) and embarked on his solo career, he made up for what he may have lacked in range with pure theatrical showmanship.  Nowhere was that more evident than in Roth’s first solo hit, a cover of the Beach Boys’s California Girls.

Even before the video begins, we know what’s in store for us:

Assuming the opening quote hasn’t scared you off, the video proper begins somewhere in California, with a campy Twilight Zone-style narrator introducing us to a tour group of strange-looking tourists and Jane Leeves.  (Nine years after this video, Leeves would be better known for playing Daphne Moon on Frasier.)

Fortunately, the world’s best tour guide is there to show them what California’s all about!

But first, Diamond Dave makes them all walk through a cemetery for some reason.

Of course, Diamond Dave loves the East Coast Girls.  The Yo Mamma graffiti is a nice touch.

And Diamond Dave loves the Southern Girls, with the way they talk and hang their Confederate flags.

He also likes the Midwest Girls and, apparently, corn.

And don’t forget Northern Girls, with the way they kiss in the snow.

But you know what Dave really likes?

California Girls!

Jane Leeves is amazed!

The bodybuilder here is played by Kay Baxter, who was Dave’s personal trainer at the time.

The screenshot below is not only the epitome of Diamond Dave but also a good example of why he and Van Halen have always had such an uneasy working relationship.  Eddie Van Halen could probably perform a technically perfect version of California Girls (or any other Beach Boys song) but he could never pull off an orange suit and a bowtie.

The video’s most famous (and most often parodied) moment comes when Dave dances down a runway of bikini-clad models, who are all standing still and posed like mannequins.  It may be ridiculous put it’s also the epitome of David Lee Roth.

California Girls was one of Roth’s biggest solo hits and, much like him, it epitomizes an era.  Roth would later rejoin and leave Van Halen several more times before finally joining again in 2007.  When last checked, Roth was still a member and he probably still loves California girls.

 

Grandma Guignol: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE (Warner Bros 1962)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Joan Crawford  and Bette Davis had been Hollywood stars forever by the time they filmed WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. Davis was now 54 years old, Crawford 58, and both stars were definitely on the wane when they teamed for this bizarre Robert Aldrich movie, the first (and arguably best) of what has become know as the “Grand Dame Guignol” (or “psycho-biddy”) genre.

Bette is Baby Jane Hudson, a washed-up former vaudeville child star with a fondness for booze, while Joan plays her sister Blanche, a movie star of the 30’s permanently paralyzed in a car accident allegedly caused by Jane. The two live together in a run-down old house, both virtual prisoners trapped in time and their own minds. Blanche wants to sell the old homestead and send Jane away for treatment, but Jane, jealous of her sister’s new-found popularity via her televised old films, descends further into alcoholism…

View original post 419 more words

Film Review: Live By Night (dir by Ben Affleck)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember Live By Night?

Released in December of 2016, Live By Night was one of those highly anticipated films that ended up bombing at the box office and leaving critics cold.  The anticipation was due to the fact that Live By Night was the first film that Ben Affleck had directed since Argo won best picture.  It was seen as Affleck’s next prestige picture, the one that would remind everyone that he was more than just the latest actor to be cast as Batman.  Live By Night was expected to be a huge Oscar contender.  As for why it bombed at the box office, that may have had something to do with the fact that Live By Night is not a very good film.

It’s a gangster film, one that takes place during prohibition.  Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck) is the most boring gangster in Boston.  Or, at least, he is until he falls for the wrong woman and he ends up having to flee down to Tampa.  Once down there, Joe sets himself up as the most boring gangster in Florida.  There’s all sorts of themes running through Live By Night — racial themes, economic themes, even some heavy-handed religious themes — but ultimately, the main impression that one gets from the film’s story is that Joe Coughlin was a very boring gangster.

Anyway, Joe gets involved in all sorts of corruption and violence.  He brings down his friend, Dion (Chris Messina), to help him out.  Whereas Joe is rational and dull, Dion is violent and dull.  You spend the entire movie waiting for the moment when Dion will turn on Joe but it never happens.  I guess that’s a good thing since Joe and Dion are busy battling the Klan.  Joe may be a 1920s gangster but he’s got the political and cultural outlook of a 21st century movie star.

Joe knows that prohibition is going to end someday, so he hopes to make money through opening up a casino.  Standing in the way of the casino is a prostitute-turned-evangelist named Loretta (Elle Fanning).  Loretta is the daughter of the local police chief (Chris Cooper), with whom Joe has an uneasy friendship.  You keep expecting this plot to go somewhere but it really doesn’t.  Loretta’s just kinda there.  That said, we do get a hilarious shot of a tearful Chris Cooper repeating the word repent over and over again so there is that.

Zoe Saldana is also just kind of there, playing Joe’s Cuban wife.  Again, you expect a lot to happen with Saldana’s character but, for the most part, she’s mostly just a plot device who exists solely so that Joe can have some sort of motivation beyond simply wanting to get rich.

It’s a big, sprawling film that never quite feels like an epic.  A huge part of the problem is that Ben Affleck the director is let down by Ben Affleck the actor.  Regardless of what’s happening in the scene, Affleck always has the same grim look on his face.  At times, it seems as if he’s literally been chiseled out of a marble and you find yourself wondering if he’s actually capable of any facial expression beyond glum annoyance.  A gangster film like this need a bigger-than-life protagonist but, as played by Affleck, Joe always seems to be in danger of vanishing into the scenery.

I think part of the problem is that Affleck’s previous films all dealt with places and subjects that Affleck felt comfortable with, perhaps because he could relate their stories to his own personal experiences.  Gone, Baby, Gone and The Town both took place exclusively in Boston.  Argo dealt with the film industry.  Live By Night is a period piece set in the South and Affleck is obviously lost from the minute Joe arrives in Florida.

Live By Night, I think, could have been a good movie if it had been directed by someone like Paul Thomas Anderson and maybe if an actor like Colin Farrell played the role of Joe.  But, as it is, it’s just a rather stolid and uninspiring gangster film.