Over on Through the Shattered Lens Presents the Oscars, we are continuing to reimagine Oscar history, one year at a time! Today, we take a look at the year 1918. World War I ended, the Spanish Flu wiped out 5% of the world’s population, and the Academy embraced Tarzan of the Apes!
1918 was a year of dominated by war and pestilence. As the world seemed to be intent on destroying itself, both the Academy and American filmgoers embraced escapism.
Overseas, the Great War continued to drag on. With no end to the fighting in sight, there were fears that the American public would turn against the war and their elected leaders would withdraw American soldiers from the fighting. The British government, realizing the potential of film as a propaganda tool, contacted director D.W. Griffith and offered to help him make a film. The end result was Hearts of the World, an epic war film that starred Lillian Gish as a French girl who struggles to survive and find true love as the Germans raid her village.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Last night, if you were having trouble getting to sleep at 2 in the morning, you could have turned over to Starz and watched Nina Takes A Lover, a movie from 1994.
Nina Takes A Lover is such a typical 90s Sundance film that it could have just as easily been called Independent Movie From 1994. Everything that we tend to associate with American independent cinema is present in this film. It’s a relationship drama with moments of quirky comedy. It’s set in the city and no, it doesn’t matter which city. It could be New York or it could be Seattle or it could be Los Angeles or San Francisco. The important thing is that it’s a city on one of the coasts, the type of city where people engage in witty banter while sharing an apple in the park or over cups of coffee at a cozy cafe that was probably replaced by a Starbucks after this film was released. This is the type of film where the characters tell their stories in flashback while being interviewed by a bespectacled journalist. Characters alternate between artificial small talk and sudden statements of portentous wisdom. Of course, all of quirky drama leads up to a sudden twist. I figured out the twist after watching about 10 minutes of the film. Maybe audiences in 1994 were a bit more surprised.
About the only thing that keeps Nina Takes A Lover from being the most stereotypical indie film ever made is the fact that there’s no quirky criminals and nobody spends any time talking about their favorite childhood TV shows. If Nina had only shot someone while taking a lover, this would have been the most indie film ever.
I imagine that I’ve probably made the film sound totally unbearable but I actually enjoyed Nina Takes A Lover. Once I realized and accepted that Nina Takes A Lover wasn’t exactly going to reinvent cinema, I discovered that it was actually a very likable film.
Nina is played by Laura San Giacomo, who owns a shoe store. Nina meets a man in the park. The man (Paul Rhys) has no name and is merely identified as being “Photographer.” (And, of course, he’s British because this is an independent film and, in the world of indie cinema, all ideal lovers are British.) Soon, Nina and Photographer are having a passionate and very physical affair. However, Nina explains that she’s married and her husband will be home in three weeks. Photographer says that he has a wife as well. As Nina and the Photographer talk about love, marriage, and sex, they also try to figure out what they should do when the three weeks are up.
And, of course, it all leads to a twist that you’ve probably already figured out but you know what? It doesn’t matter if the film is predictable because it’s just so likable. Laura San Giacomo and Paul Rhys both give likable performances, they have a lot of chemistry, and the sex scenes are well-done and genuinely erotic. The film may tell a familiar story but it tells it well.
Nina Takes A Lover is a good film to watch when you’ve got insomnia. It won’t put you to sleep but it will definitely make the hours of darkness a little more pleasant.
Carol, which is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel and stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, was widely acclaimed at Cannes and it’s expected to be a major Oscar contender.
(Yes, that’s right — Rooney might finally get an Oscar nomination that she actually deserves, as opposed to the nomination she got for David Fincher’s insulting bastardization of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.)
This teaser looks pretty good. The only thing that concerns me is that director Todd Haynes may have be acclaimed by some critics but I’m Not There was a mess that featured a handful of good scenes and a general sense of incoherent pretension. And his version of Mildred Pierce was a total travesty, which was mostly rewarded for what it should have been as opposed to what it actually was.
So, Carol could be brilliant. Or it could be totally overrated. I look forward to finding out!
In the past, I have occasionally shared old educational films here on the Shattered Lens. As everyone should know by now, I love history and these short films all serve as interesting time capsule of the era in which they were made. Seeing as how August is traditionally the time when students go back to school, I figured now would be as good a time as any to share some wisdom from the past.
The film below is from 1952. It’s called Cheating. It’s about what happens when John Taylor forces his friend Mary to help him cheat. When he gets caught, it not only harms Mary’s reputation but John soon finds his own position on the student council threatened! Oh, the horror!
Now, I have to admit that I enjoyed this short film because, as I’ve mentioned before on this site, I occasionally cheated on a few tests while I was in high school. But, beyond that, this film is interesting because it’s shot like a living nightmare, complete with crooked camera angles, expressionistic lighting, an atmosphere of existential dread, and an extremely judgmental narrator. Director Herk Harvey goes all out in his direction for this one. (Harvey is probably best known for later directing Carnival of Souls, his only feature film.)
Plus, there’s always the fun of listening to all those country accents. It may be tempting to make fun of the “actors,” all of whom seem to have picked out of a local high school drama class. But, there’s an authenticity to them that will make most viewers reconsider the importance of cinematic authenticity.
Anyway, the ultimate message here seems to be that you should only cheat if you know you can get away with it and that is a message that I happily endorse. It’s something that all students should keep in mind as they return to school this month.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were suffering from insomnia last night, at around 2 in the morning, you could have turned on Showtime and watched Love is a Gun, an odd little thriller from 1994.
How odd is Love Is a Gun? It’s so odd that it stars Eric Roberts. Roberts plays Jack, a photographer with problems. His longtime girlfriend, Isabelle (Eliza Roberts), refuses to forgive him for cheating on her in the past and demands that he put a ring on her finger. (Jack, for his part, has bought a ring but he keeps losing it.) Jack is haunted by a reoccurring dream, in which he sees himself with a gun pointed at his head. Isabelle says that the dream means that Jack needs to give her a ring. Jack says it’s all about deja vu.
Jack gets a job working as a crime scene investigator. He meets a detective who is so crazy that he’s played by R. Lee Ermey. Jack takes pictures of dead bodies. His colleagues make macabre jokes. A local reporter offers to pay Jack for insider information. Ermey asks Jacks to help cover up a crime. Jack has visions of a line of well-dressed detectives shooting at him, firing squad style. Eventually, Jack ends up sitting in a living room, an anonymous body at his feet, and watching a soap opera. The actors on TV repeat dialogue that we’ve heard Jack and Isabelle say earlier in the film. Jack starts to giggle and is soon laughing like a maniac. A detective steps into the living room and asks Jack if he remembered to take a picture of the body in the bathroom. “Oh yeah,” Jack says, “I forgot about that…”
Jack meets a model named Jean (Kelly Preston). He takes pictures of her wearing a bridal gown and occasionally playing dead. He realizes that he’s already seen the exact same pictures that he’s just taken. Somebody left them in his locker at work but the images of Jean faded to black as soon as he looked at them. He asks Jean if this is all an elaborate joke. “Take the shot, Jack,” Jean replies.
Soon, Jean and Jack are having an affair. Jean tells Jack that she has a strange rash. Jack imagines that there’s a hole in Jean’s forehead. A man claiming to be Jean’s husband shows up and wishes Jack luck because his wife is crazy.
Jack goes back to Isabelle. Isabelle demands the ring. Jack freaks out and returns to Jean. Jean says she’s pregnant but then says she isn’t. Jack giggles and then cries. He goes back and forth between the two women, constantly begging for forgiveness as beads of sweat collect on his forehead.
Jack’s watch stops. He tries to get it repaired. An old man yells at him that his watch is cursed and cannot be repaired because it might infect all of the other watches in the man’s shop.
And, after all of that, the movie starts to get really weird…
Love Is A Gun does eventually offer up an explanation as to what’s going on. It doesn’t make a bit of sense but somehow, the total incoherence of it all adds to this low-budget film’s charm. Full of surreal images and intentionally odd dialogue, Love Is A Gun is compulsively watchable.
It also features a genuinely strange performance from Eric Roberts. Roberts goes through the film with this goofy smile on his face, except for the scenes when Jack gets upset. When Jack is upset, Roberts stomps his feet, jumps up and down, yells out every other line of dialogue, and contorts his body in some truly weird ways. When he gets really angry, he grabs can after can of beer and furiously shakes them before opening, causing the beer to drench his face. Eric Roberts’s lead performance is literally one of the oddest things that I have ever seen and it’s worth watching Love Is A Gun just to experience it.
Last night, I watched the Lifetime original film, Sorority Murder!
Why Was I Watching It?
Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching because it was on Lifetime. However, beyond that, I had high hopes for this film because Lifetime has a pretty good track record when it comes to over-the-top melodrama about sororities. Remember The Haunting Of Sorority Row?
What Was It About?
Jen (Scarlett Byrne) has a lot to deal with. She has just started her first semester at college and she already has a huge design project due. Her alcoholic mother (Sarah-Jane Redmond) keeps getting arrested and needs her daughter to bail her out. And, on top of all that, Jen is being harassed by the apparently crazy president of her sorority.
When the president turns up dead, everyone assumes that Jen must have killed her! However, Jen was alone in her bedroom, working on that design project, when the crime was committed! Can Jen track down the real murderer before the semester ends? Will Jen’s mother ever get her drinking under control? And will Jen ever manage to finish that project!?
You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
What Worked?
The film’s title promised both a sorority and a murder and it totally delivered both of those things. You have to appreciate a film that actually keeps its promises. The murder mystery was enjoyable, if a little predictable. I especially enjoyed the way the film portrayed the sorority as almost being a Scientology-style cult. I was half-expecting someone to start talking about evil Lord Xenu.
Also, I liked the relationship between Jen and her mother. It was sweet and touching, in the best Lifetime tradition.
What Did Not Work?
Sadly, the film never quite reached the heights of the greatest of all Lifetime sorority films, The Haunting of Sorority Row.But, when taken on its own terms, the entire film worked. It was a good Lifetime movie.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I have never been a member of a formal sorority (though I am a member of the unofficial sisterhood of red-headed film bloggers) and I have never killed anyone, though I have been tempted. So, unfortunately, this was the rare Lifetime film to which I could not directly relate.
Then again, when the film is about murder, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
(Actually, I did relate to Jen’s desperate attempts to get her design project completed while dealing with all the death, lies, and cover-ups. What’s sad is that the project itself — which showed that Jen was heavily influenced by the Bauhaus School of Design — did not look like it was that impressive. I would have given her a C at the most.)
Well, here we are. The year is more than halfway over. The fall movie season is approaching. And yet, not a single true Oscar front-runner has yet to emerge. Could this be the year that a true populist hit, like Mad Max: Fury Road, or an unexpected art house wonder, like Ex Machina, manages to secure a spot?
Well, probably not. But still, it’s fun to speculate!
(Are Oscar pundits being too quick to dismiss Straight Outta Compton? I have not seen it yet but look at those reviews and look at that box office. It’s an interesting question.)
Anyway, here are my prediction for August! To see how my thinking has evolved over the year, check out my predictions of January, February, March,April, May, June, and July!
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Last night, if you were suffering from insomnia around 2:30 in the morning, you could have turned over to Flix and watched Stag, a dreary film from 1997!
And I know what you’re saying. “Really, Lisa? I could have watched a dreary film! WHY DIDN’T SOMEBODY TELL ME!?” Well, sorry. Your loss. Maybe next time you won’t be so quick to resist the call of insomnia…
Anyway, Stag eventually turns out to be pretty bad but it actually has a pretty good opening. A bunch of rich guys get together in a big house and throw a bachelor party. Whenever one of them first appears on screen, they get a freeze frame that tells us their name and gives us a few biographical facts.
For instance, one coke-snorting character is introduced as “Jon DiCapri: Soap opera star, spokesman for “Stars Against Drugs.” A drunk guy begging for money is identified as “Timan Bernard: Accountant, Author of ‘Ethics in Business.'” The pensive fellow standing by the window and a smoking a cigarette is “Daniel Kane: Gulf war veteran, post traumatic stress disorder,” while the guy running around in a wig and lingerie is “Ed Labenski: Contractor, church treasurer.” My personal favorite of the introductions belonged to the guy with the neck tattoo and the terrible teeth. We’re told that he’s “Pete Weber: Drug dealer, extortionist. Self employed.”
Of course, Pete Weber is also Andrew McCarthy, playing a character who is far removed from the world of Pretty In Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire. And Daniel Kane is actually Kevin Dillon, taking part in the type of misogynistic hi-jinks that would later be celebrated in Entourage. Jon DiCapri is actually William McNamara, who will always be remembered for his memorable death scene in Dario Argento’s Opera. As for Timan Bernard, he’s played by John Henson, who was the host of that terrible Wipeout show that was on the air forever despite the fact that nobody in the world would admit to watching it.
And they’re not the only ones at this bachelor party! The bachelor himself is played by John Stockwell, the director of movies like Cheaters, Crazy/Beautiful and In The Blood. His best friend is played by Mario Van Peebles. Even distinguished character actor Ben Gazzarra is at this bachelor party!
As I said, the film starts out well enough, with the men all acting like idiots and pretty much confirming everything that I’ve always suspected about bachelor parties. But then the strippers show up and there’s a highly improbable accident and soon there are two dead bodies bleeding out on the linoleum floor of John Stockwell’s house. The rest of the movie is pretty much the men yelling at each other and arguing about what they should do. Some fear going to jail. Some want to frame someone else. Some want to cover up the accident. A few suggest calling the police but then Andrew McCarthy rips the landline phone out of the wall and, since this movie was made in the 90s, that is literally all he has to do to keep everyone from contacting the outside world.
Despite some decent performances, the film turned out to be pretty tedious. That said, as I watched it, I found myself wondering how my girlfriends and I would have handled a similar situation. What if we were throwing a bachelorette party and suddenly Magic Mike ended up lying in the middle of the floor with a broken neck? To be honest, I get the feeling we’d probably handle it in roughly the same way as the characters in Stag. We would just be a lot more passive aggressive about it.
“Oh my God, is that guy dead!?”
“I don’t know but that’s what I think Heather said. But it’s all Amy’s fault and … Bitch, everyone says it’s your fault so unless everyone in the entire world is wrong … whatever, Amy.”
“Oh my God, what are we going to do with him?”
“I don’t know but Vanessa said that maybe we should say that he like never showed up at the party and then she said that Jen said that … oh my God, are those new earrings!?”
“Yeah, do you like them!?”
“They’re so pretty! Anyway, Jen said that maybe you should like go bury him somewhere…”
“Oh my God, Jen said I should go bury him!?”
“Well, I didn’t hear for sure but Tina said that she heard Vanessa say that Jen said that you should go bury him…”
“That bitch! I am so going to kick her ass! Oh my God!”
But anyway, the body would eventually get buried. Just not by me.
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Sugarbabies!
Why Was I Watching It?
The main reason, of course, is that it was on Lifetime. But beyond that, I was watching the film because I was genuinely curious to see how Sugarbabies could possibly be any different from Sugar Daddiesand Babysitter’s Black Book.
What Was It About?
It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect. Katie (Alyson Stoner) wants to go to an expensive university and study art history but her bald father is kind of a jerk and her family is supposed to be so poor, despite the fact that they live in a huge house. Once Katie enrolls in school, she discovers how expensive an education can be.
Fortunately, her friend (Tira Skovbye) has a suggestion. All Katie has to do is join a website called Sugarbabies. (It’s always the internet’s fault.) Wealthy businessmen pay her for her companionship. Soon, Katie is spending all of her time with the wealthy James (Giles Paton) while ignoring Sean (Keenan Tracy), another student who has a crush on her. (Sean doesn’t help himself, however, when he gets drunk and throws up on her shoes. Seriously — ewwwww!) However, when Katie starts to get too serious about their “realtionship,” James stops paying Katie and Katie is forced to look for a new sugar daddy.
Meanwhile, Katie’s other friend, Rochelle (Sarah Dugdale) has a similar arrangement with a much older (but surprisingly nice) businessman (Ken Camroux-Taylor). Will Rochelle be able to secure her financial future before her sugar daddy dies of the heart attack that everyone will see coming from a mile away?
And, while all of this is going on, how is Katie going to explain to her parents where all of her new money is coming from?
And will all of the characters in the film ever realize how silly they all sound every time they use the term “sugar baby” in a sentence?
What Worked?
This was a fairly good example of a “Let’s see what everyone’s wearing and where they live!” type of Lifetime movie. The clothes, the offices, and the apartments were all to die for.
(Plus, seeing what everyone was wearing provided a nice distraction from the rather predictable storyline.)
Among the supporting cast, Ken Camroux-Taylor gave a good and sympathetic performance as a lonely businessman. He wasn’t in many scenes but he took full advantage of every minute of screen time that he got.
What Did Not Work?
Ultimately, Sugarbabies just could not escape the twin shadows of Sugar Daddies and Baby Sitter’s Black Book. Sugarbabies was alright but it was just never as much fun as Sugar Daddies, nor did it have the subtle hints of existential crisis that distinguished Baby Sitter’s Black Book.
Add to that, Katie was not exactly the most sympathetic of protagonists. She came across as being rather bland and judgmental. If you’re going to embrace the Lifetime version of what it is to be bad, at least have fun while you’re doing so. What you should not do is be like Katie and spend the entire movie wandering around with the same glum expression on your face, angry that you’re actually going to be able to get an education.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Rochelle had red hair and liked to wear black lingerie. OH MY GOD, JUST LIKE ME!
One thing that definitely did NOT make me go, “Oh my God! Just like me!” was the film’s depiction of what it was like to an art history major. We only saw Katie attend one art class and it was taught in a lecture hall that was always half-empty. Whenever the film wanted to remind us that Katie was supposed to be a design genius, it would have her either say that she needed to go work on her term paper or else have her look at a nondescript piece of furniture, get excited, and say, “Oh, I love pieces from that period!”
(That’s the equivalent of having a character look at a painting and say, “Look what the artist does with color here.” It may sound good to people who don’t know any better but for those of us who actually studied art, comments like that are the sure sign of someone with no idea what he or she is actually trying to say.)
Speaking as someone who majored in art history (and who is proud of her degree, regardless of what the President says about it), I really wish I had gone to Katie’s college because it appears to be home to the easiest art history program in the North America! Seriously, I could have saved myself a lot of time that was spent studying.
Lessons Learned
Never turn down a handout. And if you do turn down a handout, you lose the right to then start whining about how you don’t have any money.
White Water Summer is a weird movie that was made in either 1985 or 1987 (more on that in a minute.) It stars a youngish Kevin Bacon and a very young Sean Astin. It starts out as a comedy and then it turns into a tribute to male bonding bullshit and then it’s a comedy again and then it’s a thriller and then it’s back to the male bonding as Kevin and Sean go camping together and then it’s a thriller and then Sean Astin has to cross a rickety bridge and the whole movie turns into Lord of the Rings. And then Kevin Bacon starts singing and you’re like, “Oh my God, this is a musical too!” And then suddenly, Kevin Bacon starts acting all crazy-like and it’s a thriller again. But then Kevin breaks his leg and it’s up to Sean Astin to save his life, despite the fact that Kevin appeared to be attempting to kill all the campers just a few minutes earlier. So, I guess that would count as more male bonding BS.
(One great thing about being a girl is that I’ve never had to prove myself by going camping. Or, for that matter, killing a wild boar while armed only with a sharpened stick. Seriously, I imagine that would be difficult and messy! BLEH!)
Another reason why White Water Summer is a weird movie is because it’s on TV like every other week. According to what I’ve read online, White Water Summer was not even released into theaters. (Even stranger, I have yet to find a single interview where Kevin Bacon even acknowledges that this film exists and that’s saying something when you consider that Kevin has never been shy about mentioning how many bad films he’s appeared in. Kevin regularly talks about Quicksilver, for fug’s sake!) And yet somehow, this film that nobody appears to have wanted has achieved an odd sort of basic cable immortality.
And that immortality is why I’m taking the time to review this movie. Because, seriously, White Water Summer seems to show up on TV even more than The Shawshank Redemption or reruns of Cops! That’s a lot!
Anyway, as for the film itself, it’s basically a celebration of male bonding bullshit. Alan (Sean Astin) is a sheltered kid from New York. He’s into astronomy and plays chess. To toughen him up, his parents arrange for Alan to go on a camping trip with Vic (Kevin Bacon), this ultra intense guide who talks in zen riddles and occasionally dangles people over the edge of a mountain. Alan doesn’t want to go and, at first, he struggles to get along with the other three boys on the hike.
However, soon all of the boys have a common bond. They all fear (and yet, because this is male bonding bullshit, strangely respect) Vic, who apparently is a bit of authoritarian. Vic is determined to make them into men and his techniques including forcing them to cross a rickety bridge, forcing them to fish by hand, forcing them to carry a canoe across a hill, and finally abandoning them for a night in the middle of the wilderness. At one point, when Alan ends up falling off a mountain and finds himself dangling in mid-air at the end of a rope. Vic refuses to help him. Instead, Alan must find his own way to get back on the mountain. Alan manages to do just that but seriously, what the Hell is Vic thinking? At times, the movie suggests that Vic is a sociopath and then, at other times, it suggests that his methods are actually working. After all, by the end of the summer, Alan is a lot more confident and he also knows how catch fish.
And really, that’s what makes this movie so strange. It has no idea who Vic is supposed to be and, as a result, the film doesn’t know if it’s a comedy, a thriller, or a coming-of-age adventure movie. Towards the end of the movie, Vic finally goes too far and gets smacked in the face with an oar. This leads to Vic breaking his leg and suddenly, it’s up to Alan to save Vic’s life. In order to do so, Alan has to call on a combination of his own intelligence and the survival skills that he learned from Vic. So, that would seem to suggest that the movie is partially pro-Vic but, if that’s the case, why was Vic also portrayed as being somewhat psychotic? Is this film pro-psychopath or is it just anti-Alan? It’s hard to tell.
Making things even stranger is Alan’s narration. In between scenes of camping, hiking, and attacking, we get these weird little vignettes of a slightly older Sean Astin speaking directly to the audience. (According to the imdb, the camping scenes were filmed in 1985 while Astin’s narration was filmed in 1987.) Narrator Alan is snarky and sarcastic, which would suggest that he doesn’t feel that he learned anything of value from the whole experience. So does older Alan regret saving Vic’s life? Does he still resent the fact that his parents forced him to go on the hike? Or is he just trying to impress us with attitude? Again, it’s hard to tell exactly what the film was trying to accomplish.
Watching White Water Summer, it’s obvious that, in 1985, there were difficulties that probably left the film incomplete. Astin’s 1987 narration was obviously tacked on in a desperate attempt to try to save the movie. To be perfectly honest, it’s fascinating to witness how haphazardly this film was put together. One of the pleasures of White Water Summer is watching this oddly edited film and trying to figure out what exactly happened.
Anyway, I’ve never been into the whole camping or hiking thing and, after watching White Water Summer, I have no regrets.* And yet, this is another one of those films that I do think that everyone should watch at least once, just because the movie itself is so weird.
A scene from Tarzan of The Apes 
