Category Archives: Film Review

Documentary Review: Alabama Snake (dir by Theo Love)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Snake handling has never been for me.

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I know that there are a lot of people who incorporate handling poisonous serpents into their religious rituals.  And I can even kind of see the appeal of it.  If the idea is that your faith is so strong that you don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen to you if you die, why not prove it by holding something that could potentially kill you?  If you believe that God is going to protect you, why would you fear handling a creature that can inject toxin straight into your bloodstream?

In fact, I’ll even go further and I’ll even acknowledge that there’s probably quite a rush that comes from successfully grabbing a snake and dancing around without getting bit.  I mean, it only makes sense.  Before you pick up the snake, you would undoubtedly be terrified.  But once you grabbed it and started to move around with it, the relief of not being bitten would have to be overwhelming.  In fact, it would probably be so overwhelming that it could potentially put you in a bit of a trance.  When I was eighteen, I was in a pretty serious car accident.  The car flipped over with me in it.  It was terrifying when it happened but after I realized that I had somehow survived the experience without only a few cuts and bruises, I was so exhilarated that I felt like I could fly.  I felt as if I had proof that I was special.  If I wasn’t special, how else could you explain me totaling my car without breaking my neck?

So, don’t get me wrong.  I get it.  That said, snake handling is not something that I could ever see myself doing.  Seriously, snake are scary!  I’ve seen my share of them and they always freak me out.  I once nearly stepped on a rattlesnake in New Mexico.  In Arkansas, I saw a water moccasin slithering down a creek.  I swear that I once saw a boa constrictor in Oklahoma, though my sisters swear that I was just dreaming and that there aren’t any boa constrictors in Oklahoma.  Maybe they’re right but still, the point stands.  I could flip my car and survive a hundred times, I’m still never going to go anywhere near a snake.

Alabama Snake is a creepy true crime documentary about Glenn Summerfield, a Pentecostal minister who did handle snakes.  In fact, he had an entire farm of them.  In 1991, he was arrested for trying to murder his wife, Darlene, with those snakes.  Darlene claimed that Glenn was an angry and mentally unbalanced drunk who forced her to stick her hand into a box of rattlesnakes, not once but twice.  The defense claimed that Darlene was trying to kill Glenn with the snakes but that she accidentally got bitten instead.

Featuring commentary from local historian and folklorist Thomas Burton, Alabama Snake takes a look at the crime, the trial, and the culture of fundamentalist serpent handling.  It’s a Southern Gothic horror story and it makes for creepy and atmospheric viewing.  Though the documentary doesn’t always go as far beneath the surface as one might hope that it would, it tells an interesting story and Thomas Burton provides lively commentary.  Fans of strange true crime will enjoy it and those of us who need another excuse to be wary of snakes will find one.

Holiday Film Review: The Christmas Chronicles 2 (dir by Chris Columbus)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If I ever actually meet Santa Claus, I’ll be really disappointed if he doesn’t look like a bearded Kurt Russell.

Russell plays the role of St. Nicholas in The Christmas Chronicles 2 and he’s absolutely perfect in the role.  It’s not just that Russell is an intensely likable actor, though that’s certainly some of it.  Santa, after all, should be a likable character and it’s pretty much impossible not to like Kurt Russell.  Even when he was killing people in Death Proof, he was still the most likable serial killer that you could ever hope to meet.  Beyond just being likable, though, Russell brings a lot of joi de vivre to the role of Santa.  As played by Russell, Santa loves what he does.  Spreading Christmas cheer and keeping the holiday spirit alive is what he lives for.  Over the years, movies have given us stern Santas and humorous Santas and occasionally even incompetent Santas.  Kurt Russell is the fun Santa.

In The Christmas Chronicles 2, Russell is joined by his real-life partner, Goldie Hawn.  Goldie plays Mrs. Claus, who turns out to be a witch but a good one.  She’s the type of witch who makes gingerbread cookies the explode, which is certainly the best type of witch to be.  As I watched Goldie Hawn in this film, it occurred to me that if Hollywood is ever foolish enough to try to remake The Wizard of Oz, Goldie would be the perfect choice for Glinda.  Not surprisingly, Hawn and Russell have a lot of chemistry in The Christmas Chronicles 2.  They’re the perfect couple.  They’re exactly who you would hope Santa and Mrs. Claus would turn out to be.

(I have to say that, of all the Hollywood couples out there, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn are the couple that I would want to actually live next door to.  Kurt seems like he would be good about repairing stuff around the neighborhood while Goldie seems like she would be the type to keep an eye on my Amazon deliveries until I got home from work or wherever.  I’d much rather live next to them than George and Amal Clooney, if just because the Clooneys seem like they would be the type to complain because you accidentally clipped their yard with a lawn mower or something.)

The Christmas Chronicles 2 actually does have a plot and it tells a pretty sweet little story.  A bitter elf named Belsnickel (Julian Dennison) is trying to ruin Christmas and it’s all up to Katie (Darby Camp) and Jack (Jahzir Bruno) to help Santa and Mrs. Claus save the world’s Christmas spirit.  Along the way, Katie gets to travel through time and meet her father and both Katie and Jack learn about the importance of family.  It’s all very sincere and very sweet and if it doesn’t bring at least one tear to your eyes this holiday season, you’re hopeless.  That said, The Christmas Chronicles 2 is ultimately all about star power and charisma.  The film works because Russell and Hawn are a total joy to watch.  Consider this: it’s a 114-minute film but the main story is resolved in 90 minutes.  The remaining 24 minutes are spent watching Russell and Hawn light a Christmas tree and hang out with Santa’s elves and it’s absolutely delightful to watch!  By the end of the film, you basically just want to move to the North Pole and live with the Clauses.

The Christmas Chronicles 2 is currently on Netlfix and it’s a fun little holiday romp.  It’s perfect for kids and the adults who sometimes have to watch movies with them.  There’s a great musical number and a few surprisingly clever jokes.  (I loved that when Santa and Mrs. Claus watched It’s A Wonderful Life, it was a version that had been dubbed into the Elvish language.)  Check it out.  It’ll lift your holiday spirits.

 

Holiday Film Review: Christmas Lodge (dir by Terry Ingram)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here you are.  You’re hiking in the wilderness with your boyfriend and you can’t help but notice that he doesn’t seem to be much of an outdoorsman.  He’s a city boy and you’re a mountain girl and who knows if those two cultures can come together.

Well, it turns out that they can’t but don’t worry!  No sooner has your boyfriend dumped you than you’ve found a new purpose in life!  You’re helping to restore and rebuild the old Christmas lodge where you and your family used to spend the holidays.  The important thing is to get it done quickly enough so that grandpa can see the lodge for one last time before he dies.  Fortunately, the lodge is owned by a handsome man who needs someone to be a mother for his daughter.  Perfect, right?

There’s really not a lot of conflict to be found in this film.  Erin Karpluk plays Mary, who decides to save the lodge and, at no point, does she really suffer from the type of self-doubts that you would expect someone to suffer in a film like this.  Instead, she decides to do it and then she does it.  There’s a few people who think that Mary is wasting her time but they quickly change their minds.  Even her break-up with her boyfriend has to be one of the nicest, most polite break-ups that I’ve ever seen.

Make no doubt about it, 2011’s Christmas Lodge is a holiday movie.  It’s continually positive and upbeat and unabashedly sentimental and, if you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it.  And, to be honest, the holidays is a good time to give up cynicism and be optimistic for at least a few days.  Me, I get cheerfully sentimental when it comes to the holidays.  I smile at every Christmas tree.  I love every gift that I get.  And I usually shed a few tears while sharing memories with the family.  That’s what the holidays are for.  Christmas Lodge does a good job of tapping into that spirit.

That said, Christmas Lodge is perhaps a bit more religious that some people are going to like.  The film may seem like a typical romantic Hallmark holiday film but ultimately, there’s a lot of talk about God wanting the lodge to be built and the family to come together.  At one point, Mary’s grandfather even asks a hesitant carpenter what Jesus would do if he was told that the lodge needed to be repaired.  Personally, I suspect that he would open up the lodge to the poor and the homeless but, in Christmas Lodge, apparently he would just give up whatever other projects he had going on and lend a helping hand so the family could gather there while snow gently fell outside.

That said, I’m a sucker for any film that has people celebrating the holidays while snow gently falls from the sky.  Christmas Lodge is a sweet-natured movie.  It’s not the type of film that you’re going to watch in the harsh heat of the summer but, for the sentimental holidays, it gets the job done.

Holiday Film Review: Beyond Tomorrow (dir by A. Edward Sutherland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m standing at the edge of tomorrow
And its all up to me how far I go
I’m standing at the edge of tomorrow

I’ve never seen such a view before
A new world before my eyes
So much for me to explore
It’s where my future lies

Today I’m standing at the edge of tomorrow
From here the future looks bright for me
And it’s all up to me how far I go
It’s my time to break away
I’m standing at the edge of tomorrow
Today

Beyond Tomorrow is a strange film from 1940.  Technically, it is a holiday film.  It takes place during the Christmas season and there’s a lot of very peppy scenes featuring people celebrating the holidays.  I watched the movie with my friends in the Late Night Movie Gang.  We’re a pretty sentimental group but even we felt that some of the characters went a bit overboard with the holiday cheer.  The film is also comedy and a romance and a musical and a ghost story and a melodrama and finally an oddly sincere meditation on life and death.  That’s a lot of weight for one film to carry and there were more than a few times that Beyond Tomorrow seemed like it might collapse in a heap of Christmas ambition.  Fortunately, the film always righted itself and, in the end, it actually managed to be …. well, definitely more interesting than what any of us were expecting!

The film opens with three businessmen (Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, and Charles Winninger) living in a mansion with their Russian housekeeper (played by Maria Ouspenskaya, who was also the old gypsy lady in The Wolf Man).  As almost something of a lark, the three men arrange for James (Richard Carlson) to meet Jean (Jean Parker).  Jean is a teacher.  James is a singing cowboy from Texas.  Together, with the encouragement of the three businessmen, Jean and James get together.  Awwwww!

Unfortunately, the three businessmen are then all killed in a plane crash.  However, their ghosts remain on Earth and watch over the growing love between James and Jean.  Unfortunately, James become a singing sensation on the radio and soon, he’s being tempted to cheat.  Meanwhile, Jean’s ex-husband is running around with murder in his heart and a gun in his hand!  This romantic comedy has suddenly taken a very dark turn!

While the three ghosts look after James and Jean, they consider why they’re still on Earth and not in the afterlife.  One ghost is eventually greeted by his son, who died during the Great War.  Another one of the businessmen is haunted by vaguely defined sins and, even in death, he refuses to repent because he feels that he doesn’t deserve to go to Heaven.  Instead, he continually walks off into the darkness.  The last businessman continually tries to push James and Jean on the right path but it turns out that it’s not easy for the dead to talk sense to the living.

You can probably give yourself whiplash trying to keep up with the film’s tonal changes.  It starts out with romance and comedy and then suddenly, it’s turns into an existential rumination of love, forgiveness, and guilt.  Once the three businessmen die, it becomes a totally different story.  Suddenly, soldiers are returning from the dead and the gates of Hell are beckoning.  And, on top of that, James keeps breaking out into song every few minutes!

It’s a very strange film.  Unfortunately, from the start, the pacing feels off.  By today’s standards, Beyond Tomorrow gets bogged down in all of the songs and the scenes of holiday mirth-making.  That may not have been as much of a problem for audiences in 1940 but I have to say that, speaking as someone trying to watch this film in 2020, Beyond Tomorrow made my ADD go crazy.  If not for my friends and their patient willingness to inform me what was going on in the film, I probably wouldn’t have been able to follow the film’s storyline.

That said, the film was fairly well-acted and the final scenes, with the heavenly gates in the sky, are undeniably effective.  Speaking as a history nerd, I found it interesting to see how the shadow of World War I still hung over a film that was made 21 years after that war ended.  As the scenes in which one of the ghosts is a reunited with son showed, America was still dealing with trauma and horror of the first modern war.  (One year after the release of Beyond Tomorrow, Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor and America entered World War II, a conflict that many hoped to avoid precisely because they remembered the all of the men who didn’t make it home during the previous war in Europe.)  Messy though the film may be, Beyond Tomorrow functions well as both a historical document and a bit of sentimental wish fulfillment.

Compared to holiday classics like the original Miracle on 34th Street and It’s A Wonderful Life, Beyond Tomorrow is relatively unknown.  Certainly, it’s no classic.  But, for fans of both Christmas and old movies, it’s still an interesting trip into the past.

Film Review: Small Axe: Red White and Blue (dir by Steve McQueen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Red, White, and Blue opens with a very young Leroy Logan (Nathan Vidal) standing on a London street corner.  Behind him is the school that he attends.  He’s wearing a school uniform.  As the other students walk past him, they say hi and acknowledge the very obvious fact that Leroy is a student who is waiting to be picked up by his parents.

That, however, doesn’t matter to the two white police officers who walk up to Leroy and start to interrogate him as to why he’s standing on the street corner.  They inform Leroy that there have bee several burglaries in the area and that the burglar is a young, black male.  They start to search Leroy.  The only thing that stops them is the arrival of Leroy’s father, Ken (Steve Toussaint).  Ken reprimands the police for harassing his son.  While driving Leroy home, Ken tells Leroy that he expects his son to do two things for him.  Leroy is never to become “a roughneck” and he’s never to bring the police to his front door.

Jump forward several years and Leroy Logan (now played by John Boyega) is now grown up and working as a forensic scientist.  When his father is beaten by two police officers who claim that Ken was blocking traffic and that he was resisting arrest (neither is true), Leroy decides to channel his anger into something productive.  He applies to join the police force, hoping to bring about change from within.

Needless to say, that turns out to be more difficult than even Leroy was expecting.  At first, Leroy finds himself being used as a prop.  Knowing that they’ve got to fix their public image, the police uses Leroy as a part of their latest public relations campaign, featuring him in advertisements and news stories.  But on the streets, Leroy finds himself an outsider.  His fellow cops, the majority of whom are white, refuse to have his back and welcome him to the force by writing racist graffiti on his locker.  Meanwhile, the members of his community now distrust Leroy, accusing him of selling out and calling him a traitor.  Leroy became a police officer believing that he could be an agent of change but he soon discovers that no one is interested in changing.

At the heart of the film is Leroy’s relationship with his father.  Though Leroy joined the force to try to make life better for men like his father, he didn’t tell Ken about his decision.  In fact, Ken doesn’t find out until two police officers show up at this doorstep, checking to make sure that Leroy put the correct address on his application.  Ken believes that the system cannot be changed.  Leroy disagrees.  The film leaves it to us to decide which man is correct.

Red, White, and Blue is based on a true story.  Leroy Logan was one of the first blacks to join the London Metropolitan Police and he joined for the same reasons that are shown in the film.  Eventually, Leroy would work his way up to being a superintendent and he would help to found and later chair the Black Police Association.  Interestingly enough, the details of Leroy’s eventual success are left out of Red, White, and Blue.  Instead, the film ends with Leroy and his father at the kitchen table, still wondering if things can change.  It’s an ambiguous ending, one that’s hopeful because, even though he’s disillusioned, Leroy hasn’t given up but, at the same time, it’s also one that accepts that it’s going to take more than just one man to change the culture of the police.  It’s an ending that suggests that racism is so ingrained in society that the only way to vanquish it might be to just start all over again from the beginning.  It’s an ending that manages to be both low-key and revolutionary at the same time.

Red, White, and Blue is the third film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology.  It’s a deceptively simple film, one that kind of sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise.  The minute that you start to think the film is going to be just another well-intentioned liberal plea for tolerance, McQueen will throw in an unexpectedly honest scene that will shake your expectations.  For instance, when Leroy tries to help a prisoner who has been brutalized by a bunch of racist cops, his help is rejected and Leroy discovers that the prisoner hates him even more than he hates the cops who were beating on him.  The prisoner takes it for granted that the white cops are going to be brutal but he saves his most vicious scorn for someone whom he consider to be a traitor to his race.  McQueen directs in a matter-of-fact but enthralling style, emphasizing the bleak coldness of the London landscape.

John Boyega and Steve Toussaint both anchor the film with ferocious performances.  Leroy spends the majority of the film having to hold back his anger and, sometimes, his despair and Boyega does a wonderful job suggesting what’s going on behind Leroy’s outward calmness.  Boyega does get to do some yelling, of course.  When he confronts his follow police officers for refusing to respond to his calls for backup, Boyega doesn’t hold back.  But his best moments are the quiet ones, where Boyega subtly but powerfully suggests that anger and the pain that Leroy has to deal with every day.

Red, White, and Blue is a short but powerful film.  Check it out on Prime.

Holiday Film Review: Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus (dir by Charles Jarrott)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1897 and eight year-old Virginia O’Hanlan (Katharine Isabelle — yes, that Katharine Isabelle) has a problem.  All of her “little friends” say that there is no Santa Claus!  When she asks her father (Richard Thomas) about whether or not there’s a Santa Claus, he suggests that she write a letter to the New York Sun.  “If you see it in the Sun,” he says, “it must be true!”  The letter ends up on the desk of a gruff editor (Edward Asner) who assigns Virginia’s question to Frank Church (Charles Bronson), an alcoholic who is still mourning the deaths of his wife and child. Conquering his own cynicism and depression, Church writes an editorial reply that goes on to become not just a holiday classic but also the most frequently reprinted editorial in history.  Yes, Virginia, Church begins, there is a Santa Claus….

This 1991 film is a sweet-natured retelling of the famous story of Frank Church’s editorial.  Of course, it takes considerable liberties with the actual story.  Here’s just a few examples.

In real life, the editorial was published in September.  In the movie, it’s published on Christmas Eve.

In real life, Virginia’s father was a doctor and she came from a middle class family.  In the movie, Virginia’s father is an Irish immigrant and laborer who is so poor that the O’Hanlan’s might not be able to afford a Christmas!  They live in a tenement and Virginia’s father is frequently harassed by not only the cops but also corrupt labor officials.

In real life, Frank Church was a notoriously cynical atheist who reportedly had little use for Christmas and specifically didn’t sign his name to his famous editorial because he didn’t think much of it.  At the time that he wrote the editorial, he was also a bachelor.  He did marry shortly after the editorial was published but he never had any children.  In the film, Frank is a widower who rediscovers his zest for life and who smiles broadly while listening to Virginia’s father read it aloud.

And, of course, in real life, it’s very probable that the letter was written by Virginia’s parents because how many eight year olds would actually write something like, “Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.”  In the movie, however, Virginia writes the letter herself.

In other words, this is a nice movie that just happens to be terrible history.  The film does end with a disclaimer that clarifies that “certain events have been fictionalized.”  Actually, the entire story has been fictionalized, with the exception of the content of Church’s editorial.  That said, this is a sweet-natured and generally likable movie.  If nothing else, it’s a film that means well and, as tempting as it may be to roll your eyes at the film’s unabashed sentimentality, it’s sincerity feels right for the holiday season.  It’s a made-for-TV movie from the early 90s so don’t expect any surprises but it’s nicely acted and even Charles Bronson seems to be in a good mood by the end of it.

As far as movies about journalists lying to children are concerned, this is a good one.  Just don’t watch it for a history lesson.

Star in the Dust (1956, directed by Charles F. Haas)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The time is the late 1800s and the place is the town of Gunlock.  Gunlock is split between the ranchers and the farmers, with the ranchers eager to buy all of the land around the town and the farmers refusing to sell.  Trying to keep the peace is Sheriff Bill Jorden (John Agar), who not only wants to keep war from breaking out in Gunlock but who also wants to live up to the example of his legendary father.

There’s a prisoner in the Gunlock city jail.  Sam Hall (Richard Boone) is a notorious gunman who has been convicted of killing three farmers.  He’s due to hang at sunset but everyone in town believes that Sam will somehow escape the executioner.  (They’re even taking bets down at the local saloon and casino.)  Everyone knows that Sam was hired by the ranchers but Sam has yet to name which rancher specifically invited him to come to town.  The farmers want to lynch Sam.  The ranchers want to break him out of jail and arrange for him to be killed in the resulting firefight.  Meanwhile, Sheriff Jorden insists that he’s going to carry out Sam’s sentence by the letter of the law.  Complicating matters for Jorden is that he’s engaged to Ellen Ballard (Mamie Van Doren), the sister of the main rancher, George Ballard (Leif Erickson).

I was really surprised by Star in the Dust, which turned out to be far better than I would normally expect a John Agar/Mamie Van Doren western to be.  Though Agar, Boone, and Van Doren get top-billing, Star in the Dust is really an ensemble piece, with several different people responding to the possible hanging of Sam Hall in their own way.  Sam’s girlfriend, Nellie Mason (Colleen Gray), tries to figure out a way to keep Sam alive.  One of the ranchers, Lew Hogan (Harry Morgan), is morally conflicted about whether or not to honor his word to help Sam escape, especially after he finds out that Sam tried to rape his wife (Randy Stuart).  Even the old deputies (played by James Gleason and Paul Fix) get a few minutes in the spotlight before the shooting begins.  The town of Gunlock comes to life and everyone, from the villains to the heroes, has a realistic motivation for reacting in the way that they do to Sam’s pending execution.

Mamie van Doren’s role is actually pretty small.  She doesn’t have enough screen time to either hurt or help the film overall.  John Agar is as stiff as always but, for once, it works for his character.  Sheriff Jorden isn’t written to be a bigger-than-life John Wayne type.  Instead, he’s just a small town lawman trying to do his job and keep the peace.  Not surprisingly, the film is stolen by Richard Boone, who brings a lot of unexpected shading and nuance to the role of Sam Hall.  Hall may be a killer but he has his own brand of integrity and, if he’s going to die, he’s determined to do it his way.

Produced by the legendary Albert Zugsmith, Star in the Dust is a surprisingly intelligent and well-acted B-western.  If you watch carefully, you might even spot Clint Eastwood playing a ranch hand named Tom who wants to know if he should put money down on Sam Hall being hanged.  Though he was uncredited in this tiny role, Star in the Dust was Eastwood’s first western.

The Films of 2020: After We Collided (dir by Roger Kumble)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The worst film of 2019 gets a sequel and the end result is one of the worst films of 2020.  If nothing else, you have to appreciate the consistency of it all.

At the end of After, Tessa (Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) had broken up, despite obviously being meant to be together.  They broke up because Tessa discovered that Hardin only went out with her to win a bet.  When After We Collided picks up their story, a few weeks have passed.  Hardin is now sleeping in his car and getting new tattoos.  Tessa is starting an internship at Vance Publishing.  It doesn’t take long for Tessa and Hardin to get together and once again become the most boring couple on the planet.

Everyone warns Tessa about Hardin and, of course, Hardin spends a lot of time drinking and brooding and getting tattoos.  But Tessa is now more independent and …. eh, who cares?  I mean, even if Tessa is now a stronger and more confident character and Hardin is now more honest about his emotions, they’re still just as boring as ever and, if possible, Langford and Tiffin have even less chemistry in the sequel than they did in the first film.  Langford has mastered one facial expression (a sort of low-energy smirk) and Tiffin is constantly screwing up his features whenever Hardin is supposed to be feeling emotional but neither one of them actually seems to be a living, full-blooded human being.  Instead, they feel like bots, created to mouth repetitious dialogue and to go through the motions of the same plot over and over again.  Everything they do seems to be pre-programmed.  There’s not a spontaneous thought or moment to be found.

When Tessa isn’t flirting with Hardin and reading her favorite books (like Madame Bovary, because Tessa is edgy, y’all), she’s working at Vance Publishing.  Her co-worker, Trevor (Dylan Sprouse) is in love with her but he’s too shy to come right out and say it.  He does warn her that Hardin is just going to hurt her.  Because the film is so ineptly edited, it’s hard to keep track of how much time passes.  However, it does appear that Tessa becomes a valued and important member of the office in what seems to be just a matter of hours.  Of course, everyone in the film loves Tessa because this is basically fanfic and a Mary Sue by any other name is still a cringey trope.

Speaking of fanfic, the author of After and its sequels has a cameo in this film.  Anna Todd appears in a nightclub scene.  A woman asks her what books she’s written and Todd smirks before saying, “Oh, this and that.”  This inspired me to yell, “Fuck you!” as I looked for something to throw at the screen.  Seriously, it’s one thing to be responsible for something terrible.  It’s another thing to brag about it.  Add to that, the cameo was so poorly executed that I half expected Todd to look straight at the camera and wink after delivering her line.  In fact, it probably would have saved the scene if she had.  At the very least, it would have at least suggested that the film was inviting us to laugh with it as opposed to at it.

That said, I will say that After We Collided is a slight improvement on After.  In After, Josephine Langford actually tried to give an emotionally honest and consistent performance and, as a result, she was kind of boring because Tessa is an incredibly dull character.  In After We Collided, Josephine Langford is just as bad as everyone else and it leads to a few unintentionally amusing moments.  Unlike the rather stolid After, the sequel at least has a few moments of accidental camp.

My favorite moment was when a frustrated Tessa told Hardin that she needed to go for a walk to straighten out her thoughts.  When Tessa returns, Hardin has his earbuds in and is listening to music so he can’t hear her.  That still doesn’t stop her from standing behind him and repeating his name a few dozen times.  Is he deliberately ignoring her or is the music just that good?  The film never tells us but Tessa and Hardin are such annoying characters that it’s fun to think about all of the passive aggressive ways that they can make each other miserable.

After We Collided is reportedly going to be followed by two more sequels so we’ll eventually get to see if Hardin and Tessa can somehow become even more boring than they’ve already been.  It’s not going to be easy but I think they might just pull it off.

Frontier Uprising (1961, directed by Edward L. Cahn)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the 1840s, frontier scout Jim Stockton (Jim Davis) is hired to lead a wagon train down the Oregon Trail.  Accompanying him and the settlers are a group of calvarymen, commanded by Lt. Kilkpatrick (Don Kelly).  When the wagon train is attacked by a group of Native Americans who have been given rifles by Mexican soldiers, Stockton can’t figure out why,  When he suggests that the settlers take an alternative route through California (which was then controlled by Mexico), Kilkpatrick explains that such a detour would be considered an act of war and that he and his men cannot be a part of it.  What Stockton and Kilkpatrick don’t know (but soon find out) is that Mexico has already declared war on the United States.  Complicating matters even further is that both men have fallen for a Mexican woman named Consuela (Nancy Hadley) and her loyalties are now in question.

A 68-mintue B-western, Frontier Uprising is mostly interesting because of the amount of stock footage that was used to try to make this low-budget film seem like an epic.  For instance, when the rifle-bearing Natives attacked the settlers, I recognized a lot of footage from a lot of other movies.  One particular shot, of a wounded Native falling off of his horse, was used in so many films of the period that I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen it.  Much of the stock footage features Monument Valley prominently in the background, which suggests that Stockton was not doing a very good job of leading the settlers to Oregon.

Frontier Uprising is one of the 11 (!) films to be directed by Edward L. Cahn in 1961.  Cahn is credited with directing 127 films over the course of 30 years.  Some of them were good.  Most, like Frontier Uprising, were competent but forgettable.

Holiday Film Review: Collateral Beauty (dir by David Frankel)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Occasionally, you see a film that is so misjudged and so poorly executed that it leaves you wondering whether or not the entire production was meant to be some sort of elaborate practical joke.  Perhaps not surprisingly, these films are usually a mix of comedy and drama and they tend to try to deal with the big issues — life, death, love, and all the rest.  These films are fueled by a mix of ambition, sincerity, and a total inability to understand how people actually think and live.  Invevitably, these films come out at Oscar time and they tend to have surprising twists that are designed to tug at the heart strings but to also make you think.  They’re usually have titles that sound good but don’t make much sense and they often feature the type of talented actors who really should know better.  Audiences should also know better but all of these films have devoted fans who insist that the rest of us are just too cynical or jaded to really appreciate a good story.

2016’s Collateral Beauty is one such film.

Set during the Christmas season, Collateral Beauty tells the story of Howard Inlet (Will Smith).  Howard was an advertising genius but then his daughter died and he sunk into a deep depression.  In this film, being clinically depressed means that you ride your bicycle a lot.  It also means that you spend a lot of time building domino chains.  Because Howard is too depressed to do anything, his advertising firm is on the verge of going bankrupt.  His partners — Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet), and Simon (Michael Pena) — all want to sell the firm but they have to get Howard to sign off on it and Howard refuses to talk to anyone.

However, his three business partners come across letters that Howard wrote to the abstract concepts of Death, Time, and Love.  And, realizing that Howard had some issues with those concepts, they decided to hire three actors to pretend to be those concepts so that they can film Howard talking to them.  The plan is to film Howard talking to the actors and then use digital technology to erase the actors from the footage so that Howard will look like he’s talking to himself, which will make it easier to prove that Howard is not mentally stable enough to run the company and….

What?  Yes, that’s the plot.  Undoubtedly, it seems like there should be an easier way to prove that Howard is not mentally fit to run his company but the three business partners decided to go with the plan that makes absolutely no sense and the film applauds them for doing so.  It does seem like, if they really cared about Howard, they would have instructed the actors to provide some sort of comfort to Howard but apparently, no one in this movie has seen It’s A Wonderful Life or read A Christmas Carol.  The film assures us that making a suicidal man think that he’s gone legitimately insane is definitely the humane way to deal with this situation.

Anyway, the three actors are played by Helen Mirren, Jacob Latimore, and Keira Knightley.  And, in order to study Howard, each spends time with his business partners and we learn about everyone’s life.  For instance, Whit has a daughter that he needs to connect with.  Claire is depressed because she wants a child.  Simon is dying, which means that he spends the entire movie vomiting.  Amazingly, no one but Helen Mirren notices.  Not only does the actors help Howard but they help his partners as well.  Awwwww!

After the actors all visit him, Howard is so upset by the encounters that he goes to a support group that’s run by Madeline (Naomie Harris), who lost a daughter (just like Howard!) and who is divorced (just like Howard!) and who has a note from her ex-husband in which he says that he wishes they could act like strangers again and hey, guess who her ex-husband is!?  (Yes, it’s Howard.)  Anyway, some mysterious woman once told Madeline that, even as her daughter was dying, she should always celebrate the “collateral beauty of it all” and I have no idea what that was supposed to mean but Madeline sure does talk about it a lot.

I like to think that Collateral Beauty shares the same cinematic universe as The Book of Henry and Life Itself.  It’s a universe where simplistic thoughts are held up as being extremely profound and where no one actually does anything that makes sense.  Just as The Book of Henry asks us to be touched by an annoying little brat insisting (from beyond the grave, no less) that his mother to assassinate their neighbor, Collateral Beauty asks us to appreciate all the effort that goes into tormenting an already seriously depressed human being.  Just as Life Itself insists that life being an unreliable narrator is somehow a mind-blowing concept, Collateral Beauty insists that everything will be okay as long as we appreciate the “collateral beauty of it all.”  It may feel like a parody but Collateral Beauty not only takes itself seriously but it also seems to be convinced that you’ll take it seriously as well.  There’s something rather presumptuous about the film’s insistence that it actually has something unique or interesting to say.

Amazingly enough, a truly great cast signed up to appear in this film.  Most of them turn in performances that are either forgettable or regrettable.  Edward Norton gives a performance that is so annoyingly mannered that it’s hard not to be reminded of the rumors that he was basically playing himself in Birdman.  Considering that she’s one of the greatest actresses around, Kate Winslet is shockingly bad.  Helen Mirren appears to be having a laugh.  Will Smith actually gives a good performance but it’s a waste to cast such a great talker as someone who barely speaks.

Collateral Beauty came out in December of 2016.  Before it was released, it had Oscar buzz.  After it was released …. well, let’s just say that it didn’t.  Critics hated the film but it did well at the box office and it has its fans.  I’m not one of them but perhaps someday, I’ll appreciate the collateral beauty of it all.