Category Archives: Film Review

What Lisa Watched Last Night #208: Into The Arms Of Danger (dir by Jeff Hare)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Into the Arms of Danger!

Why Was I Watching?

The obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime.  However, I was also watching because I absolutely loved the title.  Into the Arms of Danger is just so wonderfully overdramatic that there was no way I could resist it.

What Was It About?

Basically, it’s a Lifetime version of the classic 1980 grindhouse film, Mother’s Day.  Two weird brothers pretend to be EMTs and kidnap young women, forcing them to go home and pretend to be a member of their family.  They do it all to keep their crazy mother (Cathy Moriarty) happy.

In this film, their latest victim is Jenny (AlexAnn Hopkins), who is kidnapped after she wrecks her car and makes the mistake of calling 911.  (The brothers basically intercept 911 calls, which was kind of weird.)  Jenny just wanted to go to college and get away from her overprotective mother, Laura (Laurie Fortier).  Instead, she’s now being held prisoner and is forced to wear an explosive ankle bracelet.  It kind of sucks.

Laura knows that her daughter has been kidnapped but she can’t get the police to take her seriously.  They think that Jenny has either just run away or maybe she’s gotten involved with drugs.  Either way, they’re attitude is, “Don’t bother us with their domestic problems.”  So, it’s up to Laura to figure out what has happened to her daughter and to rescue her from the …. ARMS OF DANGER!

What Worked?

AlexAnn Hopkins and Laurie Fortier were believable as mother and daughter.  You believed that they not only cared about each other but that they also frequently got annoyed with each other.  That’s the secret to realistically portraying a mother/daughter relationship on film.  You have to capture both the love and the annoyance.

Cathy Moriarty gave a good performance as the demented mother.  For film buffs, Moriarty is a bit of a legendary figure.  She made her film debut in Raging Bull and received an Oscar nomination. She was incredible in Raging Bull and still is a great actress.  Unfortunately, shortly after making her debut, Moriarty was in a serious car accident and spent several years recovering.  As a result, when she returned to films, she rarely got the type of huge roles that she undoubtedly deserved.  She’s still one of those actresses who, when you see her name in the credits, you know that she’s going to give a good performance.

In fact, the whole crazy family dynamic was well-done.  They reminded me a bit of the family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just with less blood and cannibalism.

What Did Not Work?

Usually, I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to Lifetime films.  I mean, we don’t watch these films because we’re expecting them to be a 100% realistic.  But the whole thing with the brothers pretending to be EMTs was just a bit too much for me to buy.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

More like, “Oh my God!  Just like my mom!” moments.  As soon as Laura jumped in her car and drove all the way out to a party just to keep Jenny from accepting help from a strange boy, I was like, “Oh my God, I know just how Jenny feels!”  Myself, I would always very dramatically roll my eyes and go, “Mom!” whenever stuff like that happened.  Looking back, my mom was usually right, though.

Lessons Learned

If you wreck your car, never call 911.

Where Have All The People Gone? (1974, directed by John Llewellyn Moxey)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Anders (Peter Graves) and his teenage children, David (George O’Hanlon, Jr.) and Deborah (Kathleen Quinlan), are exploring a cave in the mountains of California when they experience a sudden earthquake.  After managing to escape from the cave and meeting a man who tells them about how there was a bright flash of light in the sky before the earthquake, the three of them come down from the mountain and discover that there does not appear to be anyone around.  Instead, where people once stood, there are now only piles of clothes and white dust.  Where have all the people gone?

As the Anders try to make their way back home to Malibu, they discover that the entire world has changed.  Towns are completely deserted and once friendly animals are now viscous and hostile.  While Steve tries to keep his children from giving up hope, he also tries to find the answer to the question, where have all the people gone?

This film, which is only a little over an hour long, was made for NBC.  Though the film’s short running time can sometimes make it feel rushed, Where Have All The People Gone? is still a effectively creepy movie from made-for-television specialist John Llewellyn Moxey.  Though it’s always difficult to accept an actor like Peter Graves as being anyone other than Peter Graves, he actually did a pretty good job playing the confused father and there are some good scenes where both of his children deal with thing in their own way.  (David refuses to get emotional.  Deborah does the opposite.  Only Steve understands the importance of mixing emotion with reason.)  When they do finally find another survivor, she’s played by Verna Bloom and the scene where they come across her sitting in her car, apparently catatonic, is really well-handled.

Though the film does eventually explain where all the people have gone, it still has an unsatisfying, open-ended ending.  It wouldn’t surprise me if this film was meant to be pilot for a potential televisions series because it ends with the promise of future adventures.  A weekly tv series would have allowed the Anders family to find more survivors and more angry animals but instead, the story ends with everyone still unsure as to what type of world they’re about to inherit.

If you’re one of those who is stuck inside right now, Were Have All The People Gone? is reasonably diverting and is available on YouTube and Prime.

18 Days of Paranoia #2: The Humanity Bureau (dir by Rob W. King)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the future!  It sucks!

The 2017 film, The Humanity Bureau, takes place in a dystopian future where the government is not to be trusted and bureaucracy ruins everyone’s lives.  It’s kind of like the present except that it’s taking place in the future and Nicolas Cage works for the government.  (Of course, for all I know, Nicolas Cage might work for the government in the real world, as well.  I mean, it just kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?)

Anyway, the idea here is that, in the near future, America is out of resources.  Some of its due to climate change and some of its due to a war and apparently, there was a plague as well.  Because things got so bad, people gave up their personal freedom and basically decided to surrender control of their lives to the government.  The government responded by creating The Humanity Bureau.  The Humanity Bureau decides whether or not you’re a worthwhile part of society or if you’re just a drain on what little resources the nation has left.  If you’re not found to be an “efficient” human being, you’re deported to a city called New Eden where everyone assumes that you learn how to become more efficient or, at the very least, how to not be a burden on society.  The truth, of course, is far different.

Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage) is an agent of The Humanity Bureau.  His bosses worry that Noah might have too much real humanity to be an efficient agent.  After all, he drives an old car and he often talks about his childhood memories of going out to the lake and fishing.  Of course, when we first meet Noah, he’s busy gunning down an old alcoholic who refuses to go to New Eden so he seems pretty efficient to us.

When Noah is assigned to investigate a single mother named Rachel (Sarah Lind) and her son, Lukas (Jakob Davies), it becomes obvious that their case is personal to Noah.  Even though he’s supposed to immediately deport them, he allows them to have an extra day of freedom so that Lukas can sing Amazing Grace at a school recital.  (The kids perform in front of a gigantic American flag, just in case you’re missing the symbolism.)  When another agent (Hugh Dillon) shows up and demands to know what the hold up is, Noah, Rachel, and Lukas go on the run.  It turns out that both Noah and Rachel have a secret agenda of their own….

When you hear that a film takes place in a dystopia and that it stars Nicolas Cage, that probably creates a certain set of expectations in your head.  Unfortunately, Cage is oddly subdued for the majority of the film so those looking for a full scale Nic Cage freak-out are probably going to be disappointed.  While the film’s story has the potential to be interesting, the film never really take full advantage of just how weird things could potentially get.  This is one of those films where you know it’s the future because everyone’s in the desert.

That said, the idea of a major crisis leading to people voluntarily giving up their freedom to the state is not a particularly far-fetched one.  As I sit here writing this, a lot of people are using the panic over the coronavirus pandemic to promote their own totalitarian political vision and what’s sad is that a lot of frightened citizens are just scared enough to probably more receptive to all of that authoritarian BS than they would be under normal circumstances.  The Humanity Bureau takes place in a world where enough people have voluntarily surrendered their free will that the government can basically get away with punishing anyone who dares to think differently.  The Humanity Bureau is often an amateurish film but, when it comes to portraying how an authoritarian state could come to power and would that would mean for those who refuse to conform, it gets things exactly right.

Previous entries in the 18 Days Of Paranoia:

  1. The Flight That Disappeared

 

Spring Breakdown: Age of Summer (dir by Bill Kiely)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier this week, Spring Break get derailed in both the real world and here on the Shattered Lens.  I had like four reviews left to go in my Spring Breakdown series before the whole Coronavirus panic broke out and I missed a few days of posting.

Well, fear not.  I’m never one to give up easily and hey, I’m working at home for the next month!  So, I should have time to watch a lot of movies, including at least four more movies to close out Spring Breakdown!  For instance, this morning, I decided to clean out my DVR by watching the 2018 film, Age of Summer!

Now, I guess I should start things out by admitting that Age of Summer is not really a Spring Break film.  In fact, it takes place during the summer.  However, the entire movie pretty much takes place on the beach and really, that’s just as good as being about Spring Break.  I mean, there’s a scene where a bunch of lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion and there’s some oddly gratuitous nudity and there’s whole big subplot about stealing a big marijuana plant.  So, it’s a Spring Break movie in spirit, if not in plot.

Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly good movie.  This is one of those movies that left me wanting to throw stuff at the TV and I probably would have if Jeff hadn’t pointed out that, if I broke the screen, it might be a while until I could get a new one.  The film is about a kid called Minnesota (Percy Hynes White), because that’s where he’s from.  (Fortunately, he wasn’t from Walla Walla.)  Minnesota has moved to California and he wants to become a life guard.  He also wants to get a girlfriend and retrieve his bike, which is stolen from him at the start of the film.  A grown-up Minnesota provides us with voice-over narration, assuring us that we’re watching the most important summer of his life and that, as a result of what happened during that summer, he would always love the ocean.  The problem with the narration is that, far too often, it tells us what we should be seeing.  Instead of visually making us fall in love with the ocean, the most just tells us that we should love the ocean.

Oddly, the main theme of this film seems to be that everyone in California is a jerk.  I’m sure that wasn’t what was originally intended but everyone that Minnesota meets is so obnoxious that you’re just kind of like, “Get that kid to Walla Walla!”  Eventually, Minnesota is sent on a quest to get wisdom from the mysterious Rock God (Peter Stomare) who lives on the beach and who some people say is just a local legend.  I’m not really sure what Minnesota got from his visit to the Rock God but at least Peter Stomare’s in the film.

Anyway, Minnesota does eventually become a lifeguard.  All of the lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion.  How are they going to save my life if they’re all drunk?  Where the Hell’s David Hasselhoff?  Someone needs to whip these boys into shape!

So, no, Age of Summer didn’t really work for me.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #207: The Black Widow Killer (dir by Adrian Langley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to Lifetime and I watched the latest “premiere,” The Black Widow Killer!

Why Was I Watching It?

I was hoping it would be about Natasha Romanoff and her life before she joined the Avengers.  It turned out I was wrong though I’m sure that the possibility of confusion was one reason why Lifetime scheduled this film for last night.  You may have noticed that I earlier said that this movie was a “premiere” as opposed to just a premiere.  That’s because The Black Widow Killer originally aired in Canada in 2018.  It subsequently played on both French and Spanish TV before Lifetime decided to air it here in the States.  I’m sure that Lifetime’s decision was influenced by the title and the possibility that people would tune in to see Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh battling the latest addition to the MCU’s gallery of rogues.

That said, the main reason that I watched it was because it was on Lifetime!  Seriously, I love that network.  Have you noticed?

What’s It About?

Secrets, lies, death, and murder.  There’s a killer in town and all of the victims knew each other in high school and were involved in a gruesome car accident back in the day.  Is the killer seeking revenge or is there another motive?  By the end of the movie, who will still be alive and what will be left of them?

What Worked?

I liked the cinematography.  The film took place in one of those small towns where it’s constantly snowing and the film manages to make white ground and frozen breath look really ominous.  I was not surprised to discover that the director is also a very experienced cinematographer because the film looked great.

I liked some of the performances.  (Some is the word to remember.)  Morgan Kohan and Bradley Hamilton did good work as the children of two potential victims.  Luigi Saracino was also well-cast as the most obvious suspect.  (Of course, you know what they say about obvious suspects….)

What Did Not Work?

So, if you’re going to make a movie about a bunch of people being targeted by a serial killer, it might help if at least some of the potential victims were likable.  In this case, though, absolutely none of them were.  Even the film’s main character, Judy Dwyer (played by Erin Karpluk), refused to really take any responsibility for her part in covering up the auto accident.  When we first meet Judy, she’s whining about her husband not serving her divorce papers in person.  Then, about halfway through the film, she starts whining about being targeted by someone whose life she helped ruin.  You start to wonder if the other victims are really being murdered or if Judy’s just talking them to death.

This isn’t really the filmmaker’s fault but the description for the film in the guide basically gave away the identity of the murderer.  As a result, it’s hard for me to say how suspenseful the film is because I already knew who the murderer was going to be.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I have red hair and so did Judy’s daughter!  Sorry, that’s about all I can come up with as far as this movie’s concerned.

Lessons Learned

Take responsibility for your mistakes or you might get in trouble 25 years later.

Wives Of The Skies: Preview and Trailer

Posted on by paddiesthoughts

Wives of the Sky

From Press Release:

Winner of 24 awards, including Best Film at the New York Cinematography Awards and Best Original Screenplay at the Indie X Film Festival, Wives of The Skies is a romantic dramedy, set in 1965, starring two stewardesses, Fran and Marcy from Fine Air, a well-appointed airline. One evening after work, at their stewardess’ hotel, they befriend Derrick, a British photojournalist who wants to interview them as “subjects” for his “documentary film”. 

 As Fran and Marcy are interviewed, they are revealed as very different than Derrick hoped for or could possibly have expected…  As they get to know each other, Wives Of The Skies makes a contemporary socio-cultural statement regarding the meme of “the good girl, drawn bad”.  Wives of The Skies clarifies the impact of the overarching “men’s gaze” which objectifies women as carnal sex objects men seek, while they look for love…  along the way, addressing the primitive issue of Trust vs. Mistrust, Wives of The Skies displays the Japanese art of Kinbaku.
Currently a soaring success on the festival circuit, the short film is directed by Honey Lauren and features a superlative cast including Rachel Alig, Maddison Bullock, Sebastian Fernandez,  Drew Brandon Jones and Embry Rose.

Director Honey Lauren : When someone I know sent me a link to vintage 1960’s Stewardess outfits for sale on EBAY, I was blown away at not only the popularity and high prices, but that these outfits are sold, collected and bid on, by what looked like mostly men. I recognized that these uniforms have become a fetish… for me, at the very least unexpected. Curious, I researched the history of stewardesses during this particular era.
The stewardesses were sporting uniforms by top fashion designers like Pucci, Mary Wells and Yves Saint Laurent. The fabrics, which “hugged” as they stretched, were considered revolutionary for their ability to display the stewardesses. During the flights, the layers of clothing came off at different altitudes. Dramatic designs were all the rage, with geometric patterns and stripes; bold pinks and lavenders topped off with tangerine go-go boots!

As I read the famous COFFEE, TEA OR ME, the tell all book by two “randy Stewardesses”, something about these “sexy Stewardesses”, seemed pushed and insincere. It seemed a marketing ploy by the airlines to sell tickets. Ok. We’ve seen this before. Sex sells. These ladies, and only ladies, were dressed, weighed, packaged and displayed. One airline even advertised the suggestive “Does your wife know you’re flying with us?” Another display of the pattern of woman being sexualized and sold. Only after I wrote WIVES OF THE SKIES, did I find out that COFFEE, TEA OR ME was indeed a hoax, written by a man hired by the airline industry.

I have long recognized that where there is a pattern, there is a story. WIVES OF THE SKIES, is a story. And a question… ‘Sex sells, but at what cost?’

My Review:

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This is a beautiful short film (about 25 minutes) but it covers some hard hitting topics that need to be dealt with in our society. Humorous at points, graphic at others. I loved how Honey Lauren took a modern problem and placed a throw-back theme on it. Everything about this film had me connected from the start. The cinematography is just spectacular, the music is amazing. I could watch this movie for hours on end.

Would I Recommend this movie?

Yes, absolutely and definitely! (And you might need a tissue while watching)

Where can you see it?

Unfortunately, with all the cancellations lately, It might not be in theaters for a while, but, here is hoping everyone gets to see this gem of a film! (I’ll give updates on release dates if/when they become available)

Here is the trailer:

Wives of the Skies Official Trailer from Panik Piktures on Vimeo.

Credits:

Panik Piktures: Destroy All Media: CinemaScope

The King of Love (1987, directed by Anthony Wilkinson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

From the depths of the 80s comes this soapy film about a publisher played by Nick Mancuso whose father issues fuel not only his rise but also his fall.  When the movie starts, Mancuso is dying because he’s been shot by an unknown assassin but he still needs someone to give him some answers before he can give up the mortal coil.  Much like Dutch Schultz deliriously babbling about his dog Biscuit after getting fatally wounded, Mancuso spends his last minutes flashing back to how he became America’s most controversial magazine publisher.

In a ruthless and methodical fashion, Mancuso rose up the ranks from being just a lowly photographer to being the publisher of Love, a magazine that may remind you of Playboy and Penthouse but which is definitely not either one because it’s called Love.  Because sex and nudity sells, Love grows to be a billion dollar empire but, along the way, Mancuso uses and alienates everyone who gets close to him.  With his outspoken views on politics and his advocacy for free love and personal freedom, he also become the number one enemy of anti-pornography crusaders everywhere.  Only his partners, Nat (Michael Lerner) and Annie (Sela Ward), are willing to stay with him, mostly because they’re both in love with him.

Mancuso is obsessed with running a rival publisher out of business.  Jack Kraft (Rip Torn) is just a ruthless as Mancuso and he also might be his father.  In fact, everything that Mancuso does is because he wants to get revenge on Jack for not being there for him as he was growing up, even though he doesn’t have any definite proof that Jack is actually his father and Jack refuses to say whether he is or isn’t.  As Mancuso lies on his death bed, Jack stops in for one last visit.  Mancuso finally asks Jack flat-out if he’s his father.  “I don’t know,” Jack answers, as the film draws to a close.  I know that’s a big spoiler but it probably does not matter because this film has never been released on video and it probably never will be.  My mom has a copy on VHS tape, which she recorded when it originally aired in 1987.  It even has the original commercials.  It’s possible my mom may have the only copy of this film in existence, I don’t know.

The King of Love‘s attempt to be daring and racy is sabotaged by its origin as a made-for-TV movie from the 80s.  There may be a lot of talk about sex but you’re not going to see or hear anything that could have gotten ABC fined by the FCC.  What’s most interesting about The King of Love is the way that the film combines the personas of the three most famous adult magazine publishes.  Mancuso dresses like Bob Guccione, spouts Hugh Hefner’s philosophy, and ultimately suffers Larry Flynt’s fate.  Otherwise, the movie’s not very interesting at all but it is also ways enjoyable to watch Rip Torn play an arrogant bad guy and Michael Lerner manages to overcome a bad script and give an effective performance as Mancuso’s conflicted second-in-command.

18 Days of Paranoia #1: The Flight That Disappeared (dir by Reginald Le Borg)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Way back in the early days of the site, I did a series of reviews called 31 Days of Paranoia, in which I reviewed films about mysteries, cover-ups, and conspiracies.  Unfortunately, because I wasn’t all that disciplined about posting during the early days of the Shattered Lens, my 31 Days of Paranoia ended up being something like 24 days.  Still, it was a lot of fun and, historically, it was important because it was the very first “themed” series of reviews that I had ever done.  Shattered Politics, Embracing the Melodrama, Back to School, Sprin Breakdown, and all the rest started with 31 Days of Paranoia.

So, with this being the 10-year anniversary of the Shattered Lens’s founding and Spring Breakdown wrapping itself up tomorrow, I figured why not return to where it all started.  From now til April, please enjoy …. 18 Days of Paranoia!

We begin with:

The 1961 film, The Flight That Disappeared, deals with an airplane that …. wait for it …. disappears!

What’s happened to Trans-Coast Airways Flight 60?  When it first took off from Los Angeles, everything seemed fine.  It was carrying a small but well-behaved group of middle-aged people to Washington D.C.  The pilots all seemed like good professionals.  The two flight attendants were busy serving people coffee and having conversations about whether or not one of them would ever get married.  She had every right to be concerned, of course, seeing as how she was in her 20s and still unmarried and childless, despite the fact that this film was made in 1961.

It doesn’t take too long for something strange to happen.  The plane suddenly starts to climb upward, eventually going up over 10 miles high in the sky.  The pilots can’t do anything to get the plane to come back down.  Due to the lack of oxygen, some of the passengers start to pass out.  One passenger panics and opens a door, out of which he promptly falls.  Oddly, this doesn’t create the whole vacuum effects that we always see in other movies where a window or a door is opened while a plane is in the air.  Stranger still, no one thinks to close the door afterwards.  Was this intentional or was it just crappy filmmaking?  It’s hard to say.

Why is the plane being lifted up into the air?  Could it have something to do with the three atomic scientists who are all on the plane?  One of them, Dr. Morris (Dayton Lummis), is wearing glasses and has a van dyke beard so you know he’s smart!  It turns out that Dr. Morris has been working on the Beta Bomb, which is apparently the most powerful atomic bomb ever built.  I kept waiting for someone to ask Dr. Morris why it was called the Beta Bomb and not the Alpha Bomb or the Omega Bomb or the Big Scary Bomb or the …. well, seriously, anything would be better than Beta Bomb!  Everyone in the movie says, “Beta Bomb,” in a tone that’s meant to communicate reverence but it just sounds too much like “Beta Male” for me to really take it seriously.

But, again, who is responsible for the flight climbing?  Is it the Russians?  Is it aliens?  Is it some enemy of the American way?  While everyone else on the plane is passed out, the three scientists find themselves awake.  Their watches are no longer running and, despite the fact that they appear to be alive, their hearts are no longer beating.  Are they dead?  Or have they been transported to the future where they will now be put on trial for the crime of developing the Beta Bomb?

Of course, the thing with being put on trial in the future is that it provides the perfect defense for making weapons in the present.  “Hey,” a smart defense attorney would say, “you’re still alive in the future and you’ve got time travel technology so what are you bitching about?”  But the jurors explain that they’re actually the ghosts of the people who would have been born in the future if not for the Beta Bomb which …. what?  So, is the plane in the future or is it in the afterlife?  The film itself doesn’t seem to be sure.

I’m probably making it sound like this is a more intriguing film than it actually is.  This movie is about 72 minutes long and all the stuff with the people in the future takes place during the final 10 minutes.  That means that the film is essentially just 60 minutes of people saying, “We’re still climbing.”  From a historical point of view, it’s an interesting example of people being paranoid about the arms race.  (If the film were made today, the future the ghostly jurors would be the souls of people who were not born in the future due to climate change.)  From an entertainment point of view, it’s a forgettable dud.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #206: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (dir by Caroline Labreche)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Friday night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime, of course!

Usually, I make it a point to watch every single Lifetime film.  Unfortunately, last year, I got a bit sidetracked and I missed quite a few.  I’m determined to not let that happen this year.  I’ve got quite a few curretly on the DVR and since I’m going to be working from home for at least next month (thank you very much, Coronavirus panic), I’m looking forward to getting to watch them all.  Since No Good Deed Goes Unpunished was the first Lifetime premiere since I returned home from my vacation, there was no way I was going to miss it.

What Was It About?

Karen (Michelle Borth) has some problems.  Her husband just recently died and, despite the help from her sister-in-law Sophie (Cristina Rosato), Karen is having trouble holding it all together.  She’s struggling financially, to the extent that she’s actually had to take in a border, Calvin (Oliver Price).  Calvin has taken over the room that used to belong to Karen’s resentful, young son, Max (Noah James Turcotte).  Karen is up for a big promotion at work but everyone but Karen can see that the obvious favorite for the job is the sleazy Lance (Jason Deline).  Lance is an old friend of the boss and, of course, he’s also a man.

One night, while Karen’s at the grocery store, she finds herself in the middle of an attempted robbery.  When the robber points the gun at another shopper, Jeremy (Mark Rendall), Karen steps in and basically saves Jeremy’s life.  After the police show up, Karen just wants to forget about the whole thing and move on with her life.  However, Jeremy is now obsessed with Karen and he has decided that he’s going to do whatever it takes to become a part of her life….

As the title says: No good deed goes unpunished!

What Worked?

So, I absolutely loved this movie.

Seriously, this was one of the best psycho stalker films to ever premiere on the Lifetime Movie Network.  Not only did the plot fully embrace the melodrama (which is always the key to any successful Lifetime film) but it featured some pretty good performances from Michelle Borth, Mark Rendall, and Christina Rosato to boot!  Mark Rendall played Jeremy with a creepy smile and an unhinged eagerness to please and it was a lot of fun to watch him and wonder just how far he was going to go to try to get close to Karen and Max.

One thing that I really liked about this movie is that, from the minute she first met Jeremy, Karen was like, “Okay, this guy is weird.”  So many Lifetime films are overly dependent on everyone acting like an idiot until the final third of the movie.  Not so with this one.  Karen suspects that Jeremy has issues from the start.  What makes Jeremy an effective villain is that, even though almost everyone wants him to leave, they somehow can’t ever seem to make it happen.  Jeremy slides into their lives and basically just refuses to go away.

I also liked Oliver Price’s performance as the hilariously entitled Calvin.  Calvin was like every boomer’s nightmare of what my generation is like and Price appeared to be having a lot of fun with the role.  His incredulous look of shock when Karen demanded that he actually pay his rent was one of my favorite moments.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked!  This was a great Lifetime film.

“Oh my God! Just Like Me!” Moments

I totally related to Sophie, who had a good attitude and absolutely no fear of suggesting that a young child walk home and cook his own dinner.  I know that some people would say that was irresponsible on her part but I like to think that she was preparing Max for life in the real world.  You can’t always depend on your wacky aunt to come pick you up after karate class.  When she has things that she would rather do, you need to be able to get back home and make yourself something to eat without burning down the apartment.

My other favorite Sophie moment was when her sister demanded to know if she was high and Sophie waited like two minutes before replying that she was.  Seriously, if someone asks you if you’re high and you hesitate by answering, you might as well just say “yes” because everyone knows.

Sophie deserves her own movie.

Lessons Learned:

Don’t ever save anyone’s life.  It’s just not worth all the trouble afterwards.  Don’t be a hero as the movie villains like to say.

 

Cinemax Friday: Hard Vice (1994, directed by Joey Travolta)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Who doesn’t love some Hard Vice?

Someone’s killing businessman in Las Vegas and it’s up to the vice squad to figure out who.  Captain Bronski (James Gammon) knows that his cops are going to need some help so he brings in a detective named Joe (Sam J. Jones).  Joe is a tough-talking, hard-drinking modern day cowboy who even owns a hat.  He doesn’t think that women should be investigating major crimes and that brings him into conflict with his new partners, especially Andrea (Shannon Tweed).

Despite not being happy about having to work together, Joe and Andrea put aside their differences long enough to investigate the murders and fall in love.  They discover that all of the men used the same escort service.  Could the murderer be a pimp named Tony (Branscombe Richmond, who played Bobby Sixkiller on Renegade) or could it be a renegade prostitute (played by Rebecca FerattI) who is called Christy in the movie but who is listed as being named Allison in the end credits?  Or could it be someone closer to the vice squad?

Hard Vice is a typical late night Cinemax crime movie, heavy on the neon and the synthesized music but light on unexpected plot twists.  There are still a few things about the movie that set it apart from other movies of the era.  First off, this movie features a man armed only with a handgun managing to blow up a helicopter.  Secondly, even though the film is set in the 90s, the vice squad is stuck using bulky computers from the 80s and the scene where they use the computer to look up information on the victims has to be seen to be believed.  Finally, any movie that brings Shannon Tweed and Rebecca Feratti together is worthy of a little appreciation.  Toss in Sam J. Jones and James Gammon sounding like he’s been smoking six packs of cigarettes a day and you’ve got a film that’s almost worth watching.

Hard Vice was directed by Joey Travolta, who is best known for being John’s younger brother.  This was the first film he ever directed and, checking with the imdb, I was surprised to discover that he’s directed a lot more since.  Joey’s direction in Hard Vice isn’t that bad, though Las Vegas is one of those cities where it’s probably impossible not to come up with an interesting shot or two if you’re filming there.  Travolta tosses in a few flash forwards to make sure that we know we’re watching a real film and not just your run-of-the-mill neo-noir.  They don’t add much to the plot but when you’re trying to establish your auteur credentials, I guess you do what you have to do.