18 Days of Paranoia #5: New World Order: The End Has Come (dir by Duane McCoy)

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome, everyone, to the end of the world (again). Today, the world ends in the 2013 film, New World Order: The End Has Come!

Demi (Melissa Farley) sits in a park, reading the Bible. She’s reading the Book of Revelation or, as she calls it, “the scary one.” As she gets in her car, she calls her friend, Christen (Erin Runbeck) and assures her not to worry. “I don’t think we’re there yet.” Then she puts the car in reverse and promptly runs over Jason (Daniel Spaulding).

Fear not! Jason’s not injured and his career as an exotic dancer (I’m not kidding, it’s a plot point) is not damaged in the least. In fact, Jason is so enchanted by Demi and her lack of driving skills that soon, they’re a couple! And, fortunately, Jason has a single friend named Cedric (Will Roberts) so that means that Cirsten doesn’t have to be a third wheel whenever everyone goes out for the night.

Cristen and Demi may be good friends but we quickly discover that there are differences between the two of them. Cristen doesn’t drink. Demi gladly accepts a beer when Jason offers it. Cristen likes to stay home and look after her younger brother. Demi is all, “So, we’re going to that party, right?” One thing that both of them do have in common is that, on Sunday morning, they giggle in church and check their messages instead of listening to the preacher. I’m sure that won’t come back to haunt them….

Flash-forward by a few years or so and — oh no! The world has totally changed! Iran briefly conquered Europe and there was a huge war but, fortunately, a man named Aldo DeLuca, not only brokered peace but also come back to life after being shot in the head. Some people think that Aldo didn’t really come back to life but instead, that his body was possessed by Satan. Those people are threats to the New World Order and you can tell who they are because they’re the only people who refuse to get NWO tattooed on either their forehead or their hand….

“Wait a minute!” Demi says, as she thinks about everything that’s happened over the past year, “I’ve read this somewhere!”

That’s right, Demi. You should have paid more attention to the Book of Revelations. But you didn’t and now, everyone’s getting the mark except for you, Cristen, and a few others. And, in order to eliminate people who refuse to get themark, the black-clad soldiers of the New World Order are now gunning people down in the streets while the brainwashed, soulless masses cheer.

The majority of this film is told in flashback, while Demi and Cristen are sitting in a prison area. They’ve been given one final chance to either get the mark and live or to refuse and die. Can you guess who sacrifices their soul and who willingly gives up their life? In order to maitainn some suspense, I will not tell you who. These are the things that I do for you.

Watching New World Order while on lockdown because of the Coronavirus was an interesting experience. On the one hand, the film’s low budget is obvious in every frame and the acting is particularly amateurish. (Just check out the scene where the Supreme Chancellor is greeted by a jubilant crowd of about 20 extras.) On the other hand, any movie about a totalitarian state using a crisis to come to power and destroy individual liberty is going to feel oddly compelling if you watch it while the country is literally shut down by government order. I actually found myself falling under the film’s spell. Normally, I’d make fun of the cartoonish NWO tattoos but instead, I found myself thinking, “What if they do decide to mark those of us who have been tested negative for Coronavirus in a different way from those who are sick? And what if they do say that only people with the mark can enter a grocery store or see a movie? And what if the mark eventually becomes a way of determining not who is healthy but instead of identifying people who never question the government? What do we do then?” I felt kind of silly after I wondered all that but …. well, not really. I imagine that, right now, a lot of people are probably having reactions to films like this that they wouldn’t normally have.

Anyway, as a Christian scare film, New World Order will probably be best appreciated by scared Christians. As a portrait of a society where people have sacrificed their freedom for a false sense of security, it feels like it could be dangerously prophetic.

Other Entries In The 18 Days Of Paranoia:

Action Jackson (1988, directed by Craig R. Baxley)

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Jericho Jackson (Carl Weathers) is the tough Detroit cop who everyone calls “Action” because I guess Jericho was just too normal a name. He’s a legend in the department and on the streets of the Motor City. “Some people say his mother was molested by Bigfoot,” one patrolman says but the truth is simpler. Jackson was a high school football star before he went to Harvard Law and got his degree. He could have been an attorney but he decided to become a cop instead.

Unfortunately, Action Jackson is currently Desk Duty Jackson. When he arrested Sean Dellaplane, the pervert son of auto manufacturer Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson), Jackson “nearly ripped off the boy’s arm.” (“He had a spare!” Jackson snarls.) Everyone says that, since his son’s arrest and his marriage to the beautiful Patrice (Sharon Stone), Peter Dellaplane has turned over a new leaf and is now an honest businessman. Action Jackson doesn’t buy it. In fact, he suspects that Dellaplane is responsible for the brutal murder of a union rep.

Though he may be married, Dellaplane still has a mistress. Sydney Ash (Vanity) is a heroin-addicted singer. After Dellaplane watches her sing a song, Sydney tells him, “I was expecting a standing ovation.” “You’re getting one,” Dellaplane replies. Jackson knows the best way to get to Dellaplane is to get his hands on Sydney. He better hurry because Action Jackson has been framed for a murder that he didn’t commit and now he’s got every cop and criminal in Detroit after him.

A lot of people will tell you that Action Jackson is a bad movie but I like it. It’s a tribute to the classic blaxploitation films of the 70s and though the violence may be excessive, it’s all played tongue-in-cheek. Carl Weathers first suggested the movie to Joel Silver while the two of them were filming Predator and, from the start, Action Jackson is proud to be a B-movie. There’s no subtext or deeper meaning involved, beyond Action Jackson cleaning up the streets. Taking it seriously would be a crime. This is probably the only film where you will ever be able to see Apollo Creed and the dad from Poltergeist face off in hand-to-hand combat. Of course, whenever Craig T. Nelson throws a punch or a kick, the scene cuts away to disguise the fact that a stuntman is doing most of the work but even that becomes fun to watch for. Some B-movie have a visible boom mic. Action Jackson has a stuntman disguised to look like Craig T. Nelson from behind.

If I do have a complaint, it’s that the script is heavy on the one-liners, which makes sense as this film was made shortly after Schwarzenegger revolutionized action film dialogue with “I’ll be back.” Unfortunately, Weathers wasn’t as good at handling one-liners as Arnie and Bruce Willis were. As anyone who has seen the first four Rockys can tell you, Carl Weathers was an actor who could create art from a monologue of non-stop trash talk. As I watched the film, I kept wishing that Action Jackson would do some Apollo Creed-level trash-talking whenever he was fighting the bad guys. Maybe if he had, there would have been an Action Jackson 2.

18 Days of Paranoia #4: The Falcon and the Snowman (dir by John Schlesinger)

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1985 film, The Falcon and the Snowman, tells the story of two friends. They’re both wealthy. They’re both a little bit lost, with one of them dropping out the seminary and the other becoming a drug dealer who is successful enough to have a lot of money but inept enough to still be treated like a joke by all of other dealers.

Chris Boyce (Timothy Hutton) is the son of a former FBI agent (Pat Hingle). He has a tense relationship with his father. It’s obvious that the two have never really been sure how to talk to each other. While his father is sure of both himself and his country, Chris is far more sensitive and quick to question. While his father plays golf and attends outdoor barbecues, Chris becomes an expert in the sport of falconry and spends a lot of time obsessing about the state of the the world. While his father defends Richard Nixon during the Watergate investigation, Chris sees it as evidence that America is a sick and corrupt country. Because his father doesn’t want Chris sitting around the house all day, he pulls some strings to get Chris a job working at the “Black Vault,” where Chris will basically have the ability to learn about all sorts of classified stuff.

Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) was Chris’s best friend in school. Daulton’s entire life revolves around cocaine. He both sells and uses it. He’s managed to make a lot of money but his addiction has also left him an erratic mess. Daulton’s father wants to kick him out of the house. Daulton’s mother continually babies him. Chris and Daulton may seem like an odd pair of friends but they’re both wealthy, directionless, and have a difficult time relating to their fathers. It somehow seems inevitable that these two would end up as partners.

Chris Boyce and Daulton Lee, together …. THEY SOLVE CRIMES!

No, actually, they don’t. Instead, they end up betraying their country. (Boooo! Hiss! This guy’s a commie, traitor to our nation!) After Chris discovers that the CIA has been interfering in the elections of America’s allies (in this case, Australia), he decides to give information to the Russians. Since Daulton already has experience smuggling drugs over the southern border, Boyce asks Lee to contact the KGB the next time that he’s in Mexico. Despite being a neurotic and paranoid mess, Lee manages to do just that.

Of course, as Chris soon comes to discover, betraying your country while working with a greedy drug addict is not as easy as it seems. While Chris wants to eventually get out of the treason game, marry his girlfriend (Lori Singer), and finish up college, Daulton wants to be James Bond. The Russians, meanwhile, soon grow tired of having to deal with Lee and start pressuring Chris to deal with them directly….

And it all goes even further downhill from there.

Based on a true story, The Falcon and the Snowman tells the story of how two seemingly very different young men managed to basically ruin their lives. Boyce’s naive idealism and Lee’s drug-fueled greed briefly makes them a powerful duo but they both quickly discover that betraying your country isn’t as a simple as they assumed. For one thing, once you’ve done it once, it’s impossible to go back to your normal life. As played by Hutton and Penn, Chris and Daulton are two very interesting characters. Boyce is full of righteous indignation and sees himself as being a hero but the film hints that he’s mostly just pissed off at his Dad for never understanding him or caring that much about falconry. Daulton, meanwhile, is a lunatic but he seems to be aware that he’s a lunatic and that makes his oddly likable. At times, it seems like even he can’t believe that Chris was stupid enough to depend on him. The film provides a convincing portrait of two men who, because of several impulsive decisions, find themselves in over their heads with no possibility of escape.

The Falcon and the Snowman is an entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking time capsule of a different age. If the film took place in 2020, Daulton would be hanging out with the Kardashians and Chris would probably be too busy working for the Warren campaign to spy for America’s enemies. If only the two of them had been born a few decades later, all of this could have been of avoided.

Previous Entries In The 18 Days of Paranoia:

Panic in Echo Park (1977, directed by John Llewellyn Moxey)

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Dr. Michael Stoner (Dorian Harewood) is a young, black doctor who works in a hospital located in a poverty-stricken Los Angeles neighborhood that has a high crime rate. Stoner’s got the education and the talent to be working in an upscale hospital and making a lot of money but it’s more important to Stoner that he give something back to the community. Stoner is a doctor who cares and he has no hesitation letting everyone know it. When he meets a wealthy plastic surgeon at a party, he tells him that he should come down to Stoner’s hospital and try his hand at fixing up bullet holes. The plastic surgeon doesn’t react well to the suggestion.

Stoner is convinced that there’s an epidemic breaking out in the Echo Park neighborhood but he can’t get anyone to listen to him. No one cares about what happens in Echo Park. When Stoner deduces that the illness is being caused by dirty tap water, he still can’t get anyone to listen to him. He yells at people at parties and everyone ignores him. He goes to the press and the media refuses to cover the story. The corporate weasels who are responsible for poisoning the water don’t care about anything other than money. Stoner talks about his problems to a young man who is in a coma and he gets no response.

Finally, Stoner is forced to enlist the help of a group of local teenagers who are making a documentary about life in their neighborhood. Dr. Stoner may not always be polite but he gets results.

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, Panic In Echo Park is a made-for-TV movie and much like Where Have All The People Gone? (which was also directed by Moxey), it seems like it was probably envisioned as being a pilot for a weekly series. Watching the film, it’s easy to imagine Dr. Stoner getting mad on a weekly basis. Like most made-for-TV movies, it’s predictable and the characters are all either too obviously good or too obviously evil. However, Dorian Harewood (who is probably best known for getting shot over and over again in Full Metal Jacket) gives a good performance as Dr. Stoner. He doesn’t get to do much other than yell at people but Harewood does it well. Today, a story involving people getting sick from dirty tap water does not seem far fetched (do they have clean water in Flint, yet?) and the scenes where Dr. Stoner orders people to be put into “quarantine” feel disturbingly like the evening news.

18 Days of Paranoia #3: The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (dir by Larry Cohen)

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 film, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, opens in 1972.

J. Edgar Hoover, the much-feared and long-serving director of the FBI, has just been found dead at his home and it seems like the entire city of Washington, D.C. is scrambling. Not only are people jockeying for Hoover’s job but they’re also wondering what might be found in his secret files. As quickly becomes apparent, Hoover had a file on everyone. While Presidents lauded him and the press portrayed him as hero, Hoover spent nearly 50 years building up a surveillance state. Hoover said it was to fight criminals and subversives but mostly, it was just to hold onto his own power. Even President Nixon is heard, in the Oval Office, ordering his men to get those files.

Hoover may have known everyone’s secrets but, the film suggests, very few people knew his. The film is narrated by a former FBI agent named Dwight Webb (Rip Torn). Dwight talks about how he was kicked out of the FBI because it was discovered that he not only smoked but that he was having an adulterous affair with a secretary. “You know how Hoover was about that sex stuff,” he says, his tone suggesting that there’s more to the story than just Hoover being a bit of a puritan.

We flash back to the 1920s. We see a young Hoover (James Wainwright) as a part of the infamous Palmer Raids, an early effort by the Justice Department to track down and deport communist subversives. Though Hoover disagrees with the legality of the Palmer Raids, he still plays his part and that loyalty is enough to eventually get him appointed, at the age of 29, to be the head of the agency that would eventually become the FBI. Hoover may start out as a relatively idealistic man but it doesn’t take long for the fame and the power to go to his head.

Hoover (now played by Broderick Crawford) serves a number of Presidents, each one worse the one who proceeded him. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Howard Da Silva) is an avuncular despot while the Kennedy brothers (William Jordan as John and Michael Parks as Bobby) are two rich brats who think that they can control Hoover but who soon discover that Hoover is far more clever than they realize. Hoover finds himself a man out-of-place in the 60s and the 70s, Suddenly, he’s no longer everyone’s hero and people are starting to view the FBI as being not a force for law enforcement but instead an instrument of oppression.

Through it all, Hoover remains an enigma. He demands a lot of from his agents but he resents them if they’re too successful. Melvin Purvis (Michael Sacks) might find fame for leading the manhunt that took down Dillinger but he’s driven to suicide by Hoover’s cruel treatment. Unlike Clint Eastwood’s film about Hoover, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover suggests that Hoover was not gay but that instead, that he was so repressed that he was essentially asexual. When one woman throws herself at him, he accuses her of being a subversive and demands to know how anyone could find him attractive. He’s closest to his mother and when she dies, he shuts off his emotions. His own power, for better and worse, becomes the one thing that he loves. He’s married to the FBI and he often behaves like an abusive spouse.

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is an interesting film. It’s an attempt to do a huge American epic on a less than epic budget. At the start of the film, the low budget is undeniably distracting. The 1920s are essentially represented by a back lot and two old cars. The scenes of the FBI dealing with gangsters like Dillinger and Creepy Karpis feel awkward and slapdash. But, as the film’s timeline gets closer to what was then the modern era, the film’s story tightens up and so does Larry Cohen’s direction. (One get the feeling that Cohen was, perhaps understandably, more interested in the Hoover of the 60s and the 70s than the Hoover of the 20s and 30s. There’s a sharpness to the second half of the movie that is just missing from the first half.) Broderick Crawford gives a chilling performance as a man who is determined to hold onto his power, just for the sake of having it. The scenes were Hoover and Bobby Kennedy snap at each other have a charge that’s missing from the first half of the film. Michael Parks does a great job portraying RFK as basically being a spoiled jerk while Crawford seems to relish the chance to play up the resentful, bitter old man aspects of Hoover’s personality. The film ultimately suggests that whether the audience previously admired RFK or whether they previously admired Hoover, they were all essentially duped.

Though the film never quite overcomes the limits of its low budget, it works well as a secret history of the United States. In 1977, it undoubtedly took guts to make a film that portrayed Roosevelt and Kennedy as being as bad as Nixon and Johnson. (It would probably even take guts today. One need only rewatch something like The Butler or Hyde Park on Hudson to see the ludicrous lengths Hollywood will go to idealize presidents like Kennedy and dictators like FDR.) While this film certainly doesn’t defend J. Edgar Hoover’s excesses, it often suggests that the president he served under were just as bad, if not even worse. In the end, it becomes a portrait of not only how power corrupts but also why things don’t change, regardless of who is nominally in charge. In the end the film’s villain is not J. Edgar Hoover. Instead, the film’s villain is the system that created and then enabled him. The man may be dead but the system remains.

Previous entries in the 18 Days of Paranoia:

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

Posted on March 16, 2020 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 March 15, 2020 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 March 15, 2020 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:

The Flight That Disappeared

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

Posted on March 15, 2020 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 March 15, 2020 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.