Category Archives: Film Review

Film Review: The Kitchen (dir by Andrea Berloff)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eh.  Who cares?

I mean, seriously, do you understand what I mean?  Sometimes, you just see a film that leaves you feeling so indifferent that it’s a struggle to even think of anything to say about it.  That’s the way I feel about The Kitchen, which is neither bad enough to hatewatch nor good enough to recommend.  It’s a mediocre film, one that would be totally forgettable if not for a few remarkably inept choices made by the director and the cast.

Melissa McCarthy is Kathy Brennan.  Tiffany Haddish is Ruby O’Connell.  Elisabeth Moss is Claire Walsh.  The year is 1978 and all three of them live in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York.  All three of them are also married to men who are involved with the Irish Mob.  When their husbands all get busted by the FBI and the new mob boss refuses to help the three women pay the bills, they team up and take over the neighborhood themselves.  With the help of their number one enforcer, Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson), the women prove that they can be even more ruthless than their husbands and their competitors.

And really, this should have been fun.  I’m all about girl power and I’m half-Irish.  If I was going to join the mob, I would definitely join the Irish Mob.  But, seriously, The Kitchen is not just a mess but it’s a dreadfully heavy-handed mess as well.  I knew that this film was going to suck as soon as James Brown started singing, “This is a man’s world,” over the opening credits because it was just such an obvious choice to go with.  To me, picking the song showed that the filmmakers weren’t really interested in giving too much thought to what the film was about.  Instead, they just said, “Hey, that’s a really on-the-nose choice!  Let’s go with it!”  About an hour later, Clare and Gabriel were making love while Carry On My Wayward Son blasted on the soundtrack and I found myself wondering if this film’s soundtrack was put together by listening to a random classic rock station and just jotting down the names of the first ten songs that were played.

Adding to the disappointing atmosphere of the film is a talented cast, everyone of whom appears to be acting in a different movie from everyone else.  Melissa McCarthy, for instance, gets all of the dramatic scenes but gives a comedic performance, one that feels like it’s been assembled from outtakes of the “awkward humor” bits of Ghostbusters.  Tiffany Haddish is ruthless but it’s a very one-note type of ruthlessness.  It gets boring after a while.  Elisabeth Moss gives the best performance out of the three but her character often seems to be pushed to the side.  Once Claire starts threatening to shoot people, you can tell that the film doesn’t know what to do with her.

You also have to feel bad for the supporting cast, all of whom deserve better than this film.  Annabella Sciorra plays a Mafia wife who walks up to the women in the middle of the street and tells them that they’re just like Gloria Steinem and, when she shows up, you can’t help but think that Sciorra would have been a better pick for the role of Kathy than Melissa McCarthy.  Then Common shows up as an FBI agent because, for some reason, Common always plays a member of law enforcement in films like this.  Margo Matindale gets a few good scenes as an Irish mafia matriarch but her character disappears from the film far too quickly.

It’s a mess of a film.  Kathy, Ruby, and Claire’s rise to power happens too abruptly to be credible and none of the subsequent betrayals make much sense.  Appropriately, for a gangster film, it’s violent but the violence is so repetitive that it gets a little bit dull after a while.  None of the characters are really memorable enough for their subsequent deaths to generate much of a reaction.  An hour into the film, you just find yourself thinking, “Oh, hey, that dude’s dead now.  Yay, I guess.”  Much like Captain Marvel, The Kitchen often seems to only be interested in girl power as a way to disguise the fact that the script kind of sucks.  I kept waiting for one of the male gangsters to shout, “The ancient prophecy said that I will be defeated by no man!,” just so Melissa McCarthy could respond, “Yes …. by no man!” It didn’t happen but maybe they’ll get around to it in the sequel.

Film Review: She Gods of Shark Reef (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, Hawaii!

There is no state more beautiful than Hawaii and there are no people friendlier.  When I was 17 years old, my family spent a summer in Hawaii and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.  I can’t swim to save my life and I have a morbid fear of drowning but, when I was in Hawaii, I happily walked into the ocean.  Not far into the ocean, of course.  But still, everyone in my family was amazed.  Of course, eventually I saw a jelly fish floating towards me and I screamed and ran back to the beach.  (After reaching the safety of the beach, I realized that the jelly fish was actually just seaweed but still, it was scary-looking!)  Hawaii is just the type of state that makes you appreciate life and take risks.

For instance, consider the two main characters in Roger Corman’s 1958 film, She Gods of Shark Reef.  Chris (Bill Cord) and Lee (Don Durant) are brothers who live in Hawaii.  Chris has blonde hair and a good attitude towards life.  Lee has dark hair and a criminal nature.  Chris loves the ocean.  Lee loves to run guns.  After Lee kills two men, he stows away on Chris’s boat.  When the boat then hits a storm, Chris and Lee wash up on the shores of an isolated beach.  It’s a beautiful island but all Lee can think about is how he can make money off of his current predicament.  Bad Lee, bad!

Anyway, it turns out that the island is inhabited by an all-female village of pearl divers.  Everyone is excited by the arrival of two handsome, shirtless men.  Everyone except for Queen Pua (Jeanne Gerson), who doesn’t trust either one of them and who doesn’t appear to want anyone in the world to be happy.  She’s especially upset when Chris interrupts a plan to sacrifice a villager to the shark gods of the sea.  Chris not only rescues but also falls in love with Mahia (Lisa Montell).

While Chris is busy falling in love, Lee is trying to figure out a way to escape from the island before a rescue boat arrives.  Lee, after all, is a wanted criminal and the last thing that he wants is to go from being shipwrecked to imprisoned.  Lee comes up with a plan for himself, his brother, and Mahia to escape the island.  However, Lee being Lee, he just can’t overcome his greedy nature.  As quickly becomes obvious, Karma is not only a bitch but it’s a shark as well.

She Gods of Shark Reef was directed by Roger Corman.  Though the film’s low budget is obvious in every frame, Corman wisely decided to concentrate on the island’s beauty as opposed to the movie’s somewhat haphazard story.  This is one of those films where the action stops for nearly five minutes so that Corman can film a hula dancer.  But you know what?  That’s okay!  The beauty of Hawaii and the surrounding ocean carry the film.  You don’t watch for the plot.  Instead, you watch for the blue water and the green grass and the vibrant skies.  This is a film that you watch for the island scenery and the sharks.  Both of them are quite nice.

Film Review: Crawl (dir by Alexandre Aja)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Crawl is a masterpiece of the pulp imagination.

Kaya Scodelario plays Haley Keller, a swimmer at the University of Florida who has a loving but troubled relationship with her father, Dave (Barry Pepper).  With a Category 5 hurricane on a collision course with the state of Florida,  everyone has been ordered to evacuate the area.  However, Haley is concerned that her father may not have gotten the message or, being the stubborn type that he is, he may have gotten the message and just decided to ignore it.  (I could totally relate to Haley’s frustration.  When Dallas got hit by tornadoes last month, my Dad not only refused to hide in his laundry room but he also called me up to inform me that he was sitting out on his back patio watching for any twisters.)  With the storm raging all around her, Haley searches for her father.  When she finally finds him, he’s in the crawlspace of their vacation home.  He’s unconscious.  He’s wounded.  And he’s surrounded by alligators!  It’s now up to Haley to save the lives of not only her father but also the family dog.  And, of course, she has to do all of this without getting eaten by an alligator herself.  Even worse, even if they do manage to outswim the alligators, Haley and Dave are still going to have to deal with the ever intensifying storm that is raging outside.

Crawl is an intense and exciting film, one that clocks in at a brisk 87 minutes and which has a lot more going on underneath the surface than might be readily apparent.  Yes, this is a film about two people and a dog who are trapped in a flooded crawlspace by a bunch of hungry alligators.  And yes, I’m sure that some people will be totally boring and predictable and make a big deal about the film’s environmental subtext.  (“How many more innocent people have to be eaten by alligators before we pass the Green New Deal!?”)  But, at its heart, this is a film about relationships.  Dave has always been hard on Haley.  Haley has always both loved and resented her father.  The flooding and subsequent alligator attacks may justify the pressure that Dave put on Haley to become the best but, even more importantly, it allows Haley to show that she actually is the best and that she doesn’t always need Dave to tell her what to do.  With Dave spending the majority of the film incapacitated in one way or the other, it’s often up to Haley to keep them both from getting eaten as they try to move from one flooded location to another.  It’s up to Haley to keep fighting and fight she does.  Haley never gives up and never surrenders and, for me, Crawl is a thousand times more empowering than Captain Marvel or any of the other more obviously heavy-handed “girl power” films that have come out this year.

As directed by Alexandra Aja, there’s not a single wasted moment to be found in Crawl.  He plunges straight into the story and the film is pretty much an unrelenting thrill ride from beginning to end.  Even more importantly, Aja is smart enough to trust his audience to be able to read between the lines of this genre film without necessarily beating the audience over the head with its message.  This is a film that can be appreciated as both a thriller and a heartfelt look at a difficult but loving relationship.  This is a grindhouse film with a heart, featuring a strong and committed performance from Kaya Scodelario.  As Haley is, again and again, forced to prove her strength, she becomes a stand-in for all of us.  Crawl is genre filmmaking at its best, along with being one of the most impressive films of 2019.

Documentary Review: Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops (dir by Jennifer McShane)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The new documentary Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops opens with police body cam footage of a man getting gunned down in the doorway of his own house.

Why was the man shot?  Because he was holding a screwdriver and he apparently didn’t drop it quickly enough.  Why were the police there in the first place?  They had been called by the man’s mother, who warned the police that her son was schizophrenic and that he was hearing voices.  When the cops shoot him, the man’s mother can be heard screaming in the background, begging the cops not to kill her son.  But kill him, they did.  He died for the crime of holding a screw driver while having mental health crisis.

Unfortunately, that’s a scenario the seems to be happening more and more frequently in the United States.  The police are trained to quickly take control of dangerous situations, to show no emotion, and to bark out orders.  How many times do we hear it whenever someone is gunned down for not immediately dropping whatever they were holding their hands?  “If he had just done what the police said, he’d still be alive.”  We hear that a lot but what if, like the man holding that screwdriver, you’re already hearing voices before the police start screaming at you to show them your hands.  What if you’re already disorientated and not sure what’s real and what’s not?  What then?

Unfortunately, it’s rare that the police are trained on how to deal with someone suffering from mental issues.  Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro are two cops in San Antonio who are trying to change that.  As members of the SAPD’s mental health unit, Ernie and Joe are advocates for changing the way that the police deal with the most vulnerable members of society.  As they explain at one of their training sessions, the police academy will spend days teaching recruits how to draw and fire their weapon without devoting one minute to discussing how to deal with someone who might be hearing voices or who might be suicidal.  Ernie and Joe argue for compassion over brute force.  (Unfortunately, while some cops are seen nodding along with Ernie and Joe’s lessons, several others are seen smirking and rolling their eyes.)

Shot in the style of cinéma vérité, the film follows Ernie and Joe as they deal with cases and attempt to teach their fellow cops that brute force is not always the solution.  At one point, we watch them deal with someone who is threatening to jump off an overpass.  We also listen as Joe, a former Marne, discusses seeing a child blown up in Iraq and how he is still haunted by PTSD.  Ernie, meanwhile, is a family man who goes to church every Sunday and who is looking forward to soon retiring from police work.  The film follows them as they talk, joke, and occasionally bicker like an old married couple.  It’s a good, if somewhat low-key, documentary.  One watches it and hopes that other police departments will learn from San Anotnio’s success.

As I watched the film, I found myself thinking about Vanessa Marquez.  Vanessa was a former actress and a longtime member of the #TCMParty on twitter.  Vanessa was always very open about her own health struggles.  14 months ago, the police showed up at Vanessa’s house in South Pasadena, California.  They say they were doing a welfare check.  They say that Vanessa was in obvious mental distress and that Vanessa resisted their attempts to force her to go to the hospital to be checked out.  The police say that Vanessa pointed a BB gun at them.  Unfortunately, we only know what the police said happened but Vanessa is not her to tell her side of the story.  She was shot and killed.  At the time, it was big news but, as always happens, the media eventually moved on to something else.  After all this time, we still don’t know what really happened the day that Vanessa Marquez was killed in her own home.  We probably never will.

Watching the documentary, I found myself wondering what would have happened if it had been Ernie and Joe or, at the very least, a cop with a similar outlook and compassion who showed up at her house on that day.  Would Vanessa still be with us, watching movies on TCM and tweeting about her experiences in Hollywood?  No one can say for sure but I think she would be.

Hopefully, this documentary will serve as a wake up call for some people.  One need not lose their compassion just because they put on a uniform.  In fact, it’s essential that they don’t.

Documentary Review: American Relapse (dir by Adam Linkenhelt and Pat McGee)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In general, I usually don’t get much out of watching documentaries about drug addiction.  There’s a few reasons for this:

1. Drug addicts are depressing to watch.

2. Drug addicts are boring to listen to.

3. Since everyone knows that drug addiction is a bad thing and that there’s usually only two possible endings to a drug addict’s story — death or detox — it’s not like the majority of drug addiction documentaries have anything new or surprising to tell us.

4. I always find myself wondering about just how much the film crew is enabling the addicts that they’re following around.   There’s always a feeling that the documentary crew is more concerned with putting addicts on display as opposed to actually getting them the help that they need.  It’s hard not to feel that the point of many of these documentaries (and reality shows) is to invite the viewers to gawk and say, “My life may be messed up but at least I’m not passed out in the parking lot of Burger King with a syringe hanging out of my arm.”

Taking all that in mind, I do have to say that I found the new documentary, American Relapse, to be a disturbing and thought-provoking look at not only drug addiction but also the way that the rehab industry has become a big business in South Florida.  Frankie Holmes and Allie Severino are two former addicts who now work as — well, they’re referred to as being “Junkie Hunters,” though Allie objects to the term.  A junkie hunter is someone who searches the streets, befriends drug addicts, and eventually takes them to rehab.  Frankie and Allie both say that they’re in the business because they want to help people and save lives.  At the same time, they also admit that their industry is full of people who don’t care about the addicts that they’re claiming to help.  Instead, they’re simply looking for addicts who have good health insurance so that the rehab centers can make money off of treating them and the hunters can make money off of finding them.

As American Relapse demonstrates, there’s a lot of money to be made in rehab.  The simple act of giving someone a drug test can bring in a few hundred dollars, assuming that the person being tested has insurance.  For a rehab center to make money, there has got to be addicts to make money off of and every time that a formerly sober person relapses, that means even more money. It leads to a viscous cycle, one where people will help but only so much.

The film alternates between scenes explaining how the rehab industry works and scenes of Frankie and Allie working the streets and searching for addicts.  Frankie spends his time trying to get Conor into rehab.  Allie spends most of her time searching for a missing friend of her’s while also trying to help a homeless couple.  Adam Jasinski, who won Big Brother 9 and later went to prison for using his winnings to stet up a drug distribution network, shows up for a few minutes and acts like a dick.  Unfortunately, there are no happy endings.  By the end of the documentary, some people have died.  Others have vanished.  One of the “junkie hunters” has relapsed.

It’s certainly not a happy documentary.  It’s also a bit too long as well.  105 minutes is a long time to spend watching people who aren’t going anywhere.  (Then again, if you consider that Allie and Frankie spend their entire day doing just that, perhaps 105 minutes is not too much to ask.)  Like a lot of recent documentaries, the film occasionally tries to shake things up by inserting animation and clips from old educational films and the results are a bit mixed.  This documentary works best when it sticks to a cinéma vérité style.  Still, it’s a thought-provoking if rather depressing look at lives of intense desperation.

 

Lifetime Film Review: A Daughter’s Plan To Kill (dir by Ian Niles)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Greg (Matt Dallas) has got a nice life and lives in a nice house and he’s got a happy family.  He’s married to Katie (Claire Coffee) and he’s got two teenage children who live at home, Lauren (Lauren DiMario) and Tommy (Liam Obergfoll).  However, Greg also has another teenage daughter out there, Samantha (Jordan Lana Price).  Greg was never in Samantha’s life when she younger so why not make up for lost time by inviting her to come live with him, his wife, and her half-siblings?

I mean, what could possibly go wrong, right?

From the minute that Samantha moves in, there are hints that all might not be ideal with the situation.  Samantha is moody and frequently loses her temper.  When Tommy gets his first car, Samantha gets angry and demands to know why she’s never been given a car.  When its pointed out to her that Tommy’s been working hard to earn the car, Samantha accuses Greg and Katie of making her feel like an outsider and, to be honest, she actually does have a point.  I mean, if you’re going to invite someone to come live in your house as a permanent member of the family, maybe don’t make a big deal about how everyone but her is going to get a car.  It’s just common sense.

Meanwhile, all the boys at the high school are fascinated by Samantha, which makes Lauren feel even more insecure than usual.  Samantha alternates between pressuring Lauren to hook up with a shallow jock named Milo (Will Tomi) and trying to drown Lauren in the swimming pool.  “Didn’t any of you see her holding me under the water!?” Lauren demands.  “No,” her friends, “because you were under water.”

Greg’s response is to spoil Samantha, hoping to win her love and maybe some peace.  Katie thinks that Samantha needs some discipline.  As for Samantha …. well, she’s just planning on killing everyone.  Hence, the title of the film.

Let’s talk about that title because I really like it.  A Daughter’s Plan To Kill tells you everything that you need to know about this film but there’s also a wonderfully sordid bluntness about it.  There’s no ambiguity to be found in this title.  This daughter doesn’t have a “secret” or a “hidden past,” or any of that.  No, she has a “plan to kill.”  As a pretty well-organized person myself, I always appreciate someone who has a plan.

Anyway, plotwise, A Daughter’s Plan To Kill is pretty much a standard Lifetime evil family member film.  You know that Samantha’s bad as soon as she shows up and you spend most of the film amazed that no one else seems to have figured it out yet.  That said, the film’s definitely an entertaining example of the genre and Jordan Lana Price seems to be having a lot of fun in the role of Samantha.  Samantha may be evil but she’s evil with just enough style to be entertaining.

Is This The Worst Film Ever?: Right To Believe (dir by Chip Rossetti)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(To be honest, if any film has ever been worthy of being ripped apart and destroyed by the rhetorical fury of the Trashfilm Guru, it’s the one that I’m about to review below.  But I don’t want to force this movie on Ryan so I’ll do my best….)

The 2014 film Right to Believe is currently on Amazon Prime.  The plot description said that it’s about a reporter who is forced to “take a stand for his beliefs.”  Seeing as how the film was distributed by a faith-based production company, I assumed that this would be one of those tribulation films where one man refuses to accept the “mark of the beast,” which is why I watched.  It turned out to be something very different and something much worse.

Tony Morris (Christopher Hunt) is a local reporter who has somehow become the best-known person in his entire town.  Strangers literally walk up to him and say, “Hey, you’re Tony Morris from the paper!”  Tony, however, has been accused of fabricating a quote by the town’s corrupt mayor and, as a result, he’s been pulled off of the “Wilcox Trial” and assigned to write about the upcoming Gay Pride Day celebrations.  Tony’s also a Christian who thinks being gay is a sin.  (Of course, Hunt gives such a stiff performance that, when he first said that he had religious objections to the story, I assumed he was lying just to get out of writing it.)

Markus Fry (Timothy Paul Taylor) is organizing the Gay Pride parade.  He’s a former Catholic who appears to be perpetually hung over and who responds to every disagreement by theatrically burying his face in his hands.  Markus is also a friend of the mayor’s and maybe he can get the mayor to stop trying to ruin Tony’s career which means that Tony could go back to covering …. “THE WILCOX TRIAL!”

(What is the Wilcox Trial?  I have no idea but Tony never stops whining about not being allowed to cover it.)

Together, Tony and Markus solve crimes!

No, actually, they don’t.  Instead, they meet in a coffee shop called Abbey Road.  (Yes, the walls are decorated with posters of the Beatles.)  One would think that Tony could just interview Markus and then write up an impartial story about when the parade is going to be held, why Markus thinks the parade is important, and maybe include a comment or two from the people who Markus says are trying to get the parade canceled.  That’s what most professional journalists would do.  However, Tony is a Christian and his wife, April (Jenn Gotzon Chandler), insists that God wants Tony to interview Markus so that he can show Markus the error of his ways….

Now, at this point, there’s a lot of different directions that the film could go.  It could become a creepy horror film, with Tony and his wife stalking Markus.  It could become a thoughtful discussion about the role of religion in a changing world.  It could become a character study of two men who both have strongly held beliefs.  To be honest, I was half-expecting the film to end with Tony finally coming out and admitting that he was gay himself because, seriously, his reaction to having to interview a gay man was just a bit too overboard.

Here’s the thing, though.  Yes, Tony and April are judgmental, self-righteous, and bigoted.  I mean, they’re portrayed as being so holier-than-thou that they reminded me of Steve and Sarah Newlin, the corrupt televangelists from True Blood.  Unfortunately, the film is totally on their side.  It takes a while for it to sink in because both of them just come across as being absolutely terrible people but, about halfway through this movie, a little light bulb turned on over my head and I said, “Oh My God, we’re supposed to like these people.  What.  The.  Fuck?”

Over the course of three days, Tony and Markus meet in that Beatles-themed coffee shop.  Markus sets up strawmen arguments.  Tony knocks them down.  Markus argues for science.  Tony does the whole, “But who do you think invented gravity?” thing.  Markus cites Kinsey.  Tony yells that Kinsey and Darwin ruined the world.  Markus asks Tony if he thinks the world is flat, because obviously that’s the only possible response that someone could have to someone attacking the theory of evolution.  Finally, Markus talks about being molested by a priest and Tony suggests that Markus look into gay conversion therapy.  At this point, you really want Markus to just punch the living shit out of Tony but instead, Markus thanks Tony for speaking to him respectfully.

But we’re not done yet!  Suddenly, a man pulls a gun in the middle of the coffeeshop and threatens to kill Markus.  Tony talks him out of it.  (If this movie took place in the 50s, Tony would be the segregationist bragging about not being a member of the KKK.)  What’s amazing is that, during the whole scene with the gun, everyone else in the coffeeshop just keeps drinking their coffee as if nothing’s happening.  I mean, it’s not that big of a coffeeshop.

And then Tony is approached by a woman who, because she’s wearing a leather jacket, we’re meant to assume is a lesbian.  She asks about conversion therapy….

I mean, my God!   As I’ve written on this site before, I have a weakness for low-budget, semi-amateur films and I’ve certainly never been the type to dismiss a film just because it has a “faith-based” theme.  But, seriously, Right To Believe is one of the worst and most thoroughly offensive films that I’ve ever seen.  From the terrible acting to the non-existent camera movement to the clumsy script, nothing works from a technical standpoint.  And that’s not even considering the film’s deeply homophobic message.

Being gay is not a sin.  Making a film this bad should be.

The Dwelling: Movie preview, review and trailer

Posted on by paddiesthoughts

Snuggling in your bed this winter….warm and cozy…waiting on the sweet dreams to appear…. Wishing there was no monsters under your bed?…..Well, think again!

The dwelling

 

Technicals: 

Directed by Jeff Maher, and written by Jeff Maher and Cody Calahan and stars Alysa King and Gwenlyn Cumyn

Preview:

Four people find themselves stuck on a haunted antique bed where leaving means suffering a gruesome death. Plagued with frightening hallucinations, they must figure out the bed’s secrets before they are ultimately picked off one by one.

Review:

Will I trepidly sleep tonight? Most definitely! If you ever feel the need to sleep on a friends futon, after watching this movie you might should think again. Oh, and that sound.. just as you are falling asleep…..Yeah, they just might be a friend confessing their deepest, darkest secrets to you just to stay alive. You want to stay alive? Well, confess too!

Ok, as I started my review while watching “The Dwelling” There is a gut-punch moment that I didn’t see coming. “Don’t be scared, just keep your eyes closed” It hit close to home with me.

I’m still processing. This movie kinda messed with me on a couple different levels. Nightmares are not the least.

Would I recommend “The Dwelling”?

If you need sleep, then no! If you want a good horror movie to keep you awake all night, then definitely!

I want to stay awake and watch it where can I:

Well, you will have to wait until November 26th. When Uncork’d Entertainment and Black Fawn Films’ release “The Dwelling” on DVD and VOD.

Until you sleep again here is the trailer:

 

Lifetime Film Review: My Wife’s Secret Life (dir by Jason Bourque)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, let’s say that your husband has cheated on you.

Now, obviously, the easiest thing to say is that you should just dump his ass but reality is always a bit more complicated.  The fact of the matter is that you’ve got two kids with him.  You two share a big suburban home.  He’s got a successful career as an attorney.  You’ve got a successful career of your own.  And he says that he’s sorry.  He says that he’ll never stray again.  Even if you’re not sure that you’ll ever be able to trust him again, you do love him.  So, you say that you forgive him.  You say that you’re giving him a second chance.  But the doubt and the pain still lingers.

What do you do?

How about having a one night stand with a near-stranger?

That’s what Laurel Briggs (Kate Villanova) does at the beginning of My Wife’s Secret Life.  She’s at a business conference.  Oddly, the hotel somehow screwed up her reservation and, as a result, she’s been separated from her colleagues.  She meets a handsome and charming man (Matthew McCaull).  One thing leads to another and Laurel ends up spending the night with this man.  (If you’re wondering why I’m not telling you the man’s name, that’s because he uses several over the course of the film).  That morning, when she leaves his hotel room, she makes it clear that she doesn’t want to see him again.  Laurel just wants to return home to her husband, James (Jason Cermak), and move on with her life.

Of course, this is a Lifetime movie so it’s not going to be that simple.  At first, Laurel’s one night stand doesn’t seem like he’s capable of taking the hint.  He’s the type of guy who shows up at your office unannounced and tries to guilt you into spending the day with him.  Then, eventually, he become the type of stalker who breaks into houses and leaves behind roses and poems by Lord Byron.  Soon, he’s not only stalking Laurel but he’s also pursuing a relationship with Laurel’s sister (Marnie Mahannah).

It turns out that our Lord Byron-obsessed stalker is more than just the typical type of obsessive who regularly shows up in Lifetime movies.  He’s got his own reasons for specifically targeting Laurel and her husband and it turns out that he’ll stop at nothing to accomplish his sinister goals….

Sounds pretty melodramatic, right?  Well, I supposed it is but that’s kind of the point.  I mean, that’s why we watch Lifetime films.  We watch them for the infidelity and the dangerous men who have secrets and the women who make one mistake and then have to spend the entire movie dealing with the consequences.  Enjoying a Lifetime film is all about embracing the melodrama and this is a film that cries out for a hug.  This is a film that celebrates everything that we love about Lifetime.  Director Jason Bourque keeps the action moving at an enjoyably quick pace and he’s aided by a cast who keeps the action grounded in reality.  Villanova and Cermak have exactly the right chemistry to be believable as a couple struggling to keep their marriage alive and Matthew McCaull is a wonderfully magnetic force of chaos and destruction.  It’s an enjoyable film and, since it’s a Lifetime film, it will probably be aired multiple times between now and 2021.  So, keep an eye out for it!

Lifetime Film Review: Amish Abduction (dir by Ali Liebert)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Amish Abduction tells the story of Annie (Sara Canning) and Jacob (Steve Byers).

As you may have guessed from the title (and the trailer, if you watched it), Annie and Jacob are Amish.  They live in a simple home.  They dress modestly.  They ride around in a buggy.  Annie talks about how little she trusts “the English.”  They spend a lot of time working in the fields.  They appaear to be about as Amish as Amish can be.  However, it quickly becomes obvious that Jacob has grown disillusioned with Amish life.  He wants to leave the community and live with the English.  He’s even purchased a phone!  “Look at everything that it can do!” he says in amazement as he stares down at the screen in his palm.  He tries to give Annie a phone as well but Annie has no use for it.  Not yet, anyways….

However, it turns out that Jacob is not merely suffering from a second Rumspringa.  Jacob’s gotten into some serious trouble.  He’s been buying whiskey from one of the English, a redneck who likes to wander around in the Pennsylvania wilderness.  When the redneck starts acting like a jackass, Jacob kills him.  When the police show up at the village and start asking questions, the Amish keep quiet.  They want nothing to do with the outside world.

One morning, Annie wakes up and discovers that Jacob has left during the night.  He’s abandoned his culture, his religion, and his wife.  However, Jacob has taken their son with him.  Jacob is willing to go to court and demand custody.  Annie will have to leave the village and enter the world of the English in order to save her son from his increasingly demented father.

Ah, the Amish.  I have actually lost track of the number of movies that I’ve seen about the Amish.  Films about the Amish always emphasize the idea that the Amish are simple people who reject modern technology and still live the way that their ancestors lived back in the very distant past.  Inevitably, these movies always have at least one scene where an Amish person is amazed by a television or a radio or a phone.

Of course, the truth is far more complicated.  There’s a fascinating documentary called Devil’s Playground, that follows several Amish teens as they go through Rumspringa, which is a time when they can take part in the modern world and decide for themselves whether or not to be baptized into the Amish church or to leave the community.  As that documentary demonstrated, just because the Amish don’t take part in much of modern society, that doesn’t mean that they’re ignorant of it.  Unfortunately, most films take a far more simplistic (and rather condescending) approach to portraying the Amish.

That said, Amish Abduction is one of the better “Amish” films that I’ve seen recently.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that its a 100% accurate but it does mean that, at the very least, it treats its characters as something more than just outsiders to be gawked at.  Sara Canning, in particular, gives a good and heartfelt performance as Annie and the film presents her character and her concerns in a fair and even-handed manner.  She was particularly strong during one scene in which Annie has a nightmare about what it would like to become one of the English.  Amish Abduction may be about the Amish but it’s also about a woman trying to protect the most important thing in her life and who can’t relate to that?