What Lisa Watched Last Night #183: The Wrong Daughter (dir by Ben Myerson)

Posted on June 23, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched The Wrong Daughter on the Lifetime Movie Network!

Why Was I Watching It?

I think I must have missed The Wrong Daughter when it originally premiered on Lifetime. Maybe I was out spying on the neighbors or something. Who knows? Fortunately, Lifetime always shows their movies about a hundred different times during the year so, last night, I got a chance to catch up!

What Was It About?

Kate (Cindy Busby) has a lot to deal with! Not only is she trying to open up her own restaurant but she and Joe (Jon Prescott) are desperate to start a family. In the aftermath of another failed IVF treatment, Kate promptly starts repainting the nursery and talking about how she could turn the room into an office. (Interestingly, they live in a pretty big house so I’m kind of surprised she didn’t have an office already.) However, Joe has a solution! Maybe Kate could try to track down the girl that she gave up for adoption 17 years ago!

Meanwhile, 18 year-old Samantha (Sydney Sweeney) is just about to get kicked out of her group home. Abandoned by her mother when she was born, Samantha has never been adopted. Why not? Well, it might have something to do with Samantha being slightly psychotic. And while you may be thinking that Samantha is probably Kate’s long lost daughter, she’s not! However, her roommate is! When Samantha runs away and steals Danica’s (Sierra Pond) laptop, she discovers a message from Kate, announcing that she’s Danica’s mother and inviting Danica to come see her.

Soon, Samantha is at Kate’s restaurant, dressed demurely, claiming to be Danica, and working her way into Kate and Joe’s life. Meanwhile, the real Danica just wants her laptop back. Samantha, however, is happy being Danica and is willing to do anything — from bribing an old homeless woman to pretend to be the head of the group home when Kate calls to murdering anyone who turns their back on her — to remains so.

What Worked?

This was a pretty good example of the “killer imposter” genre of Lifetime films. Movies like this pretty much live and die based on the performance of the imposter and Sydney Sweeney did a good job playing the duplicitous Samantha. It was especially fun to watch her switch back and forth between being demure Danica and murderous Samantha.

What Did Not Work?

How naive can one person be? That’s kind of the question that I had to ask about Kate, who was both a savvy businesswoman and yet somehow was easily fooled by even the most obvious of Samantha’s lies. As much fun as it was to watch Kate get fooled over the phone by a crazy homeless woman, it was still hard not to wonder how that could have possibly happened in the first place.

“OMG! Just like me!” Moments

From the minute Samantha first climbed through the window of her group home, I started having flashbacks. That’s the same way that I used to sneak out of the house. When you’re growing up in the suburbs, it helps to be a good climber.

Lessons Learned

Protect your laptop with you life.

Four Star Fun: LIBELED LADY (MGM 1936)

Posted on June 21, 2018 by gary loggins

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Jean Harlow ! Spencer Tracy ! William Powell ! Myrna Loy ! Four top stars at the top of their game shining bright in LIBELED LADY, a screwball comedy directed by Jack Conway with that trademark MGM gloss. Despite the zany improbability of the script by Maurine Watkins, Howard Emmett Rogers, and George Oppenheimer, the crackling, witty dialog gives all four stars (and supporting actor Walter Connolly) plenty of good material.

Here’s the plot: rich heiress Connie Allenbury (Loy) is suing the New York Evening Star for printing a story about her being a husband stealer. Her price: five million! Editor Warren Haggerty (Tracy), after once again blowing off his nuptials to long-time flame Gladys Benton (Harlow), recruits ex-reporter and frenemy Bill Chandler (Powell) in a crazy scheme involving marrying him off to Gladys (and is she pissed!), hop an ocean liner to London, and return with Connie, using his…

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Insomnia File #36: Punchline (dir by David Seltzer)

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were up at 12 midnight and couldn’t get to sleep, you could have turned over to Movies TV and watched the 1988 film, Punchline.

Sally Field is Lilah, a New Jersey housewife who, in between getting her children ready for school and helping her husband (John Goodman) throw dinner parties, is pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. Everyone says that she has a lot of stage presence but she struggles with her material. She’s even resorted to buying jokes from a seedy man who hangs out in a grimy diner.

Tom Hanks is Steve Gold, the youngest member of a family of doctors. When we first meet Steve, he’s getting kicked out of medical school for cheating on an exam. That’s probably for the best, though. Steve doesn’t want to be a doctor. He wants to make people laugh! Every night, he performs at a comedy club known as the Gas Station. Audiences love him almost as much as he hates himself.

Together … they solve crimes!

No, actually, they don’t. I wish they had but they don’t. Instead, in the tradition of A Star is Born, Steve ends up mentoring Lilah and helping her develop her own voice as a comedian. Lilah attempts to balance her loyality to her family with her friendship with Steve. It’s not always easy, largely because Steve isn’t exactly emotionally stable. On stage, Steve may be in control but offstage, he’s frequently selfish and self-destructive. Complicating things is the fact that, even as he watches her talent threaten to eclipse his own, Steve thinks he might be falling in love with Lilah.

Punchline is an uneven movie, largely due to the fact that, while one role is perfectly cast, another one most definitely is not. Not surprisingly, Tom Hanks is believable as a stand-up comedian. It’s not just that he’s obviously comfortable on the comedy club stage. Hanks also shows that he knows how to tell a joke. To put it simply, he has good timing. As played by Tom Hanks, you can look at Steve Gold and imagine people actually paying money for him to make them laugh.

But then you’ve got Sally Field. At no point is Sally Field believable as a stand-up comedian. That’s not so much a problem at the beginning of the film when Field is supposed to an inexperienced amateur. But, as the film progresses, we’re asked to believe that Lilah could conceivably win a spot on television over Hanks and there’s nothing about Field’s performance that suggests that would be possible. When we laugh at Sally Field’s jokes, it’s because she’s Sally Field and she’s talking about multiple orgasms. However, the comedy club audience doesn’t know that she’s Sally Field. Instead, they just know that she’s a comedian who has absolutely no timing.

Much like The Comedian and the Showtime TV series I’m Dyin’ Up Here, Punchline is one of those films that really goes overboard with the audience reaction shots. The only thing worse than listening to an unfunny comedian is then being assaulted by a shot or the sound of an audience dying of laughter. If someone’s not funny, showing some random guy doing spit take isn’t going to help. One thing that directors rarely seem to take into account is that laughter is rarely neat. It’s rare that a huge group of people both start and stop laughing at the exact same moment. There’s usually a stray chuckle or two to be heard, both before and after the punchline has been delivered. Even Tom Hanks, who actually is funny in the movie, is sabotaged by one scene where a group of patients at a hospital are way too amused by his act.

The film’s a bit too long and it takes its dramatic moments way too seriously but it’s almost worth watching for Tom Hanks. Hanks plays a real bastard in Punchline but you still care about Steve because he’s a likable bastard. As you watch the film, you hope Steve becomes a star even if he doesn’t really deserve it. I mean, he’s Tom Hanks!

Previous Insomnia Files:

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Deceiver (dir by Jonas Pate and Josh Pate)

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have long contended that the most annoying serial killer of all time was Paul Michael Stephani, a resident of Minneapolis who killed three women in 1980.

Stephani was known as The Weepy-Voiced Killer. (Even his nickname was annoying.) Whenever Stephani committed a murder, he would promptly call 911 and confess while sobbing. As you might expect would happen to someone who was enough of a dumbass to call the police right after murdering someone, Stephani was eventually captured and convicted. Sentenced to 40 years, Stephani died of cancer while in prison and nobody misses him.

Unfortunately, because all of Stephani’s 911 calls were recorded, he’s recently become a very popular subject for true crime shows. It’s not there’s anything particularly interesting about Stephani’s crimes. It’s just that it’s easy (and cheap) to build a show around the sound of him whining on the phone. As someone who probably spends too much time watching true crime realty television, I’ve had to listen to Stephani’s voice more than anyone should ever have to. Making it even worse, there’s currently a show called Evil Calls, which uses a recording of Stephani in its commercials. I’ve actually stopped watching Investigation Discovery just because I’ve gotten so sick of hearing that loser whining, “Please don’t talk, just listen… I’m sorry I killed that girl. I stabbed her 40 times…”

However, the Stephani tapes do provide one valuable service. The sound of Stephani’s pathetic voice reminds us that most serial killers are not the urbanely witty and intelligent figures that we’ve gotten used to seeing in the movies. Most real-life killers are whiny losers who kill for very basic reasons and who are stupid enough to call 911 and confess. Movie killers are a different breed all together.

Take the 1997 mystery Deceiver, for instance.

In Deceiver, Renee Zellweger plays a world weary prostitute. We only see her in flashbacks, largely because she was murdered before the film’s opening scene. Her name was Elizabeth, which brings to mind Elizabeth Short, the legendary Los Angeles murder victim who is better known as the Black Dahlia. Much like the real-life Black Dahlia, Elizabeth’s body was cut into two pieces and left in a park. (According to the film’s imdb trivia section, Elizabeth was also named after Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who pioneered the study of false memories.)

Suspicion immediately falls on James Walter Wayland (Tim Roth). The youngest son of a wealthy and powerful South Carolina family, Wayland is an infamous alcoholic. Wayland admits that he knew Elizabeth. He even took Elizabeth with him to a fancy party, all the better to offend his parents. Wayland may be a black-out drunk with a history of erratic behavior but he also swears that he didn’t kill Elizabeth.

Two detectives are determined to trick Wayland into confessing. Detective Edward Kennesaw (Michael Rooker) is a respected veteran, the type of detective who can get a confession out of almost anyone. His partner is Detective Philip Braxton (Chris Penn), who is a bit less impressive. As we’re informed early in the film, Braxton graduated at the bottom of his high school class and has been waiting for a promotion for quite some time.

From the minute that Kennesaw and Braxton start to interrogate Wayland, it becomes obvious that Wayland is hardly your typical murder suspect. He’s certainly more impressive than the Weepy-Voiced Killer. He’s witty. He’s smart. He’s cocky. He admits to being an alcoholic and to suffering from black outs and seizures but he also claims that, unlike every other man who Elizabeth dealt with, he actually cared about her. Wayland also reveals that he knows some details about Kennesaw and Braxton. He knows about Kennesaw’s troubled marriage to a woman (Rosanna Arquette) who has a history of cheating on him. He knows that Braxton is in debt to a local bookie (Ellen Burstyn). And, as the interrogation continues, Wayland starts to suggest that one of the interrogators is hiding an even darker secret.

Deceiver‘s a frequently fascinating film to watch, even if it’s not always easy to follow. If there’s any film that would seem to demand multiple viewings, it’s this one. The majority of the movie takes place in one darkened room and directors Joan and Josh Pate do a wonderful job capturing the claustrophobia of that setting. (Fortunately, there’s enough flashbacks to keep the film from getting too stagey.) Roth, Rooker, and Penn all give intensely stylized performances. They may not feel realistic but they fit in perfectly with the fever dream atmosphere of the film. Roth, in particular, gives a performance that is both mannered and intriguing. It even feel appropriate that his Southern accent is in no way convincing. It just makes sense that Wayland wouldn’t sound like anyone else in the world.

It’s a heavily stylized film, full of odd dialogue and skewed camera angles. It’s a film that often feels like a journey right to the center of an extremely twisted mind. (Of course, the movie is designed so that you’re never quite sure whose mind you’ve entered.) There’s nothing realistic about it but that’s okay. It’s certainly preferable to watching a movie about The Weepy-Voiced Killer.

Let’s Talk About Sex: BOYS’ NIGHT OUT (MGM 1962)

Posted on June 19, 2018 by gary loggins

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“Sex farces” were extremely popular during the late 50’s/early 60’s. They were filled with martinis, smarmy innuendoes, and smutty jokes, though no sex ever really happens. The comedies of director Frank Tashlin and the Doris Day/Rock Hudson teamings helped popularize this rom-com subgenre. A good example is BOYS’ NIGHT OUT, a humorous take on suburban mores starring James Garner and Kim Novak.

The premise is pretty simple: four friends commute every day from suburban Connecticut to New York City. They are divorced Garner and his married buddies Howard Duff , Howard Morris , and the ubiquitous Tony Randall, who made a career appearing in these type of films. When the “boys” catch Garner’s boss out with his mistress, they start to daydream what it would be like to get their own love shack going, away from their wives and equipped with a beautiful blonde to do their bidding. Garner balks…

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Lonely As The Night: Randolph Scott in COMANCHE STATION (Columbia 1960)

Posted on June 16, 2018 by gary loggins

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COMANCHE STATION was the final entry in the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher/Burt Kennedy series of Westerns, and in many ways a fitting ending. The loneliness of the Westerner is again a key theme as the film begins with the solitary figure of Scott as Jefferson Cody, riding across that rocky, barren, now mighty familiar Lone Pine terrain. He bargains with hostile Comanches for a captive white woman named Nancy Lowe, wife of a wealthy rancher. Stopping at Comanche Station, Cody and Mrs. Lowe encounter three men being chased by the tribe.

We learn one of these men is Ben Lane, a bounty hunter who shares a dark past with Cody. The two were formerly in the Army together, where then-Major Cody busted Lane out of the service for the slaughter of a village of friendly Indians. We also learn Mrs. Lowe’s husband is offering a five thousand dollar reward for her…

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Film Review: Jaws 2 (dir by Jeannot Szwarc)

Posted on June 15, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1978 film Jaws 2 poses a question that has been asked many times under many different circumstances:

When will people learn?

Seriously, you would think that after everything that happened during the first Jaws, the people of Amity Island would be a little bit smarter when it comes to sharks. I mean, did Ben Gardner, the Kintner Boy, Quint, and Chrissie Watkins all die in vain? If I lived on Amity Island, I would be so paranoid about another shark attack that I would probably move to Manitoba. At the very least, I would demand that the beach be closed if there was even the slightest chance that another great white shark was somewhere out there, eating anyone foolish enough to get back in the water.

It’s just common sense!

But no. In Jaws 2, when another shark shows up and eats two divers and a water skier before blowing up a motor boat, no one is even willing to consider shutting down the beach. Even after Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) insists that another shark has shown up, no one is willing to listen to him. “I know something about sharks!” Brody insists but the town council just shrugs him off. Maybe they think that Quint and Hooper did all the work the last time and that Brody was just along for the ride.

Of course, Brody does bring some of his problems on himself. Brody spends a lot of this film sitting in the dark, brooding about sharks. When he sees a shadow in the ocean, he runs down to the beach and starts shooting at it. “It’s just blue fish!” someone yells while Brody looks a little confused. How shocked can we really be when the town council fires Brody? He was a loose cannon.

Before he gets fired, Brody orders his teenage son, Mike (Mark Gruner) to stay out of the water. Of course, Mike doesn’t listen. He goes sailing with his friends and his younger brother, Sean (Marc Gilpin). That’s a big mistake, of course. As soon as Mike and company are a good distance away from Amity Island, the shark attacks and leaves them all stranded at sea. Mike is knocked unconscious. Sean is trapped on a boat all by himself. One of the teenage girls, Jackie Peters (Donna Wilkes), totally freaks out while her older sister, Brooke (Gigi Voran), suggests that they all play charades to pass the time. Everyone dismisses her idea but you know what? I have it on very good authority that sharks love charades. I think Brooke was on to something…

Jaws 2 is a strange, strange movie. It’s really two films in one. Jaws 2 starts out as an almost by-the-book remake of Jaws. True, Quint’s dead. And Richard Dreyfuss had just won an Oscar so there’s no way Hooper was going to come back. But Brody’s back and he’s once again an island police chief who is afraid of the water and who can’t get anyone to listen to him. Just as Jaws started out as almost a small town comedy, Jaws 2 has an early scene where Brody has to deal with the quirky citizens of Amity Island. (Unfortunately, Harry and his really bad hat don’t make a return appearance.) A scene where a dead killer whale washes up on the beach is shot to remind us of the scene in the first in which Hooper and Brody examine a dead shark.

But then, halfway through, Jaws 2 turns into a totally different movie. Suddenly, the teenagers are trapped out in the middle of the ocean and the shark is circling them and Brody is searching from them and the whole movie just goes insane. Roy Scheider abandons any attempt at subtlety as he becomes as obsessed with shark as Donald Pleasence was with Michael Myers in Halloween. The shark turns out to be incredibly sneaky. He’s never around until you stick your hand in the water and then suddenly — SHARK!

How powerful is this shark? He’s so powerful that he eats a freaking a helicopter! Seriously, a coast guard helicopter tries to rescue the kids and ends up getting eaten by the shark! That scene alone is worth whatever’s led up to it. (I think Jaws 2 might be the first film to feature a shark eating a helicopter.) The film only gets crazier from there, with Brody eventually reduced to verbally taunting the shark while clutching onto a power cable.

Now, admittedly, those stranded teenagers aren’t the most developed characters in the world. There’s a lot of them and it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of who is who. Fortunately, this is a 70s films and that means that Jaws 2 is all about the hair. You may not know their names but you’ll never forget their hair:

Check out some of the members of the Jaws 2 hair club:

Jaws, come out to play…

(Okay, Luther wasn’t actually in the movie but just imagine if he had been!)

Anyway, Jaws 2 cannot begin to hold a candle to the original Jaws but it’s still a lot of fun. Admittedly, there are a few parts, especially during the first hour, that drag in a way that Spielberg, the consummate story teller, would not have allowed. I could have done without some of the lengthy scenes where Brody tries to convince the city council that there’s another shark in the water, if just because we already know that the shark’s there and we can guess that the beach isn’t going to be closed. (After all, if the beach was closed, there wouldn’t be a movie…)

But once the teenagers are stranded in the ocean and the shark is eating the helicopter and Brody is calling it a bastard while hanging onto a power cable, there’s no way that you can resist the charms of this sequel. Jaws 2 isn’t exactly good but it’s just so entertaining!

Jaws 2 frequently shows up on AMC so keep an eye out for it!

And, for the love of God — stay out of the water!

Lonesome Cowboy: Randolph Scott in RIDE LONESOME (United Artists 1959)

Posted on June 14, 2018 by gary loggins

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Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher teamed again for RIDE LONESOME, their sixth of seven Westerns and fourth with writer Burt Kennedy. Scott’s a hard case bounty hunter bringing in a killer, joined in his trek by an old “acquaintance” with an agenda of his own. Everyone’s playing things close to the vest here, and the stark naked desert of Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills, with its vast emptiness, plays as big a part as the fine acting ensemble.

Ben Brigade (Scott) has captured the murderous Billy John and intends to bring him to justice in Santa Cruz. Coming to a waystation, he finds Sam Boone and his lanky young companion Whit, known outlaws who’ve heard the territorial governor is granting amnesty to whoever brings in Billy. Also at the station is Mrs. Crane, whose husband has been murdered by marauding Mescaleros. Sam’s interested in forming a partnership and taking Billy…

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Film Review: Game Night (dir by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein)

Posted on June 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this time of division and conflict, can we all agree that Game Night is a damn funny movie?

The film tells the story of three couples who regularly get together for, as the title suggests, a game night. Ryan (Billy Magnussen) and Sharon (Sharon Horgan) are quirky and a little bit daffy. Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and his wife, Michelle (Kylie Bunbury) are generally dependable and Michelle has a really interesting story about the time that she met a man who may have been Denzel Washington but probably wasn’t. Meanwhile, Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) are an ultracompetitive married couple, frustrated in their attempts to conceive a child but always confident in their ability to win any game that they play. At one time, Gary (Jesse Plemons) and his wife used to be a part of the group but, after they got divorced, Max and Annie stopped inviting him. You really can’t blame them. Gary’s seriously creepy.

And then there’s Brooks Davis (Kyle Chandler).

Brooks is Max’s brother and, at first glance, he would appear to be everything that Max isn’t. Brooks appears to have a lot of money. He claims to have a successful career, even if no one’s quite sure what he does for a living. He drives a nice car. When he comes to town to visit his brother, he rents out a mansion. Brooks is the type of older sibling who always has an embarrassing story or two to share about his younger brother. In fact, Max feels so inadequate when compared to Brooks that it’s even interfering with Max and Annie’s efforts to have a child. When Brooks invites everyone to come to his house for a very special game night, Annie and Max are determined to beat Brooks at whatever game he’s planning on having them play.

It turns out that Brooks has hired a company to put on an interactive role-playing game. While listening to a fake FBI agent (Geoffrey Wright) explain the background of the mystery that they’re about to solve, the couples are shocked when several masked men burst into the house. Everyone’s impressed as the men beat the fake FBI agent unconscious. When the men start beating up Brooks, everyone praises Brooks for the realism of his game. After Brooks is dragged out of the house, the couples set out to solve the mystery of who is behind this kidnapping. As for the fake FBI agent, he lies on the floor motionless. Even when Ryan kicks his body, the agent doesn’t move. Everyone agrees that the agent is a really good and committed actor.

Of course, the joke is that Brooks really has been kidnapped but nobody realizes it. It’s a good joke but, to the film’s credit, it’s not the only joke. In fact, Game Night actually get funnier after everyone eventually realizes that they’re no longer playing a game. Ever after they realize that Brooks actually has been kidnapped, Annie and Max are so competitive that they still keep trying to outdo everyone else.

Annie and Max also discover that they have no choice but to involve their creepy neighbor and former friend, Gary. Jesse Plemons doesn’t have a lot of screentime but he gives a performance that is so exquisitely strange and awkward that he ends up stealing the entire movie. Watching Plemons, you both feel sorry for Gary and understand why no one wants to play with him. His desperation to be apart of the group is both exasperating and somewhat touching.

In fact, the entire cast does a good job, bringing their often clueless characters to life. Max and Annie are a likable couple and Bateman and McAdams have a natural chemistry that makes them a lot of fun to watch. There’s a great scene where Max and Annie, still thinking that they’re just playing a game, subdue a group of criminals in a bar. Max and Annie’s clueless joy is intoxicating. They’re having fun playing at being tough and we’re having fun watching them. Of course, it eventually turns out that the gun that Annie thought was a toy is real and loaded and … well, things get a little bit messy. While the scene where Annie and Max try to figure out how to dig a bullet out of a man’s arm may have made me cringe a little, it also made me laugh. That’s a credit to both Bateman and McAdams, who made the scene both real and funny at the same time.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Game Night. Clocking in at 100 minutes, it’s a briskly paced and good-natured comedy that never makes the mistake of lingering for too long over its own cleverness. Director Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley both redeem themselves for 2015’s Vacation. If, earlier this year, you missed this one when it was in theaters, see it now and have a good time.

Well of Loneliness: Randolph Scott in THE TALL T (Columbia 1957)

Posted on June 12, 2018 by gary loggins

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I’ve told you Dear Readers before that Randolph Scott stands behind only John Wayne in my personal pantheon of great Western stars. Scott cut his cowboy teeth in a series of Zane Grey oaters at Paramount during the 1930’s, and rode tall in the saddle throughout the 40’s. By the mid-50’s, Scott and his producing partner Harry Joe Brown teamed with director Budd Boetticher and writer Burt Kennedy for seven outdoor sagas that were a notch above the average Westerns, beginning with SEVEN MEN FROM NOW. The second of these, THE TALL T, remains the best, featuring an outstanding supporting cast and breathtaking location cinematography by Charles Lang, Jr.

Scott plays Pat Brennen, a friendly sort trying to make a go of his own ranch. Pat, who comically lost his horse to his old boss in a wager over riding a bucking bull, hitches a ride with his pal Rintoon’s…

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