Guilty Pleasure No. 31: Hail, Caesar! (dir by the Coen Brothers)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, I wonder if I was the only filmgoer who actually enjoyed Hail, Caesar! when it was released in February.

Oh, don’t met wrong. I know that I’m being a bit overdramatic when I say that. It got some good reviews from the critics, though the praise was rather muted when compared to the reviews that traditionally greet the latest film from the Coen Brothers. I know more than a few people who have agreed with me that Hail, Caesar! was an entertaining lark of a film.

But I know a lot more people who absolutely hated Hail, Caesar! Of course, no film is going to please everyone and the Coen Brothers have always had a tendency to attempt to deliberately alienate their audience. But what has always struck me is the fact that the people who disliked Hail, Caesar seem to really, really dislike it. Talk to them and you get the feeling that they view Hail, Caesar as almost being some sort of a crime against both humanity and cinema.

Taking place in a stylized Hollywood in 1951, Hail, Caesar! tells the story of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin). Eddie is a shadowy figure. As head of production at Capitol Pictures, Eddie’s job is to keep the “bad” behavior of the stars from getting out into the press. (The press is represented by Tilda Swinton who, in a typical Coen Brothers twist, plays twin sisters who are rival gossip columnists. If the thought of that makes you smile, you are potentially a part of the right audience for Hail Caesar. If it makes you roll your eyes, you should probably avoid the film.) Eddie is the most powerful man in Hollywood and he will do anything to protect the image of the American film industry. He will lie. He will cheat. He will threaten. He is so ruthless and so good at his job that even Lockheed Martin is trying to hire him away from Capitol. And yet, at the same time, Eddie is also a family man and a Catholic who is so devout that he goes to confession on a nearly hourly basis.

(For all you non-Catholics out there, Pope Francis only goes to confession twice a month.)

Hail, Caesar! follows Eddie as he deals with a series of potential problems. Temperamental director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) is upset because he’s been forced to cast Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich, giving the film’s best performance), a good-natured but inarticulate cowboy star, in his sophisticated comedy. Synchronized swimmer DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansoon) is not only pregnant but unmarried as well! (It’s the 50s, remember.)

However, the biggest crisis is that Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) has vanished from the set of his latest film. A mysterious group known as The Future has taken credit for kidnapping him. It’s not really much of a spoiler to reveal that The Future is a cell of communist scriptwriters and they are determined to convert the rather dumb Baird to the struggle. As opposed to most films about Hollywood in the 50s, the communist screenwriters are portrayed as being a bunch of self-righteous and rather cowardly nags, the majority of whom spend more time debating minutiae than actually trying to the overthrow capitalism. In many ways, Hail, Caesar is the anti-Trumbo.

As you might guess from the plot description, there’s a lot going on in Hail, Caesar but none of it really adds up too much. Nor is it supposed to. We’re encouraged to laugh at these frantic characters, as opposed to sympathize with them. Eddie Mannix and Hobie Doyle both emerge as heroes because they’re the only characters who remain calm and confident, regardless of what strangeness is happening onscreen. Eddie may be ruthless, the film tells us, but at least he gets results. Hobie may not be the smartest or most talented guy in Hollywood, we are told, but at least he doesn’t pretend to be anything other than who he is.

Hail, Caesar! is a bit of a lark, a celebration of style over substance. As far as Coen Brother films go, Hail, Caesar has more in common with Burn After Reading than No Country For Old Men. The film is largely an inside joke aimed at people who know the history of Hollywood, which is perhaps why some viewers reacted so negatively. Inside jokes are fun when you’re in on the joke. When you’re not in on it, though, they’re just annoying.

As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed Hail, Caesar! It may not be the Coens at their best but it’s a lot of fun and it appealed me as both a history nerd and a lover of old movies. The best parts of Hail, Caesar! are the scenes that parody the largely forgotten, big-budget studio productions of the 1950s. This is the rare film that acknowledges that not every film made before the 1960s was a masterpiece. The Coens love movies but that doesn’t keep them from getting a little bit snarky. For example, check out this production number featuring Channing Tatum:

Is Hail, Caesar self-indulgent?

Yes.

Is it largely an inside joke?

Yes.

Did I absolutely adore it?

You better believe I did.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Film Review: The Secret Life of Pets (dir by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you own a pet, then you know the experience of wondering what they do all day while your away from the house. My sister Erin and I own a black cat named Doc. When I leave the house in the morning, he’s usually sleeping on the couch. When I come back home 8 hours later, he’s usually still there.

“Doc,” I’ll say, “didn’t you do anything while I was gone!?”

“Meh,” Doc will reply, before getting up, stretching, and then hopping off the couch. He’ll then lead me into the kitchen and demand that I feed him. Once he’s been fed, he’ll hop back up on the couch, curl up, and wait for Erin to come home.

Now, personally, I think that’s all an act. There’s no way that any living creature could spend 8 hours doing nothing. My theory is that Doc spends the day patrolling the house, taunting the dogs next door, and watching old movies on TCM. But, until I learn to speak his language (because he has shown next to no interest in learning how to speak English), I will never be able to talk about classic Hollywood filmmaking with him. And that’s a tragedy.

The new animated film, The Secret Life of Pets, shows us what pets do when their owners aren’t around. (Or, at the very least, it shows what a small group of animals in Manhattan do.) Some pets party. Some hunt. A lost guinea pig named Norman (voiced by the film’s director,Chris Renaud) wanders through the heating ducts and tries to find his way home. Chloe (voiced by Lake Bell), a Tabby cat, lays about her apartment and talks about how apathetic she is.

Meanwhile, a terrier named Max (Louis C.K.) spends all of his time eagerly waiting for his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper), to come home. Max is very proud of the fact that he and Katie are best friends. His life revolves around her, so you can imagine his surprise when Katie comes home with a new dog. Duke (Eric Stonestreet) is a gigantic and shaggy mongrel. Even though Katie says that Duke is now a part of the family, Max takes an immediate dislike to him. When Duke’s attempts to be friendly are ignored, he responds by turning into a bully.

(In Duke’s defense, he has just gotten out of the pound. Before he was captured, he was owned by a kindly old man but, one day, Duke got out of the house and got lost. When you consider what Duke has suffered, you can’t help but feel that he has the right to be a little bit grouchy.)

After Max and Duke both get lost while being taken for a walk, Max decides to help Duke get back to his old home. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Gidget (Jenny Slate), a Pomeranian who has a crush on Max, all of the other pets try to track down their friend and help him return home before he’s captured by animal control.

And, then there’s the revolutionaries. Living in the sewers, a group of former pets are plotting to overthrow their former owners. They are being led by a bunny named Snowball, who is not only a sociopath but also sounds exactly like Kevin Hart.

Anyway, The Secret Life of Pets is a cute film. It never quite escapes the shadow of Toy Story 3 (which it frequently resembles) but it’s genuinely sweet and Louis C.K. does such a good job voicing Max that even a cat person like me couldn’t help but fall in love with that neurotic little dog. There are a few jokes that don’t quite work (To cite just one example, the film introduces a hawk voiced by Albert Brooks and then fails to really do anything with the character) but you really can’t go wrong with talking animals. The Secret Life of Pets is a cute little crowd pleaser. It might not make you think in the way that a great Pixar film can make you think but it will definitely make you laugh and leave you feeling good.

It might make you cry, too! There’s a montage of various owners coming home and being greeted by their pets and it caused my mismatched eyes to tear up because it was just so sweet!

I think I’m going to go give Doc a hug now…

Let’s Talk About Dam Sharks!

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, SyFy’s Shark Week continued with the premiere of Dam Sharks!

I watched it with my friends, the Snarkalecs, and we had a damn good time. Seriously, Dam Sharks is damn fun, damn entertaining, damn good, damn funny, damn gory, and pretty damn enjoyable. I’m damn glad we watched it, dammit!

I’m sure that we’ve all wondered what would happen if a bunch of sharks suddenly showed up in a river. Well, Dam Sharks provides us with an answer! Apparently, they would not only eat every human being that they came across but they would also use the left-over body parts to construct dams.

(Needless to say, by building their own dams, the sharks would also end up putting a lot of beavers out of work. If you’re wondering what happens when a beaver has nothing to constructive to devote itself to, I suggest checking out a film called Zombeavers.)

Now, if you’re asking yourself why a bunch of sharks would show up in a river and start building a dam out of human body parts … well, that means you’re not approaching this film correctly. Why it’s happening really isn’t that important. Blame it on global warming, if you must. Blame it on the military. Blame it on Big Evil Corporation. Blame it on whoever you want. The why is not important. What important is that, in this film, it’s happening. Sharks are in the river and they’re making dams. As my favorite character, Carl the anti-government survivalist (played by Robert Craighead), put it whenever anyone spent too much time wondering why the sharks were in the river, “It’s a long story.”

In fact, it’s such a long story that the film doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Especially not when so many people are hanging out around that shark-infested river…

Like many SyFy films, Dam Sharks borrows its structure from the disaster film genre. We meet various groups of people, we watch as they’re forced to deal with a sudden crisis (in this case, dam-building sharks), and we try to guess who will die and who will survive.

Now, of course, some of the people are obviously doomed. The guy in the boat who fishes with a gigantic hook that’s at the end of a chain? Oh, he’s so obviously dead. The hipsters trying to zipline over the river? No way they’re going to make it. The girl who strips down to her underwear so that she can dive off a rock? She’s not even going to reach the water before a shark gets her. That’s just the way it goes.

But others, we’re not so sure about. Much like Atomic Shark, Dam Sharks deserves a lot of credit for keeping the audience off-balance. There are a few characters who you assume will never die because they’re either too likeable or too funny. But, as we quickly learn, sharks don’t care if you’re funny or likable. They just want to eat you and add your leg to the dam.

As I mentioned earlier, my favorite character was Carl. He disliked almost everyone and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. However, Carl was also the only character who I personally would want to help me if I found myself being attacked by river sharks. He knew what he was doing. Carl spends most of the movie with Kate (Jessica Blackmore) and, working together, they are a shark’s worst nightmare. Good for them.

Of course, Carl and Kate aren’t the only ones on the river. Tanner (Jason London) is a callous CEO, the type of boss who thinks that he’s the next Steve Jobs and simply can’t understand why nobody likes him. Tanner has ordered several of his employees to spend the weekend at the river. Over the course of the day, they will play paintball, they will practice archery, and they will take a raft out onto the river. Since you really can’t blame sharks for acting like sharks, Tanner is the closest thing that Dam Sharks has to an actual villain. Jason London, who was so good in Zombie Shark, is properly loathsome as the buffoonish Tanner.

As for Tanner’s employees, they’re a mixed bunch of characters. Some of them will survive the weekend. Quite a few of them most definitely will not. From the start, it’s obvious that Pullman (Matt Mercer) and Stella (Neka Zang) are the two that we’re supposed to care about the most. Both Mercer and Zang are well-selected for their roles. When they sit on a rock and hide out from the paintball game, their conversation briefly makes Dam Sharks about something deeper than just damn sharks. Mercer is especially effective when he talks about how little personal fulfillment he gets out of his job. You truly feel bad for him.

But really, the entire film is well-cast. From the stars to the most minor of characters, everyone gets a chance to make an impression. I have to give special mention to Eric Paul Erickson, who turned the buffoonish Kenny into a rather sweet and likable character. Among the actors playing the rest of Tanner’s employees, Kabby Borders, Saxon James, and Francis Gonzalez are especially well-cast and likable. Though the film itself encourages you not to take any of it too seriously, you still find yourself hoping that they all manage to survive.

If you’re a fan of SyFy movies, you’ll love Dam Sharks! And if you don’t like SyFy movies — well, that’s just a damn shame.

Kate and Carl searching for dam sharks.

(In an earlier version of this post, I accidentally misidentified both the character of Kate and the actress who played her. I apologize for the error! — LMB)

Film Review: Deep Jaws (1976, dir. Perry Dell)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

First things first.

If there are any local ordinances or community standards that make it possible for you to not watch this movie, then observe them. Feel free to read my review though. Not only because it will put you off wanting to see this as I know you all do, but you’ll get to see how Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Spider-Man could all end up in a fake porno spoof. The weirdest thing about watching this movie is that along with Water Power (1977), people were so AMERICA! in 1976 that both an enema rape porn and this, prominently featured the Bicentennial and American Flag. Let’s dive into this!

The movie starts off with just what you would expect: sex.

These two are banging in a projection booth while people working for-I kid you not-Uranus studios are trying to watch footage that has been shot for The Night Mt. Rushmore Broke Wind. Ugh! That’s the level of jokes you are in for if you watch this movie. One of the characters soon says: “He’s got the thing upside down and ass backwards.” Bad Girls Behind Bars (2016) with its running joke about burping the worm was more mature than this garbage.

Let’s introduce are main characters:

That’s attacked by spray tan.

That’s a slime ball. His real name is PG as in parental guidance. I’m sorry, but Goldengirl came out in 1979 and had breasts the main character talked to, and it was rated PG. Earlier 90s movies had bare ass all the time, and they were still rated PG. The Odd Couple II came out in 1998 and had them not only calling each other “shitheads”, but had an explicit oral sex joke. It was rated PG-13. Good Burger came out one year prior in 1997. It had tons of sexual innuendo including numerous allusions to oral sex via egg rolls and was rated PG.

Somehow, one year after Deep Jaws, the talking vagina movie Chatterbox! would receive an R-rating. Guess that was more of an honorary rating. This movie is unrated cause it has a few shots of penises. Apparently that was a big deal back in 1976? This was well before Lars Von Trier and Gaspar Noé decided to exploit porn to try and remain relevant. That, and exploit Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Black Love (1971). Why is that a thing? Then again, why is Deep Jaws a thing?

That’s a woman who I’m not sure how they got to be in this.

That’s an old guy who looks like he belongs in an episode of Soap. I never figured out why he is holding a teddy bear. He does it throughout the film.

I’m just going to call him Dumbass even though they always call him Junior. He’s Spray Tan’s kid. It’s courtesy of him that superheroes will appear in the film via his T-Shirts.

You want to see the movie they are looking at onscreen?

I saw this and thought they were watching a 70s version of Space Zombie Bingo!!! (1993).

Here is the appearance of Captain America. Disappointing after seeing Matt Salinger decapitate someone with his shield.

They keep cutting away to the projection booth sex as if we are getting something out of it. We aren’t. That kind of thing will be repeated many times over throughout the film. I can’t tell you how boring it is to hear these people talk on top of constantly cutting away to the sex. The movie only gets worse from here on out. This opening scene just happens to be particularly painful. How painful? This painful.

He gets threatened to have his “ass out of Uranus.” Then it just abruptly cuts to the worst of 1970’s interior design.

This phone call goes on forever. It has something do to with the President of the United States. Who cares? I didn’t. I just kept thinking this guy was reading off of cue cards above him.

Now we get a whining scene between some woman and PG. Again, like most of the film. Who the hell cares? This film adds some running time onto itself here by having some flashbacks to the projection booth sex scene because we need to repeat that footage. Yuck!

Now we meet the guy from the opening sex scene

At least I’m pretty sure. No matter, because TITS!

I will try to spare you the number of times these ladies pop out just to show off their breasts. Just trust me that they wear out their welcome. All six of them. Although, one of them can do the breast equivalent of making one ear pop up and down. That’s something I guess.

Now lady who I can’t believe is in the movie comes in carrying empty toilet paper rolls. He needs TP for Uranus. I would say his bunghole, but the ladies come out and stick something else in there at some point.

I am taking you through this step by step because the stupidity on display is amazing. We haven’t even gotten to the gay guy who runs after Dumbass to measure the length of his penis. That’s a thing that happens in this film.

Now PG sits out by the pool just so they can show more tits and ass. Acting 1; T&A about a 5. Yes, I did put that there because there is a porno spoof of A Chorus Line out there, but sadly my copy doesn’t have subtitles.

Now the lady who shouldn’t be there has a discussion with this guy about how they should make a porno like Deep Throat (1971). Apparently, this means cutting away to a very fake blow job scene that I guess is a recreation of something from Deep Throat. I haven’t watched it yet. Then it cuts back to them to see him eating her out while she’s upside down against a window. Cause of course she is.

If you are thinking this movie is a bunch of bull when it comes to being a porno/sexploitation film, then it agrees with you because a literal bull’s head shows up now.

Where does this lead? To a third rate Giancarlo Giannini from Seven Beauties (1975) for another random sex scene.

The only highlight of this scene is that he drinks from a literal bottle of Spanish Flies.

This guy works for the studio and is looking for the next Garbo. By that he means Christina Lindberg. Don’t know who she is? She was in Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1975) with Stellan Skarsgård that was later remade by Lars Von Trier as Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1 & 2 (2013).

There is also a pretty terrible song that plays during this scene, but at least it’s better than the Johnny Wet Pants song that makes the HBO/Cinemax/Showtime circuit. That song is terrible! So is the one about lesbians they play from time to time. If you feel I’m going on and on now, then good. That’s to give you an idea of how long this sex scene drags on.

Once you’ve listened to Guns ‘N Roses’ Paradise City and The End by The Doors, then the scene is over and there’s The Incredible Hulk. “You can’t let them close Uranus. It’s gonna be mine someday,” says Junior to his spray tan mom.

Now they get a call from the State Department to film a “simulated version of the Russian-American outer space hook-up.” No idea what that means, but they are given a million dollars to do it thanks to Kissinger. What do they do? They decide to embezzle the money by simply making a cheap porno. I’m not a fan of gay stereotypes, but I like this guy’s idea to make it a gay porn involving a homosexual shark and mermen. This comes after they agree that a “sexaster” movie is the way to go. They then go off to search for Miss Deep Jaws by not actually doing anything at the moment.

I say that because they cut back to the other guy who is having a fake blow job. Then we come back to put this plan together after watching a lady play the clarinet naked. Their idea is all well and good, but I was really hoping they would address what is clearly a lost painting of Manos behind them.

Some things happen now…sort of…not really. We cut back to the sex from earlier because it was just so interesting that it needed to continue. It’s still better than Love (2015). At least this film tells me it’s garbage rather than shoving Godard onscreen text in my face and telling me it’s a masterpiece.

Back at the studio, the lady that is too good for this movie is reading a script. We get a bizarre underwater sequence as a result.

I think that’s all I can show without having any clue as to what does and does not need black boxing. Anyways, now we get a fine American discussing how he does not want to do something softcore, but maybe they can pretend they will, then actually film a hardcore porn.

Meanwhile, more sex and awful dialog that isn’t necessary to hear or talk about. In fact, the rest of the movie isn’t necessary to exist. That’s the last 45 minutes or so of the movie I’m referring to here.

Oh, yeah. Dumbass comes in dressed as Hamlet.

To watch this, or watch Gums (1976) instead. I’ll find out soon enough whether anyone should watch either of them. Dumbass does get cast in the film as the male lead because what other purpose could he possibly serve in this movie otherwise.

Meanwhile, that foreign guy tries to eat a girl out or something. Then before you know it, he rides off on his bike like he’s Italian Batman.

There’s some mix up about the casting now. At least the film knows we don’t care, so it brings out tits and the ladies attached to them to kill time.

He has a thermometer stuck up his butt here too I think. Now for the long awaiting appearance from Thor.

This is when the movie just goes on autopilot if autopilot was a program written by a grade schooler. It bounces around till it comes literally crashing into a pool at the end. With that in mind, here’s the second appearance of The Hulk.

Yes, there was sex in there too. Moving on. I like this All American’s idea.

He thinks they should take the women’s lib. approach and make the film a lesbian porn. You have to admit that if you’re in his situation, then that’s not a bad solution. It works on late night cable. The girl on girl scenes are obviously much easier to film.

Meanwhile, Mother Goose.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Some construction work goes on now for the space capsule that they are going to splash into the pool to make up for a lack of a cum shot. That’s a sentence I wrote. They clearly needed more American flags on the set.

Dumbass shows up and has a fake big penis in his shorts that the gay stereotype takes notice of before going off to pick up Miss Deep Jaws at the airport. He has some problems here. Let’s just say that Miss Deep Jaws doesn’t get that no means no.

On the plus side, he can assure them they have found the right girl for the role before running off to find Dumbass in order to measure his penis.

During this the movie Gums appears to be going on in the pool, but nothing is ever made of it. Gums being the Jaws porno spoof with a mermaid that gives blow jobs to death. Just more pointless padding in a film that is already pointless. How pointless? This sex scene being inserted in while Miss Deep Jaws harasses the gay stereotype is a fine example.

Also, I lied earlier about the lack of AMERICA! because we find out dumbasses big dick was a Captain America sock all along.

More things happen before we finally get that appearance of Spider-Man who I’m sure is honored to be here.

This walking around and talking by the pool goes on for about another 10 minutes, but then they finally drop the “space capsule” in the pool.

And movie! Or whatever this was before the blood red credits run and an actual theme song using the title plays. Oh, it’s bad as well.

In summary, it’s a horrible movie to have to sit through. In plot summary: they wanted to make a porn, but couldn’t really for some reason, so they thought they would get clever by making a movie about their very situation. It turned out like this movie. However, God bless America because only in the United States could you show this kind of garbage in theaters even in the 1970s.p

The Things You Find On Netflix: Paradox (dir by Michael Hurst)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Zoe Bell!

Zoe Bell is a kickass stuntwoman and a better than average actress. Ever since she appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, she’s had a strong cult following and there are people who will definitely watch any film in which she appears. I like her because she always plays strong, independent women who can kick ass better than any man.

But — with the exception of Death Proof and Raze — it’s hard not to feel that her unique talents have been largely wasted in many of the movies in which she has appeared. I have to admit that I even groaned a little when she showed up in The Hateful Eight, largely because I knew it would just be another pointless cameo where she would only be allowed a few minutes to talk about being from New Zealand before being killed in some dramatic fashion.

(Seriously, Quentin — we all know you love Zoe Bell so why not write her another worthwhile role, instead of just using her as your latest directorial trademark? Write her a role and a film worthy of her!)

The latest film to waste Zoe Bell is Paradox, a sci-fi slasher film that you can currently find on Netflix.

Paradox is a time travel movie and I’m a little bit hesitant to talk too much about the plot because the plot sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is. Gale (Zoe) and Jim (Adam Huss) are part of a team of scientists and engineers who have built a time machine in an underground bunker. The mysterious Mr. Landau (Malik Yorba) has shown up to be given a demonstration of how the machine works. (Meanwhile, the NSA is sitting outside the bunker, hoping to figure out what’s going on. It turns out that they have a mole working on the inside and blah blah blah…)

Now, you would think that a time machine would be a pretty cool thing to have but it turns out that the machine has a few flaws. First off, there’s the fact that the mere existence of the machine forces people to engage in ponderous dialogue about paradoxes, time loops, and whether or not the future is set in stone. Secondly, the machine also gives anyone who uses it minor brain damage. Third, after Jim uses the machine to jump forward an hour, he returns and announces that, in the future, everyone in the underground bunker has been murdered!

That’s right — there’s a killer among the scientists! Who could it be!? And could that killer possibly be working for the mysterious Stephen Devlin, a man who apparently used the time machine to become a billionaire in the future and who now has to make sure that the scientists in his past don’t destroy the machine in the present? (My head hurts after typing that.)

It’s full of twists and turns and secrets. But it really doesn’t matter because the execution is never as good as the premise. Paradox is one of those films that should be great but instead, it ends up collapsing under the weight of a low budget, a bad script, terrible performances, and indifferent direction. Zoe Bell is pretty much wasted, though she at least gets to do more here than she did in The Hateful Eight.

Paradox was given a brief and very limited theatrical run before coming over to Netflix. In fact, if not for the fact that watching Hardcore Henry actually left me feeling physically ill, I would be tempted to declare Paradox to be the worst film of the year so far.

As I said, Paradox is on Netflix right now. It’s one to avoid.

Insomnia File No. 18: Only The Strong (dir by Sheldon Lettich)

Posted on July 25, 2016 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 suffering from insomnia at one in the morning and you turned over to one of the Cinemax stations, you could have watched the 1993 film, Only The Strong.

Only The Strong is an example of a film genre that is a personal favorite of mine. This is one of those films where a dedicated but unorthodox teacher returns to his old high school and saves a bunch of troubled teenagers by teaching them how to beat the crap out of each other. (For another example, check out The Principal.) It’s hard for me to explain why I always enjoy these films. I’m always tempted to say it’s because there’s a part of me that would love to be a teacher but, honestly, that answer is way too easy. Add to that, if I was a teacher, I doubt I’d be one of the “I’m going to teach you how to beat the crap out of each other” teachers that tend to show up in these films. It seems like that would be a lot of effort.

In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever met a “I’m going to teach you how to beat the crap out of each other” type of teacher. I get the feeling that these teachers might not actually exist. Maybe that’s why I like these films. For someone, like me, who went to a very nice but somewhat boring high school in the suburbs, a film like Only The Strong is the ultimate fantasy of what high school was like.

Anyway, in Only The Strong, Mark Dacascos plays Louis Stevens. Louis was a troubled teenager but, luckily, he took a sociology class taught by Mr. Kerrigan (Geoffrey Lewis). Kerrigan taught Louis that there was something more to life than just selling drugs and getting into fights. After he graduated, Louis joined the Green Berets and spent four years living in the jungles Brazil. In Brazil, he learned capoeira, a type of martial art that combines dance, acrobatics, and kick boxing. In fact, Louis got so good at capoeira that, when he is recalled to the states, a village wiseman gives him a special instrument, a musical bow called a berimbau.

Louis returns to his old high school and visits Mr. Kerrigan. He discovers that Kerrigan has been beaten down by life and is no longer the inspiring teacher that he once was. He also discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Dianna (Stacey Travis), is now a teacher and she’s dating another teacher, Hector Cervantes (John Fionte). Hector assumes that Louis worked for the CIA in Brazil and accuses him of organizing death squads.

Annoyed by what has happened to his old high school, Louis starts to leave. However, before walking out, he uses capoeira to beat up a Jamaican drug dealer. Everyone is so impressed that Louis is soon working for the high school, teaching 12 of the school’s worst students both capoeira and self-discipline…

(To be honest, as I watched the movie last night, none of the 12 students really seemed to be that dangerous to me. It was difficult to imagine the majority of them ever committing a felony, though I could visualize more than a few of them waiting in line at Starbucks. Then I remembered that this movie was made in 1993 and perhaps it was easier to scare audiences back then.)

It doesn’t take long for Louis to start to make a difference. In fact, it only takes a four-minute training montage. Soon, those 12 students are being respectful and thinking about the future. Donavon (Ryan Bollman) is even remixing capoeira music and acting so worshipful towards Louis that you just know that he’s going to end up getting killed towards the end of the film, in order to provide Louis with the proper motivation to go out and kick some ass. Unfortunately, the local Brazilian drug lord is not happy about Louis’s influence (especially after Louis encourages the drug lord’s cousin to spend his weekend camping instead of stripping cars). Needless to say, it all leads to a violent showdown. It also all leads to one of those inspiring graduation ceremonies that always tend to pop up in movies like this.

Anyway, Only The Strong is one of those films that currently has a 0% rating at the Rotten Tomatoes but I thought it was kind of fun in its own stupid way. (It probably helps to be half-asleep when you watch it.) Even if you don’t buy into the film’s argument that it could be used to save an inner city high school, capoeira is a lot of fun to watch and Mark Dacascos has an appealing smile, which serves to set him apart from a lot of the other actors that starred in actions films in the 1990s. Only The Strong is silly but fun, making it a good film to watch at one in the morning.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Film Review: The Purge: Election Year (dir by James DeMonaco)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I had really high hopes for The Purge: Election Year.

While the first Purge film was definitely flawed, it still had an interesting and thought-provoking premise behind it. What would we do, the film forced us to ask, if we could do anything we wanted to for one night out of the year? Would you hide in your house or would you go out and randomly kill people? Yes, The Purge had its flaws but it was an interesting film.

And then, in 2014, The Purge: Anarchy was released. Anarchy was one of the best films of 2014 (a film that saw no shortage of great films). It was a big, loud, and over-the-top masterpiece of the pulp imagination, one that managed to be as thought-provoking as the first film while also keeping audiences entertained. It was a political movie, perhaps one of the most overtly political to be released over the past ten years. And yet, it was also amazingly entertaining. By further exploring the type of society that would come up with something like an annual Purge, Anarchy forced audiences to think even as it gave them reasons to cheer and hiss. For many viewers, it also served as an introduction to a tough and grizzled actor named Frank Grillo. In the role of the enigmatic but ultimately good-hearted Leo Barnes, Frank Grillo gave an outstanding performance.

Well, The Purge: Election Year continues its exploration of the culture behind the Purge. And Frank Grillo is back as Leo. It should be said that, just as he did in Anarchy, Grillo supplies Election Year with some of its best moments. Much like Clint Eastwood, Grillo can communicate an entire backstory just be squinting his eyes.

But overall, Election Year is a disappointment. As I watched it, I found myself wondering if maybe director James DeMonaco should have quit when he was ahead and ended the series with Anarchy. Anarchy pushed the idea behind The Purge about as far as it could go and it is perhaps not surprising that Election Year often feels like a rehash that was constructed out of leftovers.

Election Year finds Leo working as head of security for U.S. Sen. Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell). Charlie, who saw her family massacred during an earlier purge, is running for President on an anti-Purge platform and it appears that she’s about to overtake the candidate of the New Founding Fathers, the Rev. Edwidge Owens (Kyle Secor). The New Founding Fathers decide that the best way to take care of Charlie would be to assassinate her on Purge Night. They announce that, for the first time since the Purge began, government leaders will no longer be granted immunity.

In short, anyone can be killed!

Leo’s idea is for Charlie to stay inside during Purge Night but, if that happened, there wouldn’t be a movie. Naturally, Leo and Charlie eventually end up on the streets and they get to witness a few surreal and violent moments, none of which have quite the impact of anything we previously saw in Anarchy. They are given some assistance by a deli owner (Mykleti Williamson) and, naturally, they meet up with rebel leader Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge). Just like in the previous film, Leo is eventually forced to decide between purging and showing mercy.

And it’s really never that interesting. The whole film just falls flat. The first two Purge film worked because they convinced you that something like The Purge could actually happen. When, at the end of Anarchy, Leo chose not to murder someone, it felt like a great moment because you truly believed that Leo could have gotten away with murder if he wanted to. But Election Day is never convinces you that you’re watching anything more than a standard issue sequel. With the exception of Frank Grillo and Kyle Secor (more about him in a moment), none of the actors are particularly memorable or believable. In fact, Mykelti Williamson gives a performance that is almost amazingly bad.

I think a huge part of the problem is that the character of Charlie is never credible. Elizabeth Mitchell is a good actress and has appeared in some of my favorite TV shows (she was Juliet on Lost, for instance) but you never believe that she’s a dynamic senator who is destined to save America from itself. Every character in the film has at least one moment in which he or she is required to talk about how much they love Charlie. The film spends so much time worshipping her that it apparently forgot to make her believable.

(It’s hard not to compare Election Year to Anarchy. Anarchy advocated revolution. Election Year argues that the system will eventually correct itself, going so far as to present the revolutionaries as almost being villains because they’re not properly deferential to a wealthy white liberal.)

However, I do have to say that Election Year is occasionally elevated by the thoroughly over-the-top performance of an actor named Kyle Secor. It’s almost as if Secor alone understood that Election Year needed a jolt of pure adrenaline and, at the end of the film, he goes out of his way to provide it. He bulges his eyes. He shrieks out his lines. His entire body shakes and it’s damn near brilliant. He’s a lot of fun and his performance is probably the most entertaining thing about Election Year.

Undoubtedly, there will eventually be a sequel to Election Year. Hopefully, it’ll be an improvement.

Let’s Talk About Atomic Shark!

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In case you missed it, it is currently Shark Week on the SyFy network. (Or, as theSnarkalecs and I like to call it, Snark Week!) Sharknado 4 will be premiering on Sunday and, in honor of that historic event, SyFy has devoted this week to broadcasting some of their trademark original movies. Along with showing such classics as Jersey Shore Shark Attack and Zombie Shark, SyFy is also premiering several new shark films.

The first of those films premiered last night. And its name was ….

ATOMIC SHARK!!!!

Seriously, that’s a great name! In a few of my Lifetime reviews, I’ve pointed out that there is an art to picking the perfect title for a Lifetime film. Well, the same is true for a SyFy film. A title like Atomic Shark tells the audience everything that they need to know. On the simplest level, it lets the viewers know that the film is about a shark and that the shark is, in some way, atomic. But even beyond that, a title like Atomic Shark announces, “This is going to be a fun movie! Sit back, relax, and don’t worry too much about the specifics. Just enjoy yourself.”

As I watched the movie last night, I saw a few people on twitter worrying about things like whether or not a shark could actually become atomic or whether the characters were acting like logical human beings. Those people were missing the entire point of the film. Seriously, you have to be the world’s biggest douchebag to actually nitpick a film that has a title like Atomic Shark.

The film takes place on the San Diego shoreline. At first, it seems like a normal (if rather overcast) day at the beach. Men in speedos. Women in bikinis. Lifeguards on duty. Jeff Fahey steering a motor boat and barely noticing when a water skier is suddenly devoured by a glowing shark. A kid pretending to drown, just so he can get some mouth-to-mouth.

And then there’s the drones. There are drones flying up and down this beach. The majority of them are lifeguard drones, which are used to deliver life vests to people drowning out in the middle of the ocean. However, there are also a few drones being controlled by pervy little Fletcher (David Faustino), who films unsuspecting swimmers and joggers and then uploads the video to his site. Even when confronted by an indignant lifeguard, Fletcher responds, “The beach is public domain!”

Well, the beach may be public domain but it’s about the become … atomic domain!

That’s right, there’s a glowing shark out there and it’s hungry! Not only is it eating people but, because it’s radioactive, it’s setting them on fire too! In fact, this shark is so radioactive that it’s causing sea food to become explosive. When the local restaurant blows up, the authorities blame it on a gas leak but we know it was because of the radioactive plankton.

(The film also lets us know that the restaurant had four stars on Yelp before the explosion and only three stars after.)

Unfortunately, only one person truly believes in the existence of atomic shark. Gina (Rachele Brooke Smith) is the greatest lifeguard who ever lived but, unfortunately, her superior, Reese (Adam Ambruso), is a dumbass jerk who doesn’t understand that workplace sexual harassment is no longer acceptable. Since Gina can’t get any support from the authorities, she gathers together her own group of shark hunters and, before you cay say, “We’re going to need a bigger boat,” they set out to destroy the atomic shark!

One of those shark hunters is the boat captain played by Jeff Fahey and I have to say that I was so happy when I realized that Fahey was in this movie. Jeff Fahey is one of those immensely likable actors who can make almost any line of dialogue memorable. Playing the Quint role here, Fahey is a lot of fun. Also deserving a lot of credit is Rachele Brooke Smith, who kicks so much ass as the no-nonsense Gina that I found myself thinking that, in case Gal Gadot demands too much money to reprise her role, Smith could easily take over her role in any future Wonder Woman films.

As the film’s screenwriter, Griff Furst, pointed out on twitter, Atomic Shark is a comedy. Taking it seriously is definitely the biggest mistake that a viewer could make. This is a movie that was meant to be watched with a group of your loudest and snarkiest friends. It’s a lot of fun.

(That said, just because it’s comedy, that doesn’t mean that anyone’s safe. This is the rare shark film where you’re actually shocked when a few characters fail to escape the nuclear menace of atomic shark.)

Atomic Shark is a lot of fun and it was a great way to start Shark Snark Week on SyFy!

The Big Let-Down: CHANDLER (MGM 1971)

Posted on July 23, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

“Some (producers) are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur”- Raymond Chandler, “Writers in Hollywood”, first published in Esquire Magazine, Nov. 1945

I had high hopes for CHANDLER, I really did. An homage to the hard-boiled fiction of Raymond Chandler (born July 23, 1888) with Warren Oates as the titular detective sounded like it’d be right up my dark alley. But as much as I wanted to like this movie, I was let down by its slow pace, convoluted script, and butchering by studio execs. Much of the film was cut, scenes were replaced, and the result is an evocative mood piece that ultimately doesn’t satisfy the noir lover in me.

I don’t have a problem with Warren Oates as Chandler, with his Bogie-esque look and low-key performance…

View original post 342 more words

That’s Blaxploitation! 7: TROUBLE MAN (20th Century-Fox 1972)

Posted on July 21, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

One of the earliest Blaxploitaion films is TROUBLE MAN, a 1972 entry about Mr T…

…no, not THAT Mr. T! THIS Mr. T…

Thank you! This Mr. T is played by Robert Hooks, a tough talking private eye who drives a big-ass Lincoln Continental and “fixes troubles” on the mean streets of L.A. T gets hired by gangsters Chalky Price and Pete Cockrell to protect their crap games, which are getting ripped off by masked gunmen. Things go awry when Chalky shoots one of the heisters, a dude named Abby who works for rival gangster “Big”. Abby’s body is dumped and word is on the streets T did the killing. Police Capt. Joe Marx puts the heat on T, as does “Big”, so T arranges a late night summit between “Big”, Chalky, and Pete at Jimmy’s Pool Hall . “Big” arrives, but before Chalky and Pete do, some cops raid the joint. These…

View original post 373 more words