Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #15: Stranger In The House (dir by Allan Harmon)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 15th film on my DVR was Stranger In The House, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on April 10th.

Stranger In The House opens with a stab at relevance by including news reports of Wall Street bailouts and footage of Occupy protesters running around in their Guy Fawkes masks. (Though I’m sure they would probably call them V For Vendetta masks.) I have to admit that, when I first saw that footage, I was worried. I didn’t know if I could particularly take a Lifetime version of The Big Short.

Fortunately, the rest of the film has nothing to do with any of that. Instead, it’s a rather enjoyable and somewhat over-the-top Lifetime melodrama, one that makes no pretense of providing anything other than wonderfully sordid entertainment.

Super-rich businessman Wayne (John Novak) has been crippled in a car crash and, now confined to a wheelchair, he goes out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He’s nearly impossible to live with and his daughter and chief caretaker, Jade (Emmanuelle Vaugier), desperately needs a vacation from him. On top of that, she’s just married the handsome but somewhat mysterious Marco (Matthew McCaull) and they want to take their honeymoon. So, jade hires a caretaker to look after Wayne while they’re gone.

At first, Wayne doesn’t much like his caretaker. Sure, Samantha (Jordana Largy) may be attractive and enthusiastic but she’s into stuff like yoga and Wayne’s too cantankerous for all that. However, we then get a five-minute montage in which we see Wayne slowly start to lower his defenses. Soon, he and Samantha are smiling and laughing and kissing. When Jade and Marco return, they are shocked by just how close Wayne and Samantha have become…

Then Wayne mentions that he and Samantha have gotten married and all Hell breaks loose.

Jade is convinced that Samantha only married Wayne for his money and she grows even more frustrated when Marco suggests that maybe she should give Samantha a chance. Wayne certainly appears to be happy and he’s even washing his hair again! But then one day, Wayne is found dead at the bottom of a cliff and it turns out that he’s left all of his money to Samantha!

Jade believes that Samantha murdered Wayne. It doesn’t help that Samantha isn’t acting like a grieving widow. Instead, she’s laughing and drinking and constantly complaining about having to wear black all the time. If that’s not strange enough, Samantha and Marco seem to have suddenly grown very close.

How close?

Close enough that they’re ducking into a bedrooms and broom closets so that they can make out…

And that all happens in the first forty minutes! Now, I’m not going to spoil the rest of the movie but I will say that this is one of those Lifetime movies where things just keep getting stranger and stranger. In fact, it’s almost ludicrous how melodramatic things get but that’s why it’s fun! This is one of those films that is so over-the-top and fun that you would have to be a real killjoy to complain about whether or not it actually makes any sense.

After all, logic really isn’t the point here. Stranger In The House is all about style and that’s something that it definitely has. This is a sleek, fun melodrama and one for which I would suggest keeping an eye out.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #14: Decision Before Dawn (dir by Anatole Litvak)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I’m currently in the process of cleaning out my DVR by watching the 40 films that I recorded from March to June of this year. Yesterday, I watched the 14th film on my DVR, the 1951 film Decision Before Dawn.

Decision Before Dawn aired on April 9th on FXM and I specifically recorded it because it was nominated for best picture. It only received one other nomination (for editing) and it’s one of those nominees that often seems to be dismissed by Oscar historians. Whenever Decision Before Dawn is mentioned, it’s usually because it’s being unfavorably compared to the other nominees: A Place In The Sun, A Streetcar Named Desire, and An American In Paris. I went into Decision Before Dawn with very low expectations but you know what?

Decision Before Dawn is not a bad film. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that it’s actually a damn good film. If you’re into war films — and, admittedly, I am not — you will love Decision Before Dawn. If, like me, you’re a history nerd, you’ll be fascinated by the fact that, since this film was shot on location, Decision Before Dawn offers a chance to see what Europe looked like in the years immediately following the destruction of World War II.

As I mentioned, I’m not really into war movies but fortunately, Decision Before Dawn takes place during World War II. World War II is one of the few wars where there’s no real ambiguity about whether or not the war needed to be fought. When it comes to picking a villain that everyone can hate, Adolf Hitler and his followers are petty much the perfect villains to go with.

In Decision Before Dawn, Oskar Werner plays Karl Maurer, a German soldier who deserts after his best friend is executed for insubordination. Though Karl loves his home country, he hates the Nazis who have taken it over. Karl surrenders to the Americans and volunteers to return to Germany to act as a spy. Karl finds himself in a strange situation. Though he’s fighting against the Nazis, he is also mistrusted by the Allies. He is literally a man without a country.

When word comes down that a German general is willing to surrender, Karl and another German soldier-turned-spy, the greedy and cowardly Sgt. Barth (Hans Christian Bleth), are sent into Germany to both find out if the information is true and to find out where another division of German soldiers is located. Accompanying the two Germans is a bitter American, Lt. Dick Rennick (Richard Basehart). Rennick doesn’t trust either of the Germans.

While Rennick and Barth track down the surrendering General, Karl is sent to track down the other division. Along the way, Karl visits many bombed out German towns and meets Germans of every political persuasion. Some of them still vainly cling to hope for victory over the Allies but the majority of them are like Hilde (Hildegard Knef), a young war widow who just desperately wants the fighting to end. Thanks to the deeply empathetic performances of Werner and Knef, the scenes between Hilde and Karl elevate the entire film. In those scenes, Decision Before Dawn becomes more than just a war film. It becomes a portrait of men and women trapped by circumstances that they cannot control.

Decision Before Dawn is an exciting and well-acted thriller, one that starts slow but then builds up to a truly thrilling conclusion. Anatole Litvak directs the film almost as if it were a film noir, filling the entire screen with menacing shadows and moody set pieces. Decision Before Dawn is a war film that does not celebrate war but instead mourns the evil that men do and argues that sometimes the most patriotic thing that one can do is defy his or her government. It may be one of the more obscure best picture nominees but it’s still one that deserves to be rediscovered.

By the way, if you do watch Decision Before Dawn, be sure to keep an eye out for Klaus Kinski. He only appears for a minute or two and he’s not even credited but you’ll recognize him as soon as you see him. The eyes give him away as soon as he shows up.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Independence Day: Resurgence (dir by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, who cares?

Sorry, I know that’s like an ultra unprofessional way to open a review but Independence Day: Resurgence is one of the least inspiring films that I’ve ever seen. Jeff and I saw it the day that it opened and, at the time, I was planning on reviewing it the next day. But when I sat down to actually write about the movie … well, I discovered that I could hardly care less. This is one of those films that I could have easily waited until December to review. However, seeing as today is Independence Day, this seemed to be the right time to say something about it.

Memorable movies inspire. Good movies inspire love. Bad movies inspire hate. A movie like Independence Day: Resurgence inspires apathy.

Actually, what’s really frustrating about Independence Day: Resurgence is that it starts out with such promise. The first few scenes suggest that maybe the film is trying to be something more than just another “let’s blow shit up while stars get quippy” action film. Independence Day: Resurgence imagines an alternative history for post-alien invasion Earth and it’s actually pretty clever. Earthlings have taken advantage of the alien technology but society has also become heavily militaristic. The main characters of the first film are all revered as heroes but, when we first meet former President Whitmore (Bill Pullman, with a wise old man beard), he’s having nightmares about the invasion.

And seriously, for the first 30 minutes or so, I really thought that Independence Day: Resurgence might turn out to be surprisingly clever, that maybe it would satirize the excesses of the original while subtly critiquing everything that’s fucked up about our real world.

Well, that was a mistake on my part. There is no satire. There is no critique. Instead, it’s just another alien invasion film and it’s all terribly predictable. It may be a sequel to the first Independence Day but it feels more like a rip-off of Battle: Los Angeles. Considering what the film could have been, it’s impossible not to be disappointed by how familiar and uninspired it all is.

What I failed to take into account is that this film was directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich is a director who is best distinguished by his total lack of self-awareness. After all, this is the director who, in Anonymous, seriously suggested that William Shakespeare personally murdered Christopher Marlowe. Watching Independence Day: Resurgence and listening to the generic dialogue and witnessing the generic mayhem, I started to get the sinking feeling that the film was a joke and that Emmerich was the only person on the planet who was not in on it. He doesn’t realize how predictable his movies are or that his characters are cardboard cut-outs or that the film’s inspiring moments are so overdone that they instead become groan-inducing. One of the stars of the first film sacrifices himself in Resurgence and you know who it’s going to be from the minute he shows up onscreen. Emmerich is not a good enough director to make his sacrifice touching. The fact that the film ends with the promise of a sequel is not surprising and yet, it still somehow manages to be annoyingly presumptive. The film’s ending seems to be taunting us. “Of course, you’re going to want to sit through this shit for a third time…what other choice do you have?”

In the film’s defense, the cast is big and it includes a lot of good actors. Unfortunately, the characters are so undeveloped that you again find yourself regretting what a waste it all is. Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch are both likable but Bill Pullman seems to be incredibly bored with the whole thing. Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, and Maika Monroe are all stuck playing typical Emmerich ciphers.

I should mention that, despite how negative this review may sound, I did not hate Independence Day: Resurgence, at least not in the way that I’ve hated other films, like Anonymous or the remake of Straw Dogs. My problem with Resurgence isn’t that I hated it or even that I disliked it. It’s that I didn’t feel much about it, one way or the other. It’s one of those film that is best described as “just kinda being there.” Apathy is the worst thing that a film can inspire.

Perhaps the best thing about Independence Day: Resurgence is that Roland Emmerich has protected the holiday from being co-opted by Garry Marshall.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #154: Where’s My Baby? (dir by David Winning)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Sunday night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Where’s My Baby?

Lochlyn Munro, the patron saint of Canadian-produced Lifetime melodrama and co-star of Where’s My Baby?

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh, why not?

Sorry, I’m trying to come a funny and/or interesting reason why I decided to watch Where’s My Baby? but the main answer is that it was on the Lifetime Movie Network and there was nothing else on. Game of Thrones is on break. Veep is on break. There’s no killer zombies on AMC and I can’t watch Preacher because I resent its inaccurate portrayal of my home state.

So, with all that in mind, I figured why not see what was premiering on LMN!

What Was It About?

Marissa Davis (Nicole de Boer) wakes up after having spent the past five years in a coma. She has no memory of how she came to be in that coma but she’s still happy to be awake. She’s especially happy to discover that her best friend, Heather (Gina Holden), is married to Congressman Cal Ward (Lochlyn Munro). Cal seems like a nice guy but he’s running for the Senate and talking about how much he believes in traditional values and we all know that, in a Lifetime movie, anyone who talks about values is eventually going to turn out to be a huge hypocrite.

Marissa is disturbed to discover that 1) she was the victim of a mysterious hit and run and that 2) she has a C-section scar. Her mother (Iris Quinn) finally tells her that she was pregnant when she was hit by the car. Her mother also assures her that the baby was delivered stillborn.

Meanwhile, Heather and Cal have a 5 year-old daughter! What a coincidence! And the baby appears to have the same hereditary kidney disorder that runs in Marissa’s family. What could that possibly mean? And, for that matter, why is a mysterious doctor suddenly so obsessed with removing Marissa’s kidney?

What Worked?

Oh my God, I so love these insane Lifetime movies. Where’s My Baby is shameless fun, the type of movie that you simply cannot stop watching once it has begun. The movie starts out crazy and it just keeps going from there!

Add to that, there’s a general rule when it comes to Lifetime films. If Lochlyn Munro is in it, the film cannot be bad. Lochlyn Munro has appeared in so many Lifetime films that, to some of us, he’s become the patron saint of the network.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked. When a film is that insanely over the top, there’s no way that it can’t work.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

To be honest, there really weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments. I’ve never suffered from amnesia. As anyone who has ever gotten on my bad side can tell you, I never forget.

Never.

Lessons Learned

If you wake up with amnesia, don’t take anyone’s word for what happened while you were asleep. Investigate for yourself. Seriously, that’s a lesson to live by.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #153: Newlywed and Dead (dir by Penelope Buitenhuis)

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the Lifetime premiere movie, Newlywed and Dead!

Why Was I Watching It?

There were a lot of reasons why I was watching Newlywed And Dead. The main reason was that it was on Lifetime and watching, live tweeting, and reviewing Lifetime movies is one of the many things that I do!

Beyond that, I thought Newlywed and Dead was an absolutely brilliant title. That title pretty much sums everything that we love about Lifetime movies, doesn’t it?

And finally, the movie starred Shenae Grimes-Beech! Back when she was just Shenae Grimes (and before she showed up on 90210), she played Darcy Edwards on Degrassi! Darcy was always one of my favorite characters on Degrassi. Whether she was plotting to break Paige’s leg during a Spirit Squad routine, getting stalked as a result of the pictures she posted on MySpace (or MyRoom as Degrassi called it), leading prayers at Friendship Club, falsely accusing Mr. Simpson of sexual harassment, or encouraging Spinner to go to class stoned, Darcy was the best!

What Was It About?

Kristen Ward (Shenae Grimes-Beech) would appear to have the perfect life. She not only lives in a beautiful valley but she works for handsome developer, Jay Morgan (Christopher Russell). In fact, she not only works for him but she’s also married to him! Of course, some people are concerned about Kristen marrying a man that she barely knows but Kristen knows that their love is true. Even when she discovers that, 10 years earlier, Jay was arrested for assault, she doesn’t let that worry her. Who doesn’t have a criminal record?

But then Jay’s aunt, Barbara (Venus Terzo), takes Kristen to the house where Jay grew up. And Kristen sees a painting of Jay’s mother and notices that his mother looks just like her! Considering that Jay’s mother died under mysterious circumstances, Kristen starts to get worried.

Then Aunt Barbara dies under equally mysterious circumstances…

And Kristen starts to get really worried…

What Worked?

Shamelessly melodramatic and just a little bit campy, Newlywed and Dead was everything that we love about Lifetime films. I’ve often felt that the best thing about Lifetime films is knowing that people across the country are all saying, “Girl, don’t trust him!” at the same time that you are. Watching a Lifetime movie is meant to be a communal experience, whether you’re forcing your sister or your BFF to watch with you or if you’re watching with a bunch of people on twitter. Newlywed and Dead is definitely a film that should be watched with a group of your favorite people.

Beyond that, I liked the film’s look. The mansions were opulent and the scenery was beautiful to look at. There was one room that had way too much blue in it but otherwise, Newlywed and Dead was a feast for the eyes.

What Did Not Work?

As I watched the film, I kept waiting for that one unexpected twist that would transform it from being a very good Lifetime film to a great Lifetime film. All great Lifetime films have that one moment where something totally insane happens. While Newlywed and Dead features a lot of entertaining insanity, it never had the one moment.

(For example, I kept expecting Jay to reveal that he had an evil twin brother named Ray. But it never happened.)

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I always relate to any character played by Shenae Grimes-Beech.

Lessons Learned

Never marry your boss.

Film Review: The Shallows (dir by Jaume Collet-Serra)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you seen The Shallows yet?

The Shallows was released last week, to strong box office and surprisingly good reviews. Ever since it came out, people have been telling me, “You have got to see The Shallows!” Well, I finally did see it earlier today and you know what? I should have seen it earlier. The Shallows is one of the best films of the year so far.

Now, I have to admit that, even before I saw the film, I was pretty sure that I was going to like it. Just from watching the trailer, The Shallows looked like a big-budget Asylum film or maybe a mainstream version of Shark Exorcist. After all, here we had a movie about a blonde in bikini being menaced by a giant shark while stranded on a rock in the middle of the ocean. It looked like it would be one of those big, over-the-top nature-gone-crazy movies that I always enjoy watching on SyFy.

And, to a certain extent, it is. The Shallows was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, a Spanish director whose previous work would seem to indicate an appreciation for old school grindhouse and drive-in cinema. There’s really not a subtle moment to be found in The Shallows. The shark is huge and whenever it finds something to eat, the ocean turns red with blood and while this grudge-holding shark may not behave like a real-life shark, it does behave like a movie shark. When, at the start of the film, Lively is on her surfboard and blissfully unaware of the danger under the sea, girl power anthems blast on the soundtrack. Whenever the camera briefly pans underwater for a shot from the shark’s point of view, the music suddenly becomes ominous and full of menace. The action is nearly non-stop, pausing only occasionally for a few moments when the camera lingers on Lively either stretching on the beach or resting on the rock and yet the cinematography is so stunning and Lively’s performance is so great that these shots don’t feel exploitive but instead celebrate her both her outer and her inner strength. Undoubtedly, a lot of people are buying tickets because Blake Lively spends most of the movie in a bikini but The Shallows is still one of the most empowering films of the summer.

That’s right, I just said that Blake Lively gives a great performance. I have to admit that, despite loving Gossip Girl, I was never really sold on Blake Lively as an actress until I saw her in The Shallows. I thought she was wasted in The Town and her performance in Savages left me so annoyed that I was literally screaming in the theater. But no matter — Blake Lively proves herself to truly be a talented actress in The Shallows. From the minute she appears onscreen, you’re on her side. You’re happy for her when she finally gets to surf the beach that her recently deceased mother surfed when she was young. You fear for her when the shark makes its first blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance. And when she’s stranded on that rock, fighting for her own survival and trying to figure out a way to close a huge gash on her leg (and this was a scene that I literally watched through my fingers), you find yourself truly fearful that she’ll never be rescued. (One of the strengths of the film is that you’re never fully convinced that Lively is going to survive her ordeal.) Blake Lively gives a performance here that I would compare to James Franco’s breakthrough work in 127 Hours.

Actually, a lot of the scenes in The Shallows reminded me of 127 Hours. For that matter, there were also a few scenes that reminded me of Wild and, of course, the Jaws influence was obvious as well. The Shallows is a derivative film but, to its credit, it borrows from the best and Collet-Serra always manages to add his own individual spin to even the film’s most predictable moments.

Along with Lively’s performance and Collet-Serra’s direction, there are three other things that make The Shallows special.

Number one, it features an amazing seagull. The seagull, which has an injured wing, spends most of the movie hanging out with Blake Lively on that rock and provides her with some much needed companionship. The seagull also happens to be a helluva actor and, at times, I found myself even more worried about the seagull’s survival than Lively’s. According to the credits, the seagull’s name is Sully and he better get some love from the Academy next January.

Number two, there’s a scene in which two soon-to-be-doomed surfers ask Blake Lively if she’s from California. “No,” Lively replies, “Texas!” From the minute she said that, all of us at the Alamo Drafthouse were on her side. And, just in case any of you northerners have any doubts, people do surf in Texas. Just ask anyone who has ever spent spring break in Galveston or Corpus Christi.

Finally, The Shallows is a short movie and, after sitting through so many overlong movies, it was nice to see a movie that was direct and to the point and which did not include any unnecessary padding. The Shallows only needed 86 minutes to tell its story and not a minute more!

(Compare the 86-minute The Shallows to the 151-minute Batman v Superman and you’ll understand what film critics mean when they complain about a film being overlong.)

With its truly breathtaking shots of the ocean and it’s nonstop action, The Shallows is a film that you owe it to yourself to see on a big screen. So get to it!

Creature Double Feature: THE BLACK SCORPION (1957) and THE KILLER SHREWS (1959)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Back in the glory days of local television, Boston’s WLVI-TV (Channel 56) ran a Saturday afternoon movie series titled “Creature Double Feature”. It was a huge ratings hit during the 1970’s, introducing young viewers to the BEM (bug-eyed monsters) movies of the past. Let’s return now to those halcyon days of yesterday with a look at two sci-fi flicks from the fabulous 50’s.

First up is THE BLACK SCORPION, a 1957 giant monster movie from Warner Brothers. This low-budget saga starts off with stock footage of volcanos erupting and earthquakes a-quaking, and a hyperbolic narrator expounding on natural disasters threatening Mexico. Two brawny geologists, Hank and Artur, investigate the devastation. While out scouting they run into beautiful rancher Teresa Alvarez, whose vaqueros have fled the hacienda in fear. After getting them back on the ranch, our scientists attend an autopsy of a dead Mexican cop (the doctor performing the autopsy looks like he…

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More Of Bronson’s Best: Mr. Majestyk (1974, directed by Richard Fleischer)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

Mr_Majestyk_movie_poster What happens when you combine the great tough guy writer Elmore Leonard with the great tough guy actor Charles Bronson?

You get Mr. Majestyk, one of Bronson’s finest films.

Vince Majestyk (Bronson) may be a former U.S. Army Ranger instructor and a decorated Vietnam vet but now that he has returned home to Colorado, all he cares about is running his watermelon farm. With a lucrative harvest approaching, Majestyk hires a group of unionized Mexican migrant workers, led by the fiery Linda Chavez (Linda Cristal), to pick his crops. When a local criminal named Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo) shows up and demands that Majestyk hire his drunken crew instead, Majestyk does what Bronson does best. He gives Kopas an ass-kickin’ beat down.

After Kopas charges him with assault, the local police arrest Majestyk and, despite his request that he be allowed three days to finish harvesting his crop, Majestyk is thrown in jail. Also in the jail is a Mafia hitman named Frank Renda (Al Lettieri). Renda may be a tough guy but nobody’s tougher than Vince Majestyk. When Renda’s associates attempt to hijack a prison bus, Majestyk ends up hijacking it instead. Majestyk plans to hold Renda hostage until the police agree to give him his three days of freedom so he can get back to his farm. Renda even offers to pay him off but Majestyk doesn’t care about his money. He just cares about melons.

Because he was the only 1970s action star who could be believable as both a decorated combat veteran and a no-nonsense watermelon farmer, Charles Bronson is the only actor who could have brought Mr. Majestyk to life. Before he became an actor, Bronson worked for a living. From the age of ten until he enlisted in the Army, Bronson worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines, earning one dollar for each ton of coal that he mined. Though Bronson was never a great actor, his legitimately working class background allowed him to bring an authenticity to a role like Vince Majestyk that most other actors would have lacked. When Bronson says that all he cares about is bringing in the harvest on time, you believe him just as much as you believe him when he’s beating up Paul Koslo or hijacking a prison bus.

The rest of the cast is full of good 1970s actors who have never really been given their due. Al Lettieri may be best known for playing Sollozzo in The Godfather but he also does a good job as Frank Renda. Paul Koslo plays another one his sleazy villains here and does a great job as Bobby Kopas.

Mr. Majestyk was directed by Richard Fleischer but, with its colorful characters, working class hero, and modernized brand of frontier justice, the film is clearly the work of Elmore Leonard. Though Mr. Majestyk is credited as being based on a novel by Leonard, Leonard actually wrote the screenplay before the novel.

The combination of Elmore Leonard and Charles Bronson makes Mr. Majestyk one of the best action films of the 1970s.

majestyk_rifle

Bronson’s Best: The Stone Killer (1973, directed by Michael Winner)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

Stone_killer After tough New York detective Lou Torrey (Charles Bronson) lands in hot water for shooting and killing a teenage cop killer, he moves to Los Angeles and gets a job with the LAPD. Working under an unsympathetic supervisor (Norman Fell), saddled with an incompetent partner (Ralph Waite), and surrounded by paper pushing bureaucrats, Torrey still tries to uphold the law and dispense justice whenever he can. When a heroin dealer is murdered while in Torrey’s custody, Torrey suspects that it might be a part of a larger conspiracy, involving mobster Al Vescari (Martin Balsam).

Vescari is plotting something big. It has been nearly 40 since the “Sicilian Vespers,” the day when Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Busy Siegel killed all of the original mafia dons at the same time. Viscari has invited mafia leaders from across the country to attend a special anniversary dinner. During the dinner, all of Vescari’s rivals will be assassinated. To keep things a secret, Vescari will not be using any of his usual hitmen. Instead, he has contracted a group of mentally unstable Vietnam vets, led by Lawrence (Stuart Margolin).

Charles Bronson has always been an underrated film star. His legacy has been tarnished by the cheap films he made for Cannon and, unlike Clint Eastwood, he never got a chance to really take control of his career and reinvent his image. But during the 1970s, not even Clint Eastwood was a more convincing action star than Charles Bronson. Bronson may have never been a great actor but he was an authentic tough guy with a physical presence that dominated the screen.

It was during this period that Bronson made his first four movies with director Michael Winner. Though Death Wish and The Mechanic are the best known, The Stone Killer may be the best. Tough, gritty, and action-packed with a great car chase, The Stone Killer was filmed on location in Los Angeles and some of the best parts are just the scenes of Bronson awkwardly interacting with the local, California culture. If you have ever wanted to see Charles Bronson deal with a bunch of hippies, this is the film to see. The Stone Killer also has more of social conscience than the usual 70s cop film, with Bronson’s character not only condemning excessive police brutality but also his racist partner.

(Ironically, Bronson and Winner would follow The Stone Killer with Death Wish, a film that many critics condemned as being racist and which suggested that the police were not being brutal enough.)

The other thing that sets The Stone Killer apart is that it has a great cast, featuring several actors who would go on to find success on television. Balsam, Fell, and especially Waite and Margolin are all great. Keep an eye out for a very young John Ritter, playing one of the only cops in the film who is not portrayed as being either corrupt or incompetent.

Though it may not be as well-known as some of his other action films, The Stone Killer is one of Bronson’s best.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #13: Final Destiny (dir by Michel Poulette)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In an effort to clean out my DVR and make room for endless episodes of reality television (not to mention the Olympics), I am currently in the process of watching the 40* films that I recorded from the beginning of March to the end of June. The 13th film on my DVR was Final Destiny, which originally aired on the Lifetime movie network on April 3rd.

This will be a quick one. Usually, I try to come up with at least 500 words for every movie that I review but it’s going to be a struggle as far as Final Destiny is concerned. There’s really just not much to say about this particular film.

According to the imdb, Final Destiny was originally entitled Brace For Impact and I assume that the title was changed in an effort to fool viewers into thinking that Final Destiny had something to do with the Final Destination films. Well, Final Destiny does start out with a scenario that could be lifted from one of those films. Sofia Gilchrest (Kerry Condon) gets on an airplane with her brother, Shane (Ian Lake). Right before the plane is scheduled to take off, Sofia gets the feeling that something bad is going to happen. She freaks out and she’s kicked off the plane. The plane then takes off and crashes, killing her brother.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that this film has in common with Final Destination. The plane crash does not lead to a series of increasingly macabre accidents as death attempts to correct itself by killing Sofia. Tony Todd never shows up to talk about destiny. There’s no humor, which is a shame because Final Destiny could have used some humor.

(The only humor comes from the fact that, beyond ripping off a more successful franchise, Final Destiny makes absolutely no sense as a title! That said, Brace For Impact was kind of a crappy title too…)

Instead, Final Destiny turns into a plodding procedural. It turns out that Sofia is a flight crash investigator, which means that she now gets to investigate the crash that her killed brother. Or, at least, it would if not for the fact that all of Sofia’s colleagues are totally corrupt and have no faith in her abilities. It turns out that, in the past, Sofia has been too quick to assume that every plane crash was the result of a conspiracy. Plus, she is such a careful investigator that it sometimes takes her years to determine why a plane crashed. The government wants quick answers but Sofia would rather be right than be fast!

But here’s the problem with the movie: Sofia is a totally unlikable character. That’s a bold statement to make about someone who is investigating the death of her brother but, even with that added layer of motivation, Sofia still comes across as being shrill, self-centered, and generally unpleasant.

It also doesn’t help that the cause of the crash is pretty obvious from the start. About an hour into the movie, Sofia figures out that it was the act of domestic terrorists and then she spends the rest of the movie telling everyone that it was the work of domestic terrorists and then, at the end of the movie, she’s like, “Yep, domestic terrorism,” and that’s pretty much it.

There, of course, are a few subplots but none of the subplots are that interesting. Sofia’s mother is shocked to discover that Shane was gay. Sofia’s best friend is discriminated against because of his religion. Sofia is angry because she didn’t get a promotion. It’s all really predictable and it doesn’t add up too much.

In the end, Final Destiny didn’t even feel like a movie. It felt like a pilot for a TV show that nobody would want to watch. If ever a film needed Tony Todd to show up and start talking about life and death, it was this one.

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*Yes, I know that I originally said I would have to watch 36 films to clean out my DVR but I recorded 4 more films since making that statement. So now, it’s 40 films but I’m still hoping to be finished with the series by the end of next week.