The 1942 horror classic Cat People is often described as being a horror film where, up until the last few minutes, the monsters are mostly psychological. And there is some definite truth to that. The title creatures remain a mystery for the majority of the film and, up until those final minutes, the audience would have every right to wonder whether or not they actually existed. This is a film that seems to take place almost totally in the shadows, a film noir without detectives or gangsters but featuring a memorable and compelling femme fatale.
However, I would argue that there is a monster who is present on-screen long before the audience first sees the shadowy form of a cat person. That monster is named Louis Judd and he’s the true villain of this story. As played by Tom Conway, Louis Judd is a psychiatrist and, from the minute we first see him, we know that he’s not to be trusted. He’s far too smooth for his own good and his soothing tones barely disguise the arrogant condescension behind his words. If his pencil-thin mustache didn’t make him sinister enough, Dr. Judd also keeps a sword concealed inside of his walking stick.
Irena Reed (Simone Simon) is one of Dr. Judd’s patients. A fashion designer from Serbia, Irena has recently married an engineer named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Despite the fact that she loves Olivier, she cannot bring herself to be intimate with him. As Dr. Judd discovers, Irena fears that she has been cursed and, if she ever allows herself to become aroused, she will be transformed into a panther. Dr. Judd repeatedly tells her that her belief is just superstition and that her fears are the result of repressed trauma from her childhood. When Irena refuses to accept his diagnosis and continues to insist that she is cursed, Dr. Judd assumes that he can prove her wrong by forcing himself on her. (Big mistake.)
Meanwhile, Oliver loves Irena but her refusal to consummate their marriage is driving him away. He finds himself growing more and more attracted to his co-worker, Alice (Jane Randolph). At first, Irena is upset to discover that Oliver has been telling Alice about their problems. But eventually Irena realizes that all she can do is watch as Oliver and Alice grow closer and closer. Irena knows that she can’t give Oliver what he desires but the confident and outspoken Alice can. As Irena grows more and more jealous, Alice starts to feel as if she’s being watched and followed. She starts to hear growls in the shadows and when she’s at her most vulnerable — swimming alone at night — she is shocked when Irena suddenly appears and demands to know where Oliver is.
And really, that’s what makes Cat People such a great film. It’s not necessarily a scary film, at least not to modern audiences. Sadly, we have seen so much graphic real-life horror and have become so jaded by CGI that we’re no longer scared by the mere cinematic suggestion of a monster. But the film still works because we can relate to both Irena and Alice. When I look over my relationships, I can see times when I’ve been both the insecure Irena and the confident Alice. For a film where the word “sex” is never uttered once, Cat People is a penetratingly honest look at relationships, love, and sexuality.
I’ve always loved Asia Argento because, as both an actress and a public personality, she is tough, hard, and sexy all at the same time. She’s not one of those actresses who feels the need to hide who she really is. Watching her on-screen, you realize that she doesn’t give a fuck whether you like her or not. Instead, she’s going to do whatever it is that she wants to do and, if you’re lucky, you might get to watch. Some hold her responsible for the erratic output of Dario Argento’s post-Opera career but those people far too often fail to take into account that Asia, with her naturally off-center presence, has often been the most interesting thing about Dario’s later films. (Say what you will about Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome, and Mother of Tears, they’re all better with Asia than without her.) Asia Argento is one of those talented actresses who could never have played Ophelia because no one would ever believe that she would so easily drown. Instead, she’d simply pull herself out of the water and then go kick Hamlet’s ass for being so indecisive.
If that paragraph sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the exact same paragraph that I used to start my review of Asia Argento’s directorial debut, Scarlet Diva. I have no shame about recycling that paragraph for my review of Asia Argento’s third directorial effort, Misunderstood, largely because Misunderstood is, in many ways, a companion piece to Scarlet Diva. Whereas Scarlet Diva was based on Asia Argento’s life as an international film star, Misunderstood is based on her famously dysfunctional childhood. And, much as your enjoyment of Scarlet Diva was dependent upon how much you already knew about Asia’s life, how you feel about Misunderstood depends on whether you know that nine year-old Aria (Giulia Salerno) will eventually grow up to be Asia Argento.
Aria is the daughter of celebrities. Her father (Gabriel Garko) is a famous actor who appears to be incapable of maintaining any sort of emotional attachment with his family. Her mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg, made up to look like Asia’s real-life mother, the actress Daria Nicolodi) is an unstable and emotional musician who bitterly feels that she’s sacrificed her career for both her husband and her children. She spends her time dramatically playing her piano and angrily arguing with the neighbors.
When we first meet Garko and Gainsbourg, they’re shouting at each other while eating dinner, a scene that should be painfully familiar to far too many of us. It’s not surprising when Gainsbourg and Garko tell their three daughters that they are getting a divorce. One of the daughters — who is obsessed with the color pink — goes to live with Garko. Another daughter stays with Gainsbourg. As for Aria, she finds herself constantly shuttling back and forth between her parents. The film’s dominant image becomes one of Aria walking down a street, often between homes, while carrying a black cat with her. (Her cat, by the way, is named Dac. My black cat is named Doc. That’s just one of the many things that made me relate to poor Aria.) Aria is desperate to be loved but she’s almost too desperate. Even her best friend eventually says that Aria is too clingy.
Misunderstood has been getting mixed reviews here in the States but anyone who has ever had to watch her parents split up will be able to relate to Misunderstood. As I said, it helps to know that Aria will eventually grow up to be Asia Argento because, otherwise, parts of the film would be almost unbearably sad. For those unfamiliar with Argento’s previous directorial efforts (Scarlet Diva and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things), it may take a while to get used to her exaggerated directorial style but, ultimately, it must be remembered that the film is not meant to be a literal representation of reality. Instead, we are seeing things through the prism of the adult Asia’s memories of her dysfunctional childhood. Asia Argento also proves herself to be a great director of actors and Charlotte Gainsbourg gives an amazing performance as an all-too human monster.
Reading some of the reviews of this film, all I can say is that many critics have misunderstood Misunderstood. Is Aria always likable? Of course not. Does the film occasionally attempt to alienate the audience? Yes, it does. However, that’s always been the appeal of Asia Argento. Largely as a result of the childhood that inspired Misunderstood, she never feels the need to pander as a filmmaker. For those willing to give the film a chance, Misunderstood is an insightful look at what it’s like to grow up unwanted. Asia is proving herself to be just as memorable a director as her famous father at his considerable best.
It’s October, which means that it’s horror month here at the Shattered Lens! Can you believe that we’ve been doing this for six years? I figured what better way to celebrate the start of October than by listing my picks for the ten best horror and supernatural-themed films to have been released since the founding of Through the Shattered Lens!
(Whoops! Derrick Ferguson of the Ferguson Theater just reminded me that House of the Devil came out in 2009. Though I haven’t reviewed House of the Devil on this site — though I did take time to praise this dance scene — it is a film that definitely belongs on this list. So, I’m adding it and another film as well. So now, we have a list of the 12 best horror films of the past six years!)
Hi there and welcome to October! This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is horror month. For the past three years, we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music. That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year.
So, let’s start things off with a little indie film from 1980. This film was released under several names, including Monster. However, I prefer the title under which it has been included in several Mill Creek box sets: Monstroid: It Came From The Lake!
Monstroid tells the story of what happens when a monster emerges from a lake and starts killing people in Columbia. Superstitious villagers blame a local woman whom they believe to be a witch. Even though the town priest (and no horror fan should be surprised to discover that the priest is played by John Carradine) claims that he can exorcise the evil spirits that have possessed her, the villagers would rather burn her at the stake. Meanwhile, the local Big Evil Corporation has sent in Travis (James Mitchum) to take care of the monster!
And what a monster! Listen, there’s a lot of negative things that I could say about this low-budget film but the monster is simply adorable and must be seen by anyone who appreciates the rubber monsters that populated horror films in the days before CGI.
Plus, how can you resist a film that features not only Robert Mitchum’s son but John Carradine as well?
Yes, the title of this post should strike fear into the hearts of Hallmark movie watchers. But I can make it worse. Not only was this made by the director of Strawberry Summer, but it was written by the same guy, Gary Goldstein. And you can tell because this movie also has some characters sing When The Saints Go Marching In. On the other hand, he also wrote My Boyfriends’ Dogs, and that wasn’t bad. And you can tell that too because this movie features a scene where the boyfriend dumps his dog on the female lead. Take that scene, repeat it across multiple boyfriends, and make the right guy work at the pet store. That’s My Boyfriends’ Dogs. I’ve seen too many Hallmark movies.
The Wish List opens with a little girl in her room talking about prince charming and drawing in a coloring book that has a prince and princess. Then we see a todo list on a blackboard. Can you smell a movie about a woman who makes a list of qualities that a man must meet for him to be marriage material? No? Good, that means you’re not as jaded as I am. Sadly, that is exactly what the movie is about.
Fortunately for us. This guy is the very first one we meet and he is exactly what she is looking for so the movie ends right there. This truly is the shortest Hallmark movie I know about.
Actually, it turns out he was hiding a lot of qualities that she can’t stand such as smoking and being a kleptomaniac. That is her Americana Xpress card that fell into her soup after he pulled it out to pay for the meal. Of course, Major League (1989) came to mind.
Portrait Of Love had Corbin Bernsen in it as well, which was produced by Larry Levinson and Randy Pope who also produced this movie. Just a coincidence, but a humorous one.
Of course we now get a little montage of obviously wrong guys for her. The guy with piercings and the guy with dreadlocks. This means it’s time for Sarah Fischer (Jennifer Esposito) to break out the whiteboard and write down exactly what she demands in the man she’ll marry: NO exceptions!
My favorite is nice feet, but the best part is something that isn’t on the board. They later show a histogram showing what the probability is that she will eat a whole tub of ice cream.
Ah, I love when I can watch something where I can easily take screenshots.
With her firmly set on a path to meeting the wrong guy, she runs into the right guy named Fred Jones (David Sutcliffe) at a coffee shop.
He is the local lovable Barista prick. Seriously, I can’t think of a better way to describe him. While Esposito plays our protagonist in this and is humorous in how she keeps coming back to the coffee shop he works at even though he grates on her nerves. If you are going to watch this movie, then you’re doing so in order to see David Sutcliffe and the wrong guy Dr. Erik Cavallieri played by Mark Deklin.
They are the reason to see this movie. Come to think of it, one of this movie’s problems is that we actually like the two of them so much, we wish she could marry both of them. This is no more evident then when they all go to a night club and it goes all Saturday Night Fever (1977) with the two of them dancing.
They actually have to reach a bit near the end to try and make us really favor the one over the other. And the rest as they say, is Hallmark.
There’s only two more things I want to mention. First, this movie is split screen happy. I blame Pillow Talk (1959) for this stuff. While it works well with the dancing scene, the phone calls and the Barista contest at the end are a bit much. There’s a scene where they are talking on the phone and the center dividing bar shifts at least three times just a little to the left, then back right, then left again. Also, there are times when you’d think it’s just leaving black space on the side because it was 2010 so it was composed for a smaller screen. But then you get a shot like this.
Just know that they go a little overboard with this whole split screen thing.
The other thing is a computer screen goof to look for. It first shows a properly done screen, cuts to one that is a mess, then back to a proper one. Here’s the good one.
And here’s what it cuts to.
Not even remotely close to the awful ones from Strawberry Summer, but I would like to know who this rrowen@mac.com is. It’s a shame that they went through the trouble of reskining Google to this JetSearch.com, but they didn’t change the URL in this shot or the title on the browser tab. One final thing, it’s a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure one of those bookmarks is to Hallmark’s website.
As long as you know it’s one of those The Rules type movies and that you are watching it for David Sutcliffe and Mark Deklin, then this one is fine.
Today is Angie Dickinson’s 84th birthday. One of Angie’s best remembered films is Big Bad Mama, an entertaining and fast-paced gangster film that was produced by Roger Corman.
The year is 1932 and the setting is Texas. Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson) is a poor single mother with two teenage daughters (Susan Sennett and Robbie Lee) to support. When Wilma’s bootlegger lover, Barney (Noble Willingham), is killed by the FBI, Wilma takes over his route. Wilma wants her daughters to be rich like “Rockefeller and Capone” and soon, they graduate from bootlegging to bank robbery. During one robbery, they meet and team up with Fred (Tom Skerritt). Wilma and Fred are lovers until Wilma meets alcoholic con man, Baxter (William Shatner). With Fred and Baxter competing for her affections and her youngest daughter pregnant, Wilma plans one final job, the kidnapping of a spoiled heiress (Joan Prather).
Big Bad Mama is one of the many Bonnie and Clyde rip-offs that Roger Corman produced in the 70s. (Corman also gave us Bloody Mama and Crazy Mama.) Big Bad Mama is a typical Corman gangster film, with fast cars, blazing tommy guns, Dick Miller, and plenty of nudity. Angie was in her 40s at the time and, justifiably proud of her body, her full frontal nude scenes created a lot of publicity for the film. William Shatner also strips down for the film and his sex scene with Angie is just as weird to watch as you would expect it to be.
The whole film changes as soon as William Shatner makes his first appearance. He may be speaking with a Southern accent and he may be playing a sniveling coward but he is still William Shatner, with all that implies. Watching Shatner, it is hard not to imagine that Big Bad Mama is actually a lost Star Trek episode where Kirk goes back in the past and meets special guest star Angie Dickinson. Far more effective is Tom Skerritt, who is thoroughly believable as a Dillinger-style bank robber.
In the style of Bonnie and Clyde, Big Bad Mama presents its outlaws as being counter-culture rebels. Every authority figure that Wilma meets — from a preacher played by Royal Dano to a corrupt sheriff to Dick Miller’s incompetent FBI agent — is presented as being hypocritical and arrogant. Angie plays Wilma as a strong-willed and sexually liberated woman who refuses to allow anyone to tell her how to live her life or raise her daughters. In the gang, both Fred and Baxter are subservient to her. Big Bad Mama’s tag line was “Hot lead! Hot legs! Hot damn!” and that is a perfect description of Angie Dickinson’s performance.
Well, it’s been 100 Hallmark reviews. This being 101. I think from now on I’m going to review each of them separately. It’s easier for me. It will make it easier for people to find a specific movie I’ve reviewed. Plus, it’s more fair to the movies themselves because I will be able to come off of viewing one and immediately write a full review.
So, what do we have here? The title does remind me of the Verizon guy and I think it’s supposed to. The movie opens with Kellie Martin on the beach with her husband and two kids. A boy and a girl. She shoots a short video of them all together. Then Martin and the kids go home while the husband goes off in his boat. He doesn’t make it back alive.
Cut to two years later and you can tell none of them have moved on because they still visit the same beach and watch the video together.
Martin is a baker in this movie and while on her way to deliver some pastries, Kavan Smith backs his car up and nearly kills her. That’s how they initially meet. Then they part ways. Of course by part ways, I mean they go to the same party for different reasons. For her, it’s a delivery. For him, it’s his family having the party. Running into each other again kicks off their relationship.
Now this is where it kind of becomes a Movie A, Movie B type thing. Movie A is Kellie Martin and Kavan Smith just doing their thing much to my delight. They’re good actors. They fall in love while the two of them work to open up a bakery for Martin. This part worked very well for me. The problem is Movie B interjects itself from time to time and then a bunch near the end.
During their time together, Martin is getting messages from beyond from her dead husband through her cellphone. Well, sort of. It basically amounts to a couple of words that summed up mean: move on with your life already. I’m sure this worked better in the book this is based on because there was time to flesh that out and have the relationship part too. But here, when it happens, you just want it to stop so you can see more of this.
And this.
I even like the kids and kids don’t always fare that well in Hallmark movies. I feel for Julie Sherman Wolfe who wrote the screenplay for this movie. She even tweeted me because of a response I had to some of her dialogue. This.
I feel for her because adapting a book into a Hallmark TV Movie must be the equivalent of what Tod Frye faced trying to port Pac-Man to the Atari 2600. Or any arcade port back then. You are taking something from a more powerful medium and have to try and squish it into a much more constrained one.
Oh, Kellie Martin does look a little goofy back there doesn’t she. Well…
there! Now they’re even.
The only real resistance these two meet in the movie comes from Martin’s daughter and Smith’s mom. Smith’s mom tries to set him up with someone of their class, but that doesn’t work. He has his heart set on Martin. Martin’s daughter is worried that he is going to leave if he is allowed to get too close. Both of those things are just minor friction and never really threaten to derail them coming together.
It was a little disappointing for me because I do like these two actors on their own and together, but that dead husband kept poking into my fun. There are also a couple things that seemed to reference a scene that I sure didn’t remember seeing. But I’m fallible. If you don’t let those parts bother you, then this is worth seeing. Definitely better than the usual middle of the road formulaic Hallmark romance.
Now we just need a sequel where Alison Sweeney plays an evil baker with Smith and Martin trying to catch her. This time the husband tries to give them clues from beyond. Make it happen!
Well, it was going to expire from the XFINITY app in a couple of days. Also, I have seen Howard The Duck (1986) and Mac And Me (1988). Those two and this, were the three films I remember from childhood as having a reputation for being some of the worst movies ever made. At least from the 1980s. Mac And Me is bad. Howard The Duck gets a bit of a bad rep. Leonard Part 6 deserves it’s reputation.
While I’m here, I love that this particular part of the opening credits looks like it could have been made in the NES game Color A Dinosaur.
I’m going to summarize this nonsense and then just show you some highlights. Seriously, this movie only really exists for the morbid fascination of how awful it is. Before I do that, I have to say that while I expect garbage from Bill Cosby outside of The Cosby Show, having seen Ghost Dad (1990) as a kid. Why the hell was Tom Courtenay in this? Seriously, he was in The Dresser (1983) just 4 years prior and was nominated for an Academy Award! I’ve seen it. He was good in it. In this, Tom Courtenay is Cosby’s butler a la Batman.
Let’s get this summary over with so we can point and laugh. The movie is about Leonard who is a retired CIA agent. He retired after his wife left him. It had something to do with a 19 year old, but honestly, I’m not sure if that was referring to a human being or an animal. There’s a mad vegetarian woman who uses a special sphere and chemical to convince animals to turn on humans en masse. In other words, this movie is a giant parody of animal monster movies like Night Of The Lepus (1972) while also making fun of James Bond. That, and product placement. Michael Bay’s The Island (2005) was bad about product placement, but dear lord what happened here?
That’s it! He comes out of retirement in the hopes of getting his wife back and tries to take down the evil vegetarians. I can’t possibly show you every ridiculous thing, but here we go.
Yeah! One of the opening shots of this movie is Bill Cosby jumping off a building riding an ostrich. Also, he does a little ballet dancing too. I’ll skip over the barking fish that eats humans, but first stops to look at a Playboy magazine.
By the way, this review is sponsored by Coca-Cola. Official beverage of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is one of several times that Coke is prominently featured. All the product placement is prominently featured and usually doesn’t make any sense. Why would there be a giant fridge full of Coke in a restaurant kitchen? Then again, this whole kitchen scene has bullets flying everywhere, but the cooks just go about their business. I mean even when it’s machine gun fire.
But at least those bullets hit olive oil into pans just when it’s needed for the cooking. Oh, and Star Brand olive oil. Official olive oil of the Leonard Part 6 review.
Beware the cats! And the squirrels. And the rabbits. If you live in Sacramento, then watch out for the “caterpillars on the march”. Folks in Piedmont, you need to watch out for the possums. They are “awaiting orders”. Oh, and remember, according to Leonard Part 6, if Oregon falls, then that means all hope is lost.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Those are frogs lifting a car to toss it in some water. I guess that’s why Ray Milland didn’t leave in Frogs (1972). He knew they would stop him. Sadly, that’s really the only shot where you see the frogs. The subsequent shots don’t have the frogs, but the car is still lifted and tossed in the water anyways.
Jane Fonda workout videos. Official workout videos of the Leonard Part 6 review. Fonda speaks to him personally through the TV as he works out.
I’m really glad they never explained what this anteater was trained to do. It’s bad enough I’m aware of E.T. and Sasquatch porn.
Johnson’s Baby Powder. Official baby powder of the Leonard Part 6 review. Also, massive amounts of alcohol work for watching Leonard Part 6 just as well as they did for this bullet removal scene.
I can handle this movie making fun of movies like Night Of The Lepus and Frogs, but if I want bee fighting it better be William Smith from Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973)! Accept no substitute!
Lava soap. Official soap of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is probably the weirdest piece of product placement in the movie. There’s just this huge mound of Lava soap backstage at this theater. They show it several times, and not once does Vincent Vega show up to wash his hands.
A bunny to the throat! Monty Python did it better.
Safeway. Official grocery store of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is where Tom Courtenay buys some dishwashing soap to help take down the bad guys.
And of course he buys Palmolive! Official dishwashing soap of the Leonard Part 6 review. It later turns out that dishwashing soap does nothing. It’s just there so you see it’s Palmolive.
As someone with one testicle, this disturbs me. Also, this shot follows shortly after he is holding a hot dog wiener.
Action Max. The official video game console of the Leonard Part 6 review. I love that a couple of kids are just playing this in the back of a van as it does the requisite flying over the top of San Francisco streets shots.
You see this is the brilliance of Leonard Part 6 here. Only here will you see the Goldfinger (1964) laser to the crotch scene if it were done by angry lobsters who just watched Annie Hall (1977).
This is probably something I’m going to have to vote on during the next election. Seriously, living in California, I’ve had to vote on propositions to split it up like this.
Ah, we now know what really happened to that guy in Scanners (1981). He was a vegetarian who ate some meat. Seriously, Cosby threatens this guy with a sausage, the guy takes a bite, and his head explodes. Also, he throws beef at the attacking vegetarians and it burns them.
Alka-Seltzer. Official antacid of the Leonard Part 6 review. Leonard uses it to toss in some vats that then destroy the evil vegetarian’s lair.
Swap out Cosby for the audience, the food for feces, and you probably have the experience of seeing Leonard Part 6 when it came out.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there are a lot of turkeys where I live and they are obviously going to try and kill me in my sleep. I need to get them first.
So, as you may know, I am on vacation for the next two weeks. However, even though I’m off and having fun, I didn’t want to forget about our site’s wonderful readers! So, I thought about it and I decided, why not share a blast from the past called Rural Holidays?
I haven’t been able to find out much background info on this little film. It was obviously made in the 1960s and it’s meant to encourage city people to go out to the country on vacation. I have to admit that the main reason that I like this film is because I’ve always been a secret history nerd. I’m fascinated by how people used to live!
And that’s what Rural Holidays provides. It’s a time capsule and you know how much I love those!
Unfortunately, there is no cowbell in this movie. Okay, this one is about a lady named Gwen Green (Andrea Roth). She works as an assistant editor. Delta Burke plays Dahlia Marchand who writes romance novels, but is going to pen an autobiography. Turning down more experienced editors, she picks Green to be her editor as soon as she sees her. I honestly had to watch this twice because the first time around I missed a few things so I was rather confused as to what Burke’s obsession with this woman was. Honestly, I thought she was a lesbian for a minute there and this shot near the end of the movie didn’t help.
The movie begins with one of Green’s friends getting married. Then her friend catches the bridal fever and becomes obsessed with getting married. She drags Green into her nuttiness. So we go speed blind dating. I have seen this scene done in numerous movies, but I think it’s the first time I’ve seen this in one of these montages.
Didn’t work for me no matter how much of a resemblance he might bare to Jeffrey Combs. Green doesn’t find her man here. Instead, she is passing by a bookstore and decides to go in and replace the window display with books by Dahlia Marchand. Sadly, this didn’t feel contrived because I can remember my Dad buying things from his business clients to support them. It doesn’t surprise me that now since she is editing one of Marchand’s books, she would do this. Of course a little slip and fall in the store, and she meets the guy she will end up with. He works at the store.
Sorry, I really didn’t mean to catch him with his “you’re gonna die now” look on his face. The rest of the film plays out like this. Marchand is going to launch her book at his store. Marchand oddly avoids the store. Green works with this guy getting closer and closer. Since her friend has poisoned Green’s mind and since the guy didn’t propose to her on the spot, she gets engaged to the wrong guy. Then we find out that Marchand picked her because she wanted someone who wouldn’t do their job and thus wouldn’t ask her about gaps in her biography. The big gap being her years working at that bookstore. Turns out it’s the guy’s uncle who owns the store that once had a thing with her. It wraps up like you think.
This was okay. Very cliched and it’s one of those ones I like to say sleepwalks through the formulaic plot, but the actors were likable enough, including Delta Burke. I did like that they borrowed the comparing scars scene from Lethal Weapon 3.
You can do worse, but you can also do better.
Audrey’s Rain (2003) – Where the hell did this Hallmark movie come from? It’s got cursing, people who act like real people (kids included), suicide, a mentally challenged or at least mentally cracked in some fashion character, sexual references, direct reference to breasts as “buzzards”, making out, use of the word horny, the kid tries to say Audrey’s sandwiches taste like shit, fart jokes, a fart joke directed at a reverend who just asked Audrey to consider returning to the church, and more.
Seriously, is this the kind of movie Hallmark initially made? Cause this is a far far far cry from the kind of stuff they make today and have for many years. I actually thought I was watching a real movie here. The only things I saw in common with other Hallmark movies were that Larry Levinson was involved. Well, I guess I should talk a little bit about it.
It starts off with Audrey (Jean Smart) trying to blow away a rodent with a rifle. Yay! That scene is the one time this film censors itself. Despite the word “bastard” showing up in the close captioning, the sound falls silent on that word. Funny they did that considering this follows shortly afterwards.
Sure, the sister got her hand on his mouth before he got the full word out, but still. I’ve seen Hallmark censor the word “butt”.
So, you’ve got Audrey, two kids from a sister who killed herself, and another sister who has mental issues. I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be mentally challenged, but I don’t remember there being enough details to tell you any more than that. And that’s where this film’s real issue is. While you really don’t care too much about this sister, the film does feel like it jumps over sections that were once there or should be there telling us more.
A man from Audrey’s past gets close to her and they do end up together. There’s a quirky friend. There are flashbacks. The kids have problems with the memories of their dead mother. There’s a pretty gut wrenching scene where we think the little girl might have hung herself like her mom did. It all works quite well, but it feels like it should have been a mini-series rather than just a movie. Maybe it was, and then was edited down.
At the end of the day, if you like Hallmark, see it. It’s like no other Hallmark movie out of the 106 I’ve seen so far. Just know that it will feel like it was chopped up.
Love On The Air (2015) – I kind of felt bad watching this when it premiered cause some guy who claimed to have worked on the film tweeted me twice saying he was glad I was enjoying it. I felt bad because the majority of my tweets were complaints about the movie. I don’t think I even mentioned the problems with the actors. Oh, well.
Love On The Air begins with our two leads doing their radio shows on the same network. I don’t remember what the name of their shows were, if they had any, but a modern equivalent would be tweets with #NotAllMen attached for hers and #YesAllWomen for his. It’s that kind of stuff being slung at the beginning of this movie. The largely writing off the other gender based on bad experiences thing. Only it’s far tamer than the stuff you hear online and not as complex. Thank goodness. But it does have that isolationist/separatist rhetoric to it that people cry foul over when it’s skin color, but not as much with gender. She even says “be an island”. I honestly could have done without this as the setup seeing as it’s stuff like this that makes places like Twitter depressing, but that’s the setup.
Our leading lady is Sonia (Alison Sweeney). Our leading man is Nick (Jonathan Scarfe). The two of them end up going at it on the air for a few minutes and that leads to them doing it on a regular basis. You can guess where this goes.
A day for night shot, along with shots that were under lit or shot on cloudy days.
Odd choices of things to focus on or I swear at times the camera just going out of focus.
This blinding light that keeps shining at you during this scene.
And random obstructions in front of the camera for reasons beyond me.
What? You thought they were going to fall in love? Well, that happens too, which is another problem. They have both been burned by certain experiences in their past. Problem is, I think they needed to even out the two of them out a little more. He is noticeably easier to get along with than she is. I know it makes for a little more of a traditional romance of him winning her over, but it would have been nice for them to have dialed down Sonia a little bit. I also know that it begins with her engagement being called off so she’s fresh off a recent bad experience, but I still wanted them to be on more even ground.
However, if you can get past the odd cinematography and the characters starting out on uneven footing, I know I sure didn’t feel they had any chemistry together. Scarfe is kind of warm and a little likable. Sweeney not as much. I understand how spending time with each other reminds them that no matter how many or intensity of experiences you have with a section of the population, you can’t right the whole lot off. However, I didn’t really buy that they should end up together as anything but good friends who do a show together.
I guess this is the kind I say won’t kill ya!
A little personal side note. I think I have mentioned it before, but Sweeney also does a series called Murder, She Baked on Hallmark. I wish that had her killing people with her cooking. She really comes across to me as someone who could play a villain well. I never saw her on Days Of Our Lives so maybe she did there.
All Of My Heart (2015) – This is another one of those Hallmark movies that borrows a screwball plot that you’d find in the 1940’s. It begins with Jenny Fintley (Lacey Chabert) and Brian Howell (Brennan Elliott), I kid you not, each inheriting half of the same house in the country. Being a cook, she sees it as business opportunity to open a bed and breakfast. Being a stockbroker, he sees it as an asset that needs to be liquidated. Hilarity ensues? Not really. This isn’t like Growing The Big One, which is a Hallmark movie and not one of those late night cable movies I’ve reviewed. I still don’t know how Hallmark lucked out on that name.
It’s just them falling in love by spending time with each other. She’s there cause she wants to open a business. He gets stranded there after his job slips out from underneath him. Oddly, the film teases that it’s going to do something humorous like Funny Farm (1988), but doesn’t follow through.
That’s Ed Asner who you probably know as the guy who shoots people in the back on Hawaii Five-O. The other guy is Daniel Cudmore who is probably best known as Jaffa #1 from the Homecoming episode of Stargate SG-1. Asner sits on the bench in front of the General Store and makes humorous comments as well as some important ones at the end of the movie. Cudmore is the colossus who runs the store and is the local plumber. They are both funny in this movie. I wanted more quirky characters. Sure, hoping for the crazy mailman from Funny Farm would be asking too much, but I could have done with more of these two. I would have preferred Chabert and Elliott coming together dealing with the odd, but lovable town rather than just coming together because it’s Hallmark.
My only other complaint has to do with Lacey Chabert. I didn’t watch Party Of Five back when I was kid and have very limited exposure to her work. Largely just Hallmark, but I really want more personality out of her here. Along with looking like she’s wearing more makeup then I care for, she seems to act like she is a kid who just entered her first planetarium. He has some more personality, but I really wanted something like what Shannen Doherty and Kavan Smith had in Growing The Big One.
So, which one of these does this poor dog from one of the commercials on Hallmark say you should see? Audrey’s Rain. Despite it’s problems, it’s so different. If you like Hallmark, you should see it. I’m a little biased though, cause I like Jean Smart.
