Category Archives: Film Review

The Daily Drive-In: The Creeping Terror (dir. by Vic Savage)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are some films that you just have to see at least once before you die.  One of those films is Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  And another one of those films is The Creeping Terror.

While at first it might seem like The Creeping Terror and Dr. Strangelove don’t have much in common, that’s actually not the case.  Both of these films were released in 1964.  Both of them feature a scientist and a general who wants to blow things up.  Both of these films portray an American military that’s incompetent when it comes to dealing with the unexpected.  Even more importantly, both of these films are in black-and-white.

Beyond that, the two films don’t really have that much in common.  Dr. Strangelove is a satire about nuclear war and was nominated for several Academy Awards.  The Creeping Terror is a film about a killer rug that eats people and is currently in the public domain.

Okay, technically, the creeping terror of the title is not a killer rug.  It just looks like a rug.  Actually, it’s an alien being that crashes down to Earth and spends the majority of the film moving very slowly through a small town.  Whenever it comes across an old man out fishing or a group of 30 year-old high school students dancing to the most generic music ever heard, the rug attacks and we’re treated to lengthy scenes of giggling extras climbing into the rug’s “mouth.”

Fortunately, there’s a local deputy sheriff and newlywed named Martin and Martin’s pretty concerned about this killer rug that appears to be eating everyone in town.  Martin doesn’t really do much but he’s played by the film’s director (an enigmatic figure who went by the name of Vic Savage) so, by default, Martin’s the main character.

The Creeping Terror is probably best remembered for the fact that the film’s soundtrack apparently got lost during post-production and, as a result, nearly the entire film is silent with the exception of a narrator.  For example, we might see Martin silently moving his jaw while the narrator recites, “Martin told them what he had seen…”

However, the narrator is not just there to tell us what people are saying.  He’s also there to provide psychological insights.  In one of the film’s more famous moments, the action stops for a few minutes so the narrator can tell us about how Martin’s recent marriage has strained his relationship with his bachelor friend Barney.  During this moment, the narrator drops his usual even tone and soon, hints of self-loathing and anger start to turn up in his voice.  Seriously, the narrator’s got some issues.

Now, a lot of people will tell you that The Creeping Terror is one of the worst films ever made but I think it’s hilarious and fun.  Add to that, there’s a lengthy dance scene dropped into the middle of all this and you know how I am about movies with gratuitous dance scenes.

You can view the entire movie below:

Film Review: Argo (dir. by Ben Affleck)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When I made out my list of my 26 favorite films of 2012, Argo came in at number 19,  I think that Argo is a likable, funny, and frequently exciting film.  Not only does it feature some of Ben Affleck’s best work as a director (though I still think Affleck has yet to top Gone, Baby, Gone) but also some of his best work as an actor.  If The Town left my skeptical about Affleck’s film-making talents, Argo made me a believer again.  That said, while I think that Argo is a good film, I don’t think it’s a great film but that opinion definitely places me in both the minority of filmgoers and, since my sister Erin considers Argo to be the best film of 2012, Bowmans as well.

Based on a true story, Argo takes place in 1979.  The Shah of Iran has been overthrown and the American embassy in Tehran is overrun by Islamic militants.  Over 50 Americans are taken hostage but six embassy workers manage to escape and end up hiding in the home of the Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber).  The U.S. State Department has to find a way to get the six of them out of Iran before the militants discover their existence.

It’s up to CIA agent Tony Mendez (played, of course, by Ben Affleck) to come up with a better plan than attempting to smuggle bicycles into Iran.  Mendez’s scheme is to team up with a Hollywood makeup artist (John Goodman) and a B-movie producer (Alan Arkin) and to convince the Iranian government that he and the 6 embassy workers are actually a film crew and that they’re in Iran not on a rescue-and-escape mission but instead to scout locations for a science fiction film called Argo.

Argo, for the most part, works.  As a director, Affleck manages to deftly juggle both comedy and suspense.  The scenes where Arkin and Goodman teach Affleck how to be a Hollywood phony are frequently hilarious, while the scenes in Iran are effectively tense and claustrophobic.  The film is full of little period details that ring true and I’m still shocked that Argo didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for either Best Costume Design or Best Production Design.  The wide lapels on Ben Affleck’s suits may not have been as flamboyant as the costumes in Les Miserables but, like the costumes in Les Mis, the very sight of them not only transported us to a different time but made that time plausible as well.

As you might expect from an actor-turned-director, Affleck gets good performances from his entire cast.  Goodman and Arkin are both sympathetic as recognizable Hollywood types and Bryan Cranston has a few good scenes as a fellow CIA agent.  While the 6 hostages are all pretty much interchangeable, they are still all well-cast and sympathetic.

That said, when I saw the film, it was hard to escape the feeling that the first half of the film (in which the embassy workers hid out at the Ambassador’s house while Affleck, Arkin, and Goodman worked on promoting their fake film) was dramatically more interesting and compelling than the far more conventional second half.  Once Affleck actually reaches Tehran, Argo becomes a rather predictable, if still well-made and exciting, movie.  Perhaps that’s why, as much as I enjoyed Argo, the film didn’t make as much of an impression of me as a film with a more challenging narrative would have.  Ultimately, Argo tells the true story of people in tremendous danger but the film itself feels very safe.

Argo is one of the most acclaimed films of 2012 and it’s been nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture.  To just about everyone’s surprise, Ben Affleck was not nominated for best director.  While I personally would not have nominated either Argo or Affleck, the fact of the matter is that the reason Argo has received so much acclaim is because of Affleck’s work behind the camera.  Argo is such a director’s film that it’s next to impossible to argue that Argo‘s one of the best films of the year without also arguing that Affleck is one of the best directors of the year.  Hence, Affleck’s lack of a nomination does feel like a definite snub.  Even speaking as someone who was not as enthralled with Argo as much as everyone else, I would still have nominated Affleck long before I wasted a nomination on Benh Zeitlin for relying too much on a hand-held camera while filming Beasts of the Southern Wild.

While the Academy may have snubbed Affleck, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association did not.  Earlier this night, Affleck won the Golden Globe for best director and Argo won best picture.  (Though, I have to say, I find myself wondering if my friend Jason Tarwater was right when he suggested that the notorious starfuckers of the HFPA honored Argo mostly because they wanted to hang out with the film’s co-producer, George Clooney.)  Given the fact that it’s been over 20 years since a film won Best Picture without receiving a nomination for Best Director, Affleck and Clooney might just have to be happy with the universal acclaim.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Review (dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on by leonth3duke

“Zero Dark Thirty” opens with the sounds of frantic emergency calls from people trapped inside the World Trade Center. Their cries for help to dispatchers, played over a black screen, is a shocking reminder of the horrors of 9/11, and sets the tone for what is to come – the brutal and riveting retelling of the dark paths and dead ends this country traveled in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for those attacks.

What makes “Zero Dark Thirty”, a film with an ending we all already know, so effective is how tautly it depicts the events that led up to bin Laden’s death in such an intellectually and morally challenging way. There is no flash, no melodrama, no varnished surfaces or sanded edges to make the material more bearable or ‘entertaining’, it simply tells it as it is. This is done with meticulous detail by Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. They tell this story through the eyes of a female CIA operative, played by Jessica Chastain, whose obsession with finding bin Laden was the driving force that led to his death. This performance by Chastain, who carries the film, is quite astonishing. She displays such a wonderful level of assurance, confidence and determination but also the weight of her obsession – doing most of this with her eyes. We know nothing about her character other than the work she did to find bin Laden but we still root for her the whole way. It is one of those subtle but powerful performances that will be remembered for much longer than any other performance this year.

Now, at this point in time, it would be impossible to write a review without addressing some of the criticisms the film has drawn. Honestly, I have to say that I find it quite disheartening that morally insecure and intellectually lazy people have tried to bring the film down for not making moral decisions for them. I am disgusted by the claims that the film is pro-torture for not taking a side as to whether such techniques as water boarding are right or wrong. The simple fact is it doesn’t have to. It isn’t the films responsibilities to do such things. All it wishes to do is relay the facts, as it knows them. It is then up to the audience, based on what they see, to make these decisions.

It is true that in doing so it reveals some truths, many we might not like, that makes us reexamine the past decade of American history. But this is what makes the film more than just a masterfully crafted thriller. There is no arguing this country has had some very dark moments over the past decade  – Abu Ghraib – and the search for revenge to capture or kill those responsible for 9/11 was the driving force of most of this. In making “Zero Dark Thirty” Bigelow and Boal aren’t trying to say whether any of this was right or wrong, but rather they looked to remind us that it did happen and challenges us to question how it truly effected us all and make the decisions ourselves as to the moral nature and effectiveness of torture and war; while at the same time allowing us to appreciate and honor the hard work and sacrifice of those who gave so much in trying to protect this country.

This is made quite clear at the end of the film with its final shot, which I think is perhaps one of the most important in any film in recent years. After the films harrowing opening and what comes after – the remembrance of the horrors of 9/11, the journey down the dark paths revenge took us, including torture and the horrors of war – we are disgusted by what happened, but like the films main character we knew it was happening yet we kept moving forward because we had our ‘eyes on the prize’. In the end, after all was said and done, it is hard to truly rejoice when the full weight of what had happened is realized. Chastain’s face in the films final moment sums this up perfectly. A sort of “what now…was it worth it…what parts of ourselves were lost to accomplish or fight this war on terror?” We killed the man who essentially started this war, a sliver of justice was delivered to those who have lost family and friends, but that war didn’t end with his death, and it will always haunt us no matter how many body bags we fill. The implications of this scene, and the whole film, are bigger than any scene or any film in recent memory.

Thinking back, it is quite amazing how well the whole emotional trajectory of the film so well mirrors the emotional trajectory of this country in the last ten years. From its black screen opening to the close up of Chastain before the credits, “Zero Dark Thirty” intimately reflects on the sadness and shock, that led to anger and war, that was followed by frustration, that led to apathy, which ultimately ended with rejoice…only to quickly then be overshadowed by the full weight of post-9/11 America and where the past decade has left us. It is because of this that I think “Zero Dark Thirty” is not only the best but also the most important film of 2012, or even in recent years. It is a masterfully and tautly crafted thriller that challenges the viewer in ways that will leave us talking about it for years to come. Its moral ambiguity and apolitical stance reveal truths usually overshadowed by preachy, overtly political films of the same nature. If that isn’t the formula for a modern masterpiece, then I don’t know what is.

*Read Arleigh’s comment below for his perfect expansion on the feelings towards the criticisms the film has drawn*

The Daily Grindhouse: BTK (dir. by Michael Feifer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Kane Hodder as The BTK Killer

One of the unfortunate things about being a self-appointed “film critic” is that the majority of the films that have been released over the past century are neither good nor bad.  Instead, they’re simply “bleh.”  Neither good enough to be memorable nor bad enough to be truly entertaining, a bleh film sits in the gray area between good and bad.  These are the films that you watch and maybe if you’re in the right mood or you’re watching with the right audience, you’ll find the experience of watching the film tolerable.  And if you’re not in the right mood, you’ll end up bored and will probably start to forget about the film before the end credits even roll.  When you make it a point to see (and review) as many films as you possibly can, the end result is that, in between the joy of discovering some really great examples of cinematic art, you end up sitting through a lot of bleh films.

The 2008 horror film BTK is the epitome of a bleh film.

Like many direct-to-DVD horror films, BTK is based on a true-life case of serial murder.  Dennis Rader was an animal control officer living in the suburbs of Wichita, Kansas.  He was also a prominent member of the local church and, by most accounts, a devoted family man and father of two.  He was also a remorseless serial killer who, over two decades, killed at least 10 people.  His oldest victim was 62.  His youngest was 9.  When he wasn’t murdering, Rader was writing taunting letters to the police in which he named himself the “BTK,” for Bind Torture Kill.

What makes Rader’s crimes even more disturbing is that he nearly got away with them.  It wasn’t until 13 years after his last confirmed murder that Rader was arrested and confessed to being the BTK killer.  When Rader appeared in court for sentencing, he again gave the details of all ten of his admitted murders and, for a few weeks afterward, it was next to impossible to turn on a TV without seeing the footage of this mild, middle-aged men calmly explaining how he killed ten people.  I was 19 at the time and I can tell you that I had more than a few nightmares as a result of Dennis Rader.

It wasn’t just Rader’s crimes that frightened me.  It was the fact that Dennis Rader wasn’t some masked psycho like I used to seeing in the movies.  What frightened me was that Dennis Rader seemed so normal.  Dennis Rader was literally the killer next door.

A lot of great horror films have been based on the concept of the killer next door but unfortunately, BTK, though competently directed by Michael Feifer, is not one of them.  Offering up a highly fictionalized account of Rader’s crimes, BTK is pretty much a typical psycho film that uses its true life origins to hide the fact that there’s not really much going on.  Playing the title role, Kane Hodder (of Friday the 13th fame) is menacing and effective when the film calls on him to be the evil BTK but he’s far less effective when it comes to recreating the mask of normalcy that Rader used when dealing with his friends and his neighbors.

The reason why the real-life Dennis Rader was such a frightening and disturbing figure was because he seemed so normal and ordinary.  The fear that he inspires comes not from his crimes but from the fact that if Dennis Rader could have been a serial killer than just about anybody could be.

That’s a genuinely scary idea that the cinematic BTK never seems to grasp.

Film Review: Judgment At Nuremberg (dir by Stanley Kramer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I previously posted a review of the 1967 best picture nominee Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner that was somewhat critical of Stanley Kramer as a filmmaker.  In retrospect, I feel like I may have been a bit too dismissive of Stanley Kramer.  When one looks over the list of every film that has ever been nominated for best picture, one comes across the name Stanley Kramer (as a producer, a director, or both) far too many times to just blindly dismiss him for the sin of being old-fashioned.  While Kramer made his share of well-intentioned misfires like Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, he was also responsible for some films that remain important and watchable today.  Judgment at Nuremberg is one of those films.

Judgment at Nuremberg opens in 1947, with one car being driven through the ruins of Nuremberg, Germany.  Inside the car is Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy), a judge from Maine who has been appointed chief of a military tribunal that will be passing judgment on four German judges who are accused of crimes against humanity for their legal rulings during the Nazi regime.  As Haywood quickly learns,  many people don’t feel that the Nazi judges should be held as accountable for their actions as men like Hitler, Goebbles, and Goering should have been.  It’s up to Haywood to determine whether the accused were simply doing their job or if they had a responsibility to defy the laws that they had sworn to uphold.

Judgment at Nuremberg almost feels like two films.  The first film is a courtroom drama, where the Nazi judges (the main one of which is played by Burt Lancaster) are prosecuted by the fiery Col. Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark) and defended by the idealistic Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell).  While Lawson approaches the case and regards the defendants with righteous anger, Rolfe takes a more cerebral approach to defending the undefensible.  Rolfe argues that the judges were following the laws of Germany and that if the tribunal finds them guilty than it will be finding the entire nation of Germany guilty.  (In a rather clever twist, director Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann initially make the German defense attorney a far more likable character than the American prosecutor.)  During the trial, we also hear heart-wrenching testimony from two people (played by Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland) who were victimized by the Nazi regime and the judges who gave legal legitimacy to the regime’s crimes.

The second film deals with Haywood adjusting to working in Germany and trying to understand how the Nazis could have come to power in the first place.   Haywood asks several Germans to tell him about life under the Nazis and every time, he is met with bland excuses.  (“We were not political,” he is told more than once.)  The film’s strongest scenes are the ones where Haywood simply walks alone through the ruins of Nuremberg.  Spencer Tracy was a uniquely American actor and, much as he did in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Tracy here stood in for every American who was struggling to make sense of a changing world.

In his book Pictures At A Revolution, Mark Harris correctly points out that Stanley Kramer started out as a producer and, even after he started directing, he still approached filmmaking like a producer.  While that approach led to many uninspiring films, it was also the right approach for Judgment at Nuremberg.  Perhaps realizing that Judgment at Nuremberg was a long and talky movie about a disturbing subject manner, Kramer made the very producer-like decision to fill Judgment at Nuremberg with recognizable faces.  While this approach has proven disastrous for many films, it works quite well in Judgment at Nuremberg.

This is one of the most perfectly cast films of all time, with all of the actors bringing both their characters and the issues that they’re confronting to vivid life.  As the main defendant, Burt Lancaster brings a combination of intelligence and self-loathing to his role, playing him in such a way to reveal that even he can’t believe the evil he upheld as a judge.  Meanwhile, Spencer Tracy is perfectly cast as a world-weary man who is simply trying to figure out what justice means in the post-war world.  Maximilian Schell plays his role with so much passion that it’s impossible not to listen to him even when you despise the argument he’s making.  Marlene Dietrich has an extended cameo where she plays the widow of Nazi general who befriends Judge Haywood but still refuses to admit that she knew anything about what Adolf Hitler was doing.  Even William Shatner shows up, playing a small role as Haywood’s chief military aide and yes, he does deliver his lines in that Shatner way of his.

First released in 1962, Judgment at Nuremberg won Oscars for Best Actor (Maximilian Schell) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Abby Mann) and was nominated for 9 more: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Spencer Tracy), Best Supporting Actor (Montgomery Clift), Best Supporting Actress (Judy Garland), Best Black-and-White Art Direction, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Best Black-and-White Costume Design, and Best Film Editing. While it’s hard to argue with the victory of West Side Story in that year’s Oscar race, Judgment at Nuremberg remains a watchable and thought-provoking film.

The Daily Grindhouse: Toe Tags (dir by Darla Enlow)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bad things are happening at the Valley Creek Apartments.  The residents are getting naked and getting murdered by a stranger with a knife.  Could the murderer by the creepy landlady?  Or could it be … someone else?  Two detectives (played by director Darla Enlow and Marc Page) are determined to solve the crimes and it quickly turns out that both of them have a connection to every single person who has been murdered.  The very angry coroner (Scott Killman) is upset because someone keeps breaking into the morgue and stealing all of the toe tags.  An even angrier police captain (Larry Scott) shows up at random moments to yell at the two detectives.  Finally, there’s a crime scene photographer (Andrew Lombardo) who seems to enjoy his job way too much.  Needless to say, it all concludes with a surprise ending that actually works a lot better than you might expect.

Toe Tags, which was released in 2003, is probably the one of the least known, most obscure films that I’ve ever reviewed for the Shattered Lens.  I came across the film as a part of Decrepit Pit Of Nightmares box set, which I bought as the result of reading a review of Las Vegas Bloodbath that was written by our very own Ryan C., the Trashfilm Guru.  So, when you get right down to it, its’ pretty much Ryan’s fault that I watched Toe Tags.

Well, that’s okay because I actually enjoyed the nonstop silliness of Toe Tags.  Clocking in at 68 minutes and shot-on-video, Toe Tags is one of those zero budget exploitation films that you have to admire just because it actually managed to get made and released.  The whole film has this random, improvised feel to it.  The story is quite bold about its refusal to make any sense and, while none of the actors give good performances, they’re all trying so hard that it’s impossible not to like them.  My favorite performers were Scott Killman and Larry Scott.  You could seriously tell that both of them were having a lot of fun going over-the-top with even the simplest line of dialogue.

The end of the film features about 10 minutes of clips of the actors blowing their lines or cracking up into laughter and, to my surprise, I actually enjoyed this obvious padding.  It was nice to see that everyone had fun even while they were having to play dead and it reminded me of the fun that I use to have doing plays in high school.  The end credits feature credits like, “Thank you Craig Lamb for the endless supply of blood” and “Production assistant…anyone on the set!,” and, again, they just add to likable drama club feel of the whole production.

(Warning: There’s some nudity in the trailer below and a lot of fake blood.)

Film Review: Camelot (dir by Joshua Logan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back when I was 18 years old, I auditioned for a community theater production of Camelot.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been intrigued with the spectacle and romance of the Arthurian legends and I just knew that I would make the perfect Guinevere.  And so, for two nights, I auditioned.  I performed “Baby One More Time” as my audition song, I showed off my dance moves, and I did countless cold readings with countless potential Arthurs and Lancelots.  At the end of the two days, the director told me that he would be in touch and I left with stars in my mismatched eyes, convinced that I had won the role of Guinevere.

Two days later, I got a call not from the director but from the assistant director.  She informed me that while my dancing was impressive, I wasn’t right for the role of Guinevere because:

1) I was too young.

2) I couldn’t sing.

3) My voice carried too much of a rural twang for me to be a believable Queen of England.

However, she did tell me that I had been selected to be a part of the “chorus.”  Well, I may have only been 18 but I still had my pride so I told her that, if I couldn’t I play Guinevere, I had no interest in being in their little production of Camelot.  I was later told that this caused a lot of people to assume that I was a diva but no matter, I stand by my decision.

When I later saw the theater’s production of Camelot, I felt thoroughly vindicated.  It wasn’t just the fact that the actress they cast as Guinevere had no stage presence, no boobs, and a horsey face.  It’s the fact that Camelot itself isn’t a very good show.  As good as the songs are, Camelot is something of a talky mess and Pellinore is one of the most annoying characters ever.

It was only after I saw that mediocre production that I discovered that there was a film version of Camelot. Released in 1967, the Warner Bros. production was one of the many big budget musicals released in the late 60s.  It has a terrible reputation (and was a box office bomb) but I recently decided to watch it for two reasons.

First off, Camelot was nominated for five Academy Awards (though not best picture) and won three (Best Art-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Music — Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment).  That means that Camelot won two more Oscars than The Graduate and one more than Bonnie and Clyde.

Secondly, this film version of Camelot features Franco Nero (who, in 1967, was literally the most handsome man in the world) in the role of Lancelot.

And so, I recently set aside 3 hours and I watched the film version of Camelot.

Camelot tells a familiar story.  Arthur (played here by Richard Harris) becomes king of England and he marries Guinevere (Vanessa Redgrave).  At the magnificent castle of Camelot, the most noble knights of England gather at a round table and Arthur preaches equality and chivalry.  Eventually, the righteous French knight Lancelot (Franco Nero) travels to Camelot and becomes Arthur’s  greatest knight.  However, Lancelot and Guinevere fall in love and, as a result of the schemes of Arthur’s illegitimate son Mordred (David Hemmings), Lancelot and Arthur are soon at war with each other.

Despite my dislike of the stage production, I actually started watching the film version with high hopes.  I have a soft place in my heart for the overproduced musical spectacles of the late 60s and I figured that what was slow on stage might be more tolerable when seen on film.  Unfortunately, I was incorrect.  Camelot is a painfully old-fashioned film and, clocking in at 179 minutes, it’s also one of the most boring movies ever made.  Richard Harris was reportedly miserable while making the film and it shows in his performance.  You get the feeling that King Arthur would rather be anywhere other than Camelot.

The only time that the film comes alive is when Franco Nero is allowed to command the screen.  While the very Italian Nero is somewhat miscast as the very French Lancelot, that doesn’t change the fact that Nero plays the role with a passion that’s missing from the rest of the film.  Franco Nero’s blue eyes did more to make me believe in Camelot than any of the songs sung by Richard Harris.  One need only watch the scenes that Franco shares with Vanessa Redgrave to understand why they’ve been a couple for over 40 years.

Ultimately, Camelot is interesting mostly as an example of how the old Hollywood studio establishment attempted to deal with competition from television and European films.  Instead of attempting to adapt to the new culture of the 60s, the old studio bosses just continued to make the same movies they had always made, with the exception being that they now spent even more money than before to do so.  While it’s easy to mock them, you have to wonder if the Camelot of 1967 is all that different from the John Carter of today.

The Daily Drive-In: The Creature From The Black Lagoon (dir. by Jack Arnold)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As anyone who knows me can tell you, Lisa Marie doesn’t do water.

Seriously, I have a very intense fear of drowning and, while I might enjoy laying out by the pool during the summer, you’re never going to catch me actually going anywhere near the deep end.  I’m the epitome of the girl who loves the beach but hates the ocean.  As a result, I have a hard time with movies the feature swimmers thrashing about in the water or ancient monsters coming up to the surface in search of swimsuit-clad victims.

For lack of a better term, these films freak me out.

Sometimes, however, it’s fun to be freaked out.  Perhaps that’s why I so love the 1954 monster classic, The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Like all good B-movies from the 1950s, The Creature From The Black Lagoon starts off with a lot of stock footage and a stuffy narrator telling us about how the Earth was created and how mankind originally evolved from a creature that crawled out of the sea.  The narrator manages to cover all the bases by including a few Biblical quotes with his explanation of how evolution works.

From the beginning of mankind, we fast forward to the 1950s.  A fossilized claw has been discovered in the Amazon and a group of scientists think that it could be evidence of the missing link in human evolution.  Mark (Richard Denning), who is kind of a jerk, funds an expedition to the Amazon to search for more evidence.  Accompanying Mark is hunky young scientist David (Richard Carlson) and David’s girlfriend, Kay (Julie Adams).  Traveling on a boat captained by the rather gruff Lucas (Nestor Paiva), they go to the camp where the fossil was originally discovered.  However, once they arrive, they discover that everyone in the camp has been killed.  Lucas suggests that the camp was attacked by a jaguar.

Lucas, needless to say, is totally incorrect.  The film isn’t called The Jaguar From The Black Lagoon.  It’s called The Creature From The Black Lagoon and the creature, also known as the Gill-Man (played by Ben Chapman when on land and by Ricou Browning whenever he’s underwater), is none too happy about these strangers invading his home.  Soon, the Gill-Man is stalking the expedition as they move up and down the Amazon River.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon is probably best known for the dream-like sequence in which Kay, wearing a white bathing suit that is simply to die for, swims in the Amazon River without realizing that the Creature is following just a few feet below her.  This scene (which does little to help with my aquaphobia) is one of the most iconic in the history of monster cinema.  Expertly framed by director Jack Arnold, this scene is distinguished by the graceful movement of both Julie Adams and Ricou Browning.  It’s as close as a monster movie has ever gotten to duplicating ballet.

Ultimately, like all good monster films, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is on the side of the monster.  The members of the expedition are, for the most part, interchangeable and, when the Gill-Man attacks, he’s acting more out of self-defense than out of hostility.  The expedition, after all, has invaded his home.  Like many 50s B-movies, the theme for The Creature From The Black Lagoon is not that people should be careful while investigating mysteries but that most mysteries are best left unsolved.

When you combine one of the genre’s most iconic monsters with Jack Arnold’s atmospheric direction, the end result is one of the best B-movies ever made.

What Lisa and Erin Watched Last Night #63: Bring It On (dir. by Peyton Reed)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my sister Erin Nicole (a.k.a. Dazzling Erin) and I watched the classic 2000 cheerleading movie Bring It On on AMC.

Why Were We Watching It?

Seriously, how can you not watch Bring It On?

Back in high school, while I was doing my goth ballerina thing, Erin Nicole was a cheerleader and, though she denies it, she pretty much was Kirsten Dunst back then.  Anyway, Erin usually refuses to watch Bring It On because she says she had already had to sit through it a few hundred times by the time she turned 17.  For this reason, I always make it a point to let Erin know when Bring It On is on TV and to try to trick her into watching it with me.

But last night, to my surprise, she was the one who saw the movie listed in the guide and started watching it because, according to her, there was nothing else on.  (Personally, I think Erin was feeling nostalgic but she denies it.)  I joined her shortly after the movie started and, according to Erin, I spent the next two hours jumping around and acting all hyper.  That’s not quite the way I remember it but Erin’s the cheerleader so I’ll take her word for it.

What’s It About?

Torrance (played by Kirsten Dunst) is the new captain of her high school’s cheerleading squad and is determined to lead them to yet another national title.  However, Missy (Eliza Dushku), a new member of the squad, reveals that the squad only won those titles by stealing routines from an inner city cheerleader squad.  Torrance now has to create an original routine while dealing with her cheating boyfriend (Richard Hillman) and flirting with Missy’s brother (Jesse Bradford), who looks a lot like Paul Rudd and is skeptical about whether cheerleading’s really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

What Worked?

Let’s just come right out and say it: Bring It On is one of the greatest high school movies ever made.  It’s fun, it’s funny, and best of all, it’s real.  The film’s director, Peyton Reed, the film’s writers, Jessica Bendinger and Stephen White, and the film’s cast all perfectly capture just how important the little dramas are when you’re a teenager.  The film even manages to say something very important about issues like race and economic inequality.

Plus, as Erin and I both agreed last night, Jesse Bradford is HOT!

According to Erin, she has flashbacks and starts laughing uncontrollably  whenever she hears the line “These are spirit fingers!”

What Didn’t Work?

It all worked.  Seriously, if you can be critical of a film like Bring It On then you’re probably taking life too seriously.

“OH MY GOD!  Just like Erin!” Moments

Last night, I finally got Erin to admit that she liked Bring It On because it reminded her of her cheerleading days but Erin added, “But I wasn’t as bouncy as Kirsten Dunst is in this movie.”  To that, I can only smile and say, “Whatever,” because, as everyone knows, the Bowman Girls are always bouncy.  That’s a part of our charm.

Lessons Learned

If you’re going do it, then bring it!

Film Review: Dead End (dir. by William Wyler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally released in 1937, Dead End is a gangster film with social conscience.  Based on a Broadway play and featuring a screenplay by the iconic progressive writer Lillian Hellman, Dead End is a crime film that’s more interested in the root causes of crime than in crime itself.

Dead End takes place over the course of one day in the slums of New York City.  While tenement children spend their time swimming in the East River and idealizing gangsters, wealthy people live in high-rise apartments and depend on the police and their doorman (played, naturally enough, by Ward Bond) to keep them protected from the poor people living next door.

Among the poor is Drina (Sylvia Sidney), who divides her time between marching on a picket line and trying to keep her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from hanging out with the local street gang, the Dead End Kids (Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsly, Leo Gorcey, and Gabriel Dell).  Drina’s childhood friend is Dave (Joel McCrea), an idealistic architect who is having an affair with a rich man’s mistress (Wendy Barrie).

Complicating things is the arrival of Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart).  Like Dave, Martin grew up in the slums.  However, while Dave is trying to escape by making an honest living, Martin has already escaped by choosing a life of crime.  Now, he’s viewed as a hero by Tommy and his friends and with wariness by Dave and Drina who know that Martin’s presence will eventually lead to the police invading their home.  Martin, however, is more concerned with seeing his mother (Marjorie Main) and his ex-girlfriend (Clare Trevor), who has become a prostitute and is suffering from syphilis.

For a film that was made close to 80 years ago, Dead End holds up pretty well.  Is this because it’s a brilliant film or just because the connection between poverty and crime has remained one of the constants of human history?  It’s probably a combination of both.  Considering that Dead End was filmed on a Hollywood backlot, it’s a surprisingly gritty and realistic film that only occasionally feels a bit stagey.  The film’s entire cast does a good job of bringing this particular dead end to life, though the obvious star of the film is Humphrey Bogart.  As played by Bogart, Baby Face Martin is both sympathetic and despicable, the epitome of the potential that can be found and wasted in any American city.

Dead End was nominated for best picture but lost to The Life of Emile Zola.  The film also received a much deserved nomination for best art design but lost to Lost Horizon while Clare Trevor lost the race for best supporting actress to Alice Brady, who won for In Old Chicago.  Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Humphrey Bogart did not even receive a nomination for his excellent work in Dead End.  Meanwhile, the film’s tough gang of street kids proved to be so popular that they, as a group, were cast in several other films.  Originally credited as the Dead End Kids (and later known as the Bowery Boys), they ended up making a total of 89 films together.  With the possible exception of Angels With Dirty Faces, none of those films are as highly regarded as Dead End.