Insomnia File No. 19: Great Expectations (dir by Alfonso Cuaron)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

If you were awake at 2 in the morning last night, you could have turned over to Starz and watched the 1998 film, Great Expectations.

Great Expectations is an adaptation of the famous novel by Charles Dickens, the one about the orphan who helps a fugitive, is mentored by a bitter rich woman who lives in a decaying mansion, falls in love with the beautiful but cold-hearted Estella, and then later is helped out by a mysterious benefactor. The thing that sets this adaptation apart from other version of the novel is that the 1998 Great Expectations is set in modern-day America, as opposed to Victorian-era Great Britain.

Actually, beyond retaining certain aspects of the plot, it’s interesting how little this version of Great Expectations has to do with the original novel. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. While Charles Dickens deserves to be remembered as one of the fathers of modern literature, he could also be a terribly pedantic writer. This adaptation only touches on the novel’s overriding concerns about class and wealth in the most simplistic of ways. It also abandons most of the novel’s subplots and instead concentrates on the love story between Estella (Gwynneth Paltrow) and Finn (Ethan Hawke).

Oh yeah, did I mention that? The hero of this version of Great Expectations is not named Phillip Pirrip and we never have to listen to him explain that, as a child, he was nicknamed Pip because he apparently could not speak. Instead, Pip has been renamed Finn, short for Finnegan. If you believe the trivia section of the imdb, Finn was apparently the name of Ethan Hawke’s dog. And again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. One of the main reasons why so many readers automatically dislike the narrator of Great Expectations is that he is named Pip.

Anyway, in this version, ~~Pip~~ Finn grows up in Florida, an orphan who is raised by his blue-collar brother-in-law, Joe Gargery (Chris Cooper, giving a very Chris Cooperish performance). The escaped convict is played by Robert De Niro and, towards the end of the film, there’s a hilarious scene where Finn and the convict meet for a second time and Finn somehow does not recognize him, despite the fact that he still pretty much looks the same and still acts exactly like Robert De Niro. The eccentric woman who mentors the young Finn, Mrs. ~~Havisham~~ Dinsmoor, is played by Anne Bancroft and Bancroft, made up to look like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, gives a performance of almost transcendent weirdness. And, of course, Estella — who has been raised to seduce and then destroy men — is played by Gwynneth Paltrow and, as usual, Paltrow is a lot more believable when Estella is remote and self-centered than when she has to soften up towards the end of the film.

It’s an odd film, to be honest. This is one of those films that you watch and you try to be cynical but it’s all so lushly shot and deliriously (and manipulatively) romantic that you can’t help but occasionally get wrapped up in its spell. Hawke and Paltrow, both of whom are incredibly young in this movie, may not have much chemistry but they’re both so achingly beautiful that it almost doesn’t matter.

Great Expectations was the second film to be directed by Alfonso Cuaron and it’s just as visually stylish as his later films. It’s a frequently shallow and somewhat silly film but oh my God, is it ever pretty to look at.

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

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, if you were suffering from insomnia at one in the morning and you turned over to one of the Cinemax stations, you could have watched the 1993 film, Only The Strong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Insomnia File No. 17: The Suburbans (dir by Donal Lardner Ward)

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, if you were still awake at 3:45 in the morning, you could have turned over to Starz and watched the 1999 comedy, The Suburbans!

And, in all probability, you would have fallen asleep before it was over.

This film tells the story of four guys who used to be in a band. The name of the band was The Suburbans and, in 1980, they had a hit with a song called … wait … what the Hell was that song called? See, this is an example of how slapdash The Suburbans was. The whole point of the film is that they had a hit song but the movie goes off in some many different and random tangents that I can’t even remember what the name of this very important song was. All I remember is that the song didn’t really sound like it would ever be a hit (no, not even in the 80s) and that the four guys really didn’t seem like they would ever be rock stars.

Anyway, The Suburbans only had that one hit and now, nearly twenty years later, all the band members are leading conventional lives in the suburbs. Oddly, they all appear to live in the same suburb and they’re all still best friends. Craig Bierko is the former lead guitarist, who is now a doctor of some sort. Will Ferrell (yes, that Will Ferrell) is the former bass player who now works with computers. Tony Guma is the overweight drummer who is at the center of a lot of scenes, presumably because Guma co-wrote the script. Donal Lardner Ward is the former lead singer. Along with starring in the film, Ward also directed it. That might explain why, despite not being a very interesting character, everyone in the film is portrayed as being in love with him.

The Suburbans briefly reunite to play at Ferrell’s wedding. A music executive (Jennifer Love Hewitt) happens to be at the wedding. It turns out that she used to love The Suburbans and their one hit! (The problem is that Jennifer Love Hewitt was only 20 when this film was made, which means that, when the Suburbans were famous, she would have only been a year old.) She arranges for The Suburbans to reunite for a pay-per-view special and…

…and then a lot of stuff happens. And I do mean a lot of stuff. But what’s odd is none of that stuff adds up to anything. Ward’s girlfriend (played by Amy Brenneman) is briefly threatened by Hewitt but, fear not — Donal Lardner Ward is the world’s greatest guy! Occasionally, one member of the Suburbans might argue with another member of the Suburbans but fear not — they’re all great guys!

What’s funny is that, after spending 81 minutes with these characters and listening to their oppressively relentless quippy dialogue, you still don’t feel like you know a damn thing about any of them. You never even find out how The Suburbans first got together or what inspired them to write their one hit in the first place. Nor do you find out why they broke up. They’re just sort of there and we’re supposed to care.

I guess I should mention that Ben and Jerry Stiller are both in the film. They play Hewitt’s bosses and it’s painful to watch both of them. Apparently, the director just said, “Ben, say something funny!” and the result was an endless scene of Ben Stiller saying whatever popped into his head.

(I should also probably mention that J.J. Abrams produced this movie. Yes, that J.J. Abrams…)

If you track down the Suburbans on DVD, you’ll notice that the cover art is pretty much centered around Jennifer Love Hewitt and Will Ferrell. What’s funny is that neither Hewitt nor Ferrel really get to do much in the movie. (That said, Ferrell’s performance is enjoyably odd, even if it does feel totally out of the place.) The entire movie is centered around Tony Guma and Donal Lardner Ward. After all, they wrote and directed the damn thing. So, I guess if you’re a Tony Guma fan, The Suburbans is the movie for you!

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Insomina File No. 16: Kill The Messenger (dir by Michael Cuesta)

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, if you were awake and unable to get any sleep at 1:45 in the morning, you could have turned over to Cinemax and watched the 2014 conspiracy thriller, Kill The Messenger.

Kill The Messenger opens with one of those title cards that assures us that the movie we’re about to see is based on a true story. We are then introduced to Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner), a California-based reporter who we know is a rebel because he has a precisely trimmed goatee. Gary is interviewing a suspected drug smuggler (Robert Patrick) at the smuggler’s luxurious mansion. Suddenly, the DEA storms the house, shouting insults and roughly throwing everyone to the ground, including Gary. It’s actually exciting and promising opening, one that perfectly establishes both Gary as a truth seeker and the U.S. government as an invading army that’s fighting a war that’s full of collateral damage.

Gary, of course, has nothing to do with smuggling drugs. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he was treated unfairly by the DEA, it’s just because the government is serious about winning the war on drugs!

Or is it?

Following up on a tip, Gary comes across evidence that, in order to raise money for pro-Amercian rebels in Central America, the CIA not only helped to smuggle drugs into the U.S. but also arranged for the drugs to largely be sold in poor, minority neighbors where, in theory, no one would notice or care.

When the story is finally published, Gary is briefly a celebrity. Not surprisingly, the government denies his accusations and start tying to discredit him. However, Gary also finds himself being targeted by his fellow journalists. Angry over being outscooped by a relatively unknown reporter, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post both launch their own investigations. Instead of investigating Gary’s allegations, they jealously and viciously investigate Gary himself.

Soon, both Gary’s career and his family are falling apart and Gary finds himself growing more and more paranoid…

Remember when everyone was expecting Kill The Messenger to be a really big deal? It was due to come out towards the end of 2014, right in the middle of Oscar season. Jeremy Renner was being talked up as a contender for best actor. Then the film came out, it played in a handful of theaters for a week or two, and then it sunk into obscurity. Some commentators even complained that Focus Features buried the release of Kill The Messenger and that the film was ignored because of its leftist politics…

Of course, it’s just as probable that Focus Features realized that The Theory of Everything was more likely to charm audiences than a movie that suggested the U.S. government was behind the drug epidemic.

Or it could have just been that, despite telling a potentially intriguing story, Kill The Messenger was an oddly bland film. Other than one scene in which he admits to cheating on his wife, Gary Webb is portrayed as being such a saint that it actually causes the film to lose credibility. (Don’t get me wrong. For all I know, he was a saint. But, from a cinematic point of view, sainthood is never compelling.) This is one of those earnest films that gets so heavy-handed that, even if you agree with what the movie is saying, you still resent being manipulated. (Of course, some of us have grown so cynical about the media that we automatically doubt the veracity any movie that opens with those dreaded words: “Based on a true story.”) Watching Kill The Messenger, one gets the feeling that a documentary about Gary Webb would probably be more compelling (and convincing) than a fictionalized dramatization.

(Unfortunately, if you think it’s difficult to get an audience to watch a movie that suggested the U.S. government was behind the drug epidemic, just try to get them to watch a documentary about … well, anything. I know most of our readers would probably happily watch a documentary but that’s because y’all are the best and a thousand times better than the average person. Love you!)

Here’s what did work about Kill The Messenger: the performances. Jeremy Renner, who also produced this film, gives an excellent performance as Gary, especially in the scenes where he realizes that both the government and the press are now conspiring about him. Rosemarie DeWitt has the traditionally thankless role of being the supportive wife but she still does a good job. And finally, Ray Liotta shows up for one scene and is absolutely chilling in that way that only Ray Liotta can be.

Kill The Messenger doesn’t quite work but, thanks to the cast, it is, at the very least, a watchable misfire.

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Insomnia File No. 15: George Wallace (dir by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If, after watching Promise last night, you discovered that you were still suffering from insomnia, you could have watched the very next film that premiered on TCM. That film was the 1997 biopic, George Wallace.

Like Promise, George Wallace was originally made for television. Also, much like Promise, George Wallace is a character study of a conflicted man who makes many people uncomfortable and it’s also well-acted by a cast of veteran performers. That, however, is where the similarities end. Whereas Promise was ultimately a rather low-key and human drama, George Wallace is an epic. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours and telling a story that spans decades, George Wallace attempts to use one man’s life story as a way to tell the entire story of the civil rights movement.

That’s a tremendously ambitious undertaking, especially for a film that had to conform to the demands of 1990s television. Therefore, it’s probably not surprising that the movie, as a whole, is uneven. It’s not a bad movie but, at the same time, it doesn’t quite work.

First off, we need to talk about who the historical George Wallace was.

(Here’s where I get to show off my amazing history nerd powers. Yay!)

George Wallace served a total of four terms as governor of Alabama. A protegé of a populist known as “Big Jim” Folsom, Wallace first ran for governor in 1958. He campaigned as a moderate who supported integration and, as a result, he was defeated by the KKK’s endorsed candidate, John Patterson. (Oddly enough, a fictionalized version of Patterson was the hero of the classic and racially progressive 1955 film, The Phenix City Story.) When Wallace ran again in 1962, he ran as an outspoken segregationist and defeated his former mentor, Jim Folsom. Infamously, Wallace is the governor who stood in the schoolhouse door and announced that Alabama would never accept integration. Unable to succeed himself, Wallace arranged for his wife, Lurleen, to be elected as governor. Lurleen subsequently died in office, succumbing to cancer while Wallace was running for President as the candidate of the American Independent Party. (As of this writing, Wallace is the last third party presidential candidate to carry any states.) Reelected governor in 1970, Wallace married Folsom’s niece and made another presidential run. However, after a string of primary victories, that campaign was cut short when Wallace was shot and crippled by Arthur Bremer. (Bremer would serve as the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.) Confined to a wheelchair, Wallace served as governor until 1978 and, in 1976, ran for President one final time. After being out of office for four years, he was elected Governor for one final term in 1982. Late in life (and, it should be pointed out, long after integration had been generally accepted as the law of the land), Wallace renounced his segregationist past and publicly apologized for standing in the schoolhouse door. During his final campaign for governor, he won a majority of the black vote and he proceeded to appoint more blacks to state positions than any governor before him.

George Wallace lived a long, dramatic, and interesting life and he’s still a very controversial figure. Who was the real George Wallace? Was he a political opportunist who used racism to further his career? Was he truly a racist who saw the error of his ways and repented or did he only pretend to renounce his former beliefs once they were no longer popular? And, even if Wallace was sincere in his regret, did he deserve to be forgiven or should he always be remembered as the villainous caricature that Tim Roth portrayed in Selma? If we forgive or make excuses for the actions of a George Wallace, do we run the risk of diminishing the success and importance of the civil rights movement?

And I, honestly, have no answers to those questions. Unfortunately, neither does George Wallace. But before we get into that, let’s consider what does work about this film.

George Wallace opens in 1972 with Wallace campaigning in Maryland. Wallace is played by Gary Sinise and his second wife, Cornelia, is played by a very young Angelina Jolie. Sinise and Jolie both give brilliant performances, perhaps the best of their respective careers. Sinise plays Wallace as a calculating and charismatic politician who is also a very angry man. Throughout every second of his performance, we are aware of Wallace’s resentment that his political success in Alabama has potentially made him unelectable in the rest of the country. Watching Sinise as Wallace, you see a man who believes in himself but doesn’t necessarily like the person that he’s become. Meanwhile, Jolie plays Cornelia like a Southern Lady MacBeth and watching her, I remembered how, at one time, Angelina Jolie really did seem like a force of nature. The Angelina Jolie of George Wallace is the wild and uninhibited Jolie of the past (the one who once said, “You’re in bed, you’ve got a knife, shit happens.”), as opposed to the safe and conventional Jolie of the present, the one who is currently directing rather stodgy movies like Unbroken and By The Sea.

After Wallace is shot, the film goes into flashback mode. We watch as Wallace goes from being a liberal judge to being the segregationist governor of Alabama. Mare Winningham plays Lurleen Wallace while Joe Don Baker plays Big Jim Folsom. They all do a pretty good job but the flashback structure is so conventional (and so typical of a made-for-tv biopic) that it makes the film a bit less interesting.

There’s also a character named Archie. Played by Clarence Williams III, Archie is literally the only major black character in the entire film. He is portrayed as being a former convict who has been hired to serve as Wallace’s valet. While Wallace plots to thwart the civil rights movement, Archie stands in the background glowering. At one point, he’s even tempted to kill Wallace. However, after Wallace is shot, Archie helps to take care of him. The film suggests that being shot and subsequently cared for by Archie is what led to Wallace renouncing his racist views. (The film also suggests that Wallace was never that much of a racist to begin with and, instead, was just so seduced by power that he would say whatever he had to say to win an election in Alabama.)

At the end of the film, we’re informed that almost everyone in the film was real but that Archie was fictional. The problem, of course, is that the film is suggesting that the fictional Archie is responsible for the real-life Wallace both rejecting racism and apologizing for the all-too real consequences of racism. The film ends with the realization that the filmmakers were so convinced that audiences would not be able to accept an ambiguous portrait of a public figure that they created a fictional character so that Wallace could have a moment of redemption.

(It also doesn’t help that a film about civil rights only features one major black character and that character is a fictional valet who doesn’t get to say much.)

In the end, the film doesn’t seem to be certain what it’s trying to say about Wallace and the meaning of his dramatic life. That said, I enjoyed watching George Wallace because of the acting and because, as a history nerd, I always enjoy seeing historical figures portrayed on-screen, even if the filmmakers don’t seem to be quite sure what they’re tying to say about them.

George Wallace was directed by John Frankenheimer, a good director who, it appears, was constrained by the demands of 1990s television. If George Wallace were made today, it would probably air on HBO and would probably be allowed to take more of a firm stand one way or the other on Wallace’s character. That said, it would probably also be directed by Jay Roach who, to put it lightly, is no John Frankenheimer.

Anyway, George Wallace doesn’t quite work but it’s definitely interesting. Watch it for Gary and Angelina!

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Insomnia File No. 14: Promise (dir by Glenn Jordan)

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you were awake at midnight last night and if you were watching TCM, you would have seen a 1986 film called Promise.

Promise stars James Garner as Bob Beuhler, who is one of those deceptively confident men who seems to have his entire life together. He’s made a nice little life for himself, buying and selling houses and he lives in a small town where everyone appears to know and respect him. If Promise were made today, Bob is the type of person who could probably have his own A&E reality show.

But then Bob’s mother dies and we learn of a promise that Bob made forty years ago. It turns out that Bob has a younger brother, named D.J. (James Woods). D.J. suffers from schizophrenia and he’s spent all of his life living with his mother. It quickly becomes apparent that the main driving force behind Bob’s success has been the need to prove that he’s nothing like D.J. When he doesn’t take his medication, D.J. is unpredictable and suffers from violent mood swings. Bob loves his brother but he’s also scared of him.

However, Bob made a promise and he’s going to try to honor it.

It turns out to be even more difficult than he expected. Sometimes, D.J. is calm and sweetly shy. Other times, he becomes violent. The rest of the town starts to gossip about Bob’s “crazy” brother. After one fight, Bob discovers that D.J. has become catatonic. When Bob calls an ambulance, everyone in the neighborhood lines up on Bob’s lawn to watch as D.J. is taken away.

Even though D.J. is eventually released from the hospital and returns home, Bob still is unsure of whether or not he can properly care for his brother. When they go on a trip to a cabin that they often visited as children, Bob is surprised to see how “normal” D.J. is acting. But how long will it last?

When I looked up Promise on the imdb, I was not surprised to discover that it was originally made for television. The fact that nobody in the film ever curses was a dead giveaway and the script occasionally threatens to turn into a PSA. But, with all that in mind, Promise is still a wonderfully effective and rather heartbreaking little movie. James Woods has the more showy role and does a great job with it’s the far more low-key James Garner who keeps the film grounded. Watching a film like Promise, you see that Garner was really a great actor.

Promise is a sad film but it’s definitely one worth watching.

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Insomnia File #12: Beyond The Law (dir by Larry Ferguson)

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, if you were awake at one in the morning, you could have turned on FLIX and watched the 1993 film Beyond The Law.

Now, you may look at the title and think to yourself, “That movie sounds way too generic for anyone to watch.” And, to a certain extent, you’re right. Based, so the narrated epilogue insists, on a true story, Beyond The Law is about a troubled cop who goes undercover and joins a biker gang. After gaining the trust and friendship of the gang’s ruthless leader, the cop struggles to maintain a between order and chaos. Sometimes, he succeeds. Sometimes, he doesn’t. Largely, his success is dependent on whatever the narrative requires at the moment.

It’s totally predictable but, at the same time, it’s hard not to watch. When a film starts with an Indian shaman telling Charlie Sheen that his dark side is going to destroy him, how can you not keep watching?

That’s right … the undercover cop is played by Charlie Sheen. Fortunately, since Beyond the Law was made in 1993, we’re talking about the sexy and dangerous Charlie Sheen who showed up at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and not the sad and bloated Charlie Sheen who co-starred on Two And A Half Men.

Charlie’s a deputy in Arizona who, as a result of his traumatic childhood, has a violent temper. After he gets into a fist fight with another deputy (played by Rip Torn), he is told that he can either quit the force or he can go undercover. He chooses to go undercover. Fortunately, he knows an informant (Leon Rippy) who can teach him how to pass for a biker. The informant’s nickname is Dildo (no, really) but later, we find out that his given name is Virgil. And he’s Charlie’s guide through the Hell of the Arizona underworld, just as another Virgil led Dante through another Hell…

Yes, it’s totally heavy-handed but somehow, it’s appropriate. The title may be generic but, within the first 30 minutes of the film, Beyond the Law gives us Indian wisdom, strange flashbacks, references to Dante, a guy named Dildo, and Charlie Sheen. But that’s not all! Beyond the Law also has Michael Madsen!

Michael Madsen plays Blood, the leader of the biker gang that Charlie has to infiltrate. And he gives a classic Michael Madsen performance, full of random squints, arched eyebrows, menacing pauses in the middle of dialogue, and that famous Michael Madsen half-smirk. Predictable as its plot may be, Beyond The Law is your only chance to see Charlie Sheen and Michael Madsen compete to see who can chew the most scenery. Charlie does his crazy eyes. Madsen does his half-smirk. In the end, I would say that Madsen wins.

Charlie also ends up having a relationship with an photojournalist (Linda Fiorentino). Before going undercover, he gave her a speeding ticket and, when they later meet at a biker gathering, she immediately recognizes him but keeps his secret. She doesn’t really get to do much in the film but I still liked the character because she was tough and she was the only person in the film who could outsmirk Michael Madsen.

Beyond The Law is nothing special but it’s worth watching just for the chance to see Michael Madsen and Charlie Sheen acting opposite each other.

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Insomnia File #11: Summer Catch (dir by Mike Tollin)

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Whenever I look at my cable guide, I always notice that channel 834 is listed as being “MorMax.” For some reason, I always assume that MorMax stands for Morman Max and I’m always expecting that it’s going to show movies about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But actually, MorMax stands for More Cinemax.

Anyway, last night, if you were having a hard time sleeping around midnight (though why anyone would ever try to go to sleep before midnight is beyond me), you could have turned on MorMax and watched the 2001 romantic comedy Summer Catch!

Though it may be hard to believe today, there was a time when Freddie Prinze, Jr. was a pretty big deal. From 1997 to 2001, Prinze appeared in 179 movies. Well, actually, he only appeared in 10 but since they were all aimed at teenage girls and played on cable constantly, it felt like 179. (Seriously, there was a time when I could not get through an entire day without seeing at least a few minutes of She’s All That.) For the most part, all of these films were pretty much the same. Freddie Prinze, Jr. plays a kind of dumb guy who falls in love with a girl. Prinze’s character was usually from a working class family and had at least one wacky friend. The girl was usually from a rich family and had one bitchy friend who would be an ex-friend by the end of the movie. There was usually at least one scene set on the beach or at a swimming pool, the better for Freddie to remove his shirt and his costar to chastely strip down to her underwear. There was usually a falling in love montage and at least one big misunderstanding. Freddie would always flash the same goofy smile whenever the misunderstanding was cleared up. Even at the time that the films were being released, nobody was ever under the impression that Freddie Prinze, Jr. was a particularly good actor. But he was likable, unthreatening, and hot in an oddly bland sort of way.

(Speaking of oddly bland, check out the titles of some of Prinze’s films: She’s All That, Down To You, Boys and Girls, Head over Heels, and, of course, Summer Catch.)

Summer Catch opens with Ryan Dunne (Freddie!) explaining that he’s just a working class kid from Massachusetts but this summer, he’s going to be playing amateur baseball in Cap Cod and hopefully, he’ll get signed to a professional contract as result. (Freddie adopts an inconsistent “pahk ya cah by the bah” accent and its kind of endearing to see him trying so hard.) Ryan, of course, is just a local guy who mows lawns for a living but he’s determined to succeed. He just has to stay focused.

However, that’s going to be difficult because he’s just met Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel). The Parrishes own a vacation home on Cape Cod and they are so rich that they can afford to name their oldest daughter Tenley. Soon, Tenley and Ryan are a couple but Tenley’s father wants Tenley to marry a rich boy and Ryan’s father is too busy being all surly and working class to appreciate Ryan’s dreams.

(Tenley’s father, incidentally, is played by Bruce Davison because all snobbish WASPs of a certain age are played by Bruce Davison. Ryan’s father is played by Fred Ward because Summer Catch was made in 2001.)

Because every Freddie Prinze, Jr. movie needs a hyperactive and wacky sidekick, Ryan’s best friend on the team is a catcher named Billy Brubaker (Matthew Lillard.) Billy is known as “Bru.” There’s a lot of scenes of people saying stuff like “Yo, Bru,” and “Come on, Bru!” After a while, I found myself hoping for a scene where Bru went crazy and started shouting, “My name is Billy, dammit! BILLY! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!” Instead, however, we get a subplot about how Billy can’t get any hits until he has sex with and wears the thong underwear of a local baseball fan.

Anyway, Summer Catch is an extremely predictable film. It’s not surprising that this was one of Freddie’s final star vehicles because, other than his heroic effort to maintain a Massachusetts accent, even he seems to be bored with it all. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Summer Catch is that there’s next to no actual conflict in the film. Oh sure, Ryan and Tenley have a few misunderstandings but it’s never anything serious.

If there’s an unheralded hero to Summer Catch, it’s the uncredited guy who we hear providing commentary during the games. Seriously, I would have been so lost if not for him constantly saying stuff like, “This is Ryan Dunne’s chance to show what he can do,” and “Billy Brubaker needs to get a hit here…” They should have made the entire movie about him and his efforts to remain up-to-date on all the players.

Because Summer Catch was a baseball film, I begged my sister Erin to watch it with me so that she could explain all the baseball stuff to me. For the record, Erin says that the game scenes were okay (and I personally liked all of the totally gratuitous slow motion) but that the film wasn’t really a deep examination of baseball. To be honest, I really wasn’t expecting that it would be. I just wanted to make my sister stay up late and watch a movie with me.

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Insomnia File #9: Born Killers (dir by Morgan J. Freeman)

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you were suffering insomnia at around 2:30 this morning, you could have turned over to ActionMax and watched the 2005 film Born Killers.

Now, probably the first thing that you noticed about this film is that the director is named Morgan J. Freeman. That J is there for a reason. In no way is Morgan J. Freeman the director related to Morgan Freeman the actor. Instead, Morgan J. Freeman is a director who has done a few indie films and who will probably never live down the fact that he directed American Psycho II: All-American Girl. According to the imdb, Freeman is also an executive producer on Teen Mom.

In other words, Morgan J. Freeman has been involved with a lot of crap.

However, Born Killers is actually a fairly good film. It’s certainly far better than anything you would expect to see from the director of American Psycho II.

Born Killers tells the story of two brothers, John (Jake Muxworthy) and Michael (Gabriel Mann). John and Michael are both killers. They call other human beings “piggy banks” and they spend all of their time murdering innocent people and then robbing them. For the wild and unpredictable Michael, it’s fun. For the coolly calculating John, it’s strictly business. They’re both sociopaths but, as quickly becomes apparent, Michael is the only one who is having any fun.

Through flashbacks, we discover that Michael and John never really had a chance to be anything other than what they eventually became. From an early age, their father (Tom Sizemore, who is absolutely chilling) taught them how to kill and steal. After their father’s violent death, John and Michael go on their own killing spree.

And everything seems to be going well for them, until John ends up shooting Michael. Why did John kill him? Even though John is narrating the story, he doesn’t seem to be sure. He admits that his memory may be fooling him. He thinks that it might have something to do with a woman named Archer (Kelli Garner), who the brothers reluctantly murdered.

With his brother now dead, John tracks down his half-sister, Gertle (Lauren German). John hasn’t seen Gertle in years and, when he first approaches her, he pretends to be a Mormon missionary. Gertle responds by leading him into her house and, after they have sex, she tells him that she knows that he is her half-brother.

Though John was originally planning on murdering her, he instead finds himself falling in love with her and even feeling that maybe his love for her would redeem him for all of his past crimes. When she tries to warn him that she has issues of her own, John replies that he knows they are meant to be together. He begs her to take a chance on him.

But Gertle, as you’ve probably guessed, has secrets of her own…

At first, I wasn’t expecting much from Born Killers. And, for the first 30 minutes or so, it plays out like your typical serial killer road film. I kept watching because of the performances but I didn’t think much of the story. However, as soon as John tracks down his sister, the entire movie changes direction and it actually starts to catch you off guard. Suddenly, you’re no longer sure just what exactly is going to happen or how it’s going to end. During the final half of the film, Lauren German and Jake Muxworthy give such good and compelling performances that you forget about the shaky first half. Even if the film’s ending is a little bit too twisted for its own good, it’s still an interesting journey.

All in all, Born Killers is not at all bad for a low-budget serial killer film airing on Cinemax at two in the morning!

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Insomnia File No. 8: From the Hip (dir by Bob Clark)

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, if you discovered that you couldn’t get any sleep around two in the morning, you could have turned to Showtime and watched the 1987 film, From The Hip.

In From the Hip, Judd Nelson plays a character named Robin Weathers. Of course, his nickname is Stormy. Robin has just graduated from law school and is working at a prestigious law firm. He’s ambitious, he’s outspoken, and he’s totally frustrated. As his co-workers (played, quite well, by David Alan Grier and Dan Monahan) continually remind him, nobody gets to try a case during their first year out of law school. They advise him to be patient and to wait his turn.

However, a man who is capable of being patient would not be nicknamed Stormy. It just wouldn’t make any sense. So, Stormy Weathers schemes his way into the courtroom. One morning, he intentionally withholds information from the senior partners, going out of his way to keep them from realizing that a trial is scheduled to begin that afternoon. When senior partner Craig Duncan (Darren McGavin) discovers what Stormy has done, he fires him and makes sure that he never get hired at another law firm … oh wait. No, he doesn’t because that would make too much sense. Instead, he allows Stormy to try the case because, at this point, Stormy is the only one who knows anything about it.

The case is a simple assault case that involves two bankers and should be resolved easily but Stormy manages to drag it out for several days and his flamboyant style catches the attention of the media. The other partners in the law firm — who are all old and boring — want to fire Stormy but Stormy’s client says that, if Stormy is fired, he’ll take his business and his money elsewhere. Stormy becomes a minor celebrity but — in a rather clever little twist — it turns out that he and the prosecuting attorney are old friends from law school and they conspired to make each other look good.

Anyway, Stormy is now so famous that he gets assigned to defend a college professor, named Benoit (John Hurt), who has been accused of murder. When it quickly becomes obvious that Benoit is not only guilty but will probably murder again, Stormy is forced to choose between ambition and morality…

When my friend Evelyn and I first started to watch From the Hip last night, I really thought I was going to hate it. The hot pink neon credits screamed, “Bad 80s movie!” and, because I happen to know quite a few lawyers, I tend to be a 100 times more critical of movies about lawyers than I am when it comes to movies about, say, homicidal fishermen.

And, honestly, From The Hip is a heavily flawed film. Judd Nelson is miscast and the scenes with his politically conscious girlfriend (Elizabeth Perkins) are painfully shallow and reek of limousine liberalism. But, if you can get through the weak opening, the film itself is watchable and enjoyable in a dumb sort of way. John Hurt does a great job as a sociopath and, miscast as he may be, it’s still fun to watch Nelson go insane in court.

From The Hip is not a great film but, in its way, it’s an enjoyable little time capsule. Believe it or not, there was a time when Judd Nelson starred in a movies that were actually released in theaters.