The Perfection, Review By Case Wright

Posted on January 21, 2020 by casewright

perfection

Let me begin by writing that I love watching Netflix and I REALLY love livetweeting with Lisa and the rest of the Shattered Lens staff. We can coordinate times well and it’s easy to sync up. This time, I was given the movie choosing authority and perhaps it will be my last. I heard that The Perfection was a bit gory, but I figured come on, this is Shattered Lens- we Rocktober the October over here with our Horrorthon! When I saw that Steven Weber was in it, I felt like ok, this is going to be like a Tales From the Crypt experience. Well……….not so much.

The Perfection has trashy components to it and some cheaply built sets and the director REALLY wants you to know that they splurged and actually filmed in China! The best way to describe The Perfection is as an unaware, pretentious, and boring episode of Tales From the Crypt. It had the victim goes to victimizer TFTC theme and the over the top gore, but it was always trying to be serious and important when it was just an overly long TFTC episode without any humor.

The plot is pretty straight-forward: Charlotte is a prodigy Cellist who left her art to care for her dying mother for ten-years. When she tries to return to her life, she finds that a younger classmate Lizzy has attained the Cello fame that she sought. She sees her old Mentor Anton (Steven Weber) and Charlotte is now the clear has-been. Charlotte executes a plan to destroy Lizzy forever. Charlotte meets Lizzy, seduces Lizzy, drugs Lizzy, and convinces Lizzy to chop her hand off. Yep, another Hollywood girl meets girl, girl drugs girl, girl gets girl to chop her hand off story. The Perfection was actually the original script for Love Actually. The “To Me You Are Perfect” scene was just going to be Andrew Lincoln throwing severed hands at people – “To Me you are a perfect…Target” *throws hand at Juliet*.

Just when you think this movie will be a fun version of Black Swan it takes a turn for the dumb, gross. Yes, I get that this was made by a post-Weinstein Miramax and it was showing how fame could encourage and condone horrible behavior, but it was done with so much exposition that it really caused the film to jerk from long explanations to gore and long explanations to gore and long explanations to trying a Subway Cold Cut Combo – even terrible movies get hungry.

I’m not sure if I should spoil this piece of trash or not. It’s really not worth your time. Instead of watching this film you could eat a sandwich, do your taxes, plot revenge. However, it is nice to see that Steven Weber is still working – there’s that.

Cleaning Out The DVR: I Have Your Children

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching 911 Nightmare, I continued to clean out the DVR by watching I Have Your Children. I Have Your Children originally aired on Lifetime on January 1st. That’s right — this is the first Lifetime film of the year!

Anyway, I Have Your Children is a film about hostage negotiation and, after reading that, are you still awake? For whatever reasons, there have been hundreds of movies and TV shows about hostage negotiators and they’re usually pretty boring and predictable. Some crazy person takes a group of people hostage. The SWAT team surrounds him. A hostage negotiator who is haunted by a past failure shows up and does the whole, “Just talk to me” routine. The SWAT team just wants to shoot the guy and the negotiator does the whole, “You are putting the hostages in danger!” routine. Usually, it turns out that the guy holding the hostages is doing so because he was screwed over by a bank or health insurance company or maybe he lost all of his money due to a smarmy stockbroker. There’s usually a scene where the negotiator delivers food to the hostages.

Seriously, a hostage negotiator film just writes itself. Maybe that’s why there’s so many of them.

Anyway, at first glance, I Have Your Children seems like pretty much your standard hostage negotiator film. A guy named Calum stops taking his mediation and hijacks a school bus. It turns out that Calum’s mother is dying but she can’t get the treatment she needs because of the big horrible health insurance company! Calum is demanding a huge ransom, enough money to be able to pay for his mother’s treatment. One of the kidnapped kids is the daughter of a claims adjuster at the insurance company!

The SWAT Team just wants to rush in with guns blazing and if that means that all the hostages die, so be it. Fortunately, Amber Cross (Alaina Huffman) is there to negotiate with Calum. Amber, of course, has issues of her own. A hostage died during one of her previous negotiations. Her ex-husband is planning on marrying a younger woman. (It’s a Lifetime film, after all.) Her son is being bullied at school. Fortunately, Amber’s father-in-law happens to be the chief of police and he’s going to keep Amber employed, even if a snarky reporter and the fascistic SWAT Team leader continue to insist that she’s thoroughly incompetent…

However, towards the end of the film, there’s a big twist and it kind of makes up for how predictable the film has been up to that point. Obviously, I can’t really reveal the twist without spoiling the film but I will say that it was clever and fairly unexpected and it pretty much saved the entire film from being totally forgettable. So, if you happen to watch I Have Your Children, the best advice I can give is to stick with the movie and have some faith that it will eventually pay off!

Seriously, there’s nothing wrong with having a little faith.

Sci-Fi Film Review: When the Sky Falls (dir by John L’Ecuyer)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I guess it’s open to debate as to whether or not When The Sky Falls is truly a science fiction movie. It deals with a huge storm that basically produces extremely powerful lightning and the lightning occasionally appears to have a mind of its own. I have no idea if there’s any scientific basis for this. I don’t really understand how lightning works, other than the fact that you don’t want to stand under a tree in a lightning storm and you definitely do not want to get struck.

But, regardless of whether the film is scientifically accurate or not, I still feel like this should be considered a science fiction movie. First off, there’s the fact that the lightning itself often does seem to be intentionally targeting the film’s heroes. Though the film never specifically states this as fact, it does seem as if the lightning has developed enough of a personality to hold a grudge against those attempting to escape it. Secondly, the film’s main character is an ozone researcher and that just seems like an appropriate job for a character in a science fiction film. And finally, despite the fact that it premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network, the entire film feels like it belongs on the SyFy network.

Seriously, everything about this film — from the acting to the cheap but crudely effective special effects to the environmentalist protagonist — feels reminiscent of a pre-Sharknado SyFy film. (It’s easy to forget that, before Sharknado, SyFy films pretended to take themselves seriously.) The plot even follows the standard SyFy formula — a dysfunctional family spends the weekend at a cabin in the woods and end up getting separated once the big lightning storm strikes. They start out arguing and they end up depending on each other for survival. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Dad gets to prove that he’s not as lame as everyone thinks. If Lifetime films all build up to that moment when everyone realizes that mom was correct, SyFy films often celebrate the uncool but capable father figure.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about When The Sky Falls is that it was even on Lifetime Movie Network to begin with. Compared to more traditional LMN films — like Confessions of a Go-Go Girl and The Perfect Teacher — When The Sky Falls feels a bit out-of-place. Perhaps next year, SyFy will return the favor and produce a sequel to Back To School Mom.

But anyway, what about the film itself? In no way can it compare to either SyFy or Lifetime at its best. The script is predictable, the actors struggle with some seriously undeveloped characters, and the film never finds a steady pace. Some parts of the film seem way too slow while others seem to be oddly rushed. On the plus side, when taken on their own terms, some of the lightning effects are kind of fun and the film was shot in Canada so, at the very least, you get to see some really pretty scenery.

Seriously, I love Canada!