The Films of 2020: I Still Believe (dir by the Erwin Brothers)

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I Still Believe is based on the true story of musician Jeremy Camp (played by KJ Apa) and his first wife, Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson). Jeremy meets Melissa in college. They become friends. They try to date but the relationship is complicated by the fact that Jeremy’s mentor, Jean-Luc LaJoie (Nathan Parsons), is also in love with Melissa. Over the Christmas break, Melissa is taken ill and discovers that she has Stage 3C liver cancer. Jeremy and Melissa marry and try to find happiness and maintain their faith in the time that Melissa has left. Though Jeremy grows angry and has his moments of doubts, Melissa remains convinced that, though it may be hard to understand, there is a deeper reason for her suffering and it’s all apart of a bigger plan.

I Still Believe is the type of film that will bring out the cynic in most professional critics. That said, it’s also the type of film that’s pretty much critic-proof. It really doesn’t matter how much time or energy one might spend criticizing the film or its script or its belief system, the target audience of I Still Believe will love the film. I Still Believe is a film that’s either going to inspire snark or it’s going to inspire tears. It all depends on how you feel about the idea of a terminal illness all being a part of God’s plan.

(As far as that’s concerned, I’ll be keeping my own opinion to myself.)

Unlike a lot of the faith-based films that I’ve reviewed for this site, I Still Believe actually feels like a real movie. As opposed to the God’s Not Dead films, there are no cardboard atheists standing around and waiting to be shown up by the clever heroes asking how they can be angry at God if God doesn’t exist. The film, for the most part, avoids the trap of getting preachy and, to its credit, it treats Jeremy’s moments of doubt with respect. It doesn’t shame him for getting upset over something that, regardless of what you may or may not believe, seems terrible unfair. KJ Apa and Britt Robertson are both appealing performers and they have a believable chemistry as Jeremy and Melissa. Finally, the film look gorgeous. The farmlands of Indiana and the California campus where Jeremy and Melissa meet both feel vibrantly alive in this film.

At the same time, there’s nothing particularly surprising about I Still Believe. It’s a predictable film and the minute that Jeremy gets that phone call telling him that Melissa has been taken to the hospital, you’ll be able to guess everything that’s going to follow. If you’re not inclined to view Christian faith sympathetically, the film will not change your mind. When I was looking over some of the other reviews of this film, the most common complaint I saw was that the film “preaches to the choir.” It’s a valid complaint but, at the same time, I think it can also be argued that almost every film ever made has preached to one choir or another. You could say the same thing about the political films of Adam McKay and Jay Roach or, for the matter, the majority of outspokenly anti-religious films. Most message films tend to appeal to an audience who already agrees with what the film has to say. Typically. when someone complains that a film preached to the choir, what they’re really saying is, “It didn’t preach to my choir.”

I Still Believe is a well-made film that will probably be best appreciated by people who already share its view of life and religion. Though production on the film obviously started before the pandemic, it does feel like a film specifically made for these quarantined times. It’s a film that argues the faith and strength can be found in even the worst of circumstances. Whether that’s true or not is up to the viewer to decide.

Horror Film Review: From Within (dir by Phedon Papamichael Jr.)

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Strange things are happening in Grovetown, Maryland.

Sitting out on the dock, Sean (Shiloh Fernandez) reads from a book while his girlfriend, Natalie (Rumer Willis), waits. After he finishes reading, he promptly shoots himself in the head.

Natalie staggers back to her father’s dress shop and says that someone is following her. She then ducks into a backroom and stabs herself in the neck with a pair of scissors.

The next day, Natalie father (Jared Harris) hangs himself in the back of his shop.

And the deaths continue, one after another. One girl crashes her car while screaming that someone is following her. Another cuts her wrists on a broken window. A recovering alcoholic drinks drain cleaner….

Normally, all of this death would be a cause for panic (or, at the very least, a sudden surge of people moving out of town) but the citizens of Grovetown are all confident in their ability to survive. That’s because almost all of them are members of the same megachurch, led by the charismatic Pastor Joe (Steven Culp). They believe that the deaths are the results of witch’s curse. Perhaps all they have to do is kill the witch’s descendants….

Now, the witch’s son, Aidan (Thomas Dekker), is willing to admit that yes, it’s possible that his mother put a curse the town. And it’s also possible that it was the suicide of his brother Sean that unlocked the curse and activated all of the deaths. But Aidan still swears that it’s the townspeople themselves who are choosing to commit suicide. If anything, the curse is just pushing them toward the inevitable….

Of course, complicating things is the fact that Aidan has kind of fallen in love with Lindsay (Elizabeth Rice) and Lindsay is dating Dylan (Kelly Blatz), the fanatical son of Pastor Joe. Aidan and Lindsay think that they may have found a way to stop the curse but Dylan is more interested in just killing Aidan. Working with Dylan is a white trash pyromaniac named Roy (Adam Goldberg) and you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen Adam Goldberg play a white trash pyromaniac.

Anyway, From Within is a film about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the film is full of creepy moments. On the other hand, it keeps getting bogged down in its attempt to say something meaningful about religious fanaticism. I mean, we know that Pastor Joe, Dylan, and Roy are all bad news as soon as they start talking about how religious they are because this is a movie and religious people are always evil hypocrites in movies. At times, this movie comes across as if it thinks it’s the first movie to ever suggest that maybe not all religious people are as perfect as they claim.

Far more effective are the scenes involving the curse. Whenever someone falls victim to the curse, they find themselves being chased by their own doppelgänger, which leads to some incredibly creepy moments. (When the doppelgänger appeared in a mirror and compelled one woman to drink bleach, it totally freaked me out.) These scenes reminded me a bit of It Follows, though it’s important to note that From Within was released in 2008, seven years before It Follows.

From Within is an uneven film, a bit frustrating in its pretensions but undeniably effective in its scares.

Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2016: Alice Through The Looking Glass, Gods of Egypt, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Me Before You, Mother’s Day, Risen

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are six mini-reviews of six films that I saw in 2016!

Alice Through The Looking Glass (dir by James Bobin)

In a word — BORING!

Personally, I’ve always thought that, as a work of literature, Through The Looking Glass is actually superior to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That’s largely because Through The Looking Glass is a lot darker than Wonderland and the satire is a lot more fierce. You wouldn’t know that from watching the latest film adaptation, though. Alice Through The Looking Glass doesn’t really seem to care much about the source material. Instead, it’s all about making money and if that means ignoring everything that made the story a classic and instead turning it into a rip-off of every other recent blockbuster, so be it. At times, I wondered if I was watching a film based on Lewis Carroll or a film based on Suicide Squad. Well, regardless, the whole enterprise is way too cynical to really enjoy.

(On the plus side, the CGI is fairly well-done. If you listen, you’ll hear the voice of Alan Rickman.)

Gods of Egypt (dir by Alex Proyas)

I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing the plot of Gods of Egypt. This was one of the most confusing films that I’ve ever seen but then again, I’m also not exactly an expert when it comes to Egyptian mythology. As far as I could tell, it was about Egyptian Gods fighting some sort of war with each other but I was never quite sure who was who or why they were fighting or anything else. My ADHD went crazy while I was watching Gods of Egypt. There were so much plot and so many superfluous distractions that I couldn’t really concentrate on what the Hell was actually going on.

But you know what? With all that in mind, Gods of Egypt is still not as bad as you’ve heard. It’s a big and ludicrous film but ultimately, it’s so big and so ludicrous that it becomes oddly charming. Director Alex Proyas had a definite vision in mind when he made this film and that alone makes Gods of Egypt better than some of the other films that I’m reviewing in this post.

Is Gods of Egypt so bad that its good? I wouldn’t necessarily say that. Instead, I would say that it’s so ludicrous that it’s unexpectedly watchable.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (dir by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan)

Bleh. Who cares? I mean, I hate to put it like that but The Huntsman: Winter’s War felt pretty much like every other wannabe blockbuster that was released in April of last year. Big battles, big cast, big visuals, big production but the movie itself was way too predictable to be interesting.

Did we really need a follow-up to Snow White and The Huntsman? Judging by this film, we did not.

Me Before You (dir by Thea Sharrock)

Me Before You was assisted suicide propaganda, disguised as a Nicolas Sparks-style love story. Emilia Clarke is hired to serve as a caregiver to a paralyzed and bitter former banker played by Sam Claflin. At first they hate each other but then they love each other but it may be too late because Claflin is determined to end his life in Switzerland. Trying to change his mind, Clarke tries to prove to him that it’s a big beautiful world out there. Claflin appreciates the effort but it turns out that he really, really wants to die. It helps, of course, that Switzerland is a really beautiful and romantic country. I mean, if you’re going to end your life, Switzerland is the place to do it. Take that, Sea of Trees.

Anyway, Me Before You makes its points with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledge-hammer that’s been borrowed from the Final Exit Network. It doesn’t help that Clarke and Claflin have next to no chemistry. Even without all the propaganda, Me Before You would have been forgettable. The propaganda just pushes the movie over the line that separates mediocre from terrible.

Mother’s Day (dir by Garry Marshall)

Y’know, the only reason that I’ve put off writing about how much I hated this film is because Garry Marshall died shortly after it was released and I read so many tweets and interviews from people talking about what a nice and sincere guy he was that I actually started to feel guilty for hating his final movie.

But seriously, Mother’s Day was really bad. This was the third of Marshall’s holiday films. All three of them were ensemble pieces that ascribed a ludicrous amount of importance to one particular holiday. None of them were any good, largely because they all felt like cynical cash-ins. If you didn’t see Valentine’s Day, you hated love. If you didn’t see New Year’s Eve, you didn’t care about the future of the world. And if you didn’t see Mother’s Day … well, let’s just not go there, okay?

Mother’s Day takes place in Atlanta and it deals with a group of people who are all either mothers or dealing with a mother. The ensemble is made up of familiar faces — Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, and others! — but nobody really seems to be making much of an effort to act. Instead, they simple show up, recite a few lines in whatever their trademark style may be, and then cash their paycheck. The whole thing feels so incredibly manipulative and shallow and fake that it leaves you wondering if maybe all future holidays should be canceled.

I know Garry Marshall was a great guy but seriously, Mother’s Day is just the worst.

(For a far better movie about Mother’s Day, check out the 2010 film starring Rebecca De Mornay.)

Risen (dir by Kevin Reynolds)

As far as recent Biblical films go, Risen is not that bad. It takes place shortly after the Crucifixion and stars Joseph Fiennes as a Roman centurion who is assigned to discover why the body of Jesus has disappeared from its tomb. You can probably guess what happens next. The film may be a little bit heavy-handed but the Roman Empire is convincingly recreated, Joseph Fiennes gives a pretty good performance, and Kevin Reynolds keeps the action moving quickly. As a faith-based film that never becomes preachy, Risen is far superior to something like God’s Not Dead 2.

Playing Catch-Up With 6 Film Reviews: Avengers Grimm, Bad Asses On The Bayou, Hayride 2, Insurgent, Poltergeist, Tomorrowland

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here are 6 films that I saw during the first half of 2015. Some of them are on Netflix and some of them were major studio releases. Some of them are worth seeing. Some of them most definitely are not.

Avengers Grimm (dir by Jeremy M. Inman)

Obviously made to capitalize on the popularity of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers Grimm opens with a war in the world of fairy tales. Evil Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien) uses Snow White’s (Laura Parkinson) magic mirror to cross over into our world and he takes Snow White with him! It’s now up to Cinderella (Milynn Sharley), Sleeping Beauty (Marah Fairclough), and Rapunzel (Rileah Vanderbilt) to cross over into our world, save Snow White, and defeat Rumpelstiltskin. Also sneaking over is rebellious Red Riding Hood (Elizabeth Petersen) who is determined to kill Rumpelstiltskin’s henchman, The Wolf (Kimo Leopoldo).

Got all that?

Avengers Grimm is another enjoyably insane mockbuster from The Asylum. The budget’s low, the performances are intentionally melodramatic, and it’s all lot of fun. Casper Van Dien has a lot of fun playing evil, the women all get to kick ass, and Lou Ferrigno is well-cast as a labor leader named Iron John.

Avengers Grimm is currently available on Netflix.

Bad Asses On The Bayou (dir by Craig Moss)

Apparently, this is the third film in which Danny Trejo and Danny Glover have respectively played Frank Vega and Bernie Pope, two old guys who kick ass in between worrying about their prostates. I haven’t seen the previous two Bad Asses films but I imagine that it really doesn’t matter.

In this film, Trejo and Glover go to Louisiana to attend a friend’s wedding. When she’s kidnapped, they have to rescue her and impart some important life lessons to her younger brother. It’s all pretty predictable but then again, it’s also pretty good for a film called Bad Asses On The Bayou. This is a film that promises two things: Danny Trejo kicking ass and lots of bayou action. And it delivers on both counts.

In fact, I would say that Bad Asses On The Bayou is a better showcase for Danny Trejo’s unique style than the better known Machete films. Danny Trejo is a surprisingly adept comedic actor and he gives a performance here that shows his talent goes beyond mere physical presence.

Bad Asses On The Bayou is currently available on Netflix.

Hayride 2 (dir by Terron R. Parsons)

I should admit up front that I haven’t seen the first Hayride film. Luckily, Hayride 2 picks up directly from the end of the first film and is filled with so many flashbacks and so much conversation about what happened that it probably doesn’t matter.

Essentially, Pitchfork (Wayne Dean) is a murderous urban legend who turns out to be real. He killed a lot of people in the first film and he stalks those that escaped throughout the 2nd film. Like all good slasher villains, Pitchfork is a relentless killer. He’s also an unrepentant racist, which leads to a genuinely unpleasant scene where he attacks a black detective (Corlandos Scott). Say whatever else you will about the film, Hayride 2 deserves some credit for being on the side of the victims. No attempt is made to turn Pitchfork into an anti-hero and the movie is relentlessly grim.

Hayride 2 is an odd film. The film’s low-budget is obvious in every single scene. The pacing is abysmal and the performances are amateurish. And yet, when taken on its own meager terms, it has a dream-like intensity to it that I appreciated. Then again, I always have had a weakness for low-budget, regional horror films.

Hayride 2 is available on Netflix.

Insurgent (dir by Robert Schwentke)

Insurgent is both the sequel to Divergent and was also 2015’s first YA dystopia film. Shailene Woodley is as good as ever and I guess it’s good that she has a commercially successful franchise, which will hopefully inspire audiences to track down better Shailene Woodley films like The Spectacular Now.

All that said, Insurgent often felt even more pointless than Divergent. For a two-hour film featuring performers like Woodley, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Ansel Elgort, and Miles Teller, Insurgent has no excuse for being as forgettable and boring as it actually was. The next installment in The Hunger Games can not get here soon enough.

Poltergeist (dir by Gil Kenan)

When a family (led by Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt) move into a new house, they discover that everything is not what it seems. For one thing, they come across a bunch of creepy clown dolls. They also hear a lot of scary sounds. They discover that the house was built on an old cemetery. Their youngest daughter vanishes. And finally, someone says, “Isn’t this like that old movie that was on TCM last night?”

Okay, they don’t actually say that. However, as everyone knows, the 2015 Poltergeist is a remake of the 1982 Poltergeist. Since the 1982 Poltergeist still holds up fairly well, the 2015 Poltergeist feels incredibly unnecessary. It has a few good jump scenes and it’s always good to see Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt in lead roles but ultimately, who cares? It’s just all so pointless.

Watch the wall-dancing original. Ignore the remake.

Tomorrowland (dir by Brad Bird)

Welcome to the world of tomorrow! Wow, is it ever boring!

Actually, I feel a little bit bad about just how much I disliked Tomorrowland because this is a film that really did have the best intentions. Watching the film, you get the sinking feeling that the people involved actually did think that they were going to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, their idea of a better world is boring and almost oppressively optimistic. There is no room for cynicism in Tomorrowland. Bleh. What fun is that?

Anyway, the film basically steals its general idea from the Atlas Shrugged trilogy. Tomorrowland is a secret place that is inhabited by inventors, dreamers, and iconoclasts. Years ago, Frank (George Clooney) was banished from Tomorrowland because, after learning that the Earth was destined to end, he lost “hope” in mankind’s future. Fortunately, he meets Casey (Britt Robertson), who is full of hope and through her, he gets to return. They also get a chance to save the world and battle a cartoonish super villain played by Hugh Laurie. (Why is he a villain? Because he’s played by Hugh Laurie, of course!)

After all the hype and build-up, Tomorrowland turned out to be dull and predictable. What a shame. The Atlas Shrugged trilogy was at least fun because it annoyed the hipsters at the AV Club. Tomorrowland is just forgettable.