2018 In Review: The Best of Lifetime

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, I continue my look back at the previous year with my picks for the best of Lifetime in 2018! Below, you’ll find my nominations for the best Lifetime films and performances of 2018! Winners are starred and listed in bold!

(As a guide, I used the credits for the imdb. If anyone has been miscredited or left out, please feel free to let me know and I’ll fix the error both here and, if I can, on the imdb as well.)

(For my previous best of Lifetime picks, click on the links: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)

Best Picture

The Art of Murder, produced by Neil Elman, Bryce Fishman, James Lourie, Hannah Pillemer, Edgar Rosa, Fernando Szew

The Bad Seed, produced by Justis Greene, Harvey Kahn, Elizabeth Guber Stephen, Mark Wolper.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey. Produced by Mary Petryshyn, Charles Tremayne, Jeff Vanderwal

Cocaine Godmother, produced by Jamie Goehring, S. Lily Hui, Jonathan Koch, Stephen Michaels, Andrew Molina, Alisa Tager, Shawn Williamson.

Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill, produced by David Manzaners and Judith Verno

*The Girl in the Bathtub, produced by Kevin Leeson, Emanuel Pereira, Diane Sokolow, Rachel Verno*

Girl in the Bunker, produced by Kim Bondi, Stephen Kemp, Thomas Vencelides

I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter. Produced by Len Murach and Rick Van Meter.

No One Would Tell. Produced by Shawn Angeliski, Paddy Bickerton, Martin Fisher, Lisa Richardson, Danielle Von Zerneck

Terror in the Woods. Produced by David Eubanks, Les Franck, Adam Freeman, Leslie Greif, James Heerdegen, Ashley Hudson, Christina Ricci, Eric Tomonsanus, DJ Viola

Best Director

Jim Donovan for Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

Gail Harvey for No One Would Tell

Seth Jarrett for I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter

Rob Lowe for The Bad Seed

*Karen Moncrieff for The Girl in the Bathtub*

Guillermo Navarro in Cocaine Godmother

Best Actor

Burgess Abernethy in Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance

Kevin Fonteyne in Lover in the Attic

Rob Lowe in The Bad Seed

Austin P. McKenzie in Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill

*Eric Roberts in Stalked By My Doctor: Patient’s Revenge*

Henry Thomas in The Girl in the Bunker

Best Actress

Haylie Duff in Deadly Delusion

McKenna Grace in The Bad Seed

Caitlin Stasey in The Girl In The Bathtub

Bella Thorne in Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill

Megan West in I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter

*Catherine Zeta-Jones in Cocaine Godmother*

Best Supporting Actor

Juan Pablo Espinosa in Cocaine Godmother

David Fierro in Lover in the Attic

Joel Gretsch in I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter

Patrick Muldoon in A Tale of Two Coreys

*Jason Patric in The Girl in the Bathtub*

Rossif Sutherland in Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

Best Supporting Actress

Krista Allen in Party Mom

Cara Buono in The Bad Seed

Angela Kinsey in Terror in the Woods

*Lydia Look in Mistress Hunter*

Jenny Pellicer in Cocaine Godmother

Katherine Reis in I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter

Best Screenplay

The Bad Seed. Barbara Marshall.

Believe Me: The Abudction of Lisa McVey. Christina Welsh.

Cocaine Godmother. Molly McAlpine, David McKenna.

The Girl in the Bathtub. Karen Moncrieff.

*No One Would Tell. Caitlin D. Fryers*

Terror in the Woods. Amber Benson.

Best Cinematography

The Bad Seed. Peter Menzies, Jr.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey. Sasha Moric.

Cocaine Godmother. Guillermo Navarro.

Girl in the Bunker. Fraser Brown.

*I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter. Brian J. Reynolds*

Terror in the Woods. David McGrory.

Best Costuming

*The Art of Murder. Steviee Hughes.*

Cocaine Godmother. Jori Woodman.

Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance. Claudia Da Ponte, Diah Wymont.

I Killed My BFF: The Peacher’s Daughter. David Anthony Crowley.

Psycho Prom Queen. Anie Fisette.

A Tale of Two Coreys. Jennifer Garnet Filo.

Best Editing

The Bad Seed, Eric L. Beason.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey. Lisa Grootenboer.

Cocaine Godmother. Luis Carballar.

*Conrad & Michelle: If Words Could Kill. Henk van Eeghen*

The Girl in the Bathtub.

Girl in the Bunker. Stephen Kemp.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Cocaine Godmother. Laura Copó, Victoria Ferguson, Brittany Isaacs, Andrea Manchur, Joanna Mireau, Adam James Phillips, Trefor Proud, Juanita Santamaria, Ronnie Sidhu, Vicki Syskakis

Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance. Lorna Bravo, Helena Cepeda, Jenni Brown Greenberg, Shelly Jensen, Melissa Rankl, Cydney Sjostrom

I Killed My BFF: The Preacher’s Daughter. Missy Scarbrough and Christina Kim.

*Lover in the Attic. Crystal Broedel, Brittanie Cruz, Robin Styles, Diana Valerie, Nataleigh Verrengia*

A Tale of Two Coreys. Katherine Chandler, Lynnae Duley, Monique Hyman, Katie Kilkenny, Kaity Licina, Megan Nicoll, Rebecca Violet Schroeder, Adina Sullivan

Zombie at 17. Jessica Awad, Cinthia Burke, Christine Capustinsky, Shannon Doyle.

Best Score

Cocaine Godmother. Eduardo Aram.

The Girl in the Bathtub. Adam Gorgoni.

Lover in the Attic. Ozzy Doniz.

No One Would Tell. Mark Lazeski.

A Tale of Two Coreys. Jim Dooley.

*Terror in the Woods. Ozzy Doniz.*

Best Production Design

*The Art of Murder. Yana Veselova.*

Cocaine Godmother. Eric Fraser.

The Girl in the Bathtub. Laura Lola Maier.

Girl in the Bunker. Andrew Berry.

Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance. Mayne Berke, Ashley Swanson, Vincent Wright

Lover in the Attic. Lindsay Glick.

Best Sound

Cocaine Godmother

*Deadly Delusion*

House of Darkness: New Blood

Killer Under The Bed

Lover in the Attic.

Terror in the Woods

Best Visual Effects

The Bad Seed.

Cocaine Godmother

Deadly Delusion

House of Darkness: New Blood

*Killer Under The Bed*

Zombie at 17

And those are my picks for the best of Lifetime in 2018! (Lifetime had a pretty good year.) Now, I’m off to make my selections for the best of SyFy 2018! I’ll be back …. well, maybe not soon. It took me about three hours to do my Lifetime post. So, I’ll be back eventually.

Lisa Marie’s 2018 In Review:

The 10 Worst Films of 2018

What Lisa Watched Last Night #174: Cocaine Godmother (dir by Guillermo Navarro)

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the Lifetime gangster epic, Cocaine Godmother!

Why Was I Watching It?

You can find the answer in this review’s opening sentence. Cocaine Godmother was a gangster epic that was made for Lifetime! How insane is that!

Add to that, the life of Griselda Blanco has, as of late, become a very popular subject matter. Ever since everyone went crazy over a documentary called Cocaine Cowboys, there have been Griselda films in development. Though Cocaine Godmother may have been the first to premiere, HBO has a film coming out starring Jennifer Lopez as Griselda. There’s also another film in development, one which will star Catalina Sandino Morena as the Godmother. Apparently, 2018 is going to be the year of Griselda.

What Was It About?

The film follows Griselda Blanco (played, as an adult, by Catherine Zeta-Jones), from her youth all the way to her assassination in 2012. Griselda grows up in horrific poverty in Colombia, pimped out by her own mother and committing her first murder when a man refuses to pay her. Griselda tries to escape through a conventional marriage but, when that doesn’t work out, she marries a series of drug smugglers and soon proves herself to be just as ruthless and violent as any of her male rivals. When she’s not snorting cocaine, she’s murdering husbands, mistresses, and even children. It’s tempting to say that Griselda’s only redemption is to be found in the love she feels for her sons and for Carolina (Jenny Pellicer) but, actually, there is no redemption for anyone in this movie. From beginning to end, everyone’s terrible.

What Worked?

Somehow, the entire film worked. You don’t necessarily expect to see an effective and violent gangster film on Lifetime but somehow, Cocaine Godmother pulled it off.

Two things held this film together. One was Catherine Zeta-Jones’s performance as Griselda Blanco. Whether she was casually snorting cocaine on an airplane, explaining why children have to be killed along with their parents, or gunning down one of her husbands, Zeta-Jones was never less than compelling.

Secondly, there was Guillermo Navarro’s direction, which never allowed the pace to slacken. For a two hour and thirty minute film, Cocaine Godmother was mercifully free of slow spots. Considering that he was working under the restraints of television, Navarro did a great job bringing Girselda’s story to life.

What Did Not Work?

I was a little worried when I first heard the narrator. Narrators are usually a sign of doom in a Lifetime movie and there were a few times when the narration got a bit too obvious. That said, it was only a minor issue. For the most part, the entire film worked.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Griselda may have been a terrible person but she had great tastes in movies. For instance, we both appreciate The Godfather films. That said, unlike Griselda, I probably wouldn’t name my son after Michael Corleone. I’d be more likely to name him after Tom Hagan because Tom made all the money but he never had to shoot anyone.

Lessons Learned

Don’t get high on your own supply.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #102: Chicago (dir by Rob Marshall)

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s strange to refer to a best picture winner as being underrated but that’s exactly the perfect description for the 2002 film Chicago.

When Chicago was named the best picture of 2002, it was the first musical to take the top prize since The Sound of Music won in 1965. Until the box office success and Oscar triumph of Chicago, it was assumed by many that a musical had to be animated in order to be successful. After Chicago won, the conventional wisdom was changed. Dreamgirls, Nine, Rock of Ages, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, Into the Woods, Les Miserables, none of these films would have been produced if not for the success of Chicago. It’s also due to Chicago that television networks are willing to take chances on shows like Glee and Smash. And while I think a very valid argument could be made that we would all be better off without Glee, Smash, and Rock of Ages, you still can not deny that Chicago both challenged and changed the conventional wisdom.

https://twitter.com/Delanynder/status/606251356136042496

And yet, despite its success and its continuing influence, Chicago is one of those best picture winners that often seems to get dismissed online. Some of that’s because, by winning best picture, Chicago defeated not only The Two Towers (which is arguably the best installment in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy) but also Roman Polanski’s searing masterpiece, The Pianist. Critics often point out that The Pianist won for best adapted screenplay, best actor, and best director but Chicago somehow managed to win best picture. They suggest that the Academy was either worried about the implications of giving best picture to a film directed by Roman Polanski or else they were blinded by Chicago‘s razzle dazzle. They argue that Chicago was merely an adaptation of an iconic stage production, whereas The Pianist and The Two Towers were both the result of visionary directors.

Well, to be honest, I think those critics do have a point. The Pianist is one of the most emotionally devastating films that I have ever seen. The Two Towers is the perfect mix of spectacle and emotion. And yet, with all that in mind, I still love Chicago.

And it’s not just because of scenes like this:

Or this:

Or even this scene of Richard Gere tap dancing:

If you’ve been reading this site for a while then you know my bias. You know that I grew up dancing. You know that I love to dance. And you know that I automatically love any film that features a dance number. And, since you know my bias, you may be thinking to yourself, “Well, of course Lisa likes this….” And you’re right.

But you know what? Even if nobody danced a step in this film, I would still enjoy it. (Though it would be odd to see a musical with absolutely no dancing.) Chicago is not just about spectacle. Instead, it tells a very interesting story, one that is probably even more relevant today than when the film was first released.

Set in 1924, Chicago tells the story of Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger). Married to the decent but boring Amos (John C. Reilly), Roxie wants to be a star. She has an affair with slrazy Fred Casely (Dominic West), believing that he has showbiz connections. When Fred finally admits to her that he lied in order to sleep with her, Roxie reacts by murdering him. Because Roxie is pretty and blonde and claims to have been corrupted by the big, bad, decadent city, she becomes a celebrity even while she sits in jail and awaits trial.

Also in the jail is Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a nightclub singer who killed her husband and sister. Roxie idolizes Velma but, after Velma snubs her, a rivalry forms between the two. Roxie hires Velma’s lawyer, the slick Billy Flynn (Richard Gere). During the trial, Roxie becomes even more popular, Velma grows jealous, and the only innocent women on death row — a Hungarian who can’t speak English — is ignored and executed because she doesn’t make for a good news story.

Chicago is a cynical and acerbic look at both the mad pursuit of celebrity and the pitfalls of the American justice system. In its way, it’s the film that predicted the Kardashians. (If Roxie had been born several decades later, it’s not difficult to imagine that she’d build her career off of a sex tape as opposed to murder.) Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones are both sociopathic marvels in their respective roles. Even Richard Gere, who, in other films, can come across as being oddly empty, is perfectly cast and surprisingly witty in the role of Billy.

Director Rob Marshall does a great job of making this stage adaptation feel truly cinematic. At no point does Chicago feel stagey. Perhaps Marshall’s smartest decision was to tell the entire film through Roxie’s eyes. Every musical lives and dies based on whether it can convince the audience that it would perfectly natural for everyone onscreen to suddenly break out into song. Chicago is convincing because, of course, Roxie would view her life as being a musical.

And did I mention that the film features a lot of great dancing?

Because it so seriously does….

So, yes, it can be argued that Chicago beat out some worthier films for the title of best picture of the year. But, regardless, it’s still a good and memorable film.

Shattered Politics #69: Traffic (dir by Steven Soderbergh)

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have mixed feelings about Steven Soderbergh. On the one hand, his talent cannot be denied and you have to respect the fact that he’s willing to take chances and make films like The Girlfriend Experience and The Informant. On the other hand, he’s also the director who has been responsible for overrated messes like Contagion and utter pretentious disasters like Haywire. And it doesn’t help that Soderbergh’s fanbase seems to be largely made up of the type of hipsters who end up leaving comments under the articles at The A.V. Club. Some people mourned Soderbergh’s retirement. Personally, I think he made the right decision. He retired before his misfires ended up outnumbering all of his masterpieces.

The thing about Soderbergh is that his good films are so good that it makes it all the more frustrating to watch his failures. If Soderbergh was just your typical bad director than a film like Contagion wouldn’t be as annoying. But this is the man who also gave us Traffic!

And Traffic is a very good film.

First released in 2000, Traffic attempted to deal with the American war on drugs, a war that the film suggests might not even be worth fighting. (Full disclosure: I support the legalization of drugs and, for that matter, just about everything else. And yes, I am biased towards films that agree with me. So is every other film critic out there. The difference is that I’m willing to admit it.) Traffic won four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio Del Toro. It was also nominated for best picture but lost to Gladiator.

Traffic tells three, barely connected stories. Each story is given its own distinct look, feel, and color scheme. And while it takes a few minutes to get used to film’s visual scheme, it ultimately works quite well. Though all of the film’s characters share the same general existence, they live in different worlds. The only thing linking them together is drugs.

Judge Andrew Wakefield (Michael Douglas) is a judge on the Ohio Supreme Court who has recently been named as the new drug czar. However, while Judge Wakefield is going around the country and talking to politicians (Harry Reid shows up playing himself and is just as creepy as always), his daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) is dating Seth (Topher Grace) and getting addicted to cocaine and heroin. When Caroline run away, Judge Wakefield recruits Seth and, using him as a guide, searches the ghetto for his daughter.

The Wakefield scenes are bathed in cold and somber blues. They’re beautiful to look at but, in some ways, they’re also some of the weakest in the film. The whole plotline of Caroline going from being an innocent honor’s student to being a prostitute who sells her body for heroin feels a lot like the notorious anti-drug film Go Ask Alice. At the same time, it’s interesting and a little fun to see Topher Grace playing such a little jerk. Grace gets some of the best lines in the film, especially when he attacks Wakefield’s feelings of smug superiority.

In the film’s second storyline, two DEA Agents (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) arrest drug trafficker Eddie Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer). Eddie works for the Ayala syndicate and, once he’s arrested, he turns informant. Drug lord Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer) is arrested. While Carlos sits on trial, his pregnant wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and his sleazy business associate (Dennis Quaid) struggle to hold together the business and find a way to kill Ruiz before he can testify.

This storyline is filmed in bright and vibrant colors and why not? The Ayalas are rich and, unlike the Wakefields, they don’t feel the need to hide their material wealth. This is actually probably my favorite storyline, largely because it’s the best acted and the most entertaining. Miguel Ferrer, in particular, steals every scene that he’s in. The scene where he explains the economics of being a drug trafficker is fascinating to watch.

The Ayala storyline may be my favorite but the film’s most thought-provoking storyline is the third one. Taking place in Mexico, it stars Benicio Del Toro as Javier Rodriguez, a casually corrupt police officer who gets recruited to work for General Salazar (Tomas Milian), who is heading up Mexico’s war on the cartels. Following the orders of Salazar, Javier captures assassin Frankie Flowers (Clifton Collins, Jr.) who is then savagely tortured by Salazar until he turns informer. Javier comes to realize that Salazar is actually working for one of Mexico’s cartels. When he decides to inform on Salazar, he puts his own life at risk.

The Mexico storyline is also the harshest and visually, it reflects that fact. The heat literally seems to be rising up from the desert and the streets of Tijuana. It takes a few minutes to adjust to the look of the Mexico scenes but, once you do, they become enthralling.

And Traffic, as a film, is undeniably enthralling as well. Soderbergh deftly juggles the multiple storylines and brings them together to create a portrait of a society that’s being destroyed by the efforts to save it. Hopefully, if Soderbergh ever does come out of retirement, he’ll give us more films like Traffic and less films like Contagion.

44 Days of Paranoia #21: Broken City (dir by Allen Hughes)

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, let’s take a look at one of the most disappointing films of 2013, Broken City.

It’s a bit hard to describe the plot of Broken City, not because it’s particularly clever but just because there’s so much of it. The film starts with New York police detective Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) murdering a man in cold blood. But don’t worry, the murdered man was a murderer himself who was only out of jail on a technicality. The Mayor of New York, Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe, who sounds like he’s as much of a New Yorker as I am and I ain’t no New Yorker), pulls some strings and get a judge to drop the charges against Billy. The Mayor tells Billy that he’s a hero but Billy is still forced to leave the police.

Jump forward seven years later. Mayor Hostetler is locked in a tight re-election battle. His opponent is a liberal councilman named Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper.) Yes, the man’s last name is Valliant and — surprise! — it turns out that he’s actually a really sincere guy who wants to make New York a great place to live. We know this because we get to sit through an endless debate between him and Hostetler. While Hostetler gives a speech about how he’s against higher taxes, Valliant says that all he’s doing is asking the rich “to pay their fair share.” The debate audience, of course, explodes into applause. Valliant never gets around to saying, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Maybe they’re saving that for the sequel.

Meanwhile, Billy is now a private investigator. His girlfriend is an actress who has just appeared in an independent film. When Billy goes to the premiere, he’s so upset over the sight of his girlfriend being taken from behind on the big screen that he starts drinking and attacking random strangers on the street.

Meanwhile, (in many ways, Broken City is a movie of meanwhiles) Mayor Hostetler has hired Billy to follow his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and discover who she’s having an affair with. Working with his assistant (played by Alona Tal), Billy follows Cathleen and discovers that she’s been spending time with Paul Andrews (Kyle Chandler), who happens to be the manager of the Valliant campaign…

Or is she? As Billy subsequently discovers, the truth is a lot more complicated than it seems (or probably needs to be).

Broken City got a lot of attention because the script was listed on the 2008 Black List. The Black List is an annual list of the “best” unproduced scripts in Hollywood. Now, it should be understood that the concept of what makes something the “best” is always open to interpretation. In the case of the Black List, the “best” is determined by a survey of studio and production executives. The Black List comes out every December and it usually provides an excuse for lazy entertainment writers to write yet another article or blog post bemoaning all of the Hollywood remakes while so many creative and original scripts remain unproduced.

But here’s the thing. Since, I started reviewing films for the Shattered Lens, I’ve had the chance to see several films that were produced from Black List scripts. A few of them have been good but the majority of them have either been likable but forgettable (i.e., Cedar Rapids) or else they’ve been total and complete disasters, like The Beaver. Typically, Black List films tend to be overly complicated, overly ambitious, and never quite as intelligent as they may seem. Frequently, Black List scripts tend to be a bit cutesy in a way that’s effective on paper but annoying on screen. (For example, naming your film’s only good politician Jack Valliant is one of those cutesy concepts that tend to turn up in a lot of Black List scripts.) Several of these scripts, Broken City included, are thrillers that attempt to use the conventions of the genre film to make some larger point about American society. They’ve usually got some sort of dreary political subtext and they always seem to feature a twist that’s surprising only because it doesn’t make any sense.

And that is certainly the case when it comes to Broken City. Don’t get me wrong — the film starts well and Mark Wahlberg is well-cast as the hero. But, with each passing minute of film, things get messier and messier until, finally, it’s impossible to take the film seriously. It’s obvious that director Allen Hughes meant for Broken City to be more than just a thriller. Instead, in much the same way that Charles Dickens used London, Hughes makes a valiant effort to use the film’s New York as a metaphor for our own corrupt society. Under Hughes’s direction, Broken City does a lot without doing any of it that well.

Indeed, if I could give this film an A for effort and ambition, I certainly would. However, in the end, a film should first be judged by what is actually seen on-screen. Taken by that standard, Broken City is a mess, a disorganized collection of themes and subplots that attempts to do so much that it accomplishes very little. Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones both struggle to sound like New Yorkers while Barry Pepper is so overly intense and wired as the saintly Valliant that I would be scared to vote for him. Seriously, he seems like the type who would start a war in the name of social justice and then end up having so much fun killing and conquering that he’d forget what the reason for fighting was in the first place. On a positive note, Mark Wahlberg and Alona Tal have a very likable chemistry and it’s too bad that the rest of the film didn’t take better advantage of it.

Broken City? Broken film.

Other Entries In The 44 Days of Paranoia

6 Films That Are Not The Dark Knight Rises: The Girl From Naked Eye, Magic Mike, Rock of Ages, Ted, 21 Jump Street, and Underworld: Awakening

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, everyone seems to be heading out to see The Dark Knight Rises for the first, second, or hundredth time. By my own personal count, the various writers here at The Shattered Lens have seen the film a combined total of 12 times since it opened on Friday. (Myself, I’ll be seeing it on Tuesday.)

But what if you don’t want to see The Dark Knight Rises this week? What if you just don’t want to deal with the big crowds? Maybe you want to wait a few months so that you can see it for a dollar. Or maybe, you showed up at the theater and discovered that the showing was sold out or perhaps you’re just not into the whole Batman thing. What then? Well, believe it or not, there are other movies out there and below, you can find 6 reviews of films that came out this year but are not The Dark Knight Rises. Some of them are worth seeing and some of them definitely are not. But all six of them are alternatives for those of you who want to see a movie but, for whatever reason, don’t want to see The Dark Knight Rises.

(Even better, they’re six films that I saw earlier this year but, until now, still hadn’t gotten around to reviewing.)

1) The Girl From Naked Eye (dir by David Ren)

Jake (Jason Yee) is the driver for a sleazy escort service that’s headquartered out of a strip club called Naked Face. Jake ends up falling in love with Sandy (Samantha Streets), an escort who writes poetry in her spare time. (Yes, one of those…) When Sandy is murdered, Jake goes on a violent search for her murderer.

The Girl From Naked Eye is a pretty uneven and rather predictable film but I actually enjoyed it. It’s obvious that director David Ren is a fan of the same old film noirs that I love and, at its best, Girl From Naked Eye is a loving tribute to those films. Streets is likable as the ill-fated Sandy and Gary Stretch brings some unexpected depth to his villainous role. Perhaps best of all, Girl From Naked Eye is only 80 minutes long. Sometimes, you just don’t need that extra 30 minutes to tell your story.

The Girl From Naked Eye is very much an independent film so it might be playing near you or it might not.

2) Magic Mike (dir. by Stephen Soderbergh)

After me and my BFF Evelyn saw Magic Mike, I hopped on twitter and I tweeted, “Memo to single guys. Go hang out around the theater when Magic Mike gets out. You will get laid!” Yes, Magic Mike is that type of film…

“Magic” Mike (played by Channing Tatum) is the most popular attraction at Xquisite, a male strip club that’s run by Dallas (a wonderfully sleazy performance from Matthew McConaughey). Mike ends up serving as a mentor for Adam (Alex Pettyfer) while pursuing Adam’s disapproving sister (Cody Horn) and saving up his money so that he can start his own business. However, the life proves a lot more difficult for him to leave then he originally thought…

There’s actually a lot of plot in Magic Mike but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The film knows that we’re all here to watch Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, and Joe Manganiello shake everything that they’ve got and the film does not disappoint. Director Steven Soderbergh’s directs in such a way that the film’s dance numbers are both exciting and, at the same time, distancing. By taking a rather documentary approach to otherwise salacious material, Soderbergh reminds us that, ultimately, Tatum is just doing a job and fulfilling the requirements of fantasy as opposed to reality.

When Christy Lemire of the Associates Press gave a less than positive review to The Dark Knight Rises, all of the fanboys on Rotten Tomatoes became obsessed with the fact that she had previously given a positive review to Magic Mike. Many of them left comments complaining that the only reason Lemire enjoyed Magic Mike was because it featured naked men. While all one has to do is read Lemire’s review to see that’s not the case, so what if it was? Films have been objectifying women for over a century. What’s wrong with a little fair play?

Magic Mike is still in theaters.

3) Rock of Ages (dir. by Adam Shankman)

In this adaptation of the hit Broadway show, Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is an innocent girl from Oklahoma who dreams of finding super stardom in Los Angeles. She gets a job working as a waitress at an incredibly filthy-looking club run by Alec Baldwin and she also gets a boyfriend (played by Diego Boneta) who is an aspiring musician himself. Everything’s great except for the fact that the mayor’s puritanical wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) hates rock and roll and wants to close the club down. Luckily, alcoholic rock star Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) is willing to help out. Did I mention that Russell Brand is in this film as well? Because, he like totally is…

Rock of Ages gives you a chance to watch your favorite actors and actresses shake it to some of the least danceable music ever written and it’s just about as bad you might expect. Between the vanilla performances of Hough and Boneta and the film’s rampant sexism (every female in the film is either a shrew or a whore and apparently, the only thing that can redeem them is allowing Tom Cruise to drunkenly cop a feel), Rock of Ages is a combination of the forgettable and stuff that you wish you could forget. For a director who specializes in musicals, Shankman seems strangely lost here and the majority of the big numbers feel lifeless. The one bright spot is Mary J. Blige who shows up in a minor role and quickly reminds everyone what singing is all about.

Rock of Ages opened with a lot of hype but that hype didn’t translate into box office success. You can probably still catch it at the dollar theater but you might want your money back afterward.

4) Ted (directed by Seth MacFarlane)

Ted tells the story of a lonely 8 year-old boy who, one night, wishes that his beloved teddy bear Ted might come to life. Well, Ted does come to life and ends up proving to the world that magic does exist. Briefly, Ted and his owner are celebrities but soon, Ted’s fame fades and, 28 years later, Ted (voiced by director Seth MacFarlane) and his owner (now played by Mark Wahlberg) are slackers who spend their time smoking weed, watching TV, and obsessing over pop culture. (At times, it almost felt as if the film was a documentary about life here at the TSL Bunker.) However, Wahlberg’s girlfriend (Mila Kunis) feels that Ted is holding him back and eventually, Wahlberg is forced to make a choice between childhood friendship and adult love.

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane’s. I hate the Family Guy and I’ve never gotten through more than 2 minutes of The Cleveland Show. However, I also have to admit that I enjoyed Ted for what it was. It’s a massively uneven film that pretty much tells the same joke over and over again but that joke (i.e. a cute toy saying or doing something incredibly crude) turns out to be surprisingly resilient. For their part, Wahlberg and Kunis are a likable couple and Kunis does a good job generating some much-needed sympathy for her thinly drawn character. Add to that, Joel McHale is in this film and how can I not enjoy a film that features Joel McHale?

Ted is still playing at a theater near you.

5) 21 Jump Street (dir. by Phil Lord and Chris Miller)

Morton (Jonah Hill) and Greg (Channing Tatum) have been unlikely friends since high school. Greg was a jock and bully while Morton was a guy who looked and acted a lot like Jonah Hill. When Greg and Morton graduate high school, they both enter the police academy together and, upon getting out of the academy, they find themselves assigned to hazardous duty like patrolling the local park. However, it turns out that there’s a new designer drug out there and Hill and Tatum are both sent back to high school. Only now, they’re working under cover…

21 Jump Street was a real surprise when it came out earlier this year, a laugh-out-loud comedy that managed to both satirize and celebrate the conventions of the American cop film. Hill and Tatum had a lot of chemistry together and there was something oddly touching about watching Hill return to high school and discover that he was now considered the cool guy while Tatum was now the outsider. 21 Jump Street has kinda gotten forgotten in all the hype surrounding The Avengers and the Dark Knight Rises but ultimately, 21 Jump Street can stand with those two films as proof that occasionally a big-budget studio production can turn out to actually be a good film.

(Plus, James Franco’s look-alike brother, Dave Franco, is in it!)

21 Jump Street is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray but it’s also still playing at a few dollar theaters across the country.

6) Underworld: Awakening (dir by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein)

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is back and this time, she’s searching for Michael, who has gone missing. The plot doesn’t make much sense and the film has one of the most disappointing endings ever but it does provide the viewers with everything that they’ve come to expect from an Underworld film (with the exception of Scott Speedman, who does not return to the role of Michael in this film).

Underworld: Awakening opened at the beginning of the year, got terrible reviews, and made a decent enough amount of money that there will probably be yet another installment in the series come 2014. That said, Underworld: Awakening is probably the most vapid of all of the Underworld films (and that’s saying something) and, following the releases of both The Avengers and the Dark Knight Rises, it looks like even more of an empty exercise in CGI and action than it did when it was originally released. That said, this film does star my girl crush, Kate Beckinsale, and, after watching her in this film, I spent a few hours looking for monsters to fight. I will always recommend any film that features a women kicking ass and that’s about the only reason I have to recommend Underworld: Awakening.

Underworld: Awakening is currently available on both DVD and Blu-Ray.