Film Review: Corrective Measures (dir by Sean O’Reilly)

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the future!

War is raging. Food is scarce. At the start of the film, a newscaster officially says farewell to Australia as it’s swallowed by the ocean. Due to some sort of vaguely defined cosmic event, certain citizens have developed super powers. Normally, you might think that would be a good thing. Maybe someone can use their super strength to save Australia. Instead, it’s led to a rise in supervillains. People with names like The Conductor and the Lobe are terrorizing the world. Fortunately (or not), a prison has been designed to hold all of these super villains.

Running that prison is Overseer Devlin (Michael Rooker). Devlin is quick to correct anyone who calls him a warden. That said, Devlin runs his prison with a firm and sometimes cruel hand. All of the inmates are forced to wear a leg brace that neutralizes their powers. They’re at Devlin’s mercy and Devlin knows it. A sentence to San Tiburon prison is a life sentence, regardless of what the courts may say. No one gets parole unless Devlin wants them too and Devlin’s not in the business of giving people freedom.

Corrective Measures follows four inmates in particular. Diego Diaz (Brennan Meija) is an empath, a super power that will be of little help in a prison where empathy is seen as a weakness. Gordon Tweedy (Tom Cavanagh) is also known as the Conductor because he can control electricity. Payback (Dan Payne) is a self-styled vigilante who killed evildoers on the outside and who looks forward to killing more on the inside. Finally, there’s the Lobe (Bruce Willis), who is the most feared supervillain of all. The Lobe can control minds, but only if his leg brace is removed. While the Warden prepares for his retirement and considers who among his staff he should name as a his replacement, the inmates simply try to survive from one day to the next.

Corrective Measures is an episodic film, with the focus continually shifting from one character to another. When the film begins, Payback seems like he’s going to be the main character but then the focus shifts to Diego and The Conductor. Towards the end of the film, the focus switches once again and it becomes about The Lobe and his schemes. The one theme running through the entire film is the struggle to maintain one’s freedom and dignity in even the most difficult of circumstances. Yes, Corrective Measures might be a low-budget super hero film and yes, it was based on a graphic novel but it’s also a mediation on what it means to be free in a society that persecutes anyone who is perceived as failing to conform. That theme elevates the film, making it more than just a B-movie. If Sam Fuller directed a comic book movie, it would probably look something like Corrective Measures.

The actors also do wonders with the material, with Michael Rooker giving an entertainingly evil performance as Warden Devlin and Tom Cavanagh turning The Conductor into a surprisingly poignant character. That said, I imagine most people will be watching this film because it was one of the final films that Bruce Willis worked on before announcing his retirement from acting. It is true that Willis does spend the majority of this film in his cell. It’s rare that he’s ever actually seen in a shot with any of the other actors, leading me to suspect that Willis probably shot all of his scenes in a day or two. Despite that, Willis is well-cast as The Lobe and there’s even a few scenes where he seems like the Willis of old, smirking at his opponents and dismissing them with a well-timed insult. While it’s obvious that Willis was not in the best shape when he shot his scenes, Corrective Measures still feels like a better closing act than something like American Siege.

Corrective Measures is a far better film than I think anyone would have expected it to be. It’s a celebration of freedom that understands why it’s worth celebrating.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #17: Dying To Be Loved (dir by Paul Shapiro)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 10th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

After I finished up with The Cheerleader Murders, I rewatched Dying To Be Loved, which premiered on the Lifetime network on April 16th. Dying To Be Loved is also known as A Mother’s Suspicion. I’m really not sure which title I prefer. A Mother’s Suspicion is a little more accurate, as the film is about a mother who is very suspicious of her daughter’s new boyfriend. However, Dying To Be Loved has a little bit more of a snap to it, with the juxtaposition of death and love.

If I seem to be spending a bit too much time on the film’s title, that’s because I have a certain word count that I’m trying to meet but there’s really not that much to say about Dying To Be Loved. It’s a typical example of a genre familiar to all regular Lifetime viewers, the You Should Have Listened To Mom genre of film.

In this case, the mom is Jill Yates (Lindsay Hartley). Jill has a good career, a good house, a good boyfriend (played by Lifetime regular Dan Payne), and good hair. That’s really pretty much all you need to be a success in a Lifetime film. However, she also has an 18 year-old daughter, Emily (Paloma Kwiatkowski). Emily is away at college. She’s alone from home for the first time. She’s also bipolar and Jill fears that Emily is not taking her meds. Jill is even more worried when she meets Emily’s new boyfriend, Gary (Jedidiah Goodacre). Gary is rough and tough and has absolutely terrible table manners. Jill tells Emily that she can do better than Gary so, of course, Emily runs off on a cross-country trip with him.

Soon, Gary is murdering gas station attendants and ranting like a madman. Emily, who is not taking her medication (cue dramatic music), is convinced that she loves Gary. In fact, she is so in love with Gary that she apparently agrees to jump off a bridge with him.

Or does she? No bodies are recovered. Even though everyone tells Jill that she needs to move on, Jill is convinced that her daughter is still out there. With the help of a portly P.I. (Jay Bazeau) and an overly friendly small town cop (James Pizzinato), Jill sets out to find her daughter. One of these two men is connected to Gary. Which one? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

Anyway, this is pretty much a standard Lifetime film. Watching it, I couldn’t help but wish that it had been directed by someone like Fred Olen Ray. At the very least, Fred would have played up the film’s melodrama and would have been a bit less earnest in his approach. That said, Lindsay Hartley and Paloma Kwiatkowski are totally believable as mother and daughter. Kwiatkowski, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for giving a believable and multi-faceted performance as the unstable and desperately unhappy Emily. I winced a few times as I recognized bits of 16 year-old me in Emily’s actions. This may be a generic Lifetime film but Hartley and Kwiatkowski really put their hearts into their performances and, for that, they deserve a lot of credit!

(For those keeping count, that’s 17 reviews down and 23 more to go!)

What Lisa Watched Last Night #154: Where’s My Baby? (dir by David Winning)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Sunday night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Where’s My Baby?

Lochlyn Munro, the patron saint of Canadian-produced Lifetime melodrama and co-star of Where’s My Baby?

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh, why not?

Sorry, I’m trying to come a funny and/or interesting reason why I decided to watch Where’s My Baby? but the main answer is that it was on the Lifetime Movie Network and there was nothing else on. Game of Thrones is on break. Veep is on break. There’s no killer zombies on AMC and I can’t watch Preacher because I resent its inaccurate portrayal of my home state.

So, with all that in mind, I figured why not see what was premiering on LMN!

What Was It About?

Marissa Davis (Nicole de Boer) wakes up after having spent the past five years in a coma. She has no memory of how she came to be in that coma but she’s still happy to be awake. She’s especially happy to discover that her best friend, Heather (Gina Holden), is married to Congressman Cal Ward (Lochlyn Munro). Cal seems like a nice guy but he’s running for the Senate and talking about how much he believes in traditional values and we all know that, in a Lifetime movie, anyone who talks about values is eventually going to turn out to be a huge hypocrite.

Marissa is disturbed to discover that 1) she was the victim of a mysterious hit and run and that 2) she has a C-section scar. Her mother (Iris Quinn) finally tells her that she was pregnant when she was hit by the car. Her mother also assures her that the baby was delivered stillborn.

Meanwhile, Heather and Cal have a 5 year-old daughter! What a coincidence! And the baby appears to have the same hereditary kidney disorder that runs in Marissa’s family. What could that possibly mean? And, for that matter, why is a mysterious doctor suddenly so obsessed with removing Marissa’s kidney?

What Worked?

Oh my God, I so love these insane Lifetime movies. Where’s My Baby is shameless fun, the type of movie that you simply cannot stop watching once it has begun. The movie starts out crazy and it just keeps going from there!

Add to that, there’s a general rule when it comes to Lifetime films. If Lochlyn Munro is in it, the film cannot be bad. Lochlyn Munro has appeared in so many Lifetime films that, to some of us, he’s become the patron saint of the network.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked. When a film is that insanely over the top, there’s no way that it can’t work.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

To be honest, there really weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments. I’ve never suffered from amnesia. As anyone who has ever gotten on my bad side can tell you, I never forget.

Never.

Lessons Learned

If you wake up with amnesia, don’t take anyone’s word for what happened while you were asleep. Investigate for yourself. Seriously, that’s a lesson to live by.

Hallmark Review: All Yours (2016, dir. Monika Mitchell)

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I’m really glad my cable box told me what movie I was watching cause that title card sure doesn’t do a good job of it. It would be perfectly natural for someone to look at that and think it says Aee Yours before they realized it said All Yours.

Have you ever wanted to see the TV Show Melissa & Joey condensed down to about 90 minutes without a good reason for the smart guy to become a nanny, not much humor, and not much chemistry between Mom and the nanny? Neither did I. To be fair, I’ve been a big fan of Melissa & Joey for years. When I saw that Hallmark had a movie called The Manny in production, I wasn’t too jazzed. They appeared to have changed the title at the last minute though. I mean you can still see in the credits that the movie was made by Manny Productions Inc.

I think what happened was that at the last minute they got the rights to use I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. They probably figured the title All Yours not only fit with the song, but that it sounded more like the generic greeting card titles that Hallmark likes to use.

I mentioned that I’m a big fan of Melissa & Joey so I was constantly comparing it to that show while watching it. That’s only partly fair because that had many many many hours to develop all of the stuff I mentioned before, while this only had an hour and a half. I will try to be reasonable with the film.

The movie begins and we are introduced to Cass McKay (Nicollette Sheridan). She’s a lawyer. The case she’s arguing doesn’t matter. All the case part does for her character is establish that she is a good and busy lawyer. What this film does here is interrupt her argument over and over to cut to her kids at home.

The son’s sister runs up into his treehouse. You gotta put that No Girls Allowed sign where she can see it. She could argue that it wasn’t displayed properly at his establishment so she had every right to go up there. Believe it or not, these scenes are not just to establish that Cass needs a nanny. They are not just to establish that they need a nanny who can put up with the kids’ hijinks either. One of the excuses the daughter gives for getting up in the treehouse is because the son doesn’t use it anyways since he is afraid of heights. This getting over his fear of heights part of the story will be the equivalent to the bridge from Love, Again for example. Or, to use Melissa & Joey as an example, it’s the equivalent of when Joey finds and talks Lennox off the roof in the first episode of the show, thus proving his worth as a nanny. There will be a similar thing with the daughter playing the violin.

Now we get what I always show in these reviews.

I think they did a good job here. They hid the Canadian cellphone provider by having her connected to the courthouse WiFi. It also looks like they modified the screen too. It’s probably a screenshot she is looking at rather than the real interface. Regardless, good work.

Now we cut to the house to chew out the kids and introduce us to Grandma played by Jayne Eastwood.

I always like looking up these actors who I don’t immediately recognize such as Eastwood here. Wow! She seems to have been in everything under the sun. She’s been in what appears to be a sexploitation flick called My Pleasure Is My Business in the 70s, SCTV; Videodrome; and Care Bears in the 80s, the TV Show Goosebumps in the 90s, My Big Fat Greek Wedding; the remake of Dawn of the Dead; Degrassi: TNG; Chicago; and the musical remake of Hairspray in the 2000s, and in a variety of TV Shows and movies along with My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 in the 2010s. At the time of writing this, she has 215 acting credits on IMDb since her first one in 1970. Amazing!

Now we get something pretty awesome. Yes, we get a brief shot of the future nanny named Matthew Walker played by Dan Payne, but who cares when we have this shot.

Care to take a guess at where this shot was taken? It’s on the sign and attached to the flag pole. Times up! It’s Denmark. No joke. That restaurant is at Nordre Beddingsvej 17, 3390 Hundested, Denmark. I have no idea why they use this shot a couple of times, but they do. I’ve seen Hallmark movies shot in the Los Angeles area, all over Canada, and even a pseudo-Hallmark movie shot in Scotland. Denmark is a new one on me. The rest of the movie is shot in the Hallmark favorite of Langely, British Columbia. If anyone involved in the production of this movie knows why this shot ended up in the movie, then please leave a comment.

Now we go inside and meet Matthew’s father Charles played by Michael Kopsa.

Michael Kopsa is another one of these actors that has had a long and eclectic career. He’s been in some major films such Watchmen (2009) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), but he goes back to the late 70s and early 80s where he got his start doing English dub work for the TV Show Mobile Suit Gundam as well as two of the movies. One of which he appears to have done the English voice of the main character: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988). Always worth taking advantage of IMDb while you watch movies.

He is here to talk to Grandma about his son. His son is the typical well educated guy who really found what he learned in college isn’t his thing so he’s been drifting around. A real world example of a guy like this is Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis is a bit of a math genius and attended Cornell. However, he found out it wasn’t his thing and drifted around playing music before settling down and starting his music career. His father was a doctor. That’s kind of how Charles describes his son. Charles is a developer who wants to tear down and redevelop the marina. His son isn’t a fan of that idea. I’m not either considering the marina never really looks like it’s in need of that kind of work during the film. What happens here is that Charles, Grandma, and Matthew strike a deal. Matthew will take a job as a nanny to Cass’ kids, and his father will reconsidering the redeveloping the marina. They keep that a secret from Cass. There’s your setup.

Oh, and they knew each other as kids so that they already come pre-packaged with some basis for their romance. Despite recognizing him, Grandma trying to make the hard sell, the kids obviously already liking him, and them already knowing each other, when Nicolette Sheridan gives you this look,…

then you know she means business.

Next we get introduced to Henry played by Lochlyn Munro who is kind of the wrong guy, but won’t play that role to the degree that we usually see in other Hallmark movies. On the good wrong guy to the weirdo in Christmas Land wrong guy, I’d say he sits somewhere in the middle leaning towards the decent wrong guy.

During the entire film I kept thinking that I had seen this guy before. After the film I checked the credits and realized it’s you cut to me before I had my wig on Burger King from In The Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011).

In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)

We meet him as Cass is introduced to a new court case. It is between two tech billionaires that have brought a case against each other so that their reconciliation as old friends can parallel the story between Cass and Matthew. It also adds a bit of a procedural element to the film that lets Matthew edge his way further into her life rather than having a separation of work and home since he went to law school too.

After suddenly needing to be called back to help the kids, Cass gives in and hires Matthew. That’s when she introduces him to the big calendar that will show us at what point Cass is in her character arc based on how much she breaks it and gets involved in the events listed on it. Then Matthew does something that pisses me off. He points out that Monday and Tuesday are reversed on the calendar.

Dammit, Dan Payne! You’re taking away work from cynical Hallmark critics like myself who like to point out flaws in these movies.

Anyways, she then gives him a phone to remind future viewers that this movie was released near Easter.

Also, it definitely doesn’t come in black. It’s not that kind of bunny, Matthew!

The next big thing is when he takes them to school. They actually don’t hide the name of the school at all in this movie. They say it’s Yorkson Elementary School, and it is. Well, sort of. It’s actually Yorkson Middle School, but close enough. It’s at 20686 84 Ave, Langley, BC V2Y 2B5, Canada. It’s new too because you can see it was in construction a few years ago on Google Maps.

They also bring up again that the girl’s equivalent to her brother’s height issue is playing the violin during this scene.

He takes them rock climbing. This is where we really find out that the boy has issues with heights. So of course, Matthew does what anybody would do.

He builds mini rock climbing walls in the backyard. Pretty cool actually.

This is the point in my reviews when I say you’ve got it now. The rest of the movie is kind of on autopilot. The stuff between Matthew and the kids is really the highlight of the movie. It’s not like Melissa & Joey where there’s more a balance in the quality of interaction between the nanny and Mom as well as the kids. He does have his moments with Cass, but the main focus is on his time with the kids. Cass kind of comes for free with Matthew helping the kids. That’s the way it felt to me while watching it.

The son gets over his fear.

The daughter plays the electric violin in the talent show at the end of the film.

There is of course a last minute speed bump. I think having that is in the Hallmark writing bible that they give anyone who is going to make films for them. However, it really does make sense here given how they set things up and all. Does she overreact? Yes, she does, but she comes around and they kiss at the end of the talent show.

Do I recommend it? Maybe marginally. I liked October Kiss better as a Hallmark nanny love story. If you want the the nanny to be a guy, then I really do recommend Melissa & Joey. The best part of the movie I would say is with the kids played by Genea Charpentier and Kiefer O’Reilly.

Here are the songs:

Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Buried Secrets (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, as you know if you’re one of our regular readers, I am currently in the process of cleaning out my DVR. That means that I’ve spent this week watching and reviewing a countless number of Lifetime and SyFy films. It’s been fun and I do love watching Lifetime films but I also have to admit that I’m glad to see that I only have 8 films left to go.

Earlier today, I continued to make progress by watching Buried Secrets. Buried Secrets originally aired on October 25th, on the Lifetime Movie Network. I didn’t get to see it when it originally aired because I was busy dancing in my underwear at a Halloween party. Fortunately, that’s why we have DVRs!

So, how to describe the plot of Buried Secrets? Seriously, it’s not easy as you might assume. There is a lot of stuff going on in Buried Secrets. In fact, it’s probably one of the most convoluted Lifetime films that I’ve ever seen. But let’s give it a shot:

Sarah Winters (Sarah Clarke) was a police detective who was involved in investigating the mysterious murder of police informant, Derrick Saunders (Fulvio Cecere). However, before Sarah could solve the crime, she was accused of corruption and kicked off the force. Sarah, of course, was totally innocent and she feels that she was set up by one of her fellow detectives, Joan Mueller (Veena Sood). Mueller is now chief-of-police, largely because of the attention she gained by accusing Sarah of being corrupt.

Sarah also has a teenage daughter (Angela de Lieva) and a mother (Gabrielle Rose), who she doesn’t get along with. This is largely because Sarah was adopted and she is upset because her adoptive mother refuses to give her any information about her biological parents.

Since Sarah is no longer on the force, she writes a novel that becomes a best seller. The novel is based on the murder of Derrick Saunders and features an incompetent, untrustworthy detective named Meckler. When Mueller demands to know if Meckler is based on her, Sarah says that she is. In the real world, this would lead to Sarah being sued for libel and probably being driven to bankruptcy.

However, this is Lifetime world! Mueller is concerned about much more than the real identity of Detective Meckler. Mueller thinks that the book contains details of the crime, which prove that Sarah was the murderer.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s boyfriend, Barry (Dan Payne), is working on the security detail of Mayor Harding (Sarah-Jane Redmond). Harding is running for reelection but it looks like she might be on the verge of losing her office. So, Harding starts to sleep with Barry to get information about Sarah. Mayor Harding has decided that if she campaigns on a platform that calls for banning Sarah’s book, she’ll win reelection.

And yes, that makes absolutely no sense but just go with it.

Meanwhile, there’s a mysterious homeless-looking guy (Teach Grant) and he keeps popping up at the strangest times. He shows up at a book singing. He follows Sarah’s daughter in the park. And, of course, he spends a lot of time at the local DNA lab…

Okay, so you might think, after reading all of this, that Buried Secrets doesn’t make much sense. And it doesn’t! But that, to be honest, is the film’s main appeal. Since Buried Secrets refuses to be tied down by logic, that means that literally anything can happen! At it’s best, Buried Secrets creates its own hyper realized world, where everything is just a bit over-the-top and strange. It’s a world where a major municipal election hinges on banning a novel, where book signings are fraught with drama and peril, and where one teenager can change an entire city’s mind just by grabbing a microphone and giving an impassioned speech. It’s all so strange that there’s no way not to enjoy it.

Quickie Review: The Cabin in The Woods (dir. by Drew Goddard)

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Arleigh

“If you hear a strange sound outside… have sex.”

If there was one thing the meltdown and subsequent bankruptcy of MGM ended doing it was shelving the Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon horror film The Cabin in The Woods for almost three years. The film was directed by Goddard who also helped co-write the screenplay with Joss Whedon and what we get is one of the smartest and most innovative horror films to come in over a decade. For fans of the tv shows Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel (not to mention Dollhouse) this horror film just reinforces the notion that Joss Whedon knows how to write smart dialogue and premises without ever getting too self-referential and deconstructionist (I’m looking at you Kevin Williamson) or too smart-talky (a stank-eye at you Aaron Sorkin).

There’s really no way to properly review The Cabin in The Woods without spoiling the films many different surprises and twists and turns. I will say that the film does a peculiar opening that focuses not on the five college students headed to the cabin in the woods of the film’s title, but on two men (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) in your typical office attire doing the walk and talk about family home life and the like. We see that they’re technicians in an unnamed industrial facility that wouldn’t look out of place in one of the many governmental facilities we often see in film. The film will return to these two men and their facilities and other people working within often in addition to telling the story of the five college students and the growing danger they find themselves in as night falls in the woods.

To say anymore would definitely be a spoiler.

I will continue on and say that for a horror film written to self-reference other horror film conventions and tropes what Goddard and Whedon have ultimately done was celebrate the genre itself and how much of an impact it has had in society. Unlike films like the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods doesn’t knowingly wink at the audience about how cool it is for pointing out all the horror cliches and stereotypes we’ve come to expect in the horror genre. Instead the film actually treats its audience to be smart enough to see the homage to past horror films both good and bad without ever drawing attention to the fact that they’re pointed out.

Another thing which makes this film so fun to watch is how much every character in the film comes across as fully realized individuals. Even the college students who we first think of as your typical horror film stereotypes (the jock, the slut, the virgin, the brain and the stoner) end up being more than we’re led to believe. All of this actually occurs right in the beginning and this helps the audience join in on the fun that both Goddard and Whedon are having in turning the horror genre on its head right up to it’s surprising conclusion. It helps that the cast did quite a great job realizing their characters. As the film progresses we even begin to get a sense that who the villains in the film may or may not be who we think.

There’s a sense of fun and the darkly comic to the film as well. Every one-liner and comedic beats we get throughout the film doesn’t have a sense of the cynical to them. It comes across through dialogue and actions by both groups in the film in such a natural way that they never make those saying the lines break the fourth wall. Most films that try to deconstruct genre films tend to get too cutesy with the breaking the fourth wall gimmick that the audience can’t help but be pulled out of the suspension of disbelief they’ve put themselves in. This has a way of making such genre films less fun and celebratory and more of making fun of the people who enjoy such things.

The Cabin in The Woods manages that rare accomplishment of being a horror film that retains not just the horrific aspect of the genre but also add such a darkly comic sense to the whole proceeding with such a deft touch from Goddard and Whedon that we don’t know whether to call it straight horror or a horror-comedy. Some might even see the film as an entertaining treatise on the nature of the horror film genre of the last quarter-century. Both Goddard and Whedon have already called this film as their answer to the current trend of the “torture porn” that was popularized with the help of such recent horror franchises like Hostel, Saw and those made by Rob Zombie. Where those films celebrated the concept of inflicting pain not just on the characters on the screen but those who watch them with The Cabin in The Woods we finally get a reminder why we love the horror films of the past. It’s through the sense of that adrenaline rush that a tension build-up leading to a horror money shot but without becoming overly gratuitious and reveling in the pain of the horror.

Some have said that The Cabin in The Woods is the best horror film of 2012. I won’t even argue with that statement since it is true. I will put it out there that Cabin in The Woods might just be one of the best films of 2012. The film is just that fun, smart and, overall, just plain awesome.

[I usually attach a trailer to reviews but this time doing it could spoil some of the surprises in the film]