The Films of 2024: The Courier (dir by Daniel Calparsoro)

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 2002 and countries across Europe are giving up their old currencies and making the transition to the Euro. The future looks bright, especially for Ivan (Aron Piper), a young man from Spain who has gotten a job as a courier. He drives around Europe, often at lighting-fast speeds. He takes money across the continent so that it can safely be hidden away in Switzerland. Along with his lover and boss, Leticia (Maria Pedraza), Ivan quickly rises through the ranks of an international cartel. Helping others stay wealthy leads to Ivan becoming wealthy as well. Soon, he has fast cars, fast friends, a cocaine habit, and a mustache that makes him look like a 1990s NASCAR driver.

With its constantly moving camera and its voice-over narration, this Spanish film owes more than a little to the films of Martin Scorsese, Ivan’s descent into drugs will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas. Unfortunately, Ivan is never quite as interesting a character as either Jordan Belfort or Henry Hill, largely because Aron Piper is not as charismatic an actor as either Leonardo DiCaprio or Ray Liotta. Ivan comes across as just being a punk who wandered into something that temporarily made him rich and his narration often descends into shallow psychobabble. As a character, Ivan would never have the confidence to throw hundred dollar bills off of his boat. He also wouldn’t have the creativity to pull off the Lufthansa heist. He’s boring and all the cocaine in the world isn’t going to change that.

Interestingly enough, the film also borrows from Adam McKay, with an ending that highlights a lengthy list of consequences of Ivan’s money laundering operation. Much as with the films of McKay, The Courier makes the mistake of assuming that everyone watching shares its dreary Marxist outlook and is going to be outraged. The truth of the matter is that most people would probably love to hide their money from the government because only weirdos enjoy paying taxes. The film assumes that the audience will be demanding revolution whereas the majority will probably be saying, “Hey, money laundering seems like a good idea and you get a nice car out of it! How do I get in on that?”

(Scorsese, at the very least, understands and admits that most people would rather be Jordan Belfort on a yacht than the FBI agent on a subway. Most people would rather be Henry Hill living in New York as opposed to being Henry Hill living in the suburbs of Indianapolis and being an ordinary schnook.)

The Courier does have its moments. Maria Pedraza gives a good performance as Leticia, though you do have to wonder why she should would ever waste her time with someone as boring as Aron Piper’s Ivan. Carlos Jean’s score is wonderfully propulsive and provides them film with a needed rush of adrenaline. In the end, though, The Courier never really escapes the shadow of the films that came before it.

Retro Television Review: Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night (dir by Allen Reisner)

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1977’s Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Damn.

I mean, seriously! I have seen some depressing films before but nothing could have quite prepared me for Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night.

Susan Dey stars as Rowena, a young single mother whose 3 year-old daughter, Mary Jane Harper (Natasha Ryan), is taken to the hospital with a broken arm. Dr. Angela Buccieri (Tricia O’Neil) doesn’t believe Rowena’s claim that Mary Jane is just accident prone and when she discovers what appears to be cigarette burns on the little girl, Dr. Buccieri goes to the head of pediatrics (played by veteran screen villain John Vernon) and requests a full set of X-rays to see if there are any previously healed injuries. Buccieri’s request is denied. It turns out that Rowena comes from a wealthy family and her father (Kevin McCarthy) is a trustee of the hospital. Even after Dr. Buccieri opens up about her own experiences as an abused child, she is told to drop the matter.

She doesn’t drop it. Instead, she goes to a social worker named Dave Williams (Bernie Casey). Dave does his own investigation but none of Rowena’s neighbors want to talk about all of the crying and the screaming that they hear coming from Rowena’s apartment. Rowena presents herself as being a stressed but loving mother. Dave suggests a support group that she can attend. When Rowena goes to the group, she opens up a little about how overwhelmed she feels. Unfortunately, she leaves Mary Jane in the apartment alone and, when a fire breaks out, Mary Jane is lucky to survive.

As intense as all of that is, it’s also only the first half of the movie. The second half is even more intense and emotionally draining and it all leads up to one of the most devastating final lines ever uttered in a movie. Throughout the film, the system fails both Rowena and Mary Jane. Mary Jane is failed when all of the evidence of the abuse that she has suffered is either ignored or shrugged away by the same people who are supposed to be looking out for her. Rowena is failed when no one pays attention to her obvious emotional instability. When she finally does have a breakthrough during a therapy session, her psychiatrist (played by James Karen) curtly tells her that they’ll have to talk about it next week because their hour is up.

Rowena is a character who I both hated and pitied. Like many abusers, she herself was a victim of abuse. Even when Rowena tries to get support, no one wants to admit that a mother is capable of abusing their own child. That said, Mary Jane Harper is at the center of the film. She’s a little girl who is desperate to be loved by a woman who often terrifies her. She is continually failed by the people who should be looking after her and it’s just devastating to watch. I’m sure I’m not the only person who was moved to tears by this film.

What a sad film. At the same time, it’s also an important one. If the film takes place at a time when no one wanted to admit to the abuse happening before their eyes, we now live in a time when people toss around allegations of abuse so casually that it’s led to a certain cynicism about the whole thing. Even when seen today, Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night works as a powerful plea to watch out and care for one another.

Scenes That I Love: Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, 117 years ago, Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She would go one to become a cultural icon, a performer who survived being labeled box office to poison to eventually become one of our most acclaimed actresses. Hepburn was a total of four acting Oscars over the course of her career, a record that has yet to be topped.

Today’s scene that I love comes from 1940’s The Philadelphia Story and it features Katharine Hepburn acting opposite another one of my favorite performers, the great James Stewart.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jess Franco Edition

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today is the 94th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Franco! One of the most prolific filmmakers of all time, Franco made movies that …. well, they’re not easy to describe. Jess Franco was responsible for some of the most visually striking and narratively incoherent films ever made. He made films that you either loved or you hated but there was no mistaking his work for being the work of someone else.

Today, in honor of his birthday, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Films

The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Godofredo Pacheco)

Count Dracula (1970, dir by Jess Franco, DPs: Manuel Merino and Luciano Trasatti)

Vampyros Lesbos (1970, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Manuel Merino)

Female Vampire (1973, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Jess Franco)

May Positivity: Divine Will (dir by Ken Jones)

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2017, Divine Will is a short film but it’s also a rather odd film.

Dave Blessing (Brent Reed) used to be the lead singer of Isolation, a band that was apparently the hottest in the world in the 90s. His son, Will (Lee Roessler), is the result of a marriage that only lasted for two weeks. When Will’s mother dies, he moves to Chicago and lives with Dave and Dave’s quirky sister, Jenny (Kat Moser).

We are told (but we do not see) that Will had trouble in Chicago and that he spent a few nights in jail. Wanting to raise his son in a better environment, Dave accepts an offer to become the music minister for a church in small town Kentucky.

So, Dave, Will, Jenny, and the always silent ghost of Will’s mother move to Kentucky. At first, everyone is skeptical about a rock star becoming a choir leader but then all of the women in town see how handsome Dave is and they all suddenly remember that they were once huge fans of Isolation. While Dave tries to avoid all of the women that now want to marry him, Aunt Jenny gets a job as an art teacher. Jenny’s quirky methods go against the staid traditions of the school.

As for Will, he falls for Casey Buckner (Kathryn Boswell), who lives next door and who is still coming to terms with the death of her brother. Will should be able to help both her and several other people in town because he has the power to bring people a feeling of peace just by touching them. It’s a power that he’s had ever since the passing of his mother. Did I mention that the silent ghost of his mother keeps popping up at random moments?

Oh! And did I also mention that the movie is a musical? Will breaks into song while walking around the countryside. Later, he and Casey share a duet.

As I said, it’s an odd film. I’m a little bit hesitant about reviewing it because the imdb lists the film as having a 114 minute run-time while the version on Tubi was only 74 minutes long. Either the imdb is incorrect or the version of Tubi was heavily edited. Either way, the version I saw did feel as if it was missing a few scenes. It crammed a lot of plot into just 74 minutes and the film was not always easy to follow. The version I saw leaned very heavily on Will’s narration, especially during the first few scenes.

But you know what? It’s a likably goofy film and it’s earnest enough that it feels somewhat churlish to be too critical of it. If nothing else, it definitely captures the feel of living in the country. There’s a scene set in a barn that has so many bales of hay that I immediately felt like I was back on my grandmother’s farm and suffering from allergies. Much like the country that it portrays, the film was odd but the scenery was lovely.

The Films of 2024: Sixty Minutes (dir by Oliver Kienle)

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Octavio Bergmann (Emilio Sakraya) has a problem.

A German MMA fighter is just minutes away from fighting a leading contender when he gets a call from his ex-wife. It is his daughter’s birthday and Octavio is told that if he doesn’t make it to her birthday party within an hour, Octavio’s ex-wife is going to demand full custody of her. Octavio runs from the match, hoping that he can somehow make it from one end of Berlin to the next in just 60 minutes.

What Octavio doesn’t know is that the fight was fixed. Octavio’s opponent agreed to take a dive so a bunch of gamblers put down a lot of money on Octavio winning the fight. If Octavio forfeits, they’ll lose all of their money. Soon, Octavio finds himself being pursued by motely collection of Serbian mobsters, bikers, and cops. Meanwhile, Octavio just wants to pick up a cake and his daughter’s birthday gift (an adorable kitten named Onion) and make it to the party in time.

That’s not a bad premise for an action film and Sixty Minutes features a lot of exciting fight scenes as Octavio battles his way to his ex-wife’s house. Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that the film is cheating a bit with the time frame. When Octavio takes off running, a stopwatch lets us know that he has 59 minutes and 59 seconds left. About ten minutes later, the stopwatch reappears and tries to convince us that only four minutes have passed. Octavio has to face a lot of obstacles on his way to that birthday party but it’s hard to create any suspense when the audience knows that the movie isn’t going to be honest about how much time has passed. If any film cries out for a “real time” approach, it’s this movie.

(Personally, I would have changed the title to 80 Minutes. It would still be a stretch to claim that the majority of the movie’s action could have taken place over such a compressed time frame but it would still be more believable than 60.)

On the plus side, the action scenes are exciting. Emilio Sakraya is not the most expressive of actors but, as a former Full-Contact Karate champion, he’s totally convincing in the fight scenes. Wisely, the film does not try to convince us that Octavio is some sort of genius. He is often his own worst enemy. (If you had to get across Berlin in a narrowly-allotted amount of time, would you be stupid enough to stop to argue with the cops?) And there definitely is something rather sweet about Octavio’s determination to make sure that his daughter gets her birthday present. (And fear not, animal lovers — the cat survives the film.) Finally, the soundtrack was heavy on EDM, which I definitely appreciated.

With all of the scenes of Octavio running through Berlin and checking his watch to see how much time he had left, the film feels a bit like a direct descendant of Run, Lola, Run. Unfortunately, Sixty Minutes is nowhere near as exciting, witty, or thoughtful as Tom Tykwer’s classic film. Still, Sixty Minutes is entertaining when taken on its own terms. Just don’t make the mistake of trying to count the minutes.

Scenes That I Love: Nicky Katt vs Adam Goldberg in Dazed and Confused

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to one of my favorite character actors, Nicky Katt!

In 1993’s Dazed and Confused, Katt had a small but pivotal role as Clint. Clint is the guy who loves his car, drinking beer, smoking weed, and beating up people. Mike (played by Adam Goldberg) runs afoul of Nick at the end of the year party and later decides that he has no choice but to fight back. Needless to say, Clint is the better fighter of the two but at least Mike got one good punch in!

(For a while, there was talk of a Dazed and Confused sequel, in which Clint would have turned his life around and become both a born again Christian, and a respected member of the community while Mike would still be obsessing about their brief fight in 1976,)

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The War of the Worlds With #ScarySocial!

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1953’s The War of the Worlds!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

The Films of 2024: Bob Marley: One Love (dir by Reinaldo Marcus Green)

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bob Marley: One Love opens in 1976. With Jamaica torn by political violence, Reggae superstar and devout Rastafari Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) announces that he will be holding a concert for peace. When Marley, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), and several members of the band are shot in a home invasion, a disillusioned Marley sends his wife and children to stay with his mother in Delaware and then heads to London with his band.

The majority of Bob Marley: One Love centers around the years that Marley spent outside of Jamaica. In London, Marley struggles to come up with a concept his new album, finally finding inspiration in the soundtrack for Otto Preminger’s Exodus. Marley explains his philosophy and Rastafari beliefs to journalists and listeners, many of whom are shocked by Marley’s claim to not care about money. With more and more countries declaring their independence and freeing themselves from colonialism, Marley makes plans to perform in Africa and to spread his message of love and freedom. Rita, who eventually rejoins Bob when he tells her that he cannot create his music without her presence, tells Bob that he needs to return to Jamaica and perform his peace concert. Bob remains stubborn but when he’s diagnosed with a rare-form of cancer, he realizes that it’s time for him to return to his home and not just preach about peace and forgiveness but to extend it as well.

Musical biopics have been all the rage since the release of Bohemian Rhapsody and Bob Marley: One Love features enough of Marley’s music that it’s not surprising that the film was a crowd-pleaser when it was released in February. The film was clearly made by people who loved Marley’s music. Kingsley Ben-Adir has a strong screen presence and gives a charismatic performance as Bob but, for whatever reason, Bob Marley remains something of a distant figure throughout the film. We learn a bit about what motivated Bob Marley as a musician and as an activist but we still don’t really feel that we get to know him as a person. (Nor does the film delve too deeply into the details of Marley’s Rastafari beliefs, presenting it as being more about good vibes than a belief in the divinity of Ethiopia’s emperor, Haile Selassie I.) The film hits all of the expected biopic plot points like clockwork. It’s almost too efficient for its own good, lacking any of the spontaneity that makes real life so memorable. It leaves the viewer very much aware that they’re watching a well-made film.

But, one might be justified in dismissing that as just being nit-picking. The film is full of Marley’s music and it ends with a good deal of archival footage that allows the viewer to see both Bob Marley’s real-life charisma and the joy that he took in performing. As I said, the film is a crowd pleaser. While it doesn’t quite provide the insight into Marley’s life that Rocketman did for Elton John, it’s still a better-made and less cynical production than Bohemian Rhapsody. Even if the film is a bit too conventional for its own good, the love of the music still comes through.