Do we really need a second one?
Didn’t the first Boss Baby get nominated for Best Animated Feature while the Academy totally ignored The Lego Batman Movie? That still makes no sense to me.
Anyway, maybe this one will manage to take a spot from a good movie as well. Here’s the trailer.
Here to keep your holidays happy is a film about death.
It’s also a film about love and romance and pursuing your dreams and all that good stuff but I have a feeling that the death is what everyone’s going to remember.
This film is set to be released on December 27th.
Here’s the trailer for The Prom, the latest film from Ryan Murphy. Apparently, Netflix is going to give this film a huge Oscar push and considering that it stars Meryl Streep, you really can’t blame them.
To be honest, this film looks like the most Ryan Murphy thing that Ryan Murphy has ever done. I imagine that some people will absolutely love it and some people will hate it and that there probably won’t be much space in between. Hopefully, this film will be a hit and Murphy will get so busy directing films that he won’t have time to do any further seasons of American Horror Story.
This film will be available of Netflix on December 11th!
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.
RIP, the amazing Daria Nicolodi.
4 Shots From 4 Daria Nicolodi Films
Deep Red (1975, dir by Dario Argento)
Shock (1977, dir by Mario Bava)
Inferno (1980, dir by Dario Argento)
Tenebrae (1983, dir by Dario Argento)
As soon as I heard the great Daria Nicolodi had passed away at the age of 70, I knew that I had to find a scene from one of her films to share here on the Shattered Lens.
Unfortunately, YouTube was not very helpful. I was tempted to re-share the scene of her arm-wrestling David Hemmings in Deep Red but I chose not to because, according to our stats, a lot of you already visited that post after the news of her passing was announced.
I also nearly shared the finale of Shock. This was Daria’s best performance and one that she always cited as being a favorite. However, I hesitated to do so because that scene features Daria’s character dying in a rather gruesome manner and I worried it was perhaps a bit too morbid to share under these circumstances. But this scene also shows what a good actress Daria Nicolodi was and, again, Shock was a film that she always cited as being one of her personal favorites. That said, I just can’t bring myself to pay tribute to someone on the day of their passing with a scene in which they die. So, I’m sharing a different scene from Shock. This one is perhaps a bit less dramatic than the finale but it still shows what a good and expressive actress Daria Nicolodi was. She makes the scene below feel real.
So, in memory of the great Daria Nicolodi, here she is in Mario Bava’s Shock:
Oh Hell yeah!
Now, this is a good Lifetime film!
Basically, Killer Dream Home tells the story of Jules (Maiara Walsh) and Josh Grant (John DeLuca). They’re young. They’re married. They’re hot. Josh never wears a shirt, which is kind of nice. They’ve just bought a gigantic house that they’re planning on flipping, though there’s no way I would ever give up that house because it’s seriously one of the best that I’ve ever seen. I mean, the pool alone is bigger than my back yard. They invite their friend, Bliss (Brooke Butler), to come live with them. You know that you’ve made it when you’ve got a blonde friend named Bliss.
They also end up hiring an interior designer named Morgan (Eva Mauro) but it turns out that Morgan might not be as perfect as their new house. First off, it turns out that Morgan’s entire portfolio was made up of pictures that she cut out of magazines. As soon as Morgan shows up, the first thing that she does is scare away the gardener, with whom she appears to have some sort of deep, dark history. The second thing she does is suggest to Jules that Josh might be cheating on her with Bliss. The third thing she does is get undressed while Josh is watching. Morgan attempts to seduce Josh and Josh is all like, “Just because I don’t own a shirt, that doesn’t make me a man whore!”
And so it goes. It all leads to murder, of course. It always does.
Killer Dream Home has everything that you could possibly want from a Lifetime film. It features beautiful people, beautiful houses, a lot of sex, and a few murders. (Morgan doesn’t hold back when it comes to killing people. Just as Jake is apparent allergic to shirts, Morgan is allergic to following a moral code.) Jake Helgren has directed a lot of these films and he definitely knows not only what the audience wants but also how to deliver it. Some might complain that Killer Dream Home is not a particularly realistic film but realism is not what we watch films like this for. We watch films like this for handsome husbands who never wear a shirt and dangerous femme fatales who wear scandalous bathing suits while using the pool. Lifetime films, at their best, create their own sort of alternative dream world and that’s certainly what Killer Dream Home accomplishes.
Killer Dream Home is a film that you experience more than you watch. It’s a journey into the heart of Lifetime melodrama, where every house is big and everyone is sexy and every stranger has a mysterious past. Watch this film for the house and the clothes and the wonderfully arch dialogue. Watch it for Eva Mauro’s unapologetically intense performance. Watch it for the scene where Morgan narrowly misses Bliss with a nail gun and then attempts to laugh it off. That nail gun gets quite a workout in Killer Dream Home. I should probably pick one up because they seem to be very useful.
Killer Dream Home is Lifetime at its best!
2010’s What If…. is a likable, religious-themed twist on the It’s a Wonderful Life formula.
It tells the story of Ben Walker (Kevin Sorbo), who years ago abandoned his girlfriend and his dreams of entering the ministry so that he could be a business executive instead. 15 years later, he’s a ruthless businessman who gives heartless speeches and thinks nothing of running other people out of business. Fortunately, a guardian angel (John Ratzenberger) pops up and punches Ben into unconsciousness. When Ben wakes up, he’s a preacher, he’s married to Wendy (Kristy Swanson), and he’s got two daughters!
Yes, it’s basically a take on It’s A Wonderful Life. Instead of seeing what the world would be like if he had never been born, Ben gets a chance to see what the world would be like if he hadn’t abandoned Wendy. He would be poor, though he would still live in a pretty nice house. However, he’d have a family and he’d have a preaching career.
You can probably guess what happens. Ben refuses to accept that any of this is real. He keeps saying that it’s a dream. He stumbles through his first sermon. He tries to return to the office where he works, just to discover that no one knows who he is. Eventually, he comes to learn that his alternate life isn’t that bad and that, in many ways, it’s actually better than his real life.
And, to be honest, it’s kind of a sweet movie. I mean, obviously, some of how you react to this film will depend on how you feel about religion in general. If you’re a hardcore atheist, this film will probably make you throw a shoe at someone. Don’t watch this film is you’re a hardcore atheist. (Hardcore Democrats might want to avoid it as well, since the film basically stars everyone in Hollywood who voted for Trump.) That said, Kevin Sorbo and Kristy Swanson both give earnest and likable performances and they have a really nice chemistry. The scene where Ben gives a clueless sermon actually is funny, as are the various reactions to the listeners. (One woman thinks Ben is a disgrace while her husband is just happy that the sermon was short.) Much as he did with The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, director Dallas Jenkins manages to tell his story without getting too preachy. He manages to avoid the traps that most other religious films fall into.
As I said, it’s not for everyone but it’s still a sweet-natured film. I do have some issues with the ending because — SPOILER ALERT! — it ignores the fact that real world Ben is starting his family fifteen years later than alternative world Ben did — SPOILER END! — but it’s still a likable twist on the Wonderful Life formula.
“I’m tripping with the Bradys….” Roy Martin (Tim Matheson) announces shortly before he passes out in the 1996 film, A Very Brady Sequel.
And indeed, Roy is! That’s what happens when Alice (Henriette Mantel) discovers a bunch of hallucinogenic mushrooms in your luggage and decides to use them for dinner. It not only leads to Roy suffering through a cartoon Hell with the Bradys but it also causes Alice to disappear inside of the refrigerator. The Bradys, however, don’t really seem to find any of it to be strange. Safely hidden away in their home, the Bradys aren’t aware of things like drugs and bad trips. They’re more concerned with potato sack races and Cindy’s lisp and Jan’s imaginary boyfriend, George Glass.
A Very Brady Sequel is, as the title suggests, a sequel to The Brady Bunch Movie. In this one, conman Roy Martin shows up at the Brady House and claims to be the first husband of Carol Brady (Shelley Long). “This is Carol’s first husband,” Mike (Gary Cole) explains, “He’s not dead like we thought.” Mike might have mixed feelings about Roy being alive but he’s still determined to be a gracious host. That’s the Brady way.
Roy wants to steal a priceless artifact that’s sitting in the Brady house. It’s kind of a silly plot but then again, it’s a silly movie. The important thing is that it eventually leads to the Bradys flying to Hawaii, where we discover that Carol’s husband was a professor and he disappeared during a three-hour tour and apparently, there’s no chance that he could have washed up on an island somewhere.
A Very Brady Sequel never quite gets the love that the first Brady Bunch movie does but I enjoy it. Admittedly, it doesn’t have quite the same innocence as the first film. The focus is much more on Roy and his attempts to swindle the Bradys and, as a result, A Very Brady Sequel can sometimes feel a bit more mean-spirited than the first Brady Bunch film, in which the focus was on the Bradys and their eternal (some would say infernal) optimism. A lot of the jokes that felt so natural in the first film feel a bit forced in the sequel. That seems to be the way that things usually go with comedy sequels, to be honest.
That said, there’s enough funny moments in A Very Brady Sequel that it’s a worthy continuation of the Brady story. For instance, how can you not smile at the Bradys dancing on the airplane while totally oblivious to how annoyed the rest of the passnegers are with them? How can you not enjoy Jan’s attempts to convince everyone that George Glass is real? The cast is still likable and Gary Cole still has a talent for delivering the most absurd dialogue in the most deadpan style imaginable.
Add to that, Hawaii looks as beautiful as ever! Seriously, if you’re ever going to get stuck with a bunch of weird, 70s sitcom characters, Hawaii is the place to do it!
A Very Brady Sequel was followed by The Brady Bunch In The White House, which I would recommend avoiding.
“Put on your Sunday best, kids. We’re going to Sears!”
I’m probably like a lot of people, in that I hate The Brady Bunch as a television show but I love the 1995 film version. Of course, the film version acknowledges a lot of the things that make the TV show so difficult to sit through. For instance, whenever I watch the TV show, I’m stuck by the fact that Robert Reed’s Mike Brady is kind of a jerk and he really doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about half of the time. Fortunately, in the movie, Gary Cole plays Mike Brady as being kind of a jerk who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. On the TV show, I’m always amazed that no one ever points out how dorky Greg Brady is or how no one ever seems to notice that Jan is slowly losing her mind. The movie, however, is all about how dorky Greg is and how Jan is slowly losing her mind.
“Marcia Marcia Marcia!” Jan (played by Jennifer Elise Cox) exclaims and the audience is instantly divided between neglected middle children and those of us who were maybe a little bit spoiled when we were growing up.
“Johnny Bravo was just Johnny Rotten,” Greg (played by Christopher Daniel Barnes) confesses and it’s tempting to tell Greg not to be too hard on himself but it’s true. That clown song really sucked and I don’t blame everyone for running away whenever Greg started to sing.
“Your father’s right, kids!” Carol (Shelley Long) says after every one of Mike’s long-winded soliloquies and the film hints that Carol might actually understand that Mike is rarely right but Carol is determined to do whatever needs to be done to keep the Bunch moving forward. Myself, I’m more concerned by how long it’s taking Carol to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. My aunt owns a copy of that book and, if I remember correctly, it’s pretty short.
All of the Bradys (and Alice, too) get a chance to show off what they can do in The Brady Bunch Movie. They’ve all pretty much got the same quirks as they did in the series but what made them so annoying on television actually makes them rather endearing in the film. Of course, the film finds the Bradys living in the 90s, surrounded by crime, pollution, loud music, and a dastardly plot to steal their house. (That’s what they get for living next door to veteran comedy villain Michael McKean). The thing is that, while the rest of the world is a mess, the Bradys themselves still act and dress like they did on their television show. They’re literally a family out of time. That’s not a problem with Marcia, who all the boys love despite the 70s fashion sense and the belief that a hand on the knee is moving too fast. But the rest of the family definitely sticks out, like a sore but always cheerful thumb. And yet, because everyone around them is so obnoxious, it’s hard not to appreciate the Bradys and their nonstop earnestness. They’re an antidote to everything negative in the world. All they had to do was remain clueless about everything happening outside of their front door.
The Brady Bunch Movie makes me laugh every time I watch it. It’s one of those films that I watch whenever I’m feeling extremely down. It’s impossible not to be cheered up when the Bradys start dancing through Sears, amazed by the sight of their faces on television while Mike and Carol carefully examine a virbator in the background. I’m thankful for this film. It makes me laugh.
Every day is a sunshine day with the movie Bradys.
The television Bradys can go to Hell.
Social media! It’s murder!
That seems to be the main message behind Instapsycho, a Lifetime film that is designed to appeal to the fear of every mother who worries that her daughter is spending too much time online. It takes place at a high school divided by social media. Who do you follow? Who do you listen to? Who gets your likes and your retweets and your shares? Is it Sasha (Kara Royster), who is rich and popular and who seems to have her entire life ahead of her? Or is it Kelly (Makenzie Vega), who dresses in all black and has a sarcastic wit and who owns a #NoFilters t-shirt?
Me, I would probably follow Kelly because, when I was in high school, I used to dress in all black and I wrote a lot of emo poetry and I tended to toss out random quotes from books that I hadn’t read, all in an effort to make myself seem even smarter than I was. That said, I don’t think that I would be totally supportive of some of the things that Kelly does to win more followers.
For instance, Kelly poisons her stepfather and then does a video about suicide awareness, one that goes viral and wins her a lot of new fans. And it’s true that Kelly’s stepfather was a total perv who totally deserved to die but still, I don’t know if I would risk getting sent to prison for murder just to go viral. I know a lot of people disagree with me on that but …. no, no murders for me.
Of course, Sasha remains a threat to Kelly. “She’s using your own hashtag against you!” someone announces at one point. Even after Kelly manages to get all the cheerleaders to do a special “You suck, Sasha” cheer during lunch, it still appears that Kelly might need to do something extra to hold onto her social media crown. Fortunately, Kelly has plenty of other friends she could kill.
That’s bad news for Maddie (Laura Wiggins), who is Kelly’s best friend. Maddie’s a bit disturbed by Kelly’s new evil side but you have to do what you have to do….
As I said at the start of this review, InstaPsycho is specifically designed to appeal to mothers who, when they’re not watching Lifetime movies, are worrying about what their children are doing online. This is a good example of a “Social Media is the Devil” type of film but it never descends into Reefer Madness territory, largely because social media actually is the devil. Plus — and this is key — InstaPsycho actually has a sense of humor about itself. It may be campy but it’s deliberately campy.
I loved Makenzie Vega’s devilish performance as Kelly. She rips through the film like a tornado and it’s a lot of fun to watch. In fact, despite the film’s warnings about what too much social media does to people, you actually kind of find yourself hoping the best for Kelly. When she points out that her online life is the only thing that she basically has, she does have a point. Though she may have taken things a bit too far by killing people, it’s hard not to have a little bit of sympathy for her.
InstaPsycho! Watch it the next time you’re tempted to post or like something just for the clout.
