What would you do if, one day, you were suddenly told that everything that you believed was a delusion?
That’s question that rests at the heart of A Mother On The Edge, a film that aired on Lifetime earlier this month.
The mother of the title is Blair Ayken (Kelly Thiebaud). When we first meet Blair, her life is definitely in flux. She’s wrapped up in a lawsuit with a former business partner. Her sleazy ex-husband, Simon (Matt Hamilton), is …. well, he’s acting like a sleazy ex-husband. She still occasionally has nightmares about a serious auto accident that occurred a year earlier. Perhaps the only bright spot in her life is her daughter, Lori (Lina Renna).
Or is she?
One day, Blair goes to her daughter’s school and can’t find Lori. When she goes to the office, she’s informed that the school has never had a student named Lori Ayken. When she talks to the students who she believed to be Lori’s classmates, they all tell her that they’ve never seen or heard of Lori. When Blair goes to her friend and lawyer, Cynthia (Alison Wandzura), Cynthia reveals that, though she’s heard a lot about Lori from Blair, she’s never actually met her. Finally, when Blair confronts Simon and demands to know where Lori is, Simon tells her that she’s gone crazy. Lori, he explains, has been dead for a year. She died in the very same car accident about which Blair has been having nightmares.
Blair swears that her daughter is alive and has been kidnapped. Everyone around her swears that Lori has been dead for a year and that Blair has lost her mind. Even Cynthia gets a little bit upset when Blair speaks up at a court hearing and starts to explain her theory that everyone but her is either incorrect or lying. So, who is correct? The best thing about A Mother On The Edge is that it keeps you guessing. Since Blair is the main character and Simon is such a sleaze, our natural instinct is to believe her. But, it’s hard not to have doubts. As sure as Blair is that Lori is alive, everyone else seems to be equally sure that Blair is delusional. As I watched the film, I found myself going back and forth. At first, I was like, “Well, this is obviously a setup” but then I was like, “Maybe Blair really is crazy.”
A lot of that was due to the performance of Kelly Thiebaud. She did a great job capturing both Blair’s initial panic and also her determination to not only prove that Lori was alive but to also rescue her. Thiebaud brought just enough of a nervous edginess to her performance that you easily could understand why people might view her as being unbalanced and, as a result, you were never quite sure just how much you should trust her beliefs. She kept you wondering. It was a performance that left me wondering how I was would react and what I would do if I ever found myself in Blair’s situation.
I also liked the performance of Phillip Mitchell, who played a character known as The Fixer and who brought just the right combination of menace and annoyance to his role. I can’t reveal too much about his role without spoiling the film but Mitchell definitely made an impression.
A Mother On The Edge originally aired on Lifetime on May 3rd. Fortunately, Lifetime tends to rebroadcast their films several times during the year so keep an eye out for A Mother On The Edge.
Today, we lost another star from Hollywood’s Golden Age. There will be more to write later. For now….
Doris Day was 97 and she was a far better actress than she was ever given credit for. She may have been best known for the romantic comedies that she made with Rock Hudson but let us not forget that Doris Day also starred in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and held her own opposite James Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me. She starred in the superior thriller, Midnight Lace, and she was the first choice to play Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. After she retired from acting, she worked to promote animal welfare and she founded the Doris Day Animal Foundation. The Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center operates to this day in Murchison, Texas.
Another Plan From Outer Space opens with both the Star Spangled Banner and a quick trip through history. We watch and listen as President John F. Kennedy announces that, some day, a man will walk on the Moon. Kennedy is followed by Barack Obama, announcing that we will land on Mars within his lifetime. And finally, we have President Trump, announcing that we will not only someday land on Mars but on other worlds as well.
Jump forward to 2024 and all of those predictions have come true. There are now Martian colonies and space shuttles regularly make the journey from Earth to Mars and back again. Man may have conquered space but that doesn’t mean that accidents don’t occasionally happen. For instance, after we’ve heard from the Presidents, we watch as the American spaceship Genesis One crashes into the desert.
Five members of the crew manage to survive the crash. They know they’re on Earth but, with their communications equipment damaged, they don’t know exactly where they are. As Chief Hudson (Augie Duke) puts it, they could just as easily be in the Middle East as they could be in North America. With the mission leader dead, Captain Jackson (Scott Sell) takes command and immediately starts giving out orders, much to the annoyance of Commander Strickland (Jessica Morris).
However, the crew has more than just professional jealousy and hurt feelings to deal with. Strange things are happening in the desert. Hudson swears that she saw the ship’s doctor, Yushiro (Minchi Murakami), fatally injured by something in the desert, just for the body to vanish and Yushiro to later show up quite alive and uninjured. While Lt. Brooks (Hans Hernke) worries that his watch — a family heirloom — has stopped working, Captain Jackson swears that he can hear music in the distance.
And then there’s the seemingly abandoned cabin, sitting out in the middle of the desert….
Though the title may be evocative of Plan Nine From Outer Space, this film actually has more in common with a classic episode of The Twilight Zone than it does with Ed Wood’s infamous UFO epic. Along with exploring the mystery of where the Genesis has crashed, the film is even more interested in exploring how each of the individual survivors deal with the isolation of being stranded in the desert. (Let’s just say that some handle it better than others.) About halfway through the film, there’s an extended sequence in which the survivors simply sit around a campfire and discuss not only their pasts but what they’re hoping for their futures. It’s a nicely done scene, one that adds an element of relatable humanity to the film’s science fiction story.
The film’s black-and-white cinematography not captures the harshness of the desert but it also contributes to the film’s retro feel. The film makes the best of its low-budget aesthetic, using the desert to create a properly ominous atmosphere. At its best, you can feel the oppressive heat burning down on the characters. Add to that a nicely fierce performance from Jessica Morris and you have a film that favorably compares to the early sci-fi work of Roger Corman. The film, of course, ends with both a twist and the possibility of continuation.
So, apparently, the plot of this Netflix film is that the aliens have invaded and only a group of children can save us.
In other words, humanity is screwed.
Anyway, I guess this is kind of like Stranger Things meets Independence Day. It was directed by McG and you can tell the audience that this film has been made for by the fact that the trailer describes McG as being the director of The Babysitter instead of the director of Terminator: Salvation.
I have to admit that I’m always kind of amused by the fact that people actually call the director “McG.” I know, I know …. it’s a childhood nickname, like Beto. Still, it’s always a little hard for me not to smile whenever I hear anyone casually talk about “McG” in an interview. I remember listening to that infamous Christian Bale rant from the Terminator set and thinking that Bale sounded like a rather unpleasant person to work with. But then Bale said something like, “McG, are you going to say something?” and I just started laughing.
Anyway, here’s the trailer. It’s a Netflix film so I guess it will be streaming sometime in May. Have you noticed recently that Netflix seems to be kind of obsessed with the end of the world? I guess they’re hoping to reinfect us with some of that Bird Box fever.
Sienna Miller is one of those extremely capable actresses who rarely seems to get the type of roles that she deserves. She’s played a lot of girlfriends and a lot of loyal wives. Check out Foxcatcher, The Catcher Was A Spy, and American Sniper for just a few examples.
However, the soon-to-be-released American Woman appears to give Sienna Miller a role with a bit more depth than those previous roles. In American Woman, Miller plays Deb, a 31 year-old grandmother whose life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter vanishes, leaving Deb to raise her grandchild. Taking place in a small Pennsylvania town, the film spans 11 years and, from what I’ve heard, it gives Miller a chance to show what she can do with a really good role.
The trailer for American Woman dropped today and, not surprisingly, it was totally overshadowed by the latest Spider-Man trailer. The trailer looks pretty good, though. Some of the images are evocative of films like Gone Girl, Winter’s Bone, andUnder the Skin. Will the film live up to the trailer? We’ll find out on June 14th!
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Psycho Stripper!Why Was I Watching It?
Why was I watching it? Seriously, with a name like Psycho Stripper, how couldn’t I watch it!? There’s an art to coming up with a good title and whoever came up with Psycho Stripper has obviously perfected that art. The title was so great that I even abandoned the neighborhood Cinco De Mayo party early, just so I could watch the movie in the comfort of my own home. That’s the power of a perfect title!
Also, I have to give some credit to Lifetime, here. Before they showed Psycho Stripper, they showed Magic Mike. So, on Sunday night, viewers got a chance to see two separate versions of the life of a male stripper, the yellow-tinted Steven Soderbergh version (seriously, I like Magic Mike but, whenever I watch it, I worry all that yellow is going to burn my retinas) and the wonderfully over-the-top Lifetime version!
What Was It About?
Amber (Karissa Lee Staples) owns her own dance studio, has a lot of friends, and is about to get married to the wealthy (if kinda wimpy) Owen (Mark Hapka).
Hunter (Tyler Johnson) is a handsome and charming male stripper who dresses up like a fireman, can change a flat tire, and who happens to be really good with an ax.
Together, they solve crimes!
No, not really. Instead, Hunter shows up at Amber’s bachelorette party. He’s supposed to just be a part of the night’s entertainment but, instead, Hunter keeps showing up wherever Amber happens to be. First, he just wants dance lessons. Then, he’s kind of dating Amber’s best friend, Taryn (Rachele Brooke Smith). Then, he’s bringing Amber a gift to thank her for the lessons. Suddenly, he’s asking Amber if she wants to get lunch! Amber doesn’t think that it’s a good idea for her to have lunch with Hunter, especially since Owen seems to have a hang-up about her hanging out with a mysterious man who has a great body.
Then again, Owen has issues of his own. For instance, he doesn’t seem to have quite gotten over his previous girlfriend, the one who died mysteriously….
What Worked?
Okay, so I absolutely loved this movie. I mean, how couldn’t I? It combined two of my favorite things: over-the-top, in-your-face melodrama and dancing! This movie was a lot of fun and Tyler Johnson really threw himself into playing the role of the psycho stripper.
The film also had a bit of a subversive side, as well. Hunter may be a psycho but you still kind of find yourself on his side, if just because everyone else in the movie is so judgmental of him and how he makes his living. Owen’s family is extremely wealthy and all of his friends are extremely privileged. When they start giving Hunter a hard time about being a stripper (with one of them even throwing a dollar bill at him), you can’t help but feel a little bit bad for him. (Of course, then he starts killing people and you’re like, “Okay, never mind….”)
My favorite character was Taryn, who was not only a good dancer but also the greatest best friends that one could possibly hope for. She got all the best lines. My personal favorite was, “We’re going to get in this car and plow his ass down!”
What Didn’t Work?
It all worked. This was Lifetime at its best.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
A Lifetime film set in a dance studio? To be honest, almost the entire film was an “Oh my God! Just like me!” moment. I related to Taryn. I’d like to think that, if there was a psycho wandering around outside, I too would be smart enough to grab a knife before going outside.
The last Bachelorette Party that I went to had a stripping fireman, just like this movie. However, I don’t think he ever killed anyone. Actually, rumor has it that he was a real fireman who had too much to drink that night. Who knows? Life is indeed a crazy tapestry.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve shared this scene before but, if I did, it was several years ago. Through the Shattered Lens has been around for nearly ten years now, after all. (TEN YEARS!)
Since today is Orson Welles’s birthday, I wanted to share at least one scene that I love from his films. Even though I didn’t want to go with the obvious choice of picking something from Citizen Kane, there was still a wealth of scenes to choose from. But, in the end, I really didn’t have any choice but to go with the tracking shot that opens 1958’s Touch of Evil.
This scene really does show why Welles was such an important director. It’s not just that the scene is a masterpiece of suspense, starting out with a close-up of a ticking time bomb and then leaving us to wonder just when exactly it’s going to explode. It’s also that the scene perfectly sets up the odd and sordid atmosphere of Touch of Evil. It’s a scene that begins in America, takes the viewer into Mexico, and then literally ends with a bang. And it does it all in just one shot!
Because of a throw-away joke in Ed Wood, there’s a widely-held but incorrect assumption that Welles was forced to cast Charlton Heston in the lead role in Touch of Evil or that Welles and Heston didn’t get along. Actually, Heston was the one who fought for Welles to be given a chance to direct Touch of Evil and, when the studios attempted to fire Welles from the project, Heston stopped them by announcing that he would quite if Welles wasn’t allowed to complete the picture. It may be tempting to make jokes about Heston playing a Mexican cop but, if not for him, this film probably wouldn’t exist right now. And that would be a tragedy.
With all that said and done, here’s a scene that I love:
Early on in the new Netflix film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, there’s a scene in which Liz Kendall (Lily Collins) and her sister, Joanna (Angela Sarafyan) go to a bar. Through some rather heavy-handed dialogue, we learn that Liz has just broken up with her boyfriend, that she has next to zero self-confidence, and that she’s a single mother. She doesn’t think that there’s a man anywhere who would be interested in her. Joanna responds by pointing out that there’s one man who appears to be very interested. In fact, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of Liz since they entered the bar.
That man’s name is Ted (Zac Efron) and, at first, he seems like he’s too good to be true. He’s charming. He’s a law student. He appears to love spending time with Liz’s daughter. He looks like Zac Efron. Perfect, right?
Of course, we know something that Liz doesn’t. We know that Ted is Ted Bundy and that, eventually, he’s going to become one of America’s notorious serial killers, a symbol of evil so potent that, more than 30 years after he was executed by the state of Florida, he continues to get movies made about him.
Because we know who and what Ted is, we spend the first fourth of the movie cringing at everything that makes Liz happy. For instance, Liz is shocked to discover that Ted apparently loves her daughter but we’re just like, “Oh my God, that’s Ted Bundy! GET YOUR DAUGHTER AWAY FROM TED BUNDY!” Liz thinks it’s romantic when Ted makes breakfast for her but we’re just staring at the big kitchen knife in his hand. When Liz and Ted make love, only we notice the blank look on Ted’s face as he looks down at Liz and we find ourselves wondering what’s happening in his mind.
The film is told largely through Liz’s eyes and, with one exception, we never see Bundy actually committing any of his crimes. (That’s a good thing, by the way. We already know who Ted Bundy was and what he did. There’s no need to sensationalize the very real pain that he caused.) Like Liz, we find out about Bundy’s crimes through news reports and arrest records. For instance, when Bundy is arrested for attempted kidnapping in Utah, Liz doesn’t find out about it until a story appears in the local Seattle newspaper. When Liz demands to know why he didn’t tell her what was happening, Bundy gives her a bullshit story about how he’s being framed and how his lawyer is going to get the case thrown out. We know that Ted’s lying but Liz believes him because …. what else is she going to do? Is she going to believe that this perfect man who seems to love both her and her daughter is actually a sociopathic monster?
The film follows Bundy from one trial to another, as he’s charged with crimes across country. It shows how this superficially charming law student became something of a media celebrity. (When a reporter asks him if he’s guilty, Bundy grins and asks if the reporter is referring to a comic book that he stole when he was in the fifth grade.) Bundy escapes. Bundy is arrested. Bundy escapes again. Bundy eventually ends up being tried in Florida, where he revels in the attention. When Liz loses faith in him, Bundy replaces her with an unstable woman named Carole Ann (Kayla Scodelario). However, even while Carole Ann is dutifully delivering statements from Bundy to the press, Bundy is still calling Liz and begging her to believe that he’s innocent and he’ll soon be freed from prison.
Why is it so important to Bundy that Liz believe in him? Is he just entertaining himself by manipulating her or, in his relationship with her, does he see the type of normalcy that he desires but knows he’s incapable of ever achieving? Towards the end of the film, Liz comes close to asking Bundy if he was planning on killing her the first night that they met. She doesn’t and it’s doubtful that Bundy would have given an honest answer but it’s still a question that hangs over every minute of this film (as does Liz’s physical resemblance to the majority of Bundy’s victims).
Though the film may be told from Liz’s point of view, she’s often comes across as just being a meek bystander, watching as the darkness of Ted Bundy envelops her world. The film itself seems to be far more interested in Ted Bundy and his twisted celebrity. Zac Efron plays Bundy as someone who knows how to be charming and who is good enough at imitating human emotions that he’s managed to keep the world from noticing that he’s essentially hollow on the inside. Bundy has gotten so used to acting out a role that, even when he’s on trial for his life, he can’t resist the temptation to turn the courtroom into his own stage. He demands to defend himself and, though he initially proves himself to be a good lawyer, his demands and his questions become progressively more flamboyant and self-destructive. It’s as if he’s gotten so caught up in playing his role that he’s incapable of recognizing the reality of his situation. He performs for the jury, the judge, and the television audience, treating the whole thing as if he’s just a character in a movie. It’s only when he has no choice but to accept that he’s been caught and he’s never going to escape that Bundy finally shows some human emotion. He cries but his tears are only for himself. It’s a chilling performance and Zac Efron deserves every bit of praise that he’s received.
Unfortunately, the film itself doesn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know. Director Joe Berlinger is best-known as a documentarian and he talks a “just the facts” approach to the story. We don’t really get any insight into how a monster like Ted Bundy could come to exist. Outside of Efron’s revelatory performance, there’s not much here that couldn’t be found in any of the other films that have been made about Ted Bundy.
(Interestingly enough, as I watched the film, it occurred to me that Ted Bundy was a monster who could have only thrived in a pre-Internet age. For all the books and movies that portray him as being some sort of cunning genius, Bundy actually wasn’t that smart. He approached two of early his victims in a public place and introduce himself as being “Ted,” usually within earshot of a handful of witnesses. He was so brazen that the police even ended up with a sketch that pretty much looked exactly like him. In all probability, the only way that Ted Bundy avoided getting arrested in Seattle was that he moved to Utah, where his crimes were unknown and the sketch wasn’t readily available. Today, of course, that sketch and Ted’s name would be on Twitter and Facebook as soon as they were released by the police. My friend Holly would probably retweet the sketch and say, “Do your thing, twitter!” He would have been identified and arrested in just a matter of time. Instead, Bundy committed his crimes at a time when news traveled slower and law enforcement agencies were not in constant communication with each other.)
The good news is that Extremely Wicked is not, as some feared, a glorification of Ted Bundy. He’s a monster throughout the entire film. Zac Efron proves himself to be a far better actor than anyone’s ever really given him credit for being. It’s a flawed film but, at the very least, it’s also a disturbing reminder that sometimes, darkness hides behind the greatest charm.
I was so impressed with Paul Rudd’s performance in Avengers: Endgame that, last night, I decided to watch another Paul Rudd film, 2018’s The Catcher Was A Spy.
Based on a true story, The Catcher Was A Spy tells the tale of Moe Berg (Paul Rudd). When we first meet Moe, it’s towards the end of World War II and Moe has been sent behind enemy lines to investigate just how close the Nazis are to building an atomic bomb. Intelligence suggests that physicist Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong) is leading the Nazi effort and, if the intelligence turns out to be true, Moe has been ordered to assassinate Heisenberg. As Moe considers whether or not he’s actually capable of killing a man, we get flashbacks to how Moe eventually ended up working as a spy.
What we learn is that, in the 1930s, Moe Berg was a major league baseball player. He was a catcher and, though he was never a great player, he was famous for being far more educated than the average professional athlete. At a time when open anti-Semitism was socially acceptable among America’s upper classes, Moe Berg managed to get an Ivy League education. Not only does he keep up with current events but he can also speak several languages. The other players aren’t quite sure what to make of Moe, nor does Moe ever seem to make much of an effort to open up to anyone, including his girlfriend, Estella (Sienna Miller, playing yet another girlfriend in yet another biopic).
Because he can speak Japanese, Moe is selected to be a part of a delegation of players who will be sent to Japan. While the rest of the players hang out around the hotel, Moe hangs out with an intellectual named Kawabata (Hiroyuki Sanada), discusses inevitably of war, and — for reasons that the film deliberately leaves unclear — decides to shoot a film of Tokyo Harbor.
Five years later, with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, it’s that film that leads to Moe getting a meeting with the head of the Office of Strategic Services, Bill Donovan (Jeff Daniels). No longer a baseball player and apparently bored with coaching, Moe wants to become a spy. Donovan notes that Moe has never married and asks him flat out if he’s gay. Moe smiles slightly and says, “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
And indeed, he is! Unfortunately, Moe is so good at keeping secrets that we never quite get into his head. It’s hard not to compare this film to the superficially similar The Imitation Game. But whereas that film made you feel as if you were seeing the world through Alan Turing’s eyes, The Catcher Was A Spy always seems to be standing outside of Moe Berg. In the film’s final title cards, it refers to Moe as being an “enigma” and that’s pretty much the way he is throughout the entire film. We like him because he’s played by Paul Rudd but we never really feel like we know him. The closest the film comes to suggesting what’s going on inside the head of its main character is when Moe — who has described himself as non-religious — attends a Kol Nidrel service at a Zurich synagogue and, for a few minutes, Moe lets his guard down. But, for the majority of the film, Moe remains unknowable.
With the exception of one battle scene, it’s also a rather low-key spy film, one that’s more in the style of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy than SPECTRE. Again, that may be true to the actual story but, considering that it’s a film about a possibly gay Jew working to take down a homophobic, anti-Semitic war machine, it’s still hard not to regret the film’s lack of big “stand up and cheer” moments. Clocking in at a rather brisk 97 minutes, it’s hard not to feel that there’s some big pieces missing from the film’s story.
Here’s the good news: Paul Rudd proves himself to be a thoroughly charismatic leading man in this film, showing that he can hold the audience’s attention even without special effects or a punch line. Rudd does an excellent job playing a character who, to be honest, has very little in common with what we may think of as being a typical Paul Rudd role. Rudd is always watchable, even while Moe Berg remains an enigma. Hopefully, Rudd will get more opportunities in the future to show us what he’s truly capable of doing as an actor.
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.
Let us all wish a happy 50th birthday to one of the greatest directors working today, Wes Anderson! Though Wes Anderson may currently live in Paris, he was born and raised in my homestate of Texas. While Anderson’s films often seem to take place in their own special universe, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore are still two of the best films ever made about Texas.
(Other directors who were either born and/or raised in Texas or call this state home include Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Terence Malick, Catherine Hardwicke, Mike Judge, Rob Bowman, David Gordon Green, and David Lowery. Not too bad!)
Through the Shattered Lens 