Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Forgotten Evil (dir by Anthony C. Ferrante)

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, as part of my continuing effort to clean out my DVR, I watched Forgotten Evil! I recorded Forgotten Evil off of the Lifetime Movie Network on March 12th.

As soon as the words, “The Asylum Presents” appeared on the screen, I knew that I was going to love Forgotten Evil. Though the Asylum may be best known for the Sharknado franchise and several subversively entertaining mockbusters, they’ve also produced several films for Lifetime. An Asylum Lifetime film is always delightfully melodramatic and a lot of fun. My optimism only increased when I discovered that Forgotten Evil was directed and written by the man behind Sharknado, Anthony C. Ferrante.

“This is going to be fun!” I thought and it turns out that I was right.

Forgotten Evil opens with a woman in a bag being dumped over the side of a boat. The opening scenes have a surreal, almost dream-like feel to them. Ferrante does a good job of creating a properly ominous atmosphere. As I watched that bag crash into the water, I was reminded of my own rather morbid fear of drowning. Fortunately, the woman in the bag survives. Unfortunately, when she’s found floating by the shore, she has absolutely no idea who she is.

That’s right! Jane Doe (played by Masiela Lusha) has amnesia! Even though she does occasionally have flashes of memory, she can’t put together what they all mean. She has no idea who she was or why she was dumped in the water. Eventually, she starts using the name Renee but that’s just because she saw a boat named Renee before she nearly drowned.

Amnesia, needless to say, is always a good way to start an intriguing story. I mean, let’s be honest. The idea that people can suddenly forget everything is really quite fascinating. It’s impossible not to wonder what you would do if you were in the same situation.

Despite having no idea who she is, Renee tries to start a new life for herself. A nurse and a police officer become her new BFFs. Her therapist becomes her new parental figure. She even gets a job and a new boyfriend (played by Kyle McKeever), one who is surprisingly good at karaoke! That’s really not too bad for someone who, just a few weeks previously, was being dumped over the side of the boat.

Except, strange things keep happening. She loses her job when semi-explicit Polaroids mysteriously appear on her desk. She continues to have flashes of disturbing images and she’s convinced that someone tried to drown her while she was taking a bath. She thinks that she sees a mysterious man following her around. And that perfect new boyfriend of hers? Well, he appears to be just a little bit too perfect. It’s hard not to suspect that he’s hiding something. Especially when he takes her to an isolated cabin which, in a Lifetime movie, is never a good sign…

I enjoyed Forgotten Evil. This is pure and enjoyable melodrama, well-directed by Anthony C. Ferrante and featuring all sorts of twists and turns. Masiela Lusha is likable and sympathetic in the main role. All in all, this is a fun Lifetime movie. Keep an eye out for it.

Rest in Peace, Tomas Milian

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have some sad news to report. The great Tomas Milian, an actor beloved by fans of Italian cinema everywhere, has died. He was 84.

Perhaps because of the type of films that he made, Milian was never the household name that he deserved to be. In the United States, his death is not even trending on twitter. #ThickThighTwitter, which is essentially a bunch of people bodyshaming anyone who happens to be slim, is trending. Tomas Milian is not.

And it’s a shame because Tomas Milian was one of the best. He may have been beloved by fans of Italian cinema but Milian was truly an international actor. He was born in Cuba, the son of a general who committed suicide after being jailed. Milian left Cuba after his father’s death. He moved to New York City, was a member of the Actor’s Studio, and became naturalized citizen in 1969.

Milian’s acting career took off when he started making movies in Italy. He appeared in everything from spy movies to spaghetti westerns to horror films to 1970s police dramas. Whenever I see one of the many films that Milian made in the 60s and 70s, I’m struck by his intensity. Milian was one of those power actors who often seems like he might leap off the screen at any moment. He played driven and often haunted men. Along with an undeniable charisma, Milian radiated danger.

Of the many Westerns he made, The Big Gundown may be his best known. Here’s Milian with co-star Lee Van Cleef:

My personal favorite of his spaghetti westerns? The surreal Django Kill:

For me, Tomas Milian was at his most menacing in Lucio Fulci’s underrated (and not for the faint-of-heart) Four Of The Apocalypse:

Four of the Apocalypse was not the only film on which Milian would work with Fulci. He also played the hero in Fucli’s classic giallo, Don’t Torture a Duckling:

In the 70s, Tomas Milian appeared in several Poliziotteschi, Italian cop films that were largely designed to rip off the success of gritty cop films like The French Connection and Serpico. Milian was always the ideal rebel cop, though he could play a dangerous criminal just as easily. Check him out in The Cop In Blue Jeans, perhaps parodying Al Pacino in Serpico:

The films weren’t always good but Milian always commanded the screen. It’s hard to think of any other actor who was always so much consistently better than the material he had to work with.

With the decline of the Italian film industry, Thomas Milian relocated his career to the United States. In his later years, he was a character actor who frequently appeared as corrupt military men and politicians. His best known performance from this time may be his quietly sinister turn in Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic:

Earlier today, Tomas Milian died of a stoke in Miami. Rest in peace.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Fight Valley (dir by Rob Hawk)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I wish I knew how to fight. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a pacifist. I’m not the type who would ever actually go out looking for a fight but we live in a dangerous world and I’d like to know how to fight for much the same reason that I like to carry a pink, Hello Kitty derringer in my garter. Self-defense is important.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I know how to pull hair. In fact, back in the day, I was told that I was a very good hair puller. And I keep my nails healthy and strong so I probably could scratch someone’s eyes out if I had to. But, with all that in mind, I’d still probably be totally lost if I ever got into a real fight. I have no idea how to throw a punch for instance. I recently tried to show off my technique to a friend of mine who spent two years serving in the IDF. She started laughing as soon as I made a fist. Apparently, you’re not supposed to tuck in your thumb. I had no idea.

I found myself thinking about this last night. I’m in the process of cleaning out my DVR and, before going to bed, I decided to watch the 2016 film Fight Valley. I recorded Fight Valley off of TMC on March 10th. I’m not sure why I recorded it. Maybe I liked the title. Who knows?

Anyway, Fight Valley is a film about fighting. In many ways, it’s a how-to video for girls who want to learn how to kick ass. Watching Fight Valley, I learned that the most important thing about fighting is to stand around and glare at the person who you want to fight. Judging from the film, it’s also important to say stuff like, “This is our hood,” and “You need to take your skinny ass home, white girl.” Apparently, when walking past someone who you want to fight, it’s very important to make sure that you bump into their shoulder. Basically, it goes: Glare, Talk, Shoulder Bump.

Fight Valley takes place in Camden, New Jersey, where it appears your only two options are either joining the Mafia or getting involved with the underground fighting circuit. Tori Colo (Chelsea Durkalec) is this kickass fighter who needs to make some money. She asks her rich older sister, Windsor (Susie Celek), for the money but Windsor is all like, “Why don’t you get a real job and stop bumping into people’s shoulders?” One night, a skeezy guy tells Tori that she can make some extra cash by going to Fight Valley. The next morning, Tori’s dead body is discovered in the woods!

Well, needless to say, Windsor feels guilty. So, she does what any rich girl who doesn’t know how to fight would do. She starts wandering around Camden and randomly asking people, “Hey, can you give me a ride to Fight Valley?” Well, that doesn’t work. She gets told to go home. Tori’s squad tells her that she either needs to learn how to fight or give up. Fortunately, the harsh and enigmatic Jabs (Miesha Tate) is willing to teach her how to fight. Even more luckily, it only takes four weeks to learn.

(Don’t worry, there’s a twist! Jabs has her own reason for teaching Windsor how to fight. I won’t spoil it here, largely because it’s kind of stupid.)

The good thing about Fight Valley is that a good deal of the cast is made up of actual fighters. Along with Miesha Tate, the cast includes Holly Holm and Cris Cyborg. While I have to admit that I don’t know much about ultimate fighting, I do know that if any of these three gave me the fight glare, I would immediately go hide under a table. Whenever they’re punching, kicking, and putting each other into chokeholds, they are totally believable and there are hints of what the film could have been. Unfortunately, the fight scenes themselves are somewhat haphazardly shot and confusingly edited. As a general rule, when you’ve got actual athletes doing their thing, you don’t need a lot of jump cuts and flashbacks.

The big problem was the acting. For a film where the main attraction was obviously meant to be the fight scenes, Fight Valley was a surprisingly talk movie. Most of the film’s cast had an authenticity to them that disappeared as soon as they opened their mouths and started to recite the script’s overwritten dialogue in the most stilted style possible. It just doesn’t work.

The same can be said of Fight Valley in general. As much as I’d love to know how to throw a punch, Fight Valley left me feeling like maybe I should just stick to hair pulling.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Guilty Pleasure No. 33: In the Mix (dir by Ron Underwood)

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in January, I had to get a new cable box. Sadly, when the boxes were switched, I lost everything that I had saved on the DVR. Over a hundred movies and TV shows were wiped away! However, I did not let this get me down. Instead, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I now had a lot more free space by literally recording anything that looked the least bit interesting.

Well, the day of reckoning has finally arrived. It is now March 21st and the DVR is nearly full. So, for the next few weeks, I am going to clean out my DVR and review what I watch! Now, I can’t say how long this is going to take. In the past, I’ve always given myself unrealistic deadlines. So, this time, I’m not giving myself a time limit. Instead, I’m just going to start watching what I’ve got recorded and hope that I’m done by 2018. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I started things off by watching the 2005 mafia romance film, In the Mix.

I recorded In The Mix off of Starz on March 16th. I did this despite the fact that I’ve actually seen In The Mix quite a few times. In The Mix, which is technically a beyond terrible movie, is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s a bit like From Justin To Kelly or On The Line. Even though all my instincts as a movie snob tell me not to do it, I can’t help but watch it.

In the Mix stars Usher as Darrell, the hottest DJ in New York. Every woman wants him and every man wants to be him. However, all Usher wants to do is hang out with the family of the local mob boss. It turns out that Don Frank (Chazz Palminteri) was friends with Darrell’s father and Darrell is now friends with Frank’s son, Frankie Jr. (Anthony Fazio). Frank hires Darrell to DJ his daughter’s birthday party.

(Frankie, Jr. is a white kid who wants to be black. Personally, I think there’s probably an interesting story in the idea of the son of an old-fashioned Italian mafia don who idolizes — or appropriates, depending on how you look at it — black culture but Frankie, Jr.’s characterization pretty much starts and ends with him saying, “Yo.”)

At the party, Darrell quickly falls in love with Frank’s daughter, Dolly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Dolly likes him too. Especially after he takes a bullet that was intended for her father. While Darrell is recuperating at the mansion, Frank tells Dolly that she can’t go outside unless she has a bodyguard. Dolly says that’s fine as long as the bodyguard is Darrell.

And you know what that means! It’s time for a makeover montage as Darrell gets a whole new wardrobe! Yay!

Anyway, the plot is about as predictable as the casting of Kevin Hart as Usher’s comedic sidekick and Robert Davi as a sinister gangster. Dolly and Darrell fall in love but you already knew that was going to happen. You also probably already guessed that Dolly already has a boring boyfriend named Chad (Geoff Stults) and that Darrell has a crazy ex-girlfriend named Cherise (K.D. Aubert). And, of course, Frank is not initially happy with the idea of Dolly leaving her rich lawyer boyfriend so that she can be with Darrell. However, Darrell eventually gets a chance to prove himself by rescuing Dolly from some rival gangsters and he’s welcomed into the crime family. Of course, he gets shot a second time. “If the ghetto’s so dangerous,” he says as he lies on the ground, “how come I keep getting shot by white people?” Everyone has a good laugh as they wait for the ambulance. That’s the type of movie that In The Mix is.

As I watched In The Mix, I realized that it was actually a lot worse than I remembered and yet, I still enjoyed it. Why? To be honest, it all comes down to Usher and Emmauelle Chriqui, both of whom look really, really good and who have enough chemistry that they can overcome an amazingly clunky script. You reallydo believe that the two of them actually are into each other and you hope that things will work out for them because they’re such a ludicrously attractive couple. In The Mix is an incredibly shallow and silly movie but the stars both look good when they kiss and, ultimately, that’s what a movie like this is all about.

That said, in the future, I probably won’t bother to set the DVR for it again.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Musical Sequence of the Day: “Notorious” from Donnie Darko (dir by Richard Kelly)

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s musical sequence of the day (which is a temporary feature that I’m doing until Val’s internet is working again and she can return to doing her music videos of the day), we have the “Notorious” scene from 2001’s Donnie Darko.

In this scene, Sparkle Motion performs onstage while, miles away, Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) burns down the house of creepy motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze). Playing throughout this scene: Duran Duran’s “Notorious.”

Why does Drew Barrymore hate Sparkle Motion?

This is the second scene from Donnie Darko to have been featured in this series. Check out the “Head Over Heels” scene here.

(And yes, one reason why I love this scene is because I very much related to it. Sparkle Motion is perhaps the most realistic part of Donnie Darko…)

Film Review: Double Mommy (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Lifetime followed Mommy’s Little Boy with the American premiere of Double Mommy.

Double Mommy is another Canadian-produced Lifetime film. This one is a bit of a spiritual cousin to Double Daddy. Like Double Daddy, Double Mommy starts with a high school party, ends with the arrival of two babies, and finds the time to include some homicide in between. It’s also something of a class drama, with the rich being very evil and the middle class being very saintly and the lower class being pretty much nonexistent.

In Double Mommy, Jess (Morgan Obenreder, best known to readers of the site for playing Charisma Carpenter’s daughter in Bound) is pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. However, she’s not sure who the father is. She wants the father to be Ryan (Griffin Freeman), her perfect boyfriend. But she suspects that the father might be Brent (Mark Grossman), Ryan’s former best friend. One night, while Ryan was away, Brent gave Jess a drink. He said it was nonalcoholic and the can said “Cola.” But the way the camera lingered on that can before Jess actually drank it, everyone watching the movie knew that it was drugged. Jess has only vague memories of the rest of the night but she knows what happened.

A paternity test reveals that one twin was fathered by Ryan and the other by Brent! At this point, I said, “So, which one is going to be the evil twin!?”

Well, the film never really got around to answering that question. Instead, it focused on the attempts of Brent’s rich father (Bruce Boxleitner) to pay Jess and her family off. It turns out that Jess is not the first girl that Brent has raped and his father has been covering up for him. Jess is determined to expose Brent as a rapist. Jess hangs banners at school. She posts Brent’s picture on social media.

Let’s give Double Mommy credit where credit is due. In the characters of Brent and his father, the film makes a point about how one generation enables the bad behavior of another and how misogyny can be passed down from father to son. Furthermore, Jess never allows herself to simply be a victim. She’s a fighter who never apologizes for standing up for herself and who, most importantly, never blames herself for the rape. But, with all that in mind, Double Mommy would have been so much better (and certainly more empowering) if Jess had gone all Ms. 45 or I Spit On Your Grave on Brent’s ass.

I mean, it’s true that, as a result of Jess’s efforts, Brent loses a scholarship and gets booed at a soccer game. That’s all good but Brent was such a loathsome character that he deserved much worse. If there’s ever been a character in a Lifetime film who deserved to be locked in a cage and beaten until he confessed to his crimes, it was Brent. After an hour of Brent smirking, bragging, and drugging, I was ready to see Jess pick up a gun and blow his head off while uttering a priceless one-liner. Instead, Brent just got embarrassed and eventually ended up running around with a gun of his own. What could have been an empowering little revenge flick turned into a typical Lifetime movie.

That said, the film was well-acted and nicely put together. Mark Grossman turned Brent into a disturbingly familiar villain. (We’ve all known a Brent.) I just wish the film had gone a bit further in giving Jess her revenge.

Musical Sequence of the Day: “You Never Can Tell” from Pulp Fiction

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the passing of Chuck Berry, today’s musical sequence of the day is a bit of a no-brainer. This scene, from 1994’s Pulp Fiction, is already one of my favorite dance scenes and, today, it takes on a special poignance.

It’s funny. Whenever there’s a montage of classic dance scenes, we always get at least a few seconds of John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing at Jack Rabbits Slim. In fact, I’ve seen this dance featured in so many montages that it’s easy to forget which song they were originally dancing to. I’ve seen this scene scored with everything from Sinatra to punk to Britney Spears to EDM. And, every time, it’s worked beautifully.

But really, “You Never Can Tell” is the perfect song for this scene. Pulp Fiction is so many thing that I think people sometimes forget that, at heart, it’s truly a celebration of Americana. Seeing John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing to Chuck Berry serves to remind us of this fact.

Film Review: Mommy’s Little Boy (dir by Curtis Crawford)

Posted on March 18, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Saturday, Lifetime presented a Mommy Madness marathon, showing a series of melodramas that all, in some way, involved motherhood. They showed everything from Killing Mommy to Mommy’s Secret to Mommy’s Little Girl. They ended the night with not one but two premiere films! Needless to say, I was excited. After missing last week’s Lifetime movie (though I did DVR it so fear not!), I was looking forward to embracing the melodrama not once but twice!

The first premiere was Mommy’s Little Boy, which naturally came on immediately after Mommy’s Little Girl. Just judging from the title and Lifetime’s previous record when it comes to children, I assumed that Mommy’s Little Boy would be about a homicidal child.

It turns out I was incorrect. Don’t get me wrong, of course. The kid does kill at least one person. Actually, I think he killed two people but the film is a little bit ambiguous as to whether or not little Eric (Peter DaCunha) meant to let his half-brother Max (Auden Larrat) drown. You really couldn’t blame Eric if that was the case. Max was a stone-cold psychopath who started the movie threatening to attack a stray dog with a power drill. Max got whatever he deserved. As for that other murder that Eric commits — well, it’s self-defense. Eric really had no choice. Eric’s a good kid, dangit!

Instead, it’s his mother who is the problem. Briana (Bree Williamson) has a really nice house but she’s the type of mother who is too busy sunbathing (while wearing an American flag bikini, no less) to notice that one of her sons is drowning in the pool behind her. Briana is almost always drunk or stoned. She brings strange men home with her. She neglects Eric and sends him to school in grubby clothes. She murders the neighbor for being condescending, banging her over the head with the same skillet that will later be used to prepare Eric’s breakfast. Briana’s not the world’s best mother but, at the very least, she has a nice house.

Seriously, you have to see this house. Have you ever seen House Hunters? You know how the third house is always a really nice house that, we’re told, is a little bit outside of the house hunters’s budget? (“Now, this is listed for a little more than you said you were willing to pay but the price may come down…”) That’s the type of house that Brianna lives in. Unfortunately, Brianna has kinda trashed the place. At one point, she explains that she inherited the house after her parents died. At least, for once, a Lifetime movie took the time to explain why even the trashiest of characters always live in the nicest of houses.

Anyway, Briana’s killed someone and she forces Eric to help her cover up the crime. That kinda traumatizes Eric. He’d much rather live with his softball coach, Michael Davis (Paul Popovich). However, Briana is determined to get in her new boyfriend’s RV and flee to Mexico. And she expects her only remaining son to come with her. Whatever is Eric to do!?

Well, you probably already guessed what happens. Mommy’s Little Boy was a standard Lifetime film but I liked it. If nothing else, Bree Williamson deserves some sort of award for how totally and completely she throws herself into the role of Briana. It takes courage to play someone that trashy without winking at the audience but Williamson does it. Overall, Mommy’s Little Boy was an entertaining addition to Lifetime’s stable of films about mentally unstable maternal figures.

Musical Sequence of the Day: Agony from Into the Woods (dir by Rob Marshall)

Posted on March 18, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(If you’re looking for the usual music video of the day, fear not! Val is currently having some internet issues but, as soon as their resolved, both she and the music videos should be back! Until then, I’m filling with some of my favorite cinematic musical sequences!)

For today’s musical sequence of the day, we have “Agony” from the 2014 film, Into The Woods.

Into the Woods got some notably mixed reviews when it was first released. At the time it was released, I wrote that, while I liked it “I never loved Into the Woods like I thought I would.” In retrospect, I think the film may have been the victim of a combination of my own high expectations and my tendency to be a snob when it comes to cinematic adaptations of Broadway musicals. I recently rewatched Into The Woods and it actually holds up remarkably well.

Definitely one of the highlights of the film was Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen’s duet on “Agony.” Both Pine and Magnussen were perfectly cast as fairy tale princes and “Agony” is a beautiful satire of melodramatic excess. When I first saw the film at the Alamo Drafthouse, “Agony” was the one number that inspired people in the audience to applaud.

For your pleasure, here is “Agony!”

Enjoy!

Musical Sequence of the Day: “Falling Slowly” from Once

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

This is a day that is very important to several of the writers here at the Shattered Lens. It’s a day in which we celebrate all things Irish and that means a lot more than just wearing green. (That said, I did buy green lingerie specifically for today because, seriously, when would I ever turn down a chance to buy lingerie?)

For today’s musical sequence of the day, I’m happy to present one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite Irish films, 2006’s Once. Prepare to wipe away a tear as Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform “Falling Slowly.”

Enjoy!