Tag Archives: Film

Here Are The Nominations For The 22nd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

manchester-by-the-sea-sundance-2016

The Broadcast Film Critics Association have announced their nominees for the 22nd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards and here they are!  Once again, in a pattern that will probably see repeated several times of this next month, the nominations were dominated by Moonlight, La La Land, and Manchester By The Sea.

FILM NOMINATIONS FOR THE 22ND ANNUAL CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARDS

BEST PICTURE

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTRESS

  • Amy Adams – Arrival
  • Annette Bening – 20th Century Women
  • Isabelle Huppert – Elle
  • Ruth Negga – Loving
  • Natalie Portman – Jackie
  • Emma Stone – La La Land

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

  • Viola Davis – Fences
  • Greta Gerwig – 20th Century Women
  • Naomie Harris – Moonlight
  • Nicole Kidman – Lion
  • Janelle Monáe  – Hidden Figures
  • Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS

  • Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea
  • Alex R. Hibbert – Moonlight
  • Lewis MacDougall – A Monster Calls
  • Madina Nalwanga – Queen of Katwe
  • Sunny Pawar – Lion
  • Hailee Steinfeld – The Edge of Seventeen

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  • Damien Chazelle – La La Land
  • Barry Jenkins – Moonlight
  • Yorgos Lanthimos/Efthimis Filippou – The Lobster
  • Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea
  • Jeff Nichols – Loving
  • Taylor Sheridan – Hell or High Water

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  • Luke Davies – Lion
  • Tom Ford – Nocturnal Animals
  • Eric Heisserer – Arrival
  • Todd Komarnicki – Sully
  • Allison Schroeder/Theodore Melfi – Hidden Figures
  • August Wilson – Fences

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

  • Stéphane Fontaine – Jackie
  • James Laxton – Moonlight
  • Seamus McGarvey – Nocturnal Animals
  • Linus Sandgren – La La Land
  • Bradford Young – Arrival

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

  • Arrival – Patrice Vermette, Paul Hotte/André Valade
  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Stuart Craig/James Hambidge, Anna Pinnock
  • Jackie – Jean Rabasse, Véronique Melery
  • La La Land – David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
  • Live by Night – Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

BEST EDITING

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

  • Colleen Atwood – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
  • Consolata Boyle – Florence Foster Jenkins
  • Madeline Fontaine – Jackie
  • Joanna Johnston – Allied
  • Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh – Love & Friendship
  • Mary Zophres – La La Land

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

BEST ACTION MOVIE

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE

BEST COMEDY

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY

  • Ryan Gosling – The Nice Guys
  • Hugh Grant – Florence Foster Jenkins
  • Dwayne Johnson – Central Intelligence
  • Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic
  • Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

  • Kate Beckinsale – Love & Friendship
  • Sally Field – Hello, My Name Is Doris
  • Kate McKinnon – Ghostbusters
  • Hailee Steinfeld – The Edge of Seventeen
  • Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

  • Elle
  • The Handmaiden
  • Julieta
  • Neruda
  • The Salesman
  • Toni Erdmann

BEST SONG

  • Audition (The Fools Who Dream) – La La Land
  • Can’t Stop the Feeling – Trolls
  • City of Stars – La La Land
  • Drive It Like You Stole It – Sing Street
  • How Far I’ll Go – Moana
  • The Rules Don’t Apply – Rules Don’t Apply

BEST SCORE

  • Nicholas Britell – Moonlight
  • Jóhann Jóhannsson – Arrival
  • Justin Hurwitz – La La Land
  • Micachu – Jackie
  • Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka – Lion

Deadpool

La La Land, Moonlight, and Manchester By The Sea Wins With The New York Film Critics Circle

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

la-la-land

The New York Film Critics Circle met today and announced their picks for the best of 2016!  The awards were pretty evenly divided between the three films that are rapidly emerging as the early Oscar front runners — Manchester By The Sea, Moonlight, and La La Land!

Here are the winners!

  • BEST FILM: “La La Land”
  • BEST DIRECTOR: Barry Jenkins for “Moonlight”
  • BEST ACTRESS: Isabelle Huppert for both “Elle” and “The Things to Come”
  • BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Michelle Williams for both “Manchester by the Sea” and “Certain Women”
  • BEST FIRST FILM: (TIE) “The Edge of Seventeen” and “Krisha”
  • BEST SCREENPLAY: Kenneth Lonergan for “Manchester by the Sea”
  • BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Toni Erdmann”
  • BEST ANIMATED FILM: “Zootopia”
  • BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Mahershala Ali for “Moonlight”
  • BEST ACTOR – Casey Affleck for “Manchester by the Sea”
  • SPECIAL AWARDS: One for editor Thelma Schoonmaker, the other for Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” 25th Anniversary Restoration

Film Review: Moana (dir by Ron Clements and John Musker)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Look, I get it.

Everyone’s depressed right now.

You’re depressed.

He’s depressed.

She’s depressed.

That random guy over there is depressed.

Your cat’s depressed because you’re so depressed that you’re probably not feeding him on time.

I’m not depressed but I’m currently pretending that I am in order to show solidarity for the people.

Everyone’s depressed!

But you know what?  No matter how depressed you are, don’t take it out on the movies.  I actually had someone tell me recently that he didn’t see how I could worry about movies with so many terrible things happening in the world!  Well, listen up — the world may be a terrible movie but movies help to make it a lot more bearable.

For instance, there’s Moana.  Moana is the latest Disney film and it is a burst of pure joy, a wonderfully entertaining animated adventure that also carries with it an important, timely, and welcome message of empowerment.  Some day, when I have a daughter, Moana is one of the many films that I look forward to watching with her.  We’ll watch Moana and then we’ll watch Brave.  And then we’ll close things out with Frozen.  I can’t wait!

moana

Now, I’ll be honest.  The film’s plot, in many ways, sounds like almost every other Disney princess film.  Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) is the headstrong daughter of the chief of a Polynesian tribe.  Moana dreams of sailing to the ends of the Earth but her loving but protective father refuses to allow her to go beyond the reef.  However, when a force of darkness threatens to consume the island that Moana calls home, she defies her father and sets sail with her pet rooster.  The only way to stop the darkness is to track down a demigod named Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and go with him to return a sacred stone to Te Fiti, the island Goddess.  (The stone is Te Fiti’s heart.)

Now, that may all sound like typical Disney fare but the brilliant thing about Moana is that it realizes that the plot sounds like typical Disney fare.  When Moana finds Maui, he asks her where he animal sidekick is because all princesses travel with an animal sidekick.  Moana argues that she’s not a princess but then realizes that, as the chief’s daughter, she kind of is.  Moano is full of self-referential humor, the type that tells the audience that we’re all in this together.

Maui himself is a brilliantly animated, written, and voiced parody of the type of muscle-bound character who, in the past, would have automatically been this film’s main character.  Dwayne Johnson has always been willing to have fun with his persona and he continues to do that with Maui.  For that matter, Heihei the Rooster also pokes fun at the typical Disney animal sidekick.  As opposed to the usual all-knowing, often snarky sidekick that we’ve come to expect from Disney, Heihei spends most of his time searching for something to eat.  It doesn’t matter if it’s edible or not.  He’ll eat it.  As a result, Heihei doesn’t really do much to help Moana on her journey but he’s still adorable.

But ultimately, this film is all about Moana and what a wonderful character she is!  Strong, independent, intelligent, and occasionally just a little unsure of herself, Moana is perhaps the most 3-dimensional Disney character since Brave‘s Merida.  It’s her character (and  Auli’i Cravalho’s voicework) that brings the film its humanity and makes it a truly special viewing experience.

Moana is wonderfully animated and if you don’t fall in love with the coconut pirates then there is no hope for you.  (Is this film worth seeing in 3D?  I would say that it is.)  The insanely catchy songs are provided by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa’i and I’m looking forward to the inevitable Broadway adaptation.

So, seriously — stop feeling sorry for yourself for two hours and go see Moana!  You’ll be glad you did.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #21: Hidden Truth (dir by Steven R. Monroe)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR!  It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet.  So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR!  She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Sunday, December 4th!  Will she make it?  Considering that she only has a day left, probably not.  But keep checking the site to find out!)

 

hidden-truth-couple-620x347

I recorded Hidden Truth off of the Lifetime Movie Network on September 18th.  It premiered before that on Lifetime and I even live tweeted it but I didn’t record it until it re-aired on LMN.  I’m glad that I did that because, as I rewatched Hidden Truth, I was surprised by how much I had forgotten about the film.

Hidden Truth is one of those Lifetime films that takes place in a small town where everyone knows each other.  It tells the story of a girl named Zoe (Diana Hopper) who is upset because 1) her father, Pace (Brendan McCarthy), may have killed her mother, 2) he’s now an alcoholic, and 3) she’s being raised by her loving but overprotective aunt, Jamie (Sarah Lind).  Zoe is desperate to get out of town so she starts having an affair with a local rich guy, Michael (Shawn Christian).  She wants his money.  He claims to be in love with her….

And then, one day, Zoe turns up dead and floating in the river.  The sheriff (Parker Stevenson) immediately suspects that Pace got drunk and killed his daughter.  Soon, Aunt Jamie is the only person in town who believes that her brother is innocent.  Can she clear his name?  Can she solve her niece’s murder?  Can she uncover the hidden truth…

Ironically, for the viewer, there’s nothing at all hidden about the truth in this movie.  The movie actually opens with Michael murdering Zoe and dumping her body in the river.  So, from the start, we know who the murderer is.  The film instead becomes about watching Michael try to cover his track and wondering when Jamie will finally figure out what happened.

It’s actually a different approach from what we’re used to with Lifetime but I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about it.  The problem is that Michael really isn’t that clever.  He’s a sloppy murderer and he’s sloppy when it comes to covering his tracks and there’s no moment when you think to yourself that he might get away with it.  And since Michael is a thoroughly despicable and inept character, it’s not like you find yourself conflicted as you watch him try to cover his tracks.  At no point do you think, “He’s a bad guy but I kinda hope he gets away with it.”

I guess what I’m saying is that the Hidden Truth would have worked better if the truth had remained hidden until the final five minutes of the film.  Still, you have to give the filmmakers some credit for trying to do something different.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #20: Girl In The Box (dir by Stephen Kemp)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR!  It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet.  So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR!  She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Sunday, December 4th!  Will she make it?  Considering that she only has a day left, probably not.  But keep checking the site to find out!)

girl-in-the-box

Girl in the Box originally aired on Lifetime on September 10th and I have to admit that I specifically chose to record it as opposed to watching it.  That’s because Girl In The Box was based on the true story of the kidnapping and 7 year enslavement of Colleen Stan.  It’s an incredibly disturbing story and I knew that, much like last year’s Cleveland Abduction, Girl In The Box would give me nightmares.

And, having now watched the film, I think I probably made the right decision.  Girl In The Box is an incredibly unsettling film, one that is all the more upsetting for being based on a true story.

In 1977, 20 year-old Colleen (played by Addison Timlin) is hitchhiking from Oregon to California.  We watch as Colleen turns down two prospective rides, one from a group of frat boys and one from an older couple that wasn’t going far enough.  When she does accept a ride, it’s from Cameron Hooker (Zane Holtz) and his wife, Janice (Zelda Williams).  What we know, but Colleen doesn’t, is that Cameron has just recently murdered another woman that he abducted.

Soon, Colleen is being held prisoner in a tiny wooden box, only being brought out so that she can be abused and raped by Cameron.  Cameron forces her to sign a “slave contract” and he tells her that he is a part of a much larger conspiracy.  Even if Colleen could escape, he tells her, his associates would track her down and kill both her and her family.  Slowly, Colleen’s will is broken down.

And through it all, Janice watches.  Janice, we learn, married Cameron when she was sixteen and he seemed like he was the most handsome and charming guy in the world.  It was after they got married that she discovered that Cameron was a monster.  Cameron justifies his crimes by claiming that, if he wasn’t abusing Colleen, he would be abusing Janice.  Janice, the film suggests, is just as brainwashed as Colleen.  They are both prisoners of a truly evil creature.

(It should be noted that the film is generally sympathetic to Janice.  I’ve read a few true crime accounts of Colleen Stan’s kidnapping that paint a far less forgiving picture.)

Much like Cleveland Abduction, Girl In The Box was difficult for me to watch.  The three main actors totally committed to their roles, taking the audience to a very dark place, one that was all the more disturbing for being real.  Zane Holtz revealed Cameron’s evil and sadistic side while, at the same time, showing how he could easily fool the rest of the world into thinking that he was a normal, likable guy.  Zelda Williams portrayed Janice’s growing horror at realizing what her life has become, while at the same time never entirely letting Janice off the hook for her part in Cameron’s crimes.  And Addison Timlin was courageously vulnerable as Colleen.

It’s hard for me to recommend Girl In The Box because it really is such an unpleasant film.  I mean, this is not a film to watch if you’re just looking for a relaxing night in front of the TV.  But I do think it has an important message.  There are other Cameron Hookers out there and the reason that they thrive is because, far too often, people are scared to get involved.  There were so many times that Cameron’s crimes could have been exposed if only people were willing to follow up their concerns.

Ultimately, Girl In The Box is a story of survival.  Somehow, Colleen Stan survived her ordeal.  I don’t know if I could have.

Here Are The Annie Nominations!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Kubo_and_the_Two_Strings_poster

The nominations for the Annie Awards were announced yesterdat!  The Annie Awards honor the best in animation.  Looking over the list of nominees, my initial thought is, “Wow, that’s a really long list!”  So, I’m just going to post the nominations for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Achievement For Voice Acting In A Feature Film.  You can view the complete list over at one of my favorite site for Oscar news, Awards Circuit!

Anyway, here are (some of) the Annie nominations!

Best Animated Feature:

Finding Dory

Kubo and the Two Strings

Kung Fu Panda 3

Moana

Zootopia

Voice Acting In An Animated Feature

Art Parkinson in Kubo and the Two Strings

Auli’i Cravalho in Moana

Katie Crown in Storks

Zooey Deschanel in Trolls

Jason Bateman in Zootopia

Here’s What Won At The Gotham Awards!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

moonlight-620x360

Last night, the 2016 Gotham Awards were awarded and it was a very good night for Moonlight, which is quickly emerging as this year’s top indie Oscar contender.

You can check out the Gotham nominations here and the winners below!

Best Feature — Moonlight

Best Documentary — O.J.: Made in America

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award — Trey Edward Shults for Krisha

Best Screenplay — “Moonlight,” Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney; Screenplay by Barry Jenkins

Best Actor — Casey Affleck in Manchester By Sea

Best Actress — Isabelle Huppert in Elle

Breakthrough Actor — Anya Taylor-Joy in The Witch

Special Jury Award For Ensemble Performance — Moonlight

Gotham Independent Film Audience Award — Moonlight

Here Are The Satellite Nominations!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

la-la-land

The International Press Academy — a.k.a. the Oscar precursor that nobody cares about — announced their nominees for the best of 2016 earlier today and it was a very good day for a film that I cannot wait to see, La La Land!

Here are the Satellite nominations!

Special Achievement Award Recipients

Mary Pickford Award- Edward James Olmos
Tesla Award- John Toll
Auteur Award- Tom Ford
Humanitarian Award- Patrick Stewart
Best First Feature- Russudan Glurjidze “House of Others”
Best Ensemble: Motion Picture- “Hidden Figures”
Best Ensemble: Television- “Outlander”

Actress in a Motion Picture

Annette Bening, “20th Century Woman”
Emma Stone, “La La Land”
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Taraji P. Henson, “Hidden Figures”
Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”
Amy Adams, “Nocturnal Animals”

Actor in a Motion Picture

Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “Snowden”
Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
Joel Edgerton, “Loving”
Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Tom Hanks, “Sully”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”

Actress in a Supporting Role

Helen Mirren, “Eye in the Sky”
Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”
Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”
Naomi Harris, “Moonlight”
Viola Davis, “Fences”
 Actor in a Supporting Role

Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Dev Patel, “Lion”
Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
Eddie Murphy, “Mr. Church”
Hugh Grant, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Motion Picture

“La La Land”
“Moonlight”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Lion”
“Jackie”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Loving”
“Hell or High Water”
“Nocturnal Animals”
“Captain Fantastic”
“Hidden Figures”
“Fences”

 Motion Picture, International Film

“The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki”- Finland
“Toni Erdmann”- Germany
“Julieta”- Spain
“A Man Called Ove”- Sweden
“The Salesman”- Iran
“The Ardennes”- Belgium
“Ma’ Rosa”- Philippines
“The Handmaiden”- South Korea
“Elle”- France
“Paradise”- Russia

Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media Title of Film
“Zootopia”
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Moana”
“Finding Dory”
“My Life As a Zucchini”
“The Jungle Book”
“The Red Turtle”
“Miss Hokusai”
“Trolls”
“Your Name”

Motion Picture, Documentary

“Gleason”
“Life Animated”
“O.J.: Made in America”
“13th”
“The Ivory Game”
“The Eagle Huntress”
“Tower”
“Fire at Sea”
“Zero Days”
“The Beatles: Eight Days a Week”

Director

Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”
Pablo Larrain, “Jackie”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”

Screenplay, Original

Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Taylor Sheridan, “Hell or High Water”
Matt Ross, “Captain Fantastic”
Yorgos Lanthimos/Efthymis Filippou, “The Lobster”

Screenplay, Adapted

Andrew Knight/Robert Schenkkan, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Luke Davis, “Lion”
Kieran Fitzgerald/Oliver Stone, “Snowden”
Justin Marks, “The Jungle Book”
Allison Schroeder, “Hidden Figures”
Todd Komarnicki, “Sully”

Original Score

Rupert Gregson Williams, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Justin Hurwitz, “La La Land”
Lesley Barber, “Manchester by the Sea”
John Williams, “The BFG”
John Debney, “The Jungle Book”
Hans Zimmer, “Hidden Figures”

Original Song

“Audition”- ‘La La Land’
“City of Stars”- ‘La La Land’
“Dancing with Your Shadow”- ‘Po’
“Can’t Stop the Feeling”- ‘Trolls’
“I’m Still Here”- ‘Miss Sharon Jones’
“Running”- ‘Hidden Figures’

Cinematography

John Toll, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”
Linus Sandgren, “La La Land”
James Laxton, “Moonlight”
Simon Duggan, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Jani-Petteri Passi, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki”
Bill Pope, “The Jungle Book”

Visual Effects

“The Jungle Book”
“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”
“Doctor Strange”
“The BFG”
“Sully”
“Deadpool”

Film Editing

Tom Cross, “La La Land”
Joi McMillon/Nat Sanders, “Moonlight”
Tim Squyres, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”
Alexandre de Francheschi, “Lion”
John Gilbert, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Steven Rosenblum, “The Birth of a Nation”

Sound (Editing and Mixing)

“La La Land”
“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“The Jungle Book”
“Allied”
“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi”

Art Direction and Production Design

David Wasco, “La La Land”
Barry Robinson, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Jean Rabasse, “Jackie”
Christophe Glass, “The Jungle Book”
Gary Freeman, “Allied”
Dan Hennah, “Alice Through the Looking Glass”

Costume Design

Colleen Atwood, “Alice Through the Looking Glass”
Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, “Love & Friendship”
Courtney Hoffman, “Captain Fantastic”
Madeline Fontaine, “Jackie”
Mary Zophres, “La La Land”
Alexandra Byrne, “Doctor Strange”

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #19: I Know Where Lizzie Is (dir by Darin Scott)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR!  It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet.  So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR!  She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Wednesday, November 30th!  Will she make it?  Considering that she only has a day left, probably not.  But keep checking the site to find out!)

i_know_where_lizzie_is_2016_9643847

I recorded I Know Where Lizzie Is off of the Lifetime Movie Network on July 31st.  I also watched it while recording it and it’s a pretty good thing I did because, as the result of a glitch with the DVR, I only recorded the final hour!  So, when you read this review, be aware that at least half of it is being done on the basis of my possibly faulty memory.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is a hybrid of two popular Lifetime genres.  On the one hand, you have an abducted child storyline.  Teenager Lizzie Holden (Madison Iseman) has a fight with her mom, sneaks out of the house, and never comes home.  Her amicably divorced parents, Judith (Tracey Gold) and Martin (Richard Rucculo), desperately try to track down their daughter.  What they don’t know is that Lizzie is being held prisoner by a man wearing what appears to be a Michael Myers mask.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an unwanted guest film.  In an unwanted guest film, a seemingly friendly but secretly malicious stranger moves into an otherwise stable household and tries to destroy the family unit.  In the case of I Know Where Lizzie Is, the stranger is a phony psychic named Tracy (Nadia Bjorlin).  Tracy shows up and claims that she’s had visions of Lizzie.  She knows where Lizzie is!  Of course, the reason that Tracy knows all of this is because she’s in on the kidnapping.

(Before you start screaming at me about spoilers, this is all revealed early on in the film.)

On top of all that, I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an anti-media film.  A somewhat smarmy reporter (Robert Scott Wilson) also movies into the Holden household and he is soon providing nearly 24 hour coverage of the Holdens, the kidnappers, and especially Tracy.   I imagine that a lot of viewers will probably respond to the anti-media message.  I mean, the media is pretty much everyone’s favorite scapegoat at the moment, right?

(It’s hard to believe that just 9 months ago, Spotlight was winning best picture and everyone was talking about how much they loved the media.  It’s amazing how quickly things change.)

Anyway, I Know Where Lizzie Is was very much a typical Lifetime film and how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Lifetime films in general.  On the plus side, both Robert Scott Wilson and Nadia Bjorlin did well with their untrustworthy characters.  Plus, the kidnapper in the mask was genuinely creepy!

If you like Lifetime movies, keep an eye out for it.