Film Review: U.S. Catman: Lethal Track (1990, dir. Godfrey Ho)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I guess I’ve mentioned director Godfrey Ho enough over the past year that it’s about time I actually reviewed one of his movies. I know I have explained it in other places, but I’ll do it here once more to have it on an actual Godfrey Ho movie review. Godfrey Ho is a director who worked in mainly in Asia during the 1980s and early 1990s. He was famous for the enormous number of films he created in such a short time using the cut-and-paste technique of making movies. What he would do is get together some caucasian actors and film about 15-20 minutes of footage with them. How specific the footage was to the film you’re reviewing is anybodies guess. Sometimes it does feel like he just filmed a bunch of random fights that would insert into several different films. He would then take an old, unreleased, or unfinished film from the region and splice his footage into it with editing done to the whole thing in order to make a new movie. This was a quick and dirty way to make a lot of films very fast. Ho was also known for lifting copyrighted music for his movies. I’ve heard a bit of Pink Floyd’s On The Run and for some reason he chose to use music from A Clockwork Orange (1971) for a touching reunion between a mother and her daughter. That’s the information you need to know before I review this film. Typically people will review Godfrey Ho movies by splitting the two films from each other into the original film (Movie A) and the Ho footage (Movie B), then talk about them separately while bringing up how the two separate movies are linked together. That’s what I am going to do here. Especially because the link barely exists this time around.

Also, Godfrey Ho used many pseudonyms for his films. This time around the role of director Godfrey Ho will be played by Alton Cheung.

Movie A:

Movie A begins with a bus being robbed. They get the bag they need and drive off to the fortress of badly dubbed Asians who have no idea they are in U.S. Catman: Lethal Track. Inside, we meet a guy who I refer to as One Eye.

He’s our villain for Movie A. What his original purpose was…I have no idea. In fact, that can sum up Movie A in a nutshell: I can tell you what happens, but I have no idea why any of it is happening.

One Eye has received a shipment of weapons. Now we cut to party time!

Unfortunately, the party turns sour when this guy pulls a gun out of his drum.

He kidnaps some people. Who knows their identities and who cares?

We now go to a guy driving on the road who is pulled over by a guy in the road. He tells him something that was probably important in the original film. Here it’s nearly incompressible. Also, why was he flagged down in the middle of the road when the next scene is him being shown the guy who was kidnapped? When you watch Godfrey Ho movies, it’s best not to ask questions like that. Unless you are lucky enough to not only find out what the original film was, but get ahold of a copy, your question will go unanswered.

Back with One Eye, they talk for awhile. All you need to know is that they agree they are all brothers.

Meanwhile, some guys fall for the old guy hanging on a tree trick while driving along and get themselves kidnapped too.

One Eye is amassing an impressive collection of people for some reason that has to do with his thin as human hair connection to Movie B.

Now we are introduced to motorcycle girl who is posing as a guy.

I’m sure there was an explanation for her existence or why she seems to have it out for One Eye, but here she just seems to be out for him for no particular reason. She introduces herself as Frederick. Gigi here seems to like what she sees.

Then motorcycle girl sits down to be surrounded by some guys and get into a fight. I’m assuming the director of the original film was a fan of the scene from either Come Drink With Me (1966) and/or Django (1966). They have the same scene in them. It’s just that one uses martial arts and the other a gun. You are probably more familiar with the scene from Come Drink With Me since they recreated it for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Of course this being a scene in Movie A, it goes absolutely no where. I love the summary on IMDb for Movie A:

“The other half of the movie is a about a whole bunch of Asian people that are just beating each other up for no reason, including a tall guy with an eyepatch and a woman that looks like a man. They have no real purpose in the movie, and seem to just be thrown in.”

That about sums it up.

Motorcycle girl gets a room where some more fighting happens. Also, we get a little comedy bit too. Then something just plain confusing occurs. I mean more confusing than the rest of this film.

And zoom in with love music playing.

Because of the way Ho cut this all together, these two women appear to have just had lesbian sex. Honestly, the shot is so dark, her face kind of looks different, and her chest looks really flat that unless she’s binding, I have a feeling this is a different character that looked similar enough to the motorcycle girl, so Ho had the same woman dub both people and thus they are the same person. I have not been so confused by a Godfrey Ho movie since Ninja Champion (1985). Ninja Champion is a rape revenge movie that I’m quite sure had no rape in the original movie called Poisonous Rose Stripping The Night (1985). I’m also pretty sure the “retarded” character had those stereotypical retarded sounds just to cover up dialog that would otherwise be silent over moving lips. Let’s just assume that Gigi is a lesbian and motorcycle girl must be too, or just went along with it. It’s never really brought up again.

Back with One Eye, he decides to cut down a woman he has kidnapped and rapes her.

I haven’t gotten around to reviewing Troll 3/Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990), but let’s go ahead and play the rape horn.

Now One Eye pays a visit to a general he has kidnapped. He does this so he can mention the name of a character from Movie B that he apparently is working for in order to overthrow the general’s country. A couple lines like that is all you’ll get in this film as a whole. Believe me when I say that Godfrey Ho usually does go to greater extents to make characters from one movie genuinely appear to know characters from the other film. That usually involves a conversation either over the telephone or thru the magic editing technique of cutting back and forth between two people without including a shot that shows them in the same place together. You’ll see none of that here. Just the occasional name drop.

Now motorcycle girl has an action sequence for…um…reasons? I know I ask that in a lot of my movie reviews, but…oh, wait. She has an action sequence so that she can show off her sweet shotgun while on a motorcycle skills.

That’s a good enough reason I’d say. As for who she is fighting, it’s just some random people who stop her in the road. Welcome to Godfrey Ho movies where sense has no place.

Speaking of no sense, this guy shows up with a Molotov Cocktail and saves her life.

Did that makes sense to you and you’re disappointed? Don’t worry. This film has got you covered because it now cuts to random referee guy who is spying on One Eye’s fortress of badly dubbed Asians.

Too bad for him though because he is soon captured by a movie cliche.

One Eye now tells us his origin story to the referee:

“I killed my father when I was 15. That’s right. He was fucking my girl on my bed. I blew his brains out and he took my eye.”

That’s interesting. Not sure how someone takes your eye after you have blown their head off though. I’m sure it’s explained in another part of the story this film is based on by AAV Creative Unit and left out by Godfrey Ho when he developed the story or was removed when Andrew Chan wrote the screenplay.

The next part is rather long. It goes without saying that it is pointless. The guy who rescued her figures out he’s a she. He actually tells her that maybe if she ate a little, then her “tits” would grow. I said it’s never really brought up again, but I’m pretty sure this is the same girl from earlier.

Motorcycle girl smiles at her implying the sex did happen. Also, this girl is happy to see her too. Even other people in the room act like they can see they like each other. That really leads me to believe they had a guy for some, or all of the scenes just dubbed with a woman’s voice.

There’s some escaping, some getting angry, and this guy gets a Rambo trap sprung on him.

Then the movie cuts back to the dumbest thing in Movie B, but we’ll get to that later.

After that, it’s just one long action sequence broken up with Movie B and few lulls in the action. There is one thing to make of note of here. While a guy is just talking to this guy shown below, a sudden music stinger kicks in, it zooms in on his face, and then just cuts back to the other guy talking as if he had just been calmly talking the whole time.

That kind of sudden zoom and music stinger that is out of context with the film seems to be a thing that happens in Godfrey Ho movies as a hazard of splicing two films together.

In the end, One Eye meets his fate.

There’s something weird here too. He shoots him and One Eye appears to fall off the bracing in this barn. We never see his body. It’s just that he fell, and then it cuts to the shooter leaving the barn. I get the feeing that his death didn’t actually happen there in the original film.

End of Movie A!

Movie B:

Now we get to the U.S. Catman part of the movie and how this all links in together.

After One Eye gets his shipment of weapons at the beginning of Movie A, we cut to Movie B to a see a van with a radioactive symbol on it pass Catman and his sidekick.

These guys are so American. The sidekick is wearing a Lowe’s hat, Catman is wearing an “American Sports” jersey, and they just got back from playing baseball. Catman’s sidekick is going to be joining the CIA. At least I think that’s what they said. It’s kind of confusing. Then we hear the car drivers talk about the cat, cat piss, and then that one of the drivers has to take a piss as a result of their discussion.

Time to meet two drug addicts who are nearby to all this.

They can talk all they want about needing a hit, but it’s clearly the full screen aspect ratio that is their real problem. They try to rob the truck with the radioactive cat inside. Catman and his sidekick come to the rescue and we discover why the pause button was invented.

As you already have guessed, he gets scratched by the radioactive cat during the fight. I love that they insert ninja sword sound effects for when the bats are swung around.

Now we cut to a graveyard to find out how Movie A and Movie B have any semblance of a connection.

That’s cult leader Cheever. He is meeting with a guy that must be Russian because of his accent. He talks about previous attempts to take over countries such as Afghanistan that have failed. The gist is that Cheever is supposed to get in touch with the folks from Movie A to support them in order to get the people first to then overthrow the government. This, as opposed to going in with force. They drop a couple of names to make sure we know that they know what is going on over in Movie A. They are planning on starting with Thailand since that’s where Movie A happens to take place.

Then we cut to two guys talking about this whole Cheever situation. The one on the left tells the one on the right to check out the Holy Cheever Church. You’ll never see him again. Unless he is somehow Catman’s sidekick even though said sidekick has no idea what the Holy Cheever Church is later on.

Now Catman is woken up from sleep feeling funny. He discovers that he can touch or seemingly point at electronics and they will turn on. You’ll see him use that power…never in this movie. We do see CNN on TV during this scene, which appears to be talking about Winston Churchill.

Then just as he is getting really happy, his friend walks right in. They’re only working with about 15 minutes of footage here so they have to keep it moving. His friend decides that if he can make electronics turn on, then maybe he can light a cigarette by looking at it. It works of course.

With that out of the way we get: “I feel so strong. I feel I could punch a hole in a fucking wall!”

Clearly he has some sort of super strength. There’s one last thing that needs to be checked.

I’m not kidding when I say they look down wondering if his penis also has super strength too before staring at the hole in the wall again. I guess there is a guy out there who meets up to the standards the girl from Real Genius (1985) has about men she sees. That being a guy who can hammer a six-inch spike through a board with his penis, as she says in that movie. Again, super strength and all are powers that will not really be brought up again.

Time to see Catman in action! The drug addicts from earlier try to rob Catman’s sidekick who is disguised as a road construction worker when Catman shows up to save the day.

No, I didn’t leave anything out. No explanation is ever given about his uniform. Nor is any explanation given how he can deflect bullets with his wrists.

He beats them up and recovers some tube. Not sure what this tube is, but he does mention checking it out using their Cat Computer. You’ll never see it, but they will say it has given them a clue called HCC, which stands for the Holy Cheever Church.

Coming out of church they see a guy just lying around, which means he might know something.

He wants coffee and a hamburger first. Luckily, a neighbourhood 7-Eleven store is nearby.

Now we cut to the Holy Cheever Church. It’s the best part of the movie.

We’ve got our woman strung up onstage.

Then we have a guy juggling, a guy playing with hairspray, a guy hand banging, and a guy training with a punching bag.

They’re the best, or something. Cheever seems pleased which is why he points to something with his cane, it lights on fire, and then it immediately cuts to a woman shampooing her hair. Oh, and the girl onstage was raped by Cheever when she was 13 and has been had by the other guys. I guess that includes the shampooing girl too? She sure seems happy that the woman onstage has been sentenced to death for giving away secrets in what must have been lost footage. She even says, “Kill that bitch!” She’s even chosen to do the decapitation. She really gets into things when her hair is covered with soap. Seriously, what is this?

Then Catman shows up. In comes either the sidekick or the guy undercover. Doesn’t matter. They let tied up woman loose and she sprays them both with something that knocks them out. They wake up on the “Don’t Fuck With Cheever” bullseye.

I have to admit that I didn’t notice any of this sidekick and/or undercover agent confusion while watching this movie. Probably because I was trying to make some sense out of Movie A.

Then we are back at Catman’s apartment where he is drawing sketches of the bad guys when Cheever comes on TV to be interviewed. Catman is surprised.

I would be too. He just spent all that time making sketches of the bad guys and then Cheever ruins it all by just coming on TV to announce where he’ll be. I love that Cheever says his special event called “Everybody Go To God” is going to have more than 200,000 in attendance. Catman calls up to get the details. Either this event never exactly happens, or only a couple of people show up.

At this point, One Eye is dead. The movie has 5 minutes left to wrap up the Catman plot line now. Now Catman and his sidekick stumble upon the guy from earlier on their way to the Cheever event, which they are having trouble finding. That’s why they decide this guy probably knows where it is located.

He tries to get away, but there’s no running from Catman and his sidekick. Especially not his sidekick who punches him several times in the stomach. He tells them where the event is, so they split up.

Catman springs into action by running through the camera to change into his outfit.

They arrive and I guess the drug addicts are working for Cheever? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that Cheever says, “I’m gonna burn you alive. I always liked hot pussy.” Then some fighting happens that kills the sidekick guy. Catman pulls a Batarang style thing from his visor and throws it into the chest of Cheever that kills him. Since it is a Godfrey Ho movie, the second that actor lies down and turns his head slightly, it cuts to “The End.” No time to waste.

Clearly there was just too much mystery here, which is why there is a sequel called U.S. Catman 2: Boxer Blow (1993).

I’m not kidding that there was too much mystery. Apparently his sidekick is back in the sequel. Does he look like he’s alive here?

Again, is he the guy from the beginning? Is he someone else? What happened to the other cult members? They weren’t at the miniature over 200,000 people meeting at the end. What was this “Lethal Track” the title spoke of? This was a real mess.

My final thoughts are that I did like the Catman parts just for how goofy they are, but that the rest worthless. I am looking forward to watching the sequel. However, if you are new to Godfrey Ho, then I recommend one of the Pierre Kirby movies. He’s the best actor he worked with that I have seen so far. They are also less confusing for the most part. Go with something like Thunder of Gigantic Serpent (1988).

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #17: Dying To Be Loved (dir by Paul Shapiro)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 10th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

After I finished up with The Cheerleader Murders, I rewatched Dying To Be Loved, which premiered on the Lifetime network on April 16th. Dying To Be Loved is also known as A Mother’s Suspicion. I’m really not sure which title I prefer. A Mother’s Suspicion is a little more accurate, as the film is about a mother who is very suspicious of her daughter’s new boyfriend. However, Dying To Be Loved has a little bit more of a snap to it, with the juxtaposition of death and love.

If I seem to be spending a bit too much time on the film’s title, that’s because I have a certain word count that I’m trying to meet but there’s really not that much to say about Dying To Be Loved. It’s a typical example of a genre familiar to all regular Lifetime viewers, the You Should Have Listened To Mom genre of film.

In this case, the mom is Jill Yates (Lindsay Hartley). Jill has a good career, a good house, a good boyfriend (played by Lifetime regular Dan Payne), and good hair. That’s really pretty much all you need to be a success in a Lifetime film. However, she also has an 18 year-old daughter, Emily (Paloma Kwiatkowski). Emily is away at college. She’s alone from home for the first time. She’s also bipolar and Jill fears that Emily is not taking her meds. Jill is even more worried when she meets Emily’s new boyfriend, Gary (Jedidiah Goodacre). Gary is rough and tough and has absolutely terrible table manners. Jill tells Emily that she can do better than Gary so, of course, Emily runs off on a cross-country trip with him.

Soon, Gary is murdering gas station attendants and ranting like a madman. Emily, who is not taking her medication (cue dramatic music), is convinced that she loves Gary. In fact, she is so in love with Gary that she apparently agrees to jump off a bridge with him.

Or does she? No bodies are recovered. Even though everyone tells Jill that she needs to move on, Jill is convinced that her daughter is still out there. With the help of a portly P.I. (Jay Bazeau) and an overly friendly small town cop (James Pizzinato), Jill sets out to find her daughter. One of these two men is connected to Gary. Which one? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

Anyway, this is pretty much a standard Lifetime film. Watching it, I couldn’t help but wish that it had been directed by someone like Fred Olen Ray. At the very least, Fred would have played up the film’s melodrama and would have been a bit less earnest in his approach. That said, Lindsay Hartley and Paloma Kwiatkowski are totally believable as mother and daughter. Kwiatkowski, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for giving a believable and multi-faceted performance as the unstable and desperately unhappy Emily. I winced a few times as I recognized bits of 16 year-old me in Emily’s actions. This may be a generic Lifetime film but Hartley and Kwiatkowski really put their hearts into their performances and, for that, they deserve a lot of credit!

(For those keeping count, that’s 17 reviews down and 23 more to go!)

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #16: The Cheerleader Murders (dir by David Jackson)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 16th film on my DVR was The Cheerleader Murders and what can I say other than, “Yay!” No, no — it’s not that I dislike cheerleaders. While I did frequently turn down the chance to become a cheerleader while I was in high school, that was solely because my sister, our own Dazzling Erin, was already a cheerleader and I was going through one of my “I want to be known for being myself” phases. No, I was excited about rewatching The Cheerleader Murders because I remembered that this was one of the best films to ever premiere on Lifetime!

As I started to watch The Cheerleader Murders, I found myself wondering whether it would stand up to a second viewing.

Well, it more than stood up. If anything, The Cheerleader Murders is even better the second time around!

The Cheerleader Murders plays out like an odd combination of YA fiction and disturbing horror. The film opens with a few scenes of disaster and what’s interesting is that, while all of the scenes are tragic, they’re also darkly humorous. We see a car full of cheerleaders and jocks crash, killing everyone inside. We see the prom king and queen falling to their death while trying to get the perfect selfie. As these disasters play out, we hear our narrator, Ellie (Samantha Boscarino), explaining that her hometown is cursed. It’s all so cheerfully morbid that, from the minute it began, I was in love with this film.

What’s that? Oh, you don’t believe that Ellie and her town are cursed? Well, just consider this. When Ellie was thirteen, her older sister broke up with her boyfriend. So the boyfriend broke into the house, killed her sister, and then shot Ellie’s father as Ellie watched!

THAT’S A CURSE RIGHT THERE!

Jump forward three years later. Ellie is now a 16 year-old cheerleader. She’s popular and she’s also a good student. Though you have to wonder about the standards of her high school because she goes to one of those Lifetime high schools where no one ever has to actually go to class or anything like that. Instead, everyone hangs out at the lockers and gossips. Even better, if you do go to class, you can apparently just walk out whenever you want. This happens several times during this film and we never actually hear a teacher say anything like, “Wait! You can’t just stand up and walk out of class just because your friend is motioning to you from the hallway!”

Ellie has everything but she’s still convinced that she’s cursed. If she’s not cursed then how do you explain the mysterious disappearance of two her fellow cheerleaders? Admittedly, one of the cheerleaders is found rather quickly. Or, I should say, her bloody, severed foot is found rather quickly. Someone spots it off the side of the road. (The camera zooms in on the big toe so that we can see the heart that she painted on her the nail. That’s the type of cheerfully over-the-top film that The Cheerleader Murders is.) The other cheerleader eventually shows up in orange grove, being chased by a masked man with a huge knife.

Like any good YA heroine, Ellie is determined to solve the mystery. Fortunately, she has help. Her dead father shows up occasionally and offers up cryptic advice. Ellie also has frequent dreams, some of which are rather dark and disturbing by Lifetime standards.

The more that Ellie digs into the mystery, the more obvious it becomes that she knows absolutely no one who isn’t sleazy or insane. Who killed the cheerleaders? Was it the school weirdo or the two jealous nerds who are always gossiping about the dead? Maybe it was the coach, who was apparently having an affair with both a cheerleader and Ellie’s favorite teacher. Or perhaps that teacher got jealous and decided to seek revenge! And, come to think of it, Ellie’s boyfriend seems like he might have some issues too. And, of course, there’s Ellie. Who is to say that the curse hasn’t driven her insane? It’s hard not to notice that, whenever the killer strikes, Ellie is usually riding her bicycle right past the crime scene.

One of the more interesting things about the film is that no one else at the high school seems to be that upset over the dead cheerleaders. The school year goes on. The remaining cheerleaders continue to cheer at all the football games and, with the exception of Ellie, nobody even seems to shed a single tear over all the teenagers dying in town. Along with the ghosts and the nightmares and the constant shots of Ellie intensely riding her bicycle from crime scene to crime scene, all of this conspires to give The Cheerleader Murders an oddly surreal feel.

The Cheerleader Murders is one of my favorite Lifetime film because it literally has no boundaries. There is no moment too over-the-top that this film cannot find an excuse to include it. The acting is good, the horror (and there is horror) is effective, and the mystery is cheerfully ludicrous. Make sure you catch The Cheerleader Murders the next time it’s on Lifetime because seriously, this film is a classic!

(By the way, I made Erin watch The Cheerleader Murders with me when it originally aired. She said it was actually a pretty accurate portrayal of the life of a cheerleader, except for the murders.)

Scenes That I Love: The Frisbee Scene From Hard Ticket To Hawaii

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, since I’m off work for the week, I went down to the Alamo Drafthouse and I saw The Purge: Election Day.

The Alamo always shows old film clips and trailers before the main feature and seriously, it’s the best pre-show in town. That’s why you should always arrive 30 minutes before your film starts! Unfortunately, I was running late so I arrived with only five minutes to spare.

So, I only got to see one film clip before the movie but what a clip! I watched this clip and I laughed so hard that I knew that I simply had to share it with our readers here on the Shattered Lens. Here it is: the frisbee scene from Hard Ticket To Hawaii.

From now on, whenever a stranger yells out that I have a nice ass, I’m going to look over my shoulder at them, smile, and say, “So do you, pilgrim!”

(For the record, I have never seen Hard Ticket To Hawaii and I tracked down this scene by going to YouTube and doing a search for “frisbee scene.” That said, I have since learned that it’s an Andy Sidaris film and I’m pretty sure that Arleigh has mentioned being an Andy Sidaris fan.)

6 Patriotic Trailers

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi everyone!

Happy Independence Day and welcome to a special edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers!

In honor of this day, here are 6 trailers that are so patriotic, they’ll make our American readers reconsider their earlier decision to move to Canada!

1) Red Dawn (1984)

2) Invasion USA (1952)

3) Invasion USA (1985)

4) The Delta Force (1986)

5) American Anthem (1986)

6) The Green Berets (1968)

So, what does everyone think after watching these six trailers…

Oh, stop it.

(Just kidding — love you, Canada! Love you too, America!)

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #15: Stranger In The House (dir by Allan Harmon)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 15th film on my DVR was Stranger In The House, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on April 10th.

Stranger In The House opens with a stab at relevance by including news reports of Wall Street bailouts and footage of Occupy protesters running around in their Guy Fawkes masks. (Though I’m sure they would probably call them V For Vendetta masks.) I have to admit that, when I first saw that footage, I was worried. I didn’t know if I could particularly take a Lifetime version of The Big Short.

Fortunately, the rest of the film has nothing to do with any of that. Instead, it’s a rather enjoyable and somewhat over-the-top Lifetime melodrama, one that makes no pretense of providing anything other than wonderfully sordid entertainment.

Super-rich businessman Wayne (John Novak) has been crippled in a car crash and, now confined to a wheelchair, he goes out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He’s nearly impossible to live with and his daughter and chief caretaker, Jade (Emmanuelle Vaugier), desperately needs a vacation from him. On top of that, she’s just married the handsome but somewhat mysterious Marco (Matthew McCaull) and they want to take their honeymoon. So, jade hires a caretaker to look after Wayne while they’re gone.

At first, Wayne doesn’t much like his caretaker. Sure, Samantha (Jordana Largy) may be attractive and enthusiastic but she’s into stuff like yoga and Wayne’s too cantankerous for all that. However, we then get a five-minute montage in which we see Wayne slowly start to lower his defenses. Soon, he and Samantha are smiling and laughing and kissing. When Jade and Marco return, they are shocked by just how close Wayne and Samantha have become…

Then Wayne mentions that he and Samantha have gotten married and all Hell breaks loose.

Jade is convinced that Samantha only married Wayne for his money and she grows even more frustrated when Marco suggests that maybe she should give Samantha a chance. Wayne certainly appears to be happy and he’s even washing his hair again! But then one day, Wayne is found dead at the bottom of a cliff and it turns out that he’s left all of his money to Samantha!

Jade believes that Samantha murdered Wayne. It doesn’t help that Samantha isn’t acting like a grieving widow. Instead, she’s laughing and drinking and constantly complaining about having to wear black all the time. If that’s not strange enough, Samantha and Marco seem to have suddenly grown very close.

How close?

Close enough that they’re ducking into a bedrooms and broom closets so that they can make out…

And that all happens in the first forty minutes! Now, I’m not going to spoil the rest of the movie but I will say that this is one of those Lifetime movies where things just keep getting stranger and stranger. In fact, it’s almost ludicrous how melodramatic things get but that’s why it’s fun! This is one of those films that is so over-the-top and fun that you would have to be a real killjoy to complain about whether or not it actually makes any sense.

After all, logic really isn’t the point here. Stranger In The House is all about style and that’s something that it definitely has. This is a sleek, fun melodrama and one for which I would suggest keeping an eye out.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #14: Decision Before Dawn (dir by Anatole Litvak)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I’m currently in the process of cleaning out my DVR by watching the 40 films that I recorded from March to June of this year. Yesterday, I watched the 14th film on my DVR, the 1951 film Decision Before Dawn.

Decision Before Dawn aired on April 9th on FXM and I specifically recorded it because it was nominated for best picture. It only received one other nomination (for editing) and it’s one of those nominees that often seems to be dismissed by Oscar historians. Whenever Decision Before Dawn is mentioned, it’s usually because it’s being unfavorably compared to the other nominees: A Place In The Sun, A Streetcar Named Desire, and An American In Paris. I went into Decision Before Dawn with very low expectations but you know what?

Decision Before Dawn is not a bad film. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that it’s actually a damn good film. If you’re into war films — and, admittedly, I am not — you will love Decision Before Dawn. If, like me, you’re a history nerd, you’ll be fascinated by the fact that, since this film was shot on location, Decision Before Dawn offers a chance to see what Europe looked like in the years immediately following the destruction of World War II.

As I mentioned, I’m not really into war movies but fortunately, Decision Before Dawn takes place during World War II. World War II is one of the few wars where there’s no real ambiguity about whether or not the war needed to be fought. When it comes to picking a villain that everyone can hate, Adolf Hitler and his followers are petty much the perfect villains to go with.

In Decision Before Dawn, Oskar Werner plays Karl Maurer, a German soldier who deserts after his best friend is executed for insubordination. Though Karl loves his home country, he hates the Nazis who have taken it over. Karl surrenders to the Americans and volunteers to return to Germany to act as a spy. Karl finds himself in a strange situation. Though he’s fighting against the Nazis, he is also mistrusted by the Allies. He is literally a man without a country.

When word comes down that a German general is willing to surrender, Karl and another German soldier-turned-spy, the greedy and cowardly Sgt. Barth (Hans Christian Bleth), are sent into Germany to both find out if the information is true and to find out where another division of German soldiers is located. Accompanying the two Germans is a bitter American, Lt. Dick Rennick (Richard Basehart). Rennick doesn’t trust either of the Germans.

While Rennick and Barth track down the surrendering General, Karl is sent to track down the other division. Along the way, Karl visits many bombed out German towns and meets Germans of every political persuasion. Some of them still vainly cling to hope for victory over the Allies but the majority of them are like Hilde (Hildegard Knef), a young war widow who just desperately wants the fighting to end. Thanks to the deeply empathetic performances of Werner and Knef, the scenes between Hilde and Karl elevate the entire film. In those scenes, Decision Before Dawn becomes more than just a war film. It becomes a portrait of men and women trapped by circumstances that they cannot control.

Decision Before Dawn is an exciting and well-acted thriller, one that starts slow but then builds up to a truly thrilling conclusion. Anatole Litvak directs the film almost as if it were a film noir, filling the entire screen with menacing shadows and moody set pieces. Decision Before Dawn is a war film that does not celebrate war but instead mourns the evil that men do and argues that sometimes the most patriotic thing that one can do is defy his or her government. It may be one of the more obscure best picture nominees but it’s still one that deserves to be rediscovered.

By the way, if you do watch Decision Before Dawn, be sure to keep an eye out for Klaus Kinski. He only appears for a minute or two and he’s not even credited but you’ll recognize him as soon as you see him. The eyes give him away as soon as he shows up.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Independence Day: Resurgence (dir by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, who cares?

Sorry, I know that’s like an ultra unprofessional way to open a review but Independence Day: Resurgence is one of the least inspiring films that I’ve ever seen. Jeff and I saw it the day that it opened and, at the time, I was planning on reviewing it the next day. But when I sat down to actually write about the movie … well, I discovered that I could hardly care less. This is one of those films that I could have easily waited until December to review. However, seeing as today is Independence Day, this seemed to be the right time to say something about it.

Memorable movies inspire. Good movies inspire love. Bad movies inspire hate. A movie like Independence Day: Resurgence inspires apathy.

Actually, what’s really frustrating about Independence Day: Resurgence is that it starts out with such promise. The first few scenes suggest that maybe the film is trying to be something more than just another “let’s blow shit up while stars get quippy” action film. Independence Day: Resurgence imagines an alternative history for post-alien invasion Earth and it’s actually pretty clever. Earthlings have taken advantage of the alien technology but society has also become heavily militaristic. The main characters of the first film are all revered as heroes but, when we first meet former President Whitmore (Bill Pullman, with a wise old man beard), he’s having nightmares about the invasion.

And seriously, for the first 30 minutes or so, I really thought that Independence Day: Resurgence might turn out to be surprisingly clever, that maybe it would satirize the excesses of the original while subtly critiquing everything that’s fucked up about our real world.

Well, that was a mistake on my part. There is no satire. There is no critique. Instead, it’s just another alien invasion film and it’s all terribly predictable. It may be a sequel to the first Independence Day but it feels more like a rip-off of Battle: Los Angeles. Considering what the film could have been, it’s impossible not to be disappointed by how familiar and uninspired it all is.

What I failed to take into account is that this film was directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich is a director who is best distinguished by his total lack of self-awareness. After all, this is the director who, in Anonymous, seriously suggested that William Shakespeare personally murdered Christopher Marlowe. Watching Independence Day: Resurgence and listening to the generic dialogue and witnessing the generic mayhem, I started to get the sinking feeling that the film was a joke and that Emmerich was the only person on the planet who was not in on it. He doesn’t realize how predictable his movies are or that his characters are cardboard cut-outs or that the film’s inspiring moments are so overdone that they instead become groan-inducing. One of the stars of the first film sacrifices himself in Resurgence and you know who it’s going to be from the minute he shows up onscreen. Emmerich is not a good enough director to make his sacrifice touching. The fact that the film ends with the promise of a sequel is not surprising and yet, it still somehow manages to be annoyingly presumptive. The film’s ending seems to be taunting us. “Of course, you’re going to want to sit through this shit for a third time…what other choice do you have?”

In the film’s defense, the cast is big and it includes a lot of good actors. Unfortunately, the characters are so undeveloped that you again find yourself regretting what a waste it all is. Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch are both likable but Bill Pullman seems to be incredibly bored with the whole thing. Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, and Maika Monroe are all stuck playing typical Emmerich ciphers.

I should mention that, despite how negative this review may sound, I did not hate Independence Day: Resurgence, at least not in the way that I’ve hated other films, like Anonymous or the remake of Straw Dogs. My problem with Resurgence isn’t that I hated it or even that I disliked it. It’s that I didn’t feel much about it, one way or the other. It’s one of those film that is best described as “just kinda being there.” Apathy is the worst thing that a film can inspire.

Perhaps the best thing about Independence Day: Resurgence is that Roland Emmerich has protected the holiday from being co-opted by Garry Marshall.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #154: Where’s My Baby? (dir by David Winning)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Sunday night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Where’s My Baby?

Lochlyn Munro, the patron saint of Canadian-produced Lifetime melodrama and co-star of Where’s My Baby?

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh, why not?

Sorry, I’m trying to come a funny and/or interesting reason why I decided to watch Where’s My Baby? but the main answer is that it was on the Lifetime Movie Network and there was nothing else on. Game of Thrones is on break. Veep is on break. There’s no killer zombies on AMC and I can’t watch Preacher because I resent its inaccurate portrayal of my home state.

So, with all that in mind, I figured why not see what was premiering on LMN!

What Was It About?

Marissa Davis (Nicole de Boer) wakes up after having spent the past five years in a coma. She has no memory of how she came to be in that coma but she’s still happy to be awake. She’s especially happy to discover that her best friend, Heather (Gina Holden), is married to Congressman Cal Ward (Lochlyn Munro). Cal seems like a nice guy but he’s running for the Senate and talking about how much he believes in traditional values and we all know that, in a Lifetime movie, anyone who talks about values is eventually going to turn out to be a huge hypocrite.

Marissa is disturbed to discover that 1) she was the victim of a mysterious hit and run and that 2) she has a C-section scar. Her mother (Iris Quinn) finally tells her that she was pregnant when she was hit by the car. Her mother also assures her that the baby was delivered stillborn.

Meanwhile, Heather and Cal have a 5 year-old daughter! What a coincidence! And the baby appears to have the same hereditary kidney disorder that runs in Marissa’s family. What could that possibly mean? And, for that matter, why is a mysterious doctor suddenly so obsessed with removing Marissa’s kidney?

What Worked?

Oh my God, I so love these insane Lifetime movies. Where’s My Baby is shameless fun, the type of movie that you simply cannot stop watching once it has begun. The movie starts out crazy and it just keeps going from there!

Add to that, there’s a general rule when it comes to Lifetime films. If Lochlyn Munro is in it, the film cannot be bad. Lochlyn Munro has appeared in so many Lifetime films that, to some of us, he’s become the patron saint of the network.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked. When a film is that insanely over the top, there’s no way that it can’t work.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

To be honest, there really weren’t any “Oh my God! Just like me!” moments. I’ve never suffered from amnesia. As anyone who has ever gotten on my bad side can tell you, I never forget.

Never.

Lessons Learned

If you wake up with amnesia, don’t take anyone’s word for what happened while you were asleep. Investigate for yourself. Seriously, that’s a lesson to live by.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #153: Newlywed and Dead (dir by Penelope Buitenhuis)

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the Lifetime premiere movie, Newlywed and Dead!

Why Was I Watching It?

There were a lot of reasons why I was watching Newlywed And Dead. The main reason was that it was on Lifetime and watching, live tweeting, and reviewing Lifetime movies is one of the many things that I do!

Beyond that, I thought Newlywed and Dead was an absolutely brilliant title. That title pretty much sums everything that we love about Lifetime movies, doesn’t it?

And finally, the movie starred Shenae Grimes-Beech! Back when she was just Shenae Grimes (and before she showed up on 90210), she played Darcy Edwards on Degrassi! Darcy was always one of my favorite characters on Degrassi. Whether she was plotting to break Paige’s leg during a Spirit Squad routine, getting stalked as a result of the pictures she posted on MySpace (or MyRoom as Degrassi called it), leading prayers at Friendship Club, falsely accusing Mr. Simpson of sexual harassment, or encouraging Spinner to go to class stoned, Darcy was the best!

What Was It About?

Kristen Ward (Shenae Grimes-Beech) would appear to have the perfect life. She not only lives in a beautiful valley but she works for handsome developer, Jay Morgan (Christopher Russell). In fact, she not only works for him but she’s also married to him! Of course, some people are concerned about Kristen marrying a man that she barely knows but Kristen knows that their love is true. Even when she discovers that, 10 years earlier, Jay was arrested for assault, she doesn’t let that worry her. Who doesn’t have a criminal record?

But then Jay’s aunt, Barbara (Venus Terzo), takes Kristen to the house where Jay grew up. And Kristen sees a painting of Jay’s mother and notices that his mother looks just like her! Considering that Jay’s mother died under mysterious circumstances, Kristen starts to get worried.

Then Aunt Barbara dies under equally mysterious circumstances…

And Kristen starts to get really worried…

What Worked?

Shamelessly melodramatic and just a little bit campy, Newlywed and Dead was everything that we love about Lifetime films. I’ve often felt that the best thing about Lifetime films is knowing that people across the country are all saying, “Girl, don’t trust him!” at the same time that you are. Watching a Lifetime movie is meant to be a communal experience, whether you’re forcing your sister or your BFF to watch with you or if you’re watching with a bunch of people on twitter. Newlywed and Dead is definitely a film that should be watched with a group of your favorite people.

Beyond that, I liked the film’s look. The mansions were opulent and the scenery was beautiful to look at. There was one room that had way too much blue in it but otherwise, Newlywed and Dead was a feast for the eyes.

What Did Not Work?

As I watched the film, I kept waiting for that one unexpected twist that would transform it from being a very good Lifetime film to a great Lifetime film. All great Lifetime films have that one moment where something totally insane happens. While Newlywed and Dead features a lot of entertaining insanity, it never had the one moment.

(For example, I kept expecting Jay to reveal that he had an evil twin brother named Ray. But it never happened.)

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I always relate to any character played by Shenae Grimes-Beech.

Lessons Learned

Never marry your boss.