Guilty Pleasure No. 44: Paranormal State

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“We are students…..we are seekers…..and sometimes we are warriors. And each time we help someone, I feel like I’m one step closer to finding the truth…”

The words opened up all 86 episodes of Paranormal State, a “reality” show that ran on A&E from 2007 to 2011. They were delivered by Ryan Buell, who was the head of the Pennsylvania State University Paranormal Research Society. Buell also narrated every episode of Paranormal State and perhaps the most memorable thing about the show was the strangely robotic sound of his narration. Buell delivered his lines in a memorably flat monotone, one that rarely betrayed a hint of emotion while talking about the spirits that the Team supposedly dealt with in each and every episode. Even when Buell talked about the demon that had supposedly been stalking him since childhood, he did so with all the emotion of Alexa confirming a grocery list.

Paranormal State was one of those shows where people would around in a dark house with an infrared camera while randomly saying stuff like, “Did you feel that? I felt a suddenly cold wind in this room. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” Occasionally, a light would get knocked over or a door would close on its own. Along with asking each other if they had felt anything, the members of the Paranormal Research Society were also fond of asking, “Did you hear that?” and “Oh my God, did you just see that?” I always liked it when they would review the film in slow-motion and point at a barely visible smudge on the image and say, “There it is. There’s the spirit.” Ultimately, it would usually lead to a medium being called in and wandering around the house and going, “It’s time for you to move on, spirit. Whisper something if you’re here. Oh my God, did you hear that?”

It was all pretty obviously staged and kind of dumb but I still enjoyed the show because I liked the idea of a bunch of college students skipping class so that they could spend the night in a deserted barn while waiting for the ghost of a angry farmer to push over a pitchfork or something. I mean, if my college had given credit for ghost hunting, I totally would have done it! The show may have been fake but it was fun to pretend that it was real.

After the show ended, Ryan Buell had his personal difficulties, which I’m not going to dwell on. As for the show, it actually lives on. I recently came across reruns on the FYI network and I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve met who, like me, can recite that opening narration by heart. Seriously, it just gets in your head.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 43: The Resurrection of Gavin Stone (dir by Dallas Jenkins)

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, we’re halfway through October and the annual Shattered Lens Horrorthon and what better time than now to review a …. faith-based comedy about an irresponsible actor who pretends to be a Christian so that he can star in a megachurch’s Easter play?

Embrace the unexpected!

The 2017 film, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, tells the story of Gavin Stone (Brett Dalton), a former child star who is now better known for his stints in rehab than for his acting. After a trip to his hometown ends with Gavin getting arrested for public intoxication and apparently firing a catapult off the top of his hotel, Gavin is sentenced to do community service. He has to live with his estranged father (Neil Flynn) and he can’t leave Ohio until he’s completed his hours. What about Gavin’s career back in California? What career?

Anyway, Gavin ends up doing his community service at the local Protestant megachurch. The well-meaning pastor (D.B. Sweeney) suggests that Gavin just do maintenance work until his hours are up. Gavin would rather try out for the lead role in the church’s annual Easter play, both because he wants to act and because he has a crush on the play’s director (Anjelah Johnson-Reyes), who just happens to be the pastor’s daughter.

“Well, the play is a part of our ministry,” the pastor explains, “so we do ask that everyone involved be a Christian.”

“I am a Christian!” Gavin announces, even though he’s totally not.

Naturally, Gavin gets cast in the role of Jesus. Along with learning about his role, Gavin spends rehearsals shaking up the church’s somewhat stodgy play and, slowly but surely, becoming a better human being. However, when Gavin is suddenly offered a role on a television series, he must decided whether to do what’s best for the play or what’s best for his career. You can probably already guess what’s going to happen.

Obviously, a lot of people are going to be turned off by the film’s Christian origins but The Resurrection of Gavin Stone is actually a surprisingly sweet movie and, compared to most faith-based films, it’s not particularly heavy-handed. Unlike a lot of Christian films, Gavin Stone actually has a sense of humor about itself and it’s hard not smile a bit when Gavin, after spending a night with Google, shows up for church on Sunday with a Jesus fish on his bumper and loudly greeting everyone with “Blessings!” Brett Dalton (who we all know as Grant Ward on Agents of SHIELD) is sincere and likable in the lead role. Anjelah Johnson-Reyes is stuck with the underwritten stock role of being the preacher’s daughter who loosens up over the course of the movie but she actually does a pretty good job of bringing some spark to the character.

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone has its flaws, of course. There’s a few times that the dialogue gets a bit clunky and you never quite buy the film’s positive conclusion. But what this film’s does very well is that it captures the excitement of being a part of a production. The best parts of the film are the ones that just focus on the characters rehearsing. Anyone who has ever been involved with a community theater will be able to relate and it’s kind of fun to watch everyone progress from stiffly reading from the script to delivering their lines like fully committed amateur thespians. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone is at its best when it celebrates the joy of performing.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 42: Harper’s Island

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, do you remember Harper’s Island!?

Way before The Walking Dead and American Horror Story made death and gore safe for mass consumption, Harper’s Island was the scariest show on television. I have to admit that, when I first heard about the show, I wasn’t expecting it to be. Way back in 2009, whenever the commercials for the show would air and that little girl would go, “One by one,” I would roll my eyes so hard that I once nearly gave myself a concussion.

“Really?” I would say, “A slasher television show where at least one person dies every week? And it’s going to be on network TV? There’s no way this is going to be bloody or scary enough to be worth watching.”

However, I did watch the first episode because I figured that I could at least be snarky about it on twitter. (I had joined just a few months before the show premiered. Harper’s Island was the first show that I ever live tweeted, even though I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “live tweeting” way back then.) The episode opened with a man tied to the propeller of a boat, screaming as the engine started. The episode ended with Uncle Marty (played by special guest star Harry Hamlin) getting chopped in half by an unseen assailant.

“AGCK!” I said.

I was hooked from that episode on.

Believe it or not, Harper’s Island wasn’t just killings. It actually did tell a story, about a young woman named Abby (played by Elaine Cassidy) who returns to her childhood home, on Harper’s Island, for her best friend’s wedding. Many years ago, Abby’s mother was among those who was killed by a serial killer named John Wakefield. From the minute that Abby arrives, she feels that something bad is going to happen and it turns out that she’s right.

Of course, Abby’s not the only one on the island. There’s the other members of the wedding party. There’s the island’s inhabitants, the fishermen and the deputies and the cafe owner and the local reverend whose destined to lose his head in the woods. They’ve all got their quirks and subplots. Boisterous Malcolm (Chris Gauthier) is in desperate need of money. Local fisherman Jimmy (C.J. Thomason) is still in love with Abby. The groom, Henry (Christopher Gorham), has issues from his past that he needs to deal with. Some of them are likable. Some of them are annoying. Some of them, like spoiled Chloe (Cameron Richardson), are meant to be annoying but become likable as the series progresses.

And, in the end, none of their hopes and dreams really mattered because, by the end of the show, everyone was pretty much dead. The ads for Harper’s Island promised a bloodbath and that’s what the show delivered. It wasn’t just that at least one person died per week. It was also that they usually died in the most macabre and disturbing ways possible. This was the type of the show where the most likable groomsman ended up getting chopped into pieces and then tossed into an incinerator. Another wedding guest chose to drown herself rather than be attacked by the killer. Sometimes, the killers didn’t even have to be around for someone to get killed. Who can forget poor Booth (played by Sean Rogerson), accidentally shooting himself in the leg and bleeding out while America watched?

And yes, you did watch every week because you wanted to see who would be the next to die. (That’s where the guilty part of the pleasure comes in.) But you also watched because the show was produced and directed so well. The island was a wonderfully atmospheric location and the cast really committed themselves to bringing the show’s morbid reality to life. At the time, it was the darkest show on television and it could have been even darker because, originally, the plan was for the killer to get away with it. In the end, karma caught up with the killer but not before we were all traumatized upon discovering just who was responsible. Harper’s Island‘s mystery was as intriguing as its deaths were bloody.

Being ahead of its time, Harper’s Island struggled in the ratings and it was never a big hit with critics. But, with the help of Netflix and the the occasional marathon on SyFy, Harper’s Island‘s reputation has improved and grown over the years. Looking back, it’s easy to see that Harper’s Island was not only the forerunner to American Horror Story but it was also a far better series. American Horror Story tends to condescend to the horror, keeping the genre at arm’s length through misdirected pretension. It’s a show for people who think that they’re too good for horror. Harper’s Island, on the other hand, fully embraced both the horror and the melodrama and it did so without apology.

Seriously, what Halloween is complete without a trip to Harper’s Island?

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Guilty Pleasure No. 41: The Dead Are After Me (Raiders of the Living Dead), performed by George Edward Ott

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you watched Raiders of the Living Dead earlier today, you heard this theme song:

The dead are after me….

We are the Raiders of the Living Dead….

Seriously, how can you not love that!? Yes, the song is totally mid-80s and it’s kind of silly but it’s also kind of perfect. Certainly, it’s the best thing about the film and the song has even gone on to achieve a life outside of the movie that it was written for. There are bands that regularly cover this song. It’s a permanent part of my Halloween playlist.

Seriously, you can ask my friends and they’ll tell you that, every October, they’re forced to listen to me sing this song in my off-key way. The deeeeeeeead are afterrrrrr meeeeee….

Many sites incorrectly refer to this song as being called, like the movie in which it appeared, “Raiders of the Living Dead.” The actual title is The Dead Are After Me. It was written and performed by a musician named George Edward Ott. I did some research and I came across some comments that Ott left on another site, in which he discussed how this song came into existence. From Morgan on Media:

In 1986, after viewing early outtakes of the film with Sam Sherman and Tim Ferrante, I went home and wrote the song in about 15 minutes. Cheesy song for a cheesy movie!

Yes, it is a cheesy song but it’s also rather brilliant in a cheerful, no apologies sort of way. Just try to get out of your head.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 40: Parking Wars

Posted on February 16, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Strange show, Parking Wars.

Between 2008 and 2012, A&E aired 104 episodes of Parking Wars. Even though the show’s no longer in production, episodes still seem to air on nearly a daily basis. If you can’t find it on A&E, check on FYI. If you can’t find it on FYI, check WGN or TBS or any of the true crime networks. Nearly seven years after it stopped producing new episodes, Parking Wars airs so frequently that one could be forgiven for thinking that it had never been canceled.

It was an odd show. It was a reality show, one that allowed viewers a chance to see what it was like to be a part of the parking authority. You read that correctly. This show was devoted to perhaps the least useful members of law enforcement. The first two seasons focused exclusively on the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Since the members of the PPA were all municipal employees, I’m going to assume that the show’s producers had to get permission from the city to follow them as they worked. One assumes that the hope was that the show would improve Philadelphia’s image. That’s why it’s interesting that the main lesson to be learned from those first two seasons of Parking Wars appears to be that everyone should stay the Hell out of Philadelphia.

Seriously, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would book a flight to Philly after watching an episode of Parking Wars. Not only do all of the traffic cops come across as being assholes but so do most of the citizens that they meet over the course of their day. Everyone comes across as being a jerk. On the one hand, you have the motorists who regularly ignore posted signs and who often have no hesitation about double parking or blocking traffic. At the same time, the show’s parking cops tend to the biggest bunch of self-important pricks that I’ve ever seen.

Each episode is usually divided into three sections. In Ticketing, we follow some civil servant in a uniform while they walk up and down the street, looking for anyone to whom they can give a ticket. While they do this, they talk to the camera about why their job is important and why people shouldn’t hate them. It usually only takes a minute or so to realize that we’re not exactly dealing with the most eloquent or witty group of people here. Typical words of wisdom: “People think I’m picking on them but ….. I’m just doing my job. If they hadn’t broken the rules, I would not be writing them a ticket.” Never mind that, half the time, the parking meters are broken or that the “No Parking” sign has weathered so much abuse that it can barely be read. Whenever someone asks a legitimate question about why they’re getting a ticket, the show responds with a silly sound effect. “Only dummies question authority,” the show is saying. On those occasions when someone actually proves that they’ve been wrongly ticketed (and it happens more than a few times), they’re told to call a number or go to court and get it dismissed. “Once I start writing the ticket, I can’t take it back,” the parking cop explains, as if that somehow excuses any inconvenience that anyone else might suffer.

The 2nd section of each episode often took place at the impound lot, where the citizens of Philadelphia would go to get their cars after they had been towed. The impound lot sequences basically highlight everything that intelligent people hate about bureaucracy. I’ll always remember the woman from Delaware whose car was impounded in Philadelphia, due to a mistake made by the Delaware Highway Patrol. Even after the woman got a signed letter from a judge in Delaware exonerating her and saying that her car shouldn’t have been impounded, the lot supervisor said that the car couldn’t be released because the state of Pennsylvania still had her on its impound list. When the woman was told that she could hire a tow truck (at her own expense) and have the car towed to Delaware, the lot workers were shocked when the woman angrily announced that she wasn’t going to pay any more money just because of someone else’s bureaucratic snafu. When Pennsylvania finally did get its act together and announced that the woman could have her car back, one of the lot workers had the nerve to say, “Y’know, my supervisor went to a lot of trouble for you.” (From what we saw on the program, it appeared that the supervisor made one phone call, mostly to get confirmation that she should refuse to release the woman’s car.) The look the woman from Delaware gave that worker pretty much said it all.

Finally, an episode would usually wrap up with a sequence about booting. The booting sequences dealt with the people who drive around and randomly search for people with multiple unpaid tickets, so that they can put those big yellow locks on people’s tires. On the one hand, the booting sequences were a bit less annoying that the ticketing and impound sequences because most of the people getting booted did owe several thousands of dollars in parking tickets. On the other hand, it wasn’t hard to notice that the boot crew usually only seemed to search for cars in lower-class neighborhoods. It was rare you ever heard anyone suggest maybe going to a rich neighborhood and seeing if anyone there needed a boot. Instead the people being booted were often the very people who would need a car if they were ever actually going to get the money necessary to pay their tickets.

Throughout it all, the show punctuated every action or comment with a combination of zoom lenses and silly sound effects. If someone declared that they needed their car for work, we’d hear someone dramatically go, “DAMN!” on the soundtrack. If the parking cop pointed out a sign that said no parking, we’d get a zoom to the sign along with a smack-smack sound effect.

Even though the show is less than ten years old, watching it can be strange today. Parking Wars was clearly made before the era of #MeToo. If the parking cop is a woman, one can be sure that we’ll get at least a few interviews with the citizens of Philadelphia talking about how cute she is. If the parking cop’s a man, one can be sure that he’ll take the time to leer at any passing women while the camera zooms in on what part of her body has drawn his attention.

Eventually, it would appear that the city of Philadelphia figured out that being advertised as being one of the worst cities on Earth was perhaps not the boon for tourism that they thought it would be and Parking Wars started to focus on other cities. When they started to film in Detroit, we were introduced to a parking cop named Pony Tail. Pony Tail was perhaps the most obnoxious character to ever be unleashed on the brave viewers of A&E. Pony Tail was the type of creep who would brag about how he was punishing evil doers (because being parked at an expired meter is a sure sign of evil) but who would then spend his entire segment pouting after a random passerby yelled out, “Parking Authority sucks!”

Things got even worse once the show expanded to New York and started to feature “independent” towing companies. If it could be said that the parking cops were at least enforcing the law, the independent towing people were just straight-up assholes. Whenever they towed a woman’s car and responded to her complaints by calling her “sweetheart” or “honey,” you just wanted someone to jump in and smack the Hell out of them.

And yet, oddly enough, Parking Wars was (and is) addictive viewing. I can’t speak for everyone but for me, it’s a show that I almost hatewatch. It confirms everything negative thing that I’ve ever felt or suspected about the people in authority. If you believe that most people will let even the slightest bit of power go straight to their head, this is the show for you. If you distrust the government and think that most bureaucrats are petty tyrants, Parking Wars is a show that will confirm your every suspicion. The best moments of Parking Wars are the ones that suggest that maybe the show’s producers were secretly poking fun at the parking authority’s delusions of grandeur. I’m talking about the moments when the ticketed got their chance to yell at the ticketers and the ticketers, for the most part, were reduced to weakly saying, “I’m just doing my job….” Could it be that Parking Wars was one of the biggest practical jokes in reality show history and perhaps Pony Tail and the folks at the Impound Lot were being punked without even realizing it?

Probably not but it’s fun to think about….

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Guilty Pleasure No. 39: Ghost Whisperer

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Once upon a time, there were two shows about women who could speak with the dead.

One show ran from 2005 to 2011. It starred a future Oscar winner and, over the course of its run, it was nominated for a bunch of Emmys. It may have never been a huge hit but it received decent ratings and, even more importantly, it was a critically acclaimed. The show claimed to be based on fact and it took a low-key, procedural approach to its stories.

The second show ran from 2005 to 2010 and it starred a multiple Golden Globe nominee and it was never nominated for any major Emmys. (The first season, however, did receive a Teen Choice nomination.) Like the first show, it was never exactly a big hit, though it did have a loyal audience. Whereas the first show was acclaimed by critics, the second show was routinely dismissed. If the first show was subdued and low-key, this second show took the exact opposite approach.

The first show was called Medium.

The second show was called Ghost Whisperer.

I watched both of them and I can tell you that both had their strengths and their weaknesses. Medium was, at time, genuinely creepy and Patricia Arquette gave an admirably serious performance. At the same time, the show was often so serious that it was a bit of a drag to watch. You may have believed that Arquette could talk to the dead but you never really bought into the idea that they would want to talk to her or anyone else on the show. In short, Medium was good but it wasn’t much fun.

Ghost Whisperer, on the other hand…

Listen, I’m not even going to pretend that Ghost Whisperer was a great show. It was a frequently silly and over-the-top show. Jennifer Love Hewitt played Melinda Gordon, who lived in Grandview, New York and who owned an antique shop called — I kid you not — Same As It Never Was Antiques. The dead would come to Melinda because they still had feelings that needed to be resolved on Earth before they could cross over into the afterlife. Sometimes the ghosts were in denial. Sometimes they were rude, violent, and scary. Sometimes they were just mildly quirky. But they always ended up happy that Melinda was able to find a way for them to move on. Over the course of five seasons, the show developed both the quirkiness of the town and the mythology behind the ghosts themselves. We learned about the Watchers and the Shadows and the Shinies and the Book of Changes. We also learned a bit about Melinda’s history. Season 3 ended with Melinda helping her deceased father go into the light and you better believe I cried.

If Medium was an often dour, somber, and deliberately frumpy show, Ghost Whisperer was bright, fun, and unapologetically glamorous. While poor Patricia Arquette always seemed to be carrying the entire weight of the world on her shoulders, Jennifer Love Hewitt always appeared to be having a blast playing Melinda. While she may not have been as good as an actress as Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt always brought just enough natural enthusiasm to the role that she could make even the most hackneyed of dialogue believable. When I looked over some of the reviews of Ghost Whisperer’s first season, the immediate thing that I noticed was that many of the critics (in particular, the male critics) were obsessed with pointing out that Jennifer Love Hewitt was continually dressed and filmed in such a way to emphasize her breasts, as if there’s some sort of crime in being proud of what you have. But for me, as someone who shares the struggle of trying to find cute clothes for big boobs, it was empowering that Melinda didn’t hide her body, her personality, or her beliefs. As played by Hewitt, Melinda was confident, outspoken, and unapologetic. Yes, she dressed a certain way. Yes, she looked a certain way. Yes, she believed that she could help ghosts cross over. And if anyone had a problem with it, so what? Melinda was a role model who never really got her due. If I ever find myself speaking to ghosts, I hope that I handle it half as well as Melinda did.

Ghost Whisperer ended in 2010 and Medium ended in 2011. Medium may have been nominated for more awards but guess which one I’ll always make a point to watch in syndication?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyEmusTMsM8

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Guilty Pleasure No. 38: Shipping Wars

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you remember Shipping Wars?

It’s okay if you don’t. I have to admit that, up until yesterday, I had pretty much forgotten about it. Shipping Wars was a reality show that aired, for three years, on A&E. From 2012 to 2015, the show followed independent contractors as they transported various weird things across America. It was produced by the same people who did Storage Wars and, like that show, a good deal of emphasis was put on the various contractors competing against each other to get the biggest contracts and secure the most profitable paydays. As I said, I had pretty much forgotten about the show until yesterday. That’s when I came across a Shipping Wars marathon on the FYI channel and I was immediately reminded of just how addictive this stupid show could be.

A typical episode of Shipping Wars would open with all of the shippers (as they were called) hanging out in their trucks and staring at their laptops. All of them competed for shipments in timed auctions held on uShip.com. (Basically, the entire show was a commercial for uShip but I’m too much of a capitalist to care.) Typically, each episode featured two auctions. Once the shipper had won their auction, it was then up to them to transport their cargo to a new location without destroying it or arriving late. That may sound simple enough but it was rare that anyone managed to pull of either one of those requirements. That can only mean that it’s either really difficult to transport stuff or that all of the shipper on Shipping Wars were amazingly incompetent.

Of course, the camera crew would follow each shipper as they made their journey. The shippers who did not win the auction would randomly pop up to offer up sarcastic commentary on how their rival was doing. The commentary was notable for how thoroughly petty it often got. For instance, if a shipper got caught in a rain storm, you could just bet that someone would remark, “It looks like your approval rating’s about to go underwater.” If a truck got a flat tire, the commentary would usually be something like, “Way to check your tires before getting out on the road, dumbass!” What they shippers lacked in wit, they made up for in pure spite.

Spite defined most episodes of Shipping Wars. One of the remarkable things about that show is that absolutely no one ever appeared to be in a good mood. It wasn’t just the shippers who seemed to be terminally annoyed. The people shipping the stuff often seemed to have an attitude. The people who received the stuff almost always turned out to be jerks who tried to get out of paying the full amount that they had agreed to pay. And the shippers themselves were always in a thoroughly crappy mood. Roy Gabler, one of the most prominent of the shippers, was infamous for referring to almost everyone he met as being an idiot. Shipping Wars presents a portrait of America where everyone has a chip on their shoulder and absolutely no one ever bothers to say thank you. Since I hate the forced sentimentality of most reality shows, I’ve always appreciated the fact that literally everyone in Shipping Wars was just out for themselves.

The other fun thing about Shipping Wars was seeing some of the things that needed to be transported. One of my favorite episodes featured a wedding cake that was driven across country in an unrefrigerated trailer. Needless to say, the cake did not survive the trip. The previously mentioned Roy Gabler had an affinity for transporting weird things, like classic movie props and, in one episode, a water tower. Nothing fazed Roy. No matter what he was transporting, he was always equally annoyed.

Unfortunately, Roy died shortly before the start of what would be the show’s last season. Shipping Wars never recovered from the loss of Roy’s perpetually annoyed tone of voice and it was canceled in 2015. As I discovered last night, you can see reruns on FYI. Or maybe you can just go on uShip and ask if anyone’s willing to move a cursed house from Texas to Vermont.

That should get their attention!

(For the record, the above clip is a parody but it still perfectly captures the feeling of Shipping Wars.)

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Guilty Pleasure No. 37: Death Wish (dir by Eli Roth)

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Is it finally safe to honestly review Death Wish?

You may remember that this film, a remake of the 70s vigilante classic, came out last March and critics literally went insane attacking it. That it got negative reviews wasn’t necessarily a shock because the movie was directed by Eli Roth and he’s never been a favorite of mainstream critics. Still, it was hard not to be taken aback but just how enraged the majority of the critics appeared to be. Seriously, from the reviews, you would have thought that Death Wish was not just a bad movie but a crime against nature.

Of course, a lot of that was due to the timing of the film’s release. The film was released less than a month after the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. At the time the film first came out, the country was in the midst of a daily diet of anti-second amendment rallies and David Hogg. Many critics accused Death Wish of being a commercial for the NRA. Others branded the film as being right-wing propaganda. In fact, the criticism was so harsh that it was hard not to feel that the critics were essentially taking Death Wish far more seriously than it took itself.

If anything, Death Wish is a big, glossy, and rather silly movie. Bruce Willis stars as Dr. Paul Kersey. Paul is a peace-loving man. We know this because he refuses to get into a fight with a belligerent parent at a soccer game. He’s also an emergency room doctor, the type who pronounces a policeman dead and then rushes off to try to save the life of whoever shot him. No one in the movie suspects that Paul would ever become a vigilante but we know that there’s no way he can’t eventually end up walking the streets with a loaded gun because he’s played by Bruce Willis. When Paul backs down from the fight at the soccer game, Willis delivers his dialogue with so much self-loathing that we just know that, once Paul gets back home, he’s going to lock himself in the basement and start yelling at the walls, Stepfather-style.

Eventually, criminals break into Paul’s house and shoot both his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and his daughter (Camila Morrone). His wife dies. His daughter ends up in a coma. Paul spends a day or two in shock and then he promptly gets a gun and starts shooting criminals. Eventually, this brings him into conflict with the same criminals who attacked his family! Meanwhile, two detectives (Dean Norris and Kimberly Elise) look at all the dead bodies piling up around them and just shrug it off. At one crime scene, Norris is happy to grab a slice of pizza.

And really, that’s it. It sounds simple because it is simple. There is absolutely no narrative complexity to be found in Death Wish, which is why, in its own cheerfully crude way, the film totally works. In real life, of course, vigilante justice is not the solution and the death penalty is often unfairly applied but, from the moment the opening titles splash across the screen, Death Wish makes clear that it has no interest in real-life and, throughout its brisk running time, it literally seems to be ridiculing anyone in the audience who might be worried about the moral ramifications of a citizen gunning down a drug dealer.

Death Wish is a big extravagant comic book. It takes Paul one scene to go from being a meek doctor to being an expert marksman and, when Paul dispatches one criminal by dropping a car on him, Roth lays on the gore so thick that he almost seems to be daring us to take his film seriously. By that same token, Paul kills a lot of people but at least they’re all really, really bad. In fact, the criminals are so evil that you can’t help but suspect that Roth is poking a little bit of fun at the conventions of the vigilante genre. Even the fact that Willis wanders through the entire film with the same grim expression on his face feels like an inside joke between the director and his audience.

The critics were right when they called Death Wish a fantasy but they were wrong to frame that as somehow being a flaw. It’s a cartoonishly violent and deeply silly film and yet, at the same time it’s impossible not to cheer a little when Paul reveals that he’s been hiding a machine gun under his coffee table. It’s an effective film. Eli Roth delivers exactly what you would expect from a film about Bruce Willis killing criminals in Chicago. It may not be a great film but it works.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 36: The Legend of Billie Jean (dir by Matthew Robbins)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Two weeks ago, while I was sick in bed, I watched The Legend of Billie Jean, a deeply silly movie from 1985.

Okay, get this. Billie Jean (Helen Slater) and her younger brother, Binx (an incredibly young Christian Slater), live in Corpus Christi, Texas. Binx has always wanted to go to Vermont. That right there should tell you just how silly this movie is. Not only does it feature a character named Binx but it also features Texans wanting to go to Vermont. I’m a native Texan who loves to travel but I can tell you right now that the last place I would ever want to go would be Vermont. In fact, down here, we tend to assume that Vermont’s just a place that was made up by the media. Bernie Sanders? He’s just an actor. Seriously, there’s no way that Vermont actually exists.

Anyway, after Binx throws a milkshake in the face of local bully, Hubie Pyatt (Barry Tubb), Hubie steals Binx’s scooter. (If you’re stuck with a name like Hubie Pyatt, it seems kinda predestined that you’re going to grow up to be a bully.) After getting nowhere with the police, Billie Jean returns home to discover that Binx has been beaten up and his scooter has been dismantled. Billie Jean goes to Hubie’s father (Richard Bradford) to demand some money to get the scooter fixed. Mr. Pyatt responds by attempting to assault Billie Jean, which leads to Binx shooting Mr. Pyatt in the shoulder.

So now, Billie Jean and Binx are on the run.

Joining them in their flight are two idiot friends (Martha Gehman and Yeardley Smith) and Lloyd (Keith Gordon), the son of the local district attorney. Because this is a movie, Billie Jean quickly becomes a media superstar. Everyone wants to meet Billie Jean. Everyone wants to help Billie Jean. A sympathetic police detective (Peter Coyote) is determined to capture Billie Jean without violence but that might be difficult with the media constantly getting in the way.

While hiding out in a motel, Billie Jean turns on the TV and watches the classic 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. (I have to say that I’ve stayed in a few motels around Corpus Christi and never once did I turn on the TV and just happen to come across a classic silent movie.) Moved by Renee Falconetti’s performance in the lead role, Billie Jean decides to cut her hair really, really short (though not as short as Falconetti’s). I guess Billie Jean is supposed to be a 1980s version of Joan of Arc, which really doesn’t make any sense. I mean, Joan of Arc heard the voice of God and led the French to victory over the British. Billie Jean is just trying to get some money to get her brother’s scooter fixed and pay for a trip to the imaginary state of Vermont.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pyatt has recovered from his wounds and is now selling Billie Jean merchandise in his store. The detective mentions how weird that is but Mr. Pyatt is just out to make some money. Can you blame him? The entire country is obsessed with Billie Jean!

As you might have guessed, The Legend of Billie Jean is incredibly silly but likable. Despite having an inconsistent Texas accent, Helen Slater does a good job in the lead role of Billie Jean and it’s interesting to actually see Christian Slater before he developed the sarcastic style that, for better or worse, has come to define pretty much all of his performances. Never for a second do you believe that Billie Jean would actually become a media superstar. (Nor do you ever believe that she’s the type who would have the patience to watch a silent movie.) I mean, when you get right down to it, it’s a pretty dumb movie. But, when you’re sick in bed, The Legend of Billie Jean is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 35: Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Way back in January, I took the time to read the 1966 novel, Valley of the Dolls. While I had already seen the film that this work inspired, this was my first time to read the actual book.

Before I even opened to the front page, I knew that Valley of the Dolls had been a best-seller, that it inspired a countless number of imitations, and that it had a reputation for being really, really bad. As soon as I started to read the first chapter, I discovered that the book’s reputation was well-earned. To call author Jacqueline Susann’s prose clunky was a bit of an insult to clunky prose everywhere.

Opening in 1945 and covering 24 years in cultural, sexual, and drug history, Valley of the Dolls starts with Anne Welles leaving her boring home in New England and relocating to New York, where she promptly gets a job at a theatrical agency. Everyone tells Anne that she’s beautiful and should be trying to become a star but Anne says that she’s not interested in that. (You’ll be thoroughly sick of Anne’s modesty before reaching the tenth page.) Everyone says that Anne is incredibly intelligent, even though she never really does anything intelligent. Everyone says that she’s witty, even though she never says anything that’s particularly funny. In short, Anne Welles is perhaps the most annoying literary character of all time. Anne spends about 20 years waiting for her chance to marry aspiring author Lyon Burke. When she does, Lyon turns out to be a heel and drives Anne to start taking drugs. I assume it’s meant to be somewhat tragic but who knows? Maybe all of the pills (or “the dolls” as the characters in the book call them) will give Anne a personality.

They certainly worl wonders for everyone else in the book. Neely O’Hara is constantly taking pills and she’s the best character in the book. Unlike Anne, she’s never modest. She’s never quiet. She’s actually funny. Even more importantly, she doesn’t spend the whole book obsessing over one man. Instead, she’s always either throwing a tantrum or having an affair or abandoning her children or getting sent to a mental institution. Neely’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we don’t really get to see much of Neely until after having to slog through a hundred or so pages of Anne being boring.

The other major character is Jennifer North, a starlet who was apparently based on Marilyn Monroe. The parts of the book dealing with Jennifer are actually about as close as Valley of the Dolls actually gets to being, for lack of a better term, good. In fact, if the book just dealt with Jennifer’s tragice story, it would probably be remembered as a minor classic. Instead, Jennifer is often overshadowed by Neely (which is understandable since Neely’s insane and therefore capable of saying anything) and Anne (who, as I mentioned before, is the most annoying literary characters of all time).

Why is Valley of the Dolls a guilty pleasure? A lot of it is because of all of the sexual melodrama and pill-popping, the descriptions of which are often so overwritten that they’re unintentionally hilarious. Most of it is because Neely O’Hara goes crazy with so much overwrought style. Whenever the book focuses on Neely, Susann’s inartful prose is replaced with a stream-of-consciousness tour of Neely’s paranoid and petty mind. Interestingly enough, some of the most infamous scenes from the movie are also present in the novel. Remember that scene where Neely rips off Helen Lawson’s wig and then flushes it down a toilet? That’s actually in the book!

Anyway, it’s an incredibly silly but compulsively readable book … or, at least, it is if you can make it through all the boring stuff with Anne at the beginning. Then again, as annoying as Anne is, she doesn’t exactly get a happy ending. Perhaps that’s why Valley of the Dolls is such a guilty pleasure.

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