Wolf (1994, directed by Mike Nichols)

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Will Randall (Jack Nicholson), the editor-in-chief of a New York Publishing house, doesn’t get much respect, not from his wife (Kate Nelligan), not from his boss (Christopher Plummer), and certainly not from Stuart Swinton (James Spader), the sleazy executive who is plotting to steal his job and destroy his marriage. But then, one night, Will runs over a black wolf on a country road. When he tries to helps it, the wolf bites him. Soon after, Will starts to feel different whenever the moon is full.

I remember that, when Wolf came out in 1994, some people said that casting Jack Nicholson as a werewolf seemed like typecasting. Nicholson apparently understood this as well so he actually downplays his usual mannerisms for the first part of the movie and gives a convincing performance as a harried executive who is worried he’s about to lose his job. It’s only after he is bitten that Will Randall starts to come alive. Not only does he develop the predator instinct necessary to survive in New York City but he also, without fear, pursues his boss’s daughter, Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer, at her most beautiful). Typecast or not, Jack Nicholson is excellent in Wolf. Equally good is James Spader as Will’s business rival, who starts to show some predator-like aspects of his own.

Director Mike Nichols was not normally a horror director and, around the midway point, his direction falters and there are times when he just seems to be going through the motions. He gets good performances from his cast but doesn’t know how to craft a good jump scare. The best parts of the movie are when Wolf uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for petty office politics, with Will “marking” his territory while talking to Stewart and showing a renewed killer instinct. Wolf works better as a social satire than as a horror movie.

Fans of Frasier will be happy to see David Hyde Pierce in a small but key role. He delivers the film’s best line. Fans of Friends may also notice David Schwimmer in a small role. He says nothing worth remembering. Their presence, though, is a reminder of just how much American culture changed in 1994. By the end of the year, both went from small roles in Wolf to co-starring in the two of the most popular sitcoms in America.

Film Review: Stargate (dir by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1994’s Stargate, James Spader plays Daniel Jackson, a nerdy Egyptologist who is recruited to decipher some hieroglyphics on some ancient stones that are being studied in a secret government facility in Colorado. Kurt Russell plays Colonel Jack O’Neill, a Special Operations officer who has been suicidal ever since the accidental death of his son. (He shot himself with Jack’s gun. Yikes!)

Together …. they solve crimes!

Well, no, not really. Instead, by deciphering the hieroglyphics, Daniel discovers how to open up a stargate, a wormhole that leads to another planet. Daniel, Jack, and a group of soldiers go through the stargate to see where it leads. Daniel is interested in discovering a new world and perhaps coming to understand how the pyramids were built. Jack just wants to get things over with. He’s been given a nuclear bomb and told to blow things up if the stargate leads to a hostile world. Jack doesn’t care if he lives or dies.

That changes once everyone finds themselves on a desert planet where the inhabitants are being exploited by Ra (Jaye Davidson)! It turns out that Ra actually does exist. Rather than being the God that the ancient Egyptians believed him to be, Ra is actually an alien who feeds off of the life forces of others. Every sacrifice that is performed for him allows Ra to extend his life. When Ra discovers that Daniel and Jack are on the planet and that Jack has a nuclear warhead with him, Ra takes that as a sign of aggression. He decides to make the warhead even more powerful and send it back through the stargate so that it can blow up the Earth. Normally, Jack wouldn’t care but fighting for the planet’s oppressed inhabitants has filled him with a renewed purpose.

Stargate is a film that I like almost despite myself. There’s a lot of reasons why Stargate would seem like the type of film that I would normally dislike. With the exception of a few films (Starcrash, the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy), I’m not normally a huge fan of science fiction. I’m not really a fan of anything that takes place in the desert because I know I would be miserable if I was there. (Redhead don’t tan, we burn.) I’m not really a fan of Roland Emmerich as a director. I’ll never forgive him for Anonymous, which I realize was made decades after Stargate but it was still annoying all the same.

And yet, I do like Stargate. I like that James Spader gets to play something other than a sinister creep for once. Nerdy Spader is a very appealing Spader. I like that Kurt Russell gives a fully committed performance, even if the film itself is somewhat silly. He doesn’t just go through the motions with his role, that I’m sure the temptation was there to do so. When Jack is depressed, you believe it. I like that Jaye Davidson gives an enjoyably bizarre performance as Ra. (Davidson, who was offered the role after The Crying Game and was shocked when the producers agreed to pay him a million dollars to play Ra, retired from acting after this film.) I liked the fact that, for once, the aliens truly seemed like aliens as opposed to coming across like stuffy Earthlings in a flying saucer. And I appreciated that, with this film, Emmerich actually seemed to be having fun with the story as opposed to just stolidly moving the action from one trailer-ready moment to another.

Stargate is silly. Wow, is it ever silly! But it’s silly in an enjoyable and entertaining way. James Spader, Kurt Russell, and Jaye Davidson make the film worth watching.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The New Kids (dir by Sean Cunningham)

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, this movie is awesome!

Within the first five minutes, the film features not only a training montage but also a scene where a family cheering good news immediately gets a phone call delivering bad news. (“SHUT UP!” our hero yells at his friends and family.) By the time the film hits the five minute mark, it has managed to denounce communism, terrorism, laziness, and drunk driving! And that’s even before James Spader shows up as a cocaine-sniffing teenage crime lord!

First released in 1986 and directed by the same guy who did the first Friday the 13th, The New Kids tells the story of Loren (Shannon Presby) and his sister, Abby (Lori Loughlin). Their father (Tom Atkins) was a badass army colonel who fought communists, received commendations from the President (and that President was Ronald Reagan so you know those commendations were for doing something cool and not just for posting memes on twitter), and who taught his children self-defense. Every morning, he exercised with them and drilled into their heads the importance of being disciplined and willing to stand up for themselves. Sadly, their father and mother were both killed in a car accident after meeting with President Reagan at the White House.

Though they’ve been taught how to survive in the world by an expert, Loren and Abby are both teenagers and the law says that they need adult supervision. They move down to Florida and stay with their Uncle Charlie (Eddie Jones), Charlie owns a run-down amusement park that he’s decided to call Santa Land. He figures that tourists who are driving to “Walt Disney World and Epcot” will want to stop off at Santa Land. Personally, I think the tourists will probably want to keep driving to where they actually want to go but who knows? Uncle Charlie does have a petting zoo and there is something oddly charming about the idea of Santa hanging out in the bayous of Florida. I mean, there’s a reason why Santa Claus And The Ice Cream Bunny is beloved by viewers all over the world.

At the high school, everyone notices Loren and Abby. Abby gets a dorky boyfriend named Mark (Eric Stoltz …. no, really!) and Loren starts dating the sheriff’s daughter, Karen (Paige Lynn Price). Unfortunately, the new kids have been noticed by Eddie Dutra (James Spader) and his gang of inbred rednecks. Dutra and his gang deal drugs and have a pit bull who they’re hoping to enter into dog fights. (“Went straight for the jugular,” one gang member says at one point.) Dutra decides that he likes Abby, which leads to Loren getting protective, which leads to Dutra and the boys waging their own war on Abby and Loren and everything eventually comes to a deeply satisfying Straw Dogs-style conclusion at Santa Land.

The New Kids is one of those films that succeeds by being thoroughly absurd and over-the-top. Dutra and his gang aren’t just evil. Instead, they’re downright Satanic in their determination to destroy the new kids. The gang is fearsome enough, especially Gordo (Theron Montgomery), who is the fat future forklift operator from Hell. But what really makes this gang memorable is the fact that their leader is James Spader, with bright blonde hair, a smooth Southern accent, and moves that are so assured that he sometimes seem to be dancing across the screen. Dutra’s evil and the cocaine that he snorts leads to him making some bad decisions but he’s got style. As for the New Kids, Shannon Presby is a bit bland as Loren but that blandness actually provides a nice contrast to Spader’s more flamboyant performance. Lori Loughlin is likable and kicks Gordo in the balls, which is pretty cool. (Gordo more than deserved it.)

Cheerfully sleazy and unapologetically ridiculous, The New Kids is 80s exploitation cinema at its best.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For Jack’s Back

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix presents 1988’s Jack’s Back, starring James Spader!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Jack’s Back is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!

Horror Film Review: The Watcher (dir by Joe Charbanic)

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Released in 2000, The Watcher is one of those movies where a burned out FBI Agent finds himself locked in a game of cat-and-mouse with an overly verbose serial killer. The FBI agent doesn’t want to get involved and is struggling with a drug addiction. (It’s always either drugs or a wife who doesn’t feel like she knows him anymore.) The serial killer is surprisingly intelligent and well-spoken, despite the fact that most real-life serial killers are only a step or two away from blowing themselves up in a meth lab. Movies love the idea of a witty sociopath but it rarely happens in real life.

Anyway, you get the point. Probably just from reading the previous paragraph, you already know everything that happens in The Watcher. There’s not a single moment in this movie that will take you by surprise. In fact, this movie is so full of clichés that, when I watched it, I actually got mad at the film’s characters for not being able to figure out that they were all just characters in a predictable serial killer film. Seriously, if I woke up and discovered that I was only a character in a movie, I imagine that I would devote at least a few minutes to having an existential crisis. There is also a lot of random slow motion in this movie. The slow motion doesn’t create suspense or generate thrills or anything like that. It’s just kind of there.

Really, the only interesting thing about The Watcher is the cast. For a movie like this, it has a surprisingly good cast. James Spader plays the FBI agent. Marisa Tomei plays the agent’s therapist. (She’s also the only female character to have more than 10 lines in the entire movie. To be honest, it’s a role that anyone could have played but Tomei does her best with what she’s been given.) The serial killer, who is named David Allen Griffen because all serial killers have three names, is played by Keanu Reeves.

Keanu as a serial killer is strange casting. For the most part, Keanu’s appeal has always been that he comes across like someone who, to quote Mother Bates, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Keanu flashes his charming smile and speaks politely with his future victims and, at no point, does he make much of an effort to be a believable killer. Some of that may be because Keanu apparently didn’t want to do the film. Keanu has always said that one of his assistants forged his name on a contract, legally obligating Keanu to appear in this movie. That’s a strange story. When you hear it, you think to yourself, “This the type of thing that could only happen to Keanu Reeves.”

For more than Keanu, James Spader is convincing in his role. Spader spends the entire movie looking like 1) he’s going through massive drug withdrawal and 2) like he’s on the verge of losing his mind. So much of acting is expressed through the eyes and, throughout this movie, Spader’s eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. It’s a superior piece of acting and it’s hard not to feel that it’s probably more than this movie deserved.

Sundance Film Review: sex, lies, and videotape (dir by Steven Soderbergh)

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Sundance Film Festival is currently taking place in Utah so, for this week, I’m reviewing films that either premiered, won awards at, or otherwise made a splash at Sundance! Today, I take a look at 1989’s sex, lies, and videotape, which won both the Audience Award at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival and the Palme d’Or at Cannes!

The directorial debut of Steven Soderbergh, sex, lies, and videotape is considered by many to be one of the most important independent American films ever made. Not only was it a success at the box office and nominated for an Oscar but it also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. According to Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, the success of sex, lies, and videotape is what convinced Hollywood that independent films could be big business. The marketing of the film would set the template for almost every independent release that followed.

(One person who was definitely not a fan of sex, lies, and videotape was director Spike Lee. When Lee’s Do The Right Thing lost the Palme to Soderbergh’s film, Lee was informed that the Canne jury felt Lee’s film wasn’t “socially responsible.” “What’s so socially responsible about a pervert filming women!?” Lee reportedly responded.)

sex, lies, and videotape tells the story of four people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Ann (Andie MacDowell) has a nice house, a successful husband, and an absolutely miserable marriage. When the film opens, she’s having a session with her therapist (Ron Vawter) and talking about how unfulfilled she feels. When the therapist asks her questions about her sex life, Ann laughs nervously. She says that she likes sex but she doesn’t like to think about it. She says she doesn’t see what the big deal is. Later, she reveals that she’s never had an orgasm.

John (Peter Gallagher) is Ann’s husband. He’s a lawyer. He’s also a materialistic jerk and … well, that’s pretty much the sum total of John’s entire personality.

Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) is John’s mistress. She’s a bartender at a rather sleazy little establishment, where she apparently spends all of her time listening to a local drunk (Steven Brill) do a Marlon Brando impersonation. She is uninhibited and fiercely sexual. She’s the opposite of Ann, which is why John likes her. Of course, she’s also Ann’s sister. Cynthia and Ann have a strained relationship. Ann describes Cynthia as being “loud.” Cynthia views Anne as being judgmental. Secretly, both wish that they could be more like the other.

And then there’s Graham (James Spader). Graham was John’s friend in college, though it’s difficult to understand why. Graham has recently returned to Baton Rouge and John, without talking to Ann, has invited Graham to visit them. Graham is apparently a drifter. (Ann describes him as being “arty.”) While Ann is helping him find an apartment, Graham informs her that he’s impotent. He can’t get an erection if anyone else in the room.

Ann subsequently discovers that Graham deals with his impotence by videotaping women discussing their sex lives. The video camera allows Graham to keep his distance and not get emotionally involved. (Of course, it also serves as a metaphor for directing a movie.) Ann is freaked out by all of Graham’s tapes. Cynthia is intrigued. And John … well, John’s just a jerk.

sex, lies, and videotape is a film that’s largely saved by its cast. Graham is a role that literally only James Spader could make intriguing. Meanwhile, Peter Gallagher actually manages to bring some charm to John, who is the least developed character and who gets all of the script’s worst lines. That said, the film really belongs to MacDowell and San Giacomo, who are totally believable as sisters and who, again, bring some needed depth to characters that, as written, could have been reduced to being mere clichés. (In the scenes between MacDowell and San Giacomo, it was less about what they said than how they said it.)

As I already stated, this was Steven Soderbergh’s feature debut. Soderbergh was 26 years old when he made this. Seen today, it’s an uneven but ultimately intriguing film. There are a few scenes where Soderbergh’s inexperience as a filmmaker comes through. For instance, John is written as being such a complete heel (and, in his final scene, he wears a ludicrous bow tie that practically screams, “EVIL,”) that it occasionally throws the film off-balance. You never believe that Graham would have been his friend, nor do you believe that Ann would have spent years putting up with his crap. The film’s final scene between Cynthia and Ann also feels a bit rushed and perfunctory. That said, this film shows that, from the start, Soderbergh was good with actors. Visually, Soderbergh takes a low-key approach and allows the cast to be the center of attention. It’s an actor’s film and Soderbergh wisely gets out of their way. In particular, Spader and San Giacomo have a way of making the most heavy-handed dialogue sound totally and completely natural.

It’s hard to imagine Soderbergh directing something like sex, lies, and videotape today. If the film were made today, Soderbergh wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to use overexposed film stock and to give cameos to George Clooney as Ann’s therapist and Matt Damon as the drunk. sex, lies, and videotape is a film that Soderbergh could only have made when he was young and still struggling to make his voice heard. It’s a flawed by intriguing film. If just for its historical significance, it’s a film that every lover of independent cinema should see at least once.

Previous Sundance Film Reviews:

A Movie A Day #282: Jack’s Back (1988, directed by Rowdy Herrington)

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

When med student Rick Westford (James Spader) is found hung at the free clinic where he worked, the police say that he committed suicide. Rick’s estranged twin brother, John (James Spader), does not agree and launches an investigation of his own. With the help of Rick’s co-worker, Chris (Cynthia Gibb), John discovers that Rick may have learned the identity of a serial killer who has been copying the crimes of Jack the Ripper and murdering prostitutes in Los Angeles. However, the killer knows that John is getting close to discovering his identity so the killer sets out to frame John not only for the prostitute murders but for the murder of his brother as well.

Jack’s Back is a movie that deserves to be better known than it is. James Spader gives two great performances, as both Rick and John. He and Cynthia Gibb make a good team and Jack’s Back actually does some unexpected things with their relationship. Jack’s Back was directed by Rowdy Herrington, who is best known for Roadhouse and Gladiator. Jack’s Back is part murder mystery, part action thriller, and part horror movie and Herrington does a good job of switching back and forth through Jack’s Back constantly shifting tone. Because this is a low-budget movie with a small cast, there really are not enough suspects to make the murderer’s identity a surprise but Spader, Herrington, and Gibb always keep things interesting.

This is a film that really does deserve to be better known.

What If Lisa Had All The Power And Picked The Oscar Nominees: 2015 Edition

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the Oscar nominations due to be announced tomorrow, now is the time that the Shattered Lens indulges in a little something called, “What if Lisa had all the power.” Listed below are my personal Oscar nominations. Please note that these are not the films that I necessarily think will be nominated. The fact of the matter is that the many of them will not. Instead, these are the films that would be nominated if I was solely responsible for deciding the nominees this year. Winners are starred and listed in bold.

(You’ll also note that I’ve added four categories, all of which I believe the Academy should adopt — Best Voice-Over Performance, Best Casting, Best Stunt Work, and Best Overall Use Of Music In A Film.)

(Click on the links to see my nominations for 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010!)

Best Picture
Brooklyn
*Carol*
Clouds of Sils Maria
Ex Machina
The Final Girls
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
Room
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton

Best Director
John Crowley for Brooklyn
Alex Garland for Ex Machina
F. Gary Gray for Straight Outta Compton
Todd Haynes for Carol
*George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road*
Denis Villeneuve for Sicario

Best Actor
John Cusack in Love & Mercy
Gerard Depardieu in Welcome To New York
Johnny Depp in Black Mass
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
Michael B. Jordan in Creed
*Jacob Tremblay in Room*

Best Actress
Katharine Isabelle in 88
Brie Larson in Room
Rooney Mara in Carol
Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn
Amy Schumer in Trainwreck
*Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina*

Best Supporting Actor
Michael Angarano in The Stanford Prison Experiment
Paul Dano in Love & Mercy
*Benicio Del Toro in Sicario*
Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Maggie
Sylvester Stallone in Creed

Best Supporting Actress
*Malin Akerman in The Final Girls*
Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy
Cate Blanchett in Carol
Jessica Chastain in Crimson Peak
Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight
Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria

Best Voice Over Performance
Jon Hamm in Minions
Richard Kind in Inside Out
Jason Mantzoukas in The Regular Show Movie
*Amy Poehler in Inside Out*
James Spader in Avengers: The Age Of Ultron
Steve Zahn in The Good Dinosaur

Best Original Screenplay
Clouds of Sils Maria
*Ex Machina*
The Final Girls
Inside Out
Sicario
Trainwreck

Best Adapted Screenplay
Brooklyn
*Carol*
The End of the Tour
Love & Mercy
Room
The Walk

Best Animated Film
*Inside Out*
The Good Dinosaur
Minions
The Peanuts Movie
The Regular Show Movie
Shaun The Sheep

Best Documentary Feature:
3 ½ Minutes 10 Bullets
*Amy*
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau
Prophet’s Prey
The Wolfpack

Best Foreign Language Film
The Connection
Gloria
The Mafia Only Kills In Summer
Misunderstood
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Contemplating Existence
*The Tribe*

Best Casting
*Brooklyn*
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Cinematography
Carol
Clouds of Sils Maria
The Green Inferno
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
*Sicario*

Best Costume Design
Brooklyn
*Carol*
Cinderella
Ex Machina
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Suffragette

Best Editing
Carol
Ex Machina
*Mad Max: Fury Road*
Room
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Black Mass
Brooklyn
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
*Maggie*
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Original Score
*Carol*
The Hateful Eight
It Follows
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Original Song
“Love Me Like You Do” from Fifty Shades of Grey
“See You Again” from Furious 7
“Better When I’m Dancing” from The Peanuts Movie
“Flashlight” from Pitch Perfect 2
“Feels Like Summer” from Shaun the Sheep
*“Who Can You Trust” from Spy*

Best Overall Use Of Music
Furious 7
The Hateful Eight
Joy
Love & Mercy
The Martian
*Straight Outta Compton*

Best Production Design
*Crimson Peak*
Ex Machina
The Final Girls
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Unfriended

Best Sound Editing
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Furious 7
The Revenant
*Sicario*
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton

Best Sound Mixing
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Furious 7
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
*Straight Outta Compton*

Best Stunt Work
Furious 7
Kingsman: The Secret Service
*Mad Max: Fury Road*
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Spy
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Visual Effects
Ant-Man
Avengers: The Age of Ultron
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
*Star Wars: The Force Awakens*
The Walk

Films By Number of Nominations:
11 Nominations – Carol
10 Nominations – Mad Max: Fury Road
9 Nominations – Sicario, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
8 Nominations – Ex Machina
7 Nominations – Brooklyn, Straight Outta Compton
5 Nominations – Furious 7, Inside Out, Love & Mercy, The Revenant, Room
4 Nominations – Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Clouds of Sils Maria, The Final Girls
3 Nominations – The Hateful Eight
2 Nominations – Black Mass, Creed, Crimson Peak, The Good Dinosaur, Maggie, Minions, The Peanuts Movie, The Regular Show Movie, Shaun the Sheep, Spy, Trainwreck, The Walk
1 Nomination – 3 ½ Minutes 10 Bullets, 50 Shades of Grey, 88, Amy, Ant-Man, Beasts of No Nation, Cinderella, The Connection, The End of The Tour, Gloria, Going Clear, The Green Inferno, It Follows, Joy, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, The Martian, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Misunderstood, A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, Pitch Perfect 2, Prophet’s Prey, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Suffragette, The Tribe, Unfriended, Welcome to New York, The Wolfpack

Films By Number of Oscars Won:
4 Oscars – Carol
3 Oscars – Mad Max: Fury Road, Sicario
2 Oscars – Ex Machina, Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton
1 Oscar – Amy, Brooklyn, Crimson Peak, The Final Girls, Maggie, Room, Spy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Tribe

Will the Academy be smart enough to agree with me on these picks? We will find out on Thursday!

Lisa and Evelyn at the Oscars

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #88: Dream Lover (dir by Nicholas Kazan)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1994 film Dream Lover is almost as strange as Zandalee.

Dream Lover opens with Roy Reardon (James Spader, giving a very James Spaderish performance) in the process of getting divorced. Sitting in court, he announces that he’s fired his attorney and that he’s no longer contesting the divorce. The judge informs him that, if he did contest the divorce, the final judgment would be in his favor. Roy says that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want to contest the divorce.

In the next scene, Roy’s ex-wife tells him that he’s a great guy and that it’s too bad that they couldn’t make the marriage work. They agree that they were just too different. She apologizes for cheating on him. Roy apologizes for hitting her. They agree that Roy has trust issues.

Over the next few minutes of the film, we follow Roy over the course of his new single life. We discover that Roy is a successful architect who is always attracted to brunette artists with troubled backstories. We also discover that Roy’s best friend is an obnoxious yet strangely likable guy named Norman (Larry Miller, who brings some unexpected depth to an obnoxious character). Norman begs Roy for money. Roy refuses to give it to him. Norman invites Roy to an art gallery and offers to set him up with a woman he knows. Roy agrees. And, seriously, the first 20 minutes of the film are so dominated by Norman that you’re kind of surprised when the film moves on and he’s no longer in every scene.

(But then again, that’s the type of film that Dream Lover is. Characters appear and vanish at random. Plot points are raised and then abandoned.)

Anyway, Roy’s date is disastrous. (“You don’t like me,” the woman says as tears stream down her face.) However, during the date, Roy meets Lena (Madchen Amick). When first they meet, they fight. Then they run into each other again at the grocery store and they hit it off. They go to dinner and, despite having a good time, Lena makes a point of not inviting Roy up to her apartment. The next night, Roy shows up unannounced and Lena does invite him up. At first, she’s cold towards him. Then they’re making love. And then they’re getting married. And then the clowns show up…

Oh yes, there are clowns in this movie. Roy is haunted by visions, where he’s at a carnival and random clowns pop up and say cryptic things to him. “How’s the family?” one asks. Another one continually reminds him that he doesn’t know much about Lena.

Years pass by. Lena and Roy have two children but it continues to nag at Roy that he doesn’t know anything about her. He worries that she’s cheating on him. He fears that the children are not his. Roy’s friends tell him that he’s being paranoid. Roy argues that paranoia is just a heightened form of consciousness.

Roy starts to investigate Lena’s past and here’s where I really laughed out loud. Roy finds out that Lena is from North Texas and goes down to her hometown. As Roy arrives in this tiny country town, the camera reveals a huge mountain in the background. Really, Dream Lover? A mountain in North Texas?

Anyway, for me, this film never really recovered from that mountain but, if you can overlook that geographic mistake, Dream Lover is occasionally enjoyable because it is such a weird film. James Spader is hot, Madchen Amick is beautiful, and the entire film features one of those huge and improbable twists that you simply have to see for yourself.

And you can see it because it’s currently available on Netflix!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHgCBol-b2I

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #83: Bad Influence (dir by Curtis Hanson)

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though it may seem like a lifetime ago, it’s only been 6 weeks since I started on my latest series of reviews. I am currently in the process of reviewing, in chronological order, 126 cinematic melodramas. I started with the 1927 classic Sunrise and now, 82 reviews later, I have finally reached the 1990s.

(Of course, when I started this series of reviews, I somehow managed to convince myself that it would only take me 3 weeks to review 126 films. Instead, it looks like it’s going to take two months. So, I was only off by 5 weeks.)

Let’s start the 90s by taking a quick look at a 1990 film called Bad Influence. I have to admit that, when I made out my list of films to review, Bad Influence was not even on my radar. I was planning on launching my look at the 90s with a review of Ghost. But then I saw The Avengers: Age of Ultron and I was so taken with James Spader’s performance as Ultron that I decided to add a few James Spader films to Embracing the Melodrama.

In Bad Influence, James Spader is cast somewhat against type. He plays Michael, who has a good job and is engaged to marry the wealthy and overbearing Ruth (who, I was surprised to learn from the end credits, was played by a pre-Desperate Housewives Marcia Cross). Michael should be happy but instead, he feels oddly dissatisfied with his life. He’s shy and meek and spends all of his time trying to do the right thing and conform to the petty demands of society.

One day, as he’s sitting in a bar, Michael makes the mistake of trying to flirt with a woman who is obviously having a bad day. When the woman’s boyfriend shows up, he tells Michael to leave. When Michael mutters that it’s a free country, the man responds by grabbing Michael. However, before the fight can go any further, handsome and charming Alex (played, somewhat inevitably, by Rob Lowe) pops up out of nowhere, smashes a bottle, and scares the man off.

Michael and Alex become fast friends, with Michael viewing the extroverted and confident Alex as being everything that he wants to be. (Meanwhile, Alex seems to appreciate the fact that Michael has money and a nice apartment.) Under the influence of Alex, Michael starts to stand up for himself and even manages to get a big promotion at work. At the same time, he also ends up cheating on his fiancée (while Alex films them) , helping Alex hold up a series of convenience stores, and beating up an obnoxious co-worker.

Ultimately, Bad Influence is a lot of sordid fun. It’s a bit like Fight Club, minus the satire and the big identity twist. (Michael and Alex are differently separate characters.) Director Curtis Hanson (who is perhaps best known for L.A. Confidential) brings a lot of style to the film’s tawdry fun and keeps the action moving quickly enough that you don’t have too much time to obsess over what doesn’t make sense.

Finally, James Spader and Rob Lowe are just a lot of fun to watch. Spader turns Michael into a sympathetic protagonist and Rob Lowe seems to be having a blast going full psycho in his role.

Bad Influence is a well-made B-movie and it’s a lot of fun. You can watch it below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lxJusJoAg