Lifetime Film Review: Her Deadly Sugar Daddy (dir by Brooke Nevin)

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that the term “sugar daddy” just amuses the Hell out of me.

Seriously, I can’t hear anyone use that phrase without starting to laugh. I mean, it’s just such a ridiculous combination of words. I remember that Dr. Phil went through this phase where, every week, he did a show about irresponsible millennials who, instead of getting a job, were going online and visiting what Phil called, “sugar daddy websites.” Once you’ve heard Dr. Phil say, “sugar daddy” twenty times, it’s hard to take the term seriously.

Needless to say, when it comes to Lifetime films, sugar daddies are a popular topic. I’ve lost track of the number of Lifetime films that I’ve seen in which a young woman decides that the only way to make ends meet is to start accepting money from older, wealthier men. I mean, it seems like a good idea. You get to dress up and you get a good dinner and you get to spend time in a really nice house and sometimes, you even get to fly on a private plane. But, in the end, it’s never worth all the trouble. First off, your parents and your friends will inevitably judge you and say that they’re ashamed of you. Number two, there’s always a good chance that your sugar daddy will either 1) die of a heart attack at an inopportune time or 2) end up becoming obsessed with you. To quote an anti-meth commercial that I recently watched on YouTube, “Don’t do it. Not even once.”

In Her Deadly Sugar Daddy, Bridget (Lorynn York) gets involved in the world of being an escort not just because of the money ($10,000 a week!) but also because she needs something write about. Bridget and her friend, Lindsey (Aubrey Reynolds), have recently moved over to Los Angeles from Arizona. (This film makes it sound as if Arizona is literally on the other side of the world from California.) The daughter of a famous novelist, Bridget wants to make a living as a writer. However, she doesn’t want to write books, at least not yet. Instead, she wants to blog. Unfortunately, when she goes to the corporate headquarters of Swerve.com, she’s told that she doesn’t have enough experience to be one of their writers. She’s told that she needs to start her own personal blog and build up a following before she can even think of writing for a fine site like Swerve.

(Hey, it worked for that Movie Bob guy.)

A bad date leads to Bridget meeting Anthony (Brent Bailey), a bearded businessman who ends up giving Bridget a job. He needs someone to keep track of his schedule for him. Bridget agrees. He also needs someone to entertain older male clients. After a little bit of hesitation, Bridget agrees to that too. After all, she needs something to blog about, right?

Unfortunately, Anthony has an obsessive streak and some control issues. Add to that, he doesn’t particularly want his employees blogging about his business or, for that matter, taking pictures around the office. Soon, Bridget’s life is in danger. If she survives, she’ll at least have something to write about….

Her Deadly Sugar Daddy delivers what you typically want out of a Lifetime film like this. Anthony owns a big house and he works in a big office and Bridget’s clothes are to die for and an important life lesson is learned at the end of it all. Brent Bailey is properly charming and intimidating as Anthony and Lorynn York (who has appeared in several of these films) is sympathetic as Bridget. I have to admit that, on a personal level, I enjoyed the film because I’m a blogger who has worked as a personal assistant so I could relate to Bridget. That said, I’m not interested in working at Swerve. Through the Shattered Lens is perfect for me.

Lifetime Film Review: The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate (dir by Mark Gantt)

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, put yourself in this situation.

You’re an aspiring writer, which is a really nice way of saying that you don’t have much money. Because you haven’t paid your rent in four months, you’ve just gotten kicked out of your apartment. As bad as that is, you can take some comfort from the fact that your incredibly hot boyfriend owns a really nice and really big apartment and he probably won’t have any issue with letting you live there. I mean, he’s always eager for you to sleep over so why not just move in? So, you head over to his place to give him the news and….

….some blonde that you’ve never seen before opens the door and asks you who you are!

Okay, now you’re in trouble. Not only do you not have an apartment but you also don’t have a boyfriend. You have no money and you have no family to fall back on. While many writers wrote some of their best work while living in boxcars and drifting across the country, you’re not sure that’s what you want to do with the next few years of your life. So, you get on social media and you let the world know that you need a job. ANY JOB!

That’s what happens to Olivia (Carrie Wampler), the character at the center of The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate. It all happens during the first 10 minutes or so of this movie and it does make Olivia into an instantly likable character. There’s no way that you can’t sympathize with her because everything that could go wrong in her life has gone wrong in just the course of a few hours. When Olivia is contacted by Cassidy (Jordyn Aurora Aquino) and told that there is a job opportunity for her but that it requires Olivia to be discreet, you can’t blame Olivia for jumping at the opportunity. What else is Olivia going to do? Starve?

It turns out that Cassidy works for Ava (Brianne Davis) and Hayden (Carl Beukes) von Richter, a celebrity couple who, after Ava’s last few films flopped at the box office, are now mostly famous for being famous. Ava and Hayden hire Olivia to act as a surrogate to carry their child. Olivia will get $150,000 once the baby is born and she’ll get to stay at Ava and Hayden’s fabulous mansion. The main conditions seem reasonable: Olivia will have to be discreet and she’ll also have to stay healthy and be regularly checked out by Ava’s army of doctors. Olivia agrees.

And, at first, everything seems okay. Ava and Hayden are charming, even if Ava is a bit high-strung and Hayden often seems like he’s lost in thought. Olivia bonds with Cassidy and chef Peter (Kenneth Miller). Ava can be demanding but that makes sense and …. wait, a minute, did Ava just do cocaine in a public restaurant? And what exactly is Hayden doing with that hypodermic needle?

Needless to say, Ava and Hayden are not as perfect as they initially seem and Olivia soon starts to have doubts about whether or not they should even be parents. Hayden, especially, seems to get creepier (and more and more gropey) with each passing day. Soon, that fabulous mansion starts to feel like a prison and Olivia comes to realize that her employers are even more dangerous than she originally suspected….

The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate is a film that’s very much of the moment. We live in a society that is obsessed with celebrities, even faded ones like Ava and Hayden. We also live in a world where ordinary people — like Olivia — can actually connect with celebrities via social media. At the same time, though people may not always be quick to admit it, we all secretly suspect that most celebrities are actually crazy and probably have a dungeon underneath their mansion. Even our favorites are often suspected of harboring dark secrets, as seen by the eagerness of the twitter mob to cancel their former heroes. As such, we can all relate to Olivia’s willingness to be a part of Ava and Hayden’s seemingly glamorous life while, at the time, Ava and Hayden’s “quirks” serve to confirm what we’ve always suspected about what goes on behind closed doors in Beverly Hills and on Park Avenue.

The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate strikes a good balance between thriller and satire. It embraces the melodrama while also retaining enough self-awarness to be fun. Brianne Davis and Carl Beukes are both entertainingly sleazy as the celebrity couple from Hell while Carrie Wampler is sympathetic and likable in the role of Olivia. This is an entertaining Lifetime movie that will be enjoyed by anyone who has ever looked at a celebrity tweet and thought to themselves, “What a weirdo.”

Film Review: 12 Strong (dir by Nicolai Fuglsig)

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

12 Strong begins with a montage of terror.

The World Trade Center is bombed in 1993. Planes are bombed. Ships are attacked. Bill Clinton gives a speech in which he impotently condemns Al-Qaeda. Finally, we reach September 11th, 2001. Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) is playing with his daughter when she suddenly looks up at the TV behind him. “Look, Daddy,” she says. Nelson turns around and sees The World Trade Center on fire.

Even though he’s recently announced his intention to retire, Nelson reports for duty. Despite the skepticism of his commanding officer (Rob Riggle), Nelson and 11 others are sent into Afghanistan. Their mission is to meet up with a warlord named Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban) and to capture territory from the Taliban. Nelson is initially given 6 weeks to complete this task. Nelson replies that he’ll get it done in three, before the harsh Afghan winter makes it impossible to move through the mountains.

Among the actors who make up Nelson’s team: Michael Shannon, Trevante Rhodes, Austin Stowell, and Geoff Stults. Fortunately, the cast is made up of familiar faces. Even though you might not learn everyone’s name, you still feel as if you know them because you’ve seen all of them playing similar roles in other movies. (After his performance in Moonlight, it’s a bit disappointing to see Trevante Rhodes playing such a minor supporting role in his follow-up but still, he’s a charismatic actor and he has enough screen presence that he definitely makes an impression.) Somewhat inevitably, Michael Pena plays the funny member of the team. It’s not a 21st century action film without Michael Pena providing comedic relief.

(That’s actually a little unfair to Michael Pena, who is a good actor and who gives a pretty good performance in 12 Strong. It’s just that he’s played this role so many times that it’s almost become a cliché that every action movie will feature Micheal Pena making jokes.)

When the team first meets up with Dostum, there’s immediate tension between the supposed allies. As Dostum puts it, the United States only cares about getting rid of the Taliban but they don’t care about what will happen afterward. When Dostum looks at Nelson, he immediately announces that Nelson does not have killer eyes. Everyone else on the team has killer eyes but not Nelson. Dostum and his men are even less impressed when they see the Americans struggling to ride the horses that are required to get through the mountains. Will Nelson win Dostum’s respect? Will he develop the eyes of a killer?

You probably already know the answer to that. There’s really not a single moment in 12 Strong that you won’t see coming. As soon as Dostum says that Nelson needs to prove himself in battle, you know that he’ll get a chance to do just that. As soon as another soldier talks about home, you know that he’s going to be seriously wounded. When you first spot the child soldiers among Dostum’s forces and you see one of them give Nelson a nervous smile, you know that child’s probably going to be one of the first casualties of the attack.

12 Strong is a predictable movie but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad one. It’s a well-made film, with the cast all giving strong performances and director Nicolai Fuglsig doing a good job with the battle scenes. My heart was racing during the film’s final battle. New Mexico doubled for Afghanistan and the film features some truly stunning shots of the mountainous landscape. The film even makes a point about why, after 17 years, there still doesn’t appear to be any end in sight to the War in Afghanistan.

Clocking in at 2 hours and 9 minutes, 12 Strong is probably about thirty minutes too long. It’s a predictable movie but it’s well-made and the fact that it’s based on a true story does make it a bit more poignant than it would be otherwise. It’s not a bad war film, particularly for January.