Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #20: I Didn’t Kill My Sister (dir by Jason Bourque)

Posted on July 6, 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!)

“And now, for tonight’s top story, we go to Lois Summer, on assignment in Richardson, Texas.”

“Thank you, Mason. For the past week and a half, one red-haired film critic has been attempting what some people would call the impossible. Lisa Marie Bowman is trying to clean out her DVR by watching the 40 movies that she recorded between March and June. She just finished rewatching the 20th film on her DVR, I Didn’t Kill My Sister.”

“Now, Lois, for our viewers who may not know, what exactly is a DVR?”

“Get with the times, Mason. According to Ms. Bowman, she watched I Didn’t Kill My Sister when it originally premiered on Lifetime. The date was May 14th and she says that she specifically watched the film with her sister, Erin. Ms. Bowman says that both she and her sister enjoyed the film the first that they watched it.”

“Did she say how she felt about the film the second time she saw it…?”

“Dammit, I’m getting there, Mason. Ms. Bowman says that I Didn’t Kill My Sister was just as enjoyable the second time that she watched it. In fact, she said that it is a very entertaining murder mystery, one that almost feels like an old-fashioned whodunit. She described the film as being stylish without being gaudy and melodramatic in the best possible way.”

“Is there really a good way to be melodramatic?”

“According to Ms. Bowman, there is. For the rest of her review, we now go directly to Lisa Marie Bowman…”

Hi, everyone! Lisa here. Anyway, as Lois was just saying, I enjoyed I Didn’t Kill My Sister both times that I watched it. It’s a fun Lifetime murder mystery, one of those things that works best when you just relax, sit back, and let yourself be entertained. If you like Lifetime movies, you’ll like this one!

The film tells the story of two sisters. Carmen Pearson (Gina Holden) is a publicly beloved and privately loathed local celebrity. She co-anchors City View with her husband, Mason (Chris William Martin). She has a beautiful house, a nice pool, and great hair. She also has a rebellious teenage daughter (Sarah Desjardins) and a sister named Heather (Nicholle Tom). Heather would love to have Carmen’s life but, instead, she’s stuck working as her sister’s private assistant.

(One of the best things about the film is the way that it contrasts Carmen’s mansion — complete with luxurious pool — with Heather’s cluttered, one-story house.)

However, Carmen’s life is not perfect. She’s in the middle of a nasty divorce and Mason even seems to be flirting with her sister. When her daughter screams, “I HATE YOU!!!,” she sounds like she actually means it. And, of course, there’s the ambitious reporter (Dominika Jullet) who wants her job and the lawyer (Ona Grauer) who may have an agenda of her own. When Carmen is discovered floating face down in her pool, everyone’s a suspect!

Including Heather!

Heather knows she’s innocent but the detective (Sharon Taylor) in charge of the case seems to feel otherwise. Can Heather solve her sister’s murder before she ends up getting arrested!?

I Didn’t Kill My Sister is a fun, little whodunit. Gina Holden has a lot of fun being bitchy during the first 15 minutes of the film and Chris William Martin is brilliantly sleazy in the role of Mason. Watch it the next time that it’s on and see if you can solve the mystery before Heather does!

Back to you, Lois.

“Back to you, Mason.”

“Thank you, Lois. How much fun is a barrel of monkeys? That’s what a truck driver discovered today while making a delivery to the San Diego Zoo. That story and Newy Scruggs with sports, next…”

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #19: Jack of the Red Hearts (dir by Janet Grillo)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 19th film on my DVR was Jack of The Red Hearts, which I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on April 27th.

I have to admit that I was a little bit surprised as I watched Jack of the Red Hearts. While it seemed to have a typical Lifetime premise — a runaway fakes her identity and moves in with a troubled family — it didn’t feel like a typical Lifetime film. For one thing, the cast was made up of actors like Soul Surfer‘s AnnaSophia Robb, The Bling Ring‘s Israel Broussard, and the X-Men‘s Famke Janssen. None of these people are exactly big stars but they’re still not Lifetime regulars. While the premise may have been Lifetime-friendly, the portrayal of an 11 year-old autistic girl (played by Taylor Richardson) definitely seemed a bit more realistic than one would usually expect from a made-for-TV movie. Finally, there were more than a few occasions when it was obvious that some of the dialogue had been overdubbed, in order to make the language more appropriate for television.

So, I did some research and I discovered that Jack of the Red Hearts was not originally made for Lifetime. Instead, it’s an indie film that was directed by Janet Grillo and written by Jennifer Deaton, both of whom drew on their own experiences of raising an autistic child. Jack of the Red Hearts did the festival circuit in 2015 and even got a very limited theatrical release back in February.

Jack of the Red Hearts tells the story of Jack (AnnaSophia Robb), an 18 year-old high school drop out who is on probation. When we first meet Jack, she’s helping her younger sister, Coke (Sophia Anna Caruso), break out of foster care. AnnaSophia and Sophia Anna are both totally believable as sisters and their scenes together are so believable that you even forgive the fact that they’re named Jack and Coke. Jack wants to take care of her sister but she’s broke and she’s homeless. In order to rescue Coke from the foster home, Jack has to get a job and enough money to rent an apartment.

And what better way to get a job than by stealing someone else’s identity! After Jack sees some flyers asking “Are you good with children?,” she shows up at the home of Kay (Famke Janssen) and Mark (Scott Cohen). Jack claims that her name is Donna and that she’s the nanny that Kay previously hired over the telephone. Despite having neither training nor a high school degree, Jack is soon taking care of autistic Glory (Taylor Richardson).

Glory is nonverbal and sometimes violent and her family, while loving, struggles to adjust to not only her behavior but also their inability to understand what the world is like for her. (The film occasionally tries to show us the world through Glory’s eyes and it works a lot better than you might expect.) When Jack initially reacts to Glory’s behavior by snapping at her and occasionally getting rough (at one point, she slaps away Glory’s hand when Glory suddenly tries to grab food off her plate), you wince but at the same time, you understand Jack’s frustration. Richardson, who is not autistic in real life, fully commits herself to the role and the film deserves a lot of credit for not sentimentalizing her condition or its effect on her family. Unlike most Lifetime films, this one takes place in a frequently cluttered and chaotic house and Kay is portrayed as literally being on the verge of a neurotic meltdown.

Though it takes a while, Jack starts to care about Glory and finally, she even starts to make some progress with Glory. And again, it should be pointed out that the film does not portray Jack as a miracle worker, though Jack does watch The Miracle Worker on television at one point. The progress is slow but, the film says, it is progress and that’s the important thing. Jack also develops an attraction to Glory’s brother, Robert (Israel Broussard). Robert, however, is the only member of the family to suspect that Jack may not be telling the truth about who she is…

Because Jack of the Red Hearts was on the Lifetime Movie Network, I kept waiting for the scene in which Jack would either seduce Kay’s husband or try to kidnap Glory. Thankfully, that scene never came, though the film still has its share of melodramatic moments. Jack of the Red Hearts is, in many ways, a predictable film but it’s also an achingly sincere film and Robb, Broussard, Janssen, and especially Taylor Richardson all give excellent and empathetic performances.

This is a sweetly well-intentioned and bravely unsentimental film and definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #18: House of Darkness (dir by Patrick DeLuca)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 18th film on the DVR was the Lifetime original movie, House of Darkness.

House of Darkness is a film that asks a question that I’m sure we have all asked ourselves at least once: “What if Lifetime made a horror film? What would that be like?”

Well, apparently, it would be like every single horror film that you’ve ever seen. There is not a single cliché that does not show up in House of Darkness. It starts out with the promise that we are about see a true story and hey, maybe it was! After all, the film reminded me of a lot of other horrors film — Amityville, Paranormal Activity, and others — that were supposedly based on true stories.

Kelly (Sara Fletcher) and Brian (Gunner Wright) are a married couple but they are also a Lifetime couple, which means that their marriage is in trouble! Brian is a carpenter who has a difficult time opening up emotionally. Kelly is a massage therapist, which Brian appears to think is the equivalent of working in a brothel. How bad is their marriage? When Brian sees Kelly wearing sexy lingerie in an effort to liven things up, he responds by going out to the garage.

Fortunately, Brian and Kelly have been seeing a marriage counselor. The counselor suggests that they both start keeping a video diary, which allows the film to occasionally so some found footage shots. (That’s the Paranormal Activity influence.) If the video diaries don’t help, maybe moving to a new house in San Francisco will do the trick!

And you know what? It’s a great house but the owners didn’t want much money for it. It’s almost as if they were trying to get rid of the house. I wonder what that could mean!

Anyway, Kelly and Brian’s daughter is soon wandering around, speaking in a demonic voice while giving everyone Hillary Clinton-style death glares, and encouraging her friends to wander into the basement. Meanwhile, Brian is acting even weirder and suddenly, it’s like he can’t go anywhere without bringing an axe with him!

And then there’s the neighbors. A sexy woman and a superhot man occasionally appear standing in front of the house across the road. The woman smiles at Brian, tempting him to … to do what? I guess that the idea here is to encourage Brian to start doing his Jack Nicholson impersonation but I wasn’t sure. I suspect, to a certain extent, that the ghosts and the evil spirits and whatever the Hell is in the house don’t really have any goals beyond doing the usual horror stuff. They probably said, “Look! A stationary camera! Let’s go knock shit around!”

Anyway, House of Darkness is pretty much just a festival of nonstop clichés and scenes lifted from other horror films. It’s never really scary, largely because it’s a made-for-TV movie and, since it’s Lifetime, you know that it’s not going to be disturbing or graphic like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. Without any intentional humor or unexpected scares, House of Darkness is largely forgettable.

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

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.)

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.

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.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #13: Final Destiny (dir by Michel Poulette)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In an effort to clean out my DVR and make room for endless episodes of reality television (not to mention the Olympics), I am currently in the process of watching the 40* films that I recorded from the beginning of March to the end of June. The 13th film on my DVR was Final Destiny, which originally aired on the Lifetime movie network on April 3rd.

This will be a quick one. Usually, I try to come up with at least 500 words for every movie that I review but it’s going to be a struggle as far as Final Destiny is concerned. There’s really just not much to say about this particular film.

According to the imdb, Final Destiny was originally entitled Brace For Impact and I assume that the title was changed in an effort to fool viewers into thinking that Final Destiny had something to do with the Final Destination films. Well, Final Destiny does start out with a scenario that could be lifted from one of those films. Sofia Gilchrest (Kerry Condon) gets on an airplane with her brother, Shane (Ian Lake). Right before the plane is scheduled to take off, Sofia gets the feeling that something bad is going to happen. She freaks out and she’s kicked off the plane. The plane then takes off and crashes, killing her brother.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that this film has in common with Final Destination. The plane crash does not lead to a series of increasingly macabre accidents as death attempts to correct itself by killing Sofia. Tony Todd never shows up to talk about destiny. There’s no humor, which is a shame because Final Destiny could have used some humor.

(The only humor comes from the fact that, beyond ripping off a more successful franchise, Final Destiny makes absolutely no sense as a title! That said, Brace For Impact was kind of a crappy title too…)

Instead, Final Destiny turns into a plodding procedural. It turns out that Sofia is a flight crash investigator, which means that she now gets to investigate the crash that her killed brother. Or, at least, it would if not for the fact that all of Sofia’s colleagues are totally corrupt and have no faith in her abilities. It turns out that, in the past, Sofia has been too quick to assume that every plane crash was the result of a conspiracy. Plus, she is such a careful investigator that it sometimes takes her years to determine why a plane crashed. The government wants quick answers but Sofia would rather be right than be fast!

But here’s the problem with the movie: Sofia is a totally unlikable character. That’s a bold statement to make about someone who is investigating the death of her brother but, even with that added layer of motivation, Sofia still comes across as being shrill, self-centered, and generally unpleasant.

It also doesn’t help that the cause of the crash is pretty obvious from the start. About an hour into the movie, Sofia figures out that it was the act of domestic terrorists and then she spends the rest of the movie telling everyone that it was the work of domestic terrorists and then, at the end of the movie, she’s like, “Yep, domestic terrorism,” and that’s pretty much it.

There, of course, are a few subplots but none of the subplots are that interesting. Sofia’s mother is shocked to discover that Shane was gay. Sofia’s best friend is discriminated against because of his religion. Sofia is angry because she didn’t get a promotion. It’s all really predictable and it doesn’t add up too much.

In the end, Final Destiny didn’t even feel like a movie. It felt like a pilot for a TV show that nobody would want to watch. If ever a film needed Tony Todd to show up and start talking about life and death, it was this one.

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*Yes, I know that I originally said I would have to watch 36 films to clean out my DVR but I recorded 4 more films since making that statement. So now, it’s 40 films but I’m still hoping to be finished with the series by the end of next week.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #9: The Perfect Daughter (dir by Brian Herzlinger)

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Anne of the Thousand Days, the next film on my DVR was The Perfect Daughter. The Perfect Daughter originally aired on March 26th on Lifetime. According to the imdb, it was originally called The Carpenter’s Daughter but I imagine Lifetime changed the title so that it could fit in with films like The Perfect Teacher.

(Add to that, The Carpenter’s Daughter sounds like it should be another one of those films where Tom Hanks argues that Jesus survived the crucifixion and ran off with the Magdalene.)

Anyway, the perfect daughter of the title is Natalie Parish (Sadie Calvano). Natalie seems to have a great future in front of her. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s responsible. She has the grades to get into the Ivy League college of her choice. On top of all that, despite being shy, she has just been elected student council president!

Oh sure, not everything is perfect for Natalie. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s frequently insecure. She idolizes a mother that she’s never met and her father, Martin (Brady Smith), may be a hunky blue-collar type of guy but he’s also extremely over protective. He worries that Natalie will grow up to be like her mother, who apparently was not the saint that Natalie believes her to be.

Martin grows even more concerned when, while driving home one night, he comes across his daughter in the middle of the road. She went to a party, she got drunk, and she had sex with popular jock Sam Cahill (Reiley McClendon)! Martin freaks out and takes his daughter to the hospital, causing her nonstop embarrassment at school. He also demands that Sam be arrested for raping his daughter.

Of course, what Martin is overlooking is that Sam did not rape his daughter. As Natalie tells him, the sex was consensual. Martin is shocked but he’ll be even more shocked when Natalie reveals that she’s pregnant.

Complicating matters is that Martin is working for Sam’s father, the snobbish Bruce Cahill (Parker Stevenson). The film also suggests that Martin may be in love with Bruce’s wife, Julie (Meredith Salenger).

What I was wondering, as I watched the film, is why Natalie was chasing after Sam when Martin’s business partner, Nick (Johann Urb), was so much hotter. And he was also single! Seriously, Sam was a nice guy and everything but Nick epitomized this sort of sweaty, manly glory, the type of sexy that otherwise seems to be limited to the guys that you see in pickup truck commercials.

ANYWAY — The Perfect Daughter may sound like a typical Lifetime film but actually, it’s not. Though there is a little bit of melodrama towards the end, The Perfect Daughter is more of a character study of an overprotective father struggling to accept that his daughter is growing up. The story has a bit more nuance than the typical Lifetime story but, at the same time, the decision to tone down the melodrama comes at a cost. The Perfect Daughter is a well-acted and intelligent film but it’s not a particularly fun movie.

In the end, it’s okay but it’s no Perfect Teacher.