Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Scenes That I Love: Howard Beale says “We’re In A Lot Of Trouble” in Network

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everyone remembers the “Mad as Hell Speech” from Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satire, Network.

Personally, I think this scene below is just as good.  Replace “tube” with TikTok and Bluesky and you’ll have a pretty good explanation for why the world today is full of so many angry people who think they know more than they do.

(Usually, heavy-handed scenes annoy me.  Fortunately, much like David Fincher with Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network, Sidney Lumet knew the right directorial tone to take when translating Paddy Chayefsky’s script to the screen.  One shudders to think of what Network would have been like with a less skilled director behind the camera.)

Watch this scene the next time you’re wondering what happened to New York.

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Sidney Lumet Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of director Sidney Lumet, born 102 years ago on this date.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Sidney Lumet Films

Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Boris Kaufman)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Victor J. Kemper)

Network (1976, dir. Sidney Lumet, DP: Owen Roizman)

The Verdict (1981, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Andrzej Bartkowiak)

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 4.6 “The Dark Side”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, who cares about a concussion?

Episode 4.6 “The Dark Side”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on November 9th, 1988)

Going into the half, the Bulls are in danger of losing their first game of the season.  Dodds Company executive Michael Westwood (Paul Tuerpe) has suspended Bubba and Jethro for refusing to sell their bar.  “They draw a criminal element,” Michael said.  “They’re just football players!” TD Parker (OJ Simpson) snaps back.  Because Bubba and Jethro aren’t there to protect him, quarterback Doug Clayton (Scott Geyer) has been sacked and is now playing with a concussion.

During the coach’s locker room talk, Doug suddenly imagines that he’s in a Vietnam war film and that he and the team are soldiers on a mission to rescue Bubba and Jethro from a POW camp.  OJ Simpson dresses up like Rambo and leads the assault.  OJ kills a lot of people in this episode!

His fantasy over, the still dazed Doug heads back out to play the second half, this time with Bubba and Jethro once again blocking for him.

So, to make clear, Doug is playing with a severe concussion.  That’s really the entire plot of this episode.  The Vietnam stuff is occasionally amusing if overly broad.  Bubba and Jethro recreate The Deer Hunter’s Russian Roulette scene.  OJ Simpson still comes across as being oddly mild-mannered, even while firing a machine gun.  That said, it’s hard not to feel that Doug, who gave up a Rhodes scholarship to play professional football, is basically sacrificing his life for one game.

Oh well.  The Bulls win.  That’s the important thing.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat Boat 7.25 and 7.26 “”Dreamboat/Gopher, Isaac & the Starlet/The Parents/The Importance of Being Johnny/Julie and the Producer”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, everyone’s singing!

Episodes 7.25 and 7.26 “Dreamboat/Gopher, Isaac & the Starlet/The Parents/The Importance of Being Johnny/Julie and the Producer”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on May 5th, 1984)

A Hollywood film crew is setting sail on The Love Boat.  They’ll be shooting a movie called Dreamboat and the passengers and the crew will be acting as extras!  Dreamboat is a musical which means that, for the next two hours, everyone on the Pacific Princess is going to be randomly breaking out into song.

From what I’ve seen online, there’s a tendency to dismiss the musical episodes of The Love Boat but I have to admit that I kind of enjoy them.  Our Love Boat crew may not have been the most musically talented group of people but they all seemed to be enjoying the chance to show off and try to hit those high notes.  The songs themselves are nothing special.  It really is more of a community theater production than a Broadway show.  But I like community theater productions.  It’s always nice to see everyone trying their hardest and doing their best.

What’s happening on the ship in between songs?  A lot!

  • Star Faye Marsh (Juliet Prowse), who is insecure about her struggling career, holds up shooting with her demands.  The only time she’s truly happy is when she’s spending time with Doc Bricker, who is a longtime fan.
  • Gopher and Isaac try to get a role in the film.  When they fail to impress director Bennett Barton (Ben Vereen), they then team up to try to help a passenger named Shelley Rush (Melba Moore) get a role.
  • Julie is shocked to discover that the film’s producer, Marty Chenault (Dean Jones), is the brother of her former fiancé.  (Julie’s former fiancé was previously played by Tony Roberts so it was apparently decided to give Dean Jones a perm so that he could look more like Roberts.  It doesn’t really work)  Julie and Marty seem to be falling in love but is it Marty that Julie likes or is she just missing the former lover of her life?
  • Vicki has a crush on singer Johnny Lovett (Jimmy Osmond), who is nervous about making his film debut in Dreamboat.  Johnny sings Spinning Wheel while Vicki snaps her fingers.
  • Captain Stubing falls for Johnny’s mother, Angela (Alexis Smith).

There’s a lot of people to keep track of in this episode but ultimately, the stories don’t matter.  This episode is about singing and dancing and having a good time.  Everyone seems to be having fun.  I felt happy while watching them.

That said, I know what you’re wondering.

On a scale of 0 to 10, Julies scores a perfect ten this week.  When she first sees Marty, her eyes flash with an energy that is generated by more than just love.  This week, Julie never stop smiling and she often seems to be sniffing whenever she’s in the background.

And you know what?  As long as Julie’s happy, I’m happy for her.  This was a very happy episode.

Next week, we reach the end of the seventh season!

Scenes That I Love: Norma Desmond visits Cecil B. DeMille in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, if Cecil B. DeMille is known at all, it’s for directing Biblical epics like The Ten Commandments.  However, there was much more to DeMille’s career than just that one film.  DeMille got his start during the early silent era and he quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s first superstar directors.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, he survived the transition to sound and he remained a force in Hollywood at a time when many of the other silent directors were fading into obscurity.  DeMille played a key role in the founding of what would become the American film industry.  He began his career in 1914 and he made his last film in 1958.  That’s quite a legacy.

In 1950, when filming Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder needed someone to play the key role of one of Norma Desmond’s former directors.  Who better to represent the old style of Hollywood than Cecil B. DeMille?  In the scene below, DeMille plays himself.  Norma Desmond is, of course, played by Gloria Swanson, an actress whom DeMille had directed in the past.

From Sunset Boulevard, here’s a scene that I love.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Billy Wilder Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

June 22nd would have been the the 120th birthday of Billy Wilder.

Billy Wilder was born in what was-then Austria-Hungary and what is today Poland.  Having started his film career as a screenwriter in Germany, Wilder fled to the United States after the rise of Hitler.  (Many members of Wilder’s family would subsequently die in the Holocaust.)  He went on to establish himself as one of the great studio directors, a filmmaker who could seemingly master any genre and whose films were often distinguished by an irreverent wit and a welcome skepticism when it came to accepting any sort of conventional wisdom.  He made the type of films that could only be made by someone who had seen humanity at its worst but who also understood what people were capable of at their best.  Wilder made dramas that could make you laugh and comedies that could make you cry.  He was a master filmmaker, one whose work continues to influence directors to this day.

Belatedly, in honor of Billy Wilder’s legacy, the Shattered Lens presents….

4 Shots From 4 Billy Wilder Films

Double Indemnity (1944, dir by Billy Wilder, DP: John Seitz)

Sunset Boulevard (1950, dir by Billy Wilder, DP; John F. Seitz)

Sabrina (1954, dir by Billy Wilder, DP: Charles Lang)

The Apartment (1960, dir by Billy Wilder, DP: Ernest Laszlo)

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.8 “Heat In The Hole”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, Chris is finally sent to prison.

Episode 4.8 “Heat In The Hole”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on October 11th, 1998)

This is the dumbest episode of Pacific Blue yet and that’s really saying something.

The incarcerated are being murdered at the local women’s prison so, of course, a bicycle cop is sent in undercover.  Actually, two bicycle cops are sent in.  The homicide squad wants Chris to go in and pretend to be a prisoner.  TC gets jealous of the hunky homicide detective who is in charge of the case so he assigns Bobby to go undercover as a prison guard and keep an eye on Chris.

This is one of those women’s prisons where everyone is young and attractive (no meth addicts here!) and apparently the official uniform is a tank top.  It doesn’t take long for Chris to establish herself as being tough and willing to fight.  Every prisoner comes to respect her, which is important because, when a riot breaks out, Chris reveals she’s a cop and that she needs the help of the prisoners.

And the prisoners are cool with that.

Seriously.

“Ignore the cop part,” someone says, “Think of how she’s treated us!”

That’s the power of being a bicycle cop.  You can show up in a prison, beat people up for two days, betray everyone’s confidence, and the prisoners will still forgive you for …. reasons, I guess.

Needless to say, if you’re an undercover cop in prison, do not reveal the truth in the middle of a prison riot.  That might work on Pacific Blue but it’s probably the dumbest thing you can do in real life.

While TC is sitting around at home worried, Monica sees this as her chance to make a move on him.  Considering that TC and Chris haven’t stopped arguing since they impulsively got married in Vegas, maybe Monica isn’t really the problem here.  I know that we’re supposed to be rooting for TC and Chris but neither one of them is particularly likable.  I would not want to go out on a couples date with them.

At the end of this episode, two corrupt prison guards are arrested.  Chris leaves the prison.  TC pretends to be happy about it.

This was a dumb episode.

 

Insomnia File #76: Hackers (dir by Iain Softley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you’re having trouble getting to sleep tonight, you can always go over to Prime or Tubi and enjoy 1995’s Hackers.

Hackers is a film about …. well, it’s right there in the title.  They’re hackers.  They’re cool.  They’re hot.  They’re sexy.  And they are way into computers!  They know everything that there is to know about exploring the internet, breaking into protected accounts, and rewriting code.  They know all about viruses, both how to spread them and how to cure them.  And they’re all teenagers!  The coolest kids at school are totally into computers and they’ve all got nicknames.

Hackers is very much a film of the 90s.  When this film came out, the Internet was still exotic and it was assumed that anyone who could write code had to be an eccentric genius with a larger-than-life personality.  Johnny Lee Miller is Dade Murphy, a.k.a. Zero Cool.  When he was a kid, he almost crashed the global economy.  Matthew Lillard is Emmanuel Goldstein, also known as Cereal Killer.  Lillard is hyperactive and he yells a lot but one can be sure that he’ll be a Silicon Valley billionaire by the time he’s 22.  Angelina Jolie is Kate Libby, also known as Acid Burn.  Hackers was early in Jolie’s career, back when she had so much personality and charisma that she seemed like she might literally step off of the screen and ask you if you wanted to step outside to smoke a joint or maybe do something a bit wilder.  All of the hackers go to high school together.  They all hack computers together.  And they all find themselves targeted by The Plague (Fisher Stevens), a super hacker who is so evil that he rides a skateboard to work.

It’s a perfectly ludicrous film but it’s so cheerfully and excessively stylish and Miller and Jolie have so much chemistry that it doesn’t really matter whether or not the film makes any sense.  This is one of those films where The Plague hatches his evil scheme while standing in a neon room surrounded by screens, as if the film is suggesting that The Plague actually lives in the middle of the Internet.  The music is early EDM.  The action is fast.  The cast has charisma to burn.  This film is about as 90s as a film can get.

Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie (who was 20 when she shot this film) were married shortly after the film’s release and, though the marriage may not have lasted, their chemistry is explosive.  For lack of a better term, they are totally into each other and it’s exiting to watch them interact.  The end credits roll over a scene of them undressing and making love in a pool and it’s the perfect ending for this film, a jolt of energy that feels like the proper way to celebrate having saved the world from collapse.  It’s also the type of thing that few studio films would be willing to do today.  Somehow, 2026 has turned out to be more puritanical than 1995 and progressiveness has, for many, come to mean either chastity or performative asexuality.  It’s as if both Hollywood and many modern critics have been captured by Orwell’s Anti-Sex League.  (Just consider the bizarre reaction that many had to Christopher Nolan including a sex scene in Oppenheimer.)  Hackers may not be a realistic portrayal of programmers or hackers but it is reminder of a time when movies were not only fun but they were also sexy.  Watching the film, one regrets that Johnny Lee Miller never became a big star and that Angelina Jolie is no longer the unpredictable force a nature that she once was.

Hackers is a trip to a time that may have only existed in our imaginations but it’s still nice to go back and visit on occasion.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy
  70. Shortcut to Happiness
  71. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
  72. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders II
  73. Don’t Kill It
  74. Listen To Me
  75. 300 Miles For Stephanie

Lifetime Film Review: The Man In The Window (dir by Richard Switzer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After her husband is killed in a car accident, Sarah (Teri Polo) retreats to their gigantic suburban home.  She spends her time painting pictures and resisting the efforts of her daughter (Jonetta Kaiser) and her best friend (Jamie-Lynne Sigler) to get her to move on with her life.  To me, it seemed pretty obvious that Sarah was deeply depressed and everyone should really have just backed off and let her recover at her own pace.  However, in the film, six months have passed since her husband’s death and, in the world of Lifetime, that means that it’s time to get back on the dating scene.  Sarah’s daughter assures her that “Dad” would have wanted her to move on.

(Yes, I’m sure that Dad is sitting in the afterlife, thrilled at the idea of his widow finding a new lover less than a year after his death.)

Sarah accompanies her daughter to a speed-dating event.  She goes on 20 dates in two hours.  19 of those dates are duds.  But the twentieth — oh my God.  Jack (Dylan Walsh) is handsome and successful and, as a widower, he understands what Sarah is going through.  Even more importantly, Jack has just moved in across the street from Sarah!  What a romantic coincidence!  Soon, Sarah is falling for Jack and Jack appears to be falling for Sarah.

But then the neighbor turns up dead.

For reasons that aren’t really clear, Sarah doesn’t seem to have really liked Sylvia (Deborah Rennard) that much.  Sylvia was nosy, the type of neighbor who stood out on her balcony and kept an eye on what everyone else was doing.  Sarah and her daughter referred to Sylvia as being “the neighborhood watch” and they would go out of their way to avoid talking to Sylvia.  I think the film means for us to sympathize with Sarah but, seeing as how we only see Sylvia being polite and friendly to Sarah, it’s a bit difficult to really be on Sarah’s side.  If anything, in this case, Sarah seems like the bad and judgmental neighbor.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, though.  Someone breaks into Sylvia’s house and strangles her.  And Sarah comes to suspect that the culprit might have been …. JACK!

This Lifetime movie had a fairly interesting mystery.  I will admit that I figured out what was going on long before Sarah did but then again, I’ve probably watched a lot more Lifetime films than she has.  The best thing about the film is that everyone lived in an extremely big house.  It’s always nice to see that the Lifetime tradition of huge suburban houses is still alive.  I also liked the fact that Sarah had enough money that she could deal with her grief by painting for six months.  There’s no tragedy so great that it can’t lead to more leisure time.

That said, Sarah was not a particularly likable protagonist.  I think if the film had been set a year after her husband’s death, as opposed to just six months, I probably would have had more sympathy for both her and her daughter.  As it was, it seemed like Sarah’s daughter was trying to force her mom to move on too quickly and it also seemed like Sarah was constantly allowing herself to be pushed into a situation for which she wasn’t emotionally ready.  Jamie-Lynne Sigler’s character was actually far more interesting than Sarah’s.  Maybe Sigler and Teri Polo should have switched roles.  There’s no way Sigler would have allowed herself to be guilted into speed dating.

Oh well.  It may not have been a perfect film but at least the houses were lovely to look at.