Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For After Hours!

Posted on 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 Martin Scorsese’s After Hours!

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.

After Hours is available on Prime!  See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark bring together a family.

Episode 3.4 “Another Kind of War, Another Kind of Peace”

(Dir by Dan Gordon, originally aired on October 15th, 1986)

Clancy (Eugene Roche) is an old man who has never gotten over the death of his son in Vietnam.  He lives alone in an apartment in Los Angeles.  His only friend is Guido Liggio (Ernest Borgnine), an Italian taxi driver who lives next door.  Guido, who came to this country as a refugee during World War II, is the type of salt-of-the-Earth character who says stuff like, “Clancy, how come you no be a-nice to the people?”  And Clancy is the type of bitter old man who says stuff like, “Don’t ask me for money, ya bum!”

Jonathan and Mark show up at Clancy’s apartment and inform him that they work for an agency that brings refugees to the United States.  They explain that Clancy’s son had a child in Vietnam.  Now, both Clancy’s grandchild and the grandchild’s mother are in the United States and they need somewhere to stay.  Clancy is angered by the news, claiming that the mother is lying and just trying to get into the country.  But eventually, he agrees to allow Lan Nguyen (Haunani Minn) and Michael Nguyen (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) to stay in his apartment.  He even agrees to give Michael lunch money so that Michael won’t starve at school.  Otherwise, Clancy says that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with either of them.

Guido, on the other hand, is more than willing to host Lan and Michael.  He’s a refugee himself and, even more importantly, he’s everyone’s favorite character actor, Ernest Borgnine!  But Jonathan and Mark understand that their assignment is to bring together Clancy and his grandson.  Guido is a nice guy but he’s not Michael’s grandfather.

At school, a bully (Adam Gifford) is stealing Michael’s lunch money.  When Michael says that he needs the money for food, the bully threatens to hurt Clancy.  What a jerk!  Seriously, check out this totally 80s bully:

When the principal tells Mark and Jonathan that Michael has been spending his lunchtime searching for food in the school dumpsters, Jonathan tells Clancy.  Clancy, angered that his money is being wasted, heads down to the school and confronts the bully.  Jonathan briefly gives Clancy and Michael “the stuff,” which allows them to beat up the bully and his entire gang.  This experience brings grandson and grandfather together.  So, I guess the message here is that violence is the answer.  Forget about that turning the other cheek stuff.  Instead, just throw your bully through a car window.

This episode was pretty much what most people picture when they think of a typical Highway to Heaven episode.  It was unabashedly sentimental and a bit simplistic in its approach.  It was earnest enough to be likable though a bit too heavy-handed for its own good.  Any show that features Ernest Borgnine as a special guest star is not exactly going to deliver anything resembling a subtle story.  While this episode was never quite as good as I wanted it to be, I was still glad that Michael and his mother found a home.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.20 “The Older Woman”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, things get even dumber than usual.  Forever summer!

Episode 1.20 “The Older Woman”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 11th, 1999)

Tracyee wants to try to out for the Lakers cheerleading squad.  Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of sharing her plans with Samantha and Stads, both of whom are morally offended that Tracyee would actually want to do something that could bring her 1) a steady income and 2) the fame that she’s desperately been searching for since this show started.  Stads and Sam both declare cheerleading to be sexist and degrading.  However, when they find out that the auditions will be televised, they decide to try out so that they can denounce the Lakers on television.

(Of course, unless the try-outs are being aired live, it’s probable that anything Samantha or Stads said would have been edited out of the program.  Add to that, it doesn’t seem to occur to either one of them that they would also probably be ruining Traycee’s chance of making the squad as well.)

Now, I should point out that this is just the B-story.  Only a few scenes are devoted to Murray training Sam, Stads, and Traycee before their try-outs.  In the end, Murray is such a good coach that he’s the one hired for the cheerleading squad.  The most (and really the only) interesting thing about this B-story is that it shows just how unlikeable and one-dimensional both Sam and Stads became as the first season progressed.  There’s really no reason for them to even involve themselves in Traycee’s quest to become a Lakers Girl.  Traycee indicates that she knows that it’s all sexist and exploitive but — and this is key — she doesn’t care.  As soon as Traycee indicates that she doesn’t care, that’s the signal for Stads and Sam to back off.

(One of the consistent things about all of the teen sitcoms produced by Peter Engel was that feminists, whether they were Jessie Spano on Saved By The Bell or Julie on Hang Time, were always portrayed as being shrill, humorless, and, worst of all, hypocritical.)

As for the main plot — hey, it’s stupid too!  In fact, it’s both stupid and creepy!  Peter has hired a graphic artist named Laura (Odile Corso) to redesign the restaurant’s menus.  Peter seems to like Laura and Jason decides that he’s going to help his father get laid.  (He doesn’t put it that way but that’s still the general idea.)  However, while Jason is trying to convince his father to ask out Laura, Laura decides to ask out Jason.

This is a bit awkward, seeing as how Jason is supposed to be a high school student!  Even worse, the episode ends with Peter explaining that Laura was too young for him and suggesting that Jason should have asked her out.  Again, why would a successful and attractive woman in her mid-to-late 20s want to date a shallow high school student who works in his father’s restaurant?  This is not the first time that I’ve wondered if this show’s writers remembered that Jason and Scott were established, at the start of the season, as being high school students.  Then again, even if Jason wasn’t a high school student, he would still be a sociopathic nepo baby so maybe Laura just has bad taste in general.  As for Peter, he ends up dating a dentist, who is played by Deborah Shelton (who, in presumably better times, had a key role in Brian DePalma’s Body Double).

This was a dumb episode, even by the standards of Malibu, CA.

 

The AFI Announces Their Top Ten Of 2024!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The American Film Institute has announced it’s top ten films of 2024.  And here they are!

AFI MOTION PICTURES OF THE YEAR

ANORA
THE BRUTALIST
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
CONCLAVE
DUNE: PART TWO
EMILIA PÉREZ
NICKEL BOYS
A REAL PAIN
SING SING
WICKED

AFI is considered to be one of the best precursors out there.  Though there have been some notable exceptions, the Academy’s Best Picture line-up tends to include the majority of the AFI’s list.  Typically, there will be maybe one or two nominees that didn’t appear on the AFI list but, with the way this year is playing out, I would not be surprised if the AFI goes 10/10 as far as predicting the 2024 Best Picture nominees is concerned.

So, that’s definitely good news for all the films listed above.  And it’s bad news for Gladiator II, Saturday Night, September 5, Juror #2, and all of the other potential nominees that did not make the AFI cut.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.1 “Stressed Environment”

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 Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, we begin the third season of Monsters!

Episode 3.1 “Stressed Environment”

(Dir by Jeffrey Wolf, originally aired on September 30th, 1990)

The third season of Monsters starts off with the story of an experiment gone wrong.

For twelve years, Dr. Elizabeth Porter (Carol Lynley) has been experimenting with lab rats, trying to help them evolve into a higher form of intelligence.  Her work is supervised by Dr. Robert Winston (Victor Raider-Wexler) and her assistants are the cowardly Keith (Scott Weir) and Gina (Kathleen McCall).  The episode opens with a lengthy (by Monsters standards) scene of Gina undressing and then putting on her special rat feeding uniform while Keith tries to discreetly watch.  It’s a scene that really has little to do with the rest of the episode but I guess the producers of Monsters decided that the best way to survive to a fourth season would be to appeal to teenage boys.

Anyway, Keith’s crush on Gina comes to naught because Gina is killed while trying to feed the rats.  It turns out that the rats have gotten smart.  They’ve gotten smart enough to build crude spears and crossbows and use them as weapons.  Dr. Winston wants to shut the experiment down.  Keith wants to go home.  Elizabeth, however, wants to protect her rats and see if she can convince them to give up their weapons and live in peace.  Dr. Winston points out that if humans can’t convince their own species to do that, how is Elizabeth going to convince a bunch of rats?

And Dr. Winston has a point.  Elizabeth may think that she has a special bond with the rats but the rats disagree.  Soon, Gina is not the only person to have lost their life to an army of spear-carrying rats.  The episode ends with Keith as the sole survivor and his ultimate fate is still up in the air.  The rats are angry, ruthless, and armed.

And cute!

Seriously, this episode probably might have been more effective if the rats themselves have been a bit more frightening but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.  As it is, the use of crude puppets actually made the rats look kind of adorable, especially when they were holding their little spears and setting up their little crossbows.  Of course, one reason why I found the rats to be cute is because I’m used to CGI.  I take CGI for granted.  This episode was made when special effects people still had to use puppets for their monsters and, as a result, the rats don’t really look like rats.  They’re so fake-looking that it’s hard not to like them.  They’re a throw-back to a simpler and more innocent time.

This was actually a pretty entertaining episode and a great way to start season 3!  I appreciated that this episode of Monsters featured actual monsters.  After the uneven batch of episodes that finished up the second season of this show, it’s nice to season 3 starting off on the right foot.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.8 and 5.9 “Farnsworth’s Fling/Three in a Bed/I Remember Helen/Merrill, Melanie & Melanesia/Gopher Farnsworth Smith”

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, we have a two-hour special!

Episodes 5.8 and 5.9 “Farnsworth’s Fling/Three in a Bed/I Remember Helen/Merrill, Melanie & Melanesia/Gopher Farnsworth Smith”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on November 21st, 1981)

The Love Boat crew is back in Australia, sailing from Sydney to Fiji and back again.  The Captain remembers his time in the Navy and a lost love who he met while serving in the South Pacific.  Julie remembers her love affair with Tony and how he left her at the altar after he discovered that he was dying.  Anthony Andrews, who played Tony, is listed as being a guest star on this episode but he only appears in archival footage.  Tony, we learn, has died but his brother, David (Brendon Lunney), assures Julie that her letters to him provided him with much comfort during his final days.

(David only appears for a minute or two, when Julie visits the animal preserve where Tony worked.  Still, in that minute, he and Julie have so much chemistry that I found myself hoping that David would spontaneously propose to her.)

As for the cruise, the majority of the cabins are populated by the relatives of William Otis Farnsworth (Lloyd Bridges).  Farnsworth is one of the richest men in the world and he’s taking a cruise with his entire family because he wants to see who is truly worthy of inheriting his fortune.  The ship is full of people looking to get rich, including:

  1. Jenny (Moran Fairchild) and Bud Boyer (Grant Goodeve), who are hoping that William will not discover that they’ve recently gotten divorced,
  2. Hazel (Patti MacLeod) and Frank Fransworth (Russell Newman), who hope that Hazel imitating William’s deceased wife will cause William to mention them favorably in his will,
  3. Marcia (Jessica Walter), who was married to William’s brother and who has basically hired gold digger Jessica Halberson (Linda Evans) to seduce and marry William, and
  4. Burl “Gopher” Smith, who thinks that he might be distantly related to William and who, with Isaac’s encouragement, tries to get close to William.  Gopher even calls his mother (Ethel Merman) to find out if he’s a relative.  She’s not much help.

Not interested in the money is William’s niece, Eloise (Beth Howland).  Eloise, who is William’s administrative assistant, finds herself falling in love with William’s valet, country boy Wayne Burton (Jim Nabors).  Words cannot begin to express just how annoying Jim Nabors is in this episode.  “Surprise surprise surpise!” Wayne says when he shows up on the boat.  “Golly!” Wayne says when a conscience-stricken Jessica tries to break up with William.  I found myself covering my ears whenever Nabors appeared on screen.

The main problem here is that none of these people are remotely likable.  Not even William Farnsworth is likable.  He’s meant to be likable but really, he comes across as being a judgmental jerk.  When Jessica tries to leave the ship and fly back to Sidney, William reacts by buying every single plane ticket on the island.  Jessica can’t leave but hey …. neither can anyone else!

Far more likable was Melanie (Margaret Laurence), the daughter of the Captain’s former lover, Madeleine.  Melanie is a dead-ringer for her mother and the Captain falls in love with her.  Melanie also falls in love with him.  She proposes marriage.  Awwww!  But then she realizes marrying the Captain would mean abandoning her job as a teacher so she calls the wedding off.  So now, both the Captain and Julie have had their heart broken in Australia.  At least they now have something to bond over.

For a two-hour episode, there really wasn’t much plot to this episode.  It was largely a travelogue.  There were a lot of kangaroos and koala bears and they were certainly cute.  The scenery was lovely.  Otherwise, this was a cruise full of rather unlikable people.  Australia deserved better.

The National Board of Review Gets Wicked

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

The National Board of Review has announced its pick for the best of 2024!  The National Board of Review is considered to be one of the big precursors as far as the Oscars are concerned, though perhaps not as much as they once were.

That said, Wicked is definitely contender so get ready for the most annoying people you know to suddenly get very emotionally invested in the Oscars.

Best Film:  Wicked

Best Director:  Jon M. Chu, Wicked

Best Actor: Daniel Craig, Queer

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, Babygirl

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning, A Complete Unknown

Best Ensemble: Conclave

Breakthrough Performance: Mikey Madison, Anora

Best Directorial Debut: India Donaldson, Good One

Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh, Hard Truths

Best Adapted Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing

NBR Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande

NBR Freedom of Expression Award: No Other Land

Best Animated Feature: Flow

Best International Film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Best Documentary: Sugarcane

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu

Outstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Top Films (in alphabetical order):

Anora
Babygirl
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
Juror #2
Queer
A Real Pain
Sing Sing

Top 5 International Films (in alphabetical order):

All We Imagine as Light
The Girl with the Needle
I’m Still Here
Santosh
Universal Language

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):

Black Box Diaries
Dahomey
Look Into My Eyes
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Will & Harper

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):

Bird
A Different Man
Dìdi
Ghostlight
Good One
Hard Truths
His Three Daughters
Love Lies Bleeding
My Old Ass
Thelma

Here Are The Independent Spirit Nominations!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, most awards watchers will be devoting most of their attention to the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.  That said, the Independent Spirit nominations were still announced earlier today and Anora had a strong showing.  Meanwhile, The Brutalist, which did so well with the New York Film Critics Circle, picked up a nomination for Best Director but not Best Picture.

Here are the Spirit Nominations.  While looking at the nominations, keep in mind that a lot of potential Oscar nominees were not eligible for a nomination.  As a result, the Spirit nominations aren’t exactly the strongest predictive tool when it comes to guessing what will eventually be nominated by the Academy.

Still, it never hurts to be mentioned!

Best Feature

Anora
Producers: Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan

I Saw the TV Glow
Producers: Ali Herting, Sam Intili, Dave McCary, Emma Stone, Sarah Winshall

Nickel Boys
Producers: Joslyn Barnes, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine

Sing Sing
Producers: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Monique Walton

The Substance
Producers: Tim Bevan, Coralie Fargeat, Eric Fellner

Best First Feature

Dìdi
Director/Producer: Sean Wang
Producers: Valerie Bush, Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters

In the Summers

Director: Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio
Producers: Janek Ambros, Lynette Coll, Alexander Dinelaris, Cynthia Fernandez De La Cruz, Cristóbal Güell, Sergio Alberto Lira, Rob Quadrino, Jan Suter, Daniel Tantalean, Nando Vila, Slava Vladimirov, Stephanie Yankwitt

Janet Planet
Director/Producer: Annie Baker
Producers: Andrew Goldman, Dan Janvey, Derrick Tseng

The Piano Lesson
Director: Malcolm Washington
Producers: Todd Black, Denzel Washington

Problemista
Director/Producer: Julio Torres
Producers: Ali Herting, Dave McCary, Emma Stone

John Cassavetes Award

Given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000

Big Boys
Writer/Director/Producer: Corey Sherman
Producer: Allison Tate

Ghostlight
Writer/Director: Kelly O’Sullivan
Director/Producer: Alex Thompson
Producers: Pierce Cravens, Ian Keiser, Chelsea Krant, Eddie Linker, Alex Wilson

Girls Will Be Girls
Writer/Director/Producer: Shuchi Talati
Producers: Richa Chadha, Claire Chassagne

Jazzy
Writer/Director/Producer: Morrisa Maltz
Writer/Producer: Lainey Shangreaux
Writers: Andrew Hajek, Vanara Taing
Producers: Miranda Bailey, Tommy Heitkamp, John Way, Natalie Whalen, Elliott Whitton

The People’s Joker
Writer/Director: Vera Drew
Writer: Bri LeRose
Producer: Joey Lyons

BEST DIRECTOR

Ali Abbasi
The Apprentice

Sean Baker
Anora

Brady Corbet
The Brutalist

Alonso Ruizpalacios
La Cocina

Jane Schoenbrun
I Saw the TV Glow

BEST SCREENPLAY

Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Heretic

Jesse Eisenberg
A Real Pain

Megan Park
My Old Ass

Aaron Schimberg
A Different Man

Jane Schoenbrun
I Saw the TV Glow

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Joanna Arnow
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed

Annie Baker
Janet Planet

India Donaldson
Good One

Julio Torres
Problemista

Sean Wang
Dìdi

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Amy Adams
Nightbitch

Ryan Destiny
The Fire Inside

Colman Domingo
Sing Sing

Keith Kupferer
Ghostlight

Mikey Madison
Anora

Demi Moore
The Substance

Hunter Schafer
Cuckoo

Justice Smith
I Saw the TV Glow

June Squibb
Thelma

Sebastian Stan
The Apprentice

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

Yura Borisov
Anora

Joan Chen
Dìdi

Kieran Culkin
A Real Pain

Danielle Deadwyler
The Piano Lesson

Carol Kane
Between the Temples

Karren Karagulian
Anora

Kani Kusruti
Girls Will Be Girls

Brigette Lundy-Paine
I Saw the TV Glow

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin
Sing Sing

Adam Pearson
A Different Man

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE

Isaac Krasner
Big Boys

Katy O’Brian
Love Lies Bleeding

Mason Alexander Park
National Anthem

René Pérez Joglar
In the Summers

Maisy Stella
My Old Ass

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Dinh Duy Hung
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Jomo Fray
Nickel Boys

Maria von Hausswolff
Janet Planet

Juan Pablo Ramírez
La Cocina

Rina Yang
The Fire Inside

 BEST EDITING

Laura Colwell, Vanara Taing
Jazzy

Olivier Bugge Coutté, Olivia Neergaard-Holm
The Apprentice

Anne McCabe
Nightbitch

Hansjörg Weissbrich
September 5

Arielle Zakowski
Dìdi

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – Given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast

His Three Daughters
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Casting Director: Nicole Arbusto
Ensemble Cast: Jovan Adepo, Jasmine Bracey, Carrie Coon, Jose Febus, Rudy Galvan, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Randy Ramos Jr., Jay O. Sanders

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director and producer)

Gaucho Gaucho
Directors/Producers: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Producers: Christos Konstantakopoulos, Cameron O’Reilly, Matthew Perniciaro

Hummingbirds
Directors: Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía “Beba” Contreras
Co-Directors/Producers: Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falco, Jillian Schlesinger
Producers: Leslie Benavides, Rivkah Beth Medow

No Other Land
Directors/Producers: Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor
Producers: Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning

Patrice: The Movie
Director: Ted Passon
Producers: Kyla Harris, Innbo Shim, Emily Spivack

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Producers: Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius

 BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director)

All We Imagine as Light
France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg
Director: Payal Kapadia

Black Dog
China
Director: Guan Hu

Flow
Latvia, France, Belgium
Director: Gints Zilbalodis

Green Border
Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium
Director: Agnieszka Holland

Hard Truths
United Kingdom
Director: Mike Leigh

PRODUCERS AWARD  presented by Bulleit Frontier Whiskey – The Producers Award, now in its 28th year, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality independent films.

Alex Coco

Sarah Winshall

Zoë Worth

 SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD  – The Someone to Watch Award, now in its 31st year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition.

Nicholas Colia
Director of Griffin in Summer

Sarah Friedland
Director of Familiar Touch

Pham Thien An
Director of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – The Truer Than Fiction Award, now in its 30th year, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition.

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Directors of Sugarcane

Carla Gutiérrez
Director of Frida

Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Director of A Photographic Memory