Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Here Are The 2025 Nominations of the American Society of Cinematographers!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The American Society Of Cinematographers have announced their nominations for the best of 2025.  And here they are:

Theatrical Feature Film (Sponsored by Keslow Camera)
Autumn Durald Arkapaw, ASC for “Sinners”
Michael Bauman for “One Battle After Another”
Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC for “Marty Supreme”
Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF for “Frankenstein”
Adolpho Veloso, ABC, AIP for “Train Dreams”

Spotlight Award (Sponsored by Panavision)
Steven Breckon for “The Plague”
Mátyás Erdély, ASC, HSC for “Orphan”
Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK for “Amrum”

Documentary Award (Sponsored by Canon U.S.A.)
Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko for “2000 Meters from Andriivka”
Brandon Somerhalder for “Come See Me in the Good Light”
Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo and Tor Edvin Eliassen for “Folktales”

Here Are The 2025 DGA Nominations

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominees for the best directors of 2025.  And here they are:

FEATURE FILM
Paul Thomas Anderson – “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Coogler – “Sinners” (Warner Bros.)
Guillermo Del Toro – “Frankenstein” (Netflix)
Josh Safdie – “Marty Supreme” (A24)
Chloe Zhao – “Hamnet” (Focus Features)

FIRST-TIME THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
Hasan Hadi – “The President’s Cake” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Harry Lighton – “Pillion” (A24)
Alex Russell – “Lurker” (Mubi)
Charlie Polinger – “The Plague” (IFC)
Eva Victor – “Sorry, Baby” (A24)

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.8 “Easy Come Easy Go”

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.

Time to get back to 1st & Ten.  To be honest, with all the excitement of the holiday season, I totally forgot that I was reviewing this show.

Episode 2.8 “Easy Come, Easy Go”

(Dir by Burt Brinckerhoff, originally aired on January 6th, 1987)

This is yet another episode of 1st & Ten that felt as if it was put together almost at random.

Mad Dog (Tony Longo) has a one night stand with a lawyer named Molly (June Chadwick) and he ends up becoming obsessed with her.  He shows up at a fancy cocktail party being hosted by Molly’s law firm.  “This man is stalking me!” Molly yells.  All of the men at the party are like, “Mad Dog!  You’re my favorite player!”  Now, I will say that this is a realistic portrayal of how most men act whenever they see a professional athlete but it still felt a bit icky to watch.

Jethro takes a blood test and discovers that little Tommy is not his son.  But he still wants to be a part of the kid’s life.

Yinessa sees a tabloid newspaper headline about his “nude pictures” and starts yelling at a supermarket manager for selling the paper.

Waldren is in financial trouble because he’s been tossing money around.  A group of gamblers approach him and offer to pay to shave points.  OJ Simpson (in the role of offensive coordinator T.D. Parker) tells Waldren, “I’m keeping my eye on you.”  Oh no!  LOOK OUT, WALDREN!

However, Waldren does not shave points.  Instead, he catches the ball that seals the Bulls victory in their first playoff game.  Woo hoo!  Go, Waldren!

A lot happened but, in typical 1st & Ten fashion, none of it added up to much.  It could be because the streaming episodes were edited for syndication but this is just a weird show.  Every episode feels as if their huge chunks of plot missing.

Here Are The 2025 Nominations of the Art Directors Guild

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Art Directors Guild has announced its nominees for the best of 2025!  And here they are….

BEST PERIOD FEATURE FILM
Frankenstein — Production Designer: Tamara Deverell
Hamnet — Production Designer: Fiona Crombie
Marty Supreme — Production Designer: Jack Fisk
The Phoenician Scheme — Production Designer: Adam Stockhausen
Sinners — Production Designer: Hannah Beachler

BEST FANTASY FEATURE FILM
Avatar: Fire and Ash — Production Designers: Dylan Cole, Ben Procter
The Fantastic Four: First Steps — Production Designer: Kasra Farahani
Mickey 17 — Production Designer: Fiona Crombie
Superman — Production Designer: Beth Mickle
Wicked: For Good — Production Designer: Nathan Crowley

BEST CONTEMPORARY FEATURE FILM
Bugonia — Production Designer: James Price
F1 — Production Designers: Ben Munro, Mark Tildesley
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — Production Designer: Gary Freeman
One Battle After Another — Production Designer: Florencia Martin
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery — Production Designer: Rick Heinrichs

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
The Bad Guys 2 — Production Designer: Luc Desmarchelier
Elio — Production Designer: Harley Jessup
KPop Demon Hunters — Production Designers: Mingjue Helen Chen, Dave Bleich
The Spongebob Movie: Search for Squarepants — Production Designer: Sean Haworth; Animation Production Designer: Pablo R. Mayer
Zootopia 2 — Production Designer: Cory Loftis

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 7.1 and 7.2 “China Cruise: The Pledge/East Meets West/Dear Roberta/My Two Dumplings”

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 begin season 7!

Episodes 7.1 and 7.2 “China Cruise: The Pledge/East Meets West/Dear Roberta/My Two Dumplings”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on October 1st, 1983)

It’s time for season seven of The Love Boat!

Gopher has been promoted to head purser.  For six seasons, he was assistant purser and I always wondered who the head purser was.  Apparently, there wasn’t one because Stubing promoted him without firing anyone.  It’s possible that I just don’t know how cruise ships work.

The Love Boat crew starts off the season with a cruise around China!  I guess the old saying is true — only Stubing could go to China.  I kept waiting for Stubing to announce that he recognized Taiwan as an independent nation but he didn’t.  I was a little bit disappointed by that.  Instead, Stubing and the crew saw the sights.  There’s a panda bear!  There’s the Great Wall of China!  There’s a bunch of young people all singing, almost as the future of their loved ones depended on doing a good job!  In fact, this premiere episode is really more about seeing the sights of China than it is about any of the drama playing out on the boat.  I guess that makes since.  This episode aired in the pre-Internet age of 1983, so for the audience, this really was a chance to see a world that they probably couldn’t otherwise experience.  It’s not like they could go on YouTube and do a search for China or something like that.  It was up to The Love Boat to open up the world!

That said, Chinese medicine came in for a bit of criticism.  Susan Anton played a woman who didn’t trust doctors and who thought buying a Chinese symbol for good luck would keep her safe.  However, when she suddenly had intense stomach pain, it was up to Doc to save her life.  Where’s your good luck charm now!?

Linda Evans played a woman who fell in love with Lee Majors, little suspecting that Majors was the author of the “Dear Roberta” advice column.  Some of “Roberta’s” advice led to Evans divorcing her previous husband.

Lee Horsley played a man with two girlfriends (Erin Moran and Pat Klous).  Uh-oh!  They all ended up on the boat at the same time!

Finally, Ursula Andress played a dying woman who fell for a mysterious but charming passenger (John Forsythe).  Unfortunately, Forsythe had a warrant out for his arrest and Detective Michael Constantine was determined to take him into custody.  This story was unique in that it had an unhappy ending!  While the crew had a few unhappy endings (Remember when Julie was left at the altar?), this was the first time that things didn’t work out for a passenger.

Was this a good episode?  It was, strictly from the point of view that I like The Love Boat crew and I enjoy spending time with them.  This episode was occasionally a bit too much of a travelogue but the Andress/Forsythe story carried some weight.  All in all, it was a decent start for season 7.

Here Are The 2025 Actor Nominations!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The SAG Awards are now known as the Actor Awards for some reason.  I think that’s kind of dumb but whatever.  The important thing that the 2025 Actor nominations were announced this morning.  My main take away?  The Best Picture hopes of both Jay Kelly and Wicked: For Good are dead. If they couldn’t score an ensemble nod with this crowd, they’re not going to make it to the top ten.  (Wicked: For Good, at least, seems destined to get a nomination for Ariana Grande and some technical nods.  Jay Kelly seems destined to go for zero.)

Here are the Actor Nominations:

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another
Emma Stone – Bugonia

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
Jesse Plemons – Bugonia

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Miles Caton – Sinners
Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Paul Mescal – Hamnet
Sean Penn – One Battle After Another

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Odessa A’zion – Marty Supreme
Ariana Grande – Wicked: For Good
Amy Madigan – Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another

OUTSTANDING STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
F1
Frankenstein
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning
One Battle After Another
Sinners

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.9 “Cop In A Box”

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.

Okay, we’re doing this again.

Episode 3.9 “Cop In A Box”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on November 2nd, 1997)

Oh, Pacific Blue.  How I have not missed you.

This episode features TC getting abducted by Harland Groves (Jeremy Roberts), a criminal who TC previously busted.  Harland traps TC in an underground beach bunker.  How Harland got his hands on an underground beach bunker is never explained.  Harland demands that TC’s rich family pay him 4 million dollars.  At the same time, he plans to use a chlorine gas bomb to kill TC.  Why he didn’t kill TC to begin with and then demand the money is never really explained.  It’s almost as if Harland secretly wanted his plan to fail.

I really didn’t have a problem with the idea of TC getting killed off.  Pacific Blue is one of the more boring of the shows that I review and killing TC would have livened things up.  At the very least, without TC around, I would no longer be forced to try to keep straight which member of Pacific Blue was TC and which member was Victor.  Unfortunately, TC manages to disarm the chlorine bomb.  When Harland attacks him in the bunker, it leads to a bunch of sand pouring in.  Harland is suffocated while TC escapes.

Oh well.

The cool thing about this episode is that Andy Buckley — who later played David Wallace on The Office — returned as TC’s brother.  The funny thing about this episode was the sight of grim-faced Palermo barking out orders while wearing his stupid bicycle shorts.  And the unfortunate thing is that TC survived so Pacific Blue will not be changing any time soon.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.21 “Bojangles and the Dancer/Deuces Wild”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  The show is once again on Tubi!

It’s time for our second-to-last trip to the Island.

Episode 7.21 “Bojangles And The Dancer/Deuces Wild”

(Dir by Bob Sweeney, originally aired on May 12th, 1984)

Sisters Audrey and Judy Jennings (played, of course, by Audrey and Judy Landers) come to the Island because they’re sick of men only appreciating their bodies as opposed to their other talents.  They end up meeting a hotelier named Rex Reinhardt (Stuart Whitman) who, after some poorly-defined drama involving his duplicitous chief of security (John Ericson), ends up opening a resort with the two of them.  Fans of the James Bond franchise will be happy to see Walter Gotell, who played the head of the KGB opposite Roger Moore in several films, cast as a writer who romances one of the sisters.

It’s kind of a sad fantasy when you consider that this is the second-to-last episode of the original Fantasy Island and the best they could do for this story were the Landers sisters and Stuart Whitman.  Not only were the guest stars not particularly inspiring but the fantasy itself didn’t really make much sense.

As for the other fantasy, it does feature a big-name guest star.  Sammy Davis, Jr. plays the legendary dancer, Bojangles!  Now, admittedly, Sammy doesn’t look particularly healthy in this particular episode.  Reportedly, by the time the 80s rolled around, all of the smoking, drinking, and drug-taking had finally started to catch up with him.  But, even while obviously ill, Sammy Davis Jr. still had the undeniable charisma of a natural-born star.  The fantasy is nothing special.  Joe Wilson (Glynn Turman) goes into the past so that he can dance with Bojangles.  However, Sammy Davis Jr. lights up the story.  He shares a wonderfully-acted scene with Ricardo Montalban, two old showbiz pros sharing what may have been a final moment together.

So, this trip to the Island was a mixed bag. Neither fantasy was particularly compelling and Tattoo’s absence was very much felt.  (Lawrence, I’ve noticed, tends to be rather judgmental of the guests which is something Tattoo never was.)  But at least Sammy Davis Jr. was there to add some life to the proceedings.

Only one more episode to go.