2017 in Review: The Best of Lifetime

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, I continue my look back at the previous year with my picks for the best of Lifetime in 2017! Below, you’ll find my nominations for the best Lifetime films and performances of 2017! Winners are starred and listed in bold!

(As a guide, I used the credits for the imdb. If anyone has been miscredited or let out, please feel free to let me know and I’ll fix the error both here and, if I can, on the imdb as well.)

Best Picture

Drink Slay Love, produced by Tina Pehme, Kim Roberts, Sheri Singer, Bella Thorne

From Straight A’s to XXX, produced by Austin Andrews, John Bolton, Anne-Marie Hess, Tina Pehme, Kim Roberts, Sheri Singer

Four Christmases and a Wedding

New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell, produced by Deen Dioria, David Manzanares, Ron Schmidt, Judith Verno, Frank von Zerneck.

The Rachels, produced by Paige Lauren Billot, Margaret H. Huddleston, Maggie McFarren, Hannah Pillemer, Rebecca G. Stone.

Running Away, produced by Dureyshevar, Jeff Faehnle, Jack Nasser, Jacob Nasser, Joseph Nasser, Bri Noble.

Sea Change. Produced by Sharon Bordas, Alec Chorches, Adam Fratto, Steven Gilder, David MacLeod, A.J. Mendez, Shawn Piller, Lloyd Segan, Stephanie Slack, Fernando Szew

Secrets in Suburbia, produced by Kristopher McNeeley, Jacobo Rispa, Damian Romay, Stephanie Slack, Fernando Szew.

The Watcher in the Woods, produced by Simon Barnes, Alexandra Bentley, Andrew Gernhard, Jennifer Handorf, Paula Hart.

* Web Cam Girls, produced by Tom Berry, Pierre David, Hank Grover, Sheri Reeves, Ken Sanders, Noel Zanitsch*

Best Director

* Doug Campbell for Web Cam Girls

Michael Civille for The Rachels

Vanessa Parise for From Straight A’s to XXX

Damian Romay for Secrets in Suburbia

Brian Skiba for Running Away

Stephen Tolkin for New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell

Best Actor

James Franco in High School Lover

Zack Gold in Psycho Brother-in-Law

Stephen Graybill in Web Cam Girls

Timothy Granderos in The Twin

Ted McGinley in Fatherly Obsession

* Ryan Patrick Shanahan in Sinister Minister

Best Actress

Barbie Castro in Boyfriend Killer

Holly Deveaux in Running Away

Sedonna Legge in Web Cam Girls

* Penelope Ann Miller in New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell

Heather Morris in Psycho Wedding Crasher

Haley Pullos in From Straight A’s to XXX

Best Supporting Actor

Francois Arnaud in High School Lover

Joe Hackett in Web Cam Girls’

William McNamara in Running Away

Patrick Muldoon in Boyfriend Killer

Judd Nelson in From Straight A’s to XXX

* Daniel Roebuck in New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell

Best Supporting Actress

Madison Iseman in The Rachels

Anjelica Huston in The Watcher in the Woods

* Tonya Kay in Web Cam Girls

Paula Trickey in Running Away

Ashley Wood in Wicked Mom’s Club

Lorynn York in Web Cam Girs

Best Screenplay

From Straight A’s to XXX. Anne-Marie Hess.

New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell. Stephen Tolkin.

The Rachels. Ellen Huggins.

* Running Away. Sheri McGuinn.

Secrets in Suburbia. Damian Romay.

Web Cam Girls. Stephen Romano.

Best Cinematography

Drink Slay Love. Vic Sarin.

Four Christmases and a Wedding. Mike Kam.

Off the Rails. Denis Maloney.

Running Away. Patrice Lucien Cochet.

* Sea Change. Jackson Parrell.

Ten: Murder Island. Richard Clabaugh.

Best Costuming

* Drink Slay Love. Liene Dobraja.

From Straight A’s to XXX. Liene Dobraja.

The Lost Wife of Robert Durst. Tina Fiorda.

New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell. Maria Bentfield.

The Rachels. Courtney Stern.

Stage Fright. Monique Hyman.

Best Editing

* From Straight A’s to XXX. Rob Grant.

Four Christmases and a Wedding. Paul Ziller.

New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell. Mark Stevens.

The Rachels. Brett Solem.

Sea Change. Matthew Anas.

Web Cam Girls. Jordan Jensen.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Drink Slay Love. Jessica Green, Catherine Long, Alysha McLoughlin, Sahar Sharelo.

The Lost Wife of Robert Durst. Lorna Bravo, Kelly Grange, Shelly Jensen, Mary Renvall, Melissa Sahlstrom.

* New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell. Claudia Breckenridge, Daniel Casillas, Nicole Gabaldon, Pepper J. Gallegos, Madeline McCue, L. Taylor Roberts

The Rachels. Taylor Bennett, Austin Cuccia.

Secrets in Suburbia. Andrea Ahl, Trevor Thompson

The Watcher in the Woods. Chloe Edwards.

Best Score

Drink Slay Love. Justin R. Durban

Fatherly Obsession. Aiko Fukushima.

Sea Change. Shawn Pierce.

* Story of a Girl. Travis Bacon.

Ten: Murder Island. Ceiri Torjussen.

The Watcher in the Woods. Felix Bird.

Best Production Design

New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell. Will Albarz, Anthony Medina.

Running Away. Vincent Albo, Rose Beltran

Secrets in Suburbia. Brendan Turrill.

Ten: Murder Island. Eric Whitney, Caley Bisson.

Tiny House of Terror

* Web Cam Girls. Catch Henson, James W. Thompson Jr., Katherine Bulovic, Valerie Munguia

Best Sound

Britney Ever After

Drink Slay Love

From Straight A’s to XXX

Sea Change.

Under the Bed

* The Watcher in the Woods

Best Visual Effects

The Watcher in the Woods

And there you have it! Those are my picks for the best of Lifetime in 2017! Thank you for your indulgence! On Friday, I’ll be concluding my look back at 2017 with my picks for the 26 best films of the year!

Previous entries in the TSL’s Look Back at 2017:

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: The Rachels (dir by Michael Civille)

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi, everyone! I’ve been cleaning out my DVR and reviewing the films that I’ve recorded. Here’s my final review of the day. I recorded The Rachels off of Lifetime on January 29th!)

I want to tell you about The Rachels but it’s not going to be easy because, at the same time, I don’t want to tell you too much. The Rachels is a whip-smart and wonderfully snarky little satire and, because of the non-linear narrative style that the first half of the film employs, there’s very little I can tell you about the plot without spoiling the movie.

Don’t be put off by its origins as a Lifetime film. Don’t judge the film just because the title was obviously inspired by Heathers. How good is The Rachels? It’s so good that I’m tempted to call it nifty. That’s how good it is.

It tells the story of two teenage girls named Rachel. They’ve been best friends forever. They do the morning announcements together, always ending things by reminding the school, “We’re the Rachels.” Rachel Nelson (Madison Iseman) is blonde and popular, a track star who is loved by everyone. Rachel Richards (Caitlin Carver) is brunette and she’s slightly less popular than Rachel Nelson. Rachel Richards is almost always in the shadow of Rachel Nelson. While Rachel Nelson is praised by her track coach, Rachel Richards is consistently told that she could do better. And then there’s Roxie (Daniela Bobadilla), a photographer who seems to be slightly obsessed with Rachel Nelson but is disliked by Rachel Richards. Roxie claims that she was once one of the Rachels but she is continually told, by one of the Rachels (I can’t reveal which one), that she was never really a Rachel.

At a late night party, one of these three girls will fall off of the roof and plunge to her death, the result of an apparent suicide. The film, in its non-linear fashion, holds off an immediately revealing which one of them fell from the roof and I will do the same. What I can tell you is that the entire school soon becomes a shrine to the dead girl and the two survivors both use her death to their own advantage. Both of them, by linking themselves to the now sainted dead girl, become very different types of celebrities.

It makes for a very sharp satire, one that perfectly skewers today’s culture of instant fame and internet grieving. All three of the main actresses — Maidson Iseman, Caitlin Carver, and Daniela Bobadilla — are perfectly cast and give pitch perfect performances. This is one of those films where no one turns out to be exactly who you thought they would be. Well-written, well-directed, and wonderfully acted, The Rachels keeps you thinking and guessing.

That’s really all I can say about the movie without giving away too much. Keep an eye out for it.

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #19: I Know Where Lizzie Is (dir by Darin Scott)

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by Wednesday, November 30th! Will she make it? Considering that she only has a day left, probably not. But keep checking the site to find out!)

I recorded I Know Where Lizzie Is off of the Lifetime Movie Network on July 31st. I also watched it while recording it and it’s a pretty good thing I did because, as the result of a glitch with the DVR, I only recorded the final hour! So, when you read this review, be aware that at least half of it is being done on the basis of my possibly faulty memory.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is a hybrid of two popular Lifetime genres. On the one hand, you have an abducted child storyline. Teenager Lizzie Holden (Madison Iseman) has a fight with her mom, sneaks out of the house, and never comes home. Her amicably divorced parents, Judith (Tracey Gold) and Martin (Richard Rucculo), desperately try to track down their daughter. What they don’t know is that Lizzie is being held prisoner by a man wearing what appears to be a Michael Myers mask.

I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an unwanted guest film. In an unwanted guest film, a seemingly friendly but secretly malicious stranger moves into an otherwise stable household and tries to destroy the family unit. In the case of I Know Where Lizzie Is, the stranger is a phony psychic named Tracy (Nadia Bjorlin). Tracy shows up and claims that she’s had visions of Lizzie. She knows where Lizzie is! Of course, the reason that Tracy knows all of this is because she’s in on the kidnapping.

(Before you start screaming at me about spoilers, this is all revealed early on in the film.)

On top of all that, I Know Where Lizzie Is is also an anti-media film. A somewhat smarmy reporter (Robert Scott Wilson) also movies into the Holden household and he is soon providing nearly 24 hour coverage of the Holdens, the kidnappers, and especially Tracy. I imagine that a lot of viewers will probably respond to the anti-media message. I mean, the media is pretty much everyone’s favorite scapegoat at the moment, right?

(It’s hard to believe that just 9 months ago, Spotlight was winning best picture and everyone was talking about how much they loved the media. It’s amazing how quickly things change.)

Anyway, I Know Where Lizzie Is was very much a typical Lifetime film and how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Lifetime films in general. On the plus side, both Robert Scott Wilson and Nadia Bjorlin did well with their untrustworthy characters. Plus, the kidnapper in the mask was genuinely creepy!

If you like Lifetime movies, keep an eye out for it.