Film Review: The Butterfly Effect (dir by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber)

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How many different ways can Ashton Kutcher fuck up time and space?

That’s the question asked in the gloriously silly The Butterfly Effect, a film that was a minor hit back in 2004. Ashton plays Evan Treborn, a disheveled college student who is studying how memory works. All through his life, Evan has suffered from seizures that are triggered by stress. Evan has a lot of stress because apparently, there’s not a single bad thing that didn’t happen to him when he was a child.

Crazy father who tried to strangle Evan before being gunned down in front of his son’s terrified eyes? Yep.

Sexual molestation at the hands of a suburban drunk? Yep.

A best friend who blew up not only a mailbox but also a mother and a baby? Yep.

A dog that was set on fire by a neighborhood bully? Yep.

Another friend who was driven into a catatonic state by all the madness around him? Yep.

A girlfriend who, due to family tragedy, had to move away? Yep.

However, things seem to be getting better for Evan. Now, he’s a psychology major with a bright future. His professors love him. He’s even got a roommate named Thumper (played, somewhat inevitably, by Ethan Suplee). And, as he’s soon to discover, he possesses a special power. All he has to do is read his old journals and, for a limited time, he can go into the past and change his history.

Of course, it turns out that changing history is a lot more complicated than it looks. Evan goes back into the past and confronts the pervy suburban drunk. He then goes back to the present and discovers that he’s now a shallow frat boy who is hated by both his professors and Thumper! Even worse, he eventually ends up in prison for killing a man. Going back into the past and saving his dog leads to his friend Lenny (Elden Hansen) spending the rest of his life imprisoned. Another trip to the past results in Evan waking up as a double amputee. Depending on what Evan does, his friend Kayleigh (Amy Smart) either becomes a shallow sorority princess or a drug-addicted prostitute. Meanwhile, Kayleigh’s brother (William Lee Scott) goes from being a psychotic murderer to a clean-cut religious guy.

Thumper never changers, though. Thumper endures.

This, of course, is a lot of pressure to put on any character played by Ashton Kutcher and soon, Evan is having nosebleeds and migraines. Every time he changes the past, his brain is flooded with 20 years worth of new memories. His brain might explode before he can fix all the damage that he’s done….

Watching The Butterfly Effect is an odd experience because, on the one hand, the premise is genuinely intriguing but, on the other hand, the film stars the reliably goofy Ashton Kutcher. Ashton grows a beard and doesn’t wash his hair for the first half of the movie, which is the film’s way of letting us know that we’re meant to take him seriously but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still Ashton Kutcher. Even when playing the most dramatic of scenes, Ashton tends to deliver every line as if it’s the set up for a punch line. It’s not surprising that the best part of The Butterfly Effect is when Ashton wakes up and discovers that he’s now a frat boy. Those scenes are intentionally funny and they take advantage of what Ashton Kutcher is actually good at.

At the same time, it’s hard not to get into The Butterfly Effect. It’s a mess but it’s a likable mess and it’s undeniably enjoyable to see how everyone’s life changes as a result of Ashton’s constant meddling. (William Lee Scott especially has fun, switching between being full-blown psycho and full-blown religious.) The Butterfly Effect may be dumb but it’s fun. It’s a film that’s best watched with your snarkiest friends.

Film Review: Indiscretion (dir by John Stewart Muller)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Indiscretion is a strange one.

(And by strange, I mean dull and kind of pointless.)

This film premiered on Lifetime last Saturday but, as I watched it, it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t originally produced for Lifetime.

For one thing, the film was shot on location in Louisiana. Instead of letting Montreal or Toronto stand in for a generic American city, this film was actually shot on the streets of New Orleans. (Unfortunately, the film also made New Orleans seem kind of boring.)

Secondly, Indiscretion turned out to be one of those films where the soundtrack would suddenly go silent whenever a character said anything stronger than “damn.” It was odd because you would see a character very obviously saying something like, “Fuck you,” but you wouldn’t be able to hear the voice. I guess that was to protect the gentle sensibilities of the viewer but what about people who read lips?

And finally, Indiscretion didn’t feature any of the usual Lifetime actors. Instead, it starred Mira Sorvino as a frustrated wife and Cary Elwes as her politician husband. Sorvino’s real-life husband, Christoper Backus, played the troubled sculptor who has an affair with Sorvino and then ends up stalking her family.

So, no, Indiscretion was clearly made to, at the very least, be released straight to video. It was not meant for commercial television. And yet, somehow, it ended up making a somewhat awkward premiere on Lifetime.

Anyway, Indiscretion starts out well enough. It doesn’t waste any time arranging for Sorvino and Backus to meet at a fund raiser and for them to end up having a passionate affair. Sorvino, of course, claims that it was just a weekend fling and that she loves her husband. Backus refuses to believe her and soon, he’s worming his way into her family. He befriends her husband and even gets to go on a hunting trip with the governor of Louisiana. He also ends up having an affair with Sorvino’s teenage daughter.

(Or, at the very least, he takes some pictures of her, which Sorvino later discovers. It’s a sign of how haphazardly constructed this film is that you’re never quite sure what’s going on with Backus and Sorvino’s daughter. Backus also uses one of those old Polaroid cameras to take pictures. Apparently, troubled artists don’t use digital cameras.)

The problem is that, after the first, artfully-shot sex scene, the film itself slows down to an interminable crawl. It’s as if the film’s director, editor, screenwriter, and producers all forgot that the audience has already seen a hundred movies just like this one. Nothing surprising happens and, unlike the best Lifetime films, Indiscretion never winks at the audience or indirectly acknowledges the clichéd nature of its narrative. The whole thing is just painfully dull and no amount of mood lighting is going to change that. There is a little twist at the end but most viewers will probably be so bored with it all that they probably won’t even notice. That’s just the type of film this is.

If you want to see an entertainingly over-the-top and pulpy film about people having sex in New Orleans, I would suggest checking to see if Zandalee is still available on YouTube.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #93: Boogie Nights (dir by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film Boogie Nights (which, amazingly enough, was not nominated for best picture) is a bit of an overwhelming film to review. It’s a great film and, if you’re reading this review, you’ve probably seen Boogie Nights and you probably already know that it’s a great film. And if you haven’t seen Boogie Nights, you really should because it’s a great film. So, this review, in short, amounts to: Great film.

Boogie Nights takes place in the late 70s and the early 80s. Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) is a high school dropout who works as a busboy, lives with his parents, and has a really big cock. (Indeed, one of the film’s most famous lines is, “This is a giant cock.”) When we first meet Eddie, he’s likable and cute in a dumb sort of way. Then he meets adult film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and becomes a star. At first, everything is great. Eddie changes his name to Dirk Diggler and no longer has to deal with his abusive mother (a chilling Joanna Gleason). Jack and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) become his new parents. He gets a cool older brother in the form of actor Reed Rothschild (John C. Reilly, totally nailing the “People tell me that I look like Han Solo,” line). He makes friends with other adult film actors, like the desperately unhip Buck (Don Cheadle), the free-spirited (and secretly very angry) Rollergirl (Heather Graham), and the poignantly insecure Jessie St. Vincent (Melora Walters). He gets new admirers, like Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman). He also gets addicted to cocaine. And while Dirk falls from stardom, the adult film industry is taken over by gangsters like Floyd Gondolli (Philip Baker Hall) and self-styled artists like Jack Horner find themselves pushed to the side.

And you may have noticed that I mentioned a lot of actors in the paragraph above. That’s because Boogie Nights is a true ensemble piece. It’s full of great performances and memorable characters. Along with everyone that I mentioned above, the cast also includes William H. Macy as cinematographer “Little Bill” Daggett. From the minutes we first meet Little Bill, we get the feeling that he might be a little bit too uptight for pornography. Maybe that’s because his wife — played by the inspiring sex positive feminist and veteran adult film star Nina Hartley — is constantly and publicly cheating on him. Macy and Hartley do not have as much screen time as the rest of the cast but, ultimately, their characters are two of the most important in the film.

And then there’s Robert Ridgely, who is marvelously sleazy as the paternal but ultimately icky Col. James. When we first meet the Colonel, he’s almost a humorous character. But then, suddenly, there’s one chilling scene where he opens up to Jack Horner and we are forced to reconsider everything that we had previously assumed about both the Colonel and his business.

And how can we forget Luis Guzman, as a club owner who desperately wants to appear in one of Jack’s films? Or Ricky Jay as a plain-spoken cameraman? Or how about Thomas Jane, playing one of those tightly wound characters who you know is going to be trouble as soon as you see him? And finally, nobody who has seen Boogie Nights will ever forget Alfred Molina, singing along to Sister Christian and running down the street, clad only in black bikini briefs and firing a shotgun.

But it’s not just the actors who make Boogie Nights a great film. This was Paul Thomas Anderson’s second film and, under his direction, we feel as if we’ve been thrown straight into Dirk’s exciting and ultimately dangerous world. When the film begins, the camera almost seems to glide, capturing the excitement of having everything that you could possibly want. But, as things go downhill for Dirk, the camerawork gets more jittery and nervous. A sequence where Anderson cuts back and forth between Jack trying to shoot a movie on video (as opposed to his beloved film) and Dirk nearly being beaten to death in a parking lot remains one of the best sequences that Anderson has ever directed.

And then there’s the music! Oh my God! The music!

And the dancing!

And the singing!

I’ll be the first admit that I have no idea whether or not Boogie Nights is a realistic portrait of the adult film industry in the 70s and 80s. But ultimately, Boogie Nights is not about porn. It’s about a group of outsiders who form their own little family. At the end of the film, you’re happy that they all found each other. You know that Dirk will probably continue to have problems in the future but you’re happy for him because, no matter what happened in the past or what’s going to happen in the future, you know that he’s found a family that will always love him.

As I mentioned at the start of this appreciation, Boogie Nights was not nominated for best picture. Titanic was named the best picture of 1997. As I’ve said before, I loved Titanic when I was 12. But, nearly 18 years later, Boogie Nights is definitely the better picture.

It has stood the test of time.

In Memory of Robin Williams #1: Dead Poets Society (Dir by Peter Weir)

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last Monday, after I first heard that Robin Williams had committed suicide, I struggled to find the right words to express what I was feeling. Finally, I ended up posting this on Facebook:

I keep trying to write something about Robin Williams but the words aren’t coming to me. It’s all too big and strange and sudden and I can’t find the words to sum up my feelings. I feel like a part of my childhood died today. So, instead of trying to be more eloquent or wise than I actually am, I’m just going to say R.I.P., Robin WIlliams.

Finally, a little over a week later, I still don’t know what to say. How do you sum up a life in just a few words? I don’t think that they can be done for anyone. It certainly can’t be done for as iconic a figure as Robin Williams. So, instead of trying to do the impossible, I’ve spent the last few days watching and reviewing a few of Robin Williams’ films.

And, of course, one of those films had to be the 1989 best picture nominee Dead Poets Society.

Now, a quick warning. The review below is going to contain spoilers. I’m going to talk about some very important plot points. But surely you’ve seen Dead Poets Society already. And even if you haven’t seen it, surely you’ve heard what the film is about and surely, you know what happens. After all, who doesn’t? But if you are one of those people who does not know or who has not seen the film — well, why haven’t you?

The first time I ever saw Dead Poets Society was in a high school creative writing class. Our teacher — who, it quickly became apparently, considered herself to be the real-life version of the teacher played by Robin Williams — showed it to us, over the course of three class periods, as an introduction to writing poetry. I enjoyed the film but the rest of the class absolutely loved it. Especially the guys. For the rest of the class year, I would listen to those guy as they bragged about how they were seizing the day. I remember one day, the classroom was empty except for me and one of the boys. I can’t remember what led to him doing it (and it could very well have been my suggestion that he try) but he eventually ended up standing on top of a desk just like the students at the end of the film. Unfortunately, public high school desks aren’t quite as sturdy as private school desks and my friend soon ended up crashing to the floor as the desk slipped out from underneath him.

Ah, memories.

Yes, Dead Poets Society is one of those films. It’s a film that everyone seems to have seen, loved, and found to be inspirational. And I have to admit that I’ve grown to appreciate it more over the years since I first saw it back in creative writing class. With each subsequent viewing, I find myself less critical of the film’s melodramatic and predictable moments and more willing to accept the film for what it is — a celebration of life, poetry, and teaching. Dead Poets Society, from the very moment that Robin Williams makes his first appearance sitting at the end of a line of stodgy old men and flashing an unapologetically impish smile, is a film that defies easy cynicism. It’s a film that embraces you and you have to be very hard-hearted not to embrace it back.

Dead Poets Society, of course, tells the story of a private school in the 1950s and what happens when a new teacher (Robin Williams, naturally) encourages his students to celebrate creativity, to “seize the day” as the saying goes. Not surprisingly, just about every other adult thinks that the students would be better off not seizing the day but instead preparing for a life of WASPy conformity. This leads to a few of Mr. Keating’s students forming a secret society where they can read poetry, talk about their feelings, and basically do their best to honor the memory of Walt Whitman.

There are seven members of the Dead Poets Society:

There’s Gerard Pitts, who doesn’t really make much of an impression. The main thing that I always notice about Gerard Pitts is that he looks like a young version of Sam Waterston. This made sense when I checked the end credits and I discovered that he was played by James Waterston, son of Sam.

Stephen Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero) is another one who doesn’t actually get to do much (beyond boast about the fact that he has a genius I.Q. and create a makeshift radio) but, with his cute glasses, unruly hair, and friendly manner, it’s impossible not to like him.

Of the three main villains in Dead Poets Society, none of them are quite as loathsome as Richard Cameron (Dylan Kussman). The stern headmaster (played by Norman Lloyd) and the judgmental father (played by Kurtwood Smith) at least have the excuse of being old and set-in-their-boring-ways. Cameron, however, starts out as a member of the Dead Poets Society but still has absolutely no problem betraying them. As opposed to the adults in the movie, Cameron is someone who still had a chance to be something more than a worm. That being said, Dylan Kussman makes Cameron into a memorable worm.

Then there’s Knox Overstreet (played by Josh Charles, who appears to have only aged a year or two in between this movie and the first season of The Good Wife). We know that Knox is rich because his name is Knox Overstreet. Knox has a crush on a girl who goes to the local high school. Knox’s subplot doesn’t really amount to much but it’s impossible not to like him because Josh Charles was (and is) simply adorable.

Charlie Dalton (played, quite well, by Gale Hansen) is the one who most enthusiastically embraces the idea of seizing the day. He’s the one who pretends to get a tattoo, who demands to be known by a new name, who attempts to protest the school’s out-dated traditions, and who ultimately is punished with expulsion after he physically attacks Cameron. (And, as sorry as I was to see Charlie leave the movie, Cameron totally deserved it.) For a few months in 2008, Gale Hansen was a very active participant on the IMDB message boards, answering questions, giving advice, and generally just being a very gracious guy. However, he suddenly stopped posting and, just as mysteriously, all of his previous posts were subsequently deleted. Hansen, himself, hasn’t acted since 1998 and that’s a shame because he really did do a good job as the enthusiastic, idealistic, and not-quite-as-worldly-as-he-thinks Charlie Dalton.

Neil Perry (played by Robert Sean Leonard) is the one who, inspired to seize the day, appears in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, as a result, earns the wrath of his overbearing father. Seen now, in the shadow of Robin Williams’ tragic death, the scene where Neil commits suicide takes on a terrible poignance and it no longer feels as melodramatic as it did the first time that I saw it. Whereas, originally, it seemed hard to believe that a character played by the energetic and charismatic Leonard would end up committing suicide over a play, we now know that energy and charisma do not necessarily equal happiness.

And finally, there’s Todd Anderson (played by a very young Ethan Hawke), who is pathologically shy and who, at the end of the film, finally finds the strength to climb up on his desk. After years of seeing in him in various Richard Linklater films, it’s strange to see the usually verbose Hawke playing such an introverted character. But he does a good job, turning Todd into the film’s moral center.

And then there’s their teacher, John Keating who, quite frankly, might as well be named Robin Williams. That’s not to say that Williams doesn’t give a good performance as Keating. Indeed, Williams is the glue that holds the film’s ensemble together and his performance so dominates the entire film that, every time that I’ve seen it, I’ve always been surprised to discover just how little screen time he actually has in Dead Poets Society. As embodied by Robin Williams, John Keating becomes the type of teacher that everyone wishes they could have had just once. The power of his performance comes from the fact that he not only inspires the viewers to “seize the day” but he actually makes you believe that the day is worth holding on to. Without Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society would be easy to dismiss as just being a film about a bunch of privileged teenagers reading poetry and pretending to be rebels. With Williams, however, the film becomes a celebration of life.

Robin Williams, R.I.P.