Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Girl Missing (dir by Joel Soisson)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I recently turned on the TV, checked the guide to see if there was anything on worth recording, and discovered, to my horror, that I only had about 5 hours of recording space left on my DVR! Making matters ever worse was that the DVR was threatening to erase the two oldest recordings in order to make more space. Terrified at the thought of losing both Bend it Like Beckham and Jesus Christ Superstar, I realized that it was time to borrow a page from the Gary Loggins playbook and starting cleaning out my DVR!

I started things off by watching Girl Missing, a film which I recorded off of Lifetime on October 25th. (What was I doing on the 25th that required me to record the movie? I was at a Halloween party, dancing in my underwear and then getting soaked while running through the rain on the way back to the car. Or, at least, that’s what I think I was doing. My memory of that weekend is hazy, at best.)

ANYWAY — according to the IMDb, Girl Missing was originally entitled Forgotten but I imagine Lifetime changed the title to remind viewers of Gone Girl. The film opens with two hunters wandering across a frozen wilderness in the snow. I point this out because the film’s opening few minutes really are impressive and visually striking. The image of those two hunters wandering across that desolate landscape have an otherworldly feel to them. Eventually, the hunters come across something unexpected — a ten year-old girl has been abandoned in a ditch.

Flash forward ten years and that girl has grown up to be Jane (Francesca Eastwood). Jane has no memory of her life before she was found in that ditch. However, that starts to change when she’s contacted by Sylvia, a wealthy New York widow who claims to be her mother. Sylvia is played by Kiersten Warren, who once played Alex in Saved By The Bell: The College Years, a series that my friend Derek and I are currently reviewing over on PrimeTime Preppie.

After traveling to Sylvia’s mansion, Jane is at first excited to finally be reunited with her mother. However, it quickly becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems. Sylvia is nervous and evasive, especially when talking about her husband’s suicide. Her boyfriend, Carlo (the wonderful Federico Dordei), gives off a vibe of pure sleaze and Jane is not happy to discover that Carlo and Sylvia’s affair started while Sylvia was still married. Soon, Jane is having sepia-toned nightmares of past violence and she starts to see a mysterious little girl wandering through the gray hallways of the mansion…

As I watched Girl Missing, with its chilly visuals and twisted storyline, I thought to myself, “This movie must be Canadian.” (And, just so there’s no misunderstandings, I totally meant that as a compliment!) However, I then checked with the imdb and discovered that no, this was not a Canadian film. Instead, it was filmed in Minnesota, which might be close to Canada but is still definitely a part of the United States.

But no matter. Whether the film’s snow was Canadian snow or Minnesota snow, director Joel Soisson still made good visual use of the frozen and desolate landscape. He also made good use of Sylvia’s shadow-filled mansion and the entire film had an enjoyably gothic feel to it. In the end, Girl Missing felt like a fun little Young Adult mystery. It was the epitome of an enjoyable Lifetime film.

Film Review: Animals (dir by Collin Schiffli)

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Animals is a pretty depressing movie and I guess that’s appropriate since it’s a movie about two heroin addicts. The script was written by David Dastmalchian, who also plays the role of Jude. Reportedly, he based the script on his own experiences with drug addiction. As a result, Animals is one of those movies that is full of believable details. I’ve never used heroin and I don’t think I ever would. However, even if there was a chance that I would touch heroin, Animals would probably change my mind. It’s a seriously dark movie.

And don’t get me wrong — that’s a good thing. If you’re going to make a movie about two people slowly killing themselves as a result of their drug addiction, the movie probably should be a bit on the dark side. But, at the same time, that doesn’t necessarily make Animals a lot of fun to watch.

The film tells the story of Jude and his girlfriend, Bobbie (Kim Shaw). They both come from upper middle class backgrounds, they’re both obviously well-educated (it’s suggested that Jude may have gone to medical school), and — even in the throes of drug addiction — they’re both still attractive enough that they can still blend in with “mainstream” society. As we see, in a handful of flashbacks, they once owned a comfy apartment together. Now, they live in a car that they park outside of the Chicago Zoo. Jude and Bobbie spend most of their time trying to figure out how they’re going to make enough money to get their next fix.

And the best parts of the film are the parts that deal with Jude and Bobbie tricking unsuspecting people out of their money. As tedious as Jude and Bobbie’s addiction-centered existence may sometimes be, it’s hard not to admire their determination. Their schemes range from the simple to the complex. They go to weddings and steal the gifts. Pretending to be a high-priced online prostitute, Bobbie goes to men’s houses and, after grabbing their money, runs outside where Jude waits for her in a running car. (Needless to say, none of the men are willing to risk the public shame of calling the police and admitting to how they met Bobbie in the first place.) Probably their most impressive scheme involves tricking a mall security guard into splitting the reward money for finding a stolen laptop. Jude and Bobbie are so good at cheating people that you do end up regretting that they couldn’t put their obviously intelligence to less self-destructive uses.

Eventually, of course, one of the two has an overdose and gets taken to the hospital. For the first time, the two of them are separated and forced to realize just how destructive and co-dependent their relationship really is. Will they stay apart and get clean or will true love (and heroin addiction) conquer all?

There’s a really harrowing scene in which Jude and Bobbie are harassed by some undercover cops who turns out to be just as brutal as the drug dealers that they claim to be fighting. And both Shaw and Dastmalchian give good performances. Even John Heard gets to play a character who isn’t a scheming and corrupt government official. There’s a lot to admire about the film but, ultimately, it’s so dark and depressing that it’s difficult to recommend. Unlike a film like Trainspotting, there’s not much going on underneath the grimy surface. On the basis of their work here, I’ll watch anything else that Schiffli, Shaw, and Dastmalchian do but Animals is one of those films where one viewing is more than enough.

James Bond Film Review: SPECTRE (dir by Sam Mendes)

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(SPOILERS)

Three years ago, Arleigh, Leonard, Chris Mead, and I reviewed every single James Bond films up to Skyfall. Leonard often refers to this as being our Avengers moment and it remains one of my fondest memories of my time here at the Shattered Lens. It really doesn’t matter who is playing the role or what the villain’s evil plan may be, or whether the individual film was made in the 60s or just last year, the Bond films are a lot of fun. Some of them are better than others. Sometimes, you get lucky and you get something like For Your Eyes Only and sometimes you have to settle for Die Another Day. Ultimately, every Bond film is an event and, in many ways, they are critic proof. As long we hear the iconic music, as long as Bond gets a few good quips, as long as the villain chuckles while explaining his evil plan, as long as there’s an exciting chase and a big explosion, and as long as there’s a lot of gorgeous clothes to look at and at least one tastefully lit sex scene, most viewers will be happy.

If it’s not broken…

Most viewers will probably be happy with SPECTRE, the latest Bond film. I saw the film yesterday and, even if it won’t ever make my list of top ten Bond films, I enjoyed it. Daniel Craig is back as Bond, Christoph Waltz fulfills his destiny by becoming the 9th actor to play the iconic villain Blofeld, Dave Bautista is a properly intimidating henchman, and Lea Seydoux is the strongest Bond girl since Eva Green. One thing that I especially appreciated about the film is that, in the roles of M, Miss Moneypenny, and Q, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Ben Whishaw are actually given an opportunity to get involved in the film’s action and all three of them are a lot of fun to watch. The film has an absolutely brilliant opening, featuring Bond assassinating a man in Mexico City and destroying a city block in the process. There’s an exciting chase scene, there’s a few moments of genuine wit, and there’s even one of those patented Bond train journeys, where sex and violence are mixed with intoxicating results. And yes, the clothes are to die for…

To Die For

It’s good and undeniably enjoyable in so many ways and yet somehow, SPECTRE still left me feeling slightly disappointed. Some of that is because SPECTRE exists in the shadow of Skyfall. After Skyfall (which I feel should have been one of the films nominated for best picture of 2012), expectation were sky high for SPECTRE. Those expectations were so high that there was no way that SPECTRE could have hoped to meet them. (You could argue that Quantum of Solace faced the same problem when it had to follow Casino Royale.) SPECTRE is no Skyfall but, then again, few films are.

Speaking of high expectations, I think we were all expecting Christoph Waltz to be one of the best Bond villains. After all, Waltz is a legitimately great actor and he specializes in the type of cheerful arrogance that has epitomized some of Bond’s greatest antagonists. (One can easily imagine Waltz playing Auric Goldfinger.) Add to that, Waltz is playing Blofeld, the ultimate Bond bad guy. As it is, Waltz gives a good performance but SPECTRE‘s Blofeld just isn’t that interesting. He has a lot more in common with the generic baddie from Quantum of Solace than with Goldfinger or the fascinated Raoul Silva of Skyfall.

As well, it wasn’t just enough for Blofeld to be the leader of a secret organization bent on world domination. It wasn’t enough that Blofeld was secretly responsible for everything that happened in Casino Royale, Quantum, and Skyfall (which, as much as some critics have complained about this particular plot twist, is actually a clever reference to Blofeld’s shadowy presence in all of Sean Connery’s Bond films). For some reason, the film’s writers decided it would be a good idea to make him Bond’s jealous stepbrother. Blofeld’s past relationship to Bond feels incredibly superfluous. I like to think that I’m pretty good at suspending my disbelief (especially when it comes to a Bond film) but I have to admit that I found myself rolling my eyes while Blofeld talked about how jealous he was when Bond came to live with his family.

We all know it’s you, Christoph…

(As well, Blofeld’s jealousy was a bit too reminiscent of Raoul Silva’s jealousy of Bond. It worked in Skyfall because we weren’t expecting a Bond villain to have a vulnerable side and Javier Bardem’s perversely charismatic performance caught the viewers off guard. In SPECTRE, it just feels like something that should have been eliminated during a rewrite.)

Daniel Craig, of course, is the sixth actor to officially play the role of James Bond. It’s always interesting to see how each actor interprets the role. The most successful Bond films are always built around the actor’s individual interpretation. For instance, it would be difficult to imagine Roger Moore in any of Sean Connery’s Bond films and, at the same time, it would be hard to imagine Sean Connery in The Spy Who Loved Me. Sean Connery was the Ruthless Bond. George Lazenby was the Insecure Bond. Roger Moore was the Bemused Bond. Timothy Dalton was the Boring Bond. Pierce Brosnan was the Suave Bond. Depending on which one of his films you see, Daniel Craig is either the Professional Bond or the Whiny Bond. SPECTRE continues the pattern that we’ve seen in the previous Craig films of presenting a James Bond who is struggling to balance his humanity with his job. When it works, like in Skyfall, it’s riveting. When it doesn’t work, like in Quantum of Solace, it runs the risk of getting rather tedious. SPECTRE finds Craig in between those two extremes. It’s an uneven performance. Craig and Seydoux have great chemistry and the scenes where Craig interacts with Fiennes, Harris, and Whishaw are fun to watch. But there are other scenes where Daniel Craig just comes across like he’s bored with the whole thing. Craig’s Bond has spent four films trying to figure out how he feels about his job. If Craig returns for a fifth film (and, as of right now, that seems to be a big if), he will hopefully have finally gotten over it.

(That said, SPECTRE was definitely written for Craig’s bond. At the end of the film — SPOILER, obviously — Bond has the choice between executing a man in cold blood or allowing the authorities to arrest him. Craig allows the man to be arrested. Connery would have put a bullet in his head and then smirked about it.)

He totally would…

And if it seems that I’m being critical of SPECTRE — well, I am. It’s one of the more uneven films in the Bond franchise, one that especially suffers when compared to some of the other spy films (Kingsman, MI: Rogue Nation) released this year. But, at the same time, SPECTRE does deliver the basics of what we expect from a Bond film. It’s entertaining and it has its fun moments. It’s no Skyfall but at least it’s better than Quantum of Solace.

Incidentally, I want to be Lea Seydoux when I grow up…

Other Bond Reviews on TSL:

4 Shots From 4 Grace Kelly Films: Fourteen Hours, Rear Window, To Catch A Thief, High Society

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Tomorrow would have been Grace Kelly’s 86th birthday! This edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films is dedicated to her.

4 Shots From 4 Films

Fourteen Hours (1951, directed by Henry Hathaway)

Rear Window (1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

To Catch A Thief (1955, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

High Society (1956, directed by Charles Walters)

Lisa’s Oscar Predictions for November!

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you heard the news? Apparently, Steve Jobs is shaping up to the be one of the biggest box office bombs of all time! Over this past weekend, it went from playing in 2,000 theaters to playing in 424.

Myself, I have to wonder why anyone thought Steve Jobs was going to be a huge financial success in the first place. Isn’t this the third Steve Jobs biopic to be released in as many years? None of them have made in money. It may be time for people of a certain age and certain economic class to admit that not everyone is as fascinated by Steve Jobs as they are. I haven’t seen Steve Jobs yet so I better get out to a theater this week or else I’ll have to see it in a dollar theater and I always seem to have a bad experience at those places. In the mean time, be sure to check out Leonard’s review!

Anyway, with Steve Jobs crashing and burning, I’m dropping it from my list of Oscar predictions. Sorry, Steve Jobs. Sorry, Danny Boyle and Kate Winslet. Don’t worry, Michael Fassbender — you’re still on my list.

Anyway, here are my Oscar predictions for November. Be sure to also check out my predictions for January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October!

Best Picture

Bridge of Spies

Brooklyn

Carol

The Danish Girl

Joy

Room

Best Director

Lenny Abrahamson for Room

Todd Haynes for Carol

Alejandro G. Inarritu for The Revenant

Thomas McCarthy for Spotlight

Ridley Scott for The Martian

Best Actor

Matt Damon in The Martin

Johnny Depp in Black Mass

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant

Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs

Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett in Carol

Brie Larson in Room

Jennifer Lawrence in Joy

Carey Mulligan in Suffragette

Saiorse Ronan in Brooklyn

Best Supporting Actor

Paul Dano in Love & Mercy

Robert De Niro in Joy

Benicio Del Toro in Sicario

Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation

Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies

Best Supporting Actress

Joan Allen in Room

Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy

Jane Fonda in Youth

Rooney Mara in Carol

Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl

Insomnia File #9: Born Killers (dir by Morgan J. Freeman)

Posted on November 7, 2015 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? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were suffering insomnia at around 2:30 this morning, you could have turned over to ActionMax and watched the 2005 film Born Killers.

Now, probably the first thing that you noticed about this film is that the director is named Morgan J. Freeman. That J is there for a reason. In no way is Morgan J. Freeman the director related to Morgan Freeman the actor. Instead, Morgan J. Freeman is a director who has done a few indie films and who will probably never live down the fact that he directed American Psycho II: All-American Girl. According to the imdb, Freeman is also an executive producer on Teen Mom.

In other words, Morgan J. Freeman has been involved with a lot of crap.

However, Born Killers is actually a fairly good film. It’s certainly far better than anything you would expect to see from the director of American Psycho II.

Born Killers tells the story of two brothers, John (Jake Muxworthy) and Michael (Gabriel Mann). John and Michael are both killers. They call other human beings “piggy banks” and they spend all of their time murdering innocent people and then robbing them. For the wild and unpredictable Michael, it’s fun. For the coolly calculating John, it’s strictly business. They’re both sociopaths but, as quickly becomes apparent, Michael is the only one who is having any fun.

Through flashbacks, we discover that Michael and John never really had a chance to be anything other than what they eventually became. From an early age, their father (Tom Sizemore, who is absolutely chilling) taught them how to kill and steal. After their father’s violent death, John and Michael go on their own killing spree.

And everything seems to be going well for them, until John ends up shooting Michael. Why did John kill him? Even though John is narrating the story, he doesn’t seem to be sure. He admits that his memory may be fooling him. He thinks that it might have something to do with a woman named Archer (Kelli Garner), who the brothers reluctantly murdered.

With his brother now dead, John tracks down his half-sister, Gertle (Lauren German). John hasn’t seen Gertle in years and, when he first approaches her, he pretends to be a Mormon missionary. Gertle responds by leading him into her house and, after they have sex, she tells him that she knows that he is her half-brother.

Though John was originally planning on murdering her, he instead finds himself falling in love with her and even feeling that maybe his love for her would redeem him for all of his past crimes. When she tries to warn him that she has issues of her own, John replies that he knows they are meant to be together. He begs her to take a chance on him.

But Gertle, as you’ve probably guessed, has secrets of her own…

At first, I wasn’t expecting much from Born Killers. And, for the first 30 minutes or so, it plays out like your typical serial killer road film. I kept watching because of the performances but I didn’t think much of the story. However, as soon as John tracks down his sister, the entire movie changes direction and it actually starts to catch you off guard. Suddenly, you’re no longer sure just what exactly is going to happen or how it’s going to end. During the final half of the film, Lauren German and Jake Muxworthy give such good and compelling performances that you forget about the shaky first half. Even if the film’s ending is a little bit too twisted for its own good, it’s still an interesting journey.

All in all, Born Killers is not at all bad for a low-budget serial killer film airing on Cinemax at two in the morning!

Previous Insomnia Files:

Here Are The IDA Best Feature Nominees!

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m a little late in sharing this (well, about three days) but things have been a little bit busy around these parts. The nominees for the International Documentary Association’s awards were announced a few days ago. You can view the full list here.

For the purposes of those of us who are obsessed with trying to predict all the Oscar nominees, our main concern is with the 6 movies that were nominated for the Best Feature Award. Best Documentary Feature is, traditionally, one of the most difficult categories to predict. Every little bit of info helps. All 6 of the movies listed below have also been included on the list of the 124 documentaries that have been deemed to be Oscar-eligible this year.

Best Feature Award
Amy,
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,
Listen to Me Marlon,
The Look of Silence,
The Russian Woodpecker,
What Happened, Miss Simone?

Despite making an effort to see more documentaries this year, Amy is the only one of the above nominees that I’ve actually watched. It definitely deserves to be nominated.

One final question: though Going Clear was not nominated by the IDA, it is Oscar-eligible. If Going Clear did somehow get an Oscar nomination, would Tom Cruise and John Travolta still show up for the ceremony?

Here Are The 16 Films That Have Been Submitted for Best Animated Feature

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seeing as how the Dazzling Erin and I went to see The Peanuts Movie on Friday night, it now seems appropriate to share the 16 films that have been submitted for consideration for the Best Animated Feature Oscar! Now, to make clear, these films have just been submitted for consideration. The actual nominees have not yet been determined.

But still, you know how much I love to share Oscar news!

Here are the 16 films:

Anomalisa,

The Boy and the Beast,

Boy and the World,

The Good Dinosaur,

Home,

Hotel Translyvania 2,

Inside Out,

Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet,

The Laws of the Universe — Part 0,

Minions,

Moomins on the Riviera,

The Peanuts Movie,

Regular Show: The Movie,

Shaun the Sheep,

The Spongebob Movie,

When Marnie Was There

h/t on this goes to Awards Circuit. I also saw the news on Awards Daily but everyone knows how I feel about that site.

Here’s The Latest Trailer For The Suddenly Controversial The Hateful Eight

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s amazing how quickly things can change.

Just one month ago, The Hateful Eight was a film that everyone was eagerly anticipating but which no one was expecting to be as controversial or as incendiary as Quentin Tarantino’s previous film, Django Unchained. I think a lot of us were expecting The Hateful Eight to be a bit like Kill Bill — i.e., a delirious homage to Tarantino’s favorite films and one that took place in a parallel universe. We were expecting The Hateful Eight to be an example of pure cinema, with little connection to the outside world.

But that was a month ago. Things have changed. As I sit here typing this, The Hateful Eight has suddenly become one of the most controversial films of 2015. Suddenly, deciding whether or not to see it has been transformed into a political decision. Following Tarantino’s public criticism of the police and his refusal to back down from his statements, there are suddenly calls to boycott Tarantino’s latest film.

Myself, I’m not a huge fan of boycotting anything. I may choose not to see something for whatever reason but that’s my choice and it certainly does not make me politically or morally superior to anyone who may choose differently. Ultimately, those who want to boycott Tarantino’s film because of his liberal politics need to realize that they’ll also be boycotting a film that stars Libertarian Kurt Russell and features Republican Bruce Dern. If you can’t stand Tarantino’s politics, don’t vote for him when he runs for President. Don’t vote for any candidate that he endorses. But leave his movies, and those of us who want to watch them, alone.

Add to that, The Hateful Eight looks really good! Check out the trailer below!

Here’s The Trailer For Alice Through The Looking Glass!

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mia Wasikowska (who was so great in Jane Eyre, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Crimson Peak) returns as Alice in the trailer for the upcoming film, Alice Through The Looking Glass! Johnny Depp will be waiting for her. However, Tim Burton (who previously directed Alice In Wonderland) will only be producing this installment. Directing duties will be handled by James Bobin.

The film will be released on May 27th, 2016 but until then, watch the trailer below!