Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2019: Ma (dir by Tate Taylor)

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, Ma! I had such high hopes for you!

When I first saw the trailer, I assumed that Ma would be kind of a silly horror film where Octavia Spencer plays a woman who buys beer for a bunch of teenagers and then develops an unhealthy obsession with them and then freaks out when all the teenagers are like, “We don’t want to spend all of our time hanging out with a 50 year-old.” I thought it would be a nicely simple little film and I was looking forward to it because Octavia Spencer is a great actress who, far too often, gets typecast as everyone’s surrogate maternal figure. I really wanted a chance to see her just go crazy on film.

And, make no mistake about it, Spencer does get to go crazy in Ma and that’s fun to watch but the film itself gets weighed down by a plot that’s a hundred times more complicated than it needs to be. It turns out that Ma isn’t just someone who is a little bit too clingy for her own good. No, instead, Ma has got an elaborate scheme going so that she can get revenge on the children of the people who humiliated her in high school and …. well, who cares? I mean, this is a good example of a film that could have been a lot of fun except for the fact that someone decided to try to make a statement.

(Tate Taylor previously directed Spencer in The Help and if you think that there’s little in The Help that would suggest that the future director of Ma had an affinity for or understanding of the horror genre, you’re right.)

Octavia Spencer is obviously having a lot of fun with the role of Ma but the film, for some reason, spends a lot of time following a host of other characters, none of whom are as interesting. It all come down to yet another Saw-style torture chamber and that sort of thing really hasn’t been interesting for a while. In the end, Ma is a missed opportunity.

Oh well.

Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2019: Yesterday (dir by Danny Boyle)

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s a bit of an odd film, Yesterday is.

Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, a singer-songwriter who has struggled to find much success. The only person who believes in him is his manager, a school teacher named Ellie Appleton (Lily James). (Given the film’s subject matter, Ellie’s last name is a significant one.) One night, the entire world is hit by a brief blackout. Jack misses most of the excitement because he’s in a coma, having been hit by a bus.

When Jack wakes up from his coma, he’s shocked to discover that he’s lost several teeth and now looks kind of silly whenever he speaks, sings, or even smiles. However, he also eventually discovers that he is now apparently the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles!

Somehow (it’s never explained how), that global blackout changed history. It’s not that the Beatles ceased to exist as individuals. In one of the film’s more affecting scenes, Jack drives out to the country and meets John Lennon (Robert Carlyle), who never became a superstar and who, as a result, was never assassinated. However, in this new world, the Beatles never came together as a group and, as a result, some of the most beloved songs in history were never written. Only Jack knows the lyrics and music for Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday, The Long and Riding Road, Let It Be, Back in the USSR, and …. well, everything!

(Oddly enough, the Beatles no longer existing has also led to several other things no longer existing. It’s impossible not to laugh when Jack discovers that, without the Beatles, there was never an Oasis. At the same time, there’s also no Coke or Harry Potter books. I guess the Beatles weren’t around to inspire J.K. Rowling but why Coke would vanish is a bit more confusing. Since Coke predates the Beatles by a century, perhaps the the film is less about how strange the world is without Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and instead about how we owe everything good in the world to John Pemberton.)

Needless to say, this leads to Jack becoming a huge star. He’s soon touring with Ed Sheeran and recording his debut album. And yet, through it all, Jack is haunted by the fact that the music isn’t truly his. Will Jack continue to plagiarize his way to stardom? And will Jack and Ellie ever realize that they’re in love and totally meant to be together? Watch to find out, I suppose!

As I said at the start of this review, Yesterday is a bit of an odd film. Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis, it’s a meeting of two talents that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to compliment each other. Surprisingly enough, though, the mix of Curtis’s sentimentality and Boyle’s more subversive instincts works well. This is to especially be found in the scene where Jack meets John Lennon. On paper, the scene shouldn’t work but it does work because Boyle is enough of a contrarian to direct his actors to play the scene with a wistful sadness. The script may have intended the scene to prove that Lennon would have found happiness no matter what but Boyle directs it as if to say, “It probably would have been better for John if the Beatles has never existed….” Stylistically, Boyle is too much of a cheerful anarchist to fully embrace Curtis’s romcom-style love of the Beatles. At the same time, Curtis’s more earnest dialogue often undercuts Boyle’s more excessive instincts. The end result is a sweet-natured movie with an edge.

Making his feature film debut, Himsh Patel is likable as Jack, even if he doesn’t quite have rock star charisma. (Then again, that’s also a part of the film’s humor. On his own, Jack is destined to forever be the opening act, the acceptable performer who is forgotten as soon as the headliners show up. It’s only after the Beatles are wiped from everyone’s memory that Jack is able to become a star.) Lily James does her best with an underwritten role and Ed Sheeran plays a hilariously vapid version of himself.

Yesterday is a good-natured tribute to the power of music and one band in particular.

Catching Up With The Films of 2019: Late Night (dir by Nisha Ganatra)

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) has just gotten a new job. A struggling comedienne who, up until now, has been forced to test out her best material on her coworkers at a chemical plant, Molly is hired to join the writing staff of late night talk show host, Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson). Even though Molly knows that she was largely hired so that the show could claim to have a diverse writing staff (all of the other writers are white males), she is still thrilled to be working for Katherine. Why wouldn’t she be? Katherine is a notoriously difficult boss who can’t even be bothered to learn the names of most of the people working for her but Katherine is also a legend, one of the first women to ever host her own late night talk show.

Of course, all legends have to come to an end and Katherine’s career as a late night talk show host appears to be in its final days. Katherine’s rating have been in a steep decline for several years and her nonthreatening monologues and habit of booking guests like Doris Kearns Goodwin are not doing much to reverse the trend. Safely hidden away in her mansion and continually worried about the health of her Parkinson’s-stricken husband, Walter (John Lithgrow), Katherine has grown out of touch. Making matters even worse, the president of the network (played by Mindy Kaling’s Office co-star, Amy Ryan) hates Katherine and is eager to replace her with an obnoxious, Dane Cook-style comedian named Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz).

Molly’s new job is a struggle at first. The other writers dismiss Molly as merely being a “diversity hire” while Katherine often seems to be put off by Molly’s cheerful earnestness. Over time, Molly proves herself and soon, she’s inspiring Katherine to refuse to leave her show without a fight. Gone are bland monologues and boring presidential historians, replaced by politically charged humor and YouTube stars.

Late Night, as you may remember, was a huge hit at Sundance back in January. Amazon Studios paid 13 million for the distribution rights. The film was released in June to generally positive reviews and …. well, it made very little money. Despite an extensive advertising campaign and a deluge of think pieces that literally begged audiences to see the film, Late Night flopped at the box office and it is estimated that, taking into account the film’s ad campaign, Amazon lost about 40 million dollars on the film.

Why wasn’t Late Night a bigger success at the box office? At the time, the popular answer was misogyny. While one should never discount that, I think that the film’s failure had more to do with the fact that the ad campaign made Late Night look more like the latest Netflix series than an actual cinematic experience. Like a lot of movies about TV, Late Night was a film that seemed like it could wait for television. I mean, I am the film’s target audience and even I waited to watch the film on Prime.

As for the film itself, it’s flawed but likable. Along with co-starring in the film, Mindy Kaling wrote the script and the dialogue is consistently witty, even if the plot occasionally struggles to keep up. At its best, this is a fun movie to listen to. Visually, the film’s a bit flat and there’s a big third act development that feels a bit forced but, for the most part, the film works. Not surprisingly, Emma Thompson is perfectly cast as Katherine and she delivers her razor sharp lines with the right mix of scorn and pathos. Mindy Kaling effortlessly holds her own opposite Thompson and even John Lithgow, who can usually be counted upon to chew every piece of scenery available to him, is effective in his small but important role. In the end, it’s kind of a sweet film and there’s something touchingly naive about the film’s steadfast belief that a late night talk show can actually be worth all the trouble.

Late Night is available on Prime so check it out.

4 Shots From 4 Holiday Classics: The Godfather, Rabid, Lethal Weapon, Eyes Wide Shut

Posted on December 25, 2019 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 lets the visuals do the talking!

Merry Christmas!

‘Tis the season for….

4 Shots From 4 Holiday Classics

The Godfather (1972, dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

Rabid (1977, dir by David Cronenberg)

Lethal Weapon (1987, dir by Richard Donner)

Eyes Wide Shut (1999, dir by Stanley Kubrick)

Once Again, It’s Time To Watch Santa Claus Conquers The Martians On The Shattered Lens!

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Watching the 1964 holiday sci-fi epic, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, is a Christmas Eve tradition here at the Shattered Lens! So, sit back, turn on Kid TV, and get ready to sing!

HOORAY FOR SANTY CLAUS!

Lifetime Film Review: Recipe For Danger (dir by Lisa France)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s the perfect recipe for dangers in a Lifetime movie?

Well, you need a pinch of melodrama, a dash of empowerment, a tablespoon of a wimpy spouse, and a quart of psycho energy. Sorry, I’m not really much of a cook and you can probably already tell. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always been obsessed with cooking shows and movies about professional chefs. I watch and I think to myself, “How come they can do that when I can’t even make toast without nearly burning down the kitchen?” And, of course, I always take a bit of pleasure when Gordon Ramsay catches a professional chef trying to serve up raw lamb. “See!?” I shout at the TV, “It can happen to anyone!”

But to get back to my recipe. Here’s what you need to cook up some danger, Lifetime-style.

You need a protagonist who has a glamorous job and an attractive family. In the case of Recipe for Danger, Vanessa (Bree Williamson) is the head chef at a very successful restaurant. Vanessa has a super supportive husband (Adam Hurtig) and a super loyal best friend (Kate Yacula). Vanessa also has an adopted daughter named Lacy (Annelise Pollman).

You need to have a bit of a moral panic. In this case, Vanessa is warned that she’s oversharing on social media. She’s constantly posting pictures of her life and writing about Lacy’s accomplishments. She’s warned that, if she’s not careful, she’s going to end up with a stalker. Vanessa laughs off the danger. She’s proud of her daughter. She has a great life. Why shouldn’t she share?

And, of course, you need a psycho! In this case, that psycho would be Taryn (Sarah Lind). Taryn’s is Lacy’s birth mother and she wants her daughter back. Due to Vanessa’s habit of oversharing, Taryn has been able to track them down. (Who’s laughing now, Vanessa!?) Taryn manages to get a job working in Vanessa’s restaurant and soon, she and Vanessa are besties! Everyone tries to warn Vanessa that something is off about Taryn but Vanessa refuses to listen. Of course, eventually, Taryn kidnaps Lacy. Can Vanessa rescue Lacy and how many people will end up in the hospital before Taryn’s rampage ends?

This was a pretty standard Lifetime kidnapping film, though I did like the fact that, rather than passively going along with being kidnapping, Lacy was always looking for an opportunity to escape and she got a chance to prove herself to be considerably more clever than even her own birth mother gave her credit for being. Sarah Lind’s been in quite a few Lifetime films and she does a pretty good job as Taryn, providing a nice balance between charm and psychosis.

In the end, Recipe for Danger is a filling if rather traditional meal.

Lifetime Film Review: He’s Out To Get You (dir by Nadeem Soumah)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, put yourself in the shoes of Megan (Samaire Armstrong).

You had a wonderful husband. You had a young child. You were out driving one day and, because you took your eyes off the road, you ended up having a head-on collision with another vehicle. You survived. Your husband did not. Your child is dead. What do you do?

Well, Megan decides to check herself into a mental hospital and it’s there that she stays for the next four years. Because she checked herself in, she can also check herself out. Eventually, she decides to do just that. Her doctor thinks that Megan isn’t ready to reenter society but Megan is determined to return to her hometown and reunite with her brother.

Her brother, Greg, lives in a house on a hill that overlooks the ocean. It’s a big house that towers over the otherwise dead end small town below. As Duke (Rob Mayes), the local bartender puts it, it doesn’t look like it belongs in the town. Greg has lived in the house since the death of his and Megan’s parents but when Megan arrives, Greg is nowhere to be found!

When Mega asks around town, everyone insists that they’ve never heard of this mysterious Greg. At first, Megan thinks that it might be because Greg was always a bit of a recluse. But, as the days drags on and she can still find no sign of her bother, Megan starts to think that something has happened to Greg. Could it be a conspiracy or could it all be coincidence?

Or ….. is it possible that Megan never had a brother to begin with!? That’s certainly what the unhelpful sheriff (Bart Johnson) seems to think. In fact, the only person who seems to have any faith in Megan is Duke but Duke has a shady history of his own. Duke not only is a former burglar but he has plans that require more money than he probably possesses. Is Duke to be trusted or is he lying about what he knows?

And who put that rattlesnake in Megan’s car!?

Yes, the plot of He’s Out To Get You raises a lot of questions. They’re all answered and some of the answers are more satisfactory than others. This is one of those films that sets up an intriguing mystery but which doesn’t quite come up with a satisfying solution. To be honest, though, none of that really matters because — OH MY GOD, THE HOUSE IS FREAKING GORGEOUS!

I have often stated on this site that one of the main things that I love about Lifetime films is seeing the huge houses in which they take place. I mean, Lifetime has featured a lot of truly stunning homes. But I don’t know if Lifetime has ever featured house quite as impressive as the one in He’s Out To Get You. Seriously, this house is huge and it’s tastefully decorated and it has a nice pool and, most importantly, the view is absolutely to die for! Would I kill to own that house? Well, maybe not quite but I’d definitely consider it.

As for the rest of the film, it’s well-acted and the villains are properly hissable. I liked Duke, the morally ambiguous bartender and I thought Rob Mayes did a great job with the role. That said, the house is definitely the star.

Seriously, it’s beautiful.

Lifetime Film Review: Most Likely To Murder (dir by Kaila York)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh Hell Yeah! Now, seriously, this is the perfect Lifetime movie!

Welcome to Lifetime High School! It’s a school where students plot to win awards, the mean girls are at war with the one nice girl, the cheereleaders determine who is popular and who is a pariah, and where social media is both a great equalizer and a deadly weapon. It’s just like any other high school, except it’s a Lifetime high school. That means that everything is juts a little bit more extreme than usual. Whereas regular high school cheerleaders might inspire someone to develop an eating disorder, Lifetime cheerleaders plant drugs on their rivals and arrange for season-ending injuries. And, if that doesn’t work, there’s always murder….

Poor Casey (Madison McLaughlin)! She used to be popular. She used to be a cheerleader. She used to be the one making other people insecure and giving them eating disorders. But, things happens. Things change. Her father was killed in a housefire and now, Casey wears a wig to cover up her own scars. Casey’s mother (Heather McComb) now works as a waitress and is dating a loser named Harlen (Brendan McCarthy). Casey’s former best friend, Hailey (Ava Allan), is now her greatest enemy, which means that Hailey not only delights in stealing Casey’s wig but she also plots to make each and every one of Casey’s humiliations go viral.

(You can tell this is a Lifetime High School film because, whenever anyone looks at their phone, they immediately exclaim, “You’re going viral!”)

However, Reagan (Bayley Corman) wants to help Casey out. Reagan’s a cheerleader but, because she went through a lengthy “ugly duckling” phase, she still feels a lot of compassion for the downtrodden. Reagan befriends Casey. Regan encourages Casey to tell the entire school about the fire and to reveal that scars underneath her wig. Reagan defends Casey against the abuse of Hailey and she tells Casey that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother’s waitressing job. She even encourages Casey to believe that she might win the year-end award for “Most Inspiring” student!

Of course, Hailey and her friend, Clair (Ashlee Fuss), keep telling Reagan that Casey isn’t the perfect, shy person that she pretends to be. They say that Casey shouldn’t be trusted. Reagan refuses to believe them. After all, Clair’s just mad because she broken her ankle in a mysterious accident. And Hailey’s been upset ever since the cops discovered the stash of pills in her backpack. (Of course, Hailey swears that the pills don’t belong to her, which sounds like something a pill-popping cheerleader would say….) Reagan has no reason to believe Hailey and Clair but …. what if they’re right!?

Most Likely To Murder is a lot of fun, precisely because, for the majority of the movie, only the viewers are aware that Casey’s not as innocent as she pretends to be and there’s something undeniably enjoyable about watching her yank the wool down over everyone’s eyes. She may be a menace but she’s a clever menace and that makes her a lot of fun to watch. Madison McLaughlin does a great job in the role, making Casey not just dangerous but also sympathetic as well. I mean, as bad as Casey turns out to be, her tormentors aren’t much better. In the end, everyone’s kind of evil except for Reagan and her snarky friend, Taylor (Kara Royster). Needless to say, I’m a fan of any film where the snarky best friend is one of the heroes.

Most Likely To Murder provides exactly what you want from a Lifetime film — melodrama, murder, and high school backstabbing. It’s a lot of fun and one to keep an eye out for.

Lifetime Film Review: My Mom’s Darkest Secrets (dir by Curtis Crawford)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The special bond between mother and daughter is a theme to which Lifetime often returns. It’s actually one of the reasons why I love the station and its films. Whether it’s a case of the mother having to save her daughter from a bad boyfriend or a daughter having to prove that her mother isn’t actually a murderer, it’s rare that I can’t find something to relate to whenever I watch one of those films. I imagine that’s true for everyone but that seems to be especially true for me.

My Mom’s Darkest Secrets is the latest Lifetime mother-daughter film and, before I get too much into the film and its plot, can I just mention how much I love that title? I mean that title features everything that we love about Lifetime. You’ve got the mother-daughter bond. You’ve got secrets. And you’ve got darkness. In fact, the title promises us more than the typical Lifetime film. We’re not just learning about a mother’s secrets. And we’re not just learning about her dark secrets. No — this movie is about her DARKEST secret! It’s like, “I have many secret and they’re all bad but this one is the absolute worst.” How can you not find that intriguing?

As for the film itself, it’s all about Ashley Beck-Ford (Nia Roam) and her mother, Sara (Laura Fortier). When Ashley was born, Sara gave up her daughter for adoption. Ashley was raised by two wonderful women and Lifetime presents Ashley’s adoptive moms in such a positive and lovable light that, even though the film was inevitably made before the recent controversy, it still feels like a massive “take that!” to Hallmark. (As often as they’re compared, Lifetime has always been more progressive than Hallmark.) However, Ashley has now tracked down Sara and she soon discovers that her birth mother is into all sorts of drama.

For instance, Sara’s husband has been murdered and the police suspect that Sara may have been the one responsible! Even worse, because Sara has arranged for Ashley to eventually inherit the dead man’s fortune, the cops also think that Ashley may have been involved as well! It’s now up to Sara to dig around and discover the truth and, of course, that’ll mean uncovering some of “my mom’s darkest secrets!”

I enjoyed My Mom’s Darkest Secrets. Both Sara and Ashley had red hair, so I could relate to them both. Beyond that, though, Nia Roam and Laura Fortier were both very well-cast. They had enough in common that you could look at them or listen to the talk and think to yourself, “Yes, they could very well be mother and daughter.” The credibility of their relationship added some depth and some nuance to the film’s central mystery. You watch the film and you hope that things work out for them because Sara and Ashley really do seem like they deserve to have that type of relationship that so many other people take for granted.

My Mom’s Darkest Secrets was on the Lifetime Movie Network last night and, with Lifetime being Lifetime, it’ll probably air several more time. So, keep an eye out for it!