October True Crime: Too Close To Home (dir by Bill Corcoran)

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film Too Close To Comfort tells the disturbing story of the Donahues.

Nick Donahue (Rick Schroder) is a young attorney, a law school grad who has just joined the bar and who is still making a name for himself as a defense attorney. He’s good at his job and if you have any doubts, his mother Diane (Judith Light) will be there to tell you why you’re incorrect. Diane and Nick still live together. They have the type of relationship where Diane casually walks into the bathroom to talk to Nick while he’s in the shower.

In short, they have a very creepy relationship.

Nick talks about needing to get a place of his own but his mother says that it’s too soon for him to spend all that money. Nick wants to fall in love and marry a nice girl and start a family. Diane doesn’t want Nick to have a life separate from her. When Nick does end up marrying the sweet-natured Abby (Sarah Trigger), Diane snaps. One night, Abby is abducted and is later found murdered. Nick sobs and Diane holds her son and she doesn’t mention the fact that she’s the one who arranged for Abby to be killed.

The police figure it out, of course. Diane wasn’t that clever. When Diane is arrested and put on trial for murder, Nick is shocked. With his mother facing the death penalty for murdering his wife, Nick steps forward to defend his mother in court.

Agck! This movie! Admittedly, this is a made-for-TV movie but it’s still creepy as Hell. If anything, the fact that it was made for television make it even creepier than if it was a uncensored feature film. Held back by the rule of television, the film has to hint at what would probably otherwise be portrayed as explicit. That makes all of the little moments that indicate Diane’s madness all the more disturbing and frightening because they could be read several different ways. This is a film where every line is full of a very icky subtext. Diane is more than just an overprotective mother. Her feelings for Nick are on a whole other level.

Fortunately, Judith Light is one of those actresses who excels at communicating subtext. She delivers every line with just enough of an inflection that we know what she’s saying even if she doesn’t actually say it. From rolling her eyes when Nick asks her to turn around when he gets out of the shower to the scene where she flirts with Nick’s new landlord, Light leaves little doubt as to what really going through Diane’s mind. Rick Schroder has a far more simpler role as Nick but he still does a good job with the role. He’s sympathetic, even when he’s refusing to accept the truth about his mother.

This film is all the more disturbing due to being loosely based on a true story. The real Diana Donahue was named Elizabeth Ann Duncan and she was convicted of killing her son’s wife in the 1950s. (Too Close To Home is set in the 90s.) Her son really did defend her, all the way until her execution. In real life, her son continued to practice law until 2023, when he was disbarred by the state of California.

As for the film, it’s a classic true crime made-for-TV movie that features Judith Light at her disturbing best.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.8 “Every Picture….”

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, T.S. and Amy battle the Canadian Mafia!

Episode 2.8 “Every Picture….”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 21st, 1988)

This episode of T and T continues to insist that the show is taking place in a place called Metro County. It even features a newspaper called the Metro County Eagle and suburb of Metro County that is called Ridley. As well, it appears that all of the cars in Metro County have American-style license plates.

Listen, T and T, you’re not fooling anyone.

We can all see the snow on the ground.

We can all see the frozen breath whenever a scene takes place outside.

We have all noticed how polite all the extras are.

We can all see the hockey hair and the denim jackets.

Even more importantly, we can all hear the accent whenever anyone apologizes or asks, “What’s this all aboot?”

Everyone knows that T and T totally takes place in Toronto! Obviously, a lot of a Canadian shows deliberately tried to leave their setting ambiguous so that they could appeal to viewers in the United States. Interestingly enough, the most successful syndicated Canadian show in the United States was Degrassi, which was always proudly and forthrightly Canadian.

As for today’s episode, it opens with a waitress named Kathy (Jacqueline Samuda) fleeing from a diner after she happens to see her picture in the newspaper. It turns out that a lot of people have noticed that picture. One of them is a burly mob hitman (Paul Coeur) who calls the paper and demands to know who took the picture. When the editor refuses to name names, the hitman breaks into the office to search for the name himself.

Because Amy is friendly (and maybe more!) with the editor, she volunteers T.S. to investigate the photograph. T.S. and Amy track down the photographer, a nerdy teenage prodigy named Lenny (Robert Haiat). After talking to Lenny, they track down the diner where Kathy worked and eventually, they break into Kathy’s apartment. Kathy isn’t there.

“She either left in a hurry or she’s a bad housekeeper,” T.S. growls.

Meanwhile, the hitman kidnaps Lenny and demands that he take him to the diner where the picture was taken. When Lenny’s father tells T.S. that the abduction is all his fault, T.S. says, “I’m going to make this right!”

Kathy, it turns out, is actually named Maria. Because she testified against her mob boss brother, she’s in the Canadian witness protection program. Lenny kind of ruined all that by taking her picture. Now, she’s hiding out in a church but, after the hitman catches a priest entering Kathy’s apartment, he’s able to track her down. This hitman is so evil that he’s prepared to shoot Kathy in the head in the middle of a church! Luckily, T.S. shows up just in time.

“HEY, FOOL!” T.S. shouts before beating the crap out of the hitman.

There’s a simplicity to T and T that you really have to admire. For all the talk of T.S. being a detective and an advocate of peace and understanding, he solves most of his problems by either punching someone out or throwing them through a window. This show reminds us that the simple solution is sometimes the best.

Anyway, you know what? This was a really good episode. The mystery was intriguing. The show generated actual suspense over who would find Kathy first. The scene in the church was nicely atmospheric. Even the sentimental ending, with Kathy giving T.S. a crucifix to thank him for saving her life, felt totally earned. Way to go, Toronto!

Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Nightmare Alley (dir by Guillermo del Toro)

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In March, CODA won the Oscar for Best Picture.

By May, I think most people had forgotten about it.

I point this out not to be snarky about CODA (which, for the most part, I found to be a well-made and sweet-natured movie) but to just point out that occasionally, the Oscar for Best Picture Of The Year does not go to the nominee that’s necessarily going to be remembered and watched by future generations. CODA’s victory is not a travesty, regardless of what some members of Film Twitter insisted. This isn’t like when Green Book won. It’s just that CODA seems to be destined to be remembered in much the same way that we remember Argo and Spotlight, i.e. a well-made and well-acted film that gets the job done but don’t necessarily stick around in your mind for long after you watch it.

In fact, looking back at all of the 2021 Best Picture nominees, the one that has really stuck with me is Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley.

Nightmare Alley tells the story of Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a drifter who, in 1939, gets a job with a carnival. Stan is running from his past. He’s haunted by visions and dreams of a dying old man and a burning farm house. When we first meet him, he avoids alcohol which is perhaps a good thing as getting drunk at the carnival just makes someone easier to exploit and, ultimately, the carnival is all about exploitation. The carnival’s owner, Clem (Willem DaFoe), specializes in tricking alcoholics into becoming opium-addicted “geeks,” who bite the heads off of chickens for gawking country audiences.

It’s not a glamorous life but it’s one that allows Stan to hide from his past. He comes under the tutelage of Madame Zeena (Toni Collette) and her husband, Pete (David Straithairn). They teach him how to give “cold readings,” and Stan proves to be an eager student. Pete tells Stan to never pretend to be able to speak to the dead and, from the minute that Pete says it, we can tell that Stan is already thinking about how much money he could make by doing just that. Stan also appears to fall in love with Molly (Rooney Mara), a performer whose act involves a fake electric chair. When Stan eventually abandons the carnival, Molly goes with him. When Stan finds success as a fake medium, Molly is his assistant.

Stan becomes quite a success in Buffalo, trading in his shabby clothes and his unshaven appearance for a tuxedo and suave mustache. With success comes arrogance and Stan soon ignore what Pete told him about pretending to be able to speak to the dead. When Stan meets a psychologist named Dr. Lillian Rith (Cate Blanchett), he gets involved in a plot to con a judge who is still mourning for his deceased son. It also leads to Stan meeting a corrupt and murderous businessman (Richard Jenkins). Ignoring Pete’s lesson sets off a chain of events that leads Stan right back to where he started.

There’s something wonderfully subversive about taking Bradley Cooper, a legitimate movie star who is probably one of the most personable and likable actors working today, and casting him as such a sleazy character. This isn’t a case, as in American Hustle or even The Hangover movies, where Cooper is playing a goof who gets in over his head. Instead, Stan is someone who uses his eager manner and his natural charm to cover up the fact that he’s hollow on the inside. Watching the film, you’re never quite sure as to whether or not Stan truly cares about any of the people who come into his life. Does he love Molly or is he just using her? Does he care about his friends from the carnival or is he just manipulating them into acting as a shield to keep out his former life? When he goes against Pete’s lessons about pretending to speak to the dead, is he motivated by greed or arrogance? Or does he truly want to believe that he’s somehow become the all-powerful psychic that he pretends to be? Stan becomes a success because he knows how to con everyone but eventually, he meets someone who is even emptier than he is. Ultimately, Stan cons himself. He tricks himself into believing that he’s more clever than he actually is and he ends up facing the fate that he secretly always knew was waiting for him. Cooper gives an outstanding performance as Stan. Both he and del Toro cleverly play with what audiences expect when they see Bradley Cooper onscreen. In the end, the film suggests that not even charm can ward off karma.

Nightmare Alley is work of what Lucio Fulci called “pure cinema,” one in which the imagery and the emotions generated by that imagery is even more important than the story itself. The sets, whether it’s the carnival or Dr. Ritter’s office or the Buffalo ballroom where Stan cons the wealthy, are large and ornate. The cinematography is gorgeous. The supporting performances are arch and witty. Cate Blanchett’s and Rooney Mara’s costumes are to die for. Nearly every shot feels as if it could have been lifted from a particularly vivid dream. Guillermo del Toro’s love of cinema is evident in every frame of Nightmare Alley. It’s a film that celebrates the grandeur and the power of imagination and also warns about the destructive power of hubris. Despite the fact that del Toro has gone on the record saying that there’s nothing supernatural about Nightmare Alley, it’s still a wonderful film for the Halloween season. The costumes are beautiful and the final third of the movie plays like an homage to the classic German expressionistic horror films, with Blanchett playing her role as a mix of Dr. Caligari and a classic noir feeme fatale. Nightmare Alley is a big, flamboyant, and unforgettable work of pure cinema and, looking back, it’s my favorite film of 2021.

It’s a film that stays with you.

Hallmark Review: The Good Witch’s Gift (2010, dir. Craig Pryce)

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I haven’t done a Hallmark movie in awhile. It’s been even longer since I did one that I watched on DVD. I only mention it because once again it is difficult to get it to start in VLC, and the close captioning is a little wonky. That leads to some humorous captions. I bring them up in case you go to watch it using VLC, or need to use the close captioning for more than just convenience. This is also the last of the Good Witch movies I have left to review. Let’s dig in.

The movie begins and we immediately join Jake Russell (Chris Potter) as he is doing some window shopping to decide what to get Cassie (Catherine Bell) for Christmas. He’s also doing a bit of foreshadowing.

He spots a guy that he clearly knows, but then Cassie pops up like she always does to say “hi.”

This is as good a time as any to mention that she uses her powers a little more explicitly this time around. It’s not like in a later one where she teleports right in front of a camera. However, she does pop around more, and she makes the doors to her shop open right in front of Jack to the point where he asks her if she installed automatic doors. At least that’s what they say if you can hear. If you can’t, then this is what shows up onscreen.

The next important thing is to find out who that guy was that Jack saw while window shopping. It’s a guy named Leon Deeks (Graham Abbey) who was part of a bank robbery and was recently released after having served his time. The issue is that not only was the money never recovered, but Jack’s son is going out with Deeks’ daughter played by former Degrassi: TNG star Jordan Todosey. It’s interesting that with this film it means that actor Matthew Knight was in a movie with one of the late stage Degrassi: TNG actors, and one of the early ones in Jake Epstein who was in an episode of Matthew Knight’s short-lived TV Show called My Babysitter’s A Vampire.

Deeks of course stops by Cassie’s place, and as usual with new people, she nearly gives him a heart attack by suddenly showing up behind him. He remembers the place when it used to be rundown and is impressed with what she has done. There is an ulterior motive to him looking around the place. It will turn out the unrecovered money from the robbery is under her floor.

Lori (Hannah Endicott-Douglas) makes a return, but really won’t play too much of a role in the film. Mainly when Cassie’s ring goes missing, she runs around looking for it. However, good old quintessential small town busybody Martha Tinsdale (Catherine Disher) is sure around for her plot line.

At the start she is being annoying, making people angry, and really getting into hitting that gavel. She is rejecting a local business’ request to put up a sign to advertise for their business. Her plot line is like the rest in that it will revolve around family, and will resolve with family. It’s what the “Gift” in the title means. The formation or maintenance of family is the central theme around which the plot lines revolve. I do love how at this meeting, which is where we first see her, she manages to piss off everyone at the table. Then she leaves only to be confronted by her husband the mayor who tells her they lost a lot of money, and she needs to get a job as a result.

Catherine Disher really does have that Jim Carrey facial expression thing about her. I love it.

Then we meet Brandon (Matthew Knight) and Jodi Deeks played by Jordan Todosey.

So, we have Cassie and Jack who need to end up getting married to each other. We have Jodi and her father who need to be reunited despite Jodi’s mother fighting against it. It’s understandable because the time he served was ten years on top of committing the crime. We also have Martha who needs survive this bump in the road with her husband. However, we have one last piece of setup.

What do we do with grandpa (Peter MacNeill)? He actually has one of the more subtle ways of having family in his plot line. The woman he met last time at the orchard departs. Since Cassie is going to go and live with Jack in the end, what is going to happen to Grey House?

That’s your setup. The movie is on autopilot now as the plot lines run their course to their happy conclusions. Let’s talk about how these different plot lines all resolve.

The reason for the marriage being rushed is that Jack is getting frustrated that it keeps getting pushed back, so come hell or high water, he’s going to make it happen before Christmas. The marriage runs into a few small speed bumps with finding a preacher at the last minute, getting the wedding together at the last minute, and getting the marriage license also at the last minute. It’s the standard stuff you’d expect. Martha’s husband marries them since he is the mayor. They get the marriage license since Cassie has been around long enough legally that the government says that’s enough to establish an identity. I’m not sure it really works that way, but it’s a movie, and a very minor point that is just there to stall the film a bit.

Martha goes around trying to sell herself as a prospective employee, but she’s pissed off too many people for that to be an easy task.

In the end, she’ll become a party planner. Cassie is the one who suggests this to Martha. In this one, more than others, she seems to be more conscious of these actions to help people. I swear I remember in the past that she treaded the line between some sort of an all knowing being, and a regular human better.

As for grandpa, that’s actually easy. He moves in to take care of Grey House and the B&B with Cassie.

The hard one is getting Jodi and her father back together. That’s really what Cassie puts her mind too. In the end, that works out too, but she has to attack that problem from several angles. Turning the money in is the major step he takes to turn things around for him and his family.

It really has been awhile since I watched other Good Witch movies, but this one felt a little different. I recall the others having a main plot, and several micro-plots around it that really didn’t have any reason to be there. This time around we have the Deeks plot line that has some more importance, but they are all treated rather equally, tie together, and have a central theme. Kind of like a Good Witch version of Signed, Sealed, Delivered: From The Heart (2016) except that it doesn’t have so many plots that it gets overwhelming. This is average, but recommendable as far as Good Witch movies go.

Hallmark Review: The Good Witch’s Garden (2009, dir. Craig Pryce)

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

This is actually the first Hallmark movie I’ve watched on DVD. I only mention that for others who might watch it on their computer using VLC like I did because it makes taking screenshots easy. This movie’s particular DVD really gave me trouble and I had to force it to bypass the menu in order to get it to play. Sadly, the captions on the DVD were not very good so if that’s important to you then I’m sorry. They drop out at times and get wonky. At least that was my experience.

This now means there is only one more Good Witch film for me to see. That would be The Good Witch’s Gift (2010). If I didn’t notice it before, then I definitely did this time after recently watching Garage Sale Mystery: Guilty Until Proven Innocent. That one introduced Good Witch style subplots to it that I really didn’t like and should be taken out from future installments. I remember them being in, I believe, all of these Good Witch films. I have never watched the TV Show, but I get the strong feeling that this works far better as a TV Show than it did as a yearly series of films. The main plots and subplots are fine for a TV Show and even if they are completely self-contained to a single episode almost always would add to a character in some way. However, when I watch these Good Witch movies I just wanna scream: “Please have a single self-contained plot that all of the characters are involved in and which moves them all forward to a state that we will pick up in the next film.” The Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies do just that. I’m theorizing here, but that’s probably why that went from a show to a series of movies and the Good Witch franchise did the opposite. Let’s talk about the movie now.

The movie starts off and we have Martha Tinsdale (Catherine Disher) once again in full busybody mode. Luckily, she starts to come around by the end of this installment. She is joined by her friend Gwen (Elizabeth Lennie). I love the drastic difference in their faces here. Gwen is certainly interested in Grey House, but she acts like a reasonable person. Martha actually has some priceless nonsense that she comes up with here to say. First off though, yes, just like For The Love Of Grace, this one also prominently features a Nikon camera. The only other product I ever recall showing up in a bunch of Hallmark movies was the Wii and once the Wii U.

Anyways, they are there to scout out a location for the bicentennial of their town called Middleton. They decide to take a look at Cassie’s (Catherine Bell) house since it is 200 years old. Martha bumps into a creeper plant on the ground, freaks out, and runs to Jake Russell (Chris Potter) who is the top cop in town. He also happens to be dating Cassie.

There is a brief little period here where they quickly reintroduce us to Cassie, George (Peter MacNeill), and Lori (Hannah Endicott-Douglas). This time they tone down the she’s a little girl, get it, she’s a little girl, can we remind you one more time she’s a little girl stuff, but without changing the character. It’s just the way they present her. She fits in better this time around than she did in the first film.

Now we get probably the best part of this movie. Martha shows up at Jake’s office and among other stupid things, she actually alludes that Cassie is growing pot. She says she suspects some of her plants are “illegal”.

Can’t think of something else reasonable that she could be referring to in talking to a police officer and using that particular word. She also talks about this vine on the ground that she bumped into like she just saw the movie The Crawlers (1993). She seems to really believe that Cassie may have plants that are like the roots in that movie which will reach out to kill you. I think Chris Potter’s face gets across how hilariously ridiculous these lines are.

Disher does a great job delivering them. I just love her line that Cassie may be growing illegal plants. I can’t get over that.

Now we kick off the main plot and the subplots. Let’s do the subplots first.

That’s George meeting Gwen. I’m sorry, does that need an explanation?

That’s Lori on the right who has been assigned to do a paper with Jess (Jordy Benattar). However, you can see that Jess has gotten up to flee. For an adult audience the reason is immediately understood. Jess can’t read. Lori doesn’t find this out till a little later. Up till then she thinks Jess is just trying to get her to do all the work, which is understandable. People do that.

That’s Brandon (Matthew Knight) on the right and his two new “friends”. His subplot is these two guys are pushing him around to do something stupid to I guess be initiated into the stupid kids society. It’s similar to the one in the most recent Garage Sale Mystery movie except this time it’s not filled with humorous goofs, lines, and a resolution that had his friends looking like Bill Pullman from Ruthless People (1986). This time Cassie does almost the same thing she did in the first film. She gives him a mirror and just before they do their stupid thing, she shows up causing the item she gave him to come into play.

With the subplots going, this guy shows up to be our main attraction.

He’s Nick Chasen (Rob Stewart) and he has his eyes set on Grey House. He presents himself as the true heir to the house.

Again, Catherine Bell does the Jadzia Dax thing here. She always comes across as wise and with years of experience, but never appearing in some super state of nirvana above us mere mortals. She definitely has her suspicions, but still needs help and has to work through the situation with Jake and his family. She doesn’t just foresee it all and play along. That would make for a rather bland film in my opinion.

As you know from the later films, he does propose at the end of the movie.

There are a couple of little goofs, but nothing worth mentioning. Most of it seems to have been shot around Hamilton, Ontario. That’s really it in that department. I did not see the goof listed on IMDb about Martha’s shoes. Apparently the opening shot shows them as black, but after she goes in the gate of Grey House they are leopard print. Here’s the two shots. I didn’t see it.

With these Good Witch movies there really isn’t much else to talk about except to lay out the plots for you. That’s how these films work.

It’s not as good as the first film. That one felt like it could have been self-contained. This feels like what it is really: the second episode of a TV Show rather than a new film that continues a saga. The acting is good all around as usual. I actually forgot that Matthew Knight was on My Babysitter’s A Vampire. I liked that show.

I recommend this one, but I could tell it was already starting to drop off in quality from the first one more than I would have liked. I want to hear from anyone who has seen the show to tell me if it does seem to work better that way than as an annual TV Movie.

Footnote: Since I brought it up in a past review of a Good Witch movie, let me put it to rest. I did track down the relevant scenes from the one episode Catherine Bell did of Hot Line back in the 1990’s. It’s just really generic 90’s late night erotica. Nothing special or interesting at all. I thought there might be something, but there isn’t. Often when you come across an entry in someone’s filmography that is so different from their usual, then it turns out to be worth seeing if you are a fan of their work. Not here. I would only recommend this for Catherine Bell completionists who must see everything she has ever done. It certainly wasn’t even worth the couple of minutes it took me to find it. The clip I saw from an episode of Dream On that she was on looked like a much more interesting example of her really early work if that’s what you want to see. Just wanted to bring that to a close.