Film Review: Youngblood (dir by Peter Markle)

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I mentioned in my review of Diary of a Hitman, I’ve been trying to watch as many obscure and forgotten films as possible. For that reason, earlier tonight, I watched, via Movieplex OnDemand, a 1986 film called Youngblood.

Youngblood is one of those films that is so unbelievably predictable that I’m dreading having to detail the film’s plot because there is seriously no way to make it sound interesting.

Okay, let’s give it a shot.

Dean Youngblood (Rob Lowe) is a 17 year-old farmhand in upstate New York who also happens to be one of the state’s best hockey players. He’s also lucky enough to have a plot-specific last name. Just imagine if his name had been Dean Bloodthinner or Dean Oldboy. You’d have a much different movie. But anyway — Youngblood dreams of playing in the National Hockey League. His father tells Youngblood to forget about his dreams. His brother says, “Go for your dreams!” Perhaps not surprisingly, Youngblood decides to go for his dreams because, otherwise, there wouldn’t be a movie.

Youngblood ends up playing in the Canadian Junior League. (I should mention that the only reason I even know that there is a Canadian Junior League is because I watch Degrassi.) After being taken under the wing of fellow player Derek Sutton (Patrick Swayze), Youngblood becomes one of the best players on the team. However, he’s not comfortable beating up the opposing players, which leads his coach (Ed Lauter) to wonder if Youngblood lacks the killer instinct needed for professional hockey. Youngblood also happens to be dating the coach’s daughter (Cynthia Gibb). Anyway, as you can probably guess, the film concludes with a big game and a lot of shots of people shouting, “GO, YOUNGBLOOD!”

Youngblood is not a very good movie but its memorable for being perhaps the most aggressively male movie ever made. Youngblood, for instance, has no mother. He just has an older brother to learn from and a father to impress. Indeed, to judge from Youngblood, upstate New York is apparently a female-free zone. As opposed to New York, there are women in Canada and, in the world of this film, they all exist for one and only one reason: to validate the existence of Dean Youngblood. The coach’s daughter does it by assuring him that he’s worthy of being loved. All the other female characters — from his landlady to two groupies that he meets in a bar — do so by being sexually available. When Youngblood has sex with his landlady, they’re watched by two other hockey players (one of whom is played by Keanu Reeves and says, “She do me last year.”). After Youngblood has sex with the coach’s daughter, the first thing he does is track down Derek so he can tell him all about it.

Make no mistake about it. Youngblood is a love story but it’s about the love between Youngblood and his teammates. When Youngblood first makes the team, Derek holds him down and proceeds to shave his testicles with a dull razor. When Youngblood finally starts fighting on the ice (and, in the process, becomes a man or something), he does it to defend his fellow teammates. Poor Cynthia Gibb can only watch from the stands and cheer. She’s finally realized that, by encouraging Youngblood to embrace peace over violence, she was holding him back from embracing his destiny. Or something.

On a positive note, Rob Lowe looks as good in this film as he did earlier in Class and later in Parks and Recreation. For that matter, a young and athletic Patrick Swayze looked pretty good in this film too. However, the characters that they’re playing are so hyper-masculine that they quickly go from being sexy to just being obnoxious. I’ll admit that, unlike the TSL’s own Leonard Wilson, I do not know much about hockey. But I do know that if I ever have to suggest a hockey film to a friend, I will always suggest that they see Goon and forget about Youngblood.

Scenes That I Love: The Final Battle From Drumline

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2002, Drumline attempts to do for the marching band what the Bring It On films did for cheerleading. Nick Cannon plays a cocky teenage drummer who, after graduating from high school in New York, attends Atlanta A&T University, a fictional historically black college in Georgia. Cannon is attending school on a band scholarship but, despite his obvious talent, he finds himself in conflict with both the band director (Orlando Jones) and the leader of the drumline (played by Leonard Roberts). All in all, it’s a very predictable but likable film. Cannon, Jones, and Roberts all give good performances and director Charles Stone keeps things moving at such a fast pace that you don’t have time to think about how familiar it all seems.

As you can probably already guess, Drumline ends with a big band competition where Atlanta A&T faces off against their arch rival, Morris Brown College. This is definitely the best scene in Drumline. It’s at this moment that the film manages to transcend both its predictable plot and the fact that I never cared much about the marching band in either college or high school. (In fact, one of my frenemies in high school was in the marching band and oh my God, the way she went on and on about it…but that’s another story.) I can’t really say whether this is a realistic portrait of a band competition but it’s definitely exciting to watch.

It’s also today’s scene that I love!

Review: Bates Motel 2.2 “Shadow of a Doubt”

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to commend Bates Motel for directly referencing Alfred Hitchcock with the title of its latest episode. Shadow of a Doubt is not only one of Hitchcock’s finest films but it’s also one that shares quite a few themes in common with Bates Motel. Like Bates Motel, Shadow of a Doubt deals with the way an outwardly placid surface can hide all sorts of scary and dark secrets. At this point, it’s a lot easier to imagine Freddie Highmore’s blankly charming Norman growing up to be Joseph Cotten’s friendly murderer Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt than the twitchy character made famous by Anthony Perkins in Psycho.

Still, it’s hard not to feel that an even better title for last Monday’s episode would have been Norma Bates Sings.

That was pretty much the highlight of last night’s episode and that’s not at all a complaint. The people behind the show obviously realize just how lucky they are to have Vera Farmiga playing the role of Norma Bates. The show works best when she’s allowed to take center stage and that’s what literally happens in Shadow of a Doubt.

Norma was singing because she and Norman were both trying out for the town musical.

I loved this subplot on so many levels.

First off, it made perfect sense that Norma, who obviously believes that Norman killed Ms. Watson, would try to find an activity that she and Norman could do together. This, of course, both allows Norman to be occupied with something other than death and gives Norma an excuse to keep an eye on her possibly dangerous son.

Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, it seemed exactly like the type of thing that somebody like Norma Bates would get excited about. Being something of a community theater refugee myself, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw Norman and Norma at the auditions because it felt exactly right. Everything from Norman’s sullen attitude to Norma’s surprisingly heart-felt (yet endearingly awkward) audition rang true. During those scenes, Bates Motel went from being that strange little show about a boy who might be murderer to being a very believable and almost touching story about a loving but overdramatic mother and her socially awkward son.

As for the rest of Monday’s episode, I have to say that I was slightly relieved to see Bradley safely get on that bus and head off for a new life. It’s not so much that I thought Bradley wouldn’t make it as much as I was worried that I’d have to sit through several episodes of Bradley hiding in the basement and Dylan being forced to help search for Gil’s murderer. Don’t get me wrong. I think that Nicola Peltz’s performance as Bradley was underrated by a lot of critics and I also think that, as played by Max Thieriot, Dylan is one of the most intriguing characters on the show. It’s just that I felt that Bradley’s subplot was good for, at most, two episodes. Bates Motel wrapped it up in two episodes and good for them.

The other big development is that Sheriff Romero arrested a drifter and charged him with Ms. Watson’s murder. We knew the guy didn’t do it. The drifter certainly knows he didn’t do it. And, for that matter, it’s pretty obvious that Romero knows that he’s got the wrong guy too. However, that is what makes Romero such an interesting character. He’s less concerned with solving crimes and enforcing order than he is with maintaining balance. It’s obvious that the entire town of White Pines Bay has found a balance between good and evil, legal and illegal and that balance works for them. Ms. Watson’s murder threw that balance off and Romero’s actions are more about resetting everything back to normal than anything else.

Otherwise, the townspeople might end up burning somebody alive in the town center again. (And is anyone ever going to mention that happening ever again or has everyone on the show just blocked it from their mind?)

So, all in all, Shadow of a Doubt was a pretty good episode of Bates Motel and hopefully, it’ll be a sign of things to come for season 2. My only complaint? So far, Emma, my favorite character, hasn’t gotten to do anything.

Hopefully, that’ll change in the upcoming episodes.

Personally, I can’t wait to find out!

Documentary Review: Seduced and Abandoned (dir by James Toback)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently watched James Toback’s 2013 Seduced and Abandoned on HBO. This documentary failed to seduce me but it certainly left me feeling abandoned.

Seduced and Abandoned follows James Toback and Alec Baldwin as they wander around the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing filmmakers and attempting to raise money for Toback’s latest film. That film, incidentally, is a remake of Last Tango In Paris. Though neither Toback nor Baldwin goes into too much detail about the film (and I’m not exactly convinced that they’re all that serious about it to begin with), we do learn that this remake would be set in Iraq. Alec Baldwin would play a right-wing CIA agent while Neve Campbell would play a leftist journalist. We watch as Baldwin and Toback pitch this film to a countless number of potential producers and ask for twenty million dollars. Without fail, every producer replies that he loves Alec Baldwin but he’s not willing to spend that type of money on him because Baldwin is not a bankable star. As Baldwin and Toback frequently lament, nobody seems to care what the film is about. Instead, they’re only interested in making money.

And this brings us to this documentary’s main problem. It would be easier to agree with them about businessmen sacrificing art for greed if not for the fact that the movie that Toback and Baldwin are talking about making sounds like perhaps the worst fucking film ever pitched. A remake of Last Tango in Paris starring Alec Baldwin, directed by James Toback, and taking place in Iraq? Are you freaking kidding me? I would never pay money to see a movie that sounded that pretentious. I would never ask anyone else to buy me a ticket for this movie. If I saw this movie on HBO, I would cancel my cable subscription. Seriously, no way.

And yes, I do understand Baldwin and Toback’s point. They’re arguing that a politically-themed, Iraq-set remake of Last Tango In Paris could not be made today because the system has been set up to silence the voice of artists. The industry is more concerned with making money than making an artistic statement. I happen to agree 100% but that still doesn’t change the fact that Toback and Baldwin’s film sounds terrible.

Toback and Baldwin interview everyone from Ryan Gosling to Jessica Chastain to Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola and the one thing that every interview has in common is the sound of Toback’s braying laughter. It’s a very forced and calculating laugh, one that seems almost as fake as Toback’s pseudo-intellectual persona. And that’s the other big problem with Seduced and Abandoned. Toback and Baldwin never really come across as being the rebels that they obviously believe themselves to be. Even when Toback is talking to the financiers that he and Baldwin appear to blame for ruining the movies, it’s obvious that Toback wants us to impressed by the fact that he knows so many fabulously wealthy people. In the end, the film feels self-congratulatory in the most undeserving of ways.

And yet, there are occasional moments where the film, almost despite itself, manages to escape from the suffocating egos of James Toback and Alec Baldwin. The section of the film that deals with the history of Cannes Film Festival is fascinating and Martin Scorsese is such a lively and sincere artist that it’s impossible not to enjoy his interview. (In many ways, Scorsese seems to be the anti-Toback.) For a few seconds, Alec Baldwin stops being insufferable long enough to do a reasonably humorous impersonation of Woody Allen. If you’re a student of Italian cinema, you’ll be happy to see a brief appearance from Mark Damon, a former actor turned producer who appears in several Italian spaghetti westerns in the late 60s. Damon is the first producer to have to sit through Toback’s pitch and its fascinating to watch just how indifferent he is to idea of remaking Last Tango In Paris with Alec Baldwin and James Toback.

Mark Damon aside, Seduced and Abandoned is a documentary that fails to do the former and will probably inspire many viewers to do the latter.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Gammera The Invincible (dir by Noriaki Yuasu and Sandy Howard)

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Late night every Saturday, the Late Night Movie crew and I gather over in the SyFy Designs chat room and we watch an old movie. Last night, we watched the 1966 killer turtle film, Gammera The Invincible.

Gammera The Invicible began life as Gamera, a Japanese monster film that was made in an attempt to rival the popularity of the Godzilla films. Gamera is a giant, prehistoric turtle who, after being awakened by an atomic bomb, proceeds to attempt to destroy the world. (And, when you think about the way the world works, who can really blame him?) Unlike the small, passive turtles that live in the creek next to my house, Gamera can not only fly but breathe fire as well. He’s one hell of a turtle.

Anyway, when Gamera was released in the States, it was retitled Gammera The Invincible*. Director Sandy Howard shot some new scenes (featuring American actors like Albert Dekker) and that footage was crudely mixed with scenes from the original Japanese film. The Japanese actors were badly dubbed and the end result was disjointed, to say the least.

But, disjointed or not, Gammera The Invincible is a lot of fun. Why? Well, first off, Gammera is a lot cuter than Godzilla. How can you go wrong with a giant turtle? Secondly, Gammera is that rare Japanese monster film that invites you to dance. I dare you to listen to the Gammera theme song and not be happy!

For me, everything great about Gammera can be seen in the scene below. As that nameless actor quite correctly puts it, who cares about monsters when you can dance?

If you have 89 minutes to kill, feel free to enjoy Gammera The Invincible!

—-

* Apparently, the extra M was added to keep people from mispronouncing the turtle’s name.

Film Review: Diary of a Hitman (dir by Roy London)

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve been on a mission to see as many obscure and forgotten films as possible, which is why, last night — via Movieplex OnDemand — I ended up watching a 1991 film called Diary of a Hitman.

In Diary of a Hitman, Forest Whitaker plays Dekker, a professional killer. Despite the film’s title, Dekker does not keep a diary. What he does do is talk. A lot. The film is framed by scenes of him telling his story to somebody on the phone. (I was never quite sure who he was supposed to be talking to.) Over the course of the film, he talks to a psychiatrist. He talks to his agent (Seymour Cassel). He talks to a dominatrix. He talks to a corrupt police officer (James Belushi). He talks to a born-again Christian (Lewis Smith) who hires Dekker to kill his wife and a baby that he may or may not be the father of. Eventually, he ends up talking to Jain (Sherilyn Fenn), the woman that he’s been hired to kill. He even has a very brief conversation with Jain’s sister, Kiki (who is played, in a shrill cameo appearance, by Sharon Stone).

With all of the constant talking, it’s not surprising to discover that Diary of a Hitman was based on a stage play. That’s especially obvious during the film’s second act, which almost entirely takes place inside of Jain’s apartment and basically consists of Fenn and Whitaker delivering dramatic monologues about life and death. Director Roy London was an acting teacher (among his students were Sharon Stone and Sherilyn Fenn) and it’s perhaps not surprising that he never found a way to make such obviously stage-bound material feel cinematic. Instead, London directed the film as if he was filming an acting exercise. Just consider the scene where Kiki drops by the apartment unannounced. While watching this scene, I kept having flashbacks to high school theater. I could literally hear one of my old teachers saying, “Okay, for this scene, your motivation is to get her to leave the apartment and your motivation is to stay in the apartment no matter what. And…go!”

That said, Diary of a Hitman is not a total waste of time. Playing the agoraphobic Jain, Sherilyn Fenn (who can be seen playing a far more villainous character in this year’s Raze) gives a sympathetic performance, even managing to redeem a potentially distasteful scene where she attempts to seduce Decker. (I’ve included that scene at the bottom of the review, mostly because — along with Sharon Stone’s cameo — it’s the only scene from Diary Of A Hitman that’s currently available on YouTube.)

And then there’s Forest Whitaker. It’s hard to say whether Whitaker gives a good performance here or not, largely because the character of Decker makes little sense to begin with and he’s required to have a massive change of heart that seems to come out of nowhere. (Whitaker has made a credible killer in several other films, just not this one.) However, what Whitaker lacks in credibility, he makes up for in eccentricity. In the role of Decker, Forest Whitaker gives one of the oddest performances that I’ve ever seen. Delivering the majority of his dialogue in an occasionally incomprehensible rasp and flashing a wide smile at the most inappropriate of moments, Forest Whitaker is a force of misdirected nature in this film. Again, it’s hard to say whether Whitaker actually gives a good performance here but he does make Diary of a Hitman worth seeing.

Review: Bates Motel 2.1 “Gone But Not Forgotten”

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bates Motel is back!

During its first season, Bates Motel became something of an obsession for me. I started out skeptical that a television series that also doubled as a prequel Psycho was a good or even doable idea. As I watched the wildly uneven first few episodes, I was occasionally intrigued and often frustrated. I always appreciated Vera Farmiga’s wonderful performance as Norma Bates and, as opposed to a lot of critics, I was always aware of the intelligence that lay underneath Freddie Highmore’s blank-faced interpretation of the teenage Norman Bates. As the series progressed, I was happy to see the wonderful Nestor Carbonell show up as the enigmatic Sheriff Romero. Even though his character occasionally seemed like he belonged in a different show, I also loved Max Thieriot as Norman’s bitter but sympathetic older brother, Dylan. I came to realize that Olivia Cooke’s Emma truly deserved a show of her own where she could solve crimes and worry about finding a date for the prom. Even the oddly named Bradley (Nicola Peltz) came to grow on me, even if I never quite bought the idea that she would have been interested in a someone like Norman.

My main complaint during the first season is that Bates Motel often seemed to be struggling to establish an identity. A countless number of plots and subplots were introduced and abandoned over the course of just ten episodes. Was Bates Motel attempting to tell the story of how Norman Bates eventually became a cross-dressing motel keeper and voyeur who murdered women while they showered? Or was it attempting to tell a story about a single mom who, having moved to a strange new town, now had to struggle to keep her family together? How seriously, I wondered, were we supposed to take the show? Occasionally, the show seemed to take itself very seriously. Other times, the show instead seemed to be deliberately over the top, inviting us to laugh along with the melodrama as opposed to at it.

As that first season came to an end, I knew that Bates Motel had a lot of potential but, in order to live up to that potential, it needed to figure out just exactly what it wanted to be.

Well, the second season started last night. It’s hard to say if Bates Motel has truly figured out what it wants to be but, judging from the premiere, it may be on the right track.

When season one ended, Norman was running home in the rain while his teacher, Ms. Watson, lay dead in her bedroom. The implication was that the blood-covered Norman had killed her but, as smart viewers know, it probably wasn’t a coincidence that we didn’t actually see him do it.

Season two begins with Norma learning that Ms. Watson has been murdered. When she asks Norman what happened between him and Ms. Watson, he tells her that he can’t remember anything beyond Ms. Watson offering him a ride back to his house. Norman and Norma attend Watson’s funeral, where Norman sobs hysterically. Meanwhile, Bradley — who last season discovered that her murdered father had a mysterious lover named “B” (who, we discover, was Ms. Blair Watson) — jumps off a bridge.

Suddenly, we jump forward four months later. The motel is thriving, Norma has a new haircut, and her only concern — as usual — appears to be her two sons. Dylan is spending all of his time down at the marijuana farm while Norman is apparently spending all of his free time either in the basement practicing taxidermy or in the cemetery, visiting Ms. Watson’s grave. When Norman spots another man standing at Watson’s grave, he is so disturbed that he goes to Sheriff Romero. Romero then tracks down Norma and tells her that Norman is, essentially, weird. When Norma confronts Norman about this, Norman admits that he’s been lying. He does remember going to back Ms. Watson’s house. He even goes so far as to admit that he watched Ms. Watson undress and that he started feeling “strange.” However, he also denies having killed her.

If that’s not bad enough, Norma also discovers that work has begun on a new highway that will divert business away from her hotel. When she goes to a city council meeting to complain, the mayor talks down to her. That’s his mistake because, as any viewer knows, it’s never a good idea to talk down to Norma Bates. Norma responds by calling out the entire town on their hypocrisy and giving one of those wonderfully over-the-top speeches that have become her specialty. Vera Farmiga was nominated for an Emmy for the first season of Bates Motel and, as far as I’m concerned, she earned a second nomination last night. Seriously, the next time some jerk talks down to you, you just do what Norma Bates does and call him a dick to his face.

The episode’s other major plotline followed Bradley, as she was released from the mental asylum that she was sent to after being rescued from the river. The friendly and somewhat shallow Bradley of last season appears to be gone. Instead, she’s been replaced by vigilante Bradley. This is the Bradley who, after considering using her father’s gun to commit suicide, instead uses it to execute Gil, the man who ordered her father’s death. To be honest, I was initially reluctant about buying the idea that Bradley could so easily become a murderer but then it occurred to me that, out of the main characters, Bradley was one of two who didn’t murder someone last season. (Or did she? Check out my first random note below.)

The second season premiere of Bates Motel wasn’t perfect. I would have preferred to have seen a bit more of Dylan and the show’s most interesting character, Emma, was hardly present at all. But, on the basis of last night’s episode, it does appear that the show’s creators have figured out that Bates Motel is at its best when it follows the lead of a Vera Farmiga’s sincere yet over-the-top lead performance. Bates Motel is at its best when it shows the self-awareness to cheerfully embrace its melodramatic potential.

That’s what it did last night and hopefully, that’s what it will continue to do for the rest of this season.

Random Thoughts and Observations:

So, who do you think killed Ms. Watson? The show wants us to think that it was Norman but, personally, I won’t be surprised if it turns out to be Bradley. Perhaps she killed Ms. Watson and then attempted to kill herself. When Bradley shot Gil, she certainly didn’t act like someone who committing her very first murder.
Rumor has it that Nicola Peltz will be leaving the show before the end of this season. That’s another reason to think that Bradley will ultimately be revealed as Ms. Watson’s murderer.
Hopefully, the show won’t forget about Emma. She’s a great character.
And yes, I will be reviewing each episode of this odd yet intriguing show. It should be fun!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #100: How To Stuff A Wild Bikini (dir by William Asher)

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 1965 beach film, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini.

Why Was It Watching It?

Last night, I was in a motel room in San Antonio. Now, as I’m sure we all know, one of the great things about staying in a motel is that you get a chance to discover all sorts of strange television stations that you otherwise may not have known existed. It was while flipping through these odd stations that I came across the final ten minutes of Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs. Dr. Goldfoot was followed by How To Stuff A Wild Bikini.

What Was It About?

Oh Lord, where to begin?

Okay, so Frankie (Frankie Avalon) is serving in the U.S. Navy and has been assigned to Tahiti. However, he’s worried that his girlfriend Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) might not stay true to him while he’s gone. Why he thinks that is a good question because, seriously, Dee Dee really doesn’t seem to be the type to cheat.

Frankie goes to the local witch doctor (played by Buster Keaton) who casts a spell that causes a magic bikini to appear on the beaches in California. “Man,” one surfer says, “dig that wild bikini!” “A bikini ain’t nothing without the stuffing!” his girlfriend replies. Suddenly, Cassandra (Beverly Adams) appears, providing the “stuffing” for the magic bikini. Cassandra has been sent to the beach to keep an advertising executive (Dwayne Hickman) from stealing Dee Dee from Frankie.

Oh! And the witch doctor also turns Frankie into a pelican so Frankie can fly back to the beach to keep an eye on Dee Dee.

And Mickey Rooney is in this movie!

And there’s a motorcycle gang!

And … it’s a musical!

What Worked?

This was exactly the type of mid-1960s youth film that I like almost despite myself. Plotwise, it was pretty incoherent. Acting-wise, it was nothing special. The songs were not memorable. The attitudes were sexist. The entire film felt cheap. And yet, it was so weird and energetic and sincerely silly that there was no way I couldn’t like it. If nothing else, watching this film is probably as close as I’ll ever get to experiencing 1965.

What Did Not Work?

After having seen several of his silent films on TCM, it was a bit sad to see how Buster Keaton ended his career.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Cassandra had red hair, just like me! Redheads unite!

Plus, I’ve been told that I look good in a wild bikini.

Lessons Learned

A bikini ain’t nothing … without the stuffing!

Film Review: California Scheming (directed by Marco Weber)

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

California Scheming got an extremely limited theatrical release in January and it’s currently available via On Demand. I have to admit that the only reason I ended up watching it is was because of the film’s title. Having now seen the film, I still think it could definitely use a better title but the movie was still a lot more memorable than I was expecting.

California Scheming opens with a few scenes that seem like they were almost lifted verbatim from a 1969 film called Last Summer. (Last Summer shows up occasionally on TCM and you really should watch it.) Much as in Last Summer, California Scheming opens with an attractive but apparently sociopathic teenage girl (Gia Mantegna) discovering a wounded sea gull on the beach. The girl recruits two teenage boys (played by Spencer Daniels and Devon Werkheiser) to help her both nurse the gull back to health and teach it how to fly again. All three of them are pretty, shallow, and rich and quickly become close friends. However, they end up meeting a shy girl (played here by Rachel Seiferth) who objects to the way they treat their pet sea gull. The shy girl and the more sensitive of the two boys end up becoming a couple. In Last Summer, this leads to the shy girl being raped. In California Scheming, it leads to Mantegna convincing her three friends to break into a house with her, at which point the film’s plot takes a uniquely disturbing turn of its own.

California Scheming has been getting some terrible reviews but I rather liked it. The film looks great, the cast is pretty enough that it really doesn’t matter that they’re not great actors, and director Marco Weber does a good job at creating and maintaining a persistent atmosphere of both suffocating ennui and impending doom. The most frequent complaint that I’ve seen about California Scheming is that, up until the final few minutes, nothing really happens in the film but I think that’s the point. California Scheming is a portrait of people who, as a result of having everything, are doomed to accomplish nothing. As a result, California Scheming may not be entertaining in the conventional sense of the word but, when taken on its own terms, it’s something of a minor existential masterpiece.

6 Reasons To Watch I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I am so thankful for TCM. This wonderful network has allowed me to discover so many old films that I might otherwise have never seen. Among those films, 1932’s I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.

As you might guess from the title, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang was something of a low-budget B-movie. It’s also one of the few films that can legitimately claim to have changed society. The fugitive of the title is James Allen (Paul Muni), a veteran of the First World War who, feeling uncomfortable in peace time and unable to find work, finds himself in Georgia where he unintentionally becomes involved in a robbery and then ends up being sentenced to 10 years on a chain gang. After suffering months of inhumane treatment, Allen finally escapes. He makes his way up north and, much like Jean Valjean, attempts to start a new life for himself. However, even as he find success, he knows that he could be exposed and sent back to prison at any moment.

Here’s 6 reasons to watch I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.

1) It’s based on a true story. I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang was based on a book written by a man named Robert Ellis Burns. Burns actually had served time on and escaped from a Georgia chain gang. At the time the movie came out, Burns was still a fugitive. The movie was such a success and was so effective that when Burns was later arrested in New Jersey, the governor refused to extradite him. Burns was finally pardoned in 1945 and lived the rest of his days as a free man.

2) I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang got results. Alone among the major studios in the 30s, Warner Bros. specialized in making films that dealt with social issues. While other studios either celebrated wealth or invited audiences to escape the Great Depression through fantasy, Warner Bros. was unashamed to be on the side of the oppressed. I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang is a perfect example of this. Not only did the film lead to Burns receiving a pardon but it also helped to end the chain gang system.

3) Director Mervyn LeRoy directs the film as if it were a film noir. By the end of the film, it’s impossible not to empathize with the main character’s growing sense of paranoia.

4) Do you know who Paul Muni is? You will after watching I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. Paul Muni is largely forgotten today but, back in the 1930s, he was considered to be one of the best actors around. Watching him in this film, you can see why.

5) The film’s final scene is a classic. You can watch it below (and yes, this video does count as a spoiler).