Tag Archives: review

A Lesson From The Past: A Date With Your Family (1950)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s lesson from the past comes from 1950.  Harry Truman was in the White House, UN peacekeepers were in Korea, and Gloria Swanson was killing William Holden on Sunset Boulevard.  Meanwhile, the American family was apparently built upon a foundation of repression, conformity, and good table manners.

Or, at least, that’s the impression that one gets from watching A Date With Your Family. 

A Date With Your Family is a 10 minutes education film that was apparently meant to encourage families to eat more and talk less.  Not only does this film explain the importance of the family dinner but it also makes several other relevent points.  For example:

1) “Pleasant, unemotional discussion helps digestion.”

2) “With your own family, you can relax.  Be yourself.  Just make sure it’s your best self.”

3) “These boys greet their Dad as though they were genuinely glad to see him, as though they really missed him”

This film also explains the importance of looking “pleasant” for your husband when he gets home from a hard day at the office, of not spending too much time on the phone, and of not talking about anything that might upset the family’s patriarchal unit. 

Personally, my favorite moment is when “Daughter” won’t stop talking at the dinner table and the rest of her family gives her the exact same look that my older sisters always used to give me.

Review: True Blood S5E6 — “Hopeless”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(SPOILERS BELOW)

I have to admit that Hopeless is not only the title of the latest episode of True Blood but it’s also the way I felt after watching the first 30 minutes.  After last week’s exciting Michael Lehman-directed episode, Hopeless seemed to be moving a bit too slowly for its own good.  However, once the show’s second half kicked in, I’m happy to say that the episode picked up the pace and it all ended with one of those wonderful (if, in this case, somewhat predictable) cliffhangers that we’ve all come to expect from True Blood.

At the end of last week’s episode, both Sam and Luna had been gunned down by a bunch of masked rednecks in a pickup truck and Emma had turned into an adorable wolf puppy and gone running into the woods.  At the time, I predicted that Sam would live but Luna appeared to be dead.  Well, tonight, I discovered that looks can be deceiving because Luna apparently isn’t dead.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t want Luna to be dead but, at the same time, considering just how dead Luna looked at the end of last week, it was still somewhat shocking to see her being not only wheeled into the hospital but being totally conscious as well.

Anyway, with Luna recovering in the hospital and Emma having safely made it to her grandmother’s place, Sam volunteers to help Andy track down the masked men who shot them.  Andy, at first, is reluctant to accept the help but Sam eventually convinces him and that’s probably a good thing because, as we all know, Andy is kind of a dumbass. 

Sam and Andy’s investigation leads them to the same gun shop where, a few episodes earlier, Sookie had gone to purchase some tools to use to try to control the newly vampiric Tara.  The same clerk that waited on Sookie is there to talk to Andy and, much like his last appearance, the actor playing the clerk goes totally over-the-top with his performance.  Fortunately, he tries to pull a gun on Andy which gives Sam an excuse to shoot him with a crossbow and kill him off before we have to spend any more time listening to him.

As for the masked rednecks themselves, they don’t show up until the very end of the show, at which point they kill a vampire who happens to be draining Hoyt dry.  Not realizing that Hoyt was a very willing victim, the rednecks proceed to “rescue” him by tossing him into their van.  It was, at this point, that I noticed that one of the rednecks was wearing a Barack Obama mask.

Tonight’s other big plot dealt with — of course — the vampires.  

At the end of last week’s episode, Bill, Eric, Alcide, and Sookie had finally found Russell and were preparing to take him in when Alcide was attacked by a werewolf.  At the start of tonight’s episode, Alcide managed to rather easily defeat the two wolves and for that, I say “Yay!” because it gave the show an excuse to show us Alcide all shirtless and tough-looking.  The Authority showed up at this point and took Russell into custody.  Before Eric and Bill were returned to Authority HQ, they were ordered to erase the memories of Sookie and Alcide.  While Eric erased Alcide’s memory (and took the time to tell him that he would, from now on, find Sookie physically repulsive), I got the feeling that Bill kinda faked it with Sookie. 

(Regardless of whether Bill faked it or not, it took Sookie all of a few hours to not only fully remember everything about Russell and the Asylum but also to restore Alcide’s memory as well.)

Back at Authority HQ, Bill and Eric are hailed as heroes by Roman and the other members of the Commission.  While Eric, being Eric, makes little effort to hide his contempt for the whole situation, Bill swears his loyalty to “mainstreaming” and, to be honest, goes a bit overboard while doing so.

Roman announces that he’s going to execute Russell that night and then grants Eric permission to speak with Nora.  When Eric goes down to see Nora in her prison cell, Nora reacts to the news of Russell’s impending execution with a joyous smile.  It soon becomes apparent why because, right as Roman attempts to administer the true death, Russell suddenly breaks free of his bonds and grabs him.  Salome’s little smile as Russell moves in to kill Roman should erase any doubt as to who originally set Russell free.

At first, I assumed that show ended with Russell killing Roman but, as my BFF Evelyn pointed out to me a few minutes ago, we never actually saw Roman die.  We saw some blood splattering on Russell and we saw Roman’s face twisting in apparent agony but we didn’t actually see him die.  Hopefully, Roman will survive this attack because, seriously, Chris Meloni’s performance has simply been too good and too strong for him to be so easily dispatched.

As for the rest of what happened on tonight episode, Pam broke up Jessica’s fight with Tara and Hoyt was all excited because he thought that meant that Jessica actually did love him.  When Jessica let him know that wasn’t the case, Hoyt replied by going out and finding that previously mentioned vampire to suck his blood. 

(Seriously, girls, haven’t we all had a Hoyt in our life at some point?) 

Meanwhile, Terry returned to Bon Temps and told Arlene that he couldn’t be near her because he’s got that fire spirit chasing after him.

Alcide decided that he wanted to be packmaster, after all.

And, finally, Jason told Sookie about the faerie nightclub and that their parents were killed by a vampire.  Afterward, they went to the club themselves and it was there that Hadley not only confirmed Jason’s story but also explained that the vampire killed their parents specifically because it was attracted to the smell of Sookie’s blood.

Needless to say, Sookie didn’t take that news well.

A Few Random Thoughts and Observations:

  • Tonight’s unofficial scene count: 38.
  • Tonight’s episode moved a little bit too slowly for me.  As usual, the action picked up during the final 15 minutes and the show ended with a pretty exciting cliffhanger.
  • Dale Dickey has been one of my favorite character actresses ever since I first saw Winter’s Bone and I’m always happy to see her bring her own distinct brand of Southern gothic to True Blood.
  • I was going to comment on the fact that Sam seemed to recover from being shot pretty quickly but maybe that has something to do with him being a shifter.  That’s my usual excuse whenever something happens on True Blood that doesn’t ring true to me: “Well, they’re all supernatural.”
  • I’m usually not a huge fan of werewolf politics but I did enjoy it when Alcide and the packmaster had their little redneck confrontation.  As always happens whenever I see rough but confident men trying to intimidate each other, my inner country girl squealed a little.
  • I also have to admit that I laughed out loud at the sight of Roman in his blue polo shirt.  There’s just something oddly appropriate about a self-important bully like Roman wearing a polo shirt that is just a tad too small.
  • I hope that someday some guy says to me, “You’re way too pretty to not be stupid,” just so I can reply, “What’s your excuse?” 

 

A Warning From The Past: Joy Ride: An Auto Theft (1976)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve mentioned in the past how much I love the old “educational” film from the past that were designed to keep stupid people from doing stupid things, like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, attempting to steal copper wiring, or driving too fast without a license.

That last issue is the one that is dealt with in the 1976 short film (and time capsule), Joy Ride.  In Joy Ride, two teenagers go to a little league game, have an existential crisis, steal a car, talk about the inherent weirdness of names, and play lots and lots of pinball.

It’s easy to make fun of a film like Joy Ride but I have to admit that I’m strangely fascinated by this short film.  Between the ennui-soaked conversation of the two protagonists and the frequent use of jump cuts and zooms, it’s hard not to feel that if Jean-Luc Godard ever made a driver’s ed film, it would look something like Joy Ride.  

I also have to admit that I enjoyed the use of the “You broke my car so I broke your jaw,” song.

A Dissapointing One Night Stand: Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World (dir by Lorene Scafaria)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a film, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is kinda like this cute guy that I once sat behind in a creative writing class.  He talked so passionately about his writing that it made it even more disappointing when he finally showed me what he had written and it turned out to be the blandest rip-off of Kerouac that I had ever read.  Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World has such a  great trailer and such a great cast that it’s impossible not to be disappointed even more than usual that the actual film is mediocre.

The opening scene of Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World finds Dodge (Steve Carell) and his wife parked off the side of the road, listening to a news report informing them that, in 20 days, a gigantic asteroid named Matilda is going to crash into the Earth and end existence as we know it.  Dodge responds to the news by saying that he thinks that he missed their exit on the highway.  His wife responds by silently getting out of the car and running away into the night, never to be seen again.  It’s a brilliant opening and it filled me with false hope for the rest of the film.

Anyway, Dodge continues to go about his life even as the countdown to end of it commences.  He goes to work, he goes to a depressing dinner party, and occasionally, he stops moving long enough to watch another random person commit suicide in front of him.  Yes, Dodge is pretty depressed but luckily, there’s a manic pixie dream girl (Kiera Knightley) living in the apartment below him.  When rioting breaks out, he and Knightley escape to the countryside where they search for both Dodge’s high school girlfriend and an airplane to allow Knightley to fly back to England and see her parents.  Along the way, they fall in love and the entire film pretty much falls apart.

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is at its best during the first fourth of the film when the emphasis is on dark humor and the absurdity of the situation that Dodge has found himself in.  Unfortunately, once Carell and Knightley leave the city and find themselves traveling through the most prosaic countryside imaginable, the film seems to be unsure of just what exactly it wants to be.  The mix of dark humor and uplifting message is an awkward one and the end result is an uneven film that, ultimately, is just too bland to suggest that we should care that the world’s going to end.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to truly forgive Steve Carell for leaving The Office and turning my favorite TV show into The Ed Helms Show.  However, when I blink enough times that I can actually look at things from a perspective beyond my own selfish concerns, I can see that Carell made the right decision.  Steve Carell is a film star and that’s proven by the fact that, even when he’s appearing in a mediocre film, he’s still compelling to watch.  As uneven as Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is, Carell gives an excellent performance.  I think the secret to Steve Carell’s on-screen charisma is that he’s got the saddest eyes in the movies.  There’s a sense of real sadness and regret to every character that Steve Carell has ever played and, as a result, he can make the weakest of material seem poignant.  As disappointing as Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is, it remains watchable and that’s almost totally due to Steve Carell.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Savages (dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past 5 months,  every time I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve seen the trailer for Oliver Stone’s new film, Savages.  It’s a pretty exciting trailer, featuring sex, violence, and Taylor Kitsch’s abs.  Despite Oliver Stone’s recent track record of making preachy, boring films, that trailer got a lot of people excited about the prospect of seeing Savages. 

Well, the film has been released, I’ve seen it, and you know what?  Sometimes, trailers lie.

Savages is the story of Chon, Ben, and O.  Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) sell the greatest weed in the world and O (Blake Lively) is the woman who loves both of them at the same time.  O, by the way, is short for Ophelia and she narrates the film in such a monotonous style that I have to admit that I was shocked to discover that she actually knew she was named after Hamlet’s doomed girlfriend.  Chon is a violent former Navy SEAL while Ben is a laid-back buddhist who wants to get out of the drug business so he can devote his time to environmental activism. (Zzzzzzzzzz….)

Ben’s marijuana becomes so legendary that soon, a Mexican drug cartel led by Salma Hayek decides that both Ben and Chon are going to work exclusively for them.  Ben and Chon refuse so Hayek sends Benicio Del Toro to kidnap O and hold her hostage until Ben and Chon come around.  Ben and Chon, however, have plans of their own…

On the positive side, Hayek, Del Toro, and John Travolta (playing a corrupt DEA agent) all give excellent performances that would seem to indicate that they — as opposed to everyone else involved with Savages — understand that they’re appearing in an expensive B-movie.  They openly devour every piece of scenery in the film and have a fun time wringing every ounce of melodrama out of their pulpy dialogue.  These three actors are fun to watch and it’s a shame that the same can’t be said for the other half of the film’s main cast.

Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast in the role of O but she dropped out of Savages so that she could star in The Hunger Games.  The role was recast with Blake Lively, who looks like she could be Jennifer Lawrence’s older sister but who, as an actress, has never exhibited the type of wounded determination that has become Lawrence’s trademark.  As played by Lively, O is such a passive character that it’s difficult to really care that much about whether she survives or doesn’t.  Instead of being a strong, independent woman who is unashamed of her lifestyle, O just comes across as a spoiled and vapid pawn, a possession who is traded between the film’s various players.  It doesn’t help that Lively delivers her heavy-handed narration in a flat monotone that makes her come across less like a hard-boiled survivor and more like a spoiled rich girl trying to sound jaded.  Every time I heard her refer to Chon and Ben as being “my guys,” I just wanted to scream at the screen, “No, you stupid bitch, you belong to them!  They don’t belong to you!”

As for “her guys,” Taylor Kitsch is believable as a killer but not as a stoner.  (Kitsch’s character comes across as if he’s been snorting cocaine as opposed to smoking weed.)  Aaron Johnson, meanwhile, is a very believable stoner but he’s a lot less believable once his character becomes a killer.  Unfortunately, neither Kitch nor Johnson show much in the way of charisma in this film and that’s a shame because both of them have shown in the past that they are capable of giving good performances.  (Seriously,  just check out Aaron Johnson’s performance in the criminally underrated John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy.)  With neither Chon nor Ben being all that interesting, the film ultimately becomes a rather empty display of style.

And there’s no denying it — Savages has got style to burn.  Oliver Stone shows here that — despite such anemic recent films as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — he still knows how to film an explosion.  Unfortunately, there’s not much going on beneath all of that style and the end result is a film that mostly succeeds in making both sex and violence boring.

Review: True Blood S5E5 — Let’s Boot And Rally

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God.  Where to begin?

After last week’s vaguely disappointing episode, tonight’s episode of True Blood was a triumphant return to form.  Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the second episode this season to be directed by Michael Lehman.  As he did previously with “Authority Always Wins,” Lehman kept tonight’s episode moving quickly and managed to juggle the many subplots and characters with an ease that hasn’t always been present on True Blood in general or this season in particular.  Along with bringing out the best in his actors (all of whom found the perfect pitch between comedy and drama in this episode), Lehman knows just how far he can push True Blood’s signature Southern gothic atmosphere before losing focus. 

And speaking of tonight’s plot, after a season that has occasionally seemed to be a bit scatter-brained, True Blood’s many subplots finally started to come together tonight.

Let’s start with my Sookie, Eric, and Bill because they’re my favorites.  When we last saw Sookie, she was about to get it on with Alcide and I was happily saying, “You go, girl!” because I had just seen Magic Mike a few days earlier.  Well, unfortunately, thing didn’t quite work out as Sookie ended up throwing up all over Alcide’s shoes and then, if that weren’t mortifying enough, who should pop up in the bedroom doorway but Eric and Bill?  It turns out that Eric and Bill have decided to go back on their “Fuck Sookie” policy and they now ask her to help them track down Russell.  Though, by this point, Sookie probably wishes she could just get a night off, she agrees to help.  As delivered by Anna Paquin, Sookie’s sarcastic little speech was definitely one of tonight’s highlights.

Accompanied by Alcide, Bill, Eric, and Sookie track down poor old Doug, the fellow who originally discovered that Russell had escaped.  Sookie reads Doug’s mind and discovers that Russell was freed by a female member of the Authority.  Though Sookie doesn’t see her face, Bill is quick to put the blame on Nora.  Using a reluctant Doug as their guide, they track Russell down to a scary, old abandoned asylum.  These wonderfully creepy scenes, where they searched for Russell and came across random, blood-drained corpses, represented True Blood at its best. 

Eventually, they found Russell laying in bed and, instead of just killing him, Eric started to have a conversation with him.  That conversation, however, was interrupted by what sounded like a wolf and Alcide apparently collapsing to the floor…

But that’s not all!

It wouldn’t be a season of True Blood without Sam getting into some sort of weird trouble and tonight was no exception.  When last we saw Sam, he arrived late to a get together of his shifter friends and discovered that they had been murdered.  On tonight’s episode, after he dealt with the police, Sam went to see Luna.  While he talked to Luna, a group of redneck drove up in a pickup truck and gunned both of them down while Emma turned into a dog and ran into the woods.  Sam appeared to have survived but, as the episode ended, Luna looked pretty much done for. 

Meanwhile, Terry and Sgt. Devins are still up in South Dakota and the start of tonight’s episode found them tied up in the basement of their fellow vet, Bill Eller.  Eller explained that, as a result of what they did in Iraq, they’re now being pursued by a fire monster known as an Ifrit.  Terry believes Eller and Devins (who, the hotness of Scott Foley aside, is kinda turning out to be a real toadsucker) does not.  It doesn’t matter, of course, because — as soon as they convince Eller to set them free, the Ifrit shows up. 

As I’ve said before, I haven’t been a big fan of the whole Iraq subplot in the past because it just felt very predictable and obvious.  And I have to admit that my fellow TSL contributor Senor Geekus figured out — long before I did — that it was going to be an Ifrit that was setting all those fires.  But, I actually liked the direction that they took with it tonight.  It’s still a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes but, at the very least, the Ifrit makes for an intimidating threat.

But that’s not all.  Tara has a new job as a bartender and, on her first night at work, she unexpectedly bonds with Jessica but that bond soon falls apart when Jessica comes across Tara drinking Hoyt’s blood.  Lafayette is still possessed and having to deal with Jesus’s disembodied head suddenly showing up.  Jason can’t remember much about what happened at the Faerie “safe house” but he’s now having disturbing dreams about his parents.  And Andy?  Well, Andy’s still a dumbass…

A Few Random Observations:

  • Tonight’s unofficial scene count: 40
  • Molly, the cheerful girl who works at the Authority headquarters and who called up to tell Eric and Bill that they had been iStaked, is one of my favorite minor characters this season.
  • How cute was Jason at the start of his little dream tonight?
  • A definite highlight of tonight’s episode was Jessica and Tara’s conversation at the bar.  I loved watching them bond and their discussion about how it feels to suddenly know that you’re different was a good example of how True Blood — at its best — uses vampirism as a metaphor for so many other things.
  • I have a feeling that Salome is actually the one who rescued Russell.  If it was Nora, the show wouldn’t have any reason not to have shown us her face tonight.
  • No, the picture at the top of this post doesn’t have much to do with tonight’s episode but I just happen to like it.
  • There were a few good lines tonight but my personal favorite was Sookie’s “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know you don’t split up when you’re in a big scary asylum and there’s a crazed killer on the loose.” 

Lisa Marie Does The Amazing Spider-Man (dir. by Marc Webb)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that, before I saw The Amazing Spider-Man on Tuesday, all I knew about the character was that he could climb walls, shoot webs, and that Tobey Maguire played him in three films, two of which were fun and one of which wasn’t.  However, my boyfriend is a Spider-Man fanatic so, on Monday night, I asked him to tell me everything that he knew about the character and everything that I should know before I even tried to write a review of this latest film.

“Everything?” he asked.

“Everything,” I replied, “I mean, I know about the spider bite and his uncle and Kirsten Dunst and all that.  How much more could there be?”

Well, he told me how much more there was.  A few hours later, I threw up my hands in exasperation and jealousy while shouting, “Well, if you love Spider-Man so much, why don’t you take him to the movies!?”  Being the wonderful and patient guy that he is, Jeff explained to me the many reasons why he prefers my company to Spider-Man’s.  While most of those reasons would probably be considered too TMI for me to go into too much detail about on this site, it was still nice of him to reassure me.  The fact of the matter is that Spider-Man has became a cultural icon, a figure that is now known not only to the cute guy who grew up with him but also to people, like me, whose knowledge of costumed super heroes is pretty much limited to what shows up on the movie screen.

Perhaps that’s why Marc Webb’s reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man has been so highly anticipated.  Having seen it, I’m happy to say that the film, while uneven, has plenty to please both fans and newcomers alike.

The first part of the film pretty much retells the familiar origin of Spider-Man.  Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is a nerdy high school outcast who lives with his aunt and uncle (Sally Field and Martin Sheen).  A scientific genius, Peter is bullied by jocks and spends his time pining for a girl who he can’t work up the courage to talk to.  One day, Peter gets bitten by a radioactive spider and soon, he has all the powers of a spider.  At first, Peter has a selfish reaction to his new powers and he sees little reason why he should use them to protect a society that has rejected him.  However, that all changes once Peter’s saint of an uncle is killed by a criminal that Peter earlier refused to help capture. 

As many critics have pointed out, this is all familiar to anyone who saw the first Spider-Man film but that familiarity doesn’t detract from the film’s effectiveness.  The fact of the matter is that Spider-Man, much like Batman, has become a part of American folklore.  These are stories that are meant to be told and retold with each teller bringing his own unique spin to the material.

The film works best during this first half, when Peter is first discovering and learning how to deal with his powers while pursuing a tentative romance with Gwen (played by Emma Stone) under the disapproving eye of her father (Denis Leary), who just happens to be a police detective obsessed with capturing Spider-Man.  This is largely because the first half of the film is dominated by Andrew Garfield.

Andrew Garfield has been one of my favorite actors ever since I first noticed him in Never Let Me Go and he brings a wonderfully unpredictable energy to the familiar story of how Peter Parker became Spider-Man.  To his credit, Garfield plays Peter as such an awkward teenager that he’s actually somewhat creepy when we first see him.  Whereas Tobey Maguire just came across like a shy nice guy, Garfield’s performance establishes Peter as a classic outcast and that gives his heroic transformation an extra poignancy.  Unlike a lot of critics, I don’t feel that it’s necessary to praise Garfield’s performance by attacking Maguire’s.  Maguire was the perfect Peter Parker for Sam Raimi’s unique brand of pop art.  Marc Webb, for the first half of the film, take a far more realistic approach to the material and it’s an approach that’s well-suited to Andrew Garfield’s far more neurotic and internalized approach to the role.  If Maguire’s performance owed a lot to Jimmy Stewart, Garfield’s performance reminds one of a young Dennis Hopper.  It, of course, also helps that Garfield has a wonderful chemistry with both Martin Sheen and Emma Stone.

Though the audience I was with seemed to disagree, I found the film’s second half to be significantly weaker than the first.  The latter part of the film is dominated by a pretty standard super-villian, a one-armed scientist (played by Rhys Ifans) who knew Peter’s parents and whose attempts to regenerate his missing arm leads to him turning into a lizard man who lives in the sewers.  Though Ifans is a talented actor and he certainly has the mad scientist look down, his character remains something of a cipher.  You’re never quite sure what Ifans is attempting to do or why he’s attempting to do it and, as a result, his final confrontation with Spider-Man is never quite as compelling (or fun) as one would hope.  It all feels rather oddly generic.

Complaints aside, I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man and I’m looking forward to the inevitable sequel.  I’m just hoping that the next film in the franchise has a villain that can match up to Garfield’s interpretation of the lead role.

Review: True Blood S5E4 — “We’ll Meet Again”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of True Blood could very well have been called “Everybody hates Sookie.”  Seriously, Sookie did not have an easy time of it for most of tonight though, in the end, she got to have drunken sex with Alcide so I guess things didn’t work out too badly for her.

But before we get to that…

When we last saw Tara (Rutina Wesley), she was torturing herself in a tanning salon.  At the start of tonight’s episode, Pam (Kristen Bauer Von Straten) finally abandoned her facade of indifference long enough to save Tara and, as her maker, command to Tara to stop with the attempts at self-destruction.  Though still reluctant, Pam has started to take Tara under her wing and accept her responsibilities as a “maker.”  By the end of the episode, Pam was even bringing Tara a willing young woman to feed upon. 

However, Pam had more to deal with than just Tara.  Having finally been released from the Authority HQ, Bill and Eric go straight to Pam and demand to know if she told anyone about Russell.  While Eric interrogated Pam, Bill talked to Tara about her new life as a vampire.  For me, Bill and Tara’s scene was one of the highlights of the season so far.  It was beautifully acted by both Rutina Wesley and Stephen Moyer and it was a nice change from the show’s often frantic pace.

Speaking of noteworthy acting, Alexander Skarsgard got his own Emmy moment in tonight’s episode when he released Pam from his control.  He did this to protect her from both Russell and the Authority and tonight’s episode skillfully got every note of drama and pathos out of the moment that it could.

Meanwhile, Jason and Andy were invited to accompany corrupt old Judge Clements for a night out on the town.  Of course, in this case, that meant going out to a deserted field and stepping through a portal that led to some sort of fairy-run Moulin Rouge-type nightclub.  I enjoyed the sequences in the nightclub, if just because they were so decadent and over-the-top.  Jason didn’t enjoy it quite as much because he ran into his cousin Hadley, who apparently works at the club.  Hadley let it slip that the nightclub’s actually a “safehouse” and that Jason and Sookie’s parents were killed by vampires.  When Jason had a bad reaction to that bit of  information, both he and Andy are promptly kicked out of the club and back through the portal.  Who would have guessed that faery bouncers could be that effective?

Speaking of vampires, Nora (Lucy Griffiths) finally breaks down and tells Roman (Chris Meloni) who the secret Sanguinista Chancellor is.  It turns out, to no one’s great surprise, that it’s the little kid vampire, Alexander Drew.  Roman promptly responds by giving Drew the true death and who can blame him?  That kid was a smug, spoiled little brat and, for a little kid,he certainly made a big mess when he exploded.

Even with all that going on, tonight’s episode truly belonged to Sookie and Anna Paquin’s frequently underrated lead performance.  The beginning of the show finds Sookie with not a friend in the world.  Alcide is mad at her for killing his fiancee.  Lafayette is mad at her for telling Alcide about Debbie.  Eric and Bill are missing.  Tara’s blames Sookie for her transformation into a vampire.  To top it off, she can hear the thoughts of everyone in town and it quickly becomes apparent that all of them blame her for everything bad that’s happened over the course of the entire series.

Poor Sookie!  Seriously, who couldn’t relate to that feeling in one way or another?

Lafayette, meanwhile, has one of his possessed moments and this leads to him attacking Sookie’s car.  Later, when Sookie is driving home, her brakes go out and she ends up crashing her car.  Shaken but unhurt, Sookie stumbles back to her house and does what anyone would do under these circumstance.

She starts drinking.

By the time Alcide shows up to tell her that he’s covered up her involvement in Debbie’s death, Sookie is totally drunk and soon, she and Alcide are engaging in perhaps the tamest sex scene in True Blood history.  And to that, I say, “You go, girl.”  It probably would have been better if a jealous Bill hadn’t been standing outside her window watching (and seriously, windows have blinds for a reason) but still, it’s about time something good happened to Sookie.

A Few Random Observations:

  • I apologize if tonight’s review isn’t one of my better efforts.  I’ve been dealing with an onslaught of allergies and asthma for the past week and I have to admit that I’ve spent much of tonight in a sort of daze.
  • Tonight’s unofficial scene count was 35.
  • You’ll notice that I haven’t spent much time on Terry’s flashbacks to Iraq.  That, quite frankly, is because that little subplot doesn’t hold that much interest to me.  So far it just feels as if it’s an excuse for Alan Ball to indulge in some nostalgic criticism of George W. Bush and the Iraq War without having to acknowledge that Barack Obama has pretty much been pursuing the same foreign policy in the rest of the Middle East.  I’m still hoping that the show does something unexpected with this whole subplot but, so far, it’s all been pretty predictable.
  • “How you like Bush now!?” was the epitome of a line so heavy-handed that it probably backfired.  What made this line annoying to me is that it was hard to shake the feeling that the show would never have had the guts to feature soldiers committing a war crime in Afghanistan while shouting, “Yes, we can!”  (Much less, “How you like Obama now!?”)
  • No appearances by the Rev. Newlin tonight but I’m sure he’ll play a big role in the later half of the season.  I get the feeling that there was a lot of foreshadowing going on with Bill and Jessica’s discussion concerning whether or not Bill was still king of Louisiana.
  • Compared to last week, there was a definite shortage of memorable lines in tonight’s episode.  However, Kristen Bauer Von Straten’s delivery of the line, “3 days old and she already has an eating disorder…” was perfectly delivered with just the right combination of concern and self-pity.
  • Anna Paquin’s version of the Pina Colada Song was adorable.

If I was the type to give out grades, I’d give tonight’s episode a good solid B.  If nothing else, I was glad that Bill and Eric finally got out of the Authority HQ.  I have to admit that I’m starting to wonder if Russell is actually going to show up this season or is he just going to be an unseen metaphor.

Time will tell.

A Warning From The Past: Six Murderous Beliefs

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t know about you but I love watching those old short films from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that were designed to terrify my mom and dad into living a safe, upright, drug-free, patriotic, and community-centric life.  These were the short films that were designed to make sure that everyone understood just what exactly the wages of sin were. 

What I love about these films is just how melodramatic and judgmental they often were.  It wasn’t enough, apparently, to point out that people occasionally made mistakes.  No, instead, every mistake had to be accompanied by a very judgmental narrator saying things like, “No, Jimmy didn’t think before ran across that street.  And now, he’s dead.”

Seriously, if I had been raised on a steady diet of these films, I would be even more of a fragile, neurotic little thing than I am now!

One of my favorites of these films is presented below.  Clocking in at nearly 12 minutes, the classic 1955 scare film Six Murderous Beliefs is designed to make sure that we understand that not only are young people stupid but they’re dangerous as well.  The film presents 6 examples of people foolishly believing one of 6 beliefs that are (as the narrator informs us), “wanted for … MURDER!”  My personal favorite is the second example just because I’ve had the exact same conversation with my sister Erin.

(I also love how, during the first example, the pilot so clearly despises the jock who doesn’t want to wear a parachute.)

And remember … “One of these beliefs might be about to murder you!  So watch carefully…”

 

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: Head (dir. by Bob Rafelson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to TCM and I watched the 1968 film Head.

Why Was I Watching It?

Though Head was a notorious box office bomb when it was released in 1968, it has since become notorious as one of the most incomprehensible movies ever made.  Every book that I’ve ever read about film or pop culture in the 1960s makes mention of Head.  Not only was the film written by a pre-Easy Rider Jack Nicholson, but the film also featured The Monkees literally acting out against their stardom by committing career suicide by appearing the film that was apparently conceived while Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson were tripping on LSD.  I’ve read about Head in dozens of books and I’ve seen it described as being “a surreal masterpieces,” “an incomprehensible, pretentious mess,” and “a total head trip of a film.”  Having now seen the film, I can say that’s all true. 

I do have to admit that before I saw Head, I didn’t know who the Monkees were.  Don’t get me wrong — I knew that there was a band in the 60s called The Monkees and I knew that they had their own TV show.  Thanks to the fact that The Brady Bunch Movie played on cable for like two months straight earlier this year, I knew which one was Davey Jones.  But, that was about it.  Even after seeing Head, I’m still not really sure I could tell you which was one was Mickey Dolenz and which one was Peter Tork.  I also have to admit that I spent the first half of the film referring to Michael Nesmith as the “Texan with the sideburns.”

Fortunately, I watched Head with two wonderful groups of people on twitter — the TCM Party and the Drive-In Mob.  They came together last night and provided a very entertaining live tweet session devoted to the film.  Unlike me, they actually knew one Monkee from another and following their tweets helped me survive the film’s rough first half.  To all of them, I say “Thank you for the education.”

What’s It About?

That’s not an easy question to answer but I’ll try.

The Monkees jump off a bridge and plunge into the psychedelic waters below but they’re saved from drowning by a bunch of mermaids.  This, of course, leads to the four members of the groups finding themselves in scenes from a war film, a boxing film, a western film, and eventually they discover that they’re actually dandruff on the head of actor Victor Mature.  Ultimately, they end up wandering around on a studio backlot where they’re menaced by veteran scary actor  Timothy Carey and an ominous black box that seems to intent on trapping them.  The Monkees react to this by running for their lives, complaining to Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson about the script, and telling everyone that they meet that they’re just actors in a film.  Eventually, it appears that the Monkees don’t have any options left beyond committing public suicide but Rafelson has other ideas…

What Worked?

If you’re as obsessed with pop cultural history as I am, Head is one of those films that simply you have to see.  Even if you find the film to be totally incomprehensible and just a tad bit pretentious, Head is a valuable artifact of its time.  Head is a film that could have only been made in the late 60s and it epitomizes everything about the age that produced it.  It’s like a cinematic Pompeii.

Now, I have to admit that most of the enjoyment I got out of the first half of the film came more from my own curiosity as a secret history nerd than from the film itself.  However, the second half of the film is often times genuinely entertaining.  The satire is a bit sharper and the overall theme (i.e., the struggle to maintain your own unique individuality in a world that demands conformity) starts emerge from the film’s mix of surreal images.

For me, the film really picked up with Davy Jones’ performance of Daddy’s Song:

The woman dancing with Davy Jones was Toni Basil, who choreographed all the dance numbers in this film.

Here’s another sequence that I particularly enjoyed.  This came towards the end of the film and, as I said on twitter, who doesn’t enjoy a little psychedelic dancing?

What Did Not Work?

While Head had all the virtues of its time, it also had all the flaws.  It’s a definite hit-and-miss affair, with the stronger (and occasionally insightful) moments uneasily balanced with plenty of sequences that dragged.  As you may have guessed, Head is the type of film that’s brilliant if you’re in the mood for it but it’s rather annoying if you’re not.

 

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I would have loved to have been Toni Basil, dancing with Davy Jones in the Daddy’s Song number.

Lessons Learned

Watching Head, I realized that I had discovered this year’s perfect Christmas present.  I’m going to get a 100 copies of Head on DVD and give them out to everyone I know.  That way, I’ll have an excuse to call everyone up in November and tell them, “Don’t worry, I’m giving you Head for Christmas.”  I think, if nothing else, that’ll make me a very popular girl come December.