Tag Archives: review

Film Review: The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (dir by Harry Lachman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that the 1942 film, The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, turned out to be far different from what I was expecting.

Just based on the title, I was expecting it would be a highly fictionalized, borderline silly film about Edgar Allan Poe defeating his romantic rivals and winning the hand of the woman he loved while still finding time to write The Raven.  I figured that there would be at least a few gentlemanly fisticuffs, with Poe portrayed as a combination of Rhett Butler and Cary Grant.  Looking at the title, it was easy for me to imagine the film closing with Poe kissing his future wife and then looking straight at the camera.  “Quoth the Raven!” he would say and wink while romantic music swelled in the background…

But no.  The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe is actually a very conventional biopic.  With a running time of only 67 minutes, the movie often feels rather rushed but it still manages to include most of the better known details of Edgar Allan Poe’s short but eventful life.  (An ever-present narrator is always ready to fill us in on every thing that happens off-screen.)  The film doesn’t spend much time on what initially inspired Poe’s macabre imagination.  There’s a scene of Poe, as a child, standing on a desolate hill and looking at a raven perched in a dead tree.  With the exception of an extended section that deals with Annabel Lee, that’s about as deep as the movie is willing to get as far as Poe’s art is concerned.

When Poe grows up, he’s played by actor Sheppard Strudwick, who has a good mustache but never exactly comes across as being the type of tortured genius who would eventually end up both revolutionizing literature and drinking himself to death.  The majority of the film deals with Poe’s advocacy for copyright reform, which is an important issue but not exactly the most cinematic of concerns.  Poe survives college.  Poe tries to sell The Raven for $25.  Eventually, Poe marries Virginia Clemm (Linda Darnell) and her subsequent sickness and death leads to not only Poe’s greatest work but also his own tragic end.

Along the way, Poe meets both Thomas Jefferson and Charles Dickens.  Jefferson shows up long enough to tell a young Poe that he’s a good writer and that he needs to stop gambling.  Dickens meets Poe and encourages him to continue to advocate for better copyright laws.

It is known that Poe and Dickens actually did meet but did Poe also meet Thomas Jefferson?  Legend says that he did but no one knows for sure.   Here’s what we do know:

Poe attended the University of Virginia in 1826.  The University’s founder, former President Thomas Jefferson, was still alive in 1826 and would often invite promising students to Monticello.  Whether Jefferson was still doing that when Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia is questionable.  Jefferson died five months after Poe started his studies.

As for Dickens, Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe admired each other’s writing and they met in Philadelphia during Dickens’s 1842 tour of North America.  No record has been kept of what they discussed, though some think that Dickens told Poe about his pet raven and perhaps inspired Poe’s best-remembered poem.  In the movie, they discuss copyright laws, which is nowhere near as much fun.

(When it comes to Poe’s meetings with both Jefferson and Dickens, it is perhaps best to remember the lesson of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and print the legend.)

The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe is a very short film and an obviously low-budget one as well.  When the presence of that somewhat pedantic narrator, The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe feels more like an educational special than a real movie.  It’s an okay introduction to Poe’s life but, ultimately, the best way to get to know Edgar Allan Poe is to sit down and start reading.

Music Video of the Day: Old Black Clown by Edgar Allan Poets (2012, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday!  If he were still alive today, he would be 209 years old.  He would probably be the oldest man on the planet.  Certainly, I think we would all be rather amazed at his vitality.  Unfortunately, Poe is no longer with us.  He was only forty years old when he died but his influence lives on.

You would think that there would be a hundred music videos based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.  Well, you would be wrong.  While Poe’s work has inspired countless musicians (and there have been several songs based on his work), there aren’t many “official” music videos of those songs.

(There’s plenty of unofficial and amateur videos, of course.  But, for music video of the day, I know that Val preferred to use only official videos and, while I’m filling in for her, I’m going to abide by her rules.)

However, there is a band that was not only influenced by Poe but which proudly displays that influence.  Edgar Allan Poets is a Los Angeles band that lists its two greatest influences as being Poe and Hitchcock.  Their music has a haunting, rather dream-like feel to it.

This video is for their song Old Black Clown.

Enjoy!

Sundance Film Review: Blood Simple (dir by Joel Coen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(The 2018 Sundance Film Festival opens tonight!  Over the years, Sundance has become the premiere festival for independent film.  Not only have some of the best American films ever made premiered at Sundance, but it’s become the first stop in many a successful Oscar campaign.  Manchester By The Sea, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Beasts of the Southern Wild: all of them started their journey to a best picture nomination at Sundance.  For the duration of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, from today to the 28th, I’ll be reviewing films that first made a splash at Sundance.)

Blood Simple is an essential film.

If you love American movies, this is a movie that you have to see.  A delirious tribute to film noir, it’s a film that takes place in the darkest corners of America.  This is a film that shows that stories of love, betrayal, and murder can be just as complicated in the middle of America as in California and New York.

If you’re fascinated by the history of indie cinema, Blood Simple is a film that you have to see.  Joel and Ethan Coen, at a time when they were best known for their work with director Sam Raimi, created a trailer for Blood Simple long before they shot the actual movie.  They used this trailer to raise the film’s small budget.  Blood Simple was not only their directorial debut (though only Joel received a directorial credit, while the screenplay was credited to Ethan) but it was also both the feature debut of Frances McDormand and cinematographer (and future director) Barry Sonnenfeld’s first major credit as well.

If, like me, you love films about Texas, Blood Simple is an essential.  Long before they made No Country For Old Men, the Coens filmed Blood Simple in Texas.  Texas is as much a character in Blood Simple as Minnesota and the Dakotas were in Fargo.  Along with their twisty crime plots, Fargo, No Country, and Blood Simple all share a similarly cynical and fatalistic view of human nature, one that is perfectly reflected by the bleak locations where their stories take place.  Watching Blood Simple, it’s easy to imagine that, once the film ended, it fell to No Country‘s Sheriff Ed Tom Bell to laconically look over the carnage and try to figure out what the Hell just happened.

Like many Coen Brothers films, Blood Simple starts out simply and then gets progressively more and more complicated.  Almost all of those complications are due to a combination of human stupidity and greed.  Abby (Frances McDormand) and Ray (John Getz) are having an affair.  Abby’s husband, Marty (Dan Hedaya), owns the bar where Ray works as a bartender.  Marty hires a sleazy private detective named Loren Visser (M. Emmett Walsh) to kill Abby and Ray.  Visser has other plans.  By the end of the movie, almost everyone is dead but no one’s sure why.

The film largely serves as a showcase for Walsh, so much so that McDormand, Hedaya and Getz run the risk of getting lost in the shuffle.  That’s a shame, because all three give excellent performances.  McDormand brings strength and determination to the role of Abby.  Meanwhile, both Getz and Hedaya play two very familiar types.  Anyone who has spent any time in Texas will immediately recognize the characters played by Getz and Hedaya.  Ray may not be the smartest guy in the world but he’ll keep your car running and your glass full.  He’s probably never going to amount too much but he’s what is universally known as a good guy.  On the other hand, Marty, as played by Hedaya, is perhaps one of the most pathetic characters to ever appear in an American film.  Film noirs are full of betrayed husbands but it’s hard to think of a bigger loser than Marty.  Marty is the guy who tries to act tough but even he secretly knows that no one will ever take him seriously.  With the combination of his northern accent and his pathetic attempts to dress “western,” Marty is an outsider in Texas, one who is too stupid to realize just how far outside he actually is.

That said, the film is dominated by M. Emmett Walsh.  As played by Walsh, Loren Visser is one half sleazy redneck and one half demon from Hell.  Speaking in a sarcastic drawl and seemingly amused by all the chaos he has created, Walsh turns Visser into a truly fascinating villain.  He may be evil but you can’t stop watching him.  Walsh’s best moment is also his last in the film, a sarcastic one-liner that suggests that everything that has happened was caused more for his own amusement than anything else.  Visser is clever but not even he can escape the random whims of fate.

Violent and, as is typical for the Coens, darkly humorous, Blood Simple won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival.  Though it was only a modest box office success, it not only launched the careers of the Coen Brothers but continues to be on the most influential independent films ever made.  The film remains impressive today.  Whenever I see it, I’m always stunned to see how, even with their first film, the Coens had already developed their own very unique aesthetic.

Blood Simple is an essential film.

TV Review: The X-Files 11.3 “Plus One” (dir by Kevin Hooks)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for a creepy twin episode!

If there’s anything that I’ve learned from television and the movies, it’s that twins always have special powers and that those powers often lead to people dying.  I’ve also learned that, roughly 75% of the time, one twin will be saintly while the other will be a total jerk.  I have to admit that, whenever I meet twins in real life, it’s always a bit of a let down when it turns out that they’re not planning on taking over the world or opening up some sort of soul-sucking vortex.

In this case, the twins are Judy and Chucky Poundstone (both played by Karin Konoval).  Judy is in a mental hospital.  Chucky is a hoarder.  Both Judy and Chuck are also inhabited by Demon Judy and Demon Chucky, which could be a sign of either multiple personalities or demonic possession, depending on what you believe in.  All four of them are constantly playing a telepathic game of hangman, spelling out the names of the people who have annoyed them.  (Chucky, in particular, has a judgmental streak.)  Early on, it’s mentioned that their parents both hanged themselves.  Look at their old hangman games and you’ll see drawings of both “Mom” and “Dad.”

People are dying.  The authorities say that they’re all committing suicide but almost all of them, before dying, claimed that they were being pursued by a doppelgänger.  When one man manages to survive being attacked by his doppelgänger, that’s all it takes to get Mulder interested in the case.  Scully, of course, is skeptical about whether or not people are actually being murdered by their doppelgängers.  Not Mulder, though.  He has Twin Peaks experience, after all.  He knows better than to laugh off talk of doppelgängers.

This was a stand-alone episode of The X-Files, a monster of the week episode.  There was no talk of conspiracies or the Cigarette Smoking Man or William or anything else.  Judging from the reaction on twitter, a lot of people were happy about that.  Myself, I found it a bit jarring to go from the paranoia of This to the relatively straight forward investigation featured in Plus One.  I guess I’m just always surprised to discover that Mulder and Scully are not only still working for the FBI but they still take their jobs seriously.  Speaking for myself, if I had been through half of what they’ve been through, I’d probably end up fleeing the country and living off the grid in Canada.

That’s not to say that Plus One wasn’t a good episode.  I didn’t like it quite as much as everyone else did but, at the same time, it did have its share of creepy moments.  To be honest, anything involving a doppelgänger is going to be creepy.  I also enjoyed the deliberately absurd scene where the lawyer attempted to suicide-proof his house.  How many guns and swords does one attorney need?  For some reason, the fact that Mulder and Scully didn’t really seem to care that much about any of the “innocent” people who were killed amused me to no end.  I don’t know if that was deliberate or not but there was just something very amusing about the way both of them just shrugged at the idea of the lawyer chopping off his own head.  Eh, they seemed to be saying, we’ve seen worse.  Karin Konoval played both Chucky and Judy.  She was great as Judy but a bit less convincing as Chucky.  (In all fairness, the scenes between Mulder and Chucky featured the episode’s clunkiest dialogue.)

One final question raised by tonight’s episode, what is the current status of Mulder and Scully’s relationship?  Judging from tonight’s episode, I would say that they’re friends with benefits.

Music Video of the Day: Better Than Yesterday by HollySiz (2014, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

HollySiz is the stage name use by the French actress and singer, Cécile Cassel.

As for this video, it’s a journey through not only the history of dance but the history of film as well.

(On personal note, I currently have “better than yesterday” stuck in my head and I look forward to driving everyone crazy today by using that phrase every chance that I get.)

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Sea Change (dir by Chris Grismer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there!  So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR.  Seriously, I currently have 162 things recorded!  I’ve decided that, on February 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not.  So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR!  Will I make it?  Keep checking this site to find out!  I recorded Sea Change off of Lifetime on September 17th, 2017!  Incidentally, Sea Change was the final 2017 Lifetime movie that I had sitting on my DVR.  I have now watched and reviewed all of the Lifetime films that I recorded in 2017!)

Based on the novel by Aimee Friedman, Sea Change tells the story of Miranda and T.J.

Miranda (Emily Rudd) is a fiercely intelligent and independent teenager who, having lost her father, is spending the summer on an island with the mother (Maria Drizzia) that she barely knows.  It’s a beautiful island, one that is very popular with rich vacationers, the majority of whom have spoiled children.  It’s a struggle for Miranda to fit in.  She has deeper interests than just popularity and money.  Add to that, she doesn’t swim.  With everyone on the island obsessed with getting in the water, Mirana is stuck on the land.

T.J. (Keenan Tracy) lives on the island year-round.  His family is not rich.  T.J. works for a living and he’s not going to let anyone push him around just because they happen to have more money than he does.  When Miranda first sees T.J. she notices his scars.  When she sees him a second time, the scars have disappeared.  When Miranda falls into the water, T.J. saves her from drowning.  T.J. claims that he just dived after her but Miranda gets the feeling that there’s something more to it, almost as if he was already in the water when she fell in.  When he grabbed her underwater and led her back to the surface, there was something different about his eyes…

Could it have anything to do with the legendary Seawalkers?  The Seawalkers are said to be half-human and half-fish.  Everyone knows the story has to be a myth but, after T.J. rescues her, Miranda isn’t quite sure.  Could the Seawalkers be real and could they be connected to the secrets that Miranda believes her mother to be hiding from her?

You’ve probably already guesses the answers to all of those questions but that’s okay.  Sea Change won’t win many points for originality.  If you’ve seen any other film adaptation of a YA novel, you’ll be able to guess almost everything that happens in Sea Change before it happens.  But, again, that doesn’t matter.  Sea Change is a well-made and likable film, one that is full of gorgeous imagery.  (The film really makes excellent use of that island setting.)  Keenan Tracy and Emily Rudd are both talented actors and they have a nice chemistry.  Underneath all of the talk of Seawalkers, there’s a very real and sincere sweetness to their relationship.  You find yourself hoping that things work out for them and really, in order to work, that’s pretty much the only thing that a film like this has to accomplish.

Sea Change ends with the possibility of a sequel.  Personally, if they did make a sequel, I’d watch it.

 

Music Video of the Day: Monster by Flint Eastwood (2018, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s music video of the day is this creepy, black-and-white video of Flint Eastwood’s Monster.

While watching this video, you’ll undoubtedly notice that it features a hairless cat.  I love cats but I have to admit that hairless cats totally freak me out.  I guess it’s because the sight of a hairless cat forces you to consider just how much of the inherent cuteness of cats has to do with their fur.  Personally, I think that my cat Doc is the cutest cat ever but would I still feel the same way if he didn’t have all of that black fur?  It’s a fair question.

Of course, what’s ironic is that cat’s don’t even care or notice what color their fur is.  They’re color blind and, for the most part, they hate each other equally regardless of color or socio-economic background.

As long as I’m continuing to make everything about me, I should also point out that I have really bad eyesight and I think it might be getting worse!  This video reminded me of how much I’m not looking forward to going to the optometrist next week.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Watcher In The Woods (dir by Melissa Joan Hart)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there!  So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR.  Seriously, I currently have 163 things recorded!  I’ve decided that, on February 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not.  So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR!  Will I make it?  Keep checking this site to find out!  I recorded The Watcher In The Woods off of Lifetime on October 21st, 2017!)

There’s something watching in the woods.

At the very least, that’s what Jan (Tallulah Evans) believes.  Jan and her family are spending the summer in Wales, at the Aylwood Manor.  From the minute that they move in, Jan starts to suspect that something is strange about the place.  Sometimes, she thinks that she can hear whispers coming from the nearby woods.  Her younger sister starts to act strangely.  Their parents are convinced that Jan is just playing tricks and trying to frighten them.  When Jan tries to find out more information about both the woods and her new home, she discovers that most of the people in the village don’t want to talk about it.  Those that do speak to her tend to say things like, “Soon, you’ll be gone too.”

(Other than some shots of the beautiful countryside, I doubt this film will do much for Welsh tourism.)

And then there’s Mrs. Aylwood (Anjelica Huston), the mysterious and stand-offish owner of Aylwood Manor.  Thirty years ago, her daughter disappeared in the woods.  Most people in the village believe that Mrs. Aylwood murdered her own daughter.  At first, Jan suspects that she’s a witch and that she not only sacrificed her daughter but now wants to sacrifice Jan’s sister as well!

Of course, the truth might be something altogether different.  It’s not always so easy to tell who is a witch and who is just a grieving mother.  The only thing that Jan knows for sure is that there’s something in the woods and it’s watching…

I have to admit that the main reason I wanted to see The Watcher In The Woods was because it was directed by Melissa Joan Hart and she’ll always be Sabrina, the Teenage Witch to me.  (Don’t start yelling at me about God’s Not Dead 2.  Actors have bills to pay and Melissa gave about as good a performance as anyone could with that script.)  Hart does a pretty good job directing The Watcher In The Woods.  It’s not particularly scary but, for all the talk of witches and demons, it’s not really meant to be a horror film.  Instead, it’s a coming-of-age story with paranormal elements.  Jan not only learns about what’s watching in the woods but she also learns an important lesson about assuming that people are witches.  And, even if it’s not really a scary movie, it does have some appropriately creepy scenes.  The woods are a great location and there’s a scene where Jan nearly downs that’s especially well-handled.  The film is also well-acted, with a natural and believable performance from Tallulah Evans and an enjoyably stylized one from Anjelica Huston.

All in all, The Watcher in The Woods was an enjoyable October treat.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Story of a Girl (dir by Kyra Sedgwick)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there!  So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR.  Seriously, I currently have 163 things recorded!  I’ve decided that, on February 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not.  So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR!  Will I make it?  Keep checking this site to find out!  I recorded Story of a Girl off of Lifetime on July 23rd, 2017!)

Michael (Kevin Bacon) owns a pizza place in a small town.  He’s just hired 16 year-old Deanna Lambert (Ryann Shane) to work for him over summer.  Deanna shows up for her first day of work.  Deanna apologizes for being late.  Michael points out that he has no costumers so it doesn’t matter.  Michael then introduces Deanna to his other employee, Tommy (Tyler Johnston).  Deanna looks shocked.  Tommy looks shocked.

“You two know each other?” Michael asks.

“In the biblical sense,” Tommy replies.

And so it goes from there…

Seriously, what was I doing on July 23rd that kept me from watching Story of a Girl?  Was I watching a shark movie on SyFy?  I do remember that Story of a Girl was very aggressively advertised in the days leading up to its premiere and I did actually mean to watch it.  I’ve read the Sara Zarr penned book on which it was based and the commercials made it look fairly good.  Add to that, it was directed by Kyra Sedgwick and co-starred Kevin Bacon and they seem like such a nice couple that I was naturally hoping it would be a good movie.

Three years ago, a sex video featuring 13 year-old Deanna and 17 year-old Tommy went viral.  While Tommy (who, as Michael points out, was committing a felony) suffers not a single bit for taking advantage of his best friend’s younger sister, Deanna is branded a slut and sent into social exile.  Her father, Ray (Jon Tenney), refuses to forgive her.  Tensions at home are exasperated by the presence of Deanna’s brother, Darren (Iain Belcher), his girlfriend, Stacey (Sosie Bacon), and their baby.  Darren and Stacey are planning on moving into a place of their own and Deanna is planning on going with them.

Though it may not be obvious from that plot description, Story a Girl is not a typical Lifetime film.  It takes place in a thoroughly blue-collar milieu and the Lamberts live in perhaps the ugliest, most cluttered house that I’ve ever seen.  Between that house and Ray acting like an asshole 24/7, it’s easy to understand why Deanna wants to get away from these people.  The problem, however, is that, after only a few minutes, most viewers will be desperate to get out of there as well.  And, unlike Deanna, viewers actually have a way of doing that.  They can just change the channel.  The film does have a good and important message but the characters are all so off-putting that a good deal of the audience probably won’t stick around to hear it.

Story of a Girl is a disappointingly superficial film.  The Juno influence is obvious but Story of a Girl never comes to life in the same way that Juno did.  Kevin Bacon is solid as Michael and Ryann Shane does a passable Ellen Page impersonation but everyone else is trapped in a film that’s long on plot but short on depth.  I really wanted to like Story of a Girl but I just didn’t.