A word about Paperbacks From Hell, my favorite nonfiction book of 2017. One of my goals for 2018 (and probably 2019, as well) is to read every single book mentioned in Paberbacks From Hell. I’ve been told that it won’t be easy because several of the books are apparently no longer in print. But that’s okay. I’m looking forward to searching for them almost as much as I’m looking forward to reading them!
On Wednesday, I’ll be listing my picks for the best of Lifetime and then, on Friday, I’ll finally wrap up my look back at 2017 with my picks for the best 26 movies of the year!
(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 166 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 Fatherly Obsession off of the Lifetime Movie Network on December 26th, 2017!)
Alyssa Haroldosn (Molly McCook) is a stand-up comedian who has recently moved from Jackson Hole, Wyoming to Los Angeles.
That makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve never been to Wyoming, though I did once live in Colorado and I imagine that’s kind of like being in Wyoming. Still, I imagine that there’s probably more opportunities for a comedian in L.A. than in Jackson Hole. Then again, it also seems like there would be considerably less competition in Wyoming than in California. Actually, if Alyssa really wanted to go some place with no competition, she should have moved to Colorado. Nobody’s funny in Colorado…
But, to get back to the movie, it turns out that Alyssa didn’t just move for her career. She also moved because 1) her family was way too clingy and 2) she had a stalker. When we first meet her, she’s living in a cheap motel room and calling 911 nearly every night. But then she’s lucky enough to meet a handsome realtor named Oliver (Jack Turner). Oliver not only appreciates a good fish taco but he also knows of a good, empty apartment!
There’s only three issues with the apartment:
It’s in Oliver’s building and, if you live near Oliver, that means that you’re somehow obligated to share a fish taco with him. Seriously, Oliver never shuts up about his love for fish tacos.
The apartment is empty because the previous tenant — who looked just like Alyssa — was found dead in her bathtub.
The landlord, Robert (Ted McGinley), is a mentally unbalanced stalker who is desperately looking for someone to take the place of his daughter!
You can probably already guess what happens but Fatherly Obsession does add a few new elements to the typical Lifetime stalking formula. When Robert — like all Lifetime stalkers — spies on Alyssa’s apartment, he doesn’t just watch her on his computer. No, Robert uses virtual reality glasses! What that means is that, at random moments, Robert materializes in Alyssa’s apartment and watches her go about her day. It’s a nicely creepy twist to the usual Lifetime formula.
The biggest problem with Fatherly Obsession is that Alyssa’s a comedian and, as a result, the dialogue is often excessively quippy. I spent the first half of the movie worried that Alyssa was going to spend the whole movie almost exclusively speaking in one liners. Then Oliver started talking about fish tacos and I was just like, “Oh my God! MAKE IT STOP!”
But the film got better as it went along. Though her character sometimes drove me crazy, Molly McCook did a good job of capturing both the pain of being a stalked and the difficult of recovery. Ted McGinley was also incredibly creepy as Robert. Fatherly Obsession was a typical Lifetime stalking film but it had enough interesting moments to make it worthwhile for fans of the genre.
When I saw The Commuter at the Alamo Drafthouse yesterday, this video was shown as a part of the pre-show. It’s actually taken from a 1974 ABC special, Ridin’ The Rails: The Great American Train Story. Apparently, the entire special was Johnny Cash riding trains across America, while singing some of his favorite train-related songs.
I imagine that it was ultimately meant to be something of a commercial for Amtrak, which was only 3 years old when Ridin’ The Rails aired. Myself, I’ve always found trains to be very romantic and one of my most beloved memories of Italy is riding the train into and from Venice. I’ve never been on Amtrak, though. I guess that’s because I’m a Southern girl and, down here, we love our cars too much to ever ride a train.
(I do remember, a few years back, watching a bunch of people from up North having a televised conniption over how little we care about Amtrak in the South. It struck me as being kinda weird and petty but anyway…)
Ridin’ The Rails was directed by Nicholas Webster. If that name sounds familiar, that might be because Webster also directed my favorite Christmas movie, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!
It’s January, which means that it’s time for another silly action movie starring Liam Neeson. Ever since Taken was first released way back in 2008, Liam has been a regular fixture during the first few months of each new year, either killing terrorists or killing gangsters. Regardless of the film, he’s always a world-weary guy who loves his family and who has a unique set of skills. The specific skills may change from film to film but they all pretty much have to do with killing people.
For instance, in the latest Liam Neeson action film, The Commuter, Liam plays Michael MacCauley. Michael may currently sell life insurance but he used to be a detective with the NYPD. Judging by some of the things that Michael does over the course of this film, being a detective in New York City apparently requires you to have a set of skills that one would normally associate with James Bond or Jason Bourne. However, Michael left all of that behind. Sure, he might still get together with his former partner (Patrick Wilson) for a beer and he still complains about his former captain (Sam Neill). But Michael’s in the insurance game now. As he explains it, he’s nearly 60, he’s got a teenage son getting ready for college, and he has two mortgages to pay off. Michael and his family still haven’t recovered from the recession. Don’t get him started on Goldman Sachs…
It sure is a good thing that Michael has that good job!
Except, of course, he doesn’t. One day, Michael arrives at the office, is given a rather weak severance package, and is told that his services will no longer be needed. Wondering how he’s going to tell his wife and son that their lives are pretty much over, Michael wanders around New York, gets a little drunk, and then eventually boards the train that will take him back home.
Michael is a regular on the train. As is quickly made clear, he knows all of the other regular commuters, like grizzled old Walt (Jonathan Banks) and neurotic Tony (Andy Nyman). He’s also still enough of a cop that he notices people who are riding the train for the first time. For instance, there’s Joanna (Vera Farmiga). Joanna sits down in front of him and strikes up a conversation. She asks him what he would do if she told him that there was a bag full of money in one of the air conditioning vents but that, if he takes the money, he’s agreeing to do something for her. When Joanna gets off at the next stop, Michael checks the vent. The money’s there and now, so is the task. Michael has to find and identify one passenger on the train. If he doesn’t, his family dies…
Even by the standards of a Liam Neeson action film, The Commuter is a deeply silly movie. However, that very silliness is the key to the film’s appeal. After getting off to a strong start with a witty montage of Michael repeatedly waking up and leaving for work day-after-day, The Commuter settles down and it seems as if it’s going to be a typical Liam Neeson action film. However, as the film progresses, things get just more and more bizarre. Suddenly, Michael is getting into brutal fist fights in empty train cars. No one in the movie ever seems to care that, every time they see Michael, he’s a little bit more beaten up than he was the last time. Suddenly, out of nowhere, trains are careening out of control, people are getting shoved in front of buses, and men with snakes tattooed on their neck are giving Michael the side eye. At one point, Michael nearly gets crushed underneath the train and then has to run and leap to get back on. You find yourself wondering how a 60 year-old insurance salesman is managing to do all of this. (The answer, of course, is that he’s Liam Neeson and Liam Neeson can do anything…)
A little over an hour into the film, The Commuter hits an operatic level of silliness, one that will probably never be equaled by any other movie that Liam Neeson ever makes. If you stop too long to think about any of it, the movie will fall apart. To be honest, very little of what Michael does make sense but the conspiracy that’s taking advantage of him makes even less sense. The bad guys are either incredibly stupid or incredibly brilliant, depending on what the story requires from scene to scene.
But no matter! This is the fourth film that director Jaume Collet-Sera has made with Liam Neeson. None of their collaborations make much sense but all of them are entertaining as long as you’re willing to sit back, relax, and don’t overthink the logic of what you’re watching. Much as he did with The Shallows, Collet-Sera makes good use of the film’s limited setting and Neeson is his usual grizzled but charismatic self. The Commuter is about as silly as can be but it’s an undeniably entertaining thrill ride.
Tom Cruise has become so associated with Scientology and all of its creepy excesses that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s always been a pretty good actor and he’s actually getting better with age. In the Mission Impossible films, he’s proven that he can be a better James Bond than Daniel Craig. In Edge of Tomorrow, he and Emily Blunt brought real depth to what could have just been another generic action film. Even as bad as The Mummy may have been, the film failed because of a bad script and bad direction. Tom Cruise’s performance was actually one of the few things in that movie that did work.
And then there’s American Made.
Directed by Edge of Tomorrow‘s Doug Liman, American Made is supposedly based on a true story. At least as portrayed in this film, Barry Seal was an airline pilot who, in the late 70s, was recruited by the CIA to fly over Central America and take pictures of communist rebels. An adrenaline junkie who had grown bored with his day job, Barry quickly agreed and even got a thrill out of the rebels shooting at him as he flew over. Barry was then recruited by the Medellin Cartel and soon, he was flying drugs into the United States while still working for the CIA. While the President was declaring war on drugs, Barry was attending secret meetings at the White House. The CIA set Barry up with his own airport in Mena, Arkansas, where he both trained anti-communist guerillas and arranged for the importation of cocaine into the United States. This went on until both the CIA and the Colombians decided that Barry knew too much and was expendable.
It’s a pretty wild story and, at the very least, some of it is true. It is generally acknowledged that Barry Seal worked for both the CIA and the Medellin Cartel and that the little town of Mena, Arkansas was, briefly, the very unlikely center of America’s drug trade. The film places most of the blame on Ronald Reagan and the Bushes. Of course, if you ask any of the older folks in Arkansas, they’ll tell you that Bill Clinton not only knew about the cocaine coming in to Mena but that he also snorted at least half of it up his nose. Director Doug Liman, himsef, has said that American Made was inspired by the life of Barry Seal but that its shouldn’t necessarily be considered a biopic.
Despite a few scenes where the film tries a bit too hard to duplicate the style of American Hustle, American Made is an entertaining film. That’s largely due to Tom Cruise’s performance as Barry. Cruise plays Barry Seal as man who, no matter what the situation, always managed to have a good time and, watching American Made, you can’t help but suspect that Tom Cruise was having an equally good time playing him. Cruise is at his most relaxed and charismatic in American Made, even managing to deliver his lines in a passable Southern accent. (The rest of the cast is less successful, too often sounding quasi-Texan even though they’re playing Arkansans.) Even after his whole operation has fallen apart and Barry knows that his days are numbered, you get the feeling that he wouldn’t change a thing. He just seems like he’s happy to have had the experience.
(For me, Cruise’s best moment comes after Barry crashes his airplane in a suburban neighborhood. Stepping out the wreckage, covered in cocaine, Barry steals a kid’s bike and says, “You didn’t see me!” before triumphantly riding off. It’s potentially cartoonish but Cruise sells the scene and makes it work. I was sad to discover, while researching this review, that this apparently didn’t actually happen.)
I liked American Made. It never quite becomes the savage critique of American foreign policy that it appears to want to be but it’s still an entertaining film and a reminder that, weird religious beliefs aside, Tom Cruise is actually a pretty good actor.
This is the official version and, while it’s nice to see men getting objectified for once, I have to admit that I still prefer the first version. That version, after all, had zombies.
My look back at 2017 will conclude next week. On Monday, I’ll post my picks for the best non-fiction books of 2017. On Wednesday, I’ll post my picks for the best of 2017 Lifetime. And then, on Friday, my picks for the best 26 films of 2017!
(My apologies for dragging things out but I do need the extra time so I can catch up on a few films that I missed in 2017.)
To a lot of people, this will always be known as the Lifetime song. That’s because Lifetime used to always play this song in their commercials and it always fit in perfectly with whatever melodramatic movie was being advertised. Like the best Lifetime films, Ex’s & Oh’s may sound dramatic but it’s actually very humorous and self-aware.
Just consider some of my favorite lyrics:
Well, I had me a boy, turned him into a man I showed him all the things that he didn’t understand Whoa, and then I let him go Now, there’s one in California who’s been cursing my name ‘Cause I found me a better lover in the UK Hey, hey, until I made my getaway One, two, three, they gonna run back to me ‘Cause I’m the best baby that they never gotta keep One, two, three, they gonna run back to me They always wanna come, but they never wanna leave
Myself, I loved this song even before it became a Lifetime anthem. This is one of those songs that it’s fun to sing off-key to while you’re stuck on Central Expressway.
There’s actually two videos for this song. The video that I shared today is the first version and I like it the best because there’s zombie at the end!
I’m sitting here and I’m trying to make out my annual list of the good things that I saw on television last year and I just realized something.
I didn’t watch much TV last year. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The television was often on, in order to provide background noise. I’m not a huge fan of silence. But it was usually just tuned to something random. It was rare that I ever said, “Oh my God, I have to watch this.”
Oh well. Let’s see what I can come up with:
Twin Peaks: The Return. I already devoted an entire post to how much I loved Twin Peaks: The Return. But literally, this was probably the only show that I really looked forward to watching on a weekly basis. This was the only show that I thought about between episodes. And this is the only show that continues to haunt me now that it’s over.
The original Twin Peaks. The first two seasons of Twin Peaks are available on Netflix. Jeff, Leonard, and I spent a month watching and reviewing them. Twin Peaks was definitely responsible for some of the best things that appeared on this site last year.
The Finale of Bates Motel. This one of the best finales that I’ve ever seen. This show, which I think everyone expected to fail, instead became one of the best shows on television and it ended perfectly.
Degrassi. I’ve had some issue with the last few seasons of Degrassi but it’s still my favorite Canadian television show.
The Deuce. David Simon’s look at Times Square in the 70s may not have reached the level of The Wire but it was definitely better than Treme.
Episodes. Showtime’s Episodes was never a good show but it certainly was fun to hatewatch.
Veep. Even though this was definitely the show’s weakest season, Veep still provided some of the best political satire around.
That episode of South Park where Donald Trump dared the North Koreans to nuke Tweek’s home.
All of the shows on ID and Crime and Investigation Network. All of the true crime programming may be disturbing but it’s also undeniably addictive.
Chiller. Chiller shut down on December 31st. I’ll miss it.
And finally, the worst thing that I saw on television in 2017:
The Murder of Laci Peterson. This multi-party A&E documentary was an obvious attempt to 1) duplicate the success of O.J.: Made in America and 2) exonerate Scott Perterson for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci. Laci’s name may have appeared in the title but she was mostly an afterthought as the majority of the show’s running time was devoted to Scott’s creepy sister and her attempts to spring him from prison. Heavy-handed, manipulative, and way too smug for its own good, the show did inspire a lot of people twitter to declare their belief in Scott’s innocence. (The show’s argument, by the way, was that Laci was murdered by a Satanic cult because, as one Modesto detective put it, Meth addicts are very superstitious.)
Tomorrow, our look back at 2017 continues with my picks for the best novels of 2017!
Since today is Mel C’s birthday, I decided to go with a Spice Girls video for the video of the day.
Wannabe was the Spice Girls’s first video and, when it was released, it took only two hours for it to become the number one selected video on The Box, a British cable network. It stayed at number one for 13 weeks and it only fell from that spot because the Spice Girls released another video.
This video was directed by commercial director Jhoan Camitz. According to Wikipedia, this was his first music video. According to the imvdb, it was his third. Reportedly, he originally wanted to film the video at a hotel in Barcelona but, when he was denied permission, he instead filmed at the Midland Grand Hotel in St. Pancras, London.
The video was banned in some parts of Asia, because it was considered to be too provocative.
I’ve taking turns trying to convince nearly everyone here at the Shattered Lens to, at some point in the future, review Spice World. So far, everyone’s refused so I may to do it someday myself.
Through the Shattered Lens 