Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: The Wrong Student (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Y’all know that I usually avoid politics like the plague but this is just something that needs to be said:

The U.S. Government could stand to learn a little from a good Lifetime film. A good Lifetime movie is not expensive (and usually can be viewed for free). A good Lifetime movie does not demand that the audience watch it but instead, provides a good reason for you to sacrifice 90 minutes of your time. A good Lifetime movie does not attempt to rob you of your individual freedoms and, in fact, it celebrates your right to talk back to the screen. A good Lifetime movie delivers exactly what it promises. A good Lifetime movie does not talk down to its audience. A good Lifetime movie goes out of its way to keep its audience entertained. If the U.S. government was more like a Lifetime movie, we wouldn’t have spent the past 17 years dealing with one tedious situation after another. If the U.S. government was more like a Lifetime movie, life would be a lot more fun and twitter far less annoying.

I found myself thinking about this as I continued to clean out my DVR by watching The Wrong Student. I recorded The Wrong Student off of Lifetime on March 11th. I’m glad I did because The Wrong Student epitomizes everything that I love about Lifetime.

Add to that, it’s a film that proves something that I’ve always suspected — soccer is the source of all evil.

Maddie (Evanne Friedmann) is a teenager who loves two things: soccer and the new soccer coach. The new coach is Dominic (Jason-Shane Scott), who has amazing pecs and abs. How in love with Dominic is Maddie? Well, she’s so in love with him that she’s willing to do almost anything to keep him around. Does that mean that Maddie is willing to poison the old soccer coach? It sure does. Does that mean that Maddie is willing to fake an injury so she’ll have an excuse to get naked in the locker room while a mortified Dominic hides his eyes? Of course! What about pretending to get drunk at a party and then begging Dominic to give her a ride home? Hey, who hasn’t done that? In fact, Maddie is so obsessed with Dominic that she’s even willing to murder her ex-boyfriend.

Maddie’s pretty, intelligent, and apparently her family has some money but she sure does have some issues. Personally, I blame the soccer.

Amber (Kennedy Tucker) is also on the soccer team. Amber is living with her Aunt Kelly (Jessica Morris). Obviously, Amber knows that Dominic is too old for her but he’s exactly the right age for Kelly! When Maddie realizes that Kelly and the coach are getting close, can you guess what happens?

Anyway, The Wrong Student is a lot of fun. David DeCoteau has directed a lot of “wrong” films for Lifetime, including The Wrong Roommate and The Wrong Child. He knows exactly how to make one of these films entertaining and The Wrong Student is an enjoyably self-aware melodrama. Evanne Friedmann is wonderfully unhinged as crazy Maddie and Jason-Shane Scott looks great without a shirt on. The Wrong Child is a wonderfully entertaining example of just how much fun a Lifetime movie can be.

Everything should be more like a Lifetime movie.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Forgotten Evil (dir by Anthony C. Ferrante)

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, as part of my continuing effort to clean out my DVR, I watched Forgotten Evil! I recorded Forgotten Evil off of the Lifetime Movie Network on March 12th.

As soon as the words, “The Asylum Presents” appeared on the screen, I knew that I was going to love Forgotten Evil. Though the Asylum may be best known for the Sharknado franchise and several subversively entertaining mockbusters, they’ve also produced several films for Lifetime. An Asylum Lifetime film is always delightfully melodramatic and a lot of fun. My optimism only increased when I discovered that Forgotten Evil was directed and written by the man behind Sharknado, Anthony C. Ferrante.

“This is going to be fun!” I thought and it turns out that I was right.

Forgotten Evil opens with a woman in a bag being dumped over the side of a boat. The opening scenes have a surreal, almost dream-like feel to them. Ferrante does a good job of creating a properly ominous atmosphere. As I watched that bag crash into the water, I was reminded of my own rather morbid fear of drowning. Fortunately, the woman in the bag survives. Unfortunately, when she’s found floating by the shore, she has absolutely no idea who she is.

That’s right! Jane Doe (played by Masiela Lusha) has amnesia! Even though she does occasionally have flashes of memory, she can’t put together what they all mean. She has no idea who she was or why she was dumped in the water. Eventually, she starts using the name Renee but that’s just because she saw a boat named Renee before she nearly drowned.

Amnesia, needless to say, is always a good way to start an intriguing story. I mean, let’s be honest. The idea that people can suddenly forget everything is really quite fascinating. It’s impossible not to wonder what you would do if you were in the same situation.

Despite having no idea who she is, Renee tries to start a new life for herself. A nurse and a police officer become her new BFFs. Her therapist becomes her new parental figure. She even gets a job and a new boyfriend (played by Kyle McKeever), one who is surprisingly good at karaoke! That’s really not too bad for someone who, just a few weeks previously, was being dumped over the side of the boat.

Except, strange things keep happening. She loses her job when semi-explicit Polaroids mysteriously appear on her desk. She continues to have flashes of disturbing images and she’s convinced that someone tried to drown her while she was taking a bath. She thinks that she sees a mysterious man following her around. And that perfect new boyfriend of hers? Well, he appears to be just a little bit too perfect. It’s hard not to suspect that he’s hiding something. Especially when he takes her to an isolated cabin which, in a Lifetime movie, is never a good sign…

I enjoyed Forgotten Evil. This is pure and enjoyable melodrama, well-directed by Anthony C. Ferrante and featuring all sorts of twists and turns. Masiela Lusha is likable and sympathetic in the main role. All in all, this is a fun Lifetime movie. Keep an eye out for it.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Fight Valley (dir by Rob Hawk)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I wish I knew how to fight. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a pacifist. I’m not the type who would ever actually go out looking for a fight but we live in a dangerous world and I’d like to know how to fight for much the same reason that I like to carry a pink, Hello Kitty derringer in my garter. Self-defense is important.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I know how to pull hair. In fact, back in the day, I was told that I was a very good hair puller. And I keep my nails healthy and strong so I probably could scratch someone’s eyes out if I had to. But, with all that in mind, I’d still probably be totally lost if I ever got into a real fight. I have no idea how to throw a punch for instance. I recently tried to show off my technique to a friend of mine who spent two years serving in the IDF. She started laughing as soon as I made a fist. Apparently, you’re not supposed to tuck in your thumb. I had no idea.

I found myself thinking about this last night. I’m in the process of cleaning out my DVR and, before going to bed, I decided to watch the 2016 film Fight Valley. I recorded Fight Valley off of TMC on March 10th. I’m not sure why I recorded it. Maybe I liked the title. Who knows?

Anyway, Fight Valley is a film about fighting. In many ways, it’s a how-to video for girls who want to learn how to kick ass. Watching Fight Valley, I learned that the most important thing about fighting is to stand around and glare at the person who you want to fight. Judging from the film, it’s also important to say stuff like, “This is our hood,” and “You need to take your skinny ass home, white girl.” Apparently, when walking past someone who you want to fight, it’s very important to make sure that you bump into their shoulder. Basically, it goes: Glare, Talk, Shoulder Bump.

Fight Valley takes place in Camden, New Jersey, where it appears your only two options are either joining the Mafia or getting involved with the underground fighting circuit. Tori Colo (Chelsea Durkalec) is this kickass fighter who needs to make some money. She asks her rich older sister, Windsor (Susie Celek), for the money but Windsor is all like, “Why don’t you get a real job and stop bumping into people’s shoulders?” One night, a skeezy guy tells Tori that she can make some extra cash by going to Fight Valley. The next morning, Tori’s dead body is discovered in the woods!

Well, needless to say, Windsor feels guilty. So, she does what any rich girl who doesn’t know how to fight would do. She starts wandering around Camden and randomly asking people, “Hey, can you give me a ride to Fight Valley?” Well, that doesn’t work. She gets told to go home. Tori’s squad tells her that she either needs to learn how to fight or give up. Fortunately, the harsh and enigmatic Jabs (Miesha Tate) is willing to teach her how to fight. Even more luckily, it only takes four weeks to learn.

(Don’t worry, there’s a twist! Jabs has her own reason for teaching Windsor how to fight. I won’t spoil it here, largely because it’s kind of stupid.)

The good thing about Fight Valley is that a good deal of the cast is made up of actual fighters. Along with Miesha Tate, the cast includes Holly Holm and Cris Cyborg. While I have to admit that I don’t know much about ultimate fighting, I do know that if any of these three gave me the fight glare, I would immediately go hide under a table. Whenever they’re punching, kicking, and putting each other into chokeholds, they are totally believable and there are hints of what the film could have been. Unfortunately, the fight scenes themselves are somewhat haphazardly shot and confusingly edited. As a general rule, when you’ve got actual athletes doing their thing, you don’t need a lot of jump cuts and flashbacks.

The big problem was the acting. For a film where the main attraction was obviously meant to be the fight scenes, Fight Valley was a surprisingly talk movie. Most of the film’s cast had an authenticity to them that disappeared as soon as they opened their mouths and started to recite the script’s overwritten dialogue in the most stilted style possible. It just doesn’t work.

The same can be said of Fight Valley in general. As much as I’d love to know how to throw a punch, Fight Valley left me feeling like maybe I should just stick to hair pulling.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Guilty Pleasure No. 33: In the Mix (dir by Ron Underwood)

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in January, I had to get a new cable box. Sadly, when the boxes were switched, I lost everything that I had saved on the DVR. Over a hundred movies and TV shows were wiped away! However, I did not let this get me down. Instead, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I now had a lot more free space by literally recording anything that looked the least bit interesting.

Well, the day of reckoning has finally arrived. It is now March 21st and the DVR is nearly full. So, for the next few weeks, I am going to clean out my DVR and review what I watch! Now, I can’t say how long this is going to take. In the past, I’ve always given myself unrealistic deadlines. So, this time, I’m not giving myself a time limit. Instead, I’m just going to start watching what I’ve got recorded and hope that I’m done by 2018. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I started things off by watching the 2005 mafia romance film, In the Mix.

I recorded In The Mix off of Starz on March 16th. I did this despite the fact that I’ve actually seen In The Mix quite a few times. In The Mix, which is technically a beyond terrible movie, is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s a bit like From Justin To Kelly or On The Line. Even though all my instincts as a movie snob tell me not to do it, I can’t help but watch it.

In the Mix stars Usher as Darrell, the hottest DJ in New York. Every woman wants him and every man wants to be him. However, all Usher wants to do is hang out with the family of the local mob boss. It turns out that Don Frank (Chazz Palminteri) was friends with Darrell’s father and Darrell is now friends with Frank’s son, Frankie Jr. (Anthony Fazio). Frank hires Darrell to DJ his daughter’s birthday party.

(Frankie, Jr. is a white kid who wants to be black. Personally, I think there’s probably an interesting story in the idea of the son of an old-fashioned Italian mafia don who idolizes — or appropriates, depending on how you look at it — black culture but Frankie, Jr.’s characterization pretty much starts and ends with him saying, “Yo.”)

At the party, Darrell quickly falls in love with Frank’s daughter, Dolly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Dolly likes him too. Especially after he takes a bullet that was intended for her father. While Darrell is recuperating at the mansion, Frank tells Dolly that she can’t go outside unless she has a bodyguard. Dolly says that’s fine as long as the bodyguard is Darrell.

And you know what that means! It’s time for a makeover montage as Darrell gets a whole new wardrobe! Yay!

Anyway, the plot is about as predictable as the casting of Kevin Hart as Usher’s comedic sidekick and Robert Davi as a sinister gangster. Dolly and Darrell fall in love but you already knew that was going to happen. You also probably already guessed that Dolly already has a boring boyfriend named Chad (Geoff Stults) and that Darrell has a crazy ex-girlfriend named Cherise (K.D. Aubert). And, of course, Frank is not initially happy with the idea of Dolly leaving her rich lawyer boyfriend so that she can be with Darrell. However, Darrell eventually gets a chance to prove himself by rescuing Dolly from some rival gangsters and he’s welcomed into the crime family. Of course, he gets shot a second time. “If the ghetto’s so dangerous,” he says as he lies on the ground, “how come I keep getting shot by white people?” Everyone has a good laugh as they wait for the ambulance. That’s the type of movie that In The Mix is.

As I watched In The Mix, I realized that it was actually a lot worse than I remembered and yet, I still enjoyed it. Why? To be honest, it all comes down to Usher and Emmauelle Chriqui, both of whom look really, really good and who have enough chemistry that they can overcome an amazingly clunky script. You reallydo believe that the two of them actually are into each other and you hope that things will work out for them because they’re such a ludicrously attractive couple. In The Mix is an incredibly shallow and silly movie but the stars both look good when they kiss and, ultimately, that’s what a movie like this is all about.

That said, in the future, I probably won’t bother to set the DVR for it again.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

TV Review: The Walking Dead 7.14 “The Other Side”

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead was the type of episode that drives me crazy. It was an episode where hardly anything happened and what did happen played out very slowly. In fact, I eventually ended up getting so bored that I started trying to imagine how The Walking Dead could ever come up with an episode slower than “The Other Side.”

After giving it some thought, I decided the only way it could happen would be if Terrence Malick agreed to be a guest director during season 8. As I sat waiting for something to happen in the episode that I was actually watching, I found myself imagining what the Malick-directed episode would be like.

I envisioned Rick standing alone in a vibrantly green field. The grass is high and the blowing wind creates gentle waves of nature. Rick looks up to the incredibly blue sky and sees one extremely white cloud floating over. Rick looks down at the ground. An egg hatches. A bird is born. Rick stares at the bird. The bird stares at him. They both flash back to prehistory. A sabre tooth tiger eats a caveman who looks suspiciously like Norman Reedus. Rick blinks. Rick’s back in the field. Christian Bale walks by, dressed up like a 1930s Oklahoma dust bowl farmer. He looks at Rick. Rick stares back. Christian Bale walks on.

On the soundtrack, we hear Ben Kinglsey’s voice. “What is this nature of man that refuses to accept that death begins with life and life ends with death? Will the grass blow for an eternity?”

Rick looks off in the distance. Walkers are approaching.

On the soundtrack, we hear Jessica Chastain’s voice: “I will wait you at the other end of the river, where the two waters meet in life and diverge in death.”

“Shane, Glenn, and old Dale Horvath,” Rick mutters, “Always you are at war within me.”

The walkers calmly walk by Rick. Rick notices that a man in animal skins is with the walkers and yet, the man is not eaten because he has returned to a more innocent and primitive state….

And so on and so forth.

Anyway, as for what actually did happen during tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, I guess this was a pretty good example of why I should be careful what I ask for. For weeks, I’ve been defending Rosita and saying that people should let her attack the Sanctuary. Well, tonight, she and Sasha finally made it to the Sanctuary and that attack did not go quite as planned. First off, Eugene refused to go back to Alexandria with them. (A better name for the Sanctuary would be Stockholm because Eugene’s got a huge case of Stockholm Syndrome, am I right or am I right? Thank you, I’ll be here all night.) Then Sasha announced that Rosita needed to go back to Alexandria and ran into the Sanctuary to create a diversion. With Sasha undoubtedly getting shot up by Negan’s goons, Rosita ran off but then stopped when she saw someone in the shadows. I’m assuming it was Daryl.

(By the way, I know we’re all supposed to get mad at Rosita for potentially messing up Rick’s plans but seriously, can you blame her? Rick only has one plan: Do nothing until that’s no longer an option, sacrifice half of your people on a suicide mission, and make sure Carl survives to lose another eye.)

This all happened in the final ten minutes of the episode and it was pretty good and exciting. But to get to that point, we had to sit through a seemingly endless slog of scenes that mostly felt like filler. The Saviors showed up at Alexandria and, once again, we had to watch Simon bully Gregory while everyone else stood around and shook their head in disgust. Because Negan set his last doctor on fire, he decided to take Alexandria’s doctor.

“OH MY GOD!” the audience was supposed to shout, “Maggie’s pregnant and Alexandria has lost their only doctor!”

(Maggie’s been pregnant for a while now and she’s still not showing. Trying to figure out how much time has actually passed in The Walking Dead is almost as much fun as trying to figure out how long they were actually on the island on Lost.)

And yes, Negan arbitrarily taking someone else’s doctor because he stupidly killed his own does reinforce the fact that Negan is a jackass and something needs to be done about him. But seriously, it all played out so slowly. And it’s not like Gregory was going to refuse to hand over the doctor or anything. Other than Daryl almost coming out of hiding to attack someone, nothing unexpected or particularly interesting happened during all of that. It was all just more Savior bully bullshit.

When we weren’t in Alexandria, we spent an eternity watching Rosita raise and lower a rifle. At one point, I was scared that the whole rest of this season would just be Rosita raising the rifle, looking through the scope, and then lowering it.

Fortunately, this episode ended with some action but it took forever to get there. There’s only two more episodes left in this season so hopefully, the show will pick up the pace a little. Because, seriously, if season 7 ends with Rick announcing that it’s finally time to attack as he stares at the Sanctuary in the distance, I’m going to throw a fit.

Film Review: Double Mommy (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Lifetime followed Mommy’s Little Boy with the American premiere of Double Mommy.

Double Mommy is another Canadian-produced Lifetime film. This one is a bit of a spiritual cousin to Double Daddy. Like Double Daddy, Double Mommy starts with a high school party, ends with the arrival of two babies, and finds the time to include some homicide in between. It’s also something of a class drama, with the rich being very evil and the middle class being very saintly and the lower class being pretty much nonexistent.

In Double Mommy, Jess (Morgan Obenreder, best known to readers of the site for playing Charisma Carpenter’s daughter in Bound) is pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. However, she’s not sure who the father is. She wants the father to be Ryan (Griffin Freeman), her perfect boyfriend. But she suspects that the father might be Brent (Mark Grossman), Ryan’s former best friend. One night, while Ryan was away, Brent gave Jess a drink. He said it was nonalcoholic and the can said “Cola.” But the way the camera lingered on that can before Jess actually drank it, everyone watching the movie knew that it was drugged. Jess has only vague memories of the rest of the night but she knows what happened.

A paternity test reveals that one twin was fathered by Ryan and the other by Brent! At this point, I said, “So, which one is going to be the evil twin!?”

Well, the film never really got around to answering that question. Instead, it focused on the attempts of Brent’s rich father (Bruce Boxleitner) to pay Jess and her family off. It turns out that Jess is not the first girl that Brent has raped and his father has been covering up for him. Jess is determined to expose Brent as a rapist. Jess hangs banners at school. She posts Brent’s picture on social media.

Let’s give Double Mommy credit where credit is due. In the characters of Brent and his father, the film makes a point about how one generation enables the bad behavior of another and how misogyny can be passed down from father to son. Furthermore, Jess never allows herself to simply be a victim. She’s a fighter who never apologizes for standing up for herself and who, most importantly, never blames herself for the rape. But, with all that in mind, Double Mommy would have been so much better (and certainly more empowering) if Jess had gone all Ms. 45 or I Spit On Your Grave on Brent’s ass.

I mean, it’s true that, as a result of Jess’s efforts, Brent loses a scholarship and gets booed at a soccer game. That’s all good but Brent was such a loathsome character that he deserved much worse. If there’s ever been a character in a Lifetime film who deserved to be locked in a cage and beaten until he confessed to his crimes, it was Brent. After an hour of Brent smirking, bragging, and drugging, I was ready to see Jess pick up a gun and blow his head off while uttering a priceless one-liner. Instead, Brent just got embarrassed and eventually ended up running around with a gun of his own. What could have been an empowering little revenge flick turned into a typical Lifetime movie.

That said, the film was well-acted and nicely put together. Mark Grossman turned Brent into a disturbingly familiar villain. (We’ve all known a Brent.) I just wish the film had gone a bit further in giving Jess her revenge.

Film Review: Mommy’s Little Boy (dir by Curtis Crawford)

Posted on March 18, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Saturday, Lifetime presented a Mommy Madness marathon, showing a series of melodramas that all, in some way, involved motherhood. They showed everything from Killing Mommy to Mommy’s Secret to Mommy’s Little Girl. They ended the night with not one but two premiere films! Needless to say, I was excited. After missing last week’s Lifetime movie (though I did DVR it so fear not!), I was looking forward to embracing the melodrama not once but twice!

The first premiere was Mommy’s Little Boy, which naturally came on immediately after Mommy’s Little Girl. Just judging from the title and Lifetime’s previous record when it comes to children, I assumed that Mommy’s Little Boy would be about a homicidal child.

It turns out I was incorrect. Don’t get me wrong, of course. The kid does kill at least one person. Actually, I think he killed two people but the film is a little bit ambiguous as to whether or not little Eric (Peter DaCunha) meant to let his half-brother Max (Auden Larrat) drown. You really couldn’t blame Eric if that was the case. Max was a stone-cold psychopath who started the movie threatening to attack a stray dog with a power drill. Max got whatever he deserved. As for that other murder that Eric commits — well, it’s self-defense. Eric really had no choice. Eric’s a good kid, dangit!

Instead, it’s his mother who is the problem. Briana (Bree Williamson) has a really nice house but she’s the type of mother who is too busy sunbathing (while wearing an American flag bikini, no less) to notice that one of her sons is drowning in the pool behind her. Briana is almost always drunk or stoned. She brings strange men home with her. She neglects Eric and sends him to school in grubby clothes. She murders the neighbor for being condescending, banging her over the head with the same skillet that will later be used to prepare Eric’s breakfast. Briana’s not the world’s best mother but, at the very least, she has a nice house.

Seriously, you have to see this house. Have you ever seen House Hunters? You know how the third house is always a really nice house that, we’re told, is a little bit outside of the house hunters’s budget? (“Now, this is listed for a little more than you said you were willing to pay but the price may come down…”) That’s the type of house that Brianna lives in. Unfortunately, Brianna has kinda trashed the place. At one point, she explains that she inherited the house after her parents died. At least, for once, a Lifetime movie took the time to explain why even the trashiest of characters always live in the nicest of houses.

Anyway, Briana’s killed someone and she forces Eric to help her cover up the crime. That kinda traumatizes Eric. He’d much rather live with his softball coach, Michael Davis (Paul Popovich). However, Briana is determined to get in her new boyfriend’s RV and flee to Mexico. And she expects her only remaining son to come with her. Whatever is Eric to do!?

Well, you probably already guessed what happens. Mommy’s Little Boy was a standard Lifetime film but I liked it. If nothing else, Bree Williamson deserves some sort of award for how totally and completely she throws herself into the role of Briana. It takes courage to play someone that trashy without winking at the audience but Williamson does it. Overall, Mommy’s Little Boy was an entertaining addition to Lifetime’s stable of films about mentally unstable maternal figures.

TV Review: The Walking Dead 7.13 “Bury Me Here” (dir by Alrick Riley)

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“We have to get ready. We have to fight.”

“We do … BUT NOT TODAY.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Will somebody please fight the goddamn saviors so that the damn show can move on to something other than tense stand-offs and rambling monologues from Negan’s goons!?

*sigh*

Okay, that’s out of my system. Let’s talk about the latest episode of The Walking Dead.

Judging from some of the response that I’m seeing online, a lot of people are proclaiming Bury Me Here to be one of the best episodes of season 7. I really can’t agree, though I will say that those who are saying that Lennie James was “Emmy-worthy” tonight are not incorrect. James had some great moments and it was nice to be reminded that Morgan is actually one of the more interesting characters on The Walking Dead.

For that matter, there was a lot of good acting on display tonight. Not just Lennie James but also Karl Makinen, who made you sympathize with Richard even if you couldn’t exactly blame Morgan for beating him to death at the end of the episode. The title’s episode came from Richard’s request and, by the end of the show, you did feel that Richard had earned the right to pick his own burial site.

(A lot of fans turned on Richard when, a few episodes ago, he suggested sacrificing Carol in order to bring Ezekiel in Rick’s war with the Saviors. Well, Richard shouldn’t have suggested that and yes, he did make some mistakes tonight. But goddammit, at least Richard was doing something other than growing melons.)

You know who else did a good job tonight? Logan Miller. He did a good job, even when the show’s script when out of its way to sabotage him. Has anyone ever been as obviously doomed as Miller’s Benjamin? From the minute Benjamin showed up tonight, we know he was dead. He offered to help out Carol. He looked up to Morgan. He had naive hope for the future. He had a girlfriend. He gave Morgan an uglyass painting for his uglyass room. Benjamin was so doomed and yet, Logan Miller brought at least a little bit of poignancy to his character’s obvious fate.

But, with all that in mind, tonight’s episode still moved way too slowly for me. It felt like a throwback to the first half of the season, before the show’s writers apparently realized how boring it was to have to sit through a new Savior monologue every week. There were hints of the show that we all want The Walking Dead to be. Even Morgan’s murder of Richard was a return to the unflinching yet plot-appropriate brutality that brought The Walking Dead its initial success. There were good moments but there were plenty of slow moments too.

Of course, that’s the way it’s almost always been with The Walking Dead. At the show’s best, the good moments are so good that they cause you to forget about the slow moments. At its worse, the slow moments are so slow that you give up on watching before the episode reaches the good moments. And then you have episodes like the one that aired tonight, where the good moments are good on their own and the slow moments are slow on their own and the whole thing never quite comes together. Tonight’s episode was a good thirty minutes stretched out to an average hour.

One final note — and I realize that I’ve said this a million times in the past and I’m probably say it a million times in the future — the Saviors are so fucking boring! Yes, I know that they’re bullies and they are properly hissable villains. You never feel anything but good when you see a savior die. But the show continues to act as if the Saviors are the most compelling bad guys since Milton inadvertently made Satan the most interesting character in Paradise Lost. Quite some time ago, I grew bored with various Negan lieutenants popping up, rambling on and on about tributes, and then demanding that everyone hand over their guns.

(That said, I am going to give some special credit to Josh Mikel, who, tonight, made Jared into the most loathsome savior of all.)

So, that’s why I say this: HURRY UP AND GET TO THE WAR! If Rick and Negan are not in the middle of an official war by the end of the season, I worry about the future of The Walking Dead….

Insomnia File #23: Death Do Us Part (dir by Nicholas Humphries)

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep around one in the morning on March 7th, you could have watched the 2012 horror film, Death Do Us Part, on Showtime.

I don’t know if it would have helped you get to sleep though. Death Do Us Part is one of those films where the entire cast spends a lot of time screaming. I couldn’t tell you much about who all of the characters were meant to be, as they all kind of blended together (especially the male characters), but, if need be, I could identify all of their screams.

Of course, it takes a while for the screaming to get started. Death Do Us Part takes its time getting to the mayhem. It tells the story of a rich girl named Kennedy (Julia Benson) who has a history of mental instability and who is marrying Ryan Harris (Peter Benson). Kennedy enjoys posing in her wedding dress, popping pills, and nervously smiling. Life seems to be perfect for her! But, as often seems to happen in these movies, Ryan is also having the occasional quickie with Kennedy’s sister, Hannah (Christine Catelain). Kennedy’s best friend, Emily (Emilie Ullerup), happens to see Hannah and Ryan doing it in the woods. Emily gets a slightly crazy look in her eyes as she watches.

(Then again, at some point in this movie, everyone has a crazy look in their eyes.)

Kennedy, Ryan, Hannah, Emily, and a couple of guys who aren’t that important are spending the weekend in a cabin in the woods. The cabin comes with its own pervy caretaker. If I ever spend the weekend at a cabin in the woods, I’m going to specifically ask for a cabin that doesn’t come with a caretaker. Judging from the movies that I’ve seen, those dudes are always bad news.

ANYWAY — it takes a while but eventually, people start dying. In fact, once people start dying, the movie suddenly picks up the pace. Before you know it, everyone’s running around in the woods and getting killed and screaming. Seriously, there’s lots and lots of screaming.

Up until the last fifteen minutes, I was ready to dismiss Death Do Us Part as just another low-budget attempt at horror but I actually did like the chaos of everyone running around in the woods. Don’t get me wrong. The movie takes way too long to get going and the characters are so generic that you really don’t care whether they’re dead or not. But I did appreciate the fact that, when confronted by a murderous maniac, the majority of the characters reacted the way that I would have reacted. They started running around, screaming their heads off, and ultimately, they just made things worse. It was a nice change from the usual movie technique of having one of the characters suddenly turn out to be a hyper competent survival machine.

There is a twist but you’ll see it coming from a mile away. That said, the final few shots of the film were enjoyably surreal in only the way that a bloody wedding dress can be.

(Speaking of wedding dresses, I loved the one in this film. Way to go, Kennedy!)

Anyway, I can’t really recommend Death Do Us Part because it takes too long to get going and the characters are way too generic. But, I did like the final fourth of the film and I may have found my future wedding dress!

All in all, not a bad way to handle insomnia.

Previous Insomnia Files:

TV Review: The Walking Dead 7.12 “Say Yes” (dir by Greg Nicotero)

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Early on, during tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, I saw Rick smiling and I thought to myself, “Oh, shit…”

See, it’s a general rule that, whenever Rick’s happy, something terrible is about to happen. Rick is not allowed to be happy. Remember what happened when he was happy about being reunited with his wife, son, and best friend Shane? Remember what happened when he thought he could make a new life as a pig farmer? Nothing good is allowed to happen to Rick.

So, when it briefly appeared that Rick might be dead towards the end of the episode, I thought he very well might be. I have to admit that I was kind of excited about the idea. Who would step up to take Rick’s place? (Daryl.) Who would Michonne love without Rick around? (Daryl.) Who would Carl look up to if Rick was dead? (Daryl’s the obvious answer but knowing Carl, he’d probably run off and ask Negan to adopt him.) And I have to admit that, as a reviewer, I was looking forward to not only writing about the impact of Rick’s death but also seeing all the extra hits that my post would get. I’ll admit it, I’m not that innocent.

Of course, then Rick suddenly emerged from hiding and started killing walkers. He even got to do a badass slow motion weapon toss to Michonne. Eventually, if The Walking Dead is to have any integrity, Rick and every other major character, no matter how popular or important, is going to have to die. But tonight was not that night.

(Of course, next week’s ~~season finale~~ episode is called “Bury Me Here,” so it sounds like someone will be leaving us…)

Tonight’s episode was almost totally devoted to Rick and Michonne and, after all the darkness of the past few episodes, it was nice to see them actually enjoying themselves. As much as I dread seeing Rick smile, I kind of enjoy it too. Since Rick tends to carry the weight of the world on his soldiers, it was nice to see that he actually can get some sort of pleasure out of his violent existence. The fighting, smiling, and lustful Rick that we saw tonight was a nice change from the neutered and whiny Rick who we had to deal with during the first half of the season. This is the Rick that we want to see!

(On twitter, I suggested that another reason why Rick was so happy was because, for once, he didn’t have to deal with one-eyed Carl standing in the background and making him feel guilty. Some people apparently did not appreciate my theory, which leads me to wonder when we all suddenly decided that we liked Carl again.)

Tonight, Rick and Michonne were not the only people looking for guns. Rosita also went searching but could only find one cap gun and a walker with a double chin. Father Gabriel, of course, used this as an excuse to lecture her about hate and violence but you know what? Shut up, Father Gabriel. How and why are you even still alive at this point? I don’t blame Rosita for being mad and I don’t blame her for wanting to take action. And if Rosita’s plan to kill Negan is running the risk of ruining Rick’s plans — well, that’s probably a good thing. Rick’s plans never work. Ask Herschel how well Rick’s plans work. Ask Glenn. Ask Abraham.

(Checking on twitter, I see that I’m kind of alone as far as my sympathy for Rosita is concerned. It’s interesting how the people who are continually upset when Daryl doesn’t automatically kill everyone that he meets are apparently the same people upset about Rosita having “an attitude.” Whatever, people.)

Anyway, this was a pretty good episode. As much as I may bitch about Rick as a leader, I was happy to see him actually get a chance to enjoy himself without the world automatically ending. Michonne, who has been underused lately, finally got a chance to remind the viewers of what a badass she truly is. The moment when she thought Rick was dead was a moment of great acting from Danai Gurira.

As for next week’s episode, it’s getting close to the season finale! Who will live? Who will die? (Eugene, probably. And, hopefully, sanctimonious Father Gabriel.) We’ll find out next week!

(CORRECTION: Due to my notoriously short attention span, an earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that next week was the season finale. I apologize for the error. — LMB)