Watching The First Episode of Tommy Wiseau’s The Neighbors Was The Most Unpleasant 31 Minutes Of My Life So Far

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The cast of The Neighbors. Yes, that is Tommy Wiseau in a blonde wig…

Earlier tonight, I went onto Hulu and I watched the first episode of The Neighbors, which is the latest project from cult movie icon Tommy Wiseau.

Before I even start watching, I knew that The Neighbors would be bad. That’s really the only reason that anyone would choose to watch The Neighbors, just to see how bad it could possibly be. After all, Tommy Wiseau is best known as the director of The Room, a film that has become famous for being one of the worst ever made. And, as I’ve made clear on this site in the past, I absolutely love The Room. I own a copy. My boyfriend and I have attended countless midnight showings of The Room, where we’ve shouted out all the lines and we’ve thrown plastic spoons at the screen with joyous abandon. When Clint Jun Gamboa showed up on American Idol, I wanted him to win just because he composed three of the songs that appear on The Room soundtrack. I consider The Disaster Artist to be one of the best film books ever written. I’ve even been lucky enough to interact with Room co-star Greg Sestero on twitter. The Room is a bad film that you can’t help but love and I think that a lot of people — like me — assumed that The Neighbors would be a bad sitcom that you could not help but love.

Uhmm yeah … about that.

Having now watched the first episode of The Neighbors (entitled “Meet the Neighbors”), I can definitely say that sitting through it was perhaps the most unpleasant 31 minutes of my life so far.

The Neighbors is about an apartment complex. (Every few minutes, we see the exact same establishing shot of the building while some rudimentary but catchy EDM plays in the background.) The tenants are an eccentric bunch but, fortunately, they’re all watched over by property managers Charlie (Tommy Wiseau) and Bebe (Gretel Roenfeldt). Remember how, in The Room, everyone was always asking Johnny for his advice? Well, the same seems to apply for Charlie here. For the most part, the first episode of The Neighbors consisted of characters stepping into Charlie’s office and telling him about their problems. Charlie gives advice that is, of course, delivered in that famously impenetrable Wiseau accent. Characters leave the office. “What a day!” Charlie says.

(It’s interesting that, in both The Neighbors and The Room, Wiseau played a wise man who keeps his childish friends from making terrible mistakes. Based on his performances and the portrait of him that emerges in Greg Sestero’s book, The Disaster Artist, I imagine that’s the way that Wiseau prefers to view himself in real life.)

The other main storyline deals with CiCi (Pamela Bailey), a woman who owns a chicken. When she can’t find her chicken, she wanders around the apartment complex, screaming at people and demanding that they return her chicken. Eventually, she finds her chicken.

Yay.

There are other things going on, of course. There’s a guy who is thinking about hanging himself but then he’s paid a visit by Philadelphia (Karly Kim), who has big plastic boobs, looks straight at the camera whenever she has to deliver her lines, and who spends the entire episode wearing a pink bikini. And then there’s Troy (Andrew Buckley) who smokes weed and sells gun and yells a lot. When we first meet Troy, he’s angry because he’s found a big note on his door that reads, “BRING $850 TODAY OR BE EVICTED.” And then there’s Tim (Raul Phoenix) who always has a basketball with him and who is always borrowing money from Tommy so that he can pay back Bebe or from Bebe so that he can pay back Tommy. There’s a handyman named Ed (Jonathan Freed) and a pizza boy named Joe (Brian Kong) who rents an apartment of his own. Joe is Asian but his last name is Spielberg because that’s what passes for the height of hilarity in The Neighbors. Both Joe and Ed also wear Tommy Wiseau-brand underwear.

There was one character that I did like. Lula (Cheyenne Van Zutphen) is the girlfriend of drug dealer Ricky Rick (played, in a blonde wig, by Tommy Wiseau). Lula has the power to literally hypnotize people with her charm. That’s a great power to have and, at one point, she uses it to get a free gun from Troy. When Troy comes out of his charmed state, he yells and yells while the camera zooms in on his sweaty face.

There’s also a tenant who is upset because his pregnant wife has figured out that he’s gay. His name is Don and when he first steps into the office, Charlie says, “Oh hai, Don,” and you’re briefly reminded of how much more fun The Room was compared to this. Don and his wife have a huge fight in the manager’s office while Charlie and Bebe try to maintain the peace. It all adds up to a lot of yelling.

And that, to be honest, is why The Neighbors was such an unpleasant viewing experience. Everyone in this show yells nonstop. They yell when they argue. They yell when they say hello. They yell when they tell jokes. They yell when they say goodbye. After spending just a few minutes of listening to them, I had a massive headache. Imagine if the “WHERE’S MY FUCKING MONEY!?” scene from The Room had gone on for 32 minutes and you have a pretty good idea of what it was like to watch The Neighbors.

One reason why The Room is so beloved is because, as bad as it is, it’s also a legitimate movie. The Room is blessed with such a mix of sincerity and ineptness that the film becomes both terrible and endearing. You marvel at how bad the film is while also respecting Wiseau for staying true to his own eccentric vision. The Neighbors, on the other hand, has all of the ineptness of The Room but none of the sincerity. The Room is fascinating because it’s so clearly the product of Wiseau’s own eccentric world view. The Neighbors, meanwhile, is the product of Wiseau’s newfound fame. The Room was made by a director who wanted to make a statement. The Neighbors, on the other hand, was made by a director who knows that people will watch anything that has his name slapped onto it, regardess of what it may be.

The Room is a guilty pleasure. The Neighbors is just guilty. (One side effect of thinking about Tommy Wiseau is that you soon find yourself writing like him as well.)

That said, I’m still probably going to watch the other three episodes of The Neighbors. The first episode was so bad that the show itself has nowhere to go but up.

A Few Thoughts On The iZombie Pilot

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Pictured above, you’ll find Liv Moore (played by Rose McIver), the character who is at the center of the new CW show, iZombie.

Just a few months before the start of iZombie, Liv was a friendly and optimistic medical student who was engaged to marry the handsome and rich Major Lillywhite (Robert Buckley), whose personality can pretty much be summed up by the fact that his name is Major Lillywhite.

However, then Liv happened to attend a party where things went dramatically wrong. How wrong? Liv was offered a mysterious drug by a mysterious man. Liv turned the man down. Everyone else at the party took the drug and soon, it was zombie apocalypse time! Liv was one of the few “survivors,” practically bursting out of a body bag that she had been placed into and discovering that her arms were covered with zombie scratches. That would traumatize anyone, right?

Now, several months later, Liv is no longer in medical school and she’s broken things up with Major. She works as a coroner’s assistant, spending her time surrounded by the dead. Her skin is deathly pale. Her hair is nearly white. She no longer smiles and instead, she reacts to almost every situation with a sarcastic comment. Her family and former friends assume that she’s just going through a phase and that eventually, she’ll get over it and end up back with Major.

What her family and friends don’t know is that, at work, Liv eats the brains of cadavers. Eating brains is the only thing that keeps her own mind alert. Much like the lead character in Warm Bodies, eating a brain allows her to access both the memories and the skills of the brain’s previous owner.

As you probably guessed from the show’s title, Liv is now a zombie. She’s a walking, talking, and thinking zombie and she’s not particularly happy about it. Apparently, the only way that she can keep from turning fully into a mindless flesh eater is by eating brains.

She’s also a zombie who solves crimes! (And I’m just going to say right now that I’ve been waiting my entire life to have an excuse to write that sentence.) She does so with the help of her boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) and Detective Clive Babinaux (Malcolm Goodwin). Ravi knows that Liv is a zombie and is overjoyed to have the chance to study her existence. Detective Babinaux, meanwhile, thinks that Liv is a psychic.

Ever since I first saw the teaser trailer in January, I’ve been looking forward to seeing iZombie. Not only did I think that the concept was a promising one, but I was excited to hear that iZombie was the latest from Rob Thomas, who previously gave the world Veronica Mars.

As well, and with all due respect to The Walking Dead, it was hard not to feel that it was time for a zombie show that was actually fun to watch. (The Walking Dead is a great show but, whenever I watch it, I’m always thankful for the knowledge that each somber and grisly episode will be followed the always funny and adorable Chris Hardwick. We need Hardwick there to keep the Walking Dead experience from becoming too oppressively depressing.) From the minute I first heard about iZombie, I thought it seemed like it would be a fun show.

And you know what?

Judging from the pilot, it is.

The first episode of iZombie aired on Tuesday night and it was pretty good. The procedural aspects of the pilot’s mystery didn’t really interest me but then again, the pilot really wasn’t about the mystery. The pilot was all about establishing Liv and her existence and it succeeded quite well in accomplishing just that. Rose McIver brought a lot of life to the role of the undead Liv and the pilot made good use of the show’s moody Seattle setting.

Add to that, the pilot features a great throw-away line in which Liv dealt with an annoying hipster by calling him, “Karl Marx.” Seriously, you can’t set a show in Seattle unless you’re willing to make fun of hipsters…

So, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where iZombie goes. Hopefully, the show will continue to mix comedy with drama and it won’t allow itself to get bogged down in the whole procedural format. Am I saying that I’m hoping that future episodes will continue to follow the lead of the pilot and turn out to be Zombie Veronica Mars? Yes, I am.

I’ve read some comments on the imdb from people who are angry that Liv is not a “real” zombie because she can think and talk and all the rest. Those people need to relax and stop taking their CW shows so seriously. Obviously it’s too early to say whether or not iZombie is going to live up to its full potential but the pilot was definitely a step in the right direction.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #117: Wuthering High School (dir by Anthony DiBlasi)

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I finally got around to watching the latest film from both Lifetime and the Asylum, Wuthering High School!

Cathy and Heath

Why Was I Watching It?

I was late in watching Wuthering High School. Saturday afternoon, I spent five hours in the Emergency Room, all so I could find out that I have bronchitis. By the time I finally got home, I was so tired that I slept through the Lifetime premiere of Wuthering High School. Fortunately, I did DVR it and yesterday, I finally found the time to watch it.

As to why I was watching it — hey, it’s a modern version of Wuthering Heights that’s set in a high school! And it was produced by the Asylum!

Wuthering Heights, high school, and The Asylum, three of my favorite things.

Seriously, how could I not watch it?

What Was It About?

Wuthering High School is the latest version of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, Wuthering Heights. After his family is deported, Heath (Andrew Jacobs) is adopted by wealthy Mr. Earnshaw (James Caan). Soon, Earnshaw is viewing Heath as being more of a son to him than his biological child, the drug-addicted Lee (Sean Flynn). Meanwhile, Heath has fallen in love with Earnshaw’s daughter, Cathy (Paloma Kwiatkowski). Cathy is struggling to come to terms with the recent death of her mother and soon, she and Heath are skipping school, tearing up school books in slow motion, and getting sentenced to community service. However, when Cathy rejoins the school’s popular clique of mean girls, she starts to grow distant from Heath. While Heath plots his revenge, Cathy is pursued by the well-meaning but ineffectual Eddie Linton (Matthew Boehm).

What Worked?

At its heart, Wuthering High School was definitely a “look at the pretty clothes and look at the pretty houses” type of film. And that’s okay because, ultimately, the clothes and the houses were all very pretty and they were all filmed in very loving detail by director Anthony DiBlasi. At it’s best, Wuthering High School is a pure celebration of melodramatic style.

Modernizing a classic, 19th century novel is always a risky proposition. Setting it in a high school is equally dangerous as well. But I actually liked a few of the ways that Bronte’s story was updated. For instance, I thought it was brilliant to turn the novel’s gambling addicted Hindley Earnshaw into the film’s drug-addicted Lee Earnshaw. As well, transforming gypsy Heathcliff into Heath, the son of a deported illegal immigrant, worked far better than I expected that it would.

Among the supporting cast, Matthew Boehm and Francesca Eastwood were both well-cast. Eastwood, especially, seemed to be having a lot of fun delivering her Mean Girls-style dialogue. (“That’s not the first time you’ve been wet,” she says after pouring a drink on Cathy.) And James Caan brought a lot of gravitas to his role.

And, finally, Paloma Kwiatkowski was well-cast as the angry and outspoken Cathy. Many scenes that should not have worked did work because of Kwiatkowski’s sincere and empathetic performance.

What Did Not Work?

So, with all of those good points that I mentioned above, why wasn’t Wuthering High School as much fun as it should have been? Ultimately, I think the film’s pacing was just a little bit off. Certain scenes moved just a bit too slowly while other scenes were finished too quickly and, as a result, the entire film had an oddly rushed feel to it.

As well, I had some issues with the film’s ending. Obviously, this is going to be a SPOILER so, if you want to be surprised, don’t read any further. *SPOILER BEGINS* Towards the end of Wuthering High School, Cathy chooses to walk out into the ocean and drowns herself while Heath watches. We are then left with a montage of everyone mourning, Heath digging up her grave and curling up next to her in a coffin, and Cathy — speaking to us from beyond the grave — saying that she’s now finally been reunited with her mother. And … seriously? Obviously, Cathy had to die in order to remain true to the spirit of Wuthering Heights but did she have to commit suicide and, even more importantly, did the film have to suggest that she was better off having done so? *SPOILER ENDS*

Finally, of the many actors to have played Heathcliff over the years, Andrew Jacobs was not exactly the most convincing. He came across as being more petulant than passionate.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Oh, I totally related to Cathy. I always do.

Lessons Learned

Avoid the ocean at all costs.

Life is a Beach #4: Spring Break (dir by Sean S. Cunningham)

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I think I may have made a mistake. When I started reviewing beach films, I did so because it’s currently spring break for thousands of college students across the country and, right now, they’re all probably having a good time on the beach. Unfortunately, what I didn’t consider was that watching and reviewing these films would make me start to wish that I was currently there with them.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I want to go hang out on the beach and party and flirt and get high and live for the moment and … well, no, actually, that’s exactly what I wish I was doing right now. None of the beach films that I’ve watched so far have been good exactly but they do all get at a larger truth.

We all need some sort of spring break.

That’s certainly the theme of the 1983 comedy, Spring Break.

The heroes of Spring Break

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Spring Break is that, unlike Malibu Beach and The Beach Girls, it was not produced by Crown International Pictures. It certainly feels like a Crown International movie. The film is a largely plotless collection of scenes, all of which take place over the course of spring break in Ft. Lauderdale. It starts out as a comedy and then gets strangely dramatic towards the end. It features a lot of nudity for male viewers but luckily, it has two hot guys for me so it all works out in the end.

Two nerdy students, Nelson (David Knell) and Adam (Perry Lang) go down to Florida for spring break. Nelson does this despite the fact that he had promised that he would spend spring break working on his politically ambitious stepfather’s campaign. When Nelson and Adam’s picture ends up in the paper, Nelson’s stepfather (Donald Symington) sends his operatives down to Florida to basically kidnap Nelson and drag him home. Along the way, the stepfather also somehow gets involved in a plot to take over the motel where Nelson and Adam are staying.

Uhmmm…what?

Yes, it doesn’t make much sense but then again, the plot is never that important in these type of films. What is important is that the motel is overbooked and, as a result, Nelson and Adam find themselves roommates with two hot guys from New York, Stu (Paul Land) and O.T. (Steve Bassett).

One thing that I did like about this movie is that it didn’t waste any time pretending that Stu and O.T. wouldn’t become best friends with Nelson and Adam. Instead, the four of them start bonding as soon as they meet and they were all best friends within the first 15 minutes of the film. Yay for another successful bromance! But seriously, it is kind of sweet.

And it’s also fortunate because, once Nelson is kidnapped and held prisoner on a boat by his stepfather, who better to rescue him than two guys from Brooklyn?

Yes, it’s all pretty stupid but, as far as teen sex comedies from the early 80s are concerned, this is one of the better of them. At the very least, Knell and Lang are both likeable and Land and Bassett are both hot and that really is about the best that you can hope from a film like this. Add to that — and this is a theme that I seem to keep returning to as far as these beach films are concerned — Spring Break is a time capsule. Though Spring Break was released before I was born, I feel like, having seen it, that I now have some firsthand experience of what it was like to be alive in 1983.

So 80s….

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Spring Break feels like a Crown International Picture but, actually, it was released by Columbia Pictures. And it was directed by Sean S. Cunningham, who is probably best known for directing the original Friday the 13th! Harry Manfredini even provided the music for both films. That said, the fun-loving teenagers of Spring Break come to a much happier end than the ones at Camp Crystal Lake.

Life is a Beach #3: The Beach Girls (dir by Pat Townsend)

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You louse! You hussy!”

“What’s a hussy?”

“Who’s loud?”

— Typical dialogue from The Beach Girls (1982)

As you may have guessed from the combination of the film’s title, the film’s poster, and the film’s dialogue, the 1982 comedy The Beach Girls is yet another production from Crown International Pictures.

And if you had any doubts, The Beach Girls quickly erases them by not only featuring the exact same songs that were heard in both The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach but by also reusing a good deal of beach footage that originally appeared in Malibu Beach. Remember that dog in Malibu Beach that kept stealing everyone’s bikini top? Apparently, the folks at Crown International really liked that dog because all of his scenes are awkwardly inserted into The Beach Girls.

In between all of the Malibu Beach footage, The Beach Girls tells the story of three girls who have a nice beach house for the summer and who proceed to throw a party. That is literally the plot of the entire film. Two of the girls — Ginger (Val Kline) and Ducky (Jeana Tomasina) — are up for anything while their best friend, the shy and intellectual Sarah (Debra Blee), desperately needs to relax and have a good time. Fortunately, there’s a sensitive musician at the party. His name is Scott and he’s played by James Daughton, who was also in Malibu Beach. With Scott’s help, Sarah starts to come out of her shell, which largely means that she starts to progressively wear less and less clothes.

Just when it looks like the party might be on the verge of concluding, six garbage bags of weed wash up on the beach. That comes in handy once all of the uptight authority figures start to show up and demand that the party end. Fortunately, the super weed inspires everyone to just relax and have fun. Not even the eventual arrival of the Coast Guard can stop this party…

The Beach Girls is pretty much your typical Crown International teen sex comedy. The main thing that distinguishes it from The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the main characters in The Beach Girls are all female. And while the three main characters all still required to spend a good deal of the film undressed, this is a rare teen comedy where the guys are just as likely to get naked as the girls and where the girls have as much fun as the guys. As a result, there’s little of the misogyny that lay underneath the surface of The Pom Pom Girls and, to a lesser extent, Malibu Beach.

Don’t get me wrong. The Beach Girls, which is currently available Hulu and has also been included in a few Mill Creek box sets, is hardly a great or even a good film. It’s pretty much a standard sex comedy where both the characters and the jokes are predictably dumb. But, when taken on its own modest terms, it’s an inoffensive little time capsule.

Plus, the film’s beach house is really nice! Seriously, that’s one thing that I love about films from the 80s. Even the low-budget comedies always take place in the nicest houses!

Life is a Beach #2: Malibu Beach (dir Robert J. Rosenthal)

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I started my 2-week miniseries of reviews on beach movies by taking a look at 1963’s Beach Party. For my next review, I will be jumping forward 15 years and taking a look at 1978’s Malibu Beach.

Just by comparing the two films, you can tell that a lot changed during those 15 years. As opposed to the euphemism-spouting surfers of Beach Party, the teenagers that hang out on Malibu Beach know exactly what they want and they’re not ashamed to say it. What Beach Party could only hint at, Malibu Beach has the freedom to make explicit. The film’s poster claims that “everything can happen on Malibu Beach” and, in theory, that’s certainly true.

And yet, at the same time, Malibu Beach has more in common with Beach Party than you might think. Ultimately, they’re both about the same thing: celebrating the idea of being young and having freedom. Both films are a bit of a chore to try to watch today but are interesting as cultural time capsules. Beach Party had no plot. Malibu Beach has no plot. Beach Party featured some oddly generic music. Malibu Beach features the same three generic songs being played over and over and over again. Beach Party features Erich Von Zipper and his motorcycle gang. Malibu Beach features a muscle-bound bully named Dugan (Steve Oliver). Beach Party featured a cameo appearance from Vincent Price. Malibu Beach features a dog that steals bikini tops. Beach Party was produced by American International Pictures. Malibu Beach was produced by Crown International Pictures.

That’s right! Malibu Beach is a Crown International Picture and anyone who loves 70s exploitation knows what that means. Malibu Beach is a cheaply produced film that was made to exploit then-current trends and bring in a lot of money. Like a lot of Crown International Films, it’s technically a pretty bad film but it’s so sincere and honest about what it is that it almost feels petty to be too critical of it.

Oddly enough, Malibu Beach pretty much feels like a remake of a previous Crown International Picture, The Pom Pom Girls, the main difference being that, while the visual style of The Pom Pom Girls was almost oppressively ugly, Malibu Beach at least features some pretty beach scenery.

Much like in the Pom Pom Girls, the heroes of Malibu Beach are two high school jocks, one of whom, Bobby (played by James Daughton, who, that same year, also played the evil Greg in National Lampoon’s Animal House), is dark and brooding while the other, Paul (Michael Luther), is skinny and dorky.

Much as in The Pom Pom Girls, one of the heroes has a nemesis for no particular reason. Seriously, I never could figure out why Bobby and Dugan hated each other but they certainly did. What’s odd is that, whenever there’s a confrontation between the two of them, Malibu Beach suddenly gets extremely serious. Bobby and Dugan glare at each other and speak through clenched teeth. Suddenly, there’s no music on the soundtrack and all we can hear are seagulls above and the tide rolling in and it all feels very ominous. I sat through Malibu Beach expecting either Dugan and Bobby to be dead at the end of the film, that’s how seriously their conflict is portrayed.

Also, much like The Pom Pom Girls, Bobby and Paul each have girlfriends. Paul is dating the spacey Sally (Susan Player). Bobby, meanwhile, is romancing the new lifeguard, Dina (Kim Lankford). Dina has a big scene where she tells Bobby that she can’t handle being caught in the middle of his increasingly intense rivalry with Dugan. Again, it’s a deadly serious scene and it’s just so strange to see it there, awkwardly dropped in between scenes of a bumbling cop smoking weed and a dog stealing bikini tops.

Finally, the main similarity between The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the exact same three songs appear in both films! Obviously, somebody at Crown International, really loved those three songs.

Malibu Beach is one of those films that was obviously made to appeal to hormonal teens at a drive-in but, by today’s standards, it’s rather tame. It’s currently playing on Hulu and it’s also available in several of those Mill Creek box sets that we all know and love. Is the film any good? No. Do I recommend it? Not really. But, much like Beach Party, it is a portal into the past.

Film Review: Into the Dark (dir by Lukas Hassel)

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Congratulations! You just destroyed government property!” —

33963 (Lee Tergesen) in Into the Dark (2014)

The quote above comes from a 14-minute short film that I was recently fortunate enough to have the opportunity to view. If you’ve read my previous reviews on this site, then you probably know that I’m not a huge fan of government property in general so, as you can imagine, that line made me smile. Within the context of the film, it also provided a brief moment of triumph for two men who have both reached a point where they have to be happy for whatever temporary victory they may happen to achieve.

Into the Dark opens with a haunting image of an urban skyline. The moon hangs over the city and, as we watch, we briefly see that something has been launched into the night sky. That object is a small capsule that includes two men who have been strapped in back-to-back. The two men are identified not by name but by number. 58257 (Lukas Hassel, who also wrote and directed Into the Dark) is angry and shouts at the unseen people who are watching him. Meanwhile, 33963 (voiced by Lee Tergesen) gives him advise on how to turn off a strobing blue light and tells him that, no matter how loudly he shouts, nobody watching can hear a word that he’s saying. No one on Earth is interested in what these two men have to say for themselves. Instead, the audience simply wants the catharsis of seeing what happens to them.

As we listen, it becomes apparent that these two men have broken the law and this space ride is a part of their punishment. 33963 was a political revolutionary while 58257’s crimes are a bit more ambiguous. Every few seconds, a condescending computerized voice tells them to think about what they’ve done. As their punishment approaches, 33963 begs 58257 to just talk to him and to allow him to experience some sort of human interaction…

Into the Dark may take place in the future but it deals with a very modern reality: we live in a very bloodthirsty time and that’s especially true in the way that we treat those who have been convicted of breaking the law. At a time when people feel like they have less and less control over their own fates, there’s a need to punish those who break “the rules,” never mind the fact that some rules make more sense than others. At any given times, you can turn on the television and watch reality shows about cops arresting lawbreakers, attorneys prosecuting the accused, and guards watching the convicted. These shows presents us with a world where the is no difference between a murderer and some guy who happened to have a little bit of weed in his car and where the only thing that matters is that people are being held responsible for breaking the rules that it’s assumed the viewer automatically and unquestioningly obeys. These shows allow an insecure society to feel superior.

That’s one reason why Into the Dark is so memorable. The final twist, the truth of why Hassel and Tergesen are in that capsule together, is totally plausible. It’s something that we, as an audience, know is probably going to end up happening some day. When the plausibility of that twist is mixed with the emotional power of the performances of Tergesen and Hassel, the end result is a thought-provoking look at crime, punishment, and the manufacturing of televised reality.

Another thing that makes Into The Dark so memorable is that the end credits mention that the majority of this film was shot in “Lukas Hassel’s apartment.” You wouldn’t know that from watching the film, which takes wonderful advantage of the production’s low-budget. The inside of the capsule is claustrophobic and cramped in the way that you would expect an intergalactic jail cell to be small and cramped. Despite almost entirely taking place in one small set, Hassel and cinematographer Henry Lee never allow the action to get stagey. Instead, it’s a fully cinematic experience and the fact that it was shot in someone’s apartment should give hope to aspiring independent filmmakers every where.

Into the Dark is currently playing on the festival circuit. You can find out more about the film here. And you can also check out it’s Facebook page. Or, if you’re at the Queens World Film Festival on March 18th or the Maryland Film Festival on March 28th, you can check it out there as well!

Life Is A Beach #1: Beach Party (dir by William Asher)

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It seems a little bit strange that today was, for many people, the first day of Spring Break.

First off, it was cold and rainy today and, whenever I found myself glancing out a window and being confronted by the gray weather, it was very hard for me to imagine having any fun on a beach.

Secondly, for reasons that I never quite understood, the University of North Texas’s Spring Break was always a week after everyone else’s. As a result, I’ve been conditioned to think of Spring Break as starting during the third week of March.

I always looked forward to Spring Break, despite the fact that we always got out a week late. In fact, it was kind of nice to know that, when my friends and I got down to that year’s beach, the most obnoxious of the alcoholic frat boys would already be back in Oklahoma. I’ve always loved the beach, which is odd because I’m scared of drowning. Fortunately, you don’t have to swim to look good in a bikini.

Now, of course, I’m an adult and I don’t get a Spring Break. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t relive the fun of it all by spending the next few days watching and reviewing beach movies!

For instance, earlier today, I discovered that the 1963 film Beach Party was available on Netflix. I watched the first 40 minutes during my lunch and then, as the day progressed, I watched the rest of it in bits and pieces until finally, nearly 8 hours after starting the film, I finished it. Needless to say, this is absolutely the worst way to watch a film like Beach Party. Beach Party was designed to be a film to be enjoyed but not thought about. It’s the cinematic equivalent of fast food. Watching Beach Party in increments of 2 or 3 minutes at a time is a bit like buying a Wendy’s bacon cheeseburger and not eating it until the next day.

(Or so I assume. I would never do that because, seriously, Wendy’s makes the best bacon cheeseburgers!)

It feels kind of silly to try to describe the plot of something like Beach Party but here goes: Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Delores (Annette Funicello) are two teenagers in love. Or, at the very least, Delores is in love. Frankie, however, has a hard time saying it. Frankie and Delores are planning on spending the weekend at a beach house where, Frankie tells her, it will be just like they’re married. Though it’s never explicitly stated (like many films from the early 60s, Beach Party is all about the euphemisms), Frankie is obviously expecting that he and Delores will finally be having sex in that beach house. However, Delores had the same idea so she invited all of their friends to stay at the beach house as well, specifically to keep her from giving in during a moment of weakness.

Meanwhile, Prof. Robert Sutwell (Robert Cummings) is also hanging out on the beach. He’s an anthropologist who has a rather prominent beard. He’s studying the sex lives of teenagers. Since they’re adults, Robert and his assistant Marianne (Dorothy Malone) are actually allowed to say the word “sex.”

Speaking of which, that’s one thing that nobody on the beach seems to be doing. Robert is too obsessed with his work, Marianne is too frustrated with his lack of interest, Frankie is too busy surfing and singing, and Delores says she’s not interesting in “being a woman” until she’s married. There’s constant flirting going on, of course but, for the most part, these teenagers make the spring breakers from From Justin To Kelly look wild. (One can only guess what would happen if any of them ever ran into the spring breakers from Spring Breakers….)

That said, I do think that I did spot Frankie and his friends passing around a joint during one scene. According to some comments at the imdb, it was probably meant to be a cigarette that Frankie was sharing with his friends Ken (John Ashley) and Deadhead (Jody McCrea) but it sure looked like a joint to me. Plus, Frankie was listening to beatnik poetry at the time and we all know those crazy kids loved the poetry and loved the marijuana.

Oh! And did I mention that there’s a motorcycle gang in this film? Because there so totally is. The Rat Pack is led by a guy named Erich Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and they pretty much show up whenever the film starts to run out of ideas…

Now, it may sound like I’m being pretty critical of Beach Party but actually, I thought it was fun in a time capsule sort of way. This is one of those films that is so obviously a product of the time in which it was made that watching it is a bit like getting to take a ride in a time machine. Everything about this film — from the dialogue to the cultural attitudes to the clean-cut teenagers to the music to the bizarrely modest bikinis — practically screams 1963. As a secret history nerd, I loved the part of Beach Party.

Add to that, Vincent Price has a cameo! That’s always fun.

Anyway, Beach Party is currently available to be watched on Netflix and Hulu. If you can’t get to the beach this year, you can always watch Frankie Avalon getting high in Beach Party.

A Blast From The Past: Are You Popular? (dir by Ted Peshak)

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s blast from the past is a 9-minute educational film from 1947. In Are You Popular?, we enter into the world of high school in the 1940s and we discover that our grandparents were amazingly judgmental teenagers.

We start out with a bunch of teenagers sitting in a cafeteria and debating why the new girl at school, Caroline, is so popular. Then Ginny, the old girl at school, tries to sit at the table but no one’s willing to make room for her. A stern-voiced narrator informs us that Ginny thinks that she’s popular because she goes “parking” with all the boys. “No,” the narrator informs us, “girls who park in cars are not really popular…not even with the boys that they park with.”

Interestingly enough, none of the boys are condemned for all “parking” with the same girl. No, instead, it’s all on Ginny.

Anyway, once Ginny has been properly shamed, the film becomes about the efforts of two boys to win a date with Caroline. Caroline comes across like one of those girls in high school who would get upset whenever someone wore a short skirt.

Seriously, Ginny is too good for those losers….

Anyway, in the interest of providing a window into the deeply repressed and judgmental world that was 1947, here’s Are You Popular?

What Lisa Watched Last Night #116: Watch Your Back (dir by Jason Furukawa)

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Saturday night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Watch Your Back!

AnnaLynne McCord is stalked in Watch Your Back. I love the old guy trying not to laugh.

Why Was I Watching It?

I was not in a very good mood on Saturday night, largely because of the fact that I knew I would be losing an hour later that night. Seriously, Daylight Savings Time sucks! What better way to cheer myself up than be watching the latest Lifetime movie?

What Was It About?

Sarah (AnnaLynne McCord) seems as if she has it all. She has a successful career in advertising and an assistant (Darla Taylor) who views her as being a role model. She has a new husband named Kurt (Mark Ghanime) who is an aspiring novelist. Her stepdaughter even calls her “mommy.”

However, one day, Sarah starts to receive photos that someone has been taking of her. However, since the photos are sent using flashchat (not relation to snapchat), the evidence that she’s being stalked is deleted minutes after she sees it. Soon, she realizes that someone has been breaking into her house. Her husband, meanwhile, is tricked into thinking that there’s a bomb in the mailbox.

As Sarah grows more and more paranoid, it starts to become apparent that this is not your average stalking case. Instead, it all links back to a shadowy organization of professional assassins. And, from there, the film just gets stranger and stranger…

What Worked?

So, here’s the thing with this movie: For this first 78 minutes or so, nothing about this film seemed to be working. Sarah came across as being unlikable and stubborn. Her refusal to call the police made it difficult to have any sympathy for her. Add to that, she never seemed to be particularly concerned about anyone who got hurt over the course of the film. At one point, she chased a totally innocent photographer into oncoming traffic. Needless to say, the photographer ended up getting struck by a car and appeared to be on the verge of death. Sarah didn’t seem to feel much guilt about this and I found myself thinking, “Are we actually supposed to like her?” Meanwhile, Kurt came across as being such a wimp that I pretty much found myself not caring about either of them.

But then, during the final 10 minutes of the movie, Watch Your Back goes completely and totally batshit crazy. The film’s “big” twist is so over-the-top and ludicrous that, in its own strange way, it actually manages to redeem almost the entire film. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the twist makes any sense but it certainly is memorable.

And, once the twist is revealed, AnnaLynne McCord’s performance actually starts to make sense. Suddenly, you realize that McCord’s strange performance was actually what was needed to set up the film’s strange ending.

What Did Not Work?

There have been a lot of wimpy husbands in a lot of different Lifetime films but it’s hard to think of any that were as totally wimpy as the character of Kurt. Kurt was nice and sensitive but he was pretty much useless in a crisis. Don’t get me wrong. I love sensitive guys but sometimes, you just need a man to actually be a man.

Also, I could have used an update on what happened to that photographer after Sarah nearly got him killed. The film just kind of abandoned him.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Needless to say, I related to Julie (Darla Taylor), the much put upon administrative assistant. As I watched Julie deal with an increasingly neurotic supervisor, I found myself thinking, “I know that feeling.” When Julie has to deal with Sarah’s paranoid glances and condescending tone, I nodded and said, “Been there.” And when, at the end of the film, when Julie got to deliver a kick ass one liner, I thought to myself, “I better remember that, just in case I ever find myself in the exact same situation.”

Lessons Learned

Since Watch Your Back took place in a weird, batshit crazy universe that had absolutely no relation to our real universe, I can honestly say that I didn’t learn a thing from this movie.