Retro Television Review: Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night (dir by Allen Reisner)

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1977’s Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Damn.

I mean, seriously! I have seen some depressing films before but nothing could have quite prepared me for Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night.

Susan Dey stars as Rowena, a young single mother whose 3 year-old daughter, Mary Jane Harper (Natasha Ryan), is taken to the hospital with a broken arm. Dr. Angela Buccieri (Tricia O’Neil) doesn’t believe Rowena’s claim that Mary Jane is just accident prone and when she discovers what appears to be cigarette burns on the little girl, Dr. Buccieri goes to the head of pediatrics (played by veteran screen villain John Vernon) and requests a full set of X-rays to see if there are any previously healed injuries. Buccieri’s request is denied. It turns out that Rowena comes from a wealthy family and her father (Kevin McCarthy) is a trustee of the hospital. Even after Dr. Buccieri opens up about her own experiences as an abused child, she is told to drop the matter.

She doesn’t drop it. Instead, she goes to a social worker named Dave Williams (Bernie Casey). Dave does his own investigation but none of Rowena’s neighbors want to talk about all of the crying and the screaming that they hear coming from Rowena’s apartment. Rowena presents herself as being a stressed but loving mother. Dave suggests a support group that she can attend. When Rowena goes to the group, she opens up a little about how overwhelmed she feels. Unfortunately, she leaves Mary Jane in the apartment alone and, when a fire breaks out, Mary Jane is lucky to survive.

As intense as all of that is, it’s also only the first half of the movie. The second half is even more intense and emotionally draining and it all leads up to one of the most devastating final lines ever uttered in a movie. Throughout the film, the system fails both Rowena and Mary Jane. Mary Jane is failed when all of the evidence of the abuse that she has suffered is either ignored or shrugged away by the same people who are supposed to be looking out for her. Rowena is failed when no one pays attention to her obvious emotional instability. When she finally does have a breakthrough during a therapy session, her psychiatrist (played by James Karen) curtly tells her that they’ll have to talk about it next week because their hour is up.

Rowena is a character who I both hated and pitied. Like many abusers, she herself was a victim of abuse. Even when Rowena tries to get support, no one wants to admit that a mother is capable of abusing their own child. That said, Mary Jane Harper is at the center of the film. She’s a little girl who is desperate to be loved by a woman who often terrifies her. She is continually failed by the people who should be looking after her and it’s just devastating to watch. I’m sure I’m not the only person who was moved to tears by this film.

What a sad film. At the same time, it’s also an important one. If the film takes place at a time when no one wanted to admit to the abuse happening before their eyes, we now live in a time when people toss around allegations of abuse so casually that it’s led to a certain cynicism about the whole thing. Even when seen today, Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night works as a powerful plea to watch out and care for one another.

Film Review: You People (dir by Kenya Barris)

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ezra Cohen (Jonah Hill) and Amirah Mohammed (Lauren London) have been dating for six months. Ezra is a Jewish atheist who works at a brokerage firm but who says his lifelong dream has been to be a podcaster. Lauren is Black and a devout Muslim. A graduate of Howard University, she is pursuing a career as a designer. Despite coming from very different backgrounds, Ezra and Amirah are deeply in love and want to get married. However, becoming engaged also means …. MEETING THE PARENTS!

Shelley and Arnold Cohen (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny) are self-styled progressives who immediately embarrass Ezra by going out of their way to trying to show how liberal and non-racist they are. Shelley, in particular, goes out of her way to bond with Amirah but it’s immediately obvious that Shelley views Amirah as being more someone to show off than as an actual human being. Meanwhile, Akbar Mohammed and Fatima Mohammed (played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long) are members of the Nation of Islam who admire Louis Farrakhan and who claim that the Jews were behind the slave trade.

Just from that plot description, you can see a huge part of the problem with the new film, You People. Whereas Shelley’s problem is that she’s too quick to brag about how much she loves the idea of having a black daughter-in-law, Akbar’s problem is that he’s an anti-Semite. His main objections to Ezra are that 1) Ezra isn’t black and 2) Ezra’s Jewish. While Shelley takes Amirah shopping, Akbar tries to get Ezra killed by tricking him into wearing “the wrong colors” to a barbershop. While Shelley shows off Amirah to all of her liberal friends, Akbar shoves Ezra onto a basketball court. While Shelley is awkwardly trying to prove that she’s an ally, Akbar is inviting himself to Ezra’s wild Las Vegas bachelor party. (Akbar is disturbed to discover that Ezra has a “coke guy.” If this film had been made ten years ago, Ezra would have had a weed guy and it would have been easier to buy the film’s contention that Akbar is being unreasonable.) Shelley is certainly obnoxious and she fully deserves to get called out for her behavior. But Akbar is an anti-Semite who peddles the type of conspiracy theories that have been at the center of the alarming rise in recent hate crimes. Whereas Shelley is clueless, Akbar is actually malicious. And while that’s a story that one certainly could try to tell, it also makes it a bit difficult to buy the film’s fanciful ending. The movie ultimately can’t decide if it wants to be a fearless satire of race relations or a feel-good romcom. The tone of the film switches from scene to scene and Kenya Barris’s direction is so inconsistent that he makes Judd Apatow look like a disciplined filmmaker by comparison.

The cast is full of talent but the characters are largely one-dimensional. Jonah Hill is undoubtedly a good actor but he’s also nearly 40 years old and, with his full beard, he looks about ten years older, which makes it a bit hard to believe that he would be that concerned with getting the approval of his future in-laws. At first, a role of Akbar would seem ideal for Eddie Murphy but, with the exception of a scene where Akbar quizzes Ezra on his favorite Jay-Z song in an attempt to trick Ezra into saying the “n-word,” Murphy doesn’t really get to do much other than stand around with a pained expression on his face. Probably the most interesting performance in the film comes from Mike Epps, who plays Akbar’s brother and who is one of the few characters willing to call everyone out on their hypocrisy. But, unfortunately, Epps is only in a handful of scenes and the film uses him as more of a dramatic device than a fully rounded character.

As I watched You People, I couldn’t help but think about another film about an interracial wedding, Rachel Getting Married. That film provided a believable and multi-layered look at two different cultures coming together. You People, however, can’t quite make up its mind what it believes or what it wants to say and, unfortunately, what it does say is often said with a surprising lack of self-awareness. At times, it’s so proud of itself that it feels like it almost could have been written by Shelley Cohen.

You People is streaming on Netflix.

A Movie A Day #323: Ted & Venus (1991, directed by Bud Cort)

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Strange movie, Ted & Venus.

Actor Bud Cort (you remember him from Harold and Maude) both directs and stars as Ted. Ted is a homeless poet who lives on the beach and only has one friend, a mellow beach bum named Max (Josh Brolin). Kim Adams plays Linda, who is the Venus of the title, a social worker who has a bodybuilder jerk for a boyfriend (Brian Thompson, who you might remember as the main villain in Cobra). When Ted sees Linda, it is love at first sight and at first, the movie seems like it is going to be a quirky romantic comedy where Ted eventually wins Linda over. When Linda turns down Ted’s advances, Ted does not give up. Instead, Ted starts following her everywhere and making harassing phone calls. Ted starts out as a nuisance and goes on to become a full-out stalker. Everyone, even Max, tells Ted to stop bothering Linda but he is convinced that he can make her fall in love him. He’s wrong.

Because of the presence of Cort both in front of and behind the camera, Ted & Venus sometimes seems like Harold and Maude: The Later Years. Harold, the iconoclast that everyone loved, has grown up and become Ted, the unemployable stalker. It’s an interesting idea and Cort pulls it off as an actor but not as a director. You have to admire Cort’s devotion to his vision but it’s impossible to be certain what that vision was because the film’s tone is all over the place. Cort gets a far better performance from himself than he does from the rest of the cast.

Speaking of the cast, the movie is full of familiar faces. In fact, there are almost too many familiar faces. It’s hard not to get distracted by all of the cameos. If you somehow see this obscure movie, keep an eye out for: Woody Harrelson (who gets two lines and five seconds of screen time), Rhea Pearlman, Carol Kane, Martin Mull, Gena Rowlands, Pat McCormick, Vincent Schiavelli, Cassandra Peterson, and Andrea Martin. When Ted is hauled into court, charged with stalking, the judge is played by LSD guru Timothy Leary. I am not sure what Ted & Venus was trying to say but Bud Cort assembled an impressive cast to say it.

Shattered Politics #57: Canadian Bacon (dir by Michael Moore)

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have mixed feelings about the 1995 films Canadian Bacon.

On the one hand, Canadian Bacon is the only non-documentary to have been directed by Michael Moore. And I’m just going to admit right now that I don’t care much for Michael Moore. I think he’s fake. I think he’s the epitome of the type of limousine liberal who exclusively preaches to the converted and who, when all is said and done, does more harm to his causes than good. Just because he doesn’t shave, dresses like a slob, and apparently has never been to a gym, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s worth $50 million dollars. Just because he may claim to be for the workers, that doesn’t keep him from notoriously overworking and underpaying his own employees. Just because he may make films critical of capitalism, that certainly hasn’t stopped him from investing millions in the very same companies that he claims to oppose. And, quite frankly, it’s hard for me to take seriously a man who rails against income inequality when that man happens to own 9 mansions, none of which are exactly housing the homeless right now.

On the other hand, I love Canada! Canada has produced some of my favorite actors. It’s the country that created Degrassi. It’s the home of Lindsay Dianne and the Becoming A Bolder Being blog! Seriously, how can you not love Canada?

In fact, if a war ever broke out between American and Canada, I’m not sure who I’d support. Then again, hopefully Texas will have seceded from the U.S.A. before that happens. I’m keeping fingers crossed about that. Hopefully, once we have seceded, our first action will be to declare war on Vermont. (Not the rest of America, though. Just Vermont.)

The plot of Canadian Bacon is that the President of the United States (Alan Alda) is suffering from low approval ratings so he decides that America needs to find a new country to be enemies with. Mind you, the President doesn’t necessarily want to go to war. Instead, he just wants to have an enemy that he can always be on the verge of going to war with. After a riot breaks out at a hockey game, the President’s advisors realize that Canada would be the perfect enemy!

(And, while this is played for laughs, there actually is a historical precedent here. The War of 1812 was basically a result of America’s desire to conquer Canada.)

Anyway, American airwaves are soon full of anti-Canada propaganda and, since Michael Moore thinks everyone in America is an idiot except for him, gun-toting rednecks are soon preparing to do whatever it takes to defend America. A patriotic sheriff named Boomer (John Candy) decides to invade Canada on his own. Needless to say, things get even more complicated from there and soon a crazy weapons manufacturer (G.D. Spradlin) is plotting to launch a missile attack on Russia and … oh, who cares?

When Canadian Bacon tries to satirize politics and blind patriotism, it falls flat. Michael Moore has somehow earned a reputation for being a satirist but, if you actually look at his work, it quickly becomes apparent that he really doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. The humor in his documentaries is pretty much based on Moore saying, “Look how stupid everyone is except for me!” Since the people who watch Michael Moore documentaries are usually people who already agree with Michael Moore, they naturally find that to be hilarious because they already think anyone who disagrees with them is a joke. However, that doesn’t mean that Moore himself is a comic genius. He’s just a guy telling a joke to an audience that already knows the punchline.

Canadian Bacon is long on righteous indignation but it’s short on anything that would make you want to spend 90 minutes listening to the same point being made over and over again. Moore did make one good decision, in that he selected Rip Torn to play a crazed general. Rip Torn can deliver militaristic insults with the best of them.

The few times that Canadian Bacon actually works is when it gently (as opposed to indignantly) satirizes Canada’s reputation for being the most polite (and most hockey-obsessed) place on Earth. Dan Aykroyd has a great cameo as a Canadian police officer who pulls over Boomer’s truck and politely reprimands him for not including French translations for all of the anti-Canadian graffiti on the side of the vehicle.

Canadian Bacon could have used more scenes like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5l0PD80u9k

Love you, Canada!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IyxGO4v0yA