INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL (1995)

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Actor James Woods is great at portraying attorneys. Whether it be as the real life Assistant D.A. Bob Tanenbaum in the excellent T.V. Movie BADGE OF THE ASSASSIN (1985), the crusading hippie Eddie Dodd in TRUE BELIEVER (1989) or the namesake of the excellent TV series SHARK (2006-2008), Woods knows how to play that unique combination of intelligence, shrewdness, and sneakiness to perfection. In 1995, he further applied those skills when he portrayed real life attorney Danny Davis in the HBO movie INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL. This movie is based on the McMartin day care sexual abuse case that began with horrific allegations in 1983 and ended in 1990 with zero convictions and all charges dropped. During that time, the McMartin Trial became the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history.

I’ll just go ahead and challenge any person to watch INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL and not get filled with righteous anger about the complete failure of our judicial system. Add to that failure the complete breakdown of our media to cover events in a fair and impartial fashion with even the smallest shred of objectivity. Does any of this sound familiar? As good as James Woods is in the central role, the star of this film is the true story itself. We watch as various people in positions of authority and power act completely out of self interest, including Davis himself at first, with the pursuit of the truth or justice not even the slightest consideration no matter what the evidence suggests. In actuality, the truth was hidden by the prosecution in pursuit of convictions that never came. The shit that this family was put through with coerced evidence that had no chance of standing up to the slightest bit of scrutiny is disgraceful. It’s one of the most infuriating films I’ve ever seen and it’s just as relevant in 2025 as it was in 1995. The performances are spot on, beginning with Woods’ central performance as Danny Davis and moving on to Shirley Knight in a Golden Globe winning portrayal of Peggy McMartin Buckey, Mercedes Ruehl as prosecutor Lael Rubin, Lolita Davidovich as child therapist Kee MacFarlane, Sada Thompson as matriarch Virginia McMartin, and Henry Thomas as the odd but innocent Ray Buckey. Produced by Oliver Stone and directed by Mick Jackson (THE BODYGUARD, VOLCANO), this button pushing, thought provoking film would win both the Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe awards for best Made for Television Movie in 1995. It’s truly an excellent film and should be seen by any person interested in a fair judicial system or unbiased media.

Lisa Marie’s First Review of 2025: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (dir by Irwin Allen)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On New Year’s Eve in 1972, a tragedy struck in the Aegean Sea. Just as the clock hit midnight and its passengers wished each other a happy new year, the cruise ship Poseidon was capsized by a tidal wave. The majority of the ship’s crew and passengers were killed in the disaster but a small group managed to climb up through the wreckage and make their way to the ship’s hull, where they were rescued. Gene Hackman sacrificed his life so that Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Jack Albertson, Carol Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin could all survive.

We all know the story of The Poseidon Adventure and some of us have even been goaded by our sisters into singing There’s Got To Be A Morning After for karaoke night at Grandpa Tony’s. (Grandpa Tony’s has since shut down but, for a while, it was the best place in Dallas for nachos and karaoke.) But do you know the story of what happened after that initial group of survivors was rescued from the ship? Have you gone Beyond The Poseidon Adventure?

First released in 1979, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure picks up directly from where the first film ended. Mere minutes after the rescue helicopter flies off, a tugboat pulls up alongside the still capsized wreck of the Poseidon. Needing money to pay off his debts, Captain Mike Turner (Michael Caine) has decided to declare salvage rights and claim all of the cash and jewelry that he can find in the wreckage. Accompanying him is his mentor Dead Meat (Karl Malden) and his protegee, Annoying and Cutesy (Sally Field). Actually, Dead Meat is named Wilbur but, as soon as Karl Malden starts to dramatically grab at his chest, viewers will know that he’s destined to heroically sacrifice himself. Annoying and Cutesy’s real name is Celeste. Sally Field gives perhaps the worst performance of her career as the almost always perky Celeste. This movie came out the same year that Sally Field appeared in the film for which she won her first Oscar, Norma Rae. I have to imagine that Field was happy to win that Oscar because it meant she would never have to do another film like Beyond The Poseidon Adventure.

Before the tugboat crew can begin to explore the Poseidon, another boat shows up. This boat is captained by Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas), who claims to be a doctor who is responding to an S.O.S. from the capsized ship. Svevo and his crew insist on accompanying the tugboat crew into the Poseidon. It’s obvious from the start that Svevo is not actually a benevolent doctor. For one thing, the men accompanying him are armed. For another thing, he’s played by veteran screen villain Telly Savalas.

The two crews finally enter the ship and …. hey, there’s even more people on the boat! At the end of The Poseidon Adventure, we were told that only six people had survived the disaster but apparently, that was just a damn lie. The ship is literally crawling with people who still haven’t gotten out. (Why didn’t the people who rescued the first batch of survivors check to make sure that they had gotten everyone?) There’s Tex (Slim Pickens), who says he’s from “Big D” and talks about how he owns an oil well (as we all do in Big D). There’s Frank Mazzetti (Peter Boyle, basically playing the same loudmouth that Ernest Borgnine played in the first film) and his daughter Theresa (Angela Cartwright) and Theresa’s new boyfriend, Larry (Mark Harmon). There’s a nurse (Shirley Jones) and a blind man (Jack Warden) and his wife (Shirley Knight). There’s Susanne (Veronica Hamel), the cool femme fatale who has a connection to Svevo.

While Svevo searches for a crate of plutonium (what the Hell was that doing on the Poseidon?), Mike tries to get the survivors to safety. That means once again climbing up to the hull while the ship shakes and the engines continue to explode. Both the first film and the sequel feature the exact same footage of the engines exploding. At this rate, I guess the Poseidon might finally sink sometime this year.

Directed by Irwin Allen (who produced the first film), Beyond The Poseidon Adventure is about as bad as a film could be. The first film had plenty of silly moments but it also had the entertaining spectacle of Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine competing to see who could yell the loudest. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure has Michael Caine and Telly Savalas both looking bored while Peter Boyle complains, “That was the worst New Year’s Party I’ve ever been to!” and Sally Field says stuff like, “I’ve been to Anzio! It’s the pits!” At one point, Slim Pickens says that he’s as phony as a three dollar bill. The same could be said of this film. Beyond The Poseidon Adventure looks and feels cheap and generates none of the suspense of the first film.

As Beyond The Poseidon Adventure ended, I found myself worrying that there might be other passengers still stuck on the ship. I mean, apparently, it’s very easy to not only survive on a capsized cruise ship but also to be overlooked by professional rescue crews. Unfortunately, there was not another sequel so those folks were just out of luck.

10 Oscar Snubs From The 1960s

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, the 60s. Both the studio system and the production code collapsed as Hollywood struggled to remain relevant during a time of great social upheaval. The Academy alternated between nominating films that took chances and nominating films that cost a lot of money. It led to some odd best picture lineups and some notable snubs!

1960: Psycho Is Not Nominated For Best Picture and Anthony Perkins Is Not Nominated For Best Actor

To be honest, considering that the Academy has never really embraced horror as a genre and spent most of the 60s nominating big budget prestige pictures, it’s a bit surprising that Psycho was actually nominated for four Oscars. Along with being nominated for its production design and its cinematography, Psycho also won nominations for Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Leigh. However, Anthony Perkins was not nominated for Best Actor, despite giving one of the most memorable performances of all time. The film literally would not work without Perkins’s performance and, considering that Perkins pretty much spent the rest of his career in the shadow of Norman Bates, it’s a shame that he didn’t at least get a nomination for his trouble. Psycho was also not nominated for Best Picture, despite being better remembered and certainly more influential than most of the films that were.

1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Is Almost Totally Snubbed

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was not totally snubbed by the Academy. It received a nomination for Best Costume Design. But still, it deserved so much more! John Ford, James Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles, and the picture itself were all worthy of nominations. Admittedly, 1962 was a year full of great American films and there was a lot of competition when it came to the Oscars. Still, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance definitely deserved a best picture nomination over the bloated remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. Today, if the first Mutiny on the Bounty remake is known for anything, it’s for Marlon Brando being difficult on the set. But The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is still remembered for telling us to always print the legend.

1964: From Russia With Love Is Totally Snubbed

The same year that the Academy honored George Cukor’s creaky adaptation of My Fair Lady, it totally ignored my favorite James Bond film. From Russia With Love is a Bond film that works wonderfully as both a love story and a thriller. Sean Connery, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, and Terence Young all deserved some award consideration. From Russia With Love was released in the UK in 1963. In a perfect world, it would have also been released concurrently in the U.S., allowing From Russia With Love to be the film that gave the the Academy the chance to recognize the British invasion. Instead, Tom Jones was named the Best Picture of 1963 and From Russia With Love had to wait until 1964 to premiere in the U.S. It was snubbed in favor of one of old Hollywood’s last grasps at relevance.

1964: Slim Pickens Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor

Playing three separate roles, Peter Sellers dominates Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. But, as good as Sellers is, the film’s most memorable image is definitely Slim Pickens whooping it up as he rides the bomb down to Earth. George C. Scott and Sterling Hyaden also undoubtedly deserved some award consideration but, in the end, Pickens is the one who brings the film to life even as he helps to bring society to an end.

1967: In Cold Blood Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

In Cold Blood, though not a perfect film, certainly deserved a nomination over Dr. Doolittle. In Cold Blood is a film that still has the power to disturb and haunt viewers today. Dr. Doolittle was a box office debacle that was nominated in an attempt to help 20th Century Fox make back some of their money.

1967: Sidney Poitier Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For In The Heat Of The Night

In 1967, Sidney Poitier starred in two of the films that were nominated for Best Picture but somehow, he did not pick up a nomination himself. His restrained but fiercely intelligent performance in In The Heat Of The Night provided a powerful contrast to Rod Steiger’s more blustery turn. That Poitier was not nominated for his performance as Virgil Tibbs truly is one of the stranger snubs in Academy history. (If I had to guess, I’d say that the Actors Branch was split on whether to honor him for In The Heat of the Night or Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner or even for To Sir With Love and, as a result, he ended up getting nominated for none of them.)

1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes Are Not Nominated For Best Picture

Neither one of these classic science fiction films were nominated for Best Picture, despite the fact that both of them are far superior and far more influential than Oliver!, the film that won that year.

1968: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Is Totally Ignored

Not even Ennio Morricone’s score received a nomination!

1968: Petulia Is Totally Snubbed

Seriously, I don’t know what was going on with the Academy in 1968 but it seems they went out of their way to ignore the best films of the year. Richard Lester’s Petulia is usually cited as one of the definitive films of the 60s but it received not a single Oscar nomination. Not only did the film fail to receive a nomination for Best Picture but Richard Lester, George C. Scott, Julie Christie, Shirley Knight, Richard Chamberlain, and the film’s screenwriters were snubbed as well.

1969: Easy Rider Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

Yes, I know. Easy Rider is a flawed film and there are certain moments that are just incredibly pretentious. That said, Easy Rider defined an era and it also presented a portrait of everything that was and is good, bad, and timeless about America. The film may have been produced, directed, and acted in a drug-razed haze but it’s also an important historical document and it was also a film whose success permanently changed Hollywood. Certainly, Easy Rider’s legacy is superior to that of Hello, Dolly!

Agree? Disagree? Do you have an Oscar snub that you think is even worse than the 10 listed here? Let us know in the comments!

Up next: It’s the 70s!

Horror On TV: Circle of Fear 1.18 “Legion of Demons” (dir by Paul Stanley)

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Shy Beth (Shirley Knight) is now to the city and still struggling to make friends. Fortunately, her friend Janet gets her a nice corporate job. Unfortunately, Janet then vanishes and Beth discovers that her co-workers are more than just office workers, I won’t spoil the twist, since the title of this episode already did that.

Legion of Demons aired on February 2nd, 1973 and it undoubtedly led to a lot of viewers saying, “I think they filmed that at my office!”

Enjoy!

Playing Catch-Up With The Lesser Films of 2015: Get Hard, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Pixels, The Wedding Ringer

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Image Credit: http://www.sliceofscifi.tv/tag/trivia/ Please be sure to check them out!

SPOILER ALERT!

One or more of the films reviewed below will appear on my list of the 16 Worst Films of 2015! Can you guess which one(s)?

Get Hard (dir by Etan Cohen)

Will Ferrell is funny and Kevin Hart is funny and you would think that putting them together in one movie would be especially funny but … nope. Get Hard, which I watched on HBO a few weeks ago, is incredibly not funny. Ferrell plays a hedge fund manager who is convicted of fraud and embezzlement and it’s a sign of how haphazard this film is that I was never really sure whether he was supposed to be guilty or not. Anyway, Ferrell is terrified of going to prison but fortunately, he runs into Kevin Hart. Hart is playing the owner of a car wash here, a mild-mannered family man who simply wants to be able to afford to send his daughter to a good school. However, Ferrell assumes that, since Hart is black, Hart must be an ex-con.

So, Ferrell hires Hart to teach him how to survive in prison and Hart agrees. And, to be honest, this is not a terrible idea for an edgy satire but the film pulls it punches and never really exposes or challenges the racism that led to Ferrell hiring Hart in the first place. Instead, it’s more interested in making homophobic jokes about prison rape (there’s a particularly long and unpleasant scene where Ferrell attempts to learn how to give a blow job that feels like it was lifted from a deservedly forgotten 90s film) and eventually, it devolves into a painfully predictable action film.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (dir by Andy Fickman)

I know what someone out there is saying.

“YOU’VE NEVER EVEN SEEN THE FIRST PAUL BLART: MALL COP!!! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO REVIEW THE SEQUEL!?”

Well, listen — it’s true. I’ve never seen the first film and the only reason I watched the second one (on HBO at a friend’s house, which means that it literally cost me nothing) was because I had heard how terrible it was and I figured that I should see it before making out my list of the worst films of the year. But, even with that in mind, I think I can still give this film a fair review.

(At the very least, I’ll try. Dammit, I’ll try.)

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is one of those films that is so forgettable that you forget about it while you’re watching. Kevin James plays Paul Blart, a mall security guard who goes to Las Vegas for a security guard convention and ends up getting involved in thwarting a big heist. It’s a comedy, though I can’t think of a single time I laughed. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 was not quite the abomination that I had been led to expect. It was, in no way, comparable to Birdemic, April Rain, or Man of Steel. Instead, it was just an incredibly empty and soulless film. It was a zombie movie that existed only to eat money.

One thing that is frustrating about a film like Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is that Kevin James seems like he could actually survive appearing in a good film, if he could just get a chance to make one. He’s likable and he’s got an everyman quality about him. But, for now, he seems to be trapped in films where he either plays Paul Blart or he’s surrounded by talking animals.

Pixels (dir by Chris Columbus)

Speaking of Kevin James, he’s also in Pixels! He plays William Cooper. When he was a kid, he was obsessed with playing video games. Now that he’s an adult, he’s the President of the United States! And he still keeps in contact with his best friend from childhood, Sam. Sam, needless to say, will never be President. When Sam was a kid, he was traumatized when he lost a national video game championship. Now that he’s an adult, he installs home-theater systems and he’s played by Adam Sandler…

When Earth is invaded, it turns out that the aliens are under the impression that video games are real! So, they recreate a bunch of classic video game characters and send them off to do havoc. Who better to stop them than the President and Sam? And who better to help than a nerdy conspiracy theorist (Josh Gad) and Eddie Planet (Peter Dinklage), the same guy who cheated in order to defeat Sam at the video game championship….

If you’re thinking that sounds like way too much plot for a silly comedy about video games coming to life, you’re right. Pixels has some cute moments (though, based on the comments and occasional laughter of the middle-aged people in the theater around me, I get the feeling that a lot of the film’s video game-themed humor was a bit too “before my time” for me to fully appreciate) but oh my God, it was such an unnecessarily busy movie. The idea behind Pixels had some potential but the film refused to take advantage of it.

I’ve said this before and I always get some strange looks but I honestly do think that — if he would actually break out of his comfort zone and stop doing movies that mostly seem to be about finding an excuse to hang out with his friends — Adam Sandler could be an acceptable dramatic actor. Check out his work in Punch-Drunk Love, Funny People, Reign Over Me, Spanglish, and even the first half of The Cobbler. (Tarantino even wrote the role of Donny Donowitz in Inglourious Basterds with Sandler in mind.) The fact that Sandler could be doing good work makes his continual bad work all the more frustrating and annoying.

The Wedding Ringer (dir by Jeremy Garelick)

And speaking of Josh Gad…he’s also in The Wedding Ringer! For that matter, so is Kevin Hart. Hart plays a guy who, for a sizable fee, will pretend to the lifelong best friend (and best man) for grooms who do not have enough real friends to fill out a wedding party. Hart refuses to get emotionally involved with his clients but that all changes when, despite himself, he becomes friends with Josh Gad, who is on the verge of getting married to Kaley Cuoco.

The Wedding Ringer got terrible reviews but it also was very popular with audiences and I imagine a lot of that had to do with the relationship between Hart and Gad. Both of them give very sincere performances that elevate some otherwise unpromising material. The Wedding Ringer wasn’t good (it’s predictable, it’s portrayal of Kaley Cuoco’s character verges on misogynistic) but, at the same time, it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. In the end, it was pretty much a typical January film.

I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so … wait a minute, am I just here because this is a post about bad movies?

Which of these four films will make my list of the worst 16 films of 2015? The answer shall be revealed soon!

Embracing the Melodrama #33: Endless Love (dir by Franco Zefferilli)

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do anyone remember a movie that came out in February that was called Endless Love? If you do, you’ve got a better memory than I do because, even though I saw it, I really can’t really remember much about it beyond the fact that I was disappointed by it. I know I had high hopes because the trailer was damn sexy but the film itself just turned out to be rather bland and forgettable.

Well, the 2014 version of Endless Love may have been forgettable but the same can not be said of the original 1981 version.

Endless Love tells the sweet story of two teenagers who want to have sex. Well, actually, it’s debatable how sweet the story is because the boy is a creepy stalker-type and the girl appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome but director Franco Zefferilli directs the film as if he’s bringing to life the greatest romance of all time. The entire film is full of lush images and the swelling musical score suggests that we should hope that these two end up together, even as the boy is burning down the girl’s house.

(Believe me, I love elaborate expressions of love and romantic feelings as much as the next girl but I draw the line at burning down my house.)

David (Martin Hewitt) and Jade (Brooke Shields) both live in the suburbs of Chicago. Jade’s parents are aging hippies. Her father (Don Murray) may smoke weed with the neighborhood teenagers and play the trumpet at wild parties but he’s still very protective of his daughter. Her mother (Shirley Knight) is far more permissive and open-minded. Jade’s brother, Keith (played by a really young and dangerous-looking James Spader), is friends with David and invites him to a party at his house. David meets Jade and soon, the two of them are obsessed with each other.

However, not everyone is happy about their newfound love. Jade’s father doesn’t trust David. Keith soon starts saying stuff like, “Just because you’re fucking my sister, that doesn’t make you a part of the family.” (And, as rude as that may be, it’s really hot when said by a young and dangerous-looking James Spader.) Meanwhile, David’s mom (Beatrice Straight) doesn’t want David hanging out with a family that she describes as being “a relic of the 60s.”

Eventually, Jade is spending so much time thinking about David that her grades start to suffer and she finds that she can no longer sleep. She starts stealing her father’s sleeping pills. When she’s caught in the act, David is forbidden from seeing her until the end of the school year. “It’s only 30 days,” Jade’s mom promises him.

Well, that’s 30 days too long for David!

Taking the advice of a young arsonist (played, in his film debut and with a notably squeaky voice, by Tom Cruise), David decides to set Jade’s house on fire. His original plan is to save Jade and her family and be hailed as a hero. Instead, the fire ends up raging out of control and the house is destroyed.

Arrested for arson, David spends some time in a mental asylum and is legally forbidden from ever seeing Jade or her family again. Eventually, David gets out of the asylum and that’s when the movie gets really weird…

Endless Love is a really creepy movie that makes the mistake of equating stalking with true romance. There’s no other way to put it. Yet, at the same time, Franco Zefferilli’s images are so vividly romantic and Martin Hewitt and Brooke Shields are both so physically attractive (never mind that neither one of them apparently knew how to act back in 1981) that you can’t help but sometimes get swept up in the film’s silliness. Add to that, the film has a great soundtrack and you also get a chance to see Tom Cruise act like a total jackass.

Check it out below!