A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Raven (dir. by James McTeigue)

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Raven, a largely disappointing thriller that just opened this weekend, takes place in 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. A mysterious killer is terrorizing the city and, as Inspector Fields (Luke Evans) quickly deduces, he’s patterning his murders after the works of an alcoholic and disreputable writer named Edgar Allan Poe (played here, in the style of Robert Downey, Jr., by John Cusack). Fields recruits Poe to help catch the killer but the killer has other plans. He kidnaps Edgar’s fiancée Emily(Alice Eve*) and then challenges Edgar to a game. The killer will continue to commit random murders and, with each murder, he’ll include a clue to finding Emily. However, Edgar also has to write a story inspired by the killer’s crimes. Desperate to save Emily, Edgar agrees…

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I had high hopes for The Raven but, on the basis of the trailer, I was hoping that it would at least be an entertaining and self-aware genre piece. Unfortunately, The Raven isn’t even that. Instead, it’s a slowly paced, predictable film that’s not even awful enough to be fun. John Cusack has a few enjoyably over-the-top moments as Edgar Allan Poe and Brendan Gleeson is always fun when he’s being all blustery but the rest of the cast barely seems to be awake. (In particular, poor Luke Evans struggles to look like he’s interested in anything that’s happening on-screen.) Director James McTeigue comes up with a lot of striking images but the film is so oddly edited that the scenes never seem to flow together and the end result is a film that feels oddly static and listless.

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*Alice Eve has heterochromia, just like me! Yay for both of us!

Trailer: The Raven

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When we went to see Haywire earlier tonight, one of the trailers that played before the movie started was for an upcoming horror/mystery film called The Raven. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the trailer. The idea of Edgar Allan Poe as a detective is one that is either going to be campy fun or else it’s just going to be an annoying gimmick. To be honest, the trailer leads me to suspect the latter because it definitely has a wannabe Sherlock Holmes feel to it. That said, I do have some hope for this film if just because it looks like John Cusack is having a lot of fun with this role. Cusack is one of those “serious” actors who can be very watchable when he’s finally allowed to just cut loose and go totally over the top.

6 Trailers in Tribute to Roger Corman

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Thursday night, my twitter timeline briefly exploded when it was reported that legendary filmmaker Roger Corman had just passed away. I immediately jumped over to Wikipedia and I saw that Roger Corman was officially listed as being newly deceased. Quickly, I jumped back over to twitter and I tweeted, “R.I.P. to one of the most important figures in American film history — the legendary Roger Corman.” I then sent out another tweet in which I pointed out that this meant that two of the men who has played senators in The Godfather, Part II — G.D. Spradlin and Roger Corman — had died this year and within months of each other.

Immediatly, one of my twitter friends tweeted back, “If only real Senators would die as quickly.”

“Agck!” I thought to myself, “how do I respond to that? If I get all offended or humorless, I might lose a follower. If I say yes, that’s a good point, I might end up getting put on some sort of super secret government list…”

Even as I worried about my future as a subversive, I was thinking to myself that the best way I could pay tribute to the late Roger Corman was to devote my next edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers to his memory. Yes, I decided, the next edition would have be all Corman, a celebration of the man, his life, and his movies…

And then it turned out that Roger Corman wasn’t dead. Turns out that some idiot journalist named Jake Tapper tweeted that Corman was dead and that’s what set off a chain reaction of false assumptions and early tributes. However, Roger Corman is still alive but you know me. Once I get an idea in my head, I have to see it through. Letting things go is not one of my talents.

So, with that in mind, here are 6 trailers in tribute to Roger Corman, who is not dead.

1) The Trip (1967)

In 1967, Roger Corman directed this film in which Peter Fonda plays a tv director who drops acid and ends up having a really bad trip. The script was written by Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper plays a random guru guy. Bruce Dern is in it too. As far as drug movies go, The Trip is actually pretty good though it does indulge in some of the standard Renaissance Faire imagery that all movies seem to use whenever attempting to visualize an acid trip.

2) St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)

I recently saw this movie, Roger Corman’s first “studio” film. I have to admit that I thought it was a little bit slow but it had some fun performances and Jack Nicholson gets a memorable cameo where he explains why he dips his bullets in garlic.

3) The Intruder (1962)

In 1962, Roger Corman and William Shatner teamed up to make this look at racism and the people who exploit it.

4) The Raven (1963)

This is one of Corman’s famous Poe films.

5) The Wild Angels (1966)

Peter Fonda again. In this seminal biker film, Fonda again costars with Bruce Dern. Fonda’s girlfriend is played by Nancy Sinatra who, by the way, is one of the few celebs on twitter who will not only follow back but who will also actually respond to her followers.

6) It Conquered The World (1956)

Finally, let’s end things off with some truly old school Corman — It Conquered the World! This was Corman’s 3rd film as a director and his first major success.