Cleaning Out The DVR: One Small Indiscretion (dir by Lauro Chartrand)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded One Small Indiscretion off of Lifetime Movie Network on September 2nd!)

I learned a few things from watching One Small Indiscretion.

First off, and most importantly, I learned that there is no such thing as a “small” indiscretion. In this film, Caroline (Ashley Winters) has a brief affair while separated from her husband, Sam (Cru Ennis). When Caroline and Sam get back together, she tries to forget that the whole thing even happened. Six years later, Caroline tells her best friend that she isn’t even sure what eventually became of her former lover. However, we know that he ended up killing both himself and his alcoholic wife. For Caroline, it was a small indiscretion but, for a little girl named Elle, it was a tragedy that took away her parents.

Secondly, if you work hard and marry well, you can eventually live in a really big house that has a pool, a jacuzzi, and a guest house. However, if you work too hard, all of the romance will go out of your marriage and soon, you won’t even be using the pool after a couple of years.

Third, if you own a guest house, you are required by the laws of plot contrivance to rent it out.

Fourth, if you do rent out your guest house, there’s a good chance that it will lead to someone from the past tracking you down. In this case, it’s Elle (Tiera Skovbye). Elle is now 21 years old and eager to avenge the death of her parents but destroying Caroline’s life. Though she may be young, Elle is already an evil genius.

Actually, I guess it’s debatable as to whether or not Elle is that smart. It’s entirely possible that Elle only seems smart because everyone else in the movie is incredibly stupid. From the minute Elle moves into that guest house, she’s manipulating and seducing. She’s taking naked midnight swims. She’s encouraging Caroline and Sam’s son, Logan (Johnny Visotcky), to skip college. She doesn’t make much of an effort to hide what she’s trying to do and yet, Caroline soon decides that Elle is going to be her new BFF. It’s actually kind of hard not to be on Elle’s side. Elle’s methods may be extreme and she does get more and more psycho as the movie unfolds but Caroline and Sam are so bourgeois that it’s difficult to have much sympathy for them. Add to that, Elle’s an artist. She draws. If you side with the non-artists over the the artist, that means you’re doing life wrong.

But back to what I learned from One Small Indiscretion:

Fifth, it’s not that difficult to bug a house.

Sixth, search engines are like magic.

Seventh, it’s easy to knock people out.

Eighth, Canada is a beautiful country.

Anyway, One Small Indiscretion is a thoroughly predictable Lifetime film. The best role in these films is always the psycho and Tiera Skovbye plays Elle as if even she can’t believe how stupid everyone else in the film is. Elle is having so much fun being evil that you can’t help but be happy that she received the opportunity. She may be the villain but you’ll totally be Team Elle when you watch One Small Indiscretion.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #165: Secrets of my Stepdaughter (dir by Jem Garrard)

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched Secrets of my Stepdaughter on Lifetime!

Why Was I Watching It?

Why Not? It was on Lifetime and Secrets of my Stepdaughter is a great title. As our regular readers know, Jeff, Leonard, and I spent all last month watching and reviewing the first two seasons on Twin Peaks. As soon as I saw the title of this Lifetime film, I immediately thought of that great line from the third episode of series: “She is full of secrets.”

What Was It About?

When teenager Rachel Kent (Tiera Skovbye) survives a robbery that leaves her best friend dead, she becomes a minor media celebrity. Everyone loves Rachel but the detective (Lucia Walters) in charge of the case has suspicions. And soon, so does Rachel’s stepmother, Cindy (Josie Davis). Rachel is just enjoying being a celebrity too much and when Cindy catches Rachel rehearsing the story of the robbery in front of a mirror, Cindy starts to suspect that Rachel may indeed be full of secrets.

What Worked?

The film told an intriguing story. It opened with a title card telling us that it was “based on a true story” and I’d believe it. This is actually something that happens fairly regularly. A victim of a crime will become a minor celebrity, just to then have it revealed that they actually committed the crime themselves. People love the attention. What’s interesting is that you never hear much about these people once it’s revealed that they were not victims but instead guilty. They kind of get pushed to the side and the story gets abandoned because no one wants to admit to having been fooled.

Josie Davis gave a good performance as Cindy. She’s appeared in several Lifetime films and it was interesting to see her finally play a sympathetic character for once. The entire film, however, was stolen by Tiera Skovbye, who was a force of cheerfully destructive nature in the role of Rachel.

What Did Not Work?

This was yet another Lifetime film where the family pet is killed off, presumably so we don’t have any doubt that we’re dealing with a total sociopath. Killing the dog felt so cruelly unnecessary and totally gratuitous that it made it difficult for me to enjoy the rest of the movie. It seemed to be done for shock value but, at this point, so many pets have been killed in so many Lifetime movies that it’s no longer shocking.

Seriously, leave the pets alone!

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

“Wow, Lisa, since this movie was about a sociopathic, shoplifting teenage murderer, there were probably a lot of Oh my God! Just like me! moments!”

Okay, you are no longer my friend.

Actually, to be honest, I did relate to Rachel at the very beginning of the movie. When she was rehearsing in front of the mirror, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I do that too. But then it became obvious that she actually had killed her best friend and the family dog and I was like, “Nope, I have nothing in common with this psycho!”

Lessons Learned

It’s a lot more difficult to fake a crime than you might think.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #34: Revenge Porn (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by the end of July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 34th film on the DVR was Revenge Porn, which I recorded off of Lifetime on June 18th.

Here’s two important things to know about Revenge Porn:

First of all, when it originally aired, I live tweeted it on twitter, along with several other friends. Needless to say, we used the hashtag #RevengePorn. Also needless to say, using #RevengePorn as a hashtag ended up getting me a lot of attention from people who weren’t necessarily watching the film. I picked up a lot of new followers that night.

(Of course, most of them left once I started to tweet about Big Brother.)

Secondly, when it came time to write this review, I wanted to make sure that I had at least one image to go along with it. So, innocently, I did a google image search on “Revenge Porn.” That turned out to be a big mistake. If you want to find pictures from this film, I suggest that you do a search for “Elisabeth Rohm Lifetime movie.” It’ll be a lot less traumatic.

As for the film itself, it starts out like a more respectable version of Break-Up Nightmare. The innocent and college-bound Peyton Harris (Tiera Skovbye) is up in her bedroom, taking topless pictures, while her overprotective parents (Elisabeth Rohm and David Lewis) are downstairs. In fact, the only real difference between the opening of Break-Up Nightmare and Revenge Porn is that Peyton isn’t taking the pictures for a boyfriend. Instead, she’s considering whether or not to get a boob job.

Otherwise, the first hour of the film plays out pretty much the same as Break-Up Nightmare. Peyton’s best friend (Jodelle Ferland) is jealous over Peyton’s great future and, in a moment of spite, sends naked pictures of Peyton to everyone at school. However, things get even worse when Carl Cook (a thoroughly creepy performance fro Levi Meaden) comes across Peyton’s pictures and posts them on his revenge porn website, ExMyEx. Cook claims that what he’s doing is perfectly legal and that it’s the fault of his victims for taking naked pictures in the first place. Peyton’s mom decides to try to bring the website down and Carl seeks revenge…

However, after about an hour of this, the film goes totally crazy. Angered over their attempts to shut him down, Carl starts to harass the Harrises in every over-the-top way imaginable. Since Carl Cook is a hacker (which, in the world of Lifetime films, is the equivalent of being an MCU-style super villain), there is literally nothing that he can’t do.

Send threatening texts to every member of the family? Carl can do it!

Send and re-send naked pictures of Peyton to everyone on the planet? Carl can do it!

Cancel everyone’s credit cards and destroy the family’s finances? Carl can do it!

Cancel Peyton’s college scholarships? Carl can do it!

Issue a warrant for Peyton’s father arrest? Carl can do it!

Eventually, the Harrises even find themselves being chased by a drone, which Carl is apparently controlling from his super villain lair!

When it comes to movies about creepy hackers and naked pictures, Break-Up Nightmare is definitely the one to go with. But Revenge Porn has its own strengths. Both Rohm and Skovbye give good performances and, seriously, as played by Levin Meaden, Carl Cook is one of the most loathsome villains to ever appear in a Lifetime movie.

If you’re a fan of the Lifetime way of telling cinematic morality tales, Revenge Porn is one to keep an eye out for. Hopefully, Lifetime will be do a Revenge Porn/Break-Up Nightmare double feature at some point in the future.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #134: Sugarbabies (dir by Monika Mitchell)

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Sugarbabies!

Why Was I Watching It?

The main reason, of course, is that it was on Lifetime. But beyond that, I was watching the film because I was genuinely curious to see how Sugarbabies could possibly be any different from Sugar Daddies and Babysitter’s Black Book.

What Was It About?

It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect. Katie (Alyson Stoner) wants to go to an expensive university and study art history but her bald father is kind of a jerk and her family is supposed to be so poor, despite the fact that they live in a huge house. Once Katie enrolls in school, she discovers how expensive an education can be.

Fortunately, her friend (Tira Skovbye) has a suggestion. All Katie has to do is join a website called Sugarbabies. (It’s always the internet’s fault.) Wealthy businessmen pay her for her companionship. Soon, Katie is spending all of her time with the wealthy James (Giles Paton) while ignoring Sean (Keenan Tracy), another student who has a crush on her. (Sean doesn’t help himself, however, when he gets drunk and throws up on her shoes. Seriously — ewwwww!) However, when Katie starts to get too serious about their “realtionship,” James stops paying Katie and Katie is forced to look for a new sugar daddy.

Meanwhile, Katie’s other friend, Rochelle (Sarah Dugdale) has a similar arrangement with a much older (but surprisingly nice) businessman (Ken Camroux-Taylor). Will Rochelle be able to secure her financial future before her sugar daddy dies of the heart attack that everyone will see coming from a mile away?

And, while all of this is going on, how is Katie going to explain to her parents where all of her new money is coming from?

And will all of the characters in the film ever realize how silly they all sound every time they use the term “sugar baby” in a sentence?

What Worked?

This was a fairly good example of a “Let’s see what everyone’s wearing and where they live!” type of Lifetime movie. The clothes, the offices, and the apartments were all to die for.

(Plus, seeing what everyone was wearing provided a nice distraction from the rather predictable storyline.)

Among the supporting cast, Ken Camroux-Taylor gave a good and sympathetic performance as a lonely businessman. He wasn’t in many scenes but he took full advantage of every minute of screen time that he got.

What Did Not Work?

Ultimately, Sugarbabies just could not escape the twin shadows of Sugar Daddies and Baby Sitter’s Black Book. Sugarbabies was alright but it was just never as much fun as Sugar Daddies, nor did it have the subtle hints of existential crisis that distinguished Baby Sitter’s Black Book.

Add to that, Katie was not exactly the most sympathetic of protagonists. She came across as being rather bland and judgmental. If you’re going to embrace the Lifetime version of what it is to be bad, at least have fun while you’re doing so. What you should not do is be like Katie and spend the entire movie wandering around with the same glum expression on your face, angry that you’re actually going to be able to get an education.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Rochelle had red hair and liked to wear black lingerie. OH MY GOD, JUST LIKE ME!

One thing that definitely did NOT make me go, “Oh my God! Just like me!” was the film’s depiction of what it was like to an art history major. We only saw Katie attend one art class and it was taught in a lecture hall that was always half-empty. Whenever the film wanted to remind us that Katie was supposed to be a design genius, it would have her either say that she needed to go work on her term paper or else have her look at a nondescript piece of furniture, get excited, and say, “Oh, I love pieces from that period!”

(That’s the equivalent of having a character look at a painting and say, “Look what the artist does with color here.” It may sound good to people who don’t know any better but for those of us who actually studied art, comments like that are the sure sign of someone with no idea what he or she is actually trying to say.)

Speaking as someone who majored in art history (and who is proud of her degree, regardless of what the President says about it), I really wish I had gone to Katie’s college because it appears to be home to the easiest art history program in the North America! Seriously, I could have saved myself a lot of time that was spent studying.

Lessons Learned

Never turn down a handout. And if you do turn down a handout, you lose the right to then start whining about how you don’t have any money.

Back to School #80: The Unauthorized Saved By The Bell Story (dir by Jason Lapeyre)

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it’s here! This is my 80th and final Back to School review! As I’ve mentioned before, I originally thought I’d be able to do all of these reviews in just one week. Instead, it’s taken me five weeks but you know what? I’ve had fun doing these reviews and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading them. It’s been interesting to see how teen films have progressed and changed over the decades. We started this series with 1946’s I Accuse My Parents and now, we end it with a film from 2014 that might as well be called I Accuse Screech.

Technically, it’s called The Unauthorized Saved By The Bell Story but that’s kind of an unwieldy name, isn’t it? I can’t really see myself typing that title over and over again. So, for the purposes of this review, this movie is called I Accuse Screech.

First off, some background. When I was a kid, I used to watch Saved By The Bell: The New Class. What’s weird is that, when I look back at it, I think even then I knew that the show wasn’t very good. I knew that the jokes were frequently not funny. I knew that the story lines were predictable. I think I was even aware that it was strange how frequently actors were either dropped from or added to the cast. Don’t get me wrong. The show was (and still is) oddly watchable but it was never any good and I am pretty sure I knew that. Then again, maybe that’s just way I want to remember it. Being a fan of Saved By The Bell: The New Class isn’t exactly something that you brag about. However, one thing that I can be sure of is that, even when I was young, I knew that Screech Powers sucked.

As played by Dustin Diamond, Screech was the principal’s assistant at Bayside High. He was also probably the most annoying character ever to be unleashed onto the psyches of impressionable children and tweens. Screech spoke in a high, squeaky voice and could usually be relied upon to do something incredibly stupid. Whenever he fucked things up (and he managed to do this several times in each episode), he would say something like, “Zoinks!” Everybody hated Screech.

Now, I have to admit that I never actually saw an episode of the classic original Saved By The Bell until after the New Class was already off the air. And that’s when I discovered the adventures of Zack Morris, A.C. Slater, Kelly Kapowski, Jessie Spano, and … Screech. That’s right, you can’t escape Screech!

And here’s the thing — the original Saved By The Bell is one of those shows that really is kind of terrible and yet you can’t stop watching. It’s addictively bad, the type of show that you watch with a combination of shock, horror, and amusement. The original Saved By The Bell is the television equivalent of The Room or Troll 2. It’s terrible but it’s fun.

So, you would think that a made-for-tv movie about what went on behind-the-scenes of Saved By The Bell would also be terrible yet fun. That’s certainly the way that it was advertised by Lifetime. Lifetime appeared to be hoping that their version of the story behind Saved By The Bell would give them a Sharknado of their very own.

And hey, it should have been great. There’s an interesting story there. How would a bunch of teens handle suddenly becoming famous? How would they handle the pressure of being famous while also appearing on a show so bad that it would essentially run the risk of ruining their lives, not to mention their careers? How would they handle having to grow up both on TV and in real life?

Those are the questions that we expected to have answered by this movie but instead…

Well, let’s just say that I Accuse Screech!

In 2009, Dustin Diamond published a “memoir” called Behind The Bell and oh my God, it is literally the worst fucking book ever written. Words escape me to describe just how terrible this book is. Essentially, the book is full of Diamond either complaining that his co-stars didn’t like him or bragging about the fact that he used to have sex with 12 year-olds at Disneyland. Diamond accuses his castmates of smoking weed. (Wow, teenagers smoking weed. MY GOD, THE SCANDAL!) Diamoned accuses his castmates of having sex. (OH MY GOD, TEENAGERS HAVING SEX!) In other words, the book is pretty much Dustin Diamond complaining about the fact that everyone but him was having fun on the set of Saved By The Bell.

So, of course, if you’re going to make a movie about Saved By The Bell, where would you go for your source material? Well, you can’t go to any of the stars because, with the exception of Dustin Diamond, they all have successful careers outside of Saved By The Bell. And you can’t go to Dennis Haskins because, seriously, who cares what Mr. Belding thought?

Lifetime decided to use Behind the Bell as their source material. Unfortunately, Diamond himself has admitted that the book was a pack of lies. As a result, most of the more salacious (and therefore entertaining) material could not actually be used in the movie. The Lifetime film is full of hints of bad behavior but no direct evidence. At one point, we see the actor playing Mario Lopez flirting with an extra in a deserted classroom. In another scene, the girls get snarky with each other because they all like Mark-Paul Gosselaar. But, beyond those hints, we don’t get to see any of the book’s more sordid accusations. Instead, all we get are a lot of scenes of the actor playing Dustin Diamond looking annoyed with his castmates.

(Because, literally, the only verifiable, non-slanderous thing to be found in the book is that apparently Dustin Diamond was whiny, bitter, and jealous…)

As a result, the film seems to be suggesting that Saved By The Bell was put together and performed by the most boring people on Earth. The end result is not only the worst film to have appeared on Lifetime but perhaps one of the worst films of all time.

Why is it so bad?

I accuse Screech!

(Incidentally, if you want to learn more about Saved By The Bell, I suggest checking out the best Saved By The Bell review site around, The Summer of Morris!)

And, on that note of failure, we conclude this series of 80 Back to School reviews! Thank you, everyone, for your indulgence and your patience! I hope everyone enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.