Adventures in Cleaning Out The DVR: Lost Boy (dir by Tara Miele)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching River Raft Nightmare, it was time to finish watching Lost Boy. I say finish because, if I am remembering correctly, I actually watched the first hour when Lost Boy had its Lifetime premiere on July 25th. However, after 60 minutes, I turned over to SyFy and I watched Lavalantula. At the time, I probably said, “I’ll finish watching this on the DVR.” And it only took me 3 months to get around to it!

Lost Boy opens with every parent’s worst nightmare. Six year-old Mitchell Harris is flying a kite in the park when he’s abducted. Eleven years later, Mitchell is still missing but his mother, Laura (Virginia Madsen), is convinced that he’s still out there. She continues to put up flyers and, every time the police call to ask her to identify another body, Laura fears that it will turn out to be her son.

In the 11 years since Mitchell vanished, Laura has become a successful and influential advocate for missing persons but it’s come at the cost of her family. She is separated from her husband, Greg (Mark Valley). When Greg’s new girlfriend, Amanda (Carly Pope), gets pregnant, Greg asks Laura to finalize the divorce. Laura is hesitant, not wanting to end their marriage while Mitchell might still be out there and looking for them. For his part, Greg seems to have moved on and accepted that his son his dead. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s twin sister, Summer (Sosie Bacon), deals with her guilt and anger by rebelling.

(It wouldn’t be a Lifetime movie without a rebellious teenage daughter.)

One night, a 17 year-old boy (Matthew Fahey) emerges from the shadows and stares at one of Laura’s flyers. Soon, the boy shows up at the high school, watching Summer. And then, one night, the boy suddenly appears at Laura’s front door. When Laura sees him, she is immediately convinced that Mitchell has returned home.

But has he? Both Greg and Amanda are suspicious of “Mitchell.” For one thing, Mitchell doesn’t seem to have many clear memories of his family. As well, he refuses to tell anyone who kidnapped him or where he’s been. He encourages Summer and his younger brother, Jonathan (Jacob Buster), to do dangerous things and then threatens to hurt them if they tell on him. Though Mitchell makes a big show of having nightmares about his ordeal, he’s actually awake while he’s tossing and turning.

Perhaps most damning of all, when Mitchell, Greg, and Jonathan take a DNA test, Mitchell switches his DNA with Jonathan’s and again threatens to kill Jonathan…

So, yes, it’s pretty obvious that Mitchell is not who he says he is. However, whenever anyone points out how strangely he’s acting, Laura makes excuses for him. She’s so happy to have her son back that she’s willing to overlook all of the inconsistencies in his story. Or, at the very least, she is until she finds out that Mitchell has been threatening Jonathan. But, by that point, Greg is convinced that Mitchell is his son and now, suddenly, he’s the one who is making excuses for him…

I liked Lost Boy, even if it did ultimately get somewhat predictable. Moodily shot and featuring an excellent lead performance from Virginia Madsen, Lost Boy made me wonder what I would do if I ever found myself in a similar situation. Hopefully, I won’t ever have to find out.

Film Review: Hot to Trot (1988, dir. Michael Dinner)

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Don (John Candy)

Before I talk about the film, I need to make some apologies:

1. I apologize to Bobcat Goldthwait for reminding people that this movie exists.
2. I apologize to everyone for reminding them that Bobcat Goldthwait once had starring roles in movies. From what I can gather from IMDb, he did the Sofia Coppola and now works behind the camera. His movies seem to get decent reviews too.
3. I’d like to apologize to anyone involved in the production of the Francis movies.

This is about a moron who came across a movie about a talking horse that had bad ratings on IMDb, then discovered it was available for streaming and thought it would be funny to watch. Oh, wait, that’s my story. The movie is about a moron whose mother dies and leaves him a talking horse. This moron named Fred P. Chaney (Bobcat Goldthwait) works at a stockbroker firm. The firm is run by Walter Sawyer (Dabney Coleman) who really needs some dental work.

Walter Sawyer (Dabney Coleman)

Let’s apologize to Dabney Coleman while we are here too. Anyways, Sawyer offers to buy the talking horse whose name is Don and is voiced by John Candy. Apologies to John Candy…and horses. This movie really is a blatant ripoff of those movies from the 1950’s about a smart ass talking mule named Francis and his buddy played by Donald O’Connor. Except those are kind of funny. This is painful.

That’s a blow up horse sex doll by the way. Getting ahead of myself. After acquiring Don, Chaney is introduced to Don’s family. Apparently, Don’s Mom is curious what it’s like to be facing someone while having sex with them. I say it a lot, but no joke, that happens in this movie. We return to the brokerage firm and Don calls Chaney with a hot tip. Of course it pans out and now Chaney has some dough. This is where another set of apologies needs to be issued:

1. I apologize to Little Richard that Tutti Frutti is used in the movie.
2. I apologize to The Replacements that their song Shooting Dirty Pool is in this movie.
3. I apologize to the Beastie Boys that their song (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) is in here too. We now know that the Beastie Boys also divorced themselves from their first album because it was featured in Hot to Trot.

Oh, and Virginia Madsen is in this for some sort of love interest, but when horses are saying things like “Eat shit and die!” you can’t bring yourself to care about it. Don’t believe me that one of the horses says that? Here you go!

The meat of the movie basically goes like this. Chaney gets into some zany situations like hanging from the side of a building while a dove tries to do him in. Sawyer and his friend try and figure out how they can also make money using whatever secret Chaney seems to have discovered. Don has a house party with a dog, a cat, a bird, and probably some other animals. It all comes down to a horse race that Don needs to win with Chaney as the jockey. A stock deal goes south for Chaney and this is some sort of final showdown between him and Sawyer.

Oh, I forgot, Don’s Dad dies. Presumedly because they had already made an animatronic horsefly and needed to have some excuse to use it. Don’s Dad is reincarnated as it.

Of course Don and Chaney win the race. They do it by having Don say things to the other horses. He tells one horse that the winners are being turned into glue. He tells another one, who I guess is Spanish, that immigration is here. The jokes are so awful in this movie. And just for one final cherry on top of this dung heap, we get a short appearance by Gilbert Gottfried. Why? Because Don wants a diamond on his tooth like that bad guy in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) and Gottfried is the dentist.

Straight From The Horses Mouth

The one good thing about this movie is that I don’t even need to put in a final verdict sentence. The movie does it for me.

Film Review: All The Wilderness (dir by Michael Johnson)

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently watched an excellent little film called All The Wilderness.

James Charm (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a shy and withdrawn teenager who is still struggling to deal with the recent death of his father. He spends his time wandering around the forest surrounding the house where he lives with his mother (Virginia Madsen). Occasionally, he makes his way into the nearby city and aimlessly wanders through the desolate streets. In his spare time, he sketches pictures of dead animals and tells people that he can predict when they are going to die. When he informs the local bully that he’s going to die in just a few more days, the bully responds by punching James in the face.

Sometimes, James visits a therapist (Danny DeVito) who seems to alternate between concern and indifference. One day, while sitting in the waiting room, James meets Val (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is dealing with her parents’ divorce and spends her time making and selling eccentric doughnuts. James likes Val but he’s too scared to open up to her. Some of that may have to do with the mysterious, hooded figures who occasionally materialize out of thin air and pursue him through the streets.

After sneaking out of one unproductive therapy session, James discovers a mysterious man named Harmon (Evan Ross) playing a piano in a courtyard. Later, after his hamster mysteriously dies, a distraught James sneaks out of his house, makes his way down to the city, and gets on a bus. Sitting across from him is none other than Harmon.

Harmon invites James to follow him on a trip into the hidden corners of the city. Soon, James is discovering that the wilderness is not only limited to the countryside surrounding his mother’s house. There’s also an urban wilderness and, with Harmon as his guide, James starts to discover it. And yet, even as James starts to find happiness, those hooded figures continue to follow him…

All The Wilderness reminded me a lot of last year’s underappreciated California Scheming, another atmospheric look at alienation that was full of existential dread. All The Wilderness is probably not a film for everyone. Not only is it extremely stylized but it’s also a bit too short. All The Wilderness is one of the few films that could actually benefit from an additional 30 minutes added to its running time.

And yet, flaws and all, All The Wilderness is a great film and one that everyone should take the time to see. It is perched so precariously between being insightful and being pretentious that it becomes oddly compelling to watch the film’s valiantly struggle to maintain its balance. Visually, this is an incredible film just to look at, with the constantly moving camera capturing images of ominous yet undeniably beautiful urban decay. In small roles, both Danny DeVito and Virginia Madsen are well-cast while Evan Ross is appropriately charismatic as Harmon. Finally, Kodi Smit-McPhee — all grown up from his heartbreaking performances in The Road and Let Me In — gives a wonderful and versatile performance in the lead role.

All The Wilderness is a film that deserves to be seen.

Film Review: Red Riding Hood (dir. by Catherine Hardwicke)

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Leonard Wilson

My problems with Red Riding Hood are more of a personal nature than anything else. I’m from a family that clashed old world values of women being blindly subserviant to the Man of the House vs. women being fiercely independent and only having a male in their lives to complement things. These elements were my luggage already brought to the table on seeing the film, but it shouldn’t damper one’s opinion on the film. If this review does this, it’s on me personally and not a reflection of the entire Shattered Lens.

Like Alice in Wonderland before it, Red Riding Hood takes the classic fairy tale and expands on it. While it does so, it doesn’t do it by much. What it has going for it is a nice visual style. Colors are vibrant and director Catherine Hardwicke really has an eye when it comes to forest landscapes (just as she did with Twilight). Mists cover the trees and capes billow in the wind, when it’s not concentrating on the town itself (which does look like a soundstage at times). In the end, however, it suffers from the same quasi teenage issues that Twilight had. I yawned a number of times. Granted, I understand that the movie may be targeted to a younger audience (and for them it may very well work), but even my audience groaned a little and they were target individuals.

Red Riding Hood is the story of Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), who lives in a small village that lives in fear of The Wolf, who has been known to sneak in and attack or kill citizens. To appease the wolf, the townspeople keep animals tied outside. As a child, she forms a bond with a young boy named Peter. Time passes, and we find young Valerie bethrothed to Henry (Max Irons) by way of her mother’s plans (played by Virginia Madsen). Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) still has feelings for Valerie, and this all quickly becomes another Bella / Jacob / Edward triangle. It’s not at the start a story of Valerie choosing her own road, but having to hear from everyone around her that this guy should be the one she marries or that one is the right guy for her. To me, personally, the film in the beginning pushes as much of a pro-“I need a man to survive” stance as Battle:LA does a Pro-Marine one. Is this a terrible thing? Not if that’s where your mindset is, no. Every time I saw them mention anything along the lines of hand and feet worship some guy just because “that’s how it is”, I had to remind myself that it’s just the time period the story takes place in (though I’m sure the audience heard me groan at least once). Again, that’s just me.

In the midst of all this, on being asked to run away with Peter, Valerie is alerted to her sister’s death from the wolf. The townfolk make a point of going after the wolf, and decide to head out the cave where they believe the beast lives. They return with proof of a victory and plan to host a party for the deed. The town priest (Lukas Haas, who somehow seems to less here than he did in Inception) reaches out for help in form of Solomon (Gary Oldman). Solomon, arriving with armed guards warns the townsfolk of the evil of werewolves and that he will hunt it down. The next few nights will be Blood Moon nights, meaning that if the wolf bites anyone during that time, they’ll become werewolves as well. The townsfolk, not buying into this, decide to have a wild party with sexy dancing. This results in a visit from the Wolf, who confronts Valerie and telepathically asks her to come away with it, or the town will be razed. It all kind of escalates from there.

Oldman, for his credit, was fun here and slightly over to the top. Oldman delivers his lines with flair, being far less subdued here than he was in The Book of Eli. For who better to hunt a wolf than Sirius Black himself, right?

And that’s part of the problem I found with Red Riding Hood. With the exception of Seyfried, the supporting cast is actually stronger than the main group of actors the story focuses on. Julie Christie plays Valerie’s grandmother, in a great turn, and as always Billy Burke (Drive Angry, Twilight) is supportive as Valerie’s father. He’s really one of the highlights of the film. As for Henry and Peter’s characters, the most I could think of with them were the Winchester brothers in Supernatural. They’re eye candy for the girls, though I should note that none of the girls in my audience were excited as they were when I saw The Twilight Saga: New Moon. There were lots of screaming for that one.

What does work is that the movie is reminiscient of The Beast Must Die. It is a mystery of who the wolf actually is, and both Valerie and the audience are given clues. That I actually enjoyed, and the third act of the film wasn’t too bad. The action is quick and to the point, but again, it all kind of feels like I could have seen this as a series on the CW. There wasn’t as much of a worry about who would fall at the hands of the wolf or what dangers would face Valerie so much as they actually looked cool when it occurred. Easily a Netflix pick.

Film Review: The Prophecy (dir. by Gregory Widen)

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Arleigh

I first found out about this little cult film starring the very awesome Christopher Walken around 1993 or so when I was at the local Waldenbooks (yes there used to be bookstores not named Barnes & Noble or Borders back in the day) looking at the latest issue of Fangoria. Inside the magazine they were doing a brief feature on an upcoming horror film tentatively called God’s Army. All I saw was that it was to star Christopher Walken and it had gore and angels in it. That alone peaked my interest and I was looking forward to seeing it in the theaters. Almost two years passed and nothing about it was ever heard again until I visited the video rental place near my house and saw a VHS tape (yeah, those big videocassette thingies) with the title of The Prophecy and starring Christopher Walken.

This was the film I was so hyped to seeing in the theaters. The title had changed from it’s earlier (and much cooler) one of God’s Army. It would seem that it’s film distributor had little to no faith in the box-office potential of the film and just delayed it’s release to the point that when it did come out no one knew about it barely anyone saw it. It was a real damn shame since filmmaker Gregory Widen made such a good film that was able to mash-up horror, angels and a detective story all in one without creating a mess of things.

The Prophecy was about the war in heaven we were never taught about in Sunday school. We all know about the war in heaven where Lucifer and the rebel angels who followed him tried to overthrow God. That didn’t go over so well for Lucifer and he and his band of fallen angels were cast out into Hell by God and his right-hand man the Archangel Michael. This film talks about the second war in heaven soon thereafter which no one outside those who wrote little-known apocryphal texts about it (and being apocryphal they never were included in the Bible). This war now had a new group of angels led by the Archangel Gabriel rebelling against God for choosing humans (talking monkeys as these new rebels called them) above all living creatures including the angels themselves for God’s love. This war was now in a state of stalemate after countless millenia, but a prophecy about a soul so dark and evil was to be the tipping point for either side. This particular soul was to be found on Earth and whoever acquires it would break the stalemate and finally bring this second war to an end.

With this in mind we have Walken as the Archangel Gabriel coming down to Earth to look for this soul so he can finally win the war for his side (which also means the end of mankind). It’s the angel Simon (played by Eric Stoltz) who comes down to stop him from getting this soul or, at the very least, hide it from Gabriel. With these two factions of angels vying to acquire this soul we have a Detective Thomas Daggett smack in the middle of the case investigating all the weird happenings and deaths surrounding the battle between these two factions. The dead bodies of angels begin to appear on morgue slabs looking like eyeless, hermaphroditic specimens and angelic script found in crime scenes brings Daggett back to his time studying to be a priest before images of angels warring amongst themselves breaks him down and he quits the seminary to become a cop instead.

It would come down to these three factions racing against time to acquire this dark soul.

The film is not as gory as it’s feature in Fangoria made it out to be, but it is quite violent and bloody that I understand why it got the horror label attached to it. It’s more a dark fantasy thriller more than horror. It’s rare in today’s film that we see angels portrayed as the bloodthirsty beings that the really are. The film even points out this oft-ignored detail of God’s messengers. Angels are always the ones God sends to punish or send a very serious message to his chosen beings that is Man. The Prophecy shows this aspect of angels in full light and how their attitudes about humanity might lead some of them to hate God for raising Man above even them.

Christopher Walker does a great job conveying Gabriel’s hate and contempt for humans. His Gabriel is like one of those pundits always on tv (both liberal and consevative) who are so into their sides’ message that they never see the other side as anything but the enemy. One could almost say that Walken’s Gabriel is like then apocalypse-hungry version of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann in one body. This is not to say that Walken goes over-the-top with his performance. In fact, he’s quite subdued in how he uses those many tics and voice mannerisms a whole cottage industry has grown around in.

Walken’s portrayal of Gabriel infuses what could’ve become a one-note villain with lots of layers and complexities that the rest of the cast were able to play off from. His character would be terrifying one moment then smoothly switch over to being funny and charming then back to terror. It’s due to his great performance that the other cast members like Stoltz as the weary, loyal angel Simon and Koteas as the fallen religious cop Daggett were able to bring their own performance to another level. This is quite a feat since the dialogue in the film was a mixed bag of horror cliches and interesting Biblical-speak about secret wars, apocryphal books and prophecies. The film even has a nice appearance of the first fallen angel himself and none other than Viggo Mortensen plays Lucifer.

The Prophecy does have a feeling that it was always one misstep away from becoming an awful film. This had happened with 2010’s Legion and did that film about angels and the apocalypse turn out to be a huge steaming pile of shit-turd. But while Dimension Film saw the film fall over on the side of bad for myself and those who have come to admire and love this cult classic the film stayed balance between good and bad. Widen’s film never went over to the side of becoming a truly great film, but it also never fell on the side that Legion ended up on. What Prophecy ended up becoming was a film that was almost grindhouse in nature, but even then it still looked too good with too many good performances to be given that label. The fact that it contains one of Christopher Walken’s best performances speaks well of a film that many critics during it’s early days had dismissed as just another bad horror film.

In the end, this film became just one of the many little-gems that got lost in film studio money politics. I definitely would recommend this cult film to people who haven’t seen it, but I would tell them to stop at just this film and not even go near the four sequels which came after it.