The Bennett-Song family is about to learn the true meaning of the holidays as they solve a community crisis and adapt to big changes. Yes, if you love holiday films, you know what’s about to happen. There’s definitely an audience for these films, so if you enjoy them, you’ll enjoy this.
Harley Wallen, who also directed Eternal Code that we watched last year, made this from a script by Nancy Oswein. They also made the first film in this series, Bennett’s Song, together.
Fans of Saved by the Bell will be happy to see Dennis Haskins in the cast. Corbin Bernsen also appears and he’s really upped his profile, appearing in plenty of direct to streaming movies as of late.
Of course, this blended family has all manner of issues to deal with, but this is a Christmas movie. Things work out, don’t worry. If you want to get in the mood for the season, then this is a perfect film for a cold December night.
“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Andy Dufresne
In 1998: It was the battle of the Earth-destroyed-by-asteroid epics Deep Impact vs. Armageddon.
In 2008: Award-winning Spanish director F. Javier Gutierrez got Hollywood’s attention with Before the Fall (Tres días, aka Three Days), his debut feature film produced by Antonio Banderas. The Daily Telegraph‘s Rebecca Davies opined in her review of the film’s U.K. theatrical release that Gutierrez’s lower-budgeted, introspective disaster-drama sci-fi, thriller, and horror amalgam proved armageddic meteorites crashing into the Earth could be both intelligent and moving.
And Davies was right, for the brilliance of Before the Fall was in its reality of a fait accompli-world: In 72 hours — it was all over. There would be no retrofitted space shuttles delivering drilling teams to plant nuclear warheads. No satellite grids of the Geostormvariety would repel the devastation. No “planet engines” of The Wandering Earth class would be built. There would be no secret nuclear weapon platforms from the Star Wars dropping Meteor* to save us. Instead, Gutierrez asked us the deeper, non-CGI question (sans Liv Tyler’s ever-perfect glycerin tear drops): What would you do in those last three days of your life? And, if you’re besieged by evil during that time, would you go to any lengths to save yourself and your family? During the inevitable end of all existence on Earth, would you still fight back?
Before the Fall was a box-office smash across Europe, so much so that Wes Craven — courtesy of the film’s horror-cum-slasher elements — wanted to remake it. And, as with most Hollywood projects (whatever happened with the 2008-announced prequel and the 2012-announced sequel to I Am Legend?), the remake met with the usual project development problems. However, as a consolation prize, F. Javier Gutierrez booked a mainstream Hollywood gig with Rings (the 2017 one that starred The Big Bang Theory‘s Johnny Galecki). And Gutierrez, with modern-horror maestro James Wan, co-produced the Maria Bello-starring Demonic.
And as our consolation prize: Instead of a remake of Before the Fall, we get this less introspective, more CGI’d and somewhat similarly-plotted — and unfortunately COVID-scuttled and PVOD-saved** — Greenland starring Gerald Butler, he of the previously mentioned world-disaster romp, Geostorm. And as with Geostorm, Greenland deserves — needs, as with Tom Hanks’s recently streaming-scuttled Greyhound — the BIG SCREEN for its art to be fully appreciated.
Now the smarmy critic inside will say: Goodbye, introspection. Hello, CGI.
And the fan of the always-delivers Gerald Butler will say: Hello, best of both worlds.
Goodbye Geojunk. I’ll stick with Virus.
So, while we have a bona fide action star with our leading man, gone are the physics-defying, space-bound feats of strength. What we do get with Butler’s heroic-father John Garrity is John Cusack’s Jackson Curtis from Roland Emmerich’s 2012, as the gruff, straight-laced Garrity attempts to transport his family to safety with the world falling apart. However, unlike the cartoonish improbability tropes of 2012 (e.g., long black limousines jumping highway crevices), we have a patriarch that deals, not with the ubiquitously cocky, mission-compromising astronauts or failing nuclear warheads (or, in Gerald’s case: planet-killer storms, terrorists, or angry Egyptian gods), but the best and worst of humanity as he attempts to reach the film’s titled landmass that offers sanctuary to those intelligent enough (and their lucky family members) to rebuild society.
So, is Greenland as weird, i.e., unique, as Before the Fall?
No.
Is Greenland disaster-trope laden with the check-off-the-list characters we’ve seen before — and expect — in an A-List world destruction?
Sure.
Before the Fall was War of the Worlds of the Tom Cruise-remake variety — sans the aliens and a lower budget — with Cruise’s Ray Ferrier dealing with Tim Robbins’s deranged, inferred-pedophile Harlan Ogilvy for the entire film. And while many reading this review may not know of the film, this reviewer is reminded of the philosophical talk-cum-action of No Blade of Grass*˟, with that film’s John Custance (a great Nigel Davenport) who flees with his family from a devastated London on a Mosesesque quest to a Scottish-bordered safe haven, as well as the equally-obscure Richard Harris-starring Ravagers. However, courtesy of its $35 million budget, while we get a little bit of the “why we’re here and what are we gonna do now” yakity-yak in the proceedings, we get a lot of the CGI set-design scope of the I Am Legendvariety — sans the we-didn’t-mean-them-to-be-campy Beatles’ Blue Meanies blood-suckers-who-always-manage-to-keep-their-pants-on tomfoolery.
Butler’s John Garrity, a Scottish structural engineer living in Atlanta, Georgia — with an estranged wife and diabetic son, natch — attempts to reconcile with his family as they host a backyard party to watch the “harmless” passing of Clarke, a recently discovered comet. Only, Clarke turns out to be not so harmless. And courtesy of John’s knowledge — which will be needed in a post-apoc world, natch — he receives an automated phone call, informing him that he and his family have been selected for emergency sheltering.
Then a comet fragment hits Tampa, Florida, and the state is laid waste — for starters. And the natural disaster logistics race to the world’s largest island — against the freaked-out, greedy hoards of humanity — is on.
Written by Chris Sparling, who wrote Gus Van Sant’s (Last Days) Sea of Trees, as well as the Spanish horrors Buried, The Warning, and Down a Dark Hall, Greenland was to be directed by acclaimed South African director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). Then the film fell into the equally-capable hands of reformed stuntman Ric Roman Waugh (Universal Soldier, Gone in 60 Seconds, Days of Thunder). Waugh came into his own as a screenwriter and director with the Gerald Butler-starring Angel Has Fallen. The duo is currently in production on the latest Mike Banning adventure, which begun with Olympus Has Fallen, titled as Night Has Fallen. And to Waugh’s credit: based on the trailers and poster that forgoes artsy-impact images, he may have given us a large-scale B-Movie, but one that ditches the grandiose and the bombast for realism that harkens back to Before the Fall. This ain’t no Bay-os strewn Armageddon or Deep Impact, my fellow apoc rats.
Making its theatrical debut in Belgium in July 2020, Greenland exceeded its COVID-era box office expectations as it rolled out across France, China, and Mexico. Here, in the U.S., we can watch Greenland as a $19.99 PVOD beginning December 18. Those bypassing the PVOD platforms will have to wait until the early months of 2021 to watch it as a HBO Max exclusive, and in the U.K., Canada, and Australia via Amazon Prime.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.
Disclaimer: We didn’t receive a screener or review request. We just love apoc-cinema and Gerald Butler around the B&S offices and wanted to kibitz about the film.
* Be sure to check out our “Exploring: After Star Wars” featurette with links to over 30 reviews of post-Star Wars films.
** A fate also suffered by Aneesh Chaganty’s recently released and reviewed Run.
*˟ Be sure to join us in our month-long tribute to apoc-cinema with our two-part “Atomic Dust Bin” round-ups with links to over 70 film reviews.
Ike White is one of those musical obscurities, like Jim Morrison’s doppelganger from 1974, The Phantom, or “Sugar Man” Rodriquez, dubbed as a Bob Dylan doppelganger (ironically, both are from Detroit), that you won’t read about in Rolling Stone Record Guides or musicpedias. Ike White is an artist — like unheralded R&B soul artists Gil Scott-Heron and Shuggie Otis — that should have been as chart-topping on radio station playlists and Billboard sales charts as Stevie Wonder. Or Al Green. Or Curtis Mayfield. We should speak of Ike White with the fervor afforded to George Clinton and Bootsie Collins. And King Sunny Aide. And Sun Ra. And Taj Mahal.
And, for a time, Ike White was. Then he simply vanished.
Ike White — sans our mentions of the chart-topping and commercially-aware artists of George Clinton, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder — was an artist for record geeks. For he was an artist you heard of in the dusty, molded cardboard repositories of vintage vinyl outlets and record swap meets. He was a man doing life for murder; a multi-instrumentalist (even drums) discovered by the man who discovered Jimi Hendrix and took War and Sly and the Family Stone to the top of the charts. Sadly, even with the patronage of Jerry Goldstein and, eventually, Stevie Wonder himself — who secured Ike a new attorney and successfully got his prison sentence suspended — Ike White was a troubled soul beyond help.
And after one critically-acclaimed album — recorded inside prison — and an offer from CBS-TV to produce a TV movie about his life, Ike White went off the grid for over 40 years — like “Sugar Man” Rodriquez.
And like the similar-themed document Searching for Sugar Man, a film which reignited the forgotten musical career of Rodriquez, so could have The Changin’ Times of Ike White. Instead, this BBC-TV production does not offer us the expected, uplifting fairy tale ending; it instead shifts from a life document into a twisted mystery about a man that many thought they knew; a life more complicated than anyone could have imagined.
This is the one time when you drop your hesitations on watching a documentary for your evening’s entertainment — and watch it. You’ve never seen a documentary about a life with character revelations and plot twists like the life of Ike White.
You can learn more about the film at its official Facebook page and at Kino Lorber. You can listen to Changin’ Times, Ike White’s debut album — recorded with a backing band of Santana bassist Doug Rauch (also did a stint with Davie Bowie) and Sly and the Family Stone drummer Greg Errico (a walking rock ‘n’ roll Venn diagram) — in its entirety, on You Tube.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Based on Tony Award nominee and multi-platinum recording artist Sam Harris’s critically acclaimed book, Ham: Slices of a Life, this is an original stage production in which Harris himself plays twelve different characters and shares the stage with only his accompanist Todd Schroeder.
The stage version was developed and directed by Tony and Emmy-Award winning actor — and Pittsburgh native — Billy Porter, who said “When Sam asked me to help him develop his critically acclaimed memoir Ham: Slices of a Life into a musical theater piece, I jumped at the chance to work with my friend of 25 years. Sam is a tsunami of talent and the work we did in New York resulted in a production that showcased all of Sam’s extraordinary talents — as a writer, songwriter, actor, and of course, that voice! It got phenomenal reviews and went on to play Los Angeles in an award-winning production directed by Ken Sawyer. The film reveals Sam Harris as one of the great showmen of our time, who can have you in hysterics one moment and break your heart the next. Ham is more than Sam’s personal story — its message is universal. It is hilarious, it is raw, it is inspirational and above all, it is human.”
Sure, I watched Star Search when I was a kid, but I had no idea of the real story behind one of its most famous stars, Sam Harris. This film follows him from his childhood in Oklahoma’s Bible Belt, searching for belonging in Jewish and black communities before discovering who he really is. He becomes famous, but even that doesn’t feel like enough. He has a hole inside him that nothing — not even show business — can fill. So what happens next?
I came away loving Harris and really enjoying his story. I imagine that you will do the exact same.
Ham is currently playing — through December 17 –virtually at the Laemmle Theater. It will then be playing digital on demand starting January 7.
Imagine a world where undercover cops attend record swaps and concerts — and arrest people for crimes against the government.
In Czechoslovakia, it was a reality.
In our recent “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week” review of the Sex Pistols The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury, we discussed punk — the music, the fashion, and attitude — was an artistic expression of the frustrations of the British working class and unemployed against the stodgy and greedy British class system. In America, with the advent of the Ramones in New York and X in Los Angeles — while it was admittedly less street and more Tribeca and Sherman Oaks — an antithesis subculture to mainstream music arose; a coterie network of fanzines, stores, and club venues to promote the music and the (commercialized, new-waved in America) message.
And those same frustrations — with even greater political and cultural consequences — flourished in the Czechoslovakia.
In this 2016 Czech import, Vinyl Generation chronicles the generation that came of age during Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution — a non-violent transition of power that lasted from November 17 to December 29, 1989 — which signaled the end of communist totalitarianism in Eastern Europe.
As with their late ‘70s British brethren, late ’80s Czech teens used the West’s punk and burgeoning alternative-grunge music to initiate a cultural shift — even if it meant breaking federal laws, as it was illegal to buy or sell Western records and magazines (at swaps held in city parks) or attend underground, unauthorized concerts. Some of those illegal concerts featured Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, Mudhoney*, and Lydia Lunch (Cha Cha), whose never-before-seen concert footage is seen here — at least by U.S. audiences — for the first time.
You can learn more about this Dark Star Pictures release at the film’s official website vinylgeneration.net and official Facebook page. You can begin streaming the film on Amazon Prime and Vudu and on Tubi (as a free-with-ads-stream) on November 26, 2020.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Disclaimer: This was sent to us by the film’s PR company. That has no bearing on our review.
“Don’t make the mistake of judging me based on my appearance. Ignorance can be a real bitch.” — Alexandra Svoboda, the world’s leading punk rock metallurgist and geochemist
This movie has two things going for it: Eric Roberts and no IMDb reviews (at least not at the time of this writing). That means when PPV surfers and VOD streamers discover it on their cable menus (like I did) or on Amazon Prime streams, they’ll hit the IMDb for some plot and production background, and B&S About Movies sees an uptick in traffic. It’s a win-win for everyone. Yes, even for the studio that made it: The Asylum.
Uh, oh.
Is this another Shark Encounters of the Third Kind? And are we finally launching a fleet of mechanized robo-space sharks to save the Earth, you know, like back in good ol’ Godzilla days, when the green guy became a friend of man? Are the space amoebas of Yog (1970) kaiju’in us a space octopus and only marine biologist Eric Roberts can save us?
Nope.
Déjà vu of the rock. Only cheaper.
But we do get an asteroid ready to hit the Earth in fifty days. And a bickering multinational summit more interested in their individual country’s ambitions than the world’s safety. And — once again — bad, bad Russians (see Airliner Sky Battle) who don’t listen and launches the nukes everyone told them not to launch — and makes the situation worse, natch. Luckily, we do get Eric Roberts (The Arrangement, Lone Star Deception) with a set of four stars on his shoulders — with his under 10-minutes of screen time spliced throughout the film — to keep us watching. And we get a hot, fuchsia-haired punk rock geochemist (Veronika Issa) to keep us watching . . . and is it just me, or she wearing Ron Keel’s demin vest?
You’ve got the right to rock, and break my heart, Alexandra.
And we get Alex’s cancer-stricken, metallurgist-expert billionaire father who dies before he finds the answer, you know, so we think we’re watching Carl Sagan’s Contact. And we’ve got a Russian shuttle — that looks suspiciously like a decommissioned U.S. shuttle — launching rockets, because it makes us think about how the Russians stole our Skylab guidance system in Space Cowboys. And we’ve got a U.S. rocket meant for a Mars mission overhauled to carry a nuclear payload. And we get a CGI space plane, Copernicus, launching a CGI space probe, Aristotle, sporting a nifty rock-splitting laser known as a “Transducer” that punk rock girl built. And we’ve got the Divine Will, lead by one named Malachi (because all religious whack jobs must have a biblical first name), a merry band of mountain-based paramilitary religious nuts who — instead of praising God for giving man the intelligence to build techno-trinkets like a Transducer to stop asteroids — hacks the Tranducer weapons platform to thwart the mission because, well, destroying the asteroid defies “God’s Will.” And we get weapons that don’t work so — instead of being hit by one big ass rock — we’re bombarded by, as the title implies, an CGI asteroid-a-geddon that lays waste to Las Vegas and the Philippines. Oh, and Australia, but that’s okay; the “hits” are mostly in the unpopulated Outback, because, well, what’s a few dead aborigine natives down under when you’re covering up your f-ing up Armageddon.
And what we don’t get and desperately need: more past-their-prime celebrity actors that make these Asylum mockbuster disaster rips so much fun in the first place. Yeah, it’s cool to have Eric Roberts on board — even if he sits in a chair the whole time. But where’s Ian Zierling (as a hero astronaut), Tara Reid (as the Geo-scientist), and John Heard (as the religious nut) when we need them?
To that end: Most of the actors here are new the game, with our leading-lady Veronika Issa making her big screen debut in Fast and Fierce: Death Race, released by The Asylum earlier this year. The real standout of the cast is the most experienced actor of the cast — sans Eric Roberts — Craig Gellis, as Malachi. His 70-plus resume features support roles in TV series across the Big Three networks, including a leading role in the recently reviewed indie-horror Legend of the Muse. He’s really good here, so we’re looking forward to seeing more of him on screen — and in bigger, marquee-quality roles.
In the writing and directing chair we have reformed stunt man Geoff Meed˟*, who racked up 60-plus acting credits in TV series and indie films (and a role in Fast Five) before an on-set injury led him on a journey as a prolific screenwriter — with 14 credits since 2007. We reviewed Meed’s Final Draft and Canon Red debut in our quest to review all things Amityville* with 2011’s The Amityville Haunting. And if you’ve spent any time with the SyFy Channel or got swept up in the streaming-verse, you’ve watch his mockbuster-penned flicks Bermuda Tentacles, Independents’ Day, Operation Dunkirk, Atlantic Rim, San Andreas Mega Quake, and yes, his Eric Roberts-starring aerodynamic ode to all things Tom Cruise, 2020’s Top Gunner.
As you can see from the trailer, while the dueling asteroid odes of 1998 — Armageddon and Deep Impact — are clearly the mock-models here, what we’re actually left with is a mock of the Star Wars-inspired** asteroid ode of 1979, Meteor. In that film we also got a lot of Greek designations like Icarus, Orpheus, and Hercules for the rocks and weapons. But we also got James Bond as the rock-expert dude, the dude from the old American Express Card commercials who did a Dario Argento giallo*˟ (Cat o’ Nine Tails) as a boondoggling politician, and Brian Keith from Hardcastle and McCormick ranting with a bad Russian accent about the L.A. Dodgers.
However, to Meed’s credit: he does his research and has a way with the techno-exposition, so everyone sounds like the experts they’re suppose to be. And the “science,” while not exactly grounded in reality, sounds convincing, never the less. But isn’t it all just a wee-bit too talky? Yes. Do we want more CGI-action? Yes. But for his second directing credit, Meed’s delivered us a serviceable retro B-flick — and for significantly less green than the $120 million spent on Warner Bros.’ Gerald Butler-starring boondoggle, Geostorm — which received across-the-board negative reviews criticizing it as a “lackluster” and “uninspired” work. And I still haven’t made it all the way through — in spite of its incessant cable airings — and never will. I have, however, since watched the Chinese-made The Wandering Earth three times.
And so it goes for film 600-or-something for good ‘ol Eric. And because of Mr. Roberts, I made it all the way though. And I had a good time. And the next time I see Meed’s name on a film (as with Eric Roberts) I’ll watch it, for Meed’s got the Brett Piper-cum-Mark Polonia to retro-touch I love (Queen Crab).
Now, let me go a eat fudge banana swirl with Dr. Alexandra Svoboda, for she is my punk rock girl.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes short stories and music reviews on Medium.
* Seriously, we really did watch ALL of the Amityville films, as our “Exploring: Amityville” featurette, proves.
** Our love for all things Amityville is only matched by our love for all things Star Wars, as our “Exploring: After Star Wars” featurette, proves.
*˟ Oh, boy! Do we love our Giallo round ‘ere. Check out our “Exploring: Giallo” featurette on the genre.
˟* Several of Meed’s films are available as free-with-ads streams on Tubi TV, so check ’em out:
Am I nuts paying a $7.99 PPV rental fee for a direct-to-video potboiler from The Asylum? Should I have waited until it appeared on the Syfy Channel for free or, better yet, as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi TV?
Yep.
Ah, but this non-stop action potboiler stars the never disappointing, Chinese-American actress Bai Ling (Dumplings*) hoping back into the cockpit after the fun ride that was Exorcism at 60,000 Feet. And that was, if you haven’t guessed from the title, basically Evil Dead on an airliner. So, does this mean we’re getting a 747 going head-to-head with sharksodactyl?
Oops. Never assume anything when it comes to The Asylum.
This time out, The Asylum dispenses with their usual genre mash-ups and gets back into the mockbuster disaster movie business — under the skilled eye Asylum workhorse Rob Pallatina. You’ve seen his work as an editor and director for the studio with the likes of 2-Headed, 3-Headed, 5-Headed Shark Attack on the Syfy Channel and . . . if you’re a holiday dork like Samuel and I, you’ve watched Pallatina’s Christmas flick oeuvre of A Christmas Wedding Date, A Very Merry Toy Store, and A Very Nutty Christmas. Will we watch the upcoming Dear Christmas, Feliz NaviDAD, and Once Upon a Mainstreet?
With Pallatina’s name on it? Of course, we will! Remember, the B&S About Movies crew worships at the altar of Brett Piper (Queen Crab) and Mark Polonia (Shark Encounters of the Third Kind). Seriously, how can you not like a guy who does his part to bring us movies like Nazis at the Center of the Earth, and now, battling 747s?
So, yes. B&S About Movies is all in with Mr. Pallatina on this, his eight directing effort that, if you know your Pallatina oeuvres like we do, he’s familiar with the airline disasters milieu, courtesy of his third film, which was the 2018 Satan-on-a-plane romp Flight 666. The script comes courtesy of editor and casting director Alex Heerman (reality TV’s America Ninja Warrior and Masterchef) in his screenwriting debut — which we trust we be his first of many Final Draft ditties for The Asylum.
Yeah, I know. Everyone knocks The Asylum. But you know what? Pallatina and Heerman brewed one hell of an entertaining, non-stop over-the-top actioner . . . that’s lacking in realism, rife with strained acting encased in bad sets accentuated with obvious CGI-shots that fail to cover plot holes large enough to, well, fly a 747 through — with plenty of space to spare. But like a celluloid Energizer bunny, this movie just keeps on giving and giving, just like the low-budget Drive-In romps of yore. Just when you think it can’t get any more absurd . . . it does! And we love it!
So, in today’s in today’s sociopolitical climate, it’s all about bad rappin’ the Russians, as Middle Eastern baddies are now cinema passé. But we’re sure U.S. filmmakers will soon be serving up Chinese baddies to pinch-hit for the Reds. Or give us a Russian-China tag team dropping virus-filled bombs from a Goodyear Blimp on a football game in some Black Sunday-cum-Two-Minute Warning knockoff. Eh, so much for Sting’s commentary-out cry regarding Russia’s Cold War foreign policy and MAD doctrine. Obviously, these Reds of Airliner Sky Battle didn’t attend Sting’s October 2017 Russian concerts. Or appreciate Stallone’s big speech (Ugh, I know that clip embed, beneath, won’t last.) at the end of Rocky IV.
So, our cliched bad-Russian operatives are up to their usual international hijinks as they hijack a commercial American jet, which they’ll kamikaze into a nuclear power plant near Washington, D.C. — all for the love of Mother Russia — resulting in a fallout that will devastate the Eastern seaboard. And while the Russians (posing as airplane cleaners; so much for the cogs n’ gears of The Patriot Act) go all kamikaze on our Yank asses, the U.S. Air Force — when we’re at Defcon 1 and need to flush the bombers — goes all Keystone Cops. Where’s General Jack Beringer to piss on a sparkplug (Again, cursed fan-clip embeds!) when we need ’em? Not here! For this is the Asylum-verse, kiddies.
But how is this possible? We’re the world’s foremost superpower! Well, it seems a computer virus locked down the U.S. military mainframe, disabling our ability to launch a counteroffensive, because well, you know, the voting machines hacking-scam became boring.
And who will save us? Why, the marquee named Bai Ling, as Dr. Meili Liu, of course!
Meanwhile, up the air, the crew and passengers of another flight (the new-to-the-screen DeAngelo Davis, Xavi Isreal, and Alyson Gorske; each holding their own with aplomb in their first starring roles), which took off from the same airport, chase down the Russian terrorists. Of course, those passengers have just enough military and civilian-professional training to make it all work. And beware of the free-falling beverage carts!
Yeah, this is a big, dumb, stupid retro-sky where the rules of aerodynamics and physics do not apply . . . and so were the blinded-by-science ’90s actioners this Pallatina-Heerman brouhaha pinches from, such as Die Hard 2 (1990), Speed (1994), Executive Decision (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), and Con Air (1997), and Fast Five (2011). In fact, if you change out the airliner, here, for a skyscraper, and cast the Dwayne Johnson, and have Universal throw in a $120-plus million, you’d have, well Skyscraper. Okay, actually the cheaper-but-fun knockoff Crystal Inferno, aka Inferno: Skyscraper Escape, but you git what we’re gittin’ at, right, Cletus?
The Abortionist *
Speaking of Dumplings: Bai Ling and Fruit Chan are back together — in a familiarly-themed film — in the 2019 Cantonese-Mardarin language drama, The Abortionist. Nominated in the “Leading Actress” and “Best Director” categories for this year’s Golden Horse Awards held in Taiwan (in November), Ling stars as a Tai chi teacher with a secret life as a black-market abortionist. You’ll remember Ling won dual “Best Supporting Actress” awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards for Dumplings, Chan’s segment of the Three Extremes omnibus, in 2004.
Hopefully, Ling and Chan will win in their respective categories, which will encourage an American distributor to release The Abortionist in the Western-domestic marketplace. At the very lest, we’ll hopefully be able to see The Abortionist on the free-with-ads stream Tubi TV platform, which afforded us the opportunity to discover and enjoy the recent Asian-imports Daughter and 0.0 MHz.
Argh! Bai Ling lost her leading actress nod to Chen Shu-fang in Little Big Women, while Fruit Chan lost his director’s nod to Chen Yu-hsun for My Missing Valentine. But we still have our fingers crossed The Abortionist will make it to American streaming shores.
You can watch Airliner Sky Battle as a PPV across various cable systems and stream it as a VOD on Amazon Prime and Microsoft, and as a stream or DVD rental from Red Box.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.
In order to keep space travelers safe and sane on long trips across the stars, a cutting-edge computer-brain interface must be created. Mike, the programmer, and Eric, a neurochemist, begin to work on the most sophisticated virtual reality system ever conceived.
However, they begin to argue about how to create that program and Mike’s muse gets trapped inside the program. Now, he must go through multiple infinite worlds to find her, places where reality does not always work. Can he bring reality back and save his world?
Made in Windsor, Ontario by Michael Stasko and Eric Schiller, who wrote, directed, produced and starred in this film, this is a meditation on the effects of manipulating reality. It’s definitely not a movie you can watch as background noise and must be paid attention to.
The budget is low while the concept is high. While it has a slow start, once those big ideas kick in, you’ll forgive its inexpensive origins and savor the big thinking. Or you’ll think it’s completely ridiculous claptrap. I belong to the former camp, but as I’ve known of films, your mileage may vary.
“Oh, come on, robot girl, embrace the technology.” — Lanie Burroughs being schooled on the fine art of vibrators
In our review of the radio comedy Loqueesha, we discussed the creative art of filmmaking and, as result of those artistic frustrations, the passion projects, aka vanity projects, developed by unknown, burgeoning actors as their calling card to the industry.
And as with Brit Marlingand Another Earth (2011) and Fay Ann Lee with Falling for Grace (2006) — and the recently reviewed The App by Elisa Fuksas, Bethany Brooke Anderson’s Burning Kentucky, The Girls of Summer by Tori Titmas, and Mindy Bledsoe’s The In-Between — before her, North Carolina-to-Los Angeles actress Allison Powell has spent most of her adult life in the world of community theater, following the star-embossed sidewalks of her adopted hometown. As she consistently scored roles in indie shorts and features she, as all working actors do, toiled on the audition circuit and hoped for that “big break” on a major film or TV series. (Been there, done that. And it ain’t an easy life, trust me.)
So Allison decided the time had come to “make it happen” and show ol’ Tinseltown she had the chops to make it in la-la land. So, working as her own producer, screenwriter, and director* — and inspired by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg — she decided to make a female-centric version of their 2007 hit, Superbad, only with a twist.
Instead of crossing a “chick flick” with an Apatow-raunch and giving us just another flick with women out prove the “weaker sex” can equal men in the lust and vulgarity, and sexual frankness and insecurity departments (Bridesmaids, Trainwreck, Bachelorette), Allison Powell aspired for something higher. She knew should could do better than just churn out a female-driven version of The Hangover. No, she wasn’t going to Bechdel test audiences into submission to notice her work.
Streamers evoke Booksmart — the directorial debut of The O.C actress Olivia Wilde — in their feedback on Banging Lanie. And the comparison makes sense, as those same streamers liken Wilde’s debut as a female-empowered Superbad (which also makes sense, as Beanie Feldstein, the lead in Booksmart, is the sister of Jonah Hill, who starred in Superbad).
But why must we, when discussing gender portrayals in film, critique a female-made film against another female-created film? Is not that, in fact, going against the grains of the inequality issues raised by the Bechdel test?
Allison Powell has certainly crafted a tarty-written film that is nasty and funny, but with warmth substituted for over the top, bawdy humor. So, as I watched Powell’s overly logical and socially-disconnected Lanie Burroughs take an MIT-Amy Farrah Fowler approach to the “societal tropes” of sex and dating — and unintentionally coming off as abrasive and rude to everyone around her in the process — I’m reminded of the misguided exploits of Enid, the graphic novel creation of Daniel Clowes in the pages of Ghost World, which Terry Zwigoff (Bad Santa) brought to the screen two decades earlier.
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries!
“Oh, no, no. Are you taking notes?” “Mm-mm, I need specific tips, area, pressure, style.” — Lanie Burroughs, the girl who leaves nothing to chance, not even vibrator usage
As with Feldstein’s Molly (from Booksmart), Amy Farrah Fowler, and Enid, Lanie is a virgin. She’s never been in love. Or had a crush. Or been kissed. Or had an awkward dance with a guy. Then, a guy — an Adonis with a brain — transfers to her sex education class. And, as with Allison Powell’s real life motto of “making it happen,” Lanie decides to get her head out of the books — somewhat — and develops a theory to quickly cram four years of high school romance before she graduates and heads off to college. And in her relentless pursuit to be in control of everything, she catalogs everything in a notebook. And her new boyfriend finds the notebook. And while Lanie may not be ready to write a sequel to David Reuben’s 1969 best-seller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), she’s finally learned the art of human connections — and that we are not just a bunch of lusting, biomechanical engines.
“When sexuality fails as a means of communication and provides only physical relief, then Eros is sick.” — Michelangelo Antonioni
From the “Film trivia that you won’t find on a Trivial Pursuit cardDepartment“: Lola Noh, Allison Powell’s producer on Banging Lanie, got her start in the business as an actress (as result of her gymnastics skills) portraying the lovable gorilla Amy in Congo. Hey, it’s all about the trivia and hyperlinks here at B&S About Movies.
* For other L.A.-transplanted actors working as their own producers, screenwriters and directors, please visit our recent reviews for the film-festival winners Cold Feet by Allen C. Gardner and Chris Levine’s No Way Out. For a couple of self-financed, indie writer-directors successfully taking on L.A. by way of the festival circuit, check out our reviews of The Invisible Mother and Shedding.
Disclaimer: We did not receive a review request from the film’s director, distributor, or P.R firm. We discovered the film on our own and truly enjoyed the movie.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publish music reviews and short stories on Medium.
“I’ll tell you man, people watch you like a hawk in this town.” “Really?” You think having a drunk sheriff daddy, a dead mama, and a junkie brother keeps my name out of people’s mouths?” — Wyatt West comes to grips with his reality
This effective indie-thriller by actress Bethany Brooke Anderson, in her feature film writing and directing debut, is now currently available as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi TV; it premiered on VOD platforms in February 2019.
Working with a cast of mostly Kentucky-based community theater actors, Anderson’s cast is lead by the familiar face of John Pyper-Ferguson, who we know from his leading roles on TV’s Suits, The Last Ship, and The 100, and his recurring guest roles on Burn Notice and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. You know his The Last Ship co-star Nathan Sutton from his recurring guest roles on TV’s Justified and Fear of the Walking Dead. Amid Andy Umberger’s 100-plus indie film and TV credits, you’ve seen him on 9-1-1, How to Get Away with Murder, NCIS: Los Angeles, and American Horror Story. And you’ve seen Nick McCallum on TV’s CSI: NY and Cold Case.
So, if you haven’t guessed: the acting here is top notch.
While on the film festival circuit, Burning Kentucky won “Best Feature” awards at the Chattanooga, Con Nooga, Garden State, and Mammoth Film Festivals, while cinematographer Matt Clegg won well-deserved nods for his exquisite cinematography. His extensive credits across 40-plus films are in the indie realms; hopefully, after his work here, we’ll see his resume expand into larger-budgeted features.
Yeah, if you haven’t guess: this film is a beauty to watch.
A solidly paced, unraveling film noir increasing its suspense as the screws turn deeper and deeper — with a heart and tone that reminds of Clint Eastwood’s 2003 masterpiece Mystic River — Burning Kentucky spins the tale of two families in the hills of Harlan County, Kentucky. The first family is an indigenous clan that still practices the craft of brewing moonshine and nourishing themselves off the land. The other’s patriarch (Pyper-Ferguson) is Harlan County’s alcoholic sheriff — and his sons (Nathan Sutton and Nick McCallum) are barely keeping it together themselves; his son Rule (Sutton) is a junkie and the town’s drug dealer. Rule’s girlfriend, Aria (Emilie Dhir, in her acting debut), is a drug-addicted, aspiring country singer.
As with most film noirs, the narrative here is non-linear, and with each flashback, we learn how the lives of these two resentful families are linked amid Aria’s insights and memories as she searches for the reasons behind her family’s death years earlier.
So what is more important? The love of family . . . or bloody revenge?
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
Disclaimer: We did not receive a review request for this film. We discovered it on our own and truly enjoyed the work.
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