Today is the 51st anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking the first steps of any human being on the Moon. Between 1969 and 1972, 11 more men would walk across the Moon. As of today, only four of them — Charles Duke, Buzz Aldrin, David Scott, and Harrison Schmitt — are still alive. The final manned mission to the Moon was in 1972. No one has stepped foot upon it since.
No one has been to the Moon in my lifetime and it’s sad to think that someday, there won’t be anyone left who has experienced walking on the lunar surface. We spent years trying to get to the Moon and now, we just take it for granted. We don’t appreciate the enormous risks that men like Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins took during the first moon landing. Today, would we even be able to pull off something like a moon landing or would we be too busy arguing with each other to care about anything beyond our own petty disagreements?
As a photographer, the Moon is one of my favorite subjects. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to take a good picture of the Moon. Every time that we’ve had a Super Moon or a Blood Moon, I’ve stood outside in our back yard with my camera and I’ve taken a lot of blurry pictures. In most of them, the Moon just looks like any other distant star in the night sky.
However, sometimes, I get lucky. Of all the pictures that I’ve ever taken of the moon, these four are my favorites:
Happy Moon Day from Through the Shattered Lens! My hope is that you’ll use his day to not only celebrate the first walk across the Moon but also the ambition and the imagination that made it all possible in the first place.
The best thing about this week? On Saturday, as the host of the week’s #ScarySocial live tweet, I got to introduce a whole new group of people — including four of my colleagues here at the Shattered Lens — to Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead! Leonard, Jeff, Case, and Patrick joined me and a few others in watching Fulci’s classic zombie film. Here’s just some of their opinions about the film:
That was odd and disturbing and made me glad that I no longer live up north. #ScarySocial
— Jeff, who is not Joseph Cotten (@JedadiahLeland) July 19, 2020
That was really good. I’m creeped out again. #ScarySocial
#ScarySocial is a weekly event. Basically, every Saturday at 9pm eastern, we watch and live tweet a movie. I’m one of three hosts, along with Tim Buntley and Deanna Dawn. It’s a lot of fun and next week, we’ll be watching the 1986 film, House. So, if you’ve got the time and you want to watch a horror movie with a good group of people, check out our twitter account for more details!
Here’s what else I did this week. To be honest, I probably did more shopping this week than I should have but we all deal with stress of modern life in our own way, right?
Jake (Dan Haggerty) is a former Marine and sock car racer from Minnesota who comes out to Los Angeles in search of a new beginning. A fan of John Wayne, the laid back Jake always tries to do the right thing. His first day in L.A., he thwarts a purse snatching and gets a girlfriend named Jenny (Dana Bentley). He also gets a job as a repo man. He repossesses cars from people who aren’t paying their bills and he always does it with a polite smile on his face. He’s the nicest repo man around but that doesn’t keep him from getting on the wrong side of some of the people he meets. When he repossesses the car of a local pornographer, the mob demands that Jake take part in an illegal demolition derby. If he wins, he’ll live. If he loses, both he and everyone who matters to him will die.
Haggerty’s genial presence is the best thing about Repo Jake, a low-budget movie that would probably be unwatchable without him. Haggerty’s so likable that he makes scenes work even when they shouldn’t. My favorite moment was when he walked in on a sleazy photographer trying to manipulate a model into posing topless. “I’m here to repossess your car and I’m pissed off,” Jake politely says before knocking the photographer across the room. If you didn’t know who Dan Haggerty was, you might think that the producers just grabbed a real repo man off the streets and made him the star of their movie. With his big beard and his mellow vibes, Haggerty was a legitimate Hollywood character. Though he found fame playing Grizzly Adams on television, he was arrested in 1984 for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer and his career never really recovered. Haggerty went from being a TV star to appearing in movies like Repo Jake.
The plot of Repo Jake is pretty dumb and nearly impossible to follow. It never makes sense that Jake would be forced to take part in the demolition derby. Actually, nothing about the movie makes sense but a lot of cars get wrecked, a helicopter gets repossessed, and Dan Haggerty knocks a purse snatcher through a store window and it’s all so stupid and Jake’s so friendly that the end result is actually pretty cool. Repo Jake is saved by the sheer likability of Dan Haggerty. It’s hardly a good movie but, at the same time, it’s not a terrible way to spend 90 minutes of your life.
Today’s song of the day comes from The Legend of 1900, a 1998 film that probably deserves to be a bit better known than it is. The film’s score was composed by the great Ennio Morricone. Today’s song from Morricone is The Legend of the Pianist.
After you watched Carlito’s Way, you may have asked yourself, “Gee, I wonder how Carlito came to power in the first place? I wonder what he was like when he was young….”
Now, keep in mind, you may have asked yourself that. I did not ask myself that. To be honest, I didn’t really care. Carlito’s Way pretty much told me everything that I needed to know about Carlito’s past. Just the fact that people on the street respected him as soon as he got out of prison and that everyone was trying to get him to restart his life of crime told me that Carlito was obviously a big deal in the past. So, I didn’t really need a prequel.
But, obviously, the people behind the 2005 film, Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power, disagreed. I guess I can understand their logic. When you’ve got a hit film, it’s only natural to try to do a follow-up. And when the first film ends with the main character dying, you really don’t have much choice but to do a prequel. And let’s give credit where credit is due. Long before the movies were made, Carlito Brigante was the main character of two novels written by Edwin Torres. Carlito’s Way: Rise To Power is based on the first of those novels and Torres reportedly said that he appreciated that the prequel stuck close to what he had written. So, it’s not like they just made up this film’s plot out of thin air.
That said, it’s still not a very good film. It takes place in the 60s, with young Carlito (Jay Hernandez) working his way up the ladder in New York’s drug chain. His partners, who he met in jail, are Earl (Mario Van Peebles) and Rocco (Michael Kelly). When they’re release from jail, they find themselves in the middle of drug war between Hollywood Nicky (Sean Combs) and the Bottolota Family, led by Artie (Burt Young). The three friends play the two sides against each other while also dealing with all of the usual betrayals and random violence that one normally expects to find in a movie like this. Luis Guzman shows up, playing a coke-snorting hitman named Nacho. It’s a bit disconcerting since Guzman played a different character in Carlito’s Way but it’s still always good to see Luis Guzman.
Anyway, the main problem with Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power can be seen in the casting of the main characters. Carlito’s Way had Al Pacino, Sean Penn, and John Leguizamo. Rise To Power has Jay Hernandez and Mario Van Peebles. Whatever gritty authenticity the film may be aiming for vanishes as soon as Mario Van Peebles looks straight at camera and smiles at his reflection. As for Jay Hernandez, he’s a likable actor but he’s the exact opposite of intimidating. You’d probably say yes if he asked you to prom but he does’t exactly come across like someone who could take over the New York drug racket. When Sean Combs is the most dangerous person in your movie, you’re looking at trouble.
Director Michael Bregman attempts to imitate a bit of Brian De Palma’s style from the first film and Jay Hernandez does his best to sound Pacino-like in his voice-over narration but the end result is flat and predictable. This is an offer that you can refuse.
Terrorists have taken over the local power and water plant and are threatening to poison the water supply if their demands are not meant. Among those that they are holding hostage is a group of college students who were on what would have otherwise been the most boring field trip of their lives. While Colonel Gentry (Robert Forster) tries to negotiate with the terrorists, one college student, Lenny Slater (Corey Haim), takes matters into his own deadly hands. Lenny also finds time to ask track star Jenny (Ami Dolenz) to go to the homecoming dance with him.
How many times can the exact same thing happen to the same person? That’s what you might expect Lenny Slater to ask as he finds himself sneaking around and taking out terrorists one-by-one. Demolition University is a sequel to Demolition High, with Lenny Slater now in college and a member of the school’s football team. What’s strange is that, even though Haim is playing the same character from the first film, no one mentions the events of Demolition High. No one mentions that Lenny not only blew up his old school but he saved the entire midwest from being bombed into a nuclear ash heap. When Lenny tries to tell Prof. Harris (Laraine Newman!) that it’s obvious that terrorists have taken over the power plant, she ignores him because he has a history of playing pranks. But he also has a history of tracking down and killing terrorists! I would listen to him.
Demolition High wasn’t good but it was watchable. Demolition University is just dull. Haim actually gives a better performance here than he did in the first film, if just because it’s easier to buy him as a college student instead of as a high school student. But he’s actually barely in the film. Most of the running time is taken up with Robert Forster trying to negotiate with the leader of the terrorists. That’s kind of cool because Robert Forster was the man but the movie still seems like what Die Hard would have been if it had just been two hours of Paul Gleason standing outside the tower while Bruce Willis killed people offscreen. Even when we do get Lenny fighting the the terrorists, the action scenes feel flat and interchangeable. There’s nothing to really distinguish them from every other 90s action film that you’ve ever seen.
Demolition University has higher production values than Demolition High and it actually looks like a real movie but it’s just not much fun. I’m not surprised that there was never a Demolition Grad School.
Through the Shattered Lens 