Yearly Archives: 2022

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Marilyn Monroe Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Marilyn Monroe would have been 96 years old today.  Sixty years after her mysterious death, Marilyn Monroe continues to intrigue film lovers and conspiracy theorists alike.  Her legacy is such that, ever since her death, directors have been trying to recreate her life with biopics and actresses have been trying to recapture Marilyn’s magic.  The latest to try will be Andrew Dominick and Ana de Armas with Blonde later this year.

While I wish them luck, Marilyn Monroe was an original and not someone whose talent and charisma can be easily duplicated.  Needless to say, it’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Marilyn Monroe Films

All About Eve (1950, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Milton R. Krassner)

Niagara (1953, dir by Henry Hathaway, DP: Joseph MacDonald)

Some Like It Hot (1959, dir by Billy Wilder, DP: Charles Lang)

The Misfits (1961, dir by John Huston, DP: Russell Metty)

A Blast From The Past: How Do You Know It’s Love (dir by Ted Peshak)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jack: “I love you.  Do you love me?”

Nora: “I’ll have to think about it.”

OUCH!  That had to hurt, though I’m totally on Nora’s side here.  Jack is coming on way too strong.  I mean, they were having a perfectly pleasant time and then suddenly Jack has to bring “love” into it all.  They’ve only been dating a few weeks!

Jack and Nora are the two “teenagers” at the heart of How Do You Know It’s Love?, an educational film from 1950.  After Nora’s mother informs her that she’s too young and immature to understand anything about love and after Jack’s brother taunts him for falling in love with a new girl every week, Jack and Nora decide to go on a double date so that they can see what mature love is all about.  The main message of the film is that one shouldn’t mistake attraction for love and that teenagers should date a lot of people before settling down.  It’s not a bad message but it’s one that will probably be missed by many viewers due to the fact that Jack and Nora are both kind of goofy.

Believe it or not, this film was not directed by Herk Harvey.  Instead, this one of the 33 educational films that former journalist Ted Peshak directed in the 1950s for Coronet films.  Though Peshak made a lot of films for Coronet, he was never paid more than $190 a week and, perhaps understandably, he abandoned the educational film game in the 60s and instead went to work in real estate.  I don’t blame him.

Anyway, here’s the film.  Watch and ask yourself the big questions.

AMV of the Day: Clint Eastwood (Soul Eater)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, it is Clint Eastwood’s birthday after all.

Anime: Soul Eater

Song: Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz

Creator: Ignis andVengeance (as always, please consider subscribing to this creator’s YouTube channel)

Past AMVs of the Day

Lisa Marie’s Way Too Early Oscar Predictions for May

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s that time of the month again!

It’s time for me to once again try to predict what will be nominated for the Oscars.  If you had to told me, at this time last year, that Top Gun: Maverick would emerge as an Oscar contender, I would have said that you were crazy but here we are.  Admittedly, it is early in the year and I think there’s always going to be some ambivalence towards honoring Tom Cruise.  (You just know that someone is having nightmares about him thanking David Miscavige in his Oscar speech.)  But with the reviews and the box office success that Top Gun: Maverick is getting, it would be a mistake to dismiss it.  After all, Mad Max: Fury Road came out around this same time of year in 2015.  As well, one can be sure that A24 will be giving Everything Everywhere All At Once a heavy awards push as well.  This could very well be the year of the genre blockbuster as far as the Oscars are concerned.

As for Cannes, it’s come and gone.  George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing got some good reviews, even if those reviews didn’t translate into awards at the end of the Festival.  David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future sounds like it’s going to be too divisive for the Academy and really, the thought of Cronenberg winning an Oscar has always been a bit implausible, regardless of how much he may or may not deserve one.  As for James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Gray has always been more popular with critics than with audiences or Academy voters.  If Gray couldn’t break through with something like The Lost City of Z, I doubt he’s going to do so with an autobiographical film about his life in private school.  Steven Spielberg already has the autobiography slot wrapped up with The Fabelmans. 

Of course, there’s still many films left to see and many more film festivals to be held.  Let us not forget that Martin Scorsese is bringing us Killers of the Flower Moon.  Personally, I’m looking forward to Damien Chazelle’s Babylon.  In short, nothing has been settled yet.  For all the acclaim that Top Gun and Everything are getting, who knows how the race is going to look at the start of the Fall season?

Anyway, here are my predictions for May.  Be sure to check out my predictions for February and March and April as well!

Best Picture

Amsterdam

Babylon

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

I Want To Dance With Somebody

Killers of the Flower Moon

Next Goal Wins

Rustin

She Said

Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director

Damien Chazelle for Babylon

Kasi Lemmons for I Want To Dance With Somebody

Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans

Taika Waititi for Next Goal Wins

Best Actor

Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick

Colman Domingo in Rustin

Idris Elba in Three Thousand Years of Longing

Brendan Fraser in The Whale

Brad Pitt in Babylon

Best Actress

Naomi Ackie in I Want To Dance With Somebody

Cate Blanchett in Tar

Margot Robie in Babylon

Tilda Swinton in Three Thousand Years of Longing

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Supporting Actor

John Boyega in The Woman King

Leonardo DiCaprio in Flowers of the Killer Moon

Tom Hanks in Elvis

David Lynch in The Fabelmans

Tobey Maguire in Babylon

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley in Women Talking

Tantoo Cardinal in Flowers of the Killer Moon

Li Jun Li in Babylon

Samantha Morton in She Said

Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans

Crypto is Back in Destroy All Humans! 2 — Reprobed!

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

From the minute that I first played the remake of Destroy All Humans, I’ve been waiting and hoping for the reboot of Destroy All Humans 2 and my hopes have finally been answered.  THQ Nordic dropped the trailer for Destroy All Humans 2 — Reprobed today.  The trailer not only gave us a release date (August 30th) but it also provided us with some incredible footage from the game.

This looks great!  I can’t wait until August!

Liberty & Bash (1989, directed by Myrl A. Schreibman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Liberty (Miles “How much Keeffe is in this film?” O’Keeffe) and Bash (Lou Ferrigno) served together in Nam and then came back to Los Angeles to clean up the streets.  Liberty is a parole officer who doesn’t take no for an answer.  Bash owns a gym and runs a Guardian Angels type of operation.  Their friend and fellow vet, Jesse (Richard Eden), has a mullet and wears acid-washed mom jeans.  Jesse lives with his sister, Melissa (Cheryl Paris), who never wears pants.  When Jesse is murdered by a drug lord who spends almost all of his time soaking in the tub, Liberty and Bash eventually get around to seeking revenge.

The movie is called Liberty & Bash but Bash is actually only in a few minutes of the movie and Lou Ferrigno’s voice is dubbed by another actor.  This was probably done because Ferrigno is partially deaf and, as a hard-of-hearing person who happens to be a big Lou Ferrigno fan, that really bothered me.  Of the many storylines that floated through Liberty & Bash, Lou Ferrigno leading a Guardian Angels chapter was probably the one with the most potential but Liberty & Bash doesn’t do much with that.  When Bash wasn’t around, the other characters should have been saying, “Hey, where’s Bash?”

Instead, the movie is all about Liberty.  Even though Liberty is trying to bring the drug lord to justice and prove that Jesse didn’t commit suicide, the majority of the film is taken up with scenes of Liberty arguing with his girlfriend, a social worker named Sarah (Mitzi Kapture).  Sarah is pregnant but she’s considering getting an abortion.  Liberty spends almost the entire movie trying to talk her out of getting an abortion.  Sarah and Liberty even argue about it during the film’s climatic action scene.  I’m not kidding.  This is the first action film that I’ve ever seen where the action was regularly interrupted by the abortion debate.  The movie is obviously on Liberty’s side but Liberty is so obnoxious about it that the audience will be on Sarah’s side.  Sarah can’t make up her mind until one of the bad guys points a gun at her belly and she says, “My baby!”  

It’s a weird movie and doesn’t add up to the much.  If not for a little profanity and some brief nudity, Liberty & Bash could have passed as the pilot for syndicated, Stephen J. Cannell cop show.  Mr. B (Charles Dierkop) is Los Angeles’s least intimidating drug lord.  Mitzi Kapture is sexy, elegant, and displays the patience of a saint as Sarah.  Miles O’Keeffe is usually the coolest cat this side of Michael Pare but in this movie, he’s surly and won’t stop yelling at his girlfriend. Cheryl Paris spends almost the entire movie in her underwear, showing that the filmmakers at least knew who their target audience was.  Those who like to keep an eye out for mullets and off-the-shoulder t-shirts will find the film to be a feast.  The movie had miles of Keeffe but it needed more Bash.