4 Shots From 4 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.
I’m just barely getting this in under the wire, but I wanted to celebrate Eddie Murphy’s 64th birthday on April 3rd with a few images from some of his best performances. He is a truly talented actor and comedian, and I’ve pretty much loved him my entire life. Thanks for all the great memories, Eddie, and I’m looking forward to many more!
The Rangers finally got a day off from playing today. Personally, I think they more than earned it. Yesterday, they won their second series of the regular season, defeating the Reds with a score of 1-0. Two weeks into the regular season and my team is 5-2 and at the top of AL West. That’s what I love to see!
Tomorrow, they play the Rays. For now, here’s the highlights of yesterday’s game!
Since today is Marlon Brando’s birthday, it only seems appropriate that today’s song of the day should come from the soundtrack of one of his films. (I’ll also be watching this film later tonight.)
From 1979’s Apocalypse Now, here is the haunting music that plays as Willard and the boat approach the infamous bridge that is built every day so that it can be destroyed every night.
Rio (Marlon Brando), a young outlaw in the Old West, is betrayed by his partner and mentor Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) and ends up spending five years in a Mexican prison. When Rio escapes, he gets together a new gang and heads for Monterey, California. He wants to both get his revenge on Longworth and also rob the local bank. Things get complicated when Rio actually confronts Longworth and suddenly realizes that he can’t bring himself just to gun the man down in cold blood. Rio is not as ruthless of an outlaw as he thought he was.
However, Rio then meets and falls in love with Louisa (Pina Pellicer), Longworth’s stepdaughter Longworth is willing to do whatever he has to keep Rio away from Louisa and, when Rio starts to think about going straight in an effort to win Louisa’s love, his new gang turn out to be even less trustworthy than his old partners.
A teenage rebellion film disguised as a western (and it’s not a coincidence that the main bad guy is named Dad), One-Eyed Jacks was Marlon Brando’s only film as a director. The film was originally meant to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, who was working from a script written by a once-in-a-lifetime combination of Rod Serling and Sam Peckinpah. Kubrick and Brando worked together to develop the film, with Brando insisting on Karl Malden as Dad. (Kubrick wanted to cast Spencer Tracy.) Ultimately realizing that working on One-Eyed Jacks would mean essentially taking orders from his star, Kubrick stepped down from directing so he could focus on Lolita and Brando took over as director. The film finally went into production in 1958 and would not be released until 1961. Brando’s perfectionism was blamed for the film going massively overbudget and, when it was finally released, One-Eyed Jacks was the first of Brando’s films to lose money. The combined box office failures of One-Eyed Jacks and the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty left Brando in the cinematic wilderness for much of the 60s.
As for the film itself, One-Eyed Jacks takes what should have been a simple story and attempts to turn into an epic. Rio spends a good deal of time brooding and the film seems to brood right along with him. What starts out as a western becomes a forbidden love story as Rio and Louisa fall for each other. Dad Longworth may be an outlaw-turned-sheriff but Malden plays him more as a possessive father who can’t handle that his two stepchildren — Rio and Louisa — are both turning against him and his strict rules. Brando obviously viewed the film as being something bigger than a standard western. Sometimes, his direction works and he does manage to get the epic feel that he was going for. Other times, the film itself seems to be unsure what direction it wants to go in telling its story. This is method directing.
Ultimately, One-Eyed Jacks is an interesting experiment, one that doesn’t really work but which still features Charles Lang’s outstanding cinematography and one of Karl Malden’s best performances. As Brando’s only directorial effort, the film is a curiosity piece, one that will be best enjoyed by western fans who have the patience for something a little different. And, for what it’s worth, based on the film’s visual beauty and the performances that he gets from the cat, I think Brando could have developed into a fine director with a little more experience. However, it was not to be.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Yes, this is from the first season. I don’t care. I refuse to waste my time looking for a second season advertisement.
This week, Jason ruins his life. Or at least, that’s what I assume happened.
Episode 2.7 “The Long Goodbye”
(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on November 20th, 1999)
Here’s the plot of this week’s episode, according to the imdb:
After a successful audition before Alex’s uncle the producer, Jason gets the go-ahead to make a demo recording. He’s surprised to see that the producer sent to work with him is a woman: a young, attractive one. Jason works with Kendall and there seems to be a spark between them. Stads calls from Europe. Jason tells her about the demo but not that the producer is female.
Wow, that sounds great! (If you’re detecting heavy sarcasm, you are indeed a perceptive reader.) Too bad this episode is one of the ones that has not been uploaded to YouTube. Or actually, maybe it’s not that bad that I have an excuse not watch it. I’ve never bought into the whole idea of Jason being this massively talented singer and songwriter. According to Wikipedia, this episode was the last appearance as Stads so I’m going to guess that Jason not mentioning his producer being female led to a break-up. Oh well!
Consider this a placeholder. If this episode ever is uploaded, I’ll review it.
In 1990, Marlon Brando received his final Academy Award nomination when he was nominated for his supporting performance in 1989’s A Dry White Season.
Brando played Ian McKenzie, a human rights lawyer who lives and work in South Africa at the height of the Apartheid regime. When we first see McKenzie, he’s sitting in his office and complaining about how all the flowers surrounding him have given him a permanent allergy. When Ben Du Toit (Donald Sutherland) explains that he’s trying to learn the truth about why his gardener and his gardener’s son both died in the custody of South Africa’s “special branch,” McKenzie replies that bringing the case would be a waste of time. McKenzie makes several dismissive comments about the case and tells Du Toit that pursing the matter would lead to Du Toit becoming a pariah himself. Only when Du Toit says that he’ll just find another lawyer to pursue the manner does McKenzie agree to take the case. His comments may have seemed callous but they were McKenzie’s way of testing Du Toit’s commitment to actually getting to the truth.
Up until the death of his gardener, Ben Du Toit was someone who blindly believed in the system. A former rugby star and a teacher, Ben grew up in South Africa and is proud to call himself a “true African.” (In one of the film’s best scenes, Ben’s driver, Stanley — played by Zakes Mokae, — informs Ben that being an African in South Africa means not being allowed to vote and having to carry identification papers everywhere with him.) When the gardener’s son is first arrested, Ben repeatedly says, “He must have done something.” When Ben’s gardener is arrested, Ben believes that it’s all just a terrible mistake and that he’ll be released soon. Even after the gardener is killed, Ben initially believes the official story that the death was a suicide. It’s only after Stanley takes Ben to the funeral home and shows him the gardener’s tortured body that Ben finally comes to realize that he was tortured to death by Captain Stolz (Jurgen Prochow).
Still, Ben is naive enough to assume that McKenzie will be able to get some sort of justice. In court, McKenzie easily exposes the flaws in Stolz’s story. When Stolz claims that the dead man’s injuries were the result of the man throwing himself against the bars of his cell, McKenzie mentions that the man’s back was injured and then asks if he was throwing himself backwards. Stolz smirks and says that the man was “an animal.” McKenzie may be a brilliant lawyer but it’s a foregone conclusion that he’s going to lose the case. Stolz is exonerated and the expression on McKenzie’s face is one that indicate that he is not surprised at all.
It’s a small role. Brando gets less than ten minutes of screentime but he makes perfect use of them and shows that, even in the latter half of his career, Brando could still give a good performance when he cared about the material. Both Brando and Susan Sarandon took small roles in this anti-Apartheid drama because they believed in the message. Sarandon’s casting is a bit distracting. She never becomes the journalist she’s playing, instead she just seems like a movie star lending her name to a cause that she believes in. But Brando becomes Ian McKenzie and he expertly reveals the absurd lengths to which the Apartheid government will go to excuse its actions.
The majority of the film deals with Ben Du Toit and his slow-awakening about the truth of the country that he calls home. Upon realizing the truth about the country’s government and its actions, Du Toit declares that he can no longer go back to being who he once was and it costs him his family, his home, and ultimately his life. Donald Sutherland does a wonderful job, portraying Du Toit’s growing understanding of what’s actually happening in South Africa. Wisely, the film doesn’t portray Du Toit as being a saint. It fully understands that Du Toit only started to care about Apartheid when it effected somebody that he knew and fortunately, Stanley is always there to call Du Toit out whenever he starts to forget about his own role in supporting the system that he now opposes. It’s a powerful and heartfelt film, one that is well-known for Brando’s performance but works just as well when Brando is off-screen as well.
M3GAN in 2022 was a surprise hit that no one saw coming. What would’ve been a a nice little horror film from Blumhouse that would’ve come and gone with little fanfare suddenly became a major hit due to the viral marketing of the titular character’s dancing shown in the initial trailer becoming a huge internet meme.
Now we are back with the sequel (I don’t think anyone was surprised that Blumhouse quickly greenlit a follow-up) and it looks like the original team of director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper are back to headline M3GAN 2.0.
The sequel looks to be bigger and a bit more ambitious with more than just a bit of a Terminator 2 vibe with the title character looking to be more of the savior and not just an overprotective killing AI doll.
Will M3GAN 2.0 be able to replicate the viral success of the first film? We shall find out on June 27, 2025.
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!
101 years ago, on this date, Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska. One of the greatest of American actors and one of the main reasons why so many young actors became enamored with the Method, Marlon Brando played many roles in our culture. When he was young, he was a Broadway bad boy. When he went out to Hollywood, he became a legitimate movie star. In the 60s, he was a cautionary tale as his career suffered a series of notorious flops. In the 70s, he made a comeback and, in during the final years of his career, he was as known for his eccentricities as for his talent. It’s a shame that those eccentricities overshadowed Brando as an actor. When he wanted to be, he was one of the best to ever appear on stage or in the movies.
In honor of the wonderful, tragic, and talented Marlon Brando, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Marlon Brando Films
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, dir by Elia Kazan, DP: Harry Stradling)
On The Waterfront (1954, dir by Elia Kazan, DP: Boris Kaufman)
The Godfather (1972, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Gordon Willis)
Apocalypse Now (1979, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Vittorio Storaro)
1970’s The Andersonville Trial takes place in one muggy military court room. The year is 1865. The Civil War is over but the wounds of the conflict are still fresh. Many of the leaders of the Confederacy are still fugitives. Abraham Lincoln has been dead for only a month. The people want someone to pay and it appears that person might be Captain Henry Wirz (Richard Basehart).
Originally born in Switzerland and forced to flee Europe after being convicted of embezzlement, Henry Wirz eventually ended up in Kentucky. He served in the Confederate Army and was eventually named the commandant of Camp Sumter, a prison camp located near Andersonville, Georgia. After the war, Captain Wirz is indicted for war crimes connected to his treatment of the Union prisoners at the camp. Wirz and his defense counsel, Otis Baker (Jack Cassidy), argue that the prison soon became overcrowded due to the war and that Wirz treated the prisoners as well as he could considering that he had limited resoruces. Wirz points out that his requests for much-needed supplies were denied by his superiors. Prosecutor Norton Chipman (William Shatner) argues that Wirz purposefully neglected the prisoners and their needs and that Wirz is personally responsible for every death that occurred under his watch. The trial is overseen by Maj. General Lew Wallace (Cameron Mitchell), the same Lew Wallace who would later write Ben-Hurand who reportedly offered a pardon to Billy the Kid shortly before the latter’s death. Wallace attempts to give Wirz a fair trial, even allowing Wirz to spend the trial reclining on a couch due to a case of gangrene. (Agck! The 19th century was a scary time!)
The Andersonville Trial started life as a 1959 Broadway production. On stage, George C. Scott played Chipman, an experience he described as difficult because, even though Chipman was nominally the play’s hero, Wirz was actually a much more sympathetic character. When the play was adapted for television in 1970, Scott returned to direct. Admittedly, the television version is very stagey. Scott doesn’t make much effort to open up the play. Almost all of the action is confined to that courtroom. We learn about the conditions at Fort Sumter in the same way that the judges learned about the conditions. We listen as the witnesses testify. We listen as a doctor played by Buddy Ebsen talks about the deplorable conditions at Fort Sumter. We also listen as a soldier played by Martin Sheen reports that Wirz has previously attempted to suicide and we’re left to wonder if it was due to guilt or fear of the public execution that would follow a guilty verdict. We watch as Chipman and Baker throw themselves into the trial, two attorneys who both believe that they are correct. And we watch as Wirz finally testifies and the play hits its unexpected emotional high point.
As most filmed plays do, The Andersonville Trial demands a bit of patience on the part of the viewer. It’s important to actually focus on not only what people are saying but also how they’re saying it. Fortunately, Scott gets wonderful performances from his ensemble cast. Even William Shatner’s overdramatic tendencies are put to good use. Chipman is outraged but the play asks if Chipman is angry with the right person. With many of the Confederacy’s leaders in Canada and Europe, Wirz finds himself standing in for all of them and facing a nation that wants vengeance for the death of their president. Wirz claims and his defense attorney argues that Wirz was ultimately just a soldier who followed orders, which is what soldiers are continually told to do. The Andersonville Trial considers when military discipline must be set aside to do what is morally right.
Admittedly, when it comes to The Andersonville Trial, it helps to not only like courtroom dramas but to also be a bit of a history nerd as well. Fortunately, both of those are true of me. I found The Andersonville Trial to be a fascinating story and a worthy production.
Through the Shattered Lens 