I’m kind of liking this trend of Robert Eggers in putting out something spooky/creepy on Christmas. His latest film, Werwulf borrows about 80 percent of the main cast from his remake of Nosferatu. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, Ralph Ineson, and of course, Willem Dafoe are all on hand here. Even composer Robin Carolan and Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke are back. I’m curious to know what his take on werewolves are here. Will get something spectral, like Michael Wadleigh’s Wolfen or perhaps it’s a bit more personal, like Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man? Either way, we’ll find out this holiday season.
In honor of the man and his legacy, today’s scene that I love comes from 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts. The skeleton army was one of Harryhausen’s greatest creations.
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!
96 years ago today, Robert Evans was born in New York City. He started out working in his brother’s clothing business but a chance meeting with actress Norma Shearer led to him becoming an actor. And while Evans, by his own account, was not a particularly good actor, he did prove himself to be very skilled at playing the games of Hollywood. Evans eventually moved from acting to production, first as an executive at Paramount and then as an independent producer.
He lived a life as glamorous and tumultuous as the stars of his pictures and his memoir, The Kid Stays In The Picture, is considered to be one of the classic show biz autobiographies. He hung out with cinematic rebels like Jack Nicholson and Robert Towne and counted Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a friend. He suggested that Francis Ford Coppola should direct The Godfather and, when Paramount put pressure on Coppola to cut the film down to two hours, it was Evans who famously announced that a two-hour Godfather was nothing more than a trailer. He lost Ali MacGraw to Steve McQueen and, again by own account, he lost a lot of potentially productive years to cocaine. (The Cotton Club scandal is one of the wildest in the history of Hollywood, though it should be noted that Evans himself was never charged with any wrongdoing.) But, for all that he lost, Evans continues to gain admirers as being the epitome of the producer who was willing to take chances. For all of his flamboyance, Evans had an eye for good material and the willingness to protect his directors. In many ways, he was as important to the cinematic revolution of the 70s as the directors that he hired. When Evans passed away in 2019, it was truly the end of an era.
Here, in honor of the birth and legacy of Robert Evans, are 8 Shots from 8 Films that Evans produced, either as studio chief at Paramount or as an independent producer.
8 Shots From 8 Robert Evans Films
Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir by Romnn Polanski, DP: William A. Fraker)
Love Story (1970, dir by Arthur Hiller, DP: Richard Kratina)
The Godfather (1972, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, Cinematography by Gordon Willis)
Chinatown (1974, dir by Roman Polanski, DP: John A. Alonzo)
Marathon Man (1976, dir by John Schlesinger, DP: Conrad Hall)
The Cotton Club (1984, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Stephen Goldblatt)
The Two Jakes (1990, dir by Jack Nicholson, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)
Sliver (1993, dir by Phillip Noyce, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be ROLLING VENGEANCE!
If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Rolling Vengeance on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
Paradise City seems to be the Guns N’ Roses song that’s liked even by people who don’t like Guns N’ Roses.
Paradise City is a good song and a good video. The video keeps things effectively simple, with clips of the band performing the song at Giants Stadium mixed in with behind-the-scenes footage of the band. All of the members of the band look like they’re getting along and, at no point, do Slash and Axl look like they’re about to come to blows. It’s a look at Guns N’ Roses that definitely goes against their later reputation for intraband strife.
This is what I like to call a “They sure can play” video because the emphasis is on the band as professional musicians who know what they’re doing and who aren’t just spending all of their time doing drugs and entertaining groupies. I’m usually not a fan of these type of videos because they often feel phony but it works for Guns ‘N Roses because they really could play.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.
This week, the second season comes to an end.
Episode 2.22 “Tears Are Not Enough: Part Two”
(Dir by Philip Earnshaw, originally aired on February 23rd, 2003)
As would become a tradition on Degrassi, the season ends with a dance and a character having a breakdown.
In this case, the dance is Hawaiian-themed. And Craig is the one who has the breakdown, shortly after he and Ashley are named the King and Queen of Degrassi. When he thinks he spots his dead father in the back of the gym, Craig tries to talk to him. Unfortunately, the man turns out to just be a teacher and not the ghost of Craig’s abusive dad. Soon, Craig is ripping down streamers. Finally, Terri talks to Craig. She lost her mother so she understands what he’s going through. So, if nothing else, at least Terri finally got to do something this season.
Meanwhile, Spinner and Jimmy finally get over being mad at each other. They bond over getting defeated by Craig. Paige and Hazel are also dissappointed about not winning Queen of the Dance. The lesson here is that the sympathy vote rules and everyone felt sorry for Craig. Ashley was just along for the ride.
For a Degrassi season finale, this was something of a low-key affair. I get that the season began with Craig so it also had to end with him but it’s still hard not to feel a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. Craig spends this episode going from one extreme to another. First, he acts like he doesn’t care that his father is dead. Then, he starts to laugh like a maniac at his father’s funeral. And then he ends up begging a stranger for his approval. Jake Epstein got a chance to show off what a good actor he is but still, it didn’t reveal much that we didn’t already know about Craig. Fortunately, us Degrassi fans know what’s waiting for everyone during seasons 3 and 4. We’re about to start peak Degrassi!
I’m taking next week off for the 4th of July so we will start on season 3 of Degrassi on July 12th.
There’s a specific, almost mystical, pleasure in watching a movie that is, by almost every conventional standard, a complete mess. It’s a guilty pleasure, that sweet spot where a film is so unapologetically over-the-top, so earnestly ridiculous, that it circles back around to being utterly entertaining. And for my money, few films embody this “so bad it’s good” vibe quite like Steven Seagal’s 1990 action opus, Marked for Death. This is prime, uncut, vintage Seagal, a film that feels like it was beamed in from an alternate dimension where ponytails are a symbol of power, whispering threats is a sign of deep menace, and the streets of Chicago are apparently overrun with voodoo-practicing Jamaican drug lords. It’s silly, sure, but it’s a very specific kind of silly—grounded enough in its grim, urban revenge fantasy to feel almost earnest, which is precisely what makes it work. To put it in perspective, Marked for Death is downright restrained compared to the coked-out, reality-defying lunacy Seagal would unleash just a year later in Out for Justice. That film, with its infamous “anybody seen Richie?” barroom brawl and its general air of sweaty, unhinged mania, operates on a completely different, far more unhinged wavelength. Marked for Death still has one foot in the real world, however wobbly that stance may be, whereas Out for Justice seems to have been fueled by a warehouse full of stimulants and a complete disregard for narrative coherence.
For those who don’t remember the heyday of Seagal-mania, Marked for Death is a perfect time capsule. This was before the bloated, straight-to-DVD era; this was Seagal in his physical prime, slim, athletic, and seemingly capable of snapping every bone in a human body without breaking a sweat. He plays John Hatcher, a burnt-out DEA agent who, after a botched operation in Mexico, decides to retire and seek some peace and quiet by visiting his sister and niece in his old Chicago neighborhood. This is the first of the film’s many logical leaps, because apparently, a retired DEA agent’s idea of a stress-free vacation is moving back to the neighborhood where he grew up and where a violent turf war is raging. It’s a classic action movie setup that requires you to immediately check your brain at the door, but compared to the sheer narrative anarchy of Out for Justice, it practically feels like Shakespeare.
You see, the peace and quiet Hatcher seeks doesn’t exist. The town is being terrorized by a Jamaican drug posse led by the wonderfully named and gloriously performed villain, Screwface. Played with scenery-chewing, eye-rolling relish by Basil Wallace, Screwface is more than just a drug dealer; he’s a voodoo priest with a penchant for giving people a “t’ousand dets wurse dan yoo doo.” He’s a cartoon character in the best possible way, a man so over-the-top that his presence alone elevates the film from a standard revenge flick into something far more memorable. When he declares Hatcher and his family “marked for death,” you can’t help but lean in, not because you’re scared for the hero, but because you want to see what bizarre, hammy line he’s going to come up with next. It’s absurd, but it’s a controlled absurdity, a deliberate performance that knows exactly what movie it’s in. That’s the key difference between this and the later Seagal outings; Marked for Death plays its absurdity with a straight face, whereas Out for Justice feels like it’s sweating and twitching through every frame, as if the filmmakers themselves had just snorted a mountain of the very product their hero was supposedly fighting against.
The plot, such as it is, kicks into gear when a gang shootout at a local bar forces Hatcher into action, and the posse retaliates by shooting up his sister’s house and wounding his young niece. This is the moment where the film’s narrative pivots from “watch the hero mope” to “watch the hero mope and then absolutely obliterate everyone in his path.” The central premise, like many critics have noted, is as formulaic as they come: a former lawman with a troubled past is forced out of retirement to avenge his family using excessive force. One reviewer put it perfectly, noting the film follows the “familiar one-note, bone-crunching action vehicle for Steven Seagal.” And while that might sound like a criticism, in this context, it’s a promise of the guilty pleasures to come. But even within that formula, there’s a certain grim logic that holds it together—something you absolutely cannot say about the gloriously unhinged Out for Justice, where the plot seems to be held together with duct tape and pure, unfiltered rage.
What makes Marked for Death such a classic guilty pleasure is the sheer, unrelenting brutality of the action sequences. This is not the sanitized, quick-cut action of today. This is a film where every punch sounds like a gunshot and every bone snapped echoes with a sickening, satisfying crunch. Director Dwight D. Little, who later went on to direct TV episodes for shows like Prison Break and Bones, stages the action with a “tight handling,” making sure the camera is right there to capture Seagal’s trademark Aikido. The violence is so extreme that it becomes comical. We’re talking broken arms, broken necks, gouged eyes, a decapitation, and a finale so over-the-top that it involves Seagal using a samurai sword to fight his way through a compound. Yet even with all that mayhem, it never quite reaches the hallucinatory, sweaty-palmed frenzy of Out for Justice, where the violence feels less choreographed and more like a bar brawl that somehow escaped onto film stock.
There are moments in Marked for Death that are so ridiculous they deserve their own standing ovation. There’s the infamous department store fight, where Hatcher dismantles a small army of henchmen while surrounded by mannequins and glass displays. It’s a perfect showcase for Seagal’s skills as a fighter and a complete lack of interest in things like, say, civilian casualties or property damage. Then there’s the entire third act, where Hatcher and his buddy Max (played with stoic reliability by the great Keith David), somehow manage to smuggle an entire arsenal of weapons into Jamaica for a final assault on Screwface’s compound. The logic of this is never explained, but it doesn’t matter. We’re given a montage of them prepping their weapons, and the next thing you know, they’re on a plane. It’s this kind of brazen disregard for realism that makes the film such a hoot, but again, it’s a calculated hoot. The cocaine-fueled silliness of Out for Justice would never bother with such a montage—it would just have Seagal appear in Jamaica with a shotgun, no explanation given, because who needs logic when you have that much manic energy coursing through the projector?
Perhaps the most surprising element is that despite the malevolent tone, the film has become a beloved “cult classic” for many. As one reviewer from the time stated, “it’s easy to see how someone could end up not liking Marked for Death. Its plot is ridiculous, it was overly violent for its time period… On the other hand, this is a film that doesn’t seem to care what you think and instead gleefully exist as a throwback to old-school Grindhouse films.” There’s a sense that Seagal and the filmmakers were in on the joke, even if they were playing it completely straight. The film is excessive, ruthless, and mindlessly numbing in all the right ways, a sentiment that perfectly encapsulates its enduring appeal. It’s the cinematic equivalent of comfort food—you know it’s bad for you, but it tastes so good. And it tastes a whole lot more grounded than the chaotic, unfiltered blast of pure id that is Out for Justice, a film that feels like it was edited by a hyperactive squirrel on a sugar rush.
Marked for Death isn’t a great film by any objective measure. The acting is wooden, the dialogue is laughable, and the cultural stereotypes are, to put it mildly, a product of their time. The Miami Herald even noted that Seagal dispatches his foes with “such an obnoxious sense of higher purpose that we get the feeling he’s not in on the fun.” The film’s portrayal of Jamaican culture as a hotbed of violent, voodoo-worshipping drug dealers is certainly problematic and not something that would fly today, which adds to the movie’s bizarre, anachronistic charm. It’s a film that, while considered one of his better works from that era, is far from what you’d call high art. But it knows its lane and stays in it, which is more than you can say for the gloriously unhinged Out for Justice, a movie that seems to have forgotten what lane it was in, swerved into oncoming traffic, and somehow kept driving anyway.
In the end, Marked for Death is the ultimate “bad movie night” experience. It’s a window into a time when action heroes were larger than life, plots were just excuses for mayhem, and a villain named Screwface could be a legitimate threat. It’s a film where you can quote terrible dialogue and cheer for the excessive violence without feeling guilty, because it’s all part of the deal. As one IMDb user succinctly put it, “Marked for Death is a thoroughly entertaining overblown unnecessarily violent & foul mouthed action film, the sort of film which Seagal was perfectly suited to star in. Sure it’s predictable & unoriginal but when a films this much fun who cares?” And honestly, isn’t that the highest praise you can give a movie like this? It’s a big, dumb, brutal, and brilliant piece of schlock that proudly wears its awfulness as a badge of honor. It’s silly, absolutely, but it’s a grounded, almost respectable kind of silly—the kind that makes you appreciate just how far off the deep end Seagal would go with Out for Justice, a film so wildly, unapologetically unhinged that it makes Marked for Death look like a quiet, contemplative drama by comparison.
Through the Shattered Lens 