Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

The Toronto Film Critics Association Honors Nomadland

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

They love Nomadland, even in Canada!

The Toronto Film Critics Association announced their picks for the best of 2020 yesterday and Noamdland picked up another best picture prize.  Chloe Zhao and Frances McDormand were also, once again, honored.  Daniel Kaluuya, who has been coming on strong in recent days, picked up Best Supporting Actor for Judas and the Black Messiah, defeating former front runners Paul Raci and Leslie Odom Jr.

Here are the winners from Toronto:

Best Film
Winner: ​​Nomadland
Runners Up: First Cow & Minari

Best Director
Winner: ​Chloe Zhao – Nomadland
Runners Up: Lee Isaac Chung – Minari & Kelly Reichardt – First Cow

Best Screenplay
Winner: ​Minari
Runners Up: Nomadland & Sound of Metal

Best Actress
Winner: ​Frances McDormand – Nomadland
Runners Up: Viola Davis – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom & Sidney Flanigan – Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Best Actor
Winner: ​Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal
Runners Up: Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom & Mads Mikkelsen – Another Round

Best First Feature
Winner: ​The Forty-Year-Old-Version
Runners Up: The Father & Promising Young Woman

Best Documentary
Winner: ​Collective
Runners Up: Crip Camp, David Byrne’s American Utopia & Time

Best Foreign Language Film
Winner: ​Bacurau
Runners Up: Another Round & Beanpole

Best Animated Feature
Winner: ​Wolfwalkers
Runners Up: Soul & The Willoughbys

Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Maria Bakalova – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Runners Up: Youn Yuh-jung – Minari & Olivia Colman – The Father

Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas And The Black Messiah
Runners Up: Paul Raci – Sound of Metal & Leslie Odom Jr. – One Night in Miami

The London Film Critics Circle Honors Nomadland

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Even in London, they love Nomadland!

The London Film Critics Circle named their best of the year yesterday.  I imagine that this will have negligible influence on the Oscar race since some of the films honored have yet to be released in the States and some of the biggest Oscar contenders have yet to be released in the UK.  Still, I think it’s always interesting to see what films are being honored outside of the U.S.  Cinema is an international art form.

Here are the nominees and, in bold, the winners from London:

FILM OF THE YEAR
About Endlessness
Collective
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Lovers Rock
The Mauritanian
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Rocks
Saint Maud
​
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
About Endlessness
Another Round
Collective
Les Misérables
Minari

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Collective
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Time
The Truffle Hunters

BRITISH/IRISH FILM OF THE YEAR
The Father
Lovers Rock
Mangrove
Rocks
Saint Maud

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
David Fincher – Mank
Rose Glass – Saint Maud
Kevin Macdonald – The Mauritanian
Steve McQueen – Small Axe
Chloé Zhao – Nomadland

SCREENWRITER OF THE YEAR
Jack Fincher – Mank
Rose Glass – Saint Maud
Charlie Kaufman – I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7
Chloé Zhao – Nomadland

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Morfydd Clark – Saint Maud
Viola Davis – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Vanessa Kirby – Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand – Nomadland
Carey Mulligan – Promising Young Woman

ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins – The Father
Delroy Lindo – Da 5 Bloods
Tahar Rahim – The Mauritanian

SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Maria Bakalova – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Ellen Burstyn – Pieces of a Woman
Essie Davis – Babyteeth
Jennifer Ehle – Saint Maud
Amanda Seyfried – Mank

SUPPORTING ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Sacha Baron Cohen – The Trial of the Chicago 7
Chadwick Boseman – Da 5 Bloods
Aldis Hodge – Clemency
Ben Mendelsohn – Babyteeth
Shaun Parkes – Mangrove

BRITISH/IRISH ACTRESS OF THE YEAR (for body of work)
Bukky Bakray – Rocks
Jessie Buckley – I’m Thinking of Ending Things & Misbehaviour
Morfydd Clark – Eternal Beauty & Saint Maud
Vanessa Kirby – Pieces of a Woman & The World to Come
Carey Mulligan – The Dig & Promising Young Woman

BRITISH/IRISH ACTOR OF THE YEAR (for body of work)
Riz Ahmed – Mogul Mowgli & Sound of Metal
Sacha Baron Cohen – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm & The Trial of the Chicago 7
John Boyega – Red, White and Blue
Anthony Hopkins – The Father
Cosmo Jarvis – Calm With Horses & Nocturnal

BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH/IRISH FILMMAKER
Henry Blake – County Lines
Fyzal Boulifa – Lynn + Lucy
Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman
Rose Glass – Saint Maud
Remi Weekes – His House

YOUNG BRITISH/IRISH PERFORMER
Kosar Ali – Rocks
Bukky Bakray – Rocks
Millie Bobby Brown – Enola Holmes
Conrad Khan – County Lines
Molly Windsor – Make Up

BRITISH/IRISH SHORT FILM
Filipiñana – Rafael Manuel, director
Hungry Joe – Paul Holbrook, director
Lizard – Akinola Davies Jr, director
The Long Goodbye – Aneil Karia, director
The Shift – Laura Carreira, director

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Ammonite – Stéphane Fontaine, cinematography
Birds of Prey – Deborah Lamia Denaver & Adruitha Lee, makeup & hair
Lovers Rock – Mica Levi, music
Mank – Donald Graham Burt, production design
Nomadland – Joshua James Richards, cinematography
Rocks – Lucy Pardee, casting
Soul – Pete Docter, animation
Sound of Metal – Nicolas Becker, sound design
Tenet – Jennifer Lame, film editing
Wolfwalkers – Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart, animation

Here’s The Super Bowl Spot for Nobody!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Somehow, last night, I missed the Super Bowl spot for Nobody.  Then again, I also somehow also missed the streaker running across the field.  I was probably busy jotting down notes about the commercials that I had just seen.  Who knows?  It was a strange night.

Anyway, here’s the Super Bowl spot for Nobody!

Bob Odenkirk, action star!  That’s kind of a strange idea but I guess it could happen.  Bryan Cranston went from doing comedy to doing heavy drama.  John Krasinski is another example.  Watching The Office, you would never expect to see Jim Halpert blowing away the bad guys but that’s exactly what happened.  Of course, it looks like there’s going to be a lot of humor to go along with all of the action in this film so I guess that’s good.  Eventually, someone will cast Bob Odenkirk in one of those grim and depressing cop films where he’s like an alcoholic who spends all of his time looking at old case files and searching for that one clue that will put the murderer away.  I fully support the right of Bob Odenkirk to do new and different things!

 

6 Shots From 6 Films: Special King Vidor Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

Today, we celebrate the 127th birthday of Texas-born filmmaker, King Vidor!  Though Vidor may no longer be a household name, he was one of the most important and idiosyncratic filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age.  The Crowd is regularly cited as one of the most influential films ever made.  (Certainly every film that’s ever featured a shot of an anonymous office worker sitting in a room full of cubicles owes a debt to it.)  Duel in the Sun went on to inspire countless spaghetti westerns.  The Fountainhead is also regularly cited as a favorite by a surprisingly large number of directors.

In honor of King Vidor’s life and legacy, here are….

6 Shots From 6 King Vidor Films

The Crowd (1928, dir by King Video, DP: Henry Sharp)

The Champ (1931, dir by King Vidor, DP: Gordon Avil)

Duel In The Sun (1946, dir by King Vidor, DP: Lee Garmes)

The Fountainhead (1949, dir by King Vidor, DP: Robert Burks)

War and Peace (1956, dir by King Vidor, DP: Jack Cardiff)

Solomon and Sheba (1959, dir by King Vidor, DP; Fred A. Young)

 

Lisa’s Week In Review: 2/1/21 — 2/7/21

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What a long week!

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good week.  As far as this site is concerned, I got a lot done.  I’m most proud of the fact that I wrote about my 30 favorite films of 2020.  I’m very happy about how that post worked out and I’m also proud of myself for watching enough good movies that it was actually very easy to come up with a credible list of 30.  I’m proud of myself!  Wait — did I already say that?  See, that’s how tired I am.  I’m repeating myself!

Speaking of being tired, I was going to write about how I deal with anxiety but, to be honest, anxiety will still be a thing a few weeks from now and hopefully, I won’t be exhausted while putting the finishing touches on my week in review.  So, writing about anxiety can wait.

(Actually, the main way I deal with anxiety — and you’re going to think I’m lying but I’m not — is by putting on an old episode of Degrassi in the background.  It calms me down.  Maybe it’s because I’ve seen every episode so many times that I know exactly what’s coming.  Part of the comfort of rewatching something is knowing that, no matter what might happen in the world, those old episodes are always going to be the same.  It doesn’t have to be Degrassi.  It could be music.  It could be a beloved movie.  It could be someone chanting from the Necronomicon.  The familiar can be very helpful.)

For now, I just want to get some rest.  And I want to let you know what I watched, read, and listened to last week!

Films I Watched:

  1. Alex Wheatle (2020)
  2. Dazed and Confused (1993)
  3. Destroy All Monsters (1968)
  4. Education (2020)
  5. Ford v Ferrari (2019)
  6. Groundhog Day (1993)
  7. The Last Laugh (2020)
  8. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1975)
  9. Malcolm & Marie (2021)
  10. Promising Young Woman (2020)
  11. The Scarlet Claw (1944)
  12. Soul (2020)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. 9-1-1
  2. 9-1-1: Lone STar
  3. ‘allo ‘allo
  4. The Bachelor
  5. Bar Rescue
  6. The Bold and the Beautiful
  7. City Confidential
  8. Coronation Street
  9. Court Cam
  10. Days of Our Lives
  11. Degrassi
  12. The District
  13. Dr. Phil
  14. The Equalizer
  15. Fawlty Towers
  16. Friends
  17. General Hospital
  18. Hell’s Kitchen
  19. Hill Street Blues
  20. The Kitten Bowl
  21. The Love Boat
  22. The Masked Dancer
  23. The Musketeers
  24. The Office
  25. Open All Hours
  26. Saved by The Bell
  27. Seinfeld
  28. Super Bowl
  29. Unforgotten II
  30. WandaVision
  31. Wonder Woman
  32. Yes, Minister
  33. The Young and the Restless

Books I Read:

  1. Murder By Design: The Usnane Cinema of Dario Argento (2020) by Troy Howarth

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Big Data
  2. Britney Spears
  3. Broken Bells
  4. Cage the Elephant
  5. The Chemical Brothers
  6. The Crystal Method
  7. Depeche Mode
  8. Desire
  9. Fiona Apple
  10. Gwen Stefani
  11. Miley Cyrus
  12. Phantogram
  13. The Prodigy
  14. REM
  15. Saint Motel
  16. Selena Gomez
  17. Space 92
  18. Talking Heads
  19. Taylor Swift
  20. Tiesto
  21. The Ting Tings
  22. twenty one pilots
  23. The Weeknd
  24. Yvonne Elliman

Live Tweets

  1. Through the Shattered Lens Live Tweets Super Bowl Sunday!

Awards Season:

  1. Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Nominations
  2. SAG Nominations
  3. Golden Globe Nominations
  4. Winners at Sundance
  5. NAACP Image Award Nominations
  6. Hollywood Critics Association Nominations
  7. Atlanta Film Critics Circle Winners
  8. Satellite Nominations

Best of 2020:

  1. Top 30 Films of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)

Trailers:

  1. Old
  2. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
  3. Raya and the Last Dragon
  4. Coming 2 America

Links From Last Week:

  1. ‘Malcolm & Marie’ and the Double-Edged Sword of Hype
  2. No Real Super Bowl Movie Trailers This Year Feels Like The End Of An Era, And That Sucks
  3. Britney Spears Documentary Brings Validity to #FreeBritney Movement, While Putting Misogynistic Media on Blast
  4. Kickin’ The Willy Bobo With…DEMOND THOMPSON

News From Last Week:

  1. Hilaria Baldwin Apologizes For Spanish Debacle: ‘I Should Have Been More Clear’
  2. Armie Hammer Dropped by WME
  3. Jennifer Lawrence Injured on Set of ‘Don’t Look Up’
  4. Marvel’s ‘Blade’ Movie Finds Its Writer in ‘Watchmen’ Scribe
  5. Hal Holbrook, Emmy and Tony-Winning Actor Who Portrayed Mark Twain, Dies at 95
  6. Saved by The Bell Star Dustin Diamond Dies in Cape Coral
  7. Christopher Plummer dies at 91
  8. Haya Harareet Dies: Israeli Actress Who Starred In ‘Ben-Hur’ Was 89
  9. Jamie Tarses, trailblazing ‘Friends’ and ‘Frasier’ TV exec, dead at 56

Links From The Site:

  1. Erin shared Double Rainbow, 12 Against The Law, The Marriage Rite, Like Ice She Was, Smashing Detective Stories, Tough Guy, and Sport Story Magazine!
  2. Doc shared his Kitten Bowl predictions!
  3. Along with his super bowl predictions, Jeff shared music videos from Europe, Rick Springfield, AC/DC, Violent Femmes, Whitesnake, Winger, and Toto!  Jeff also congratulated the winners of the Super Bowl!
  4. Ryan reviewed A New Leash on Life!
  5. I reviewed Malcolm & Marie and I paid tribute to John Ford, Christopher Plummer, Francois Truffaut, and Greydon Clark!  I also wrote about my favorite Super Bowl commercials!

More From Us:

  1. For Horror Critic, I reviewed The Last Laugh and The Naked Witch!
  2. At my dream journal, I shared: Last Night’s Dream About The Rain!
  3. At my music site, I shared songs from The Prodigy, Space 92, Selena Gomez, The Chemical Brothers, Desire, twenty one pilots, and Broken Bells!
  4. For SyFy Designs I shared: Groundhog Day Predictions, Groundhog Day Results, Happy Birthday Elmo, Looking for Freedom, The Latest Scam, and When It Comes To the Super Bowl!
  5. At her photography site, Erin shared: Truck in a Mild Snowfall, Swing with A Little Snow, Barely A Snowfall, I Tried to Capture The Snow, When The Snow Had Just Started To Fall, Today’s Sky, and Today’s Door!
  6. Ryan has a patreon!  You should subscribe!

Want to check out last week?  Click here!

My Top 6 Super Bowl Commercials

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s just admit that the Super Bowl was weird this year.

I’m not talking about the game.  To be honest, I could really hardly care less about the game.  When it comes to winners and losers, I’m one of those people who wishes that both teams could win. I think the coach of the winning team should let the losing team score a touchdown so that no one’s feelings get hurt.  I worry about concussions, broken ankles, and compound fractures.  I can handle some of the most graphic zombie films ever made but football just freaks me the fug out.

Instead, I’m one of those people who watches for the commercials and this year, the commercials were odd.  I guess that’s to be understood, all things considered.  But even when you take into account the pandemic and the general sappiness of modern American culture, the commercials felt weak.  There were a lot of inspirational commercials.  Bruce Springsteen gave a two-minute monologue about America while sitting in a jeep.  There was a Ford commercial about how we’re all in this together or something like that.  The beer commercials were less surly and more cringey this year.  There were a lot of commercials with celebrities where the whole joke seemed to be, “Hey, look!  A celebrity!”

There were precious few commercials for any upcoming movies or TV shows.  In fact, there were four.  FOUR!  Every previous year, I’ve worked myself to a beautiful exhaustion trying to keep up with all the movies being advertised during the big game.  This year, I wrote a few — very few — words about Coming 2 America, Old, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Raya and the Last Dragon.

Anyway, with all that in mind — here are 6 commercials that I did enjoy.  I don’t know if it’s right for me to say that any of these really qualify as a “favorite” because I really didn’t have any favorites this year.  But, the important thing is that I enjoyed the commercials below.

6) Edgar Scissorhands — Cadillac

I guess Edward is dead or something?  Because Edward’s definitely not in this commercial.  I can only assume that he died or he moved to Paris and was later judged to be too problematic to be invited back to appear with his son.  Well, regardless, this is a cute commercial.  I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a good commercial because people are going to remember Edgar on the bus more than they’re going to remember the Cadillac but still, it was nice.

5) Adam Levine Sets Up Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton — T-Mobile

But if not for the spotty network, Gwen and Blake never would have gotten together!  Oh well.  What matters is that Gwen and Blake are a cute couple.

4) Jason Alexander Hoodie — Tide

This was actually kind of a disturbing commercial but then again, I like the idea of clothing that screams at you.

3) Doritos — Flat Matthew McConaughey

It was weird enough to work.

2) Alexa — Michael B. Jordan

It was sexy enough to work.

  1. Reddit

This made my night.  This ad was short.  It wasn’t pretentious.  It didn’t pretend that it was going to bring America together.  It didn’t feature Bruce Springsteen doing his Kerouac imitation.  Instead, it popped up for five seconds, it freaked a lot of people out, and it kind of gave the finger to the whole silly culture that’s sprung up around Super Bowl advertising.  That was brilliant.  (Considering that Reddit has now become the favorite scapegoat of the establishment, I applaud them for raising their profile as opposed to just meekly waiting for the storm to pass.)

Reddit wins the night!  And, just in case the above video gets taken off of YouTube for some reason, here’s the ad:

The Shattered Lens Live Tweets Super Bowl Sunday!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today was probably the most low-key Super Bowl Sunday is the history of the Shattered Lens.

The reasons for that are fairly obvious.  The Super Bowl is tradition.  It’s something that people look forward to as a sign of normalcy and continuity.  Some people care about the game.  Some people care about the commercials.  But the main thing is that the Super Bowl is always there and it’s always a big deal.  This year, though, was different.

For one thing, the commercials were different.  Usually, we struggle to keep up with all of the movie advertisements but this year, there were only four to share.  For another things, no one really had a team in the game.  Jeff was excited about Tom Brady winning another Super Bowl.  Leonard wanted anyone but Brady to win.  But it’s not like anyone here at the TSL is a huge fan of either Kansas City or Tampa Bay.

So, it was a subdued Super Bowl Sunday.  Everyone observed it in their own way:

In the end, the team that score the most points won so congratulations to them! Here’s hoping that next year’s Super Bowl’s commercials will be a little bit more memorable.

 

Here’s The Super Bowl Promo For Raya And The Last Dragon!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There haven’t been that many movie spots during this Super Bowl.  It’s a shame but I guess it’s to be expected, given the current state of theaters and studios and everything else.  During the first half, we saw trailers and commercials for Old, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and this very brief one for Raya and the Last Dragon:

It’s a short commercial but …. hey, it looks cute!  I’ll watch it when it comes out.