10 Movies For The Week (7/20/25)

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here Comes Shark Week

This upcoming week is Shark Week. At the risk of making the most obvious recommendation ever, Jaws (1975) is currently on Netflix. I doubt that I need to sell anyone on the film. Jaws is one of those films that everyone accepts is a classic. I’ll just say that every time that I watch Jaws, I’m surprised at how well it has held up over the years. I watched it a few weeks ago while flying to Hawaii and, even when viewed in less than ideal conditions, it still held my attention and made me jump a little. To be honest, I sometimes miss the Spielberg who directed Jaws. It’s such a fun and scary movie, all the more so because it was made by a director who clearly lived for film. Jaws is currently streaming on Netflix.

Jaws 2 (1978) does not get the same respect as the first Jaws, nor does it deserve it. That said, I can’t help but kind of like Jaws 2. If the first Jaws has a timeless quality to it, Jaws 2 is proudly a product of the 1970s. Jaws 2 has some pacing issues but it also features Roy Scheider going totally crazy at the end of the film. After giving a fairly subdued performance in the first Jaws, Scheider went all out for Jaws 2. Just listen to him yell at that shark! Jaws 2 is also on Netflix.

Jaws 3 (1983) is a bit of a guilty pleasure, largely because it was originally filmed in 3-D and the special effects are charmingly bad. Roy Scheider does not return for this one but Dennis Quaid shows up as Chief Brody’s son. This film was shot at SeaWorld Orlando but the main message seems to be, “Stay away from Seaworld!” For the record, I relate to Lea Thompson’s character. It can be viewed on Netflix!

The makers of Jaws: The Revenge (1987) decided to see what would happen if they made a Jaws film that centered on the least interesting character from the first film. With Chief Brody having died of a heart attack and one of her sons having been eaten by a shark, Mrs. Brody heads down to the Caribbean and is apparently followed by a shark. Its dumb but Michael Caine is charming and I’m a completist at heart. If you’re going to watch one this week, you might as well watch all four! Jaws: The Revenge is on Netflix.

Great White (1981) is an Italian film that was also released under the title The Last Shark. Directed by Enzo G. Castelleri, Great White was so similar to Jaws that Universal actually sued the filmmakers in an attempt to keep the film from being released in the States. To me, that’s always seemed like an overreaction. There were hundreds of Jaws rip-offs released after 1975. Great White is actually a pretty entertaining film. James Franciscus and Vic Morrow team up to take on a giant shark. The shark eats a helicopter. This film can currently be viewed on YouTube.

In Praise of Joseph Sargent

Jaws: The Revenge was directed by Joseph Sargent. Sargent would have been a hundred years old on July 22nd. Sargent was a classic, no-nonsense director who could handle many different genres. Here’s a few Sargent films that are not Jaws: The Revenge.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is probably Sargent’s best film. Four criminals hijack a subway train. The police spend their time negotiating, arguing, and searching. It’s certainly my favorite example of the “New Yorkers Will be Rude To Anyone” genre. Featuring great performances from Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Jerry Stiller, and Martin Balsam, this is one of the great New York heist films. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Maybe I’ll Come Home In The Spring (1972) is a personal favorite of mine, a made-for-television film featuring a young Sally Field as a hippie who returns home and David Carradine as her controlling boyfriend. This is a lowkey but effective look at life in the suburbs and it features an excellent performance from Sally Field. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Tribes (1970) features Jan-Michael Vincent as a peace-loving hippie who is drafted and Darren McGavin as the drill sergeant who tries to turn him into a soldier. Jan-Michael Vincent is absolutely gorgeous in this film. It can be viewed on YouTube.

Odds and Ends

Paul Verhoeven celebrated a birthday a few days ago. The original (and still the best) Robocop (1987) is available on Tubi. Much like Jaws, it’s a film that has stood the test of time and survived countless imitations.

Finally, with the sequel due to be released on the 25th, this week is a great time to amuse yourself with the original Happy Gilmore (1996)! I love this film and I make no apologies for it. Bob Barker beating up Adam Sandler? Seriously, how can you not love this film? Personally, I’ve always felt bad for Shooter McGavin. Making him hit that ball off of Richard Kiel’s foot? Totally unfair! Happy Gilmore is streaming on Netflix.

Click here for last week’s movies!

Monday Night Mayhem (2002, directed by Ernest Dickerson)

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In the late 1960s, television coverage of football is dull and boring. The games are played during the day and the announcers have no personality. An executive at ABC named Roone Arledge (John Heard) changes all of that by convincing the NFL to start scheduling games for Monday night. Arledge launches Monday Night Football, a broadcast that puts the viewers at home in the stadium. Arledge explains that he wants cameras everywhere. He wants the sidelines and the stands to be mic’d up. And he wants announcers who will make the game interesting. He picks an experienced radio announcer named Keith Jackson (Shuler Hensley), former Dallas quarterback Don Meredith (Brad Beyer), and finally an egocentric, loquacious, and opinionated sports reporter named Howard Cosell (John Turturro). The straight-laced Jackson only lasts a season and finds himself overshadowed by Meredith’s good ol’ boy charisma and Cosell’s eccentricities. Arledge brings in Frank Gifford (Kevin Anderson) as a replacement and changes both sports and television forever. Monday night football becomes huge but so do the egos of the men involved.

Based on a non-fiction book by Bill Carter, Monday Night Mayhem is a look at the early days of Monday Night Football, with most of the attention being given to the mercurial Howard Cosell. As a work of history, it’s pretty shallow. There’s a lot of montages set to familiar 70s tunes and there’s plenty of familiar stock footage. Beyer and Anderson do adequate impersonations of Meredith and Gifford without really digging for much under the surface. Monday Night Mayhem is dominated by John Turturro’s performance as Howard Cosell. Turturro doesn’t look like Cosell and he really doesn’t sound that much like Cosell but he does capture the mix of arrogance and bitterness that made Howard Cosell such a memorable and controversial announcer. In its breezy manner, the film hits all the well-know points of Cosell’s life and career, from defending Mohammad Ali to considering a run for the Senate to trying to reinvent himself as a variety show host to the controversy when he was though to have uttered a racial slur during one of the games. I wish the film had a bit more depth but John Turturro’s committed but bizarre performance keeps it watchable.

Scenes That I Love: James Lovell Dreams Of The Moon In Apollo 13

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Apollo 13 (1995, dir by Ron Howard, DP: Dean Cundey)

Today we have an absolutely beautiful scene from 1995’s Apollo 13. In this scene, astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) takes a look at the moon and, for a minute, thinks about what could have been, if only a malfunction hadn’t scuttled Apollo 13’s moon landing and left Lovell and his two crewmates apparently stranded in space. Though Lovell may dream of walking on the moon, he knows it won’t happen and that his only concern now is getting both himself and his crew back home.

Some critics have a tendency to dismiss Ron Howard as just being a director who makes middlebrow films but this scene shows him to be a director who instinctively understands not only what it’s like to dream but also what it’s like when reality intrudes on those dreams. This scene features both Howard and Tom Hanks at their best.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Moon Edition

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Today, we pay tribute to the moon! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 “Moon” Films

A Trip to the Moon (1902, dir by Georges Melies)

Moonraker (1979, dir by Lewis Gilbert)

Moon (2009, dir by Duncan Jones)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012, dir by Wes Anderson)

King of New York (1990, directed by Abel Ferrara)

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Drug kingpin Frank White (Christopher Walken) has been released from prison and is again on the streets of New York City. Frank might say that he’s gone straight but, as soon as he’s free, he’s partying with his old crew (including Laurene Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito, and others). While Frank’s agent (Paul Calderon) goes to all of the other city’s gangsters and explains that they can either get out of Frank’s way or die, three detectives (Victor Argo, David Caruso, and Wesley Snipes) make plans to take Frank out by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Frank is donating money to politicians, building hospitals, and presenting himself as New York’s savior.

King of New York is the epitome of a cult film. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the dark and violent King of New York was originally dismissed by critics and struggled to find an audience during its initial theatrical run. (It was lumped in with and overshadowed by other 1990 gangster films like Goodfellas and Godfather Part III.) But it was later rediscovered on both cable and home video and now it’s rightly considered to be a stone cold crime classic. Walken gives one of his best performances as Frank White and that’s not a surprise. The film was clearly made to give Walken a chance to show off what he could do with a lead role and Walken captures Frank’s charisma and humor without forgetting that he’s essentially a sociopath. Walken gives a performance that feels like James Cagney updated for the end of the 80s. What’s even more impressive is that all of the supporting characters are just as memorable as Walken’s Frank White. From Laurence Fishburne’s flamboyant killer to David Caruso’s hotheaded cop to Paul Calderon’s slippery agent to Janet Julian’s morally compromised attorney, everyone gives a strong performance. (I’m usually not a Caruso fan but he’s legitimately great here.) They come together to bring the film’s world to life. Everyone has their own reason for obsessing on Frank White and his return to power. I’ve always especially appreciated Victor Argo as the weary, veteran detective who finds himself trapped by Caruso and Wesley Snipes’s impulsive plan to take down Frank White. Frank White and the cops go to war and it’s sometimes hard to know whose side to be on.

Director Abel Ferrara has had a long and storied career, directing films about morally ambiguous people who are often pushed to extremes. Personally, I think King of New York is his best film, a portrait of not just a criminal but also of a city that combines the best and the worst of human nature. The action is exciting, the cast is superb, and Frank’s justifications for his behavior sometimes make a surprising amount of sense. Thought there’s occasionally been speculation that it could happen, there’s never been a sequel to King of New York and it doesn’t need one. King of New York is a film that tell you all that you need to know about Frank White and the city that he calls home.

Retro Television Review: The American Short Story Episode 7: The Displaced Person

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we have an adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s longest short story.

Episode #7: “The Displaced Person”

(Dir by Glenn Jordan, originally aired in 1977)

Life at a Georgia farm is thrown into turmoil when the farm’s owner, widow Mrs. McIntyre (Irene Worth), agrees to give a job to a Polish refugee named Mr. Guizac (Noam Yerushalmi). As World War II has just ended and Father Flynn (John Houseman) has assured Mrs. McIntyre that Guizac can drive a tractor, Mrs. McIntyre is happy to give Guizac a home in America. Less happy are the people who already work at the farm, most of whom see the hard-working Guizac as being a threat. Mrs. Shortley (Shirley Stoler) worries that her husband (Lane Smith) is going to lose his job to Guizac. Meanwhile, a young farmhand named Sulk (Samuel L. Jackson) enters into a business arrangement with Guizac, one that causes Mrs. McIntyre to change her opinion of Guizac. Needless to say, it all ends in tragedy.

This adaptation is based on a short story that Flannery O’Connor wrote after her own mother hired a family of Polish refugees to work at their family farm, Andalusia. This adaptation was actually filmed at Andalusia, only a few months after Flannery O’Connor’s death. The furniture seen in the house was O’Connor’s own furniture. The peacocks the drive Mrs. McIntyre crazy and which cause Father Flynn to have a religious epiphany are the same peacocks that roamed the farm when Flanney O’Connor lived there. The cemetery that Mrs. McIntyre visits is the O’Connor family cemetery. It brings a sense of authenticity to the film, one that is often missing from films made about the South.

The adaptation moves at a deliberate pace but it’s well-acted and it stays true to O’Connor’s aesthetic. Those who might complain that there are only two likable characters in the film — Mr. Guizac and Father Flynn — are missing the point of O’Connor’s story. Even Mrs. McIntyre, who initially seems to be trying to do the right thing, is blinded by the prejudices of race and class. Father Flynn never gives up on trying to redeem both Mrs. McIntyre and the rest of the world but one gets the feeling that he might be too late.

The cast is what truly makes this adaptation stand-out. Irene Worth, John Houseman, Lane Smith, Robert Earl Jones, they all give excellent performances. Samuel L. Jackson was very young when he appeared in The Displaced Person but he already had the screen presence that has since made him famous. The best performance comes from Shirley Stoler, who plays Mrs. Shortley as being a master manipulator who, unfortunately, happens to be married to a worthless man. Mrs. Shortley does what she does to protect her husband. Mr. Shortley does what he does because he’s a loud mouth bigot. Everyone has their own reasons, to paraphrase Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game. In this story, those reasons lead to tragedy.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Funhouse With #ScarySocial!

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1981’s The Funhouse!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

Scene That I Love: Christopher Walken in King of New York

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene is from Abel Ferrara’s 1990 gangster epic, King of New York. Featuring Christopher Walken and a host of familiar faces, it’s one of those scenes that simply just has to be seen.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Abel Ferrara Edition

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the birthday of Abel Ferrara. It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Abel Ferrara Edition

Ms. 45 (1981, dir by Abel Ferrara)

Fear City (1984, dir by Abel Ferrara)

King of New York (1990, dir by Abel Ferrara)

Bad Lieutenant (1992, dir by Abel Ferrara)

4 Shots of 4 Celebrities – Brad’s Vacation Edition!

Posted on July 18, 2025 by Bradley Crain

4 Shots of 4 Celebrities is just what it says it is, 4 shots of 4 of my favorite celebrities connected to the state I’m vacationing in. Where am I?!!

This week I’ll be getting some much needed R & R as I spend time away from work and exclusively with family and friends. My last post for the next nine days just happens to be coming from the state with strong connections to each of these unique performers. Y’all have a wonderful week and I’ll be back soon!