Everyone remembers the “Mad as Hell Speech” from Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satire, Network.
Personally, I think this scene below is just as good. Replace “tube” with TikTok and AI and you’ll have a pretty good explanation for why the world today is full of so many ignorant people who think they know more than they do.
(Usually, heavy-handed scenes annoy me. Fortunately, much like David Fincher with Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network, Sidney Lumet knew the right directorial tone to take when translating Paddy Chayefsky’s script to the screen. One shudders to think of what Network would have been like with a less skilled director behind the camera.)
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!
Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of director Sidney Lumet, born 101 years ago on this date. It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Sidney Lumet Films
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Boris Kaufman)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Victor J. Kemper)
Network (1976, dir. Sidney Lumet, DP: Owen Roizman)
The Verdict (1981, dir by Sidney Lumet, DP: Andrzej Bartkowiak)
Joe Penny turns 69 years old today! That may not mean that much to a lot of people, but I like Joe Penny so I’m making a point to show the guy some appreciation. As a teenager in the 1980’s, I remember Joe in two T.V. series that our family really enjoyed, RIPTIDE and JAKE AND THE FATMAN. I haven’t watched an episode of either show in a long time, but they were part of my growing up years, so they are seared into my brain. But the main reason that Joe has become part of my family is the fact that he played Charles Bronson’s police detective son, Ben Fein, in the second and third installments of the “Family of Cops” series of T.V. movies. Daniel Baldwin may have originated the role of Ben Fein in the first movie, and he’s good in the part, but I felt Joe Penny was a step in a positive direction when he took over in the second film. His acting style suits the series better than Baldwin’s, and I also think he’s more believable as Bronson’s son. I still revisit the “Family of Cops” series every couple of years, and I’m always happy to hear Joe refer to Bronson as “Pop.”
Happy Birthday, Joe! I hope it’s a great one! I’ve included the trailer for BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II below:
In a frontier town, rancher Jean Halloran (Sheila Bromley) has a big problem. Someone is shooting and killing all of her ranch hands and sending her notes in which he tells her to give up her ranch and leave town. When an ammunition salesman and trick shooter named Billy Donavon (Johnny Mack Brown), Jean hires him to serve as a bodyguard and to track down the mysterious Phantom. Billy, however, has a secret of his own.
DesertPhantom is a remake of an old Harry Carey film. I don’t know why Poverty Row did remakes since all of their films pretty much had the same plot regardless. A stranger comes into town and gets involved with a female rancher and a bad guy who is trying to hide his actual identity. In this one, Nelson McDowell gets to supply the comic relief as a befuddled veterinarian while familiar faces like Ted Adams and Karl Hackett are there to keep us guessing about how the Phantom could actually be. If you’ve watched enough of these movies, though, you’ll always be able to guess who the bad guy is.
This isn’t the best of Johnny Mack Brown’s movies. The Phantom’s story seems like it could have been interesting but that would have meant taking more risks than most of the Poverty Row studios were willing to do. Johnny Mack Brown is as convincing a cowboy as always and is the film’s saving grace. Brown was a western star precisely because he could make even something like DesertPhantom watchable.
WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU (1980) is the story of Agent 999 (Norman Chu), an agent of the Central Surveillance Agency, who has come to a remote island to catch a notorious criminal who goes by the name of Rolex (Melvin Wong). Once he gets there, he discovers that the island is overrun by crazed cannibals and is ruled over with an iron fist by a power mad Chief (Eddy Ko). Chief hoards the human meat of unsuspecting travelers who happen upon the island for himself and his soldiers, leaving the villagers at the point of starvation. As Agent 999 continues his investigation and tries to avoid becoming lunch, he finds out that the repentant criminal Rolex has become the Chief’s aid in order to expose the evils of the island to the authorities on the mainland without having to go back to jail himself. When Rolex’s plans don’t work out, Agent 999 must then team up with a goofy thief (Hon Kwok-Choi) to fight off the cannibals, save his newfound love (Michelle Kim), and get the hell off of the island in one piece!
The second film to be directed by Hong Kong icon Tsui Hark, WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU is a wild hybrid of a film that leans heavily into horror, comedy and martial arts. It’s a rather odd mix that contains jarring shifts in tone, a staple of Hong Kong Cinema of the 80’s. One minute we’re watching men have their arms cut off and their guts ripped out, only to immediately shift to slapstick rape humor, before shifting to badass martial arts / roller skating kung fu action choreographed by a young Corey Yuen. Completely unpolished in terms of production values, it’s nonetheless acquired somewhat of a cult classic status due to its raw energy, gory subject matter, directorial pedigree, and anti-communist political themes. I thought Norman Chu was good as Agent 999, even if his charismatic agent isn’t always as observant as we’d hope he’d be. Eddy Ko, who is in one of my favorite Hong Kong films THE MISSION (1999), can be both menacing and goofy as the Chief who will pretty much do anything to preserve his power and supply of meat. The island village puts off its own scary vibes with its creepy slaughterhouse and masked cannibals, always at the ready to hack off a body part. It all adds up to a rather unique viewing experience.
While WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU is certainly not for everyone due to its subject matter, those who appreciate the frenetic action of Hong Kong cinema will enjoy this film. It will also fit the bill for those who like kung fu action mashups served with sides of gory gore and silly giggles. Just don’t expect it to have the polished look of Hark’s later films such as PEKING OPERA BLUES (1986) and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA (1991).
Today is the birthday of Peter Weller, the actor best-known for playing the original Robocop in 1987. Robocop is best-known for being violent and satirical but it also features one of the saddest scenes that I’ve ever seen.
Trying to piece together who he was before he was rebuilt, Robocop visits his former home and has flashbacks to his past life as Officer Murphy. The house is empty now but the flashbacks show that it was once full of life. Even with only half of his face visible, Weller shows Murphy’s loneliness as he walks around the house that he once called home.
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!
I’m a big fan of Gerard Butler, mainly because of his macho performances in action films and thrillers. I also appreciate his ability to sing. I remember being surprised and impressed with his performance in Joel Schumacher’s version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I really enjoy the song “The Music of the Night,” and since I reviewed one of his thrillers today (SHATTERED), I thought I’d balance it out with a video of him belting out a tune. Enjoy!
Ricky Nelson (Greogry Calpakis) is a star on his parents’s TV show but what he really wants to be is a rock and roll singer. Ozzie (Jamey Sheridan) and Harriet Nelson (Sara Botsford) don’t know much about the strange rock and roll music but they do know that girls love it when Ricky plays the guitar and sings. Ricky becomes a star and a teen idol but chafes at his parents’s attempts to control his music and his image.
This is another one of those behind-the-scenes entertainment biopics that were all the rage of television for a while. This one was made for VH-1 instead of the any of the major networks and, as a result, it’s a little bit explicit in its depiction of Ricky’s sex life and his later drug use. Ricky goes from being a teen idol to being a long-haired proto-hippie, getting booed by all the squares who only want to hear the oldies. Not surprisingly, it’s a pretty shallow movie. Ricky is played by Gregory Calpakis, who appears to be the same age of Jamey Sheridan, who plays his father.
Movies like this will never go out of style. It’s inevitable that eventually, there will be biopics of Cobain, Bradley Nowell, Mac Miller, and all the rest. They’ll be AI-generated which will make them seem even worse.
My wife and I decided to watch SHATTERED (2007), also known as BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL, on a whim tonight. We were browsing through Amazon Prime when I saw Gerard Butler on the preview, and that was enough for me to watch it. Sierra likes cheesy thrillers, which this definitely gives off that vibe, so she was all in as well.
SHATTERED is set in Chicago and opens on the Randall’s, a seemingly perfect little family, made up of Neil (Gerard Butler), Abby (Maria Bello), and their beautiful daughter, Sophie. Neil’s a successful, if somewhat ethically challenged businessman on the verge of a big promotion, and life is good. That is, until a stranger (Pierce Brosnan) literally pops up in the couple’s life out of nowhere, tells them that he’s kidnapped Sophie, and forces them to do whatever he says or he’ll kill the girl. One moment they’re emptying their bank accounts only to see the stranger burn the money, and the next they’re delivering incriminating business documents to the competition that will destroy Neil’s company and his career. As the demands escalate, we learn that Neil and Abby’s lives aren’t quite as perfect as initially presented. But who is this stranger, why is he doing this, and how far will he force them to go to save their daughter?
I enjoyed SHATTERED quite a bit. It’s one of those movies that rope you in with its intriguing premise… a mysterious stranger puts a happy couple through hell, and we don’t know why he’s doing it, but we want to! This type of story, if done well, always pulls me in even though we’ve seen it done many times before. It’s helped by the game cast. Pierce Brosnan is appropriately intense and menacing as the stranger, helping us believe that he’ll hurt their daughter if they don’t follow his orders. James Bond, he is not! I’m a big fan of Gerard Butler, and he’s good here. His character is not the badass that we’ve come to expect from him these days, and he’s not that great of a guy either, but he does a good job of portraying a morally compromised guy whose life is spiraling out of control. Maria Bello is equal to the task as well, as the desperate mother who’s forced to deal with her husband’s failures at the same time as she’s dealing with any mother’s worst nightmare.
At the end of the day, these types of thrillers live and die based on their “twists” at the end. I have to admit that I was able to figure out the first twist about halfway through the movie, but SHATTERED isn’t content with just one twist, and it seems to stumble somewhat as it continues on after the first big reveal. I don’t blame the writers for trying to come up with something unique to close us out, but it doesn’t feel entirely successful in light of all that’s transpired before. It might actually be worth a rewatch just to see how well it stacks up.
I’m glad I watched SHATTERED. It’s time-tested storyline and fast pace make it worth a viewing, especially if you’re a fan of the cast like I am. Just keep your expectations in check, and you should enjoy the ride!
Through the Shattered Lens 