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!
128 years ago today, film director Raoul Walsh was born in New York City. He started out as an actor and a second unit director, learning how to make films under the tutelage of D.W. Griffith. He made his directorial debut in 1915 with Regeneration, which is considered to be the first gangster film. Refusing to sidelined after losing an eye in an auto accident, Walsh continued to direct and his career stretched from the silent era all the way to the mid-60s. Walsh directed westerns, war films, and gangster films. He was a master of tough but sometimes quirky action films. Martin Scorsese continues to cite Walsh as being an influence on his own work.
Today. we pay tribute to Raoul Walsh with….
4 Shots From 4 Raoul Walsh Films
The Big Trail (1930, dir by Raoul Walsh, DP: Lucian Andriot and Arthur Edeson)
The Roaring Twenties (1939, dir by Raoul Walsh, DP: Ernest Haller)
Gentleman Jim (1942, dir by Raoul Walsh, DP: Sidney Hickox)
Esther and the King (1960, dir by Raoul Walsh and Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
I’m a huge fan of actor Chuck Norris. His films SILENT RAGE, LONE WOLF MCQUADE, MISSING IN ACTION, and especially CODE OF SILENCE are some of my all time favorites. Fox 16 out of Little Rock seemed to play LONE WOLF MCQUADE on repeat when I was growing up in the 80’s. I always thought this opening scene was so badass. In honor of Norris’ birthday, I share this with all of you! Thanks Chuck, for all the great memories! Enjoy, my friends!
Barry Gabrewski (Jonathan Brandis) is a teenager living in Houston with his father (Beau Bridges). Barry has asthma and has a hard time at school, being picked on by everyone from the school bully (John Buchanan) to the athletics coach (Richard Moll) to the clueless principal (Gerrit Graham). Barry has only one ally and his name is Chuck Norris! Whenever Barry is having a hard time, he imagines taking part in an exciting mission with Chuck Norris. In his imagination, he and Chuck recreate scenes from all of Chuck’s movies even though Barry is really too young to be watching anything that violent.
Barry wants to learn karate but is turned down by an arrogant dojo owner (Joe Piscopo, channeling Martin Kove). Barry finally finds a teacher (Mako) who uses Barry’s love of all things Chuck Norris to train him. Barry enters the local karate tournament and wouldn’t you know it, there’s Chuck! He’s attending as a guest and he’s hoping to see Joe Piscopo taught a lesson in humility. When Barry and his sensei are told that they don’t have enough members for their team, Chuck volunteers to fight with them. No one objects to the world’s most famous martial artist deciding to take part in a local, largely amateur karate tournament. Can Barry win the tournament with the help of his hero?
Chuck Norris famously turned down a role in The Karate Kid. Some sources say that he was offered the John Kreese role while others say that Norris was offered the sensei role that eventually become Mr. Miyagi. Chuck has always said that his agent turned down the script and he didn’t even know it had been offered to him until years later but Sidekicks sticks so close to the Karate Kid plot that it does sometimes feel like it was made so that we could see what Karate Kid would have been like if Chuck Norris had accepted a role. The movie follows the Karate Kid formula while lacking the edge that made Karate Kid stand out. Karate Kid was a coming-of-age movie with a lot of karate. Sidekicks is a blatant celebration of Chuck Norris.
Fortunately, Chuck Norris has always had the moves to back up his high self-regard and, in this film, he actually seems to be relaxed and having fun playing a version of himself. Sidekicks is predictable and ego-driven but it has a likable energy and Chuck shows a willingness to poke fun at his earlier movies. Whatever else you might say about Sidekicks, there were a lot of bullied kids would have loved to have had a friend like Chuck Norris. Sidekicks is also the only place where you can see Chuck Norris fight Joe Piscopo and there’s something to be said for that.
Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday March 10th, we’re watching BLOOD FATHER starring Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Diego Luna, Michael Parks, William H. Macy, and Miguel Sandoval.
BLOOD FATHER is the story of an ex-con (Mel Gibson) who reunites with his estranged 17-year old daughter (Erin Moriarty) to protect her from drug dealers hell bent on killing her.
I remember being very excited about BLOOD FATHER when it was released back in 2016. I’ve always been a big fan of Mel Gibson’s work, and this movie looked like it would be right down my alley. I was visiting the Tampa area on a business trip and decided to take in the film at a theater in Pinellas Park during some downtime. I remember enjoying the film very much and thinking Gibson was especially badass in the title role. I’m looking forward to watching it again with the #MondayMuggers crew.
Here are a few interesting tidbits about BLOOD FATHER:
Raoul Max Trujillo plays a badass Sicario trying to kill Mel Gibson and his on-screen daughter in this film. 10 years earlier he had played the chief warrior in APOCALYPTO (2006), which was directed by Gibson.
The movie Lydia (Erin Moriarty) is watching in the theater is the remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005). Jean-François Richet directed that film and BLOOD FATHER.
In 2008, Sylvester Stallone was planning to direct and star in an adaptation of Peter Craig’s novel “Blood Father.” Stallone and Mel Gibson would work together in 2014 on THE EXPENDABLES 3.
Director Jean-Francois Richet’s most recent film is PLANE (2023), starring Gerard Butler. It’s a damn good action film as well.
BLOOD FATHER was written by Peter Craig. His other credits include THE TOWN (2010), THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY 1 & 2 (2014-2015), THE BATMAN (2022) and TOP GUN: MAVERICK (2022).
So, join us tonight for #MondayMuggers and watch BLOOD FATHER! It’s on Amazon Prime.
The 1980’s saw the what film enthusiasts saw as the death of the grindhouse experience. Major cities had begun to clean up their skid rows and the $1 all-day matinee theaters were closing down left and right. By the late 80’s gone were the buckets of stale popcorn, watered down sodas, carpets so sticky that one didn’t even want to think was made them that way and, of course, the sketchy individuals who always seemed to in every showing no matter the time.
Yet, the grindhouse never truly left the cinema, but became a bit more “mainstream” under the many independent studios that came about during the early 80’s. You had Cannon, Carolco, United Film and Orion to name a few. It was with Orion that we get the latest guilty pleasure of mine and that was the one really good film that Chuck Norris ever made: Code of Silence.
Chuck Norris was the Jason Statham and Scott Adkins of the 1980’s action scene. He was cranking out action flicks almost on a yearly basis trying to cash in on not just the Bruce Lee martial arts phase, but also the action hero phase that was beginning to be dominated by Schwarzenneger and Stallone. While Norris never reached the heights of those two action stars, his list of action films from the 80’s and into the early 90’s were decent and, dare I say, very workmanlike.
Code of Silence was the one film that had a decent story of the lone good cop that has to fight not just the criminals but also the corrupt cops and system that allows crime to run rampart. Norris as Sgt. Eddie Cusack of the Chicago PD has become the template for the loner hero cop who ends up not just fighting the mob (of differently nationalities) but also a corrupt partner and, they always have one or two, a couple of retired cops who help him but also die in the process.
Norris doesn’t lean heavily on the martials arts of his previous action films. Code of Silence was the film that helped transition him to the gunplay of the action flicks that the public couldn’t get enough of. While the film could and never truly escape it’s grindhouse influence it was very good enough both in characters, plot and direction (director Andrew Davis would later film later classics with The Fugitive and Under Siege).
The film really gets its grindhouse bonafides with the addition of Henry Silva as the main antagonist. Silva would make a career out of being the villain in many 80’s action flicks and in Code of Silence he steals the limelight with his over the top performance as Colombian drug trafficker Luis Camacho. Where Jack Palance got more praise for being the preeminent villain and tough guy of from the 70’s and 80’s, I do believe that Silva was the more sinister of the pair when it came to their performance.
Code of Silence shows that Chuck Norris can carry a film with minimal dialogue and on the power of his silent, seething stares. He was never one for quippy one-liners and Code of Silence is all the better because of it.
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, let us take a look back at a classic cinematic year. It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 1992 Films
Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)
Benny’s Video (1992, dir by Michael Haneke, DP: Christian Berger)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992, dir by David Lynch, DP: Ron Garcia)
Army of Darkness (1992, dir by Sam Raimi, DP: Bill Pope)
Today is Chuck Norris’s birthday and to celebrate, today’s scene that I love comes from one of his best films. In this sequence from 1985’s The Delta Force, Chuck shows that even his motorcycle is a force to be reckoned with.
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 1976’s Dixie Dynamite, starring Warren Oates and Christopher George! I picked it so you know it’ll be good.
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, find the movie on YouTube, hit play at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Alain Delon was left out of last week’s Oscar memorial montage but that doesn’t mean we can’t honor him here. In today’s scene that I love, Alain Delon walks with style. This is from the end of 1960’sPurple Noon, a French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.
The 1987 movie ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is the historical re-creation of the escape from the Nazi Death Camp Sobibor, where approximately two hundred fifty thousand Jews were executed. Of the approximately six hundred prisoners who attempted to escape, around three hundred succeeded with somewhere between 50 and 60 surviving to see the end of the war.
The plot of ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR revolves around Leon Feldhendler (Alan Arkin), the leader of the Jewish prisoners at Sobibor, who eventually comes to realize that they are being held in nothing more than a death camp. He figures out that the only people being allowed to live are the goldsmiths, seamstresses, shoemakers, and tailors; these are the people who are able to repair the shoes, recycle the clothing, and melt down any silver or gold for the Nazis. He also knows that once the trains stop coming in, all the remaining Jews will be murdered. As such, he and a group of men devise a plan for every prisoner to escape by luring the Nazi officers into the prisoners’ barracks and killing them as quietly as possible. With the help of a group of highly skilled Jewish, Russian soldiers, led by Sacha Pechersky (Rutger Hauer), their plan was put into action on October 14th, 1943, leading to the largest escape from a prison camp of any kind in Europe during World War II.
ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is an excellent film, and it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime and TUBI as I type this. If you enjoy THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), I promise you will enjoy this film. It’s very hard to watch at times, as most Nazi concentration camp movies are, but you can’t help but be completely invested when the prisoners attempt their escape at the end. It’s always important to remind ourselves of the levels of evil and heroism that our fellow humans are capable of. ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR does an excellent job of that.
Here are five interesting facts about the film:
Y’all know how much I love Rutger Hauer. He won a 1988 Golden Globe for his performance as Sasha Pechersky.
Not only did Hauer win a Golden Globe for his performance, the movie itself won as the “Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.”
Over 30 million Americans saw this movie when it premiered on CBS on April 12th, 1987.
Shortly after the revolt depicted in the film, Camp Sobibor was closed down and any trace of its existence was removed. Pine trees were later planted on the site.
The movie ends with famed newscaster Howard K. Smith narrating the fates of the survivors on whose accounts the film was based. It’s an amazing, uplifting, and sometimes heartbreaking way for the outstanding movie to end.
I highly recommend ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR. It’s an important film and one of the greatest films that Rutger Hauer ever worked on. Enjoy the trailer below!
Through the Shattered Lens 