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!
It’s the summer and it’s hot! Here are 4 shots from 4 films that represent just how hot it feels outside right now.
4 Shots From 4 Desert Films
The Searchers (1956, Dir. by John Ford)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Dir. by David Lean)
Star Wars: A New Hope (1977, Dir. by George Lucas)
Legendary actor Charles Bronson ended his five-decade career by starring in a series of made-for-TV movies, FAMILY OF COPS (1995), BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II (1997), and FAMILY OF COPS III: UNDER SUSPICION (1999). I was in my mid-twenties as this series played out, and I enjoyed each of the installments. Today, I’m going to take a look at the first in the series.
In FAMILY OF COPS, Charles Bronson stars as Police Inspector Paul Fein. Paul, a widower as we enter this story, leads a family who is heavily involved in law enforcement in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His oldest son Ben (Daniel Baldwin) is a detective on the force. Ben is a family man in a loving marriage with several wild kids. Paul’s younger son Eddie (Sebastian Spence) is a patrol cop. Eddie’s single, has a beautiful girlfriend, and seems to be a nice guy with a well-adjusted life. Paul’s oldest daughter Kate (Barbara Williams) is a local public defender. She seems to be dedicated to her work, not leaving much time for a social life. And then there’s Paul’s youngest daughter Jackie (Angela Featherstone), who has moved out to California and refers to herself as “the family curse.” This story opens with Jackie reluctantly coming back to Milwaukee to attend her dad’s birthday party. All Paul wants for his birthday is for his family to be together. We soon learn that neither Ben or Kate care much for Jackie and her irresponsible life choices. As a matter of fact, the reason she ran off to California in the first place was to get out from under her family’s disapproval. It’s not long after she gets back that the family wishes she would have stayed away. Sneaking out of her sister’s house late at night to drink and party, she meets the prominent local businessman Adam Novacek (Simon MacCorkindale), eventually going to his home and engaging in sexual intercourse. Sadly, the next morning she wakes up to Novacek’s recently deceased corpse, and she’s arrested as the prime suspect in his murder. Convinced of her innocence, Paul, Ben, and Eddie set about trying to clear her name and find the real murderer. Besides Jackie, other suspects begin to emerge, including Novacek’s current wife Anna (Lesley-Anne Down), his former wife Laura (Kate Trotter), who’s now confined to a looney bin, and a local gangster named Frank Rampola (John Vernon), who has a vendetta against Paul for recently busting his grandson. How far will Paul Fein go to protect his family in his search for a killer?!!
FAMILY OF COPS is a perfect example of what I would refer to as entertainment for the “older person crowd,” and I don’t mean this as a put-down in any way as I enjoyed the movie. I just mean that it fits a type of entertainment that was popular in the 80’s and 90’s. These types of shows would depend greatly on the charisma or reputation of a veteran actor or actress, would contain simple production values, and would usually follow formulaic plots. Examples of the types of shows I’m referring to include MURDER, SHE WROTE with Angela Lansbury, MATLOCK with Andy Griffith, DIAGNOSIS MURDER with Dick Van Dyke, and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER with Chuck Norris. A combination of my dad, mom and grandma loved all of these shows. I’m a big fan of MATLOCK myself. In this case, FAMILY OF COPS leans heavily on Charles Bronson’s five decades as a tough guy icon to anchor a somewhat formulaic crime film and family melodrama. The role of Paul Fein fits a 73-year-old Bronson like a glove. He’s still in good physical shape, and the movie gives him a couple of opportunities to punch the shit out of some much younger thugs and henchmen. That was fun for me.
The supporting cast of the film is solid. Daniel Baldwin and Angela Featherstone make the biggest impact. Baldwin is good as the oldest son, a hothead, tough guy on the job who is constantly being humbled at home. Featherstone has the most beautiful eyes, and her rebellious character seems to have a good heart, but she just can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble. Paul Fein’s love for his troubled daughter Jackie is a sweet part of the story and provides something that most of us can relate to. She told me that she “loved Charles,” and I think you can see that in their scenes together. Sebastian Spence and Barbara Williams don’t have a lot to do in this first installment, but their characters will get their own moments to shine in the sequels. I also enjoy seeing John Vernon and Lesley Anne-Down show up in the movie as various persons of interest throughout the story. Bronson and Lesley Anne-Down had recently worked together in DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH (1994) and were reportedly good friends in real life. Ted Kotcheff directed FAMILY OF COPS, which I find kind of disappointing. The same guy who directed movies like NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979) and FIRST BLOOD (1982) didn’t bring anything special to the table in this film. I know it’s a modestly budgeted made-for-TV movie, but the best that can be said for the direction is that it’s workmanlike, and you would never suspect that the director had once helmed the original Rambo movie.
Ultimately, I enjoy FAMILY OF COPS because it stars Charles Bronson. Even as an older man, Bronson still dominates a scene, and the ratings success of the movie proved that Bronson still had an audience who wanted to see him on screen. And even though the story isn’t very unique and the central mystery isn’t very exciting, just the fact that Bronson is leading a solid story that includes action, crime, mystery and family melodrama will always provide some moments of joy for his fans like me. This is far from Bronson’s best work, but the old workhorse still knows how to entertain!
In the projects of Chicago, Byron Harper (Michael Warren) runs a nonprofit basketball farming system and helps black kids, many of whom would have no other prospects other than a live of poverty or crime, to find a home in college basketball programs. Byron is passionate about what he does but he’s also a stern taskmaster and not quick to forgive. When one of his best players, Casey (Nigel Miguel), developed a drinking problem, Byron kicked him off his team. Byron’s main concern is his stepson, Truth (Victor Love). Truth is a great basketball player but also has an addiction to cocaine and an attitude problem.
For reasons that are never made clear, white lawyer Zack Telander (D.B. Sweeney) shows up on the court and says he wants to play one-on-one with Byron. Everyone assumes that Zack is a drug dealer and they tell him to get lost. But when one of the players is shot, Zack is the only person at the court who has a car. Zack rushes the player to the hospital and he wins Byron’s trust. Byron needs Zack to look over a professional contract that is being offered to Truth by sleazy sports agent David Racine (Richard Jordan).
For reasons that are again never made clear, Byron tells Zack to coach some of the more troubled players on the court, including Casey. At first, Zack isn’t much of a coach but eventually, he gets the players to trust him and start playing like a team. He also tries to get burned-out Matthew Lockhart (Bo Kimble) to start playing the game again.
HeavenIsAPlayground is a mess of a movie that doesn’t really seem to be sure what it wants to say about basketball, the projects, or race relations. The main problem is that a lot of the decisions made by Byron and Zack don’t make any sort of logical sense. Moments of broad comedy are mixed with moments of high drama and it makes for an unconvincing and overly melodramatic sports movie.
Heaven Is A Playground had a long pre-production phase. At one point, a young Michael Jordan agreed to play the role of Matthew Lockhart. By the time the film actually went into production, Jordan was a superstar and had neither the time (nor, probably, the desire) to co-star in a low-budget sports movie. After the movie flopped, director Randall Fried sued Jordan for breach-of-contract, claiming that he caused the film’s box office failure by refusing to appear in it and, as a result, Fried’s directorial career stalled. In the suit, Fried claimed that he was on the verge of being “the next Steven Spielberg” until Jordan refused to do his film. The jury found Jordan not liable and awarded him $50,000.
(Trying to sue Michael Jordan was a terrible idea in 1998 and it’s probably still a terrible idea today. People love Jordan!)
Personally, I have to say that Mike made the right decision.
I’m not sure how many of you have seen the film, DARK ANGEL: THE ASCENT, starring Angela Featherstone. In the film, Angela plays Veronica Iscariot, a demoness from Hell who doesn’t want to spend her life tormenting the souls of sinners. After rebelling against her father, and in severe danger of being murdered for disobedience, Veronica ascends towards the surface of Earth. Unfortunately, she finds the world above full of evil and corruption and makes it her mission in life is to punish the wicked. She goes about this mission with a bloody vengeance. On a positive note, she does meet and fall in love with the compassionate Doctor Max Barris (Daniel Markel), who tends her wounds after an accident.
When I was a teenager and up into my twenties, every year I would buy a movie review book called “The Video Movie Guide.” This movie guide contained reviews from Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, and every year they would update their guide with the latest movie reviews. I would pour through the book and “dog-ear” the pages and highlight the movies that I thought looked interesting. That was when I first heard of DARK ANGEL: THE ASCENT. It looked like it had some fun potential, and I knew Angela Featherstone from her work as Charles Bronson’s daughter in the FAMILY OF COPS series. I finally rented the film on VHS, and I really enjoyed it. Angela Featherstone dominates the film, and in my opinion, it just may be the best performance of her career!
If you haven’t seen it, and you enjoy violent B-movies, with strong female characters, and even some humor thrown in for good measure, I recommend this film to you. As of this writing, it’s available for streaming on Amazon Prime, PlutoTV, Tubi, and Fawesome. Give it a watch! I’ve included the trailer below:
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.
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.
