As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally 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 be1998’s Evasive Action!
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, pull up Evasive Action on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
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, in honor the birthday of the late great Curtis Hanson, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Curtis Hanson Films
The Bedroom Window (1987, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Gilbert Taylor)
L.A. Confidential (1997, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Dante Spinotti)
Wonder Boys (2000, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Dante Spinotti)
8 Mile (2002, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Rodrigo Prieto)
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!
Movie star Toshiro Mifune and director Akira Kuroswa on the set of Seven Samurai.
I love director Akira Kurosawa. He’s one of the all time greats. His movies RASHOMON (1951), IKIRU (1952), SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960), and YOJIMBO (1961) are some of the greatest movies ever made. His work has inspired so many great filmmakers, and so many great movies, including THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964), and STAR WARS (1977) just to name a few.
On Kurosawa’s 115th Birthday, I share one of my favorite scenes, from one of my favorite movies (SANJURO), featuring two of my favorite actors (Toshiro Mifune & Tatsuya Nakadai). Enjoy my friends, and rest in peace, Mr. Kurosawa!
When a small farming community in the Dakotas gets hit by an outbreak of the flu, farmer and community leader John Phillips (John Wayne) invites a Dr. Karl Braun (Charles Coburn) to come and be the town’s doctor. A refugee from Austria, Dr. Braun arrives with his daughter, Leni (Sigrid Gurie). At first, Leni is not happy living in the heart of the Dust Bowl but then she falls for John Phillips. However, Leni is still mourning his ex-fiancé (Roland Varno), who Leni and Braun believe sacrificed his life to help them reach America.
Eventually realizing that the town cannot prospers in the heart of the Dust Bowl, John suggests that everyone pack up and move to Oregon. Almost everyone agrees and the one person who wants to go to California gets his van driven off the side of the road. But Leni and Dr. Braun still take a detour to San Francisco because it turns out that Leni’s ex is not dead after all. She and her father meet up with him and discover, to their horror, that he has become a fully committed Nazi.
This is an interesting change-of-pace for John Wayne. Though the film is a western (and even features its own version of wagon train), it’s set in what was then contemporary times and it deals with issues like the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism in Germany. The times may be hard but John Wayne isn’t going to let his community fall apart and, even more importantly, he’s not going to give up his beliefs or his ideals. Even though the movie was made at a time when the United States was still officially neutral, the film is strongly anti-Nazi. John Wayne, giving a strong performance, stands in for America while those who would collaborate with or make excuses for the Nazis represented by the weaselly Roland Varno. Leni’s ex-fiancé had no problem selling out his beliefs and embracing Nazism. Naturally, Leni and her father have no problem telling him off and then rejoining John Wayne in Oregon. The United States may have officially been neutral but this movie had no problem letting everyone know where it stood.
One of the great character actors of all time, M. Emmet Walsh, would have been 90 years old today. Walsh lived a good long life, passing away on March 19th, 2024, three days short of what would have been his 89th birthday. The great movie critic Roger Ebert created his own movie rule that featured Walsh. He called it the “Stanton-Walsh” rule, which also honored the great Harry Dean Stanton. The rule went something like “no movie featuring Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.” High praise indeed.
When I think of Walsh, I picture his characters in movies like FAST-WALKING (1981), BLADE RUNNER (1982), MISSING IN ACTION (1984), and RAISING ARIZONA (1987). I’ve tried to forget one of his scenes in FAST-WALKING, but I’m afraid it’s a hopeless cause! His characters always stand out. The movie I first saw him in was the Coen Brothers’ BLOOD SIMPLE (1984). Fox 16 out of Little Rock played this often in the 80’s. The advertisements heavily featured Walsh’s amazingly sleazy private detective character, with his cowboy hat and his slimy grin. It’s a truly amazing performance.
On his birthday, I share one of his great scenes from BLOOD SIMPLE. Rest in peace, Mr. Walsh! And enjoy, my friends.
A group of drug dealers try to pressure football player Buddy Harris (Tom Campitelli) into throwing the big game. Buddy fakes an injury to get out of playing so the dealers murder not only Buddy but also his mother and his younger brother. Big mistake! Buddy’s older brother, Clete (Wings Hauser), is a CIA agent who is working as a listener in Honduras. Clete returns home and, with the help of an arms dealer (Robert Tessier, playing a good guy for change), Clete hunts down and kills everyone who killed his family. Clete not only gets revenge for his family but he also heads down to Bolivia to show the syndicate that, for them, there is no safe haven!
This is one of the ultimate Wings Hauser films, one that he both wrote and starred in. When Clete seeks revenge, he doesn’t mess around. One gunman gets set on fire while standing on his balcony. (He can either burn to death on the balcony or he can jump to a quicker death below. Either way, Clete’s going to take a lot of pictures) Wings chases the villains down with speedboats and helicopters and he does it all with a slight smirk that suggests he’s not only getting revenge but he’s also having the time of his life. This is Wings Hauser at his most demented and he’s playing the hero! Luckily, the villains are even crazier than Wings. I have to make a special mention of Branscombe Richmond, laughing and yelling and killing in a way that you would never expect if you only knew him from Renegade.
This is Wings Hauser at his best, in a movie that’s mean, violent, and never less than compelling. Clete kills a lot of people but it’s okay because, to quote True Lies, they were all bad. Wings throws himself into the role with his trademark intensity and shows why no one’s safe from Clete Harris. I’m going to miss Wings Hauser. Only he could have played Clete Harris. Only he could have made No Safe Haven the B-action classic of 1987.
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 is William Shatner’s birthday, which means that it is time for….
4 Shots From 4 William Shatner Films
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961, dir by Stanley Kramer, DP: Ernest Laszlo)
Incubus (1966, dir by Leslie Stevens, DP: Conrad Hall)
Big Bad Mama (1974, dir by Steve Carver, DP: Bruce Logan)
The Devil’s Rain (1975, dir by Robert Fuest, DP: Alex Phillips Jr.)
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 1988’s Zombi 3!
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!
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, you can go over to Tubi and watch 1992’s Mind, Body & Soul.
Brenda (Ginger Lynn) has a new boyfriend! After years of getting stuck with duds, Brenda is happy to finally be dating Carl (Jesse Kaye), who is handsome and successful and has a thing about wanting her to drip hot candle wax on his body. Everything’s going fine until Carl asks her to come hang out with some friends of his. It turns out that they’re all Satanists and they’re planning on sacrificing a woman. Fortunately, the police arrive before the sacrifice can be carried out. Unfortunately, all the Satanists run off and leave innocent Brenda takes the blame.
After she’s arrested and spends several days in jail, Brenda is finally bailed out by defense attorney John Stockton (Wings Hauser). Because Carl apparently blew up her apartment (and, the police say, himself with it), Brenda doesn’t have anywhere to stay. She accepts John’s offer to stay at his place. John promises to be a perfect gentleman. He’s a former probation officer and he just wants to help.
And Brenda definitely needs some help! She suspects that Carl isn’t really dead. She keeps having bizarre visions of the robed and masked leader of the cult. She suspects that the cult might still be after her and, when she agrees to appear on a local talk show to tell her story, she finds herself stunned to be sitting across from an actual witch. Her former cellmate, Rachel (Tamara Clatterbuck), has just been released from prison and is willing to help Brenda out. Again, Brenda needs the help. The cult is after her and it’s going to take a lot of intelligence to survive and that’s probably going to be Brenda’s downfall because it’s hard to think of a dumber character than Brenda.
(Seriously, if my boyfriend took me to a Satanic cult meeting on a date, I would be out of there before they even got around to the human sacrifice part of the night.)
This film is so incredibly dumb that I don’t even know where to begin. Occasionally, I’ll see an incoherent horror film and I’ll give it a good review because the incoherence can sometimes add to the terror. Two of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin, both deliberately made horror films that didn’t make sense because they were tying to capture the feeling of being in a nightmare. Mind, Body & Soul makes sense as long as you accept that Brenda, Rachel, and almost every other character in this film is mind-numbingly dumb. The plot works as long as you accept that there is not a shred of intelligence to be found amongst any of the characters, including the bad guys. This is a dumb film that is never scary. It does feature a fair amount of nudity, which I imagine was probably meant to be the film’s main selling point.
On the plus side, Wings Hauser is always entertaining. You’ll be able to guess the big plot twist that involves his character but no matter. With his quick smirk, he at least seems to be enjoying himself. As was so often the case, Hauser’s performance is the only one in this film that feels like an actual performance. Wings Hauser was an actor who always gave it his all, even while appearing in something like this.
