Today, we wish a happy birthday to the most recent winner of the Oscar for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy!
While Murphy won for his lead role in Oppenheimer, he’s been an intriguing cinematic presence for over two decades and, of course, he’s been a long-time favorite of director Christopher Nolan’s. In 2017’s Dunkirk he had a small but pivotal role as a shell-shocked soldier. Murphy’s haunting performance serves as a reminder that even the most heroic moments of a war often come at great cost to the soldiers involved.
Today is John C. Reilly’s 59th birthday. This provides me with a great reason to share a scene that I love from 1997’s Boogie Nights. In this scene, John C. Reilly and Mark Wahlberg star in one of the best films never actually made, Angels Live In My Town.
Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell were quite a team.
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 is the birthday of our greatest living cinematographer, Roger Deakins! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Roger Deakins Films
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984, dir by Michael Radford, cinematography by Roger Deakins)
Fargo (1996, dir by the Coen Brothers, cinematography by Roger Deakins)
No Country For Old Men (2007, dir by the Coen Brothers, cinematography by Roger Deakins)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir by Denis Villeneuve, cinematography by Roger Deakins)
On the frontier, someone is raiding the homes of ranchers like Jim (Henry Hall) and Judy Barton (Paula Raymond). The Homeowners Association summons Steve Roper (Charles Starrett) to bring a stop to the raids. Everyone suspects that Cal Matson (Steve Darrell) and his son, Rob (Billy Halop), are behind the raids but Steve, as the Durango Kid, discovers that a third party is trying to set everyone at war with each other for his own benefit.
The entry in the Durango Kid series was Charles Starrett’s 103rd western. It’s not a particularly distinguished entry, relying heavily on stock footage. I did find the idea of the film’s bad guy trying to manipulate the Bartons and the Matsons into destroying each other to be interesting but the movie doesn’t do much with it and the identity of main villain will be obvious to anyone who watches the film. There is one good scene where Steve disarms three bad guys and then makes them walk all the way back to town without their boots on. Steve doesn’t mess around.
Smiley Burnette provides the comic relief and a few songs. This time, Smiley’s a dime store writer researching his next book. Musically, he is accompanied by The Sunshine Boys. 103 movies in and Smiley still hasn’t figure out that Steve and Durango are one of a kind.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. 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, at 10 pm et, we’ve got 1984’s Trancers!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Today, we wish a happy 59th birthday to director Tom Tykwer.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Tykwer’s 1998 masterpiece, Run, Lola, Run. Everyone has their own system when it comes to gambling but I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a system as effective as Lola’s.
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, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Ryan Coogler! Ryan Coogler has made a star out of Michael B. Jordan, redeemed the acting career of Sylvester Stallone, introduced the rest of the world to Wakanda, and changed the way that film viewers talk about race in cinema. With all that in mind, it’s time for….
4 Shots from 4 Ryan Coogler Films
Fruitvale Station (2013, dir by Ryan Coogler, DP: Rachel Morrison)
Creed (2015, dir by Ryan Coogler, DP: Maryse Alberti)
Black Panther (2018, dir by Ryan Coogler, DP: Rachel Morrison)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022, dir by Ryan Coogler, DP: Autumn Durald Arkapaw)
College student Jack Mahoney (Jock Mahoney) returns to his hometown on the frontier to pay a surprise visit to his father, Old Henry (Edgar Dearing). Old Henry owns a local stagecoach line and is being targeted by outlaws. When Jack reaches his father’s house, he discovers that someone has shot Henry in the back. With the help of Steve Baldwin (Charles Starrett) and Betty Coulter (Anne James), two of Henry’s employees, Jack Mahoney tries to bring his father’s killers to justice.
Also helping is the masked Durango Kid, who tells Jack that Henry was an old friend of his. Durango, who is never present at the same time as Steve for some reason, teaches Jack how to handle a gun. When Steve is framed for murder, Durango works even harder to help bring the outlaws to justice.
This late Durango Kid entry has more of an edge that some of the other Durango films. Both Durango and Jack are out for vengeance and their grim determination sets this one apart from some of Durango’s other, more jokey adventures.
Even with Durango in a serious mood, Smiley Burnette is around to provide some humor. This time, Smiley is a traveling “specs specialist” who goes from town to town and sells people glasses. (He also sings two songs while accompanied by Harmonica Bill.) At the end of the movie, Smiley breaks the fourth wall, puts on a pair of glasses that he says allow him to see the future, and he lets us know whether or not Durango, Jack, and Betty are going to be safe. Smiley says that he can see himself singing but he can’t hear the song because he only has the glasses. “Looks like a good song, too.”
One final note: this movie actually features Jock Mahoney in two roles. Not only does he play college student Jack Mahoney but he was also Charles Starrett’s stunt double in the movie’s action scenes.
Bleeding Love opens with a father (Ewan McGregor) driving his pickup truck across the desert. Sitting next to him is his 20 year-old daughter (Clara McGregor).
Over the course of Bleeding Love, we come to know quite a lot about these two. We know that the Father is divorced from the Daughter’s mother and that he has since remarried and has started a second family. We know that the Daughter has never met her Father’s new wife. We know that the Father has been sober for several years and now regularly attends AA, where he talks about the many regrets that continue to haunt him. We know that the Daughter grew up both loving her Father and also being scared of the way he would get when he was drunk. We know the Father is a landscaper. We know the Daughter is a painter who feels like she has lost whatever once inspired her. Father follows the rules. Daughter shoplifts tiny bottles of liquor from a gas station. Father talks a lot because he’s not sure what to say. Daughter is often silent for the same reason. Father is concerned about Daughter. Daughter barely survived and overdose just a few hours before Father announced they were going to see a friend of his.
We learn a lot about the Father and the Daughter but we never learn their names. (Father calls Daughter by her childhood nickname of “Turbo,” even though she specifically asks him not to.) They’re meant to be universal characters, standing in for all fathers and daughters who are trying to figure out how to relate to each other. Appropriately enough, the characters are played by an actual father-daughter team, Ewan and Clara McGregor. (Clara also had a hand in writing and producing the film.)
Bleeding Love follows Father and Daughter as they drive across the desert. (Father has told Daughter that they’re just visiting an old friend but what Daughter doesn’t know is that old friend also runs a drug rehab.) Along the way, they sometimes argue and they sometimes bond, especially over the music playing on the radio. (There’s a reason why this film is named after a Leona Lewis song.) They meet the usual collection of eccentrics that always tend to populate road movies like this. I liked Kim Zimmer’s performance as Elsie, the driver of a tow truck who takes Father and Daughter to her cousin’s birthday party. (At the party, Daughter tricks a man in a clown suit into giving her beer.) I also liked the performance of Vera Bulder, playing a prostitute named Tommy who helps Father and Daughter after the latter gets bitten by a spider. Not everyone on the road is as friendly as Elsie or Tommy, as both Father and Daughter eventually discover.
When Bleeding Love first started, I was a bit skeptical as to whether or not the film would work. There are a few moments where the film does seem to be trying a bit too hard to force an emotional response from the viewer. However, both McGregors are strong, likable, and sympathetic in their roles and their natural chemistry as father-and-daughter goes a long way towards making the relationship of their characters in the film feel real and poignant. Ewan pours himself into a scene where he talks about his past mistakes while Clara plays Daughter as someone who is angry and impulsive but not stupid. I related to Daughter and her relationship with her Father. There’s a lot of emotional truth to be found in their sometimes angry, sometime funny conversations on the road.
Thanks to Clara and Ewan McGregor, Bleeding Love works as a portrait of regret and addiction and a celebration of the bond between child and parent.
Serving out a six-month suspension, Merchant Seaman Tommy Campbell (Jan-Michael Vincent) rents an apartment on New York’s Lower East Side and passes the time painting and trying to learn Spanish in hope of getting assigned to a ship that is heading to Panama.
Tommy just wants to be left alone but he finds himself being drawn into the close-knit neighborhood. He becomes friends with Carmine (Danny Aiello) and more than friends with his upstairs neighbor (Theresa Saldana). He becomes a mentor to a street kid (Fernando Lopez) who lives with a punch-drunk boxer named called Whacko (Lenny Montana). Abe (Art Carney), who owns the local bodega, agrees to let Tommy use his phone.
Tommy also finds himself drawing the attention of Angel Cruz (Rudy Ramos), head of the local street gang. Tommy doesn’t want to get involved in any trouble. He just wants to serve his suspension and sail to Panama. But with Angel and his gang terrorizing the neighborhood and even robbing a church bingo game, Tommy and his friends finally stand up to the gang.
Defiance is more intelligent and realistic than many of the other urban vigilante movies that came out in the 70s and 80s. Tommy never becomes a cold-blooded killer, like Charles Bronson did in the Death Wish films. Instead, he spends most of the film trying to stay out of trouble and, when he does stand up for himself and the neighborhood, he does so realistically. He fights the gang members but he doesn’t set out to the kill them. About as deliberately destructive as he and Carmine get is that they destroy Angel’s car. Rather than being a typical vigilante movie, Defiance is a portrait of a neighborhood where everyone takes care of everyone else. Angel and his gang mistake the neighborhood’s kindness for weakness. The neighborhood proves them wrong.
Defiance stars two actors who never quite got their due. Theresa Saldana’s promising career was derailed when she was attacked and nearly killed by a deranged stalker in 1982. Though she recovered and went on to do a lot of television, she never became the star that she should have. Jan-Michael Vincent did become a star in the 70s and 80s but he later became better-known for his struggles with drugs and alcohol. Both of them are very good in Defiance and leave you thinking about the careers that they could have had if things had just gone differently.
Through the Shattered Lens 