From 1982’s The Thing, here is one of the greatest endings in the history of horror. Kurt Russell and Keith David play two characters who might be the final survivors of the The Thing’s rampage or who might just be one human talking to one alien. With nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, the two of them share a drink and prepare to freeze.
The scene features great acting from Russell and David and great direction from John Carpenter. It’s one of those endings that you will never forget.
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, we wish a happy birthday to the great Kurt Russell! Last year, we pretty much reviewed every Kurt Russell films that we could find. It was a great day. This year, we cannot let the day pass without offering up….
4 Shots From 4 Kurt Russell Films
Used Cars (1980, dir by Robert Zemeckis, DP: Donald M. Morgan)
Escape From New York (1981, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
The Thing (1982, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)
Tombstone (1993, dir by George Pan Cosmatos (and Kurt Russell), DP: William Fraker)
In a word: Boring.
It wasn’t quite as dull as the COVID Oscars. The 2021 ceremony set a standard for dullness that will probably never be matched. This year, the ceremony actually took place in a theater and it actually had a host who, for the most part, knew what he was doing. That’s not to say that Conan O’Brien was a particularly exciting host but at least the opening monologue went by quickly. When Jimmy Kimmel came out to present the Best Documentary Oscar, we were reminded of just what an improvement O’Brien was on previous hosts.
It’s funny when you think about it. We always bemoan stuff like Will Smith slapping Chris Rock or Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announcing that the wrong film had won Best Picture but the Oscar ceremony is pretty dull without any of that. Last night’s show ran relatively smoothly and only went over by a few minutes. It probably would have been livened up by a slap or two.
The acceptance speeches were okay. I prefer arrogant Paul Thomas Anderson to sincere Paul Thomas Anderson but at least he finally won the Oscars that he probably should have first won many years ago. Anderson is one of our best filmmakers so it’s unfortunate that he won for one of his least interesting films. But that’s the way it often goes with the Academy. Martin Scorsese didn’t win for Goodfellas or Raging Bull or even The Aviator. He won for The Departed.
What happened to all that Sinners momentum? Looking back, the majority of that momentum was a mirage of wishful thinking. A lot of people — myself included — wanted something unexpected to happen to liven up what had been a pretty boring Oscar season. In the end, Michael B. Jordan emerged as Best Actor, over the early favorites. The momentum was less for the film and more for the actor.
The In Memoriam segment was well-handled, though I would have liked to have seen Robert Duvall also get an individual segment. That said, I imagine that Duvall died after the segment had already been planned out. In the end, we all know what a great actor Robert Duvall was and that’s the important thing. Bud Cort, Joe Don Baker and Brigitte Bardot were left out of the In Memoriam montage. I can’t say why Cort and Baker were left out. Brigitte Bardot was undoubtedly left out because of her politics and shame on the Academy for that.
Sean Penn was not at the ceremony, so we were spared a Penn speech. Fortunately, for fans of wealthy celebrities bloviating about politics, Javier Bardem showed up wearing a big ugly button that looked like it was made by an 8 year-old.
There was a lot of talk about how AI will never replace real movies and it felt a bit desperate. I don’t want AI to replace real movies but, sad to say, I think we can all see where things are heading. Perhaps if the real movies were a little bit better, AI wouldn’t be such a threat.
I haven’t seen the ratings yet. Ten years ago, the Oscars dominated social media. This year, things felt much different.
Finally, my Oscar tweet received a review of their own last night.
*Sigh* Sorry, Liz.
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on twitter, I will be hosting one of my favorite films for #MondayMania! Join us for 2017’s Evil Nanny!
You can find the movie on Prime and Tubi and then you can join us on twitter at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) See you then!
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to the one and only Erik Estrada!
Here he is in 1990’s Guns, bringing his customary style to the world of Andy Sidaris.
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, the Shattered Lens celebrates Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Bernardo Bertolucci Films
The Conformist (1970, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)
The Last Emperor (1987, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)
The Sheltering Sky (1990, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)
Stealing Beauty (1996, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Darius Khondji)
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 Hard Ticket To Hawaii!
If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Hard Ticket To Hawaii on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
Enjoy!
Now that the awards for the best of 2025 have been handed out, it’s time to think about what might be nominated next year!
Below are my first set of Oscar predictions for 2026! What am I basing these predictions on? Nothing but instinct, wild guesses, and hopeful thinking. Take them with a grain of salt. If nothing else, we’ll look back on these a year from now and we’ll laugh. Or, we’ll be amazed at my cognitive abilities.
Best Picture
Digger
Disclosure Day
Dune Part Three
I Play Rocky
The Invite
Mother Mary
The Odyssey
Queen At Sea
The Social Reckoning
Wild Horse Nine
Best Director
Lance Hammer for Queen At Sea
Martin McDonagh for Wild Horse Nine
Christopher Nolan for The Odyssey
Steven Spielberg for Disclosure Day
Denis Villeneuve for Dune Part Three
Best Actor
Nicolas Cage in Madden
Timothee Chalamet in Dune Part Three
Tom Cruise in Digger
Anthony Ippolito in I Play Rocky
John Malkovivh in Wild Hose Nine
Best Actress
Juliette Binoche in Queen At Sea
Emily Blunt in Disclosure Day
Isabelle Huppert in The Blood Countess
Mikey Madison in The Social Reckoning
Anya Taylor-Joy in Joni Mitchell
Best Supporting Actor
Tom Courtenay in Queen At Sea
Willem DaFoe in Werewulf
Stephan James in I Play Rocky
Edward Norton in The Invite
Jeremy Strong in The Social Reckoning
Best Supporting Actress
Anna Calder-Marshall in Queen At Sea
Michaela Coel in Mother Mary
Penelope Cruz in The Invite
AnnaSophia Robb in I Play Rocky
Meryl Streep in Joni Mitchell
In an effort to save their marriage, Tom (John Ritter) and Gina (Rachel Hunter) take a vacation in California. However, when they arrive at the home that they’re going to be renting, they are taken hostage by a group of redneck criminals led by Mr. Eddie (Eric Roberts). Mr. Eddie wants all of Tom’s money and this leads to a rather drawn-out hostage situation as Tom tries to get the better of Mr. Eddie and Mr. Eddie spends a lot of time purring threats in a thick Southern accent.
That’s plot of 2000’s TripFall. Don’t ask my why it’s called TripFall. It seems like a bit of a redundant title because a trip and a fall are pretty much the same thing. In fact, don’t even ask me what the point of the film is because there’s really not that much action or suspense. It’s mostly just Eric Roberts and the gang driving John Ritter from one location to another. I’m not a big fan of films about people being held hostage because they always seem to feature the same scene played over and over again. The hostage refuses to do something. The person holding him hostage gives a long monologue. It gets boring after a while.
TripFall is not a career highpoint for either Roberts or Ritter. It’s an action film in which there is very little action. Watching the film, I found myself thinking that it would have been more interesting if Ritter and Roberts had switched roles. Roberts could have played the likable family man for once and maybe the film could have explored the darkness behind Ritter’s goofy persona. (Comedic actors sometimes make the best villains.)
That said, it’s difficult to resist the oddness of John Ritter and Eric Roberts starring in the same movie. If there are two actors who feel as if they literally come from different planets, it’s Ritter and Roberts. Ritter is his typical goofy self, even when he’s trying to play up the drama of the situation. Roberts hisses his lines as Mr. Eddie and appears to be acting in a totally different movie from Ritter. They’re so mismatched that they become rather fascinating (if not exactly memorable) to watch.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
In 1976’s Grizzly, something is making a national park a lot less inviting.
Campers are turning up dead. Bloody body parts are being found buried underneath leaves. It’s obvious that a bear is to blame but reports seem to indicate that this isn’t just any bear. This is a super bear, standing 8 feet tall and capable of knocking down an observation tower and picking up a helicopter. This is the most dangerous bear known to man and the park has to be closed.
Closing the park during tourist season!? Surely not!
Does this all sound familiar? Grizzly came out a year after Jaws. In all fairness to Grizzly, there were a lot of movies that ripped-off Jaws. As a matter of fact, there are still movies ripping off Jaws. The Jaws films eventually ended up ripping off themselves with three sequels. Still, it’s hard to ignore just how blatantly Grizzly rips off Jaws. We get shots from the bear’s point of view. Christopher George plays the sheriff who keeps demanding that the park be closed down until the bear has been taken care of. Andrew Prine is the hippie bear expert. Richard Jaeckel is the crotchety old man who knows more about bears that just about anyone else in the world. In Jaws, they needed a bigger boat. In Grizzly, they need a bigger helicopter. Jaws features scenes of people fleeing from the water. Grizzly features an unintentionally funny shot of hundreds of panicked campers fleeing down the side of a mountain.
Grizzly is Jaws, without the water and without the wit. And yet, in its own grim way, it works well enough. The fact of the matter is that bears are scary and the bear in Grizzly is really, really big. The gore effects are memorably grotesque and, perhaps even more so than Jaws, Grizzly goes out of its way to establish that anyone can die. As for the actors, I’ve always enjoyed seeing Christopher George in films like this. He was one of those actors who always seemed to try to give a convincing performance, even when he was appearing in a film that no one would mistake for a classic. Richard Jaeckel and Andrew Prine also do their best to bring their characters to life.
Finally, I should mention that the film ends on a properly silly and over-the-top note. Actually, it’s not that much different from the ending to Jaws. It’s just that Jaws was made with such skill that even the silly moments worked. Grizzly was directed by William Girdler, who was no Steven Spielberg. At the end of Grizzly, I found myself shouted, “Why didn’t someone just do that in the first place!?” Then again, if they had, we never would have gotten all of those point of view shots of the bear wandering through the forest while growling like an 70s obscene phone caller.
As a final note, I defy anyone to watch Grizzly without imagining Werner Herzog narrating the bear’s activities. It cannot be done!
Through the Shattered Lens 