Phil saw his shadow. We all know what that means!
Category Archives: Film
4 Shots From 4 John Ford Films: The Informer, Stagecoach, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
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!
Yesterday was John Ford’s birthday. Better late than never, here are four shots from four of my favorite John Ford films!
4 Shots From 4 John Ford Films
The Informer (1935, directed by John Ford. Cinematography by Joseph August)
Stagecoach (1939, directed by John Ford, Cinematography by Bert Glennon)
The Quiet Man (1952, directed by John Ford. Cinematography by Winton C. Hoch)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, directed by John Ford. Cinematography by William Clothier)
Ride Lonesome (1959, directed by Budd Boetticher)
In the western Ride Lonesome, Randolph Scott plays Ben Brigade. Brigade is a bounty hunter. The only thing that really differentiates him from the outlaws that he captures is that he gets paid for what he does. When Brigade arrests a young outlaw named Billy John (James Best), he gives Billy just enough time to send word to his older brother, Frank (Lee Van Cleef). And when Brigade starts to lead Billy John back to the town of Santa Cruz, he takes his time and fails to cover his tracks, almost as if he is intentionally making time for Frank to eventually catch up to him. Along the way, Brigade meets up with three others, a woman named Carrie (Karen Steele) and two outlaws named Boone (Pernell Roberts) and Whit (James Coburn). Carrie is searching for her husband while Boone and Whit want to arrest Billy John themselves so that they can turn him in and get a pardon for their own crimes.
Ride Lonesome is one of the best of the many films that Randolph Scott made with director Budd Boetticher. Boetticher specialized in making fast-paced westerns that had deceptively simple plots. Nobody in a Boetticher western was totally good or totally bad and that’s certainly the case with Ride Lonesome, which may seem like a typical western but which is actually a character study of 6 very different people. Brigade is often only the hero by default and his actions are often as ruthless as those of the men who are tracking him. It’s only after he meets and gets to know Carrie that he starts to seriously consider that his plans could lead to innocent people getting hurt. Billy John may be a wanted killer but, underneath his bravado, he’s just someone trying to live up to his brother’s example. Meanwhile, Boone and Whit may be outlaws but they turn out to be the most morally upright characters in the film. Ride Lonesome takes a serious look at frontier justice and suggests that maybe black-and-white morality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
Needless to say, the cast is great. Randolph Scott was one of the great western heroes and Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and James Best all turn in memorable performances. Best of all is James Coburn, making his film debut and showing that, even at the start of his career, he was already the epitome of cool. Ride Lonesome is one of the best of of the Boetticher/Scott westerns and a true classic of the genre.
2021 In Review: Lisa Marie’s Picks For The 26 Best Films of 2021
Without further ado, here is the list that we’ve all been waiting for! Here are my picks for the 26 best films of 2021! Why 26? Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers!
(Also, be sure to check out my picks for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020! Wow, I’ve been doing this for a while!)
1. Nightmare Alley
2. Licorice Pizza
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth
4. Mass
5. Shiva Baby
6. Belfast
7. CODA
8. The Last Duel
9. The Power of the Dog
10. The French Dispatch
11. The Father
12. West Side Story
13. Pig
14. Dear Comrades
15. Another Round
16. Dune
17. Spider-Man: No Way Home
18. Val
19. Wild Indian
20. Romeo and Juliet
21. East of the Mountains
22. Summit of the Gods
23. A Quiet Place Part II
24. Passing
25. The Lost Daughter
26. Swan Song
Lisa Marie’s 2021 In Review:
In The Line of Duty: Siege at Marion (1992, directed by Charles Haid)
After bombing several Mormon centers in Utah, religious extremist and polygamist Adam Swapp (Kyle Secord) has barricaded himself inside of a farm house with his wives and supporters. The FBI, led by Bob Bryant (Dennis Franz), have the house surrounded and are trying to convince Swapp to peacefully surrender. Swapp, however, has no intention of going down without a fight.
In the 1990s, NBC did a whole series of made-for-TV miniseries about real-life law enforcement operations that inevitably led to the death of at least one of the officers involved. They made so many of them and they churned them out so quickly that NBC even aired a movie about the Branch Davidian stand-off while it was still going on. Siege at Marion, the fourth of the In The Line of Duty films, feels like a precursor to what was eventually happen in Waco. Just as happened in Waco and with the attempts to arrest Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, critics claimed that the government came on too strong while the government claimed that they were merely enforcing the law.
Siege at Marion is the least interesting of all of the In The Line of Duty movies, mostly because the Marion siege was neither as mismanaged as what happened in Waco or as egregiously heavy-handed and disturbing as what happened in Ruby Ridge. Though based on a true story, Siege at Marion is a standard stand-off film with the only suspense coming from the film’s distasteful attempts to build up suspense as to whether it’ll be Dennis Franz, William H. Macy, or Ed Begley, Jr. who is killed in the line of duty. Since only one of them is given a backstory and a family, it’s easy to guess which one it will be.
The best thing about Siege of Marion is the cast. Dennis Franz was born to play cops and it’s interesting to see a pre-Fargo William H. Macy playing a non-nervous character. Kyle Secor is convincingly fanatical and unhinged as the messianic Adam Swapp. Secor would go on to star as Tim Bayliss on the much-missed Baltimore-set cop show, Homicide: Life on the Street. Speaking of classic cop shows, Siege at Marion was also directed by Charles Haid, who played Andy Renko on Hill Street Blues. As for the In The Line of Duty films, the last one was made in 1994 but they all live on in syndication.
2021 In Review: The Best of Lifetime
As chaotic as 2021 may have been, one thing remained unchanged! Lifetime provided me with a lot of entertainment! Below, you’ll find my picks for the best Lifetime films and performances of the past year!
(For my previous best of Lifetime picks, click on the links: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020!)
Best Picture: Just What The Doctor Ordered
Best Director: Jeff Hare for Just What The Doctor Ordered
Best Actor: Eric Roberts in Just What The Doctor Ordered
Best Actress: Lauren Lee Smith in Doomsday Mom: The Lori Vallow Story
Best Supporting Actor: Jonathan Stoddard in The Wrong Prince Charming
Best Supporting Actress: Joely Fisher in Girl In The Basement
Best Screenplay: Just What The Doctor Ordered
Lisa Marie’s 2021 In Review:
Lisa Marie’s Oscar Predictions for January
Well, here we are. Another awards season is wrapping up. Almost all of the regional critic groups have announced their picks for the best of 2021. The Guilds have spoken. The front runners have emerged. Both Don’t Look Up and Being the Ricardos have weathered bad reviews and become probable Oscar nominees. If nothing else, I’ll have something to complain about for the next three or four months. At the same time, Power of the Dog has emerged as the critical favorite. Belfast seems to be the populist favorite. West Side Story is the big production that has to be nominated, even though no one seems to feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other. Dune is the blockbuster that the Academy is hoping will cause people to tune into the ceremony, especially now that it appears that the Spider-Man Oscar campaign has fizzled. Don’t Look Up is the “Let’s piss off the cons” nominee. Being the Ricardos is this year’s “Wow, our industry really is the best” nominee. Personally, I’m going to view tick, tick….Boom! as being the most likely dark horse to pull off an upset.
So, with all that in mind, here’s my last set of 2021 Oscar predictions.
Looking at the list below, I have to say that we certainly have a good race this year. It’s interesting that, this year, only films that were released between March and the end of December were eligible for the Oscars. 2021 was a very good year for movies! Not only do we have the nominees below but we also had films like The Father and Judas and the Black Messiah, both of which are 2021 films as far as I’m concerned.
(Consider this. If the Oscars had kept the eligibility window the same last year instead of extending it to accommodate films delayed by the pandemic, Anthony Hopkins would probably be the Best Actor front runner right now and the Academy probably would have given Chadwick Boseman a posthumous Best Actor award last April. I also imagine that Jesse Plemons would have a better chance of picking up a supporting actor nomination if the members of the Academy were currently screening both The Power of the Dog and Judas and the Black Messiah at the same time.)
To see how my thinking has evolved, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June and July and August and September and October and November and December!
The Oscar nominations will be announced on February 8th. Below are my predictions!
Best Picture
Being The Ricardos
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Power Of The Dog
Tick, Tick….Boom!
West Side Story
Best Director
Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog
Adam McKay for Don’t Look Up
Lin-Manuel Miranda for tick, tick …. Boom!
Steven Spielberg for West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve for Dune
Best Actor
Nicolas Cage in Pig
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield in tick, tick….Boom!
Will Smith in King Richard
Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of Macbeth
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter
Jennifer Hudson in Respect
Nicole Kidman in Being the Riacardos
Kristen Stewart in Spencer
Best Supporting Actor
Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizzia
Ciaran Hinds in Belfast
Troy Kostur in CODA
Jared Leto in House of Gucci
Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Power of the Dog
Best Supporting Actress
Caitriona Balfe in Belfast
Ariana DeBose in West Side Story
Kirsten Dunst in The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis in King Richard
Ruth Negga in Passing
Gunfire (1950, directed by William Berke)
Years after the death of his brother Jesse, Frank James (Don “Red” Barry) has settled down in Colorado and is living a peaceful life as a rancher. He is even friends with the town’s sheriff, John Kelly (Robert Lowery). Unfortunately, it’s not always so easy to escape the past, especially when you are one of the few surviving members of one of the Old West’s most notorious gangs. A former member of the James Gang, Mundy (Claude Stroud), shows up at Frank’s cabin and tries to talk Frank into joining up with him, the Ford brothers (Gaylord Pendleton and Roger Anderson), and their new leader, Bat Fenton (Don “Red” Barry, playing a second role). When Frank refuses and makes clear that he still wants revenge on the Ford brothers for the murder of Jesse James, the gang goes on a crime spree. Because he and Fenton look exactly alike, the entire town thinks that Frank is responsible. Can Frank clear his name and avenge the death of his brother?
There were a lot of poverty row B-westerns produced in the early 1950s and most of them are pretty bad. However, occasionally you come across a diamond in the rough and that’s the case with Gunfire. Gunfire tells an interesting story, it has exciting gunfights, and it also features not one but two good performances from Don “Red” Barry! Barry is equally convincing as both the good Frank and the bad Fenton and the movie uses the double plot as a way to illustrate how difficult it is to escape the sins of the past. Frank has been “born again” but every time he sees Fenton, he sees not only who he used to be but also who many will always believe him to be. Gunfire is a good western that shows that you don’t need a huge budget to tell an engaging story.
I Watched The 5th Quarter (2010, dir. by Rick Bieber)
The 5th Quarter is the story of the Abbate Brothers. Luke Abbate (Stefan Guy) is a high school football star who has his entire life ahead of him. Jon Abbate (Ryan Merriman) is a student at Wake Forest University and is a linebacker on their football team. When Luke is killed in a horrific car accident, Jon considers dropping out of football but instead, with his parent’s encouragement, he decides to keep playing and to dedicate the season to the memory of his little brother. Wearing his Luke’s No. 5 jersey, Jon inspires both the team and the fans.
Sometimes you really want to like something but you just can’t. That’s the way that I felt about The 5th Quarter. The movie is based on a true story and its heart is in the right place but it’s just too predictable too really work. It needed more drama and at least a little suspense about whether or not Wake Forest would be able to win all of the games that they won. I did think that Aidan Quinn and Andie MacDowell (who I thought was Jennifer Garner for most of the movie) were pretty good as Luke and Jon’s parents. The movie needed more scenes like the one where Andie MacDowell got mad at the woman who asked her how she was doing right after she had buried her youngest son. Otherwise, The 5th Quarter meant well but it was just too predictable.
Sierra Stranger (1957, directed by Lee Sholem)
Sierra Stranger starts with a familiar western situation. Jess Collins (Howard Duff), a penniless but honorable drifter, comes across two men tying another man to the back of a horse. The two men claim that Sonny Grover (Ed Kemmer) is an outlaw and a claim jumper and not to be trusted. Sonny says that he’s innocent and the two men are actually the claim jumpers. Jess does what many a western hero has done. He sides with the underdog and saves Sonny. To thank him, Sonny gives Jess a part of his claim.
Jess rides into the nearby town to claim his new property. He meets and befriends Sonny’s half-brother, Bert (Dick Foran). He also meets and falls in love with Bert’s fiancée, Meg (Gloria McGeehee). However, soon after arriving, Jess discovers that he made a mistake and he saved the wrong man. Sonny really is the dangerous outlaw that everyone says he is. After Sonny robs a stagecoach and murders the driver, Jess risks his new friendship with Bert by trying to bring Sonny to justice.
Howard Duff appeared in his share of B-westerns in the 50s. He was always a solid hero, even if he didn’t really have the screen presence of some of the other stars of the genre. He’s pretty good in Sierra Stranger and the fact that, for once, the town is right while the drifter is wrong is an interesting twist on an otherwise standard story. This is the rare western where the hero makes a pretty big mistake and then has to spend the rest of the movie trying to make up for it. If you’re not a western fan, this is not the type of B-movie that’s going to change your mind. But, for those who do like the genre, it’s an interesting twist on what we’ve been led to naturally expect.
Through the Shattered Lens