Bruce Dern has made so many great movies that it was pretty tough for me to pick out just 4 shots from 4 films. I ended up picking out the movies that he’s been in that have affected me the most personally, for a variety of reasons. I’ve noticed that Bruce isn’t the “star” of these movies, but each film benefits greatly from his presence. While he has had his share of starring roles over the course of his 6-decade (and counting) career, many of his best performances have come in supporting roles. The man just makes everything he’s in better.
Today, I celebrate the work of a living legend, Bruce Dern!
The Cowboys (1972)The Driver (1978)With James Woods in Diggstown (1992)The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Wide World was a British pulp tabloid that ran from 1898 to 1965. The magazine’s slogan was “Truth is stranger than fiction” and it proved that with stories of adventure and exploration. Today, along with its covers, the magazine is best known for breaking the news that outlaw Butch Cassidy had been killed in Bolivia.
Here are just a few of the covers of The Wide World. All of the covers below are credited to W.C. Nicolson.
Red Sonja is one of those films that was in development forever.
In 2008, Robert Rodriguez was rumored to be planning to direct a Red Sonja film with Rose McGowan in the title role. Then, in 2012, it was Simon West who was being mentioned as the film’s director. In 2018, Bryan Singer announced that he would be directing but he was dropped from the project (and every other project he had going) in 2019. Joey Soloway, best-known for co-creating the briefly trendy show Transparent, was announced as Singer’s replacement. Soloway left the project in 2022 and was replaced by MJ Bassett. Red Sonja was filmed in 2023 and then sat on the shelf for two years before it was finally released in 2025.
Needless to say, a lot happened between 2023 and 2025. By the time Red Sonja was released, it felt like an artifact from a different world. Red Sonja is very much a film of the action girl era. Sonja can beat up just about anyone and she usually does it without breaking a sweat. As was so often the case with the films of the action girl era, the film is so proud of itself for featuring a woman who can fight that no one involved seemed to notice that they hadn’t really come up with anything interesting for her to do.
Sonja (blandly played by Matilda Lutz) has spent most of her life in the forests of a mythical land, searching for the otnher members of her tribe and communing with the animals. When she has to hunt and kill a animal in order to eat, she is sure to say, “Thank you for your sacrifice.” I’m sure her gratitude will provide comfort to the animal’s family. (I’ve never really gotten the whole attitude that hunting is somehow noble as long as you use every bit of the animal and thank it for dying. I’m sure the animal would still rather be alive.) When Sonja is captured and forced to become a gladiator, she discovers that her people are being held prisoner by the effete emperor, Draygan (Robert Sheehan, who is even blander than Matilda Lutz). In the arena, Sonja shouts questions at the emperor and the audience because, thanks to Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, that’s what gladiators do. She’s also given her famous chain mail bikini. The film is quick to make sure we understand that Sonja isn’t into the whole chain mail bikini thing but she has to wear something. Unintentionally, the film also reveals that the filmmakers aren’t really interested in making a Red Sonja film. Everything that made Red Sonja a memorable character in the comic books and the original film is either ignored or viewed with snarky disdain. The only reason the film is called Red Sonja is because Grim Barbarian Woman didn’t have the same zing.
Now, I will say that Red Sonja does get better as it goes along. In fact, the film’s climax features an unexpected twist and, if the entire film had that scene’s courage, this review would be very different. Unfortunately, Red Sonja looks and feels cheap and worst of all, it’s never fun. It’s very much a 2023 film and 2o23 was a year when anyone who dared to enjoy themselves was viewed with suspicion. It may have more of a political consciousness than the 80s version but it’s not as entertaining.
The Cleveland Indians (yeah, I said it) are finally in the race for the pennant and, as a result, they get to star in their very own credit card commercial. The main reason that I love this scene is because, even when appearing in a commercial, each member of the the team still has their own personality and style.
From Major League, one of the greatest baseball films ever made:
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on Mastodon, #TubiThursday watch party will be watching 1982’s Night Shift, with guest host Matthew Titus!
You can find the movie on Tubi and you can join them on Mastodon at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) The party will be using #TubiThursday hashtag!
Jonathan Cain not only played the synthesizer in this song but he also directed the music video. Unfortunately he doesn’t play air keyboard. He saved that for Journey.
Before I say anything else about Gus Van Sant’s new film, I feel that I should make something clear.
I am a huge Al Pacino fan. My love for the Godfather films (even the third one!) should be obvious to anyone who regularly reads this site. I love the majority of Pacino’s work, even the roles that occurred after he started bellowing all of his lines. I think his cop in Heat is one of the most entertaining characters to ever appear in a crime film. I loved his performance as Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman. I enjoyed the humor that he brought to his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I will always be happy to defend Al Pacino.
So, it gives me no pleasure to say that Al Pacino gives one of his worst performances in this film. He plays M.L. Hall, the owner of Meridian Mortgage Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. Pacino only appears in three brief scenes. Wearing a ridiculous wig, he delivers his lines in one of the worst Southern accents that I’ve ever heard. Playing a businessman who is so heartless that he won’t even negotiate with the man who is holding his son hostage, Pacino gives a performance that isn’t even entertaining enough to be considered cartoonish. It’s the type of performance that one might expect from the villain-of-the-week on a particularly heavy-handed episode of Law & Order. It’s not the type of performance that you would expect from Al Pacino.
Fortunately, despite all of that, Dead Man’s Wire is still a fairly compelling film.
Based on a true story, Dead Man’s Wire stars Bill Skarsgard as Tony Kiritsis, a real estate developer in 1970s Indianapolis who feels that Meridian Mortgage Company has cheated him out of the money that he hoped to earn through some land he developed. Because M.L. Hall is on vacation in Florida, Tony takes M.L. son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), hostage. Tony wires a shotgun to Richard’s neck so that any sudden movement by either one of them will lead to Richard getting his head blown off. Tony announced that he’ll only release Richard in return for immunity and an apology from M.L. Hall.
For three days, the city of Indianapolis watches as the situation plays out. Detective Michael Gable (Cary Elwes) tries to negotiate with Tony but Tony is only willing to talk to the DJ (Colman Domingo) at his favorite radio station. Meanwhile, Tony picks up some support from other people who feel that they’ve been screwed over by the M.L. Halls of the world.
Indeed, while watching this movie, it was hard not to think about the creepy cult that has sprung up around Luigi Mangione. Of course, being a blue collar guy who appears to have simply been pushed past his breaking point, Tony is a much more compelling figure than a phony intellectual like Luigi. That said, director Gus Van Sant is more interested in Tony as an outsider on the fringes of polite society than as a political symbol. Skarsgard plays Tony as a man who can go from being friendly to enraged in a matter of seconds and he’s actually quite frightening in the role. Meanwhile, Dacre Montgomery makes Richard into a rather sympathetic character. Even if you don’t agree with the actions of his father, it’s hard not to respect the way that Richard handles the situation. Watching this film, one gets the feeling that the unstable Tony thinks that he and Richard are developing a common ground but in reality, there’s no way that anyone could expect Richard to sympathize with a man who held him hostage for three days. The film respects the characters and the actors too much for that type of false sentimentality.
Towards the end of the film, there’s a rather odd moment where breaking news about the hostage situation interrupts John Wayne presenting the award for Best Picture at the Oscars. In reality, the 1977 Academy Awards were held a month after the hostage situation had been resolved and the ceremony seen in Dead Man’s Wire was held in 1979. (Wayne presented the Oscar just a few months before his own death from cancer.) It’s classic Van Sant move in that it seems like it should mean something but, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t. Van Sant is one of those directors who has been around long enough and who has made enough interesting films that he can get away with something like that.
Dead Man’s Wire is Van Sant’s first film in seven years and his best film since Elephant. It’s flawed but always watchable and it has a sense of humor and enough odd but memorable details to balance out the film’s angrier moments. There are a few moments where the film falls into the trendy and intellectually shallow anti-capitalism that is all the rage nowadays but, for the most part, this is a compelling recreation of a true story and a character study of two men who will be forever linked.
In August of 2022, Netflix premiered a three-part documentary about Woodstock ’99.
Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 took a look at how the third Woodstock musical festival went from being the most highly anticipated event of the summer of 1999 to being a total disaster. I started watching the documentary the week that it premiered. I was halfway through the first episode when I realized that I needed to make sure that my car insurance had been renewed. I stopped the program, hopped online, made sure that my payment had been received and then….
Well, I don’t exactly remember what I did but I do know that I did not return to Woodstock ’99. Indeed, I kind of forgot about Woodstock ’99. It wasn’t until last night, when Jeff and I were looking for something to watch on Netflix, that I saw Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 listed under “continue watching.” I did the math. I decided that, given that it had been nearly four years since I watched the opening 30 minutes of the first episode, it was perhaps to finally see what Woodstock ’99 was all about.
The three-part documentary features archival footage from the concert and also interviews with the people behind Woodstock ’99, a few people who attended, and some of the artists who performed. To be honest, I wish that more of the performers had been interviewed. Considering that one of the festival’s organizers literally blamed Fred Durst for the rioting, it’s a shame that Durst didn’t share his side of the story. I’m not a huge fan of Fred Durst but the decision to blame him for the crowd getting out of control has always seem to be a bit too convenient to me. As the documentary shows (sometimes unintentionally), people had reason to be angry long before Fred Durst stepped out on stage and told them to “break shit.” As a once popular performer who has since come to be seen as a bit of a self-parody, Durst makes for an easy scapegoat.
For all the talk about what Woodstock has represented throughout the years, all three of the festivals were ultimately about making money for the organizers. Michael Lang may have been a hippie who said the first Woodstock was about ending the war in Vietnam and that the third Woodstock was about promoting gun control but he was also a businessman. The first Woodstock only made money because of the success of the famous documentary. Woodstock ’94 lost money because the fence surrounding the festival was torn down and people were able to get in without buying tickets. Woodstock ’99 was designed to be secure and impenetrable. Instead of being held in a field, it was held on a deserted air force base where the asphalt made the summer heat unbearable and where the empty hangars helped to create a dystopian atmosphere. Woodstock ’99 was designed to be village. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a village where bottled water eventually ended up costing $14.00 and the toilets ended up overflowing. (One interviewee discusses waking up on the third day and discovering that she was suffering from something called “trench mouth.” Even the name sounds terrifying.)
The documentary features a few people who rightly point out that the festival’s organizers created a situation where the third night’s riot was almost inevitable. Michael Lang apparently had not listened to any new music since the 70s and, hence, didn’t understand that there was a world of difference between the mellow hippies of 1969 and the fans of Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Kid Rock. Amazingly, Lang thought it would be a good idea to hand out candles so that the festival could end with a candlelight vigil against gun violence. The candles were instead used to start fires. As the festival grounds burned, the fence was finally torn down, a sound tower was pulled to the ground, and eventually the national guard showed up. The organizers of the Festival, including Lang, put the blame on almost everyone but themselves.
I’ve often said that movie and documentaries made between 2019 and 2024 often feel as if they are artifacts from a different age. That’s how quickly the culture shifted after the election of 2024. That’s the case with Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99. The final thirty minutes of the documentary are spent classifying Woodstock ’99 as being an example of white privilege and it seems a little performative today but that was pretty much the prism through which everything was viewed and discussed in 2022. The truth of the matter is that there were a lot of reasons why Woodstock ’99 was a disaster and almost all of them come down to the greed at the heart of the enterprise. It was greed that led to festival being held in the worst possible location. It was greed that led to cutting corners when it came to security and the hiring of the half-assed “Peace Patrol,” a group of amateur security guards who failed to protect the most vulnerable people at the festival. (At least five rapes and numerous other sexual assaults occurred a the concert.) And it was ultimately Michael Lang’s desire to pretend that the concert was about something other than greed that led to a bunch of angry, tired, and intoxicated people being handed candles.
This documentary shows why Woodstock ’99 was the final Woodstock. (There was an attempt to put together a 50th anniversary festival in 2019 but, perhaps thankfully, it fell apart.) It’s a shame that Woodstock ended the way it did. It could have been a great American tradition. Instead, the festival of peace and love ended with fire and destruction.
Through the Shattered Lens 