Scenes That I Love: John Nada Sees The Truth in They Live

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The brilliance of this scene is that it pretty much speaks for itself.  It doesn’t need to be overanalyzed.  It doesn’t need to be carefully explained.  It works because it captures what almost everyone has always suspected, even if they didn’t necessarily have the courage to say so aloud.

From John Carpenter’s 1988 film They Live:

6 Shots From 6 Films: Special John Carpenter Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 78th birthday to one of this site’s favorite filmmakers and a patron saint of the independent spirit, the great John Carpenter!

In honor of the man and his legacy, here are….

6 Shots From 6 John Carpenter Films

Halloween (1978, dir by John Carpenter. DP: Dean Cundey)

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

Escape From New York (1981, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

The Thing (1982, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

They Live (1988, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)

In The Mouth of Madness (1994, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Jurassic Domination!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties.  On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday.  On Mastodon, 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, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix!  The movie?  2022’s Jurassic Domination!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Jurassic Domination on Prime, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  I’ll be there happily tweeting.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

See you there!

I Watched Perry Mason: The Case of the Silenced Singer (1990, Dir. by Ran Satlof)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

When singer Terri Knight (Vanessa Williams) is shot and murdered, her husband and manager, Jack (Tim Reid), is arrested.  It’s a good thing that Jack’s professor in law school was Perry Mason (Raymond Burr)!  Perry and Ken Malansky (William R. Moses) take the case and investigate to see who silenced the singer.  (Does Perry know anyone who hasn’t been accused of murder?  Someone even tried to fame Della!)

This Perry Mason movie was slightly different than those that came before it.  It was full of flashbacks, showing how Terri became a star and went from being nice and innocent to being a diva.  Every time that Perry or Ken would interrogate someone, it would lead to scene of Vanessa Williams wearing a wig and playing Terri at a different time in her life and career.  There was also a lot singing and the movie actually seemed to be more focused on the music and showing Terri’s rise to fame than it did on solving the actual mystery.  It was was if Perry Mason got dropped into the middle of a production of Dreamgirls.  It didn’t really work for me because Terri wasn’t an interesting enough character to carry the flashbacks but it was still interesting to see a Perry Mason movie trying to do something different.

The most memorable thing about this movie was Angela Bassett, playing a fellow singer and a former friend of Terri’s. She even told off Perry Mason at one point!  It was early in her career but it was easy to see that, from the start, Angela Bassett was obviously going to be a star.

The Rawhide Terror (1934, directed by Jack Nelson and Bruce Mitchell)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are some Poverty Row westerns that even I can’t defend.

A group of bandits, disguised as Indians, attack a pioneer family.  The father and the mother are killed but their twin boys survive.  One wanders into the wilderness while the other stays with the remains of his family and waits for help.  Years later, the town of Red Dog is thriving, with the former bandits as its leading citizens.  Someone has been gunning down the former bandits.  The townspeople demand that Sheriff Luke (Edmund Cobb) do something about the man that they’ve nicknamed the Rawhide Killer.  First, however, Luke has to deal with Jim Briggs (William Barrymore), who has been abusing his son (Tommy Bupp).  It also turns out that Jim Briggs is the Rawhide  Killer and he’s looking for vengeance against those who killed his parents.  Jim’s brother also lives in the town.  Guess who!

The Rawhide Terror gets off to a good start with the bandit attack but it falls apart soon afterwards.  I don’t know if it was just because I was watching a bad print but the sound quality was terrible and the lack of an original score really highlighted just how boring it is to watch men silently ride their horses from one side of the screen to the other.  This movie was only 47 minutes long and half of it was made up of shots of people riding horses.  Add some really bad acting and you’ve got a western that was bad even by the standards of a 1934 second feature.

Two men are credited with directing the film, though the production was actually supervised by Victor Adamson, the father of the notorious schlock filmmaker, Al Adamson.

Song of the Day: Luck Be a Lady (by Robert Alda)

Posted on by Arleigh

In The Wrangler, using Robert Alda’s original version of “Luck Be a Lady” from Guys and Dolls hits differently than the more famous Sinatra take. Alda’s rendition, coming from the Broadway stage, is less smooth and more desperate—it’s a man bargaining with luck, not charming her. That’s a crucial difference in Fallout’s world. When Alda’s voice drifts through the smoky ruin of The Wrangler, it feels like an echo from a long-dead civilization—one where people still believed that fortune was something you could negotiate with. It grounds the scene in Fallout’s favorite tension: the clash between old optimism and new despair.

Thematically, the original version suits Fallout’s tone better. Sinatra’s version oozes control and self-assurance, while Alda sings with the anxious rhythm of someone clinging to hope. In the episode, that anxiety fits the stakes perfectly—characters gambling with their lives, exchanging trust for survival, and hoping the “lady” of luck doesn’t turn her back at the wrong moment. The Broadway earnestness becomes a tragic counterpoint to the brutality around it, emphasizing how fragile that old-world faith in luck or charm truly is.

By choosing Alda over Sinatra, the show subtly reframes what “luck” means in this universe. It’s not style or swagger—it’s survival by the skin of one’s teeth. The song’s theatrical flair feels almost haunting in a world where the audience is gone and the casino’s collapsed. Yet that’s what gives the moment its punch: Fallout has always used nostalgia as both soundtrack and satire, and with Alda’s pleading vocals hanging in the air, The Wrangler reminds us that sometimes, luck isn’t a lady at all—it’s just what’s left when everything else runs out.

Luck Be a Lady

They call you Lady Luck
But there is room for doubt
At times, you’ve had a very unlady-like way of running out
You’re on this date with me
The pickin’s have been lush
And yet before this evening is over
You might give me the brush

You might forget your manners
You might refuse to stay
And so the best that I can do is pray

Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with, luck be a lady tonight

Luck let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been with
Luck, be a lady with me

A lady doesn’t leave her escort
It isn’t fair, it isn’t nice
A lady doesn’t wander all over the room
And blow on some other guy’s dice
Let’s keep this party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick me with me baby, I’m the fella you came in with
Luck, be a lady tonight

Luck, let a gentleman see
Just how nice, how nice a dame you can be
I know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been with
Luck be a lady with me

A lady doesn’t leave her escort
It isn’t fair, and it’s not nice
A lady doesn’t wander all over the room
And blow on some other guy’s dice
So let’s keep the party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick with me baby, I’m the guy that you came in with
Luck be a lady
Luck be a lady
Luck be a lady, tonight