This trailer took us all by surprise during the Super Bowl and all I can say is that I absolutely love it!
Here’s is the Super Bowl trailer for The Adventures of Cliff Booth!
Tag Archives: Brad Pitt
The Films of 2025: F1 (dir by Joseph Kosinski)
“Do they have the car?”
“We have the driver.”
Those two lines of dialogue, uttered towards the end of the film, pretty much sums up F1, a terrifically entertaining movie about Formula One racing.
Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a former FI prodigy who, in the early 90s, suffered a traumatic crash at the Spanish Grand Prix. The crash nearly killed him and it temporarily ended his career as an F1 driver. Sonny has spent the past thirty years as a drifter, gambler, and as a race car driver for hire. He lives in a van and is haunted by nightmares of his crash. When he wakes up in the morning, he groans as he stretches his tattooed, beat-up, but still muscular body. He dunks his face in a sink full of ice. He’s aging but he hasn’t surrendered just yet. The film opens with Sonny helping to win the 24 Hours of Daytona race. After his victory, he’s approached by his former teammate, Ruben (Javier Bardem). Ruben is in charge of the APEXGP F1 team. He needs a driver to partner with the young and arrogant Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Sonny agrees, though only after Ruben asks if Sonny wants a chance to show that he’s the best in the world. Sonny may be one of the oldest guys on the track but he’s still got something to prove.
If F1 came out in 80s, the 90s, or even the Aughts, it would be viewed as a well-made but predictable racing film, one in which a fairly by-the-numbers script was held together by Brad Pitt’s overwhelming charisma and Joseph Kosiniski’s kinetic direction. And that certainly is a legitimate way to view the film in 2025. On the other hand, coming after both the scoldy Woke Era and the authoritarian COVID Era, a film that celebrates competing without guilt, that says that it’s more fun to win than to lose, and which doesn’t apologize for embracing a culture of driving fast and breaking the rules feels almost revolutionary. Just as he did with Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski reminds the audience that it’s okay to be entertained. Not everything has to be a struggle session. Not everything has to be a rejection of the things that once made you happy. F1 is a film that invites you to cheer without guilt or shame.
It’s a good film, one that is full of exciting racing scenes and gasp-inducing crashes. After both this film and Top Gun: Maverick, there’s little doubt that director Joseph Kosinski knows how to harness the power of Hollywood’s few true movie stars. That said, as good as Brad Pitt is, Damson Idris is equally impressive, playing Joshua, a young driver who learns that there’s more to being a great driver than just getting good press. When we first meet Joshua, he’s young and cocky and arrogant and one thing that I respect about the film is that, even after Joshua learns the importance of teamwork and trust, he’s still more than a little cocky. He never stops believing in himself. He doesn’t sacrifice his confidence on the way to becoming the best. Though the film is definitely on Sonny’s side when it comes to their early conflicts (one can practically here the film saying, “Put down your phone, you young whippersnapper!”), it’s smart enough to not make Joshua into a caricature. Instead, he’s just a young man trying to balance celebrity and talent. Kerry Condon also gives a good performance as APEX’s technical director, though her romance with Sonny does feel a bit tacked on. (Far too often, whenever a female character says that she’s not looking for a relationship, movies refuse to take her word for it.)
When I first heard about F1, I have to admit that I wondered if Kosinski was deliberately following up the Top Gun sequel with a remake of Days of Thunder.It is true that F1 does have a lot in common with other racing films but, in the end, it doesn’t matter. Brad Pitt’s star turn and Joseph Kosinski’s direction makes F1 into an absolutely thrill ride and one of the best of 2025.
Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.14 “Black Tickets”
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, a future Oscar winner shows up in Springwood.
Episode 1.14 “Black Tickets”
(Dir by George Kaczender, originally aired on February 5th, 1989)
Brad Pitt appears in this week’s episode, playing Rick. Rick is a rebellious teenager who elopes with his girlfriend, Miranda (Kerry Wall). Even on a low-budget show like this, Pitt’s screen presence was undeniable. From the minute he shows up onscreen, it’s impossible to look away from him. He had that movie star charisma from the start. It’s a shame that the episode itself isn’t that good.
It’s a typical Freddy’s Nightmares scenario. The first 20 minutes feature Rick having an extended dream sequence after he gets hit by a car. Rick apparently dreams about staying at a creepy hotel with Miranda and then being forced to kill two cops that show up and attempt to arrest him. But, at the end of the story, he sees himself lying in the middle of the road and realizes that everything that has happened since he got hit by the car has only been happening in his head.
The second 20 minutes features Miranda married to Rick. Rick has no settled down but Miranda is worried that she might be pregnant. While she waits for the results of her pregnancy test, she sees herself trapped in the house as a mother while Rick goes from being a rebel to being a police officer. Finally, Miranda snaps out of her dream and discovers that she’s not pregnant. She jumps for joy on her bed but then she slips, hits her head, and ends up with the mind of a child.
This was a pretty bland episode, even with Brad Pitt in the cast. The main problem was that it was all so predictable. The dreams were obviously dreams so there wasn’t really any suspense or tension while they were playing out. Freddy’s Nightmares used the “Its all just a dream” format so often that, by this point in the first season, it had gotten fairly boring. That was certainly the case here.
Clooney and Pitt reunite for Jon Watts’ Wolfs trailer!
After a fantastic run with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man trilogy, director Jon Watts shows no signs of slowing down. His next project, Wolfs, is one he wrote, produced and directed with a little assistance from Apple Films. The film reunites Oceans’ Eleven stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt as a pair of competing fixers that are forced to work together. It’s not too far removed from Michael Clayton for Clooney or Bullet Train for Pitt. The film also stars Amy Ryan (Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building) Austin Abhrams (HBO’s Euphoria) and Poorna Jagannathan (HBO’s The Night of).
Wolfs premieres this September in theatres.
14 Days of Paranoia #7: No Way Out (dir by Roger Donaldson)
Trust no one in Washington would seem to be the message of this 1987 thriller.
Kevin Costner plays Lt. Commander Tom Farrell, a Naval Intelligence officer who is hailed as a hero after saving a shipmate who falls overboard. In Washington, Tom is recruited by a friend from college, Scott Pritchard (Will Patton), to work for Secretary of Defense Brice (Gene Hackman). Brice doesn’t trust the head of the CIA (played by future senator, Fred Dalton Thompson) and he wants Tom to serve as his mole within the service. What Brice doesn’t know is that Tom is sleeping with Brice’s mistress, Susan Atwell (Sean Young).
Still, Brice does suspect that the woman with whom he is cheating is also cheating on him. When he confronts her about it, their argument leads to him accidentally pushing Susan over an upstairs railing. Pritchard, who is implied to be in love with Brice, takes charge of the cover-up and decides to push the story that Susan was killed by a possibly mythical Russian agent who is known only by the name “Yuri.”
Tom assists with the investigation of her death, both because he wants to know who killed Susan and also because he knows that there’s evidence in Susan’s apartment that could be manipulated to make him look guilty of the crime. For instance, Susan took a picture of Tom shortly before her death. The picture failed to develop but, through the use of what was undoubtedly cutting edge technology in 1987, Naval Intelligence is slowly unscrambling the picture. For Tom, it’s a race against time to find the actual killer before the picture develops and he’s accused of both killing Susan and being Yuri.
Everyone has an agenda in No Way Out, from the ambitious Brice to the fanatical Scott Pritchard to the head of the CIA, who wants Brice to approve funding for a costly submarine. Even the film’s nominal hero has an agenda, which has less to do with finding justice for Susan and everything to do with protecting himself and his future. In fact, as is revealed in the film’s enjoyable if slightly implausible twist ending, some people in Washington have multiple agendas. The film portrays Washington as being a place where, behind the stately facade, everyone is a liar and everyone is ultimately a pawn in someone else’s game. If you have the right connections, you can even get away with murder. Loyalty is rewarded until you’re no longer needed.
It’s an enjoyably twisty thriller, one that makes good use of the contrast between Kevin Costner’s All-American good looks and his somewhat shady screen presence. The film introduces Costner as being a character who, at first glance, seems almost too good to be true and then spend the majority of its running time suggesting that is indeed the case. Gene Hackman is well-cast as the weaselly cabinet secretary, as is Sean Young as the woman who links them all together. In the end, though, the film is stolen by Will Patton, who plays Scott Pritchard as being someone who has unknowingly given his loyalty to a man who is incapable of returning it. As played by Patton, Scott is an outsider who desperately wants to be an insider and who is willing to do just about anything to accomplish that goal. He’s a version of Iago who never turned against Othello but instead devoted all of his devious tricks to trying to cover up the murder of Desdemona.
Even with an over-the-top final twist, No Way Out holds up well as a portrait of how the lust for power both drives and corrupts our political system.
14 Days of Paranoia:
What If Lisa Marie Picked The Oscar Nominees: 2022 Edition
With the Oscar nominations due to be announced tomorrow, now is the time that the Shattered Lens indulges in a little something called, “What if Lisa Marie had all the power.” Listed below are my personal Oscar nominations. Please note that these are not the films that I necessarily think will be nominated. The fact of the matter is that the many of them will not be. Instead, these are the films that would be nominated if I was solely responsible for deciding the nominees this year. Winners are listed in bold.
It should also go without saying that I’ve only nominated films that I’ve actually seen. So, if you’re wondering why a certain film wasn’t nominated, it’s always possible that may have not gotten the opportunity to see it yet. Of course, it’s also possible that I didn’t feel that a certain film was worthy of a nomination, despite what the critics may say. In the end, my best advice is not to worry too much about it. I’m not an Academy voter so ultimately, this is all for fun and that’s the spirit in which it should be taken.
You’ll also note that I’ve added four categories, all of which I believe the Academy should adopt — Best Voice-Over Performance, Best Casting, Best Stunt Work, and Best Overall Use Of Music In A Film.
(Click on the links to see my nominations for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010!)
And now, without any further ado:
2022
Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Emily the Criminal
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Nitram
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Vengeance
Best Director
Edward Berger for All Quiet on the Western Front
Todd Field for TAR
Joseph Kosinski for Top Gun: Maverick
Baz Luhrmann for Elvis
Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
BJ Novak for Vengeance
Best Actor
Austin Butler in Elvis
Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
Caleb Landry Jones in Nitram
BJ Novak in Vengeance
Adam Sandler in Hustle
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett in TAR
Emma Corrin in Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Annie Hardy in Dashcam
Mia Goth for Pearl
Aubrey Plaza in Emily The Criminal
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin
Val Kilmer in Top Gun: Maverick
Anthony LaPaglia in Nitram
David Lynch in The Fabelmans
Brad Pitt in Babylon
Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actress
Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin
Essie Davis in Nitram
Judy Davis in Nitram
Nina Hoss in TAR
Nicole Kidman in The Northman
Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans
Best Voice Over Performance
Antonio Banderas in Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
Jack Black in Apollo 10 ½
Steve Carell in Minions: The Rise of Gru
Mike Judge in Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe
Ewan McGregor in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Jenny Slate in Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Best Adapted Screenplay
All Quiet On The Western Front
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Operation Mincemeat
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Original Screenplay
Apollo 10 ½
The Banshees of Inisherin
Emily the Criminal
Everything Everywhere All At Once
TAR
Vengeance
Best Animated Feature Film
Apollo 10 ½
Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe
The Bob’s Burgers Movie
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoccio
The House
Mad God
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red
Best Documentary Feature Film
The Automat
Bitterbrush
Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel
Goodnight Oppy
Is That Black Enough For You?
My Old School
Selena Gomez: My Mind And Me
Send Me
Three Minutes: A Lengthening
Wildcat
Best International Feature Film
All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo
Battle: Freestyle
The Bombardment
Dark Glasses
How I Fell In Love With A Gangster
Into the Wind
My Best Friend Anne Frank
Restless
RRR
Best Live Action Short Film
A Little Dead
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Best Animated Short Film
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
The Garbage Man
Steakhouse
Best Documentary Short Film
Elephant Whisperers
Her Majesty’s Queue
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Nuisance Bear
The Runner
Stranger at the Gate
Best Original Score
All Quiet On The Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Don’t Worry, Darling
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Original Song
“At the Automat” from The Automat
“Sunny Side Up Summer” from The Bob’s Burgers Movie
“Vegas” from Elvis
“Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
“Naatu Naatu” from RRR
“My Mind and Me” From Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me
“Hold My Hand” From Top Gun: Maverick
“Carolina” From Where The Crawdads Sing
“New Body Rhumba” from White Noise
“A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” from Wildcat
Best Overall Use of Music In A Movie
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
TAR
Father Stu
Top Gun: Maverick
X
Best Sound Editing
All Quiet On The Western Front
Avatar: The Way of the Water
The Bombardment
Elvis
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoccio
Top Gun Maverick
Best Sound Mixing
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Elvis
TAR
The Northman
Top Gun Maverick
Best Production Design
Babylon
The Batman
Elvis
The Fabelmans
RRR
See How They Run
Best Casting
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Northman
She Said
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Vengeance
Best Cinematography
The Banshees of Inisherin
Bardo
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
RRR
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Costume Design
Babylon
Death on the Nile
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Elvis
The Fabelmans
See How They Run
Best Film Editing
All Quiet on the Western Front
Ambulance
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Make-Up and Hairstyling
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans
The Northman
Terrifier 2
X
Best Stuntwork
All Quiet On The Western Front
The Batman
Bullet Train
Everything Everywhere All At Once
RRR
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Visual Effects
Avatar: The Way of Water
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Mad God
RRR
Terrifier 2
Top Gun: Maverick
Films Listed By Number of Nominations
15 Nominations — Top Gun: Maverick
11 Nominations — Elvis
10 Nominations — All Quiet On The Western Front, The Banshees of Inisherin
8 Nominations — TAR
7 Nominations — Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans
6 Nominations — Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, RRR
5 Nominations — Babylon, Nitram, Vengeance
4 Nominations — The Northman, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
3 Nominations — Apollo 10 1/2, The Batman, Emily the Criminal, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
2 Nominations — The Automat, Avatar: The Way of the Water, Bardo, Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, The Bombardment, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Mad Dog, Minions: The Rise of Gru, See How They Run, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, Terrifier 2, Wildcat, X
1 Nomination — A Little Dead, Ambulance, Battle: Freestyle, Bitterbush, Bullet Train, Dascham, Dark Glasses, Death on the Nile, Don’t Worry Darling, Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, Elephant Whisperers, Father Stu, The Flying Sailor, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, The Garbage Man, Goodnight Oppy, Her Majesty’s Queue, How I Fell In Love With A Gangster, Hustle, Ice Merchants, Into the Wind, Is That Black Enough For You?, The House, Hustle, The Martha Mitchell Effect, My Friend Anne Frank, My Old School, Nuisance Bear, Operation: Mincemeat, Pearl, Restless, The Runner, Send Me, She Said, Steakhouse, Stranger at the Gates, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, Turning Red, Where The Crawdads Sing, White Noise
Films Listed By Number of Wins:
6 Oscars — Top Gun: Maverick
4 Oscars — All Quiet on the Western Front, Banshees of Inisherin
2 Oscars — Babylon, Elvis, TAR
1 Oscars — A Little Death, Avatar: The Way of the Water, Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Ice Merchant, Nuisance Bear, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, X
Will the Academy and I agree? Probably not! But we’ll find out for sure in just a few hours!
Lisa Marie’s Oscar Predictions for December
Here they are! These are my final Oscar predictions for 2022. The critics groups have certainly helped to show us which films are major contenders. That said, the Guilds are even more important so I can’t wait to see who they nominate and honor in January.
be sure to check out my predictions for February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November!
Best Picture
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Tar
Top Gun: Maverick
The Woman King
Women Talking
Best Director
Todd Field for TAR
Baz Luhrmann for Elvis
Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
Sarah Polley for Women Talking
Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans
Best Actor
Austin Butler in Elvis
Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser in The Whale
Gabriel LaBelle in The Fabelmans
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett in TAR
Viola Davis in The Woman King
Danielle Deadwyler in Till
Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson for The Banshees of Inisherin
Judd Hirsch in The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Brad Pitt in Babylon
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley in Woman Talking
Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Dolly de Leon in Triangle of Sadness
Janelle Monáe in Glass Onion
Here’s The Trailer For Babylon
Here’s the trailer for Babylon!
I have to admit that my interesting in this film goes up and down. I was intrigued when I first heard about it. This trailer, to be honest, is a bit too frantic for me and a lot of it feels like the sort of thing that would have been mind-blowing in 2007 but, today, we’ve kind of been inundated with films about Hollywood’s decadent past.
That said, I’m still looking forward to seeing and judging the film for myself.
The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Cutting Class (dir by Raspo Pallenberg)
Someone is murdering the students and the teachers at the local high school and it’s up to Paula Carson (Jill Schoelen), the studious daughter of the local DA (Martin Mull), to figure out who is responsible!
Though the principal (Roddy McDowall, who seemed to be cast as a lot of bizarre school employees during the latter half of his career) is a perv and the janitor (Robert Glaudini) fancies himself as being some sort of bizarre ninja with a mop, it soon becomes apparent that there’s really only two viable suspects. One of them is Brian Woods (Donavon Leitch), who has just returned home after spending several months in a mental hospital where he was regularly given electroshock therapy. The other is Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt), the alcoholic jock who is under tremendous pressure to win a basketball scholarship and who also happens to be Paula’s boyfriend! Brian and Dwight were friends when they were younger. Now, Dwight spends all of his time bullying Brian and Brian spends all of his time staring at Paula. Who could the murderer be!?
Actually, you won’t be surprised at all when the identity of the murderer is revealed. You’ve probably already guessed who the killer is. A campy slasher film from 1989, Cutting Class doesn’t exactly win any points for originality. If Cutting Class is remembered for anything, it’s for providing Brad Pitt with an early leading role. Pitt, it should be said, is totally convincing as Dwight. On the one hand, he’s such a jerk that it’s difficult to really like him but, on the other hand, he looks like Brad Pitt so you totally can’t blame Paula for putting up with him. For that matter, both Leitch and Schoelen give convincing performances as well. When you’ve got a trio as talented as these three, it’s kind of a shame that Cutting Class wasn’t a better film.
Cutting Class tries to mix horror and comedy but the comedy is too broad (Roddy McDowall leers like a cartoon wolf) while the horror is not quite horrific enough and, as such, the film never really settles on a consistent or an interesting tone. Whenever the film starts to get into a horror grove, Martin Mull shows up like a character in an overplayed Saturday Night Live skit. Whenever the film starts to find itself as a comedy, someone is horribly murdered and you’re totally taken out of the mood. This is also another one of those films where the characters randomly switch from being ludicrously stupid to unnaturally intelligent from scene-to-scene. The killer, for instance, is diabolically clever until the film’s final moments, at which point the murderer suddenly gets very talky and very easily fooled.
Cutting Class is occasionally interesting as a time capsule. It’s from 1989, after all. And it’s interesting to see Brad Pitt playing the type of character one would more likely expect to see on a very special episode of Saved By The Bell. Otherwise, this one is fairly forgettable.
Here’s The Trailer for Babylon!
Finally! We have a trailer for Damien Chazelle’s Babylon!
Who would have thought that 2022 would have been the year that would have produced three flamboyant films about the decadence of the entertainment industry? Elvis has already been released. Blonde will be available by the end of the month. And Babylon will coming out just as the year ends. Judging from this trailer, it appears to be a film that will either be brilliant or a total disaster. I’m hoping for the former. America could use a really good movie about cocaine and pool parties.
Through the Shattered Lens 