Lisa Watches An Oscar Winner: Chariots of Fire (dir by Hugh Hudson)

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It took me two viewings to really appreciate the film Chariot of Fire.

First released in 1981, Chariots of Fire won the Oscar for best picture. It’s also one of the few British productions to take the top award. (British films are regularly nominated but the winner is usually an American production.) A few nights ago, it was broadcast on TCM and I watched it for the first time. And I have to admit that I struggled to follow the film.

It’s not that the film’s story was exceptionally complicated. At heart, it’s an inspirational sports film and it features all of the clichés that one usually associates with inspirational sports films — i.e., come-from-behind victories, eccentric trainers, athletes who are determined to compete under their own terms, training montages, and a memorable score. (The score for Chariots of Fire was so effective that it’s still used as the background music for countless Olympic specials.)

No, I struggled to follow the film because it really was just so extremely British, featuring everything from Cambridge to Gilbert and Sullivan to a rigidly enforced class system to casual anti-Semitism, This may have been a sports film but it was a very reserved sports film. If Chariots of Fire had been an American film, we would have gotten countless shots of people screaming, “YESSSSS! GO! GO! GO! GO!” Instead, the characters in Chariots of Fire are far more likely to say, “Good show, old boy.” Whereas an American sports film would have scored a montage of competition to the sound of “Eye of the Tiger,” Chariots of Fire features a men’s chorus singing, “For he is an Englishman….”

It takes a bit of getting used to and perhaps I knew that because, even as I was watching Chariots of Fire, I still set the DVR to record it. The first time I watched the film, I was overwhelmed by the culture shock and the resolute Britishness of it all. My reaction was to think that, much like The Big Chill, Chariots of Fire was a “you just had to be there” type of film, the type of film that was once impressive but now just inspires you to go “meh.”

And I was prepared to write a review stating just that. But, somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew that I should give Chariots of Fire another chance before I dismissed it. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t get the damn music out of my head. Who knows? But I couldn’t think about the film’s opening — with all those men running on the beach and getting mud all over their white uniforms — without smiling.

So, seeing as how I am currently snowed in for the weekend, I spent this morning watching Chariots of Fire for a second time and I’m glad that I did. Because you know what? Chariots of Fire is actually a pretty good film. It tells the story of Eric Lidell (Ian Charleson) and Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), two British runners who competed at the 1924 Olympics. Harold is a student at Cambridge. He’s an angry young man who is running to prove all of the anti-Semites wrong. (Of course, Harold is angry in a very sort of upper class British way). Eric is the son of missionaries who views running as a mission from God and who refuses to run on a Sunday. The film looks gorgeous, Charleson and Cross both give good performances, and that music demands an emotional response. While Chariots of Fire may not be a great film, it’s definitely a likable film and there’s something to be said for that.

Plus, did I mention that the music’s great?

Back to School #9: The Young Graduates (dir by Robert Anderson)

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that, as someone who watches a lot of movies that were made before she was even born and who is just fascinated by history in general, I have often wondered what the 60s and the 70s were really like. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know what everyone says they were like — hippies, disco, cocaine, Watergate, Jimmy Carter, Viet Nam, and all the rest. But people’s memories usually fade with the passage of time and it’s always hard not to feel that whatever I’m hearing is either an idealization or an exaggeration. That’s one reason why I like watching the often critically reviled, low-budget films of that period. Since these films were usually made by people who didn’t really care what judgmental viewers like me would think 20 years in the future, they are usually far more accurate when it comes to portraying the world from which they came than a film that was by a big studio whose main concern was to present an idealized portrait of existence that would not alienate any potential ticket buyers. Crown International Pictures may never have been an acclaimed film studio but, as one of the more prolific producers of 70s exploitation fare, their films now serve as a valuable historical record of the time in which they were made.

If I want to know what it was like to be young and perhaps stupid in the 70s, I go to Crown International Pictures.

Take The Young Graduates for example. First released all the way back in 1971, The Young Graduates was advertised as being “a report card on the love generation.” The Young Graduates gives us a clue as to what it was like to be a teenager in 1971. Judging from the film, it really sucked.

The Young Graduates tells the story of Mindy (Patricia Wymar), who is on the verge of graduating from high school. She has a boyfriend named Bill (Gary Rist) but wow, is he boring! All he wants to do is compete in drag races and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s incapable of expressing his emotions. (Assuming that he has any. The film is a bit ambiguous on this point.) So, Mindy gets bored and has an affair with one of her teachers, the very married Jack Thompson (Steven Stewart). Soon after realizing that Mr. Thompson will never leave his wife for her, Mindy suspects that she might be pregnant. So, she and her friend Sandy (Marly Holliday) decided to take a road trip to Big Sur. Along the way, they meet a sweet hippie (Dennis Christopher), a bunch of bad hippies, and some really bad bikers. During their entire journey, they are pursued by Bill, Mr. Thompson, and Sandy’s boyfriend, Les (Bruno Kirby).

Though you wouldn’t know it from the film’s peppy soundtrack or Wymar’s cheerful performance as the continually put upon Mindy, The Young Graduates is actually a pretty dark movie. With the exception of Pan, everyone that Mindy meets outside of high school is not to be trusted. Essentially, she’s exploited by everyone that she meets and what makes it all the more disturbing is that Mindy smiles throughout the whole ordeal, almost as if Candide had been reincarnated in the form of a teenage girl.

So, The Young Graduates is really not much of a film. Subsequent Crown International films would revisit high school and almost all of them would feature better acting and a far more interesting plot than the The Young Graduates. No, the film does not work as a drama. But as a documentary and as a time capsule, there’s a lot to enjoy about The Young Graduates. The fashion, the haircuts, the music, and just the film’s general attitude are such relics of the late 60s and early 70s that the film is the next best thing to owning a working time machine.

That said, if The Young Graduates was an accurate picture of that time — well, I might not be asking for a time machine this Christmas after all!

Trailer: Django Unchained

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Arleigh

The last couple days have seen the release of a number of upcoming films that should be jockeying for all those fancy-pants end of season awards. One such film is the latest film from Quentin Tarantino. Django Unchained is his latest trip into the grindhouse world with this film being his take on the spaghetti westerns made popular by Italian maestros like Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci and Enzo G. Castellari.

It’s an ensemble cast that’s headlined by Jamie Foxx in the title role with Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio (playing against the grain as the main villain of the piece). To pay respect to the very genre that this film owes not just it’s title, but theme and tone, Tarantino has even cast the original Django in Franco Nero in the role of Amerigo Vassepi.

Django Unchained is set for a Christmas Day 2012 release date (hopefully the world didn’t end just four days earlier).

Trailer: Django Unchained (Official)

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Arleigh

If there’s a film arriving this year that’s bound to be hyped up by both fanboys and critics alike it would be the latest from Quentin Tarantino. Django Unchained will be his ode to the spaghetti westerns of the 60’s and 70’s. The title of the film alone owes much to Sergio Corbucci’s own spaghetti western, Django.

The trailer first premiered simultaneously over at Fandango and Movies.com and the amount of times the trailer has been reposted over the blogosphere just shows how much people have been waiting for anything about Tarantino’s western when it was first announced. I know that pretty much most everyone here at Through the Shattered Lens have been anticipating this film especially co-founder Lisa Marie Bowman.

I’d describe the trailer itself, but it’s better just to watch it. I’m sure Lisa Marie squealed a bit when two Django’s met near the end.

Source: Movies.com

6 Trailers In Search Of a Title

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Without further delay, here’s the latest edition of Lisa’s favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers.

1) Something Weird (1967)

I just had to start out with this because it represents everything that I love about these old school exploitation trailers. It’s just so shameless and cheerful about it all. This film is from Herschell Gordon Lewis and it features ESP, a really kinda scary witch, and a random LSD trip. The title of this film also inspired the name of one of my favorite companies, Something Weird Video. (I make it a point to buy something from Something Weird every chance I get. My most recent Something Weird video is a film from the 60s called Sinderella and the Golden Bra. Haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet but with a title like that, how could it be bad?)

2) Fade to Black (1980)

This is actually a really, really bad movie and I think the trailer goes on for a bit too long but it does have a few vaguely effective moments — i.e., when Dennis Christopher stares at the camera with half of his face painted. Plus, you can catch a young Mickey Rourke acting a lot like Michael Madsen.

3) Monster Shark (1984)

Now you may think that since this Italian film was directed by Lamberto Bava (credited here as John Old, Jr. because his father, Mario, was occasionally credited as John Old, Sr.) and has the word “shark” in the title that it’s yet another rip-off of Jaws. Well, joke’s on you because, as they state repeatedly in the trailer, “It’s not a shark!” Even if you didn’t know this was an Italian film before watching the trailer, it wouldn’t be hard to guess. First off, there’s the dubbing. Then there’s the scene of the film’s main character wandering around aimlessly. (Most Italian horror trailers feature at least one scene of someone just walking around.) And finally, there’s the fact that this is yet another trailer that uses a sped-up version of Goblin’s Beyond The Darkness soundtrack for its background music. While I haven’t seen this film yet, I plan to just to find out who Bob is.

4) Van Nuys Boulevard (1979)

Originally, I was planning on including the trailer for a Ted V. Mikels’ film called The Worm Eaters right here but I reconsidered because, quite frankly, The Worm Eaters is one of the most disgusting, stomach-churning things I’ve ever seen. I’m going to wait until I find five other equally disgusting trailers to feature it with and then I’m going to put them all up under the heading: 6 Trailers To Inspire Vomit. Until then, enjoy a far more pleasant trailer — Van Nuys Blvd. This trailer rhymes! I’m tempted to say that I could have written it but then again, I only write free verse poetry. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Van Nuys Blvd.

5) Vice Squad (1982)

However, there was a darker side to Van Nuys Blvd. and here it is: Vice Squad, starring Wings Hauser. Eventually, I’ll review this film but until I do, check out our new friend Trash Film Guru’s review.