As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be1998’s Evasive Action!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Evasive Action on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
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, in honor the birthday of the late great Curtis Hanson, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Curtis Hanson Films
The Bedroom Window (1987, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Gilbert Taylor)
L.A. Confidential (1997, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Dante Spinotti)
Wonder Boys (2000, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Dante Spinotti)
8 Mile (2002, dir by Curtis Hanson, DP: Rodrigo Prieto)
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!
Movie star Toshiro Mifune and director Akira Kuroswa on the set of Seven Samurai.
I love director Akira Kurosawa. He’s one of the all time greats. His movies RASHOMON (1951), IKIRU (1952), SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960), and YOJIMBO (1961) are some of the greatest movies ever made. His work has inspired so many great filmmakers, and so many great movies, including THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964), and STAR WARS (1977) just to name a few.
On Kurosawa’s 115th Birthday, I share one of my favorite scenes, from one of my favorite movies (SANJURO), featuring two of my favorite actors (Toshiro Mifune & Tatsuya Nakadai). Enjoy my friends, and rest in peace, Mr. Kurosawa!
One of the great character actors of all time, M. Emmet Walsh, would have been 90 years old today. Walsh lived a good long life, passing away on March 19th, 2024, three days short of what would have been his 89th birthday. The great movie critic Roger Ebert created his own movie rule that featured Walsh. He called it the “Stanton-Walsh” rule, which also honored the great Harry Dean Stanton. The rule went something like “no movie featuring Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.” High praise indeed.
When I think of Walsh, I picture his characters in movies like FAST-WALKING (1981), BLADE RUNNER (1982), MISSING IN ACTION (1984), and RAISING ARIZONA (1987). I’ve tried to forget one of his scenes in FAST-WALKING, but I’m afraid it’s a hopeless cause! His characters always stand out. The movie I first saw him in was the Coen Brothers’ BLOOD SIMPLE (1984). Fox 16 out of Little Rock played this often in the 80’s. The advertisements heavily featured Walsh’s amazingly sleazy private detective character, with his cowboy hat and his slimy grin. It’s a truly amazing performance.
On his birthday, I share one of his great scenes from BLOOD SIMPLE. Rest in peace, Mr. Walsh! And enjoy, my friends.
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 is William Shatner’s birthday, which means that it is time for….
4 Shots From 4 William Shatner Films
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961, dir by Stanley Kramer, DP: Ernest Laszlo)
Incubus (1966, dir by Leslie Stevens, DP: Conrad Hall)
Big Bad Mama (1974, dir by Steve Carver, DP: Bruce Logan)
The Devil’s Rain (1975, dir by Robert Fuest, DP: Alex Phillips Jr.)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and 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, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1988’s Zombi 3!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, you can go over to Tubi and watch 1992’s Mind, Body & Soul.
Brenda (Ginger Lynn) has a new boyfriend! After years of getting stuck with duds, Brenda is happy to finally be dating Carl (Jesse Kaye), who is handsome and successful and has a thing about wanting her to drip hot candle wax on his body. Everything’s going fine until Carl asks her to come hang out with some friends of his. It turns out that they’re all Satanists and they’re planning on sacrificing a woman. Fortunately, the police arrive before the sacrifice can be carried out. Unfortunately, all the Satanists run off and leave innocent Brenda takes the blame.
After she’s arrested and spends several days in jail, Brenda is finally bailed out by defense attorney John Stockton (Wings Hauser). Because Carl apparently blew up her apartment (and, the police say, himself with it), Brenda doesn’t have anywhere to stay. She accepts John’s offer to stay at his place. John promises to be a perfect gentleman. He’s a former probation officer and he just wants to help.
And Brenda definitely needs some help! She suspects that Carl isn’t really dead. She keeps having bizarre visions of the robed and masked leader of the cult. She suspects that the cult might still be after her and, when she agrees to appear on a local talk show to tell her story, she finds herself stunned to be sitting across from an actual witch. Her former cellmate, Rachel (Tamara Clatterbuck), has just been released from prison and is willing to help Brenda out. Again, Brenda needs the help. The cult is after her and it’s going to take a lot of intelligence to survive and that’s probably going to be Brenda’s downfall because it’s hard to think of a dumber character than Brenda.
(Seriously, if my boyfriend took me to a Satanic cult meeting on a date, I would be out of there before they even got around to the human sacrifice part of the night.)
This film is so incredibly dumb that I don’t even know where to begin. Occasionally, I’ll see an incoherent horror film and I’ll give it a good review because the incoherence can sometimes add to the terror. Two of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin, both deliberately made horror films that didn’t make sense because they were tying to capture the feeling of being in a nightmare. Mind, Body & Soul makes sense as long as you accept that Brenda, Rachel, and almost every other character in this film is mind-numbingly dumb. The plot works as long as you accept that there is not a shred of intelligence to be found amongst any of the characters, including the bad guys. This is a dumb film that is never scary. It does feature a fair amount of nudity, which I imagine was probably meant to be the film’s main selling point.
On the plus side, Wings Hauser is always entertaining. You’ll be able to guess the big plot twist that involves his character but no matter. With his quick smirk, he at least seems to be enjoying himself. As was so often the case, Hauser’s performance is the only one in this film that feels like an actual performance. Wings Hauser was an actor who always gave it his all, even while appearing in something like this.
As a teenager of the late 80’s who was absolutely obsessed with movies, I spent a lot of time in the local videos store in and around Conway, Arkansas. I would meticulously go through their entire inventory. Nobody wanted to go with me to the video store because they knew they were going to be there for awhile. That’s where I first became obsessed with Charles Bronson, and he’s been my obsession to this day, over 20 years after his death.
The video store was a place where I also discovered a lot of other amazing actors. It would always go something like this; I would see a person’s name on a movie that looked good. I would watch the movie and enjoy it. I would go back to the store and notice that person was in a lot more movies. I would then try to watch them all. This pattern started with Bronson, and then moved on to actors like Clint Eastwood, Roy Scheider, Burt Reynolds, Rutger Hauer, and yes, Wings Hauser. On a side note, I always thought it was pretty cool that two of my favorite actors had practically the same name, Hauer and Hauser. The video stores were full of movies starring Hauser that I thought looked good. My preferred box art would generally feature Hauser holding a gun (see picture at the top), and usually with generic sounding titles like DEADLY FORCE (1983), HOSTAGE (1986), NO SAFE HAVEN (1987), DEAD MAN WALKING (1988), and MARKED FOR MURDER (1990). When I rented a movie “starring Wings Hauser” in the 80’s through the early 90’s, I had a pretty good idea what I’d be getting. It would usually be a low budget movie, with some solid action and some sexy ladies, all anchored by a likable and charismatic performance from Wings Hauser. Those are the types of low budget, action movies that I really loved and Hauser did a bunch of him. I know they aren’t great movies, certainly not of the same quality of Hauser’s own best work in movies like VICE SQUAD (1982) and THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA (1988), but I enjoyed them so much growing up.
While my favorite Wings Hauser movies featured him as a cop, we watched him in so many different types of roles. I remember our family renting TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE (1987). None of us knew what the hell was going on in that movie. Hauser would co-star in movies like BEDROOM EYES II (1989), OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (1990), and BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME (1991). I’d watch them all. Hell, he even directed a graphic slasher flick called THE ART OF DYING (1991). That movie is nuts! No matter the quality of the movie, I always enjoyed seeing Hauser on screen.
When YELLOWSTONE hit it big on TV a few years back, my wife Sierra loved the character Rip Wheeler. Since Rip is played by Cole Hauser, I took that as an opportunity to introduce her to his dad Wings Hauser. I never watch an episode of YELLOWSTONE that I don’t think of Wings Hauser and those old times at the video store. The first Wings Hauser movie I introduced my wife to was VICE SQUAD, but we watched quite a few of his movies over the last couple of years. It has been fun revisiting the films and sharing them with her.
Wings Hauser will always have a special place in my heart, because I spent a lot of time with him. Today, as a tribute to him, I share my story and a scene from DEADLY FORCE. It’s just a fun car chase scene featuring Wings in one of his low budget action movies. This is the Hauser I loved the most. Rest in peace, sir!
First released in 2004, Irish Eyes tells the story of two brother, born eleven months apart.
Tom Phelan (John Novak) is the older brother, the one who is destined to go to law school, join the Justice Department, and to marry Erin (Veronica Carpenter), the daughter of one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys. Tom’s future lies in politics. As he makes his reputation by taking down members of the Boston underworld, he finds himself being groomed for attorney general and then who knows what else.
Sean Phelan (Daniel Baldwin) is the younger brother. Haunted by the murder of his father and stuck at home taking care of his mother (Alberta Watson) while Tom goes to college, Sean soon pursues a life of crime. He falls under the influence of the Irish mob, led by Kevin Kilpatrick (Wings Hauser). Sean quickly works his way up the ranks. It doesn’t matter how much time he does in prison. It doesn’t matter how many people he has to kill. It doesn’t matter if it alienates the woman that he loves or if it damages his brother’s political career, Sean is a career criminal. It’s the one thing that he knows. When Sean finds himself as the head of the Irish mob and also the American connection for the IRA, his activities are originally overlooked by his brother. Sean even threatens a reporter who makes the mistake of mentioning that Sean and Tom are brothers. But soon, Tom has no choice but to come after his brother. What’s more important? Family or politics?
Obviously (if loosely) based on Boston’s Bulger Brothers (Whitey became a feared criminal while brother John became a prominent Massachusetts politico), Irish Eyes doesn’t really break any no ground. Every mob cliché is present here and so is every Boston cliché. Don’t rat on the family. Don’t betray your friends. The only way to move up is to make a move on whoever has the spot above you. Every bar is full of angry Irish-Americans. Every fight on the street turns deadly. Everyone is obsessed with crime or politics. The film, to its credits, resists the temptation to have everyone speak in a bad Boston accent. (The Boston accent, much like the Southern accent, is one of the most abused accents in film.) Sean narrates the films and you better believe he hits all of the expected points about life on the street.
That said, it’s an effective film with enough grit and good performances to overcome the fact that it’s just a wee predictable. Daniel Baldwin is appropriately regretful as Sean and John Novak does a good job of capturing the conflict between Tom’s love of family and his own political ambitions. Curtis Armstrong shows up and is surprisingly convincing as a psychotic IRA assassin. Admittedly, the main reason that I watched this film was because Wings Hauser was third-billed in the credits. Hauser only appears in a handful of very short scenes and that’s a shame. In those few scenes, he has the rough charisma necessary to be believable as the crime boss who holds together the neighborhood and it’s hard not to regret that he didn’t get more to do in the film. That said, the film still works for what it is. It’s a good mob movie.
This film was originally entitled Irish Eyes. On Tubi, it can be found under the much clunkier name, Vendetta: No Conscience, No Mercy.
