Today’s scene that I love comes from 1975’s The Passenger, a film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni was born 110 years ago today, in what was then the “Kingdom of Italy.”
In The Passenger, Jack Nicholson plays a journalist who, because he’s bored with his life, impulsively assumes the identity of a deceased American businessman. What he discovers is that the businessman was an arms dealer and that the people that the arms dealer were doing business with still expect to get their weapons. Despite the fact that he knows that it might cost him his life, Nicholson is still drawn to see just how far he can take his new existence.
The film’s enigmatic final scene, in which Nicholson goes to a hotel to wait as both the people who double-crossed and his wife search for him, is Antonioni at his best.
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 52nd birthday to Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn! Drivewas one of the first films to really be celebrated on this site, receiving reviews from several contributors. Personally, I preferred The Neon Demon.
In honor of of the man and his work, it’s time for….
4 Shots from 4 Nicolas Winding Refn Films
Bronson (2008, dir by Nicolas Winding Refn, DP: Larry Smith)
Drive (2011, dir by Nicolas Winding Refn, DP: Newton Thomas Sigel)
Only God Forgives (2013,dir by Nicolas Winding Refn, DP: Larry Smith)
The Neon Demon (2016, dir by Nicolas Winding Refn, DP: Natasha Braier)
War is raging. Food is scarce. At the start of the film, a newscaster officially says farewell to Australia as it’s swallowed by the ocean. Due to some sort of vaguely defined cosmic event, certain citizens have developed super powers. Normally, you might think that would be a good thing. Maybe someone can use their super strength to save Australia. Instead, it’s led to a rise in supervillains. People with names like The Conductor and the Lobe are terrorizing the world. Fortunately (or not), a prison has been designed to hold all of these super villains.
Running that prison is Overseer Devlin (Michael Rooker). Devlin is quick to correct anyone who calls him a warden. That said, Devlin runs his prison with a firm and sometimes cruel hand. All of the inmates are forced to wear a leg brace that neutralizes their powers. They’re at Devlin’s mercy and Devlin knows it. A sentence to San Tiburon prison is a life sentence, regardless of what the courts may say. No one gets parole unless Devlin wants them too and Devlin’s not in the business of giving people freedom.
Corrective Measures follows four inmates in particular. Diego Diaz (Brennan Meija) is an empath, a super power that will be of little help in a prison where empathy is seen as a weakness. Gordon Tweedy (Tom Cavanagh) is also known as the Conductor because he can control electricity. Payback (Dan Payne) is a self-styled vigilante who killed evildoers on the outside and who looks forward to killing more on the inside. Finally, there’s the Lobe (Bruce Willis), who is the most feared supervillain of all. The Lobe can control minds, but only if his leg brace is removed. While the Warden prepares for his retirement and considers who among his staff he should name as a his replacement, the inmates simply try to survive from one day to the next.
Corrective Measures is an episodic film, with the focus continually shifting from one character to another. When the film begins, Payback seems like he’s going to be the main character but then the focus shifts to Diego and The Conductor. Towards the end of the film, the focus switches once again and it becomes about The Lobe and his schemes. The one theme running through the entire film is the struggle to maintain one’s freedom and dignity in even the most difficult of circumstances. Yes, Corrective Measures might be a low-budget super hero film and yes, it was based on a graphic novel but it’s also a mediation on what it means to be free in a society that persecutes anyone who is perceived as failing to conform. That theme elevates the film, making it more than just a B-movie. If Sam Fuller directed a comic book movie, it would probably look something like Corrective Measures.
The actors also do wonders with the material, with Michael Rooker giving an entertainingly evil performance as Warden Devlin and Tom Cavanagh turning The Conductor into a surprisingly poignant character. That said, I imagine most people will be watching this film because it was one of the final films that Bruce Willis worked on before announcing his retirement from acting. It is true that Willis does spend the majority of this film in his cell. It’s rare that he’s ever actually seen in a shot with any of the other actors, leading me to suspect that Willis probably shot all of his scenes in a day or two. Despite that, Willis is well-cast as The Lobe and there’s even a few scenes where he seems like the Willis of old, smirking at his opponents and dismissing them with a well-timed insult. While it’s obvious that Willis was not in the best shape when he shot his scenes, Corrective Measures still feels like a better closing act than something like American Siege.
Corrective Measures is a far better film than I think anyone would have expected it to be. It’s a celebration of freedom that understands why it’s worth celebrating.
It’s a dangerous world out there, make no doubt about it.
William Duncan (Clive Standen) thought that his days of violence were behind him. Sure, he did a tour of duty in the military. And yes, he was trained how to kill a man. In fact, he was trained how to kill dozens of men and he did just that as a part of his patriotic duty. But that was the past. Now, William lives in the suburbs of Atlanta and he’s got a pretty nice life.
Unfortunately, one day, William’s life falls apart, shortly after he picks up his 16 year-old daughter, Kat (Maddie Nichols), from softball practice. William’s plan is to pick up his daughter, grab some food for dinner, and then head home. Unfortunately, a gang led by Rory Fetter (Theo Rossi) has a different idea. The time has come for Rory’s younger brother, Danny (Cabot Badsen), to be initiated into the gang. At first, it seems like Danny doesn’t even want to join the gang but still, when he’s ordered to murder a random bystander, he does so. That bystander happens to be Kat.
Danny’s arrested for the murder but he’s released due to the influence of his father, a powerful gangster named Donnie (Bruce Willis). Having been failed by the legal system, William decides to put his military training to good use and get his vengeance. At first, he’s armed with only his dead daughter’s softball bat. Later, he joins up with an arms dealer named Dante (Thomas Jane) and the war truly begins.
It should also be noted that Dante is friends with a shady garage owner named Roach. Roach is played by Mike Tyson. Yes, that Mike Tyson. Tyson doesn’t really get to do much as Roach. His garage does serve as one of the film’s many battlegrounds but, for the most part, Tyson is something of a bystander. It’s easy to see that the main reason he was included in the film was because it would inevitably cause at least a few potential viewers to say, “Hey, Mike Tyson’s in this! Let’s watch!” That said, even with his limited screen time, Mike Tyson has a surprisingly likable screen presence. I don’t think that anyone will ever mistake Tyson for being an actor of great range but he does a good enough job here that it would be foolish for someone not to cast him in a bigger role in a future low-budget action flick.
As for Vendetta, it’s about as pulpy as pulp can get. It’s an action/revenge flick that makes no excuse for being an action/revenge flick and, as a result, it’s difficult not to be entertained by it. The story moves quickly, there aren’t really any slow spots, and the cast does well with their roles. That includes Bruce Willis. This, of course, is one of Willis’s final films. Watching the films that were released after Willis revealed that he was retiring due to aphasia can feel a bit awkward as it’s obvious that the Willis who appeared in these films was quite a bit different from the Willis who appeared in Die Hard. That said, Willis is effectively intimidating in Vendetta. Even if he doesn’t display the wiseguy charm that was his trademark, Willis still has enough of his streetwise, tough guy screen presence that the viewers will be able to buy him as being a feared crime boss.
As far as 2022’s collection of Bruce Willis films go, Vendetta isn’t bad. It’s maybe a smidgen below Gasoline Alley (which, as of this writing, is the best Willis film of 2022) but it’s a hundred times better than American Siege and A Day To Die.
To be absolutely honest, I would probably be dismissive of the trailer for Smile if not for the effort that Paramount Pictures has put into promoting this damn thing. Apparently, this weekend, they sent people out to sporting events and had them sit motionlessly in the stands and smile for the entire game. Not only did it look creepy but it probably ruined the experience of everyone who was sitting near them. Of course, the people sitting near them actually paid money to get good seats for the game. Imagine spending a few hundred dollars, just to have to deal with this:
Or this:
I mean, seriously, that’s a bold move! I thought re-releasing Morbius just because people on twitter were making fun of it was going to be the boldest studio move of 2022 but Paramount might take the title. Now that we’ve annoyed you, come see our movie. That’s an interesting gimmick.
Anyway, here’s the final trailer for Smile. The movie comes out on the 30th.
In this British crime thriller, George McKay plays Toby Nealy, a self-styled revolutionary who breaks into the homes of the very rich and paints “I Came By” on their walls. His actions have made the I Came By Tagger something of an underground legend but no one knows his true identity. In the real world, Toby is 23 years old and still lives at home with his long-suffering mother, a psychologist named Lizzie (Kelly MacDonald). Toby’s best friend and partner-in-activism, Jay (Perecelle Ascot), wants to retire from tagging and devote his time to repairing his relationship with his pregnant girlfriend.
Still, Toby is determined to continue with his activities. His latest target is Hector Blake (Hugh Bonneville), a retired judge who has a reputation for being a progressive but who Toby suspects is actually a hypocrite. (Toby notices that Blake has an ivory sculpture in his home and that’s all it takes to convince him that Blake is being insincere.) Working alone, Toby breaks into Blake’s home and discovers that not only does Blake have nice taste in furniture but he also has a half-naked man chained up in the basement.
Unfortunately, try as he might, Toby can’t get anyone to believe him. Jay is too busy with his personal problems. Lizzie, who doesn’t know about her son’s secret life as a graffiti artist, is upset that Toby doesn’t seem to understand how much privilege he has compared to the rest of the world. Toby makes an anonymous call to the police but, when they visit Blake’s home, they don’t find his torture dungeon. Besides, Blake is a respected member of the establishment and everyone also knows that Blake has been outspoken in his defense of refugees. Why would he have a man chained up in his home?
Though the film starts with Toby and his discovery of Blake’s crimes, the action is evenly divided between him, Lizzie, and Jay. All three of them are drawn into investigating Blake. Toby is outraged but he soon discovers that trying to expose Blake is far more dangerous and difficult than just spraying a pithy slogan on the wall. Lizzie goes from believing in the system to discovering that the system only exists to protect certain people and, unfortunately, neither she nor her son are considered to be among them. Meanwhile, Jay is very much aware that, as a black man, investigating Blake will be even more dangerous for him than it will be for Toby and his mother.
It’s an interesting idea and Hugh Bonneville is appropriately sinister as Blake. Indeed, while watching the film, it was hard not to think about the number of rich, self-declared “progressives” who have recently been exposed as exploiting those who they claim to be helping. (Hector Blake has much in common with Ed Buck.) Unfortunately, as intriguing as the idea may be, the execution is lacking. This is one of those films that would have worked well as a compact, 80-minute B film but instead, I Came By runs for nearly two hours. The action unfolds at a slow pace and the story is told with a heavy hand, as if the filmmakers were worried that the man chained in the basement would not be enough to convince us that Hector Blake was an evil dude. When Hector first appears, he’s grimly listening to Henry Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, a detail that will immediately remind most viewers of the opening of A Clockwork Orange. A word of advice to all filmmakers: Don’t invite comparisons to Stanley Kubrick unless you’re sure you can back them up.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting 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 #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1983’s Exterminators of the Year 3000! Selected and hosted by me, this Italian film is one of the many rip-offs of Mad Max to come out in the 80s. It’s non-stop action, with a futuristic motorcycle gang trying to control a world where rain is unknown! The movie starts at 8 pm et! Here’s the playlist!
Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. We will be watching 1984’s Police Academy, the classic comedy that inspired a franchise! The film is available on Netflix!
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 twitter, start the Exterminators of the Year 3000 playlist at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, start Police Academy, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy. And reviews of these films will probably end up on this site at some point over the next few weeks.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1978’s Long Journey Back. It can be viewed on YouTube!
I’m one of those drivers who always gets nervous around train tracks.
Perhaps it’s because I watched too many gory movies while I was learning to drive or maybe I’m just being overly cautious but I always have a fear that I’m going to be the driver whose car ends up getting stuck on the tracks while the train comes barreling down. The fact that it’s apparently impossible to just stop a train without it rolling forward for at least a mile or two adds to my fear. You get stuck on those tracks and, at the very least, you’re going to lose your car. At the worst, you’ll lose your life. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll only lose a limb. Or maybe …. well, you get the point. Most people make it a point to slow down whenever they hear the sound of a train coming or to stop and wait for those little barrier things to come down on other side of the tracks. Myself, I always speed up if I see tracks approaching. I figure that the quicker I drive over them, the quicker I don’t have to worry about getting hit by a train.
The 1978 film Long Journey Back did not do much to cure me of my fear of train tracks. Within the first ten minutes of the film, a school bus ended up getting stuck on a set of train tracks and, in a genuinely frightening sequence, smashed into by a train. Most of the students are killed. So is the driver. Celia Casella (Stephanie Zimbalist) survives being in the bus but most of her friends don’t. Celia loses a leg and, when she eventually awakes from her coma, she can neither speak nor remember the accident. Celia makes remarkable progress but it’s still difficult for her to adjust her post-accident life.
The film spends as much time with Celia’s parents as it does with Celia. Her mother, Laura (Cloris Leachman), keeps a journal about Celia’s progress and never gives up faith that her daughter will recover. However, Laura is sometimes so determined to only focus on moving forward that she overlooks the fact that Celia needs time to mourn not only her former life but also the friends that she lost in the crash. Meanwhile, Celia’s father, Vic (Mike Connors), is a grim realist who, in a moment of emotional exhaustion, admits that he sometimes wonders if Celia wouldn’t have been better off dying in the crash. Vic is someone who keeps everyone grounded in reality but who sometimes forget that Celia needs to have hope for the future. Celia is not the only member of the family who has to learn how to live a new life. From the minute that train hits that bus, everyone’s old life ends and a new one begins.
The film follows Celia’s recovery, her long journey back. It’s a well-done film, featuring excellent and emotional performances from Zimbalist, Connors, and especially Leachman. To its credit, the film avoids easy sentiment. The film celebrates Celia’s strength and her parent’s love while acknowledging that the journey back is not going to be an easy one and it’s possible that Celia might never make it all the way back. I cried more than a few times while watching Long Journey Back. It’s a film that earns its tears.
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 100th birthday to director Bert I. Gordon! Known as Mr. BIG, both because of his initials and the fact that his films often dealt with things becoming bigger than they should, Gordon made his directorial debut in 1954 and continued to work all the way through 2014. And that means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Bert I. Gordon Films
King Dinosaur (1955, dir by Bert I. Gordon, DP: Gordon Avil)
Beginning of the End (1957, dir by Bert I. Gordon, DP: Jack A. Marta)
Village of the Giants (1965, dir by Bert I. Gordon, DP: Paul Vogel)
The Mad Bomber (1973, dir by Bert I. Gordon, DP: Bert I. Gordon)
Through the Shattered Lens 