The DGA Honors Jane Campion

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, the Directors Guild of America awarded their top prize to Jane Campion and The Power of the Dog. This is definitely good news for the film, as far as the Oscars are concerned. With West Side Story now on HBO and so many people rediscovering how important a director Steven Spielberg really is, it seemed as if the momentum may have been shifting. But, thanks to the DGA and the recent controversy over Sam Elliott’s comments about the film, The Power of the Dog is once again the front runner.

(To be honest, as far as Spielberg is concerned, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of Academy voters are currently of the “In just a few month, he’s going to get another chance with The Fabelmans” mindset.)

Here are the film winners from the DGA:

NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg – West Side Story
Denis Villeneuve – Dune

FIRST TIME NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
Rebecca Hall – Passing
Tatiana Huezo – Prayers For The Stolen
Lin Manuel-Miranda – Tick, Tick…BOOM!
Michael Sarnoski – Pig
Emma Seligman – Shiva Baby

DOCUMENTARY
Jessica Kingdon – Ascension
Stanley Nelson – Attica
Raoul Peck – Exterminate All The Brutes
Questlove – Summer of Soul
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin – The Rescue

Spring Break On The Lens: Aileen Wournos: American Boogeywoman (dir by Daniel Farrands)

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021’s Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman, Peyton List stars at Aileen, who prefers to be called Lee. Lee has fled an unpleasant and abusive home in Michigan and she has made her way down to Florida. With no money and no formal education, she’s been forced to make a living as a truck stop prostitute. However, on July 4th, 1976, she happens to stumble across a party on the beach. She befriends Jennifer (Lydia Hearst), who invites Lee to stay at her beach house. Though Lee quickly overstays her welcome, she does meet Jennifer’s widowed father, Lewis Fell (Tobin Bell). Lewis is enchanted by Lee’s crude but enthusiastic personality. Lee is enchanted by Lewis’s money. Soon, they’re married. But when Lewis’s daughter and friends start to dig into Lee’s mysterious past, Lee resorts to murder to protect her secrets.

The idea of making a movie about future serial killer Aileen Wournos hanging out around the Florida beach and marrying the kindly president of a yacht club may sound like an unlikely one but when has that ever stopped anyone? Oddly enough, American Boogeywoman is loosely based on the truth. Before she became the fraggle-toothed serial killer who was immortalized in two Nick Broomfield documentaries and by Charlize Theron in Monster, Aileen Wournos was briefly married to a yacht club president named Lewis Fell. The marriage was even announced in the society pages. Of course, the marriage didn’t last long. Aileen was accused of striking Lewis with his own cane and the two of them ended up getting a divorce. That said, it would appear that the majority of American Boogeywoman was fictionalized. Aileen was never accused of murdering anyone before she started the killing spree that eventually landed her on Florida’s crowded death row. In the film, Aileen also claims to have murdered her own brother after he suddenly turned up in a cheap Florida motel and demanded money. In real life, Aileen’s brother died in Michigan, long after Aileen had cut off contact with her family.

The film opens with Aileen already on death row, talking to a documentarian about her marriage. Occasionally, throughout the film, the documentarian will interrupt Aileen’s story and he’ll point out that what she’s saying doesn’t really make sense. (For instance, he points out that there’s no way that Aileen’s brother could have died in both Florida and Michigan.) For the most part, Aileen shrugs off his comments but the character of the documentarian is an important one. His character serves to comment on the strange nature of fame and crime in America. Aileen Wournos may be an unbalanced killer but she’s also a celebrity. She’s enough of a celebrity, the film tells us, that even after her death, two films will be made about her. One of those films will win an Oscar. The other film will be American Boogeywoman. At its heart, American Boogeywoman is an examination of the morbid streak that secretly runs through American culture. As such, it is slightly more interesting than the typical serial killer exploitation film.

American Boogeywoman was directed by Daniel Farrands, who has recently made a career out of directing somewhat distasteful true crime thrillers. His most famous film, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, is surprisingly effective. His worst film, The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, is perhaps one of the most offensive films made over the past decade. Farrands is not a bad director but his choice in material will always be problematic for many viewers. American Boogeywoman is one of his better films, if just because it has enough self-awareness to realize how ludicrous it all is.

Spring Break on the Lens: You Get Me (dir by Brent Bonacorso)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, the beach.

The beach is a beautiful and fun place and the perfect location to celebrate a spring or summer break. But beware of getting carried away with your youthful revelries because it can lead to complications that will follow you into the fall. And those complications can be deadly….

BLEH!

Okay, sorry for all the drama. I’m just trying to make myself feel some sort of enthusiasm for reviewing the 2017 Netflix film, You Get Me. You Get Me is technically not a spring break movie but it does take place on the beach and it does feature a moderate amount of drinking, drug-taking, and partying so, it’s close enough. It also features a cast of 20-something actors cast as high school students. Some are more believable than others.

Basically, dumb and dull teenager Tyler (Taylor John Smith) is having the best summer of his life because he has a girlfriend named Ali (Halston Sage), who he is totally in love with. (Ali could probably do better but whatever. Everyone makes mistakes in high school.) Tyler is also frustrated because Ali wants to wait before having sex with him and she also doesn’t understand why Tyler has been so hesitant to introduce her to his dysfunctional family. When Tyler goes to a party and runs into a guy from Ali’s past, he learns that Ali used to be much wilder. Angry that Ali hasn’t been honest with him, big dumb Tyler gets drunk and runs off with Holly (Bella Throne), a girl who he has only known for an hour. They go dancing. Holly offers Tyler a pill. Tyler isn’t sure he’s ready for that. “You swallow, I swallow,” Holly tells him. Tyler and Holly spend a passionate weekend together but, afterwards, Tyler and Ali get back together, with Ali promising that she’ll tell Tyler everything about her past. “No more secrets,” Tyler agrees, despite the fact that he’s now keeping a secret of his own.

Fortunately, Holly was only visiting for the summer and it’s not like Tyler will ever see her again so …. OH MY GOODNESS, LOOK WHO JUST SHOWED UP AT TYLER’S HIGH SCHOOL! Holly now goes to the same school as Tyler and her new best friend is Ali! Tyler asks Holly not to tell Ali anything about their weekend together. Holly, however, has stopped taking her meds (seriously, that’s a plot point) and has decided that if she can’t have Tyler, no one will. Soon, Holly is claiming to be pregnant and serving peanut-laced smoothies to people with food allergies. Have you ever noticed how people in movies like this always have a best friend who suffers from a food allergy?

I’m probably making You Get Me sound more fun than it actually is. It’s actually an extremely bland movie and a surprisingly tame one. At her best, Bella Thorne is less an actress and more an agent of chaos. She gets a few opportunities to be enjoyably evil in You Get Me but the script, for whatever reason, often seems to be more concerned with boring old Tyler. Perhaps if Taylor John Smith and Halston Sage had at least a little bit of romantic chemistry, we would care about what happens to Tyler and Ali but they don’t. Since they don’t really seem to be that into each other, it’s a little bit hard to get upset when Holly comes between them.

The beach, I will say, looked lovely. And I really liked Holly’s house. And, as I mentioned earlier, there were a few moments when Bella Thorne’s demented performance brought some life to the anemic proceedings. But, for the most part, You Get Me is forgettable. It did not get me.

Spring Break On The Lens: Shag (dir by Zelda Barron)

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the setting of the 1989 film, Shag: The Movie!

We know that we’re in South Carolina because everyone is speaking with the type of overbaked Southern accents that you only hear in the movies. And you know it’s the beach because of all the sand, the bathing suits, and the spring breakers. Everyone’s listening to that rock and roll music. Everyone’s dancing. There’s a lot of Confederate flags around, mostly because the movie was made in the 80s and it’s taking place in the South. If the movie were made today, it would probably take place in New Jersey and everyone would be debating whether or not Christopher Columbus was a hero or not.

Though the movie was made in 1989, it takes place in 1963. We know that the movie takes place in 1963 because everyone in the movie keeps mentioning how it’s 1963. One character mentions having sexual fantasies about President Kennedy, which scandalizes all of her friends. Another character won’t stop talking about how much he enjoyed Paul Newman’s performance in The Hustler. (The Hustler came out in 1961, though, so I think the dude needs to get with the times and watch Tom Jones.) Everyone’s dancing the Shag. Of course, since this is a film about how innocent the world was in 1963, there’s no talk of the growing American presence in Vietnam or anything like that. This is the 1963 of the popular imagination, the 1963 that one visualizes after watching a hundred movies about spring break in the early 60s.

Anyway, Shag follows four friends as they have a wild week in Myrtle Beach. They’re recent high school graduates. Melaina (Bridget Fonda) is the wild preacher’s daughter. Louanne (Paige Hannah) is the responsible one, who wears horn-rimmed glasses. Pudge (Annabeth Gish) is the friend who needs better friends or, at the very least, friends who won’t give her a cruel nickname. Carson (Phoebe Cates) is the responsible girl who is about to marry the level-headed Harley (Tyrone Power, Jr.) After telling their parents that their going to Ft. Sumter to learn about the Civil War, they instead head down to Myrtle Beach. Melania enters a beauty contest. Pudge enters a shag contest with Chip (Scott Coffey). Carson finds herself tempted by Chip’s friend, the Yale-bound Buzz (Robert Rusler). And Louanne is tempted by Harley, who eventually comes to Myrtle Beach himself to try to understand why Carson is being so irresponsible.

There aren’t really many surprising moments to be found in Shag. From the minute that we first see Carson trying on her wedding dress, we know that there’s no way she’s still going to be engaged by the time the movie comes to its conclusion. By that same token, we also know that Melaina is not going to be as wild as she tries to present herself as being and that Pudge is going to find her confidence and that Louanne is eventually going to let her hair down, if just for a few minutes. It’s a predictable movie but the cast is likable and there’s a lot of dancing, which is always a plus as far as I’m concerned. Admittedly, Cates and Rusler are a bit bland as the main couple. Instead, Annabeth Gish and Scott Coffey are the cast stand-outs. I also have to say that I really liked the performance of Tyrone Power, Jr. Harley is kind of a thankless role but Power manages to make him at least a little sympathetic. At the very least, Carson doesn’t come across like a fool for considering him as a possible husband.

Shag is a likeable film, even if it’s not exactly groundbreaking. And did I mention that there’s dancing?

Spring Break On The Lens: The Real Cancun (dir by Rick de Oliveira)

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember The Real Cancun?

This 2003 film tells the story of 16 good-looking and not particularly intelligent college students who go to Cancun for spring break. For 8 days, they all live in the same beach house and they get to know each other. They drink. They flirt. A few of them hook up but perhaps not as many as you would expect. The dorky virgin dude says that he just wants to see “boobies” and then gets drunk off of one shot. Two platonic friends debate whether they should take their relationship to the next level. The women wear bikinis. The men wear speedos. There are bare boobs and behinds galore. Snoop Dogg makes a special guest appearance. One spring breaker get stung by a jelly fish so her new roommate pours a cup of urine on her ankle. Good thing he had already had ten beers that morning! What fun!

If this sounds like a typical spring break film, that’s because it is a typical spring break film but with one big difference. It was produced by the people behind MTV’s The Real World and, as such, the 16 spring breakers are sold as being real people who are spontaneously acting like a bunch of movie characters. In 2003, reality tv was still a relatively exotic concept and this film was an attempt to take the genre’s cheap aesthetic to the cinematic level. Even more importantly, it was an attempt to duplicate the success of Girls Gone Wild, without actually admitting to being inspired by that sleazy enterprise. As such, there’s a lot of nudity but there’s a strange lack of actual sex. There’s a lot of drinking but there’s not much drunkenness. It’s an oddly tame look at spring break, one that promises debauchery but which doesn’t deliver anything that would have kept the film out of theaters or off the cable networks. I got more wild on my spring breaks than anyone in this film and I don’t even drink.

The film’s “stars” are all pretty bland and it’s not a surprise that, with one exception, none of them have appeared in anything other than The Real Cancun. (That one exception is Laura Ramsey, who went on to have a somewhat busy acting career after appearing as herself in this film.) The film manages to make nudity boring. Seen today, The Real Cancun works best as a time capsule, largely because it was filmed at a time when there was no social media and, even more importantly, no phones. Everyone is attracted to the crew and their bulky film cameras because there aren’t any other cameras around to record them and make them famous. Today, anyone can make their own Real Cancun and post it to YouTube. In 2003, if you wanted a shot at that type of fame, you had to audition and be selected to appear in a “documentary.”

Apparently, The Real Cancun was meant to be the first part of a Real World cinematic franchise. The first Jackass film had come out the previous year so MTV was enthusiastic about producing cheap reality movies. However, The Real Cancun was such a huge flop at the box office that it killed those plans. There would be other Jackass films, of course. But the Real World Cinematic Universe imploded as soon as it began. And for that, we should probably be thankful.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: The Scary on Sixty-First (dir by Dasha Nekrasova)

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now streaming on Shudder, The Scary of Sixty-First is a weird little movie.

Two friends who don’t really seem to like each other that much, Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown), move into a fully furnished Manhattan apartment. The apartment, they are told, has been uninhabited for a few years. The realtor asks them not to play the piano. One of the mattresses is stained with blood. Hidden amongst the surprisingly ornate furniture are mystical books and mysterious cards. It’s kind of a creepy place but it’s also in Manhattan and it’s affordable.

Addie, we’re told, has a history of mental instability and a difficult relationship with her family. (Noelle, at one point, refers to Addie’s father as being a pedophile.) Addie also has an idiot boyfriend named Gary (Mark Rapaport, who also produced the film). Gary may be a little bit slow but he has his standards and when Addie starts to speak in a strange voice and ask him to take part in some truly perverse role play, he freaks out.

Meanwhile, Noelle meets a mysterious person who is only referred to as being The Girl (played by the film’s director, Dasha Nekrasova). The Girl is hooked on speed and conspiracy theories. The Girl explains that Noelle and Addie’s apartment was once used by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The Girl says that she’s investigating their crimes but her investigation mostly seems to consist of watching YouTube videos and walking around New York. Within hours of meeting each other, Noelle and the Girl are lovers but when The Girl tries to demonstrate why Epstein couldn’t possibly have hanged himself, Noelle appears to deliberately hesitate before saving the Girl’s life. Later, as they walk around New York, the Girl spots a woman who she claims is Ghislaine Maxwell.

As for Addie, she’s having nightmares and when she’s not dreaming, she’s sleepwalking and doing even more. She’s also becoming obsessed with the British Royal Family. She’s especially interested in Prince Andrew….

“Epstein didn’t kill himself,” as the saying goes and one reason why people are still saying that years after Jeffrey Epstein’s death is because it’s obvious that, whether he killed himself or not, he still took a lot of secrets with him to the grave. I’m a student of conspiracy theories but I wouldn’t call myself a believer. I tend to assume that most of what happens in the world is due to random fate as opposed to the unseen hand of some secret organization. That said, I totally accept that there’s a very good chance that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered on the orders of the rich and powerful people who he previously flew to his private island. One reason why The Scary of Sixty-First works is because, as bizarre as the film gets, it’s still dealing with a conspiracy theory that even most skeptics find to be plausible.

And indeed, it’s a bizarre film, one that plays out like a filmed dream. Little about the film makes sense and, at the end of it, you’re still left with a lot of unanswered questions but then again, that’s a feeling that will be familiar to anyone who has ever gone down a conspiracy rabbit hole. Are Noelle and Addie truly being possessed by evil auras of Epstein and Maxwell or are they just allowing their own paranoia to drive them mad? Much like a dream, the answers are there but they’re hidden. It’s a film that many people will find to be distasteful but, at its best, it captures the speed-fueled logic of the modern conspiracy theorist. It’s a jolt of psychosis captured on a film. The apartment becomes a metaphor for both the sins of the past and the uncertainty of the present.

Understandably, many will find the film to be distasteful and it often is. But, at the same time, The Scary on Sixty-First captures the atmosphere and the paranoia of our current cultural moment. After all, Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Film Review: The Weekend Away (dir by Kim Farrant)

Posted on March 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“First time in Croatia?” asks handsome taxi driver Zain (Ziad Bakri).

As soon as Beth (Leighton Meester) answers in the affirmative, we know that she’s in trouble. If you’ve seen enough thrillers, you know that any trip to another country is going to lead to trouble. Beth may think that she’s just going to be spending a week or two with her wild best friend, Kate (Christina Wolfe), but we know that something bad is going to down. And the minute that Kate insists that Beth dress up and go to a club with her, we know that someone is going to end up missing.

The next morning, Beth wakes up with a hangover, a cluttered villa, and an absent best friend. Where is Kate? Kate and Beth were supposed to go on bicycle tour but now, Kate is nowhere to be found! More than one person suggests that maybe she didn’t want to do the whole cycling thing. I don’t blame her. You go, Kate! Don’t let your friend guilt you into doing something that lame!

However, Beth starts to have flashbacks to the night at the bar. It turns out that Beth is almost as much of a lightweight as I am when it comes to drinking because a glass of wine has totally wrecked her memory. When Kate’s landlord mentions that Kate brought two men back to the villa with them, Beth starts to think that something terrible has happened to Kate! The police soon agree with her but they think that Beth is the culprit!

Teaming up with Zain, Beth starts to investigate on her own. Her husband (Luke Norris) is not happy to learn that, while he’s in London with their baby, his wife is running around Croatia with a sensitive and widowed taxi driver, Needless to say, it soon turns out that just about everyone involved has a secret that they’re trying to hide.

The Weekend Away is the latest Netflix original thriller. It starts out on a good note, with Kate and Beth catching up on their lives in Croatia. Leighton Meester and Christina Wolfe are convincing as old friends who have followed different life paths and Croatia itself looks both inviting and ominous at the same time. Unfortunately, once Kate disappears, the film gets a bit uneven and some of the characters do some things that don’t really make sense and the actors themselves sometimes seem to be struggling to find a way to make their dialogue sound credible. The film starts with a lot of promise but the mystery itself turn out to not be as interesting as one might hope. That’s my long-winded way of saying that you’ll figure out what happened long before anyone else in the film does.

Again, it’s an uneven film but I do like to focus on the positive so I will say that the film was nice to look at. The scenes in the club were well-directed and captured both the chaos and the fun of discovering an exciting city for the first time. Leighton Meester and Christina Wolfe were convincing as friends and Luke Norris kept you guessing as Beth’s husband. It’s the Netflix equivalent of fast food. It’s the type of film that you enjoy for what it is and then you forget about it a few hours later.

8 Things To Which To Look Forward To In March

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s March! March is the 3rd month of the year and it’s always been a favorite of mine, just because it has one of the best names of any month. March! It sounds so decisive and forward-looking. Who doesn’t love that?

Here’s what I’m looking forward to in March:

The Batman

Okay, honestly, I don’t know that I’m so much looking forward to The Batman as much as I’m just happy for everyone who I know can’t wait to see this movie tomorrow. I will say that I support anything that brings Paul Dano to the public eye. And I’m happy for Robert Pattinson, though I hope he will continue to also make challenging films like Good Time and Cosmopolis. The Batman seems guaranteed to become the first really big hit of the year. With Pattinson starring in this and Kristen Stewart having a decent chance to win an Oscar, it may be time to seriously reconsider the legacy of Twilight.

Critically, The Batman has been receiving the best reviews of the year so far. If I have any doubts about the film, that’s due to the fact that it’s a 3-hour film and Twitter, which is where I’ve seen the most enthusiasm for The Batman, tends to be an echo chamber when it comes to evaluating the box office potential of comic book films. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that you really can’t use Film Twitter as a way to gauge how enthusiastic the general public may or may not be for a movie. If The Batman somehow does fail at the box office and we get yet another reboot, I guess they’re going to have to call it “A Batman.” It’s hard not to feel that we’re running out of titles here.

2. The Oscars

The Oscars will finally be handed out on the 27th and, as always, we’ve got a lot planned for that day here at the Shattered Lens. With all the controversy surrounding the show and the decision to do stuff like give out “Fan Favorite” awards, this year seems primed to be an even bigger fiasco than last year’s show. Every “fix” that’s been announced for the show feels like a “threat.” I mean, when you announce that the show is going to be hosted by Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, that also makes the promise of “time for more comedy bits” seem rather ominous. (You’ll notice that I didn’t mention Regina Hall because she’s the best and really, she’s the only host the show needs.) The Academy and ABC are so desperate to not go over that three-hour running time that I’m personally rooting for a four-hour show. I want people to ramble on interminably in their speeches. I want technical difficulties to slow things down. I want the ABC execs to freak out as the clock strikes ten and the show is nowhere near being over.

Of course, the only question that really matters is whether the ratings will improve or not. To be honest, I’m kind of hoping the ratings don’t improve because I don’t want the Academy thinking that “Fan Favorite” and less categories is the way to go. My hope is that less than 100,000 people watch and the Oscars move to a streaming platform. Next year, I want to see the Oscars on Peacock, with Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley hosting. Hmmm….maybe I shouldn’t watch this year….

3. A New Season of Survivor

Admittedly, the most recent season of Survivor was weird. Jeff Probts kept trying to be nice and every member of the cast had some big, dramatic story to tell about their life back home. There were a lot of emotional tribal councils. There was a lot of hugging. That’s not what we watch Survivor for. Survivor is not meant to be a show that makes you feel better about humanity. Survivor is supposed to be a show that celebrates betrayal and ruthlessness. Survivor is about great villains, not sob stories. Fortunately, a new season of my second-favorite (after The Amazing Race) reality show is starting in March and I hope it will be a return to the Survivor of old.

4. Deep Water

Finally, this Ben Affleck/Ana de Armas film will be getting its release! Earlier this year, it went from being a theatrical release to a movie that’s going to premiere on Hulu. Some people may think that’s a bad sign but personally, I think that indicates that the film will be enjoyably trashy. We’ll find out this month!

5. A Day To Die

Another Bruce Willis film? This will be Willis’s third film of the year and it’s only March! I’ve made it my goal to watch every Bruce Willis appears in this year. I still haven’t gotten started so I guess I’ll have to do an American Siege/Gasoline Alley/Day to Die marathon sometime this month. My hope is that, at some point this year, we’ll get the Nicolas Cage/Bruce Willis/Frank Grillo collaboration that VOD fans have been waiting for. (For the record, Frank Grillo is in A Day To Die but Nic Cage apparently is not.)

As for A Day to Die, I wonder how many people will accidentally watch it because they think it’s a Die Hard sequel. You have to admire the hustle, that’s all I’m saying.

6. American Song Contest

Wow, that’s a bland title! Anyway, this is America’s version of Eurovision. Singers from all 50 states will be competing and I’m sure our media will not use this as a way to push this whole Blue State vs. Red State narrative that they are so proud of. I’m looking forward to this because I can’t wait to hear how bad the songs are. Vermont’s song will probably be some sort old folkie nonsense and I can’t wait to ridicule it on Twitter. I know that’s kind of a negative way to look at things but fug it. It happens.

7. Lent

I gave up cursing for Lent!

8. After Yang

I’ve heard very good things about this film, which will be premiering this Friday on Showtime. I look forward to seeing it!

What are you looking forward to in March?

Scenes That I Love: Mardi Gras in Easy Rider

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy March 1st!

Today is not only the 1st of March. It’s not only Texas Independence Day. It’s not only Zack Snyder’s birthday. It’s not only the day of Texas primaries. It’s not only the day when the State of the Union address is scheduled to be given (yawn!). It’s also Mardi Gras!

What a busy day!

For today’s scene that I love, here is the Mardi Gras/Cemetery sequence from 1969’s Easy Rider. Featuring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Karen Black, and Toni Basil walking through the streets of New Orleans, this scene was actually filmed during Mardi Gras. Those are real Mardi Gras floats and real Mardi Gras participants staring at the camera. That’s an actual citizen of New Orleans with whom Dennis Hopper appears to have nearly gotten into a fight. And, in the cemetery scene, that was real acid that Peter Fonda took.

Here is today’s scene. The scene is age-restricted so you’ll actually have to click on “watch on YouTube” to see it.

If you don’t want to click on “watch on YouTube,” here is a shorter version that just features the parade without the admittedly disturbing cemetery stuff.

I like how Toni Basil can’t help but dance, no matter what.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Zack Snyder Edition

Posted on March 1, 2022 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!

As I already mentioned, today is Zack Snyder’s birthday! It’s taken a while but critics are finally starting to appreciate Zack Snyder. All it took was seeing the Joss Whedon version of Justice League for some viewers to realize that, whether you always agree with his directorial choices or not, Zack Snyder is one of the most consistently interesting filmmakers working today.

Personally, so as not to be a hypocrite about this, I will admit that I’ve been pretty critical of Snyder’s DC films. I make no apologies for that. I’ll continue to make jokes about the excessive destruction of Metropolis and the “Why did you say Martha?” scene. That said, Watchmen was a well-done film that continues to be influential. People are finally starting to admit that Sucker Punch was pretty damn good. Dawn of the Dead is one of the few horror remakes that pay homage to its source material while also establishing a worthwhile identity of its own. And, even if I haven’t worked up the courage to sit through all four hours of it, Zack Snyder’s Justice League has inspired an enthusiasm that I rarely see amongst film fans. “Release the Snyder Cut!” was one of the few twitter campaigns to actually get results. Even the Snyder films that I dislike are unlike any other film. Snyder has a unique artistic vision and that’s what we need more of.

So, in honor of the man’s birthday, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Zack Snyder Films