Tag Archives: Film

Film Review: The Chase (dir by Arthur Penn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Chase, a small-town Texas melodrama from 1966, opens with Robert Redford escaping from prison.

Redford is playing Bubber Reeves. Bubber, we’re told, has spent the last few years in a tough Texas prison, convicted of a murder that he didn’t commit. Now, he’s on the run and he’s probably returning to his hometown. His wife, Anna (Jane Fonda), still lives there, though Anna is now having an affair with Jake Rogers (James Fox). Jake is the son of the most powerful man in town, Val Rogers (E.G. Marshall). Jake also used to be Bubber’s best friend but now, he’s wracked with guilt about his affair with Anna.

Meanwhile, the townspeople are all worried that Bubber is going to seek revenge on the people who were responsible for him going to prison. Some of them know that he was actually innocent and some of them think that he’s actually the killer that he’s been made out to be but what they all have in common is that they’re worried about what Bubber’s gong to do when he shows up. Maybe they should have thought about the possibility of him getting mad and vengeful before they gave him a nickname like Bubber.

Anyway, Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) is convinced that Bubber is innocent but the townspeople still want him to allow them to gun Bubber down as soon as they see him. Sheriff Calder, however, is determined to keep the peace and make sure that the law prevails. He’s a man of unimpeachable integrity, working in a town full of people who are too cowardly to concern themselves with doing the right thing.

As everyone waits for Bubber to arrive. tempers come to the surface, a good deal of alcohol is consumed, and secrets are revealed. It all ends in tragedy, of course. One of the final scenes clumsily recreates the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Chase wouldn’t be an achingly self-serious film from 1966 if it didn’t.

There’s a few obvious problems with The Chase, the main one being that Robert Redford, who was 30 years-old when The Chase was released, looks surprisingly good for someone who has spent the last few years locked away in a tough Texas prison. Redford manage to escape from prison and run through a swamp without getting one single hair out of place. There’s nothing particularly dangerous about Redford in this film, which is surprising when you consider that The Chase was made just three years before Redford’s convincing turn as a laconic (if charming) killer in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. For The Chase to work, Bubber Reeves would have to be a force of nature but, whenever Redford’s on screen, you just find yourself wondering how someone who looks that good got stuck with a nickname like Bubber. The townspeople talk about Bubber like he’s a wild outlaw but Redford is just too laid back to pull it off. He comes across less like a wanted criminal and more like a California surfer who has somehow found himself in rural Texas.

As for the rest of the cast — well, there’s a lot of them. It’s a big ensemble film and good luck to anyone trying to keep track of who is related to who. Surprisingly enough, Marlon Brando is very convincing as a Texas sheriff, never allowing Sheriff Calder to turn into a stereotype. Less surprising is the fact that Robert Duvall, playing an frustrated husband, is also convincing in his role. Brando and Duvall, of course, would both go on to co-star in The Godfather. (Supposedly, when shooting of The Godfather began, Duvall was the only member of the cast with no fear of joking around with Brando, largely because they had bonded while working on The Chase.) Unfortunately, as good as Brando and Duvall are, they’re both let down in the hair department. Brando gets stuck with a hairpiece while Duvall is forced to go with a comb-over.

Some of the other performers are good and some of them are bad but none of them are particularly convincing as the residents of a small Texas town. James Fox, for instance, is very British. Jane Fonda and Angie Dickinson (cast as Calder’s wife) seem to be bored. E.G. Marshall is believably rich but never believably Southern. The other performers all tend to overact, especially once the people in town start drinking, shooting, hitting, and, in some cases, dancing. Somehow, Shelley Winters is not in the film, even though it seems like she should be.

The Chase was directed by Arthur Penn and written by Lillian Hellman. (The screenplay was based on a play and novel by Horton Foote.) Penn would follow up The Chase with Bonnie and Clyde and Alice’s Restaurant, two films that also dealt, for more successfully, with The Chase‘s themes of violence, community hypocrisy, and outlaw romanticism. Jane Fonda would go on to play Lillian Hellman in the 1977 film, Julia. For Julia, Fonda was nominated for an Oscar. For The Chase, she was not.

The Chase is one of those films that wants to say something important but doesn’t seem to be quite sure what. It’s a long and dramatic movie that doesn’t really add up to much. In the end, I think the main lesson to be learned here is not to allow your children to get a nickname like Bubber. There’s just no escape from a bad nickname.

Here’s The Trailer For The Green Knight!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The trailer for The Green Knight dropped earlier today and what else can I say other than that it looks amazing! Dev Patel stars and visionary David Lowery directs. (Lowery previously directed my favorite film of 2017, A Ghost Story.)

Without further ado, here’s is the trailer:

Here’s The Trailer for Stillwater!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Stillwater is a film that I’ve been hearing about for a while. It was directed by Tom McCarthy, who previously did the Oscar-winning (if subsequently kind of forgotten) Spotlight and it stars Matt Damon as a man who tries to prove that his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin) is not guilty of the murder for which she’s been convicted.

Originally, it was thought that Stillwater would be done in time for a late 2019 release but ultimately, it got a 2020 release date. But then pandemic occurred and everything got pushed back and, as a result, Stillwater is now set to be released on July 30th.

The trailer finally dropped today and …. well, its looks okay. To be honest, it kind of looks like one of those films that shows up, without much fanfare, on Netflix. But McCarthy’s strongest trait, as a director, has always been his ability to inspire and capture good performances and it looks like Matt Damon is very well-cast in the lead role. I’ve always felt that Matt Damon is one of those actors who is so consistently good that he gets taken granted.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s The Trailer For Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage was released earlier today. A lot of people on Twitter are really excited. Personally, I have no idea what to make of any of it. Apparently, this is not really an MCU film except that maybe it is. It’s like sitting in this sort of “Made in Association with Marvel” limbo. Who knows? The first Venom film drove my ADD crazy, though I should add that the film itself was liked by quite a few people here at the Shattered Lens.

Tom Hardy’s really cool. That’s the important thing, as far as I’m concerned. Tom Hardy is credited with coming up for the story for this film so hopefully, that means that the film’s plot will be kind of dark and cynical and odd and yet unexpectedly sweet and sentimental, like the Tom Hardy who regularly shows up in interviews. Regardless, it’s nice to see Tom Hardy taking ownership in the franchise. It reminds me of how Ryan Reynolds not only stars in the Deadpool films but obviously enjoys them as well.

Anyway, Venom: Let There Be Carnage will be released on September 24th. “Only in theaters!,” according to the trailer and I have to admit that I was happy to see those three words. Theaters need a shot in the arm.

Here’s the trailer:

Film Review: Short Eyes (dir by Robert M. Young)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, fully intent on just viewing one movie before going to bed, I decided to watch the 1977 film, Short Eyes.

Why I thought that was a good idea, I’m not sure. Even though I didn’t know much about the film, I did know that it was a gritty prison drama that was written by an ex-con, filmed in an actual New York prison, and that a few prisoners appeared in small roles in the film. So, I really can’t claim that I didn’t realize that I was about to watch something that probably wasn’t going to be deal with particularly pleasant subject matter. I think my main reason for watching it, to be honest, was just that it had been sitting there on my Prime watchlist for nearly a year. My main motivation can be summed up as “If not now, when?” Of course, if I had know that “Short Eyes’ was apparently prison slang for someone who is a pedophile, I might have thought twice about watching.

The Short Eyes of the title is Clark Davis (Bruce Davison), a young man from a vaguely wealthy background who is being held on charges of raping a young girl. Clark is one of only three white men being housed in his cell block. As Clark soon discovers, everything in prison is determined by your race and what you’re accused of doing. As a white man, he’s already in the minority and, because he’s a “short eyes,” he soon discovers that not even the other whites are willing to watch his back. The only person who is vaguely sympathetic to Clark is Juan (Jose Perez), a longtime prisoner who is determined to not allow prison to turn him into an animal. Juan tells Clark that he needs to get a transfer to protective custody but it soon becomes apparent that’s not going to happen. The prison guards feel no obligation to protect Clark and Clark himself almost seems to have a death wish.

As Clark explains to Juan, he’s not sure whether he’s guilty or not. He says that he blacks out and sometimes, he’s not sure what he did. Clark thinks he’s innocent but, at the same time, he also confessed to Juan that he has molested other girls. Juan knows that Clark’s a dead man if he doesn’t get out of prison but he also know that, even if Clark is innocent this time, he won’t be in the future. When the other prisoners decide to kill Clark, Juan has to decide whether to let it happen or to risk his safety by trying to stop it.

Short Eyes is one of the most thoroughly unpleasant films that I’ve ever watched but that obviously was the point. This is a film about the reality of prison, that it’s a dirty, brutal, and inhumane place where the weak are targeted and anyone who goes against the system — whether it’s the system enforced by the guards or the even more important system created by the prisoners — will be punished. It’s not at all fun to watch but, if anyone wants to know why incarceration tends to just create hardened criminals as opposed to rehabilitating them, they should find some answers in the film’s portrait of prison life.

The film is based on a play and, in many scenes, it’s a bit too theatrical for its own good. Clark delivers a lengthy monologue about his previous actions and, while it’s well-delivered by Davison, it also goes on and on and you never quite understand why he’s opening up to Juan in the first place. (Juan, himself, angrily responds that he never asked to be Clark’s father confessor.) The scenes of the prisoners just hanging out and talking are also well-acted but again, they tend to drag on for a bit too long. Musicians Curtis Mayfield and Freddy Fender both appear as anonymous prisoners and both sing songs, which brings the film’s already uneven narrative momentum to a complete halt. Just as the inmates will never be able to escape prison, the film never escapes its theatrical origins. While the decision to film Short Eyes in an actual operating prison brings a good deal of authenticity to the production, the production’s staginess ultimately works against it.

At its best, this is a well-acted portrait of people trapped in a man-made Hell. Jose Perez gives an excellent performance and Bruce Davison will make your skin crawl as Clark, a character about whom most viewers will have very mixed feelings. Nathan George and Joseph Carberry are both properly intimidating as the heads of, respectively, the black prisoners and the whites.

This is definitely not a film to watch late at night, unless you’re actively trying to generate nightmares. (Of course, if that’s your goal, have it!) As for me, I stayed up an extra two and a half hours just so I could watch another movie after Short Eyes. As a result, I spent all of Saturday tired but I still think I made the right decision.

Here’s The Final Trailer For A Quiet Place Part II!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After countless pandemic-related delays, A Quiet Place II will finally be released on May 28th. Here’s the final trailer, which was released yesterday. As you can tell, it appears that John Krasinski will at least briefly appear in the film, despite the death of his character at the end of the previous film. (It appears that Krasinski’s scene is a flashback to the beginning of the alien invasion.) Krasinski, of course, will also be returning to direct. Also returning to star in the film is my personal role model, Emily Blunt!

Here’s the trailer:

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Orson Welles Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

As I mentioned previously, the great Orson Welles was born 106 years ago today. And that means that it’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Orson Welles Films

Citizen Kane (1941, dir by Orson Welles, DP: Gregg Toland)
The Stranger (1946, dir by Orson Welles, DP: Russell Metty)
Touch of Evil (1958, dir by Orson Welles, DP: Russell Metty)
The Trial (1962, dir by Orson Welles, DP: Edmond Richard)

Scenes That I Love: Falstaff at Price Hal’s Coronation from Chimes At Midnight

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The great Orson Welles was born 106 years ago today, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Orson Welles was one of the greatest directors of all time, a showman and an artist who changed the way that people watched and thought about films. He was the visionary who helped to usher in the era of modern filmmaking and who proved that movies could be art and Hollywood never forgave him for it. Merely seven years after the release of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles found himself as such a pariah in the American film industry that he relocated to Europe. There, he made some of his best films though few of them would be fully appreciated when first released.

(Indeed, there still seems to be the strange need among some to try to diminish Orson Welles’s talents and achievements. Just last year, Mank tried to deny him the credit that he most certainly deserved for Citizen Kane. Interestingly enough, David Fincher claimed that his father’s original script portrayed Welles even more negatively than Welles came across in the finished film. One has to wonder about the motives of anyone who would slander Orson Welles while deifying Upton Sinclair.)

1965’s Chimes At Midnight is one of Welles’s best. Filmed in Spain, Chimes at Midnight is combination of five of Shakespeare’s plays, primarily Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, but also Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Welles cast himself in the role of Falstaff, enjoying life while educating the young Prince Hal in the ways of the world. When Prince Hal becomes Henry V, Falstaff attends his coronation, just to be rejected. The new king has new place in his court for someone like Falstaff. Was Prince Hal perhaps a stand-in for the many filmmakers who claimed to have been inspired by Welles’s work but who still refused to help Welles when he later came to them for help? Perhaps.

In the scene below, Falstaff is rejected by the new king. It’s a heart-breaking moment and one that features some of Welles’s best work as both an actor and a director.

Film Review: Night Terror (dir by E.W. Swackhamer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“There’s a killer on the road.

His brain is squirming like a toad.”

So sang Jim Morrison in the song Riders on the Storm. Now, whatever you may think of Jim Morrison and the Doors (personally, I think the music was good, Jim was pretentious as Hell, and I look cute in my Doors t-shirt), this is a perfect description of the character who is at the center of the 1977 film, Night Terror. He’s played by Richard Romanus and, in the credits, he’s simply called The Killer. The Killer spends his times driving up and down the highway, killing people seemingly at random. We never learn why exactly the Killer does what he does, though the film does offer up a few hints. For one thing, he has no voice. He carries an electrolarynx with him and holds it up to his throat whenever he wants to speak. Of course, he only does this two times in the film and, both times, it’s to basically howl with rage. In another scene, he can clearly be seen to be wearing military-style dog tags. Given when this film was made and the unfortunate popularity of the “deranged Vietnam vet” trope in the 70s and 80s, it’s easy to pick up on what exactly the film is implying.

Night Terror follows one night in the life of both The Killer and Carol Turner (Valerie Harper). Carol is just trying to get to Denver, where her son is in the hospital. When she sees a police officer pulling over a sports car for speeding, Carol decides to ask the cop for directions. Unfortunately, the sports car belong to The Killer and, as soon as the cop turns his back on him, out comes the shotgun. Carol slams down on the accelerator and speeds off, with the Killer pursuing her in own his vehicle. Unfortunately, Carol’s station wagon (which comes with wood paneling because, again, this is a movie from 1977) is nearly out of gas. What follows is a fairly tense game of cat-and-mouse, as Carol tries to hide from the Killer while the Killer stalks the highway, relentlessly searching for her. Along the way, a few familiar character actors pop up. John Quade is a homeless man living in a gas station. The great Nicholas Pryor is another motorist, one who proves to be not much help. Making things all the more dangerous for Carol is that the Killer knows what she looks like but she has no idea what the Killer looks like.

Night Terror owes an obvious debt to Steven Spielberg’s Duel and a host of other 70s car chase films. While Night Terror really can’t compare to the Duel, it does do a good job of creating and maintaining suspense. Fortunately, the film never makes the mistake of tying to turn Carol into some sort of badass action girl. She’s just an average person who has found herself in a terrifying situation and, as played by Valerie Harper, she’s never less than relatable. Richard Romanus, meanwhile, makes for a terrifying killer. The fact that he occasionally flashes a rather child-like smile only serves to make his single-minded pursuit of Carol all the more frightening. We never learn much about what’s led The Killer to becoming what he is but Romanus gives such an intense performance that we don’t need to understand him in order to be scared of him. He’s a nightmare come to life.

Night Terror ends on a somewhat awkward note, as if the filmmakers suddenly remembered that they were making a made-for-TV movie as opposed to a feature film. But, that said, Night Terror is an effectively scary and suspenseful road film. It can currently be viewed on YouTube.