Hi, everyone! Tonight, on twitter, I will be hosting one of my favorite films for #MondayMania! Join us for Nightmare Nurse!
You can find the movie on Prime and then you can join us on twitter at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) See you then!
Today, we celebrate Sylvester Stallone’s birthday with one of the most definitive montages of the 1980s. From 1982’s Rocky III (which was directed by Stallone himself), here is the famous Rocky/Apollo training montage.
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!
Yesterday was the 137th anniversary of the birth of the great French surrealist Jean Cocteau! Belatedly, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Jean Cocteau Films
The Blood of a Poet (1932, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Georges Perinal)
Beauty and the Beast (1946, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Henri Alekan)
Orpheus (1950, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Nicolas Hayer)
Testament of Orpheus (1960, dir by Jean Cocteau)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally 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 be 2015’s Close Range!
If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Close Range on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
Enjoy!
Today is National Bikini Day!
According to the good people at Checkiday, the proper way to celebrate National Bikini Day is to put on a bikini and head to the beach! Unfortunately, I don’t live anywhere near the beach but I can still wear a bikini.
As we often do here at the Shattered Lens, we’re going to recognize both this holiday and four of our favorite movies! Here, in honor of National Bikini Day, are….
4 Shots From 4 Films
In the early days of World War III,
guerillas, mostly children,
placed the names of their
lost upon this rock.
They fought here alone
and gave up their lives
“so that this nation
shall not perish
from the earth”
My best friend Evelyn and I have a long-standing pact. If either one of us dies mysteriously or suddenly disappears, the surviving friend will investigate the crime and bring those responsible to justice.
It’s the type of pact that you make when you realize how much your best friend actually means to you. Fortunately, I’ve never had to keep up my end of the pact because nothing has happened to my best friend. The truth of the matter is that it seems like it would actually be very difficult to independently solve a crime. I know that a lot of people thought that Michelle McNamara did that when she investigated the Golden State Killer but, if you actually read I’ll Be Gone In The Dark and then research the actual facts of the case, you can’t help but notice that all of McNamara’s theories were wrong. It’s not easy investigating a crime without a crime lab or a search warrant or the power to arrest people. There’s a reason why most crimes are solved by detectives and not by well-meaning civilians. Add to that, with my ADHD, there’s no way I’d be able to keep track of whatever clues I did find. Seriously, I fear that I would be useless in that situation.
If only life were a Lifetime movie!
In 2o24’s Danger of Party Island, Mel Dale (Lindsey Dresbach) is a lawyer who is stunned to learn that her carefree sister, Georgia (Andrea Prevatt), has apparently washed up dead on the island of Fang Key. While her anxious mother waits for word in the States, Mel heads down to Fang Key and tries to figure what could have led to her sister’s death. The local police suggests that Georgia was on drugs and trying to cliff dive. Mel says that Georgia never drank or used drugs. (Why would you go to a “party island” if you didn’t drink or use drugs?) The police say that Mel should just go home and let them handle it. Mel says that she has to discover the truth. The police mention that Georgia’s best friend is missing too. Around this time, Mel finally figures out that the police aren’t going to be much help.
Mel’s investigation leads her to darkest corners of a party island. She befriends hunky club owner Jever (James Bobo), despite everyone telling her that Jever is actually bad news. She comes to suspect that Georgia might not even be dead. This suspicion seems to be confirmed when Georgia suddenly starts posting cheerful videos to her social media accounts. Again, everyone tells Mel that she should just go home but Mel is convinced that someone is holding Georgia against her will. Meanwhile, Mel and Georgia’s mother keeps threatening to come to the island and take over the investigation herself.
The cool thing about Danger on Party Island is that all Mel really needs to launch an investigation is a lap top and a good search engine. That certainly gave me some hope because, if I ever do have to solve a crime, I know all of the best search engines. The other good thing about Danger on Party Island is that the island was really pretty. This was a film where the plot was so-so but the scenery was lovely. Director Danny J. Boyle did a good job of contrasting the beauty of the island with the darkness of some of the things going in the shadows.
I just wish that the film had been a little bit more fun. This is a film that did indeed embrace the melodrama but I still found myself wishing that it had embraced it even more. Instead, the film’s big finale felt anti-climatic and things just never got as over-the-top as they should have. Danger On Party Island had a beautiful island but it still needed to be more of a party.
In the end, this Lifetime film held my attention. It didn’t quite live up to the melodramatic promise of its name but at least it suggested that solving a crime isn’t as hard as it looks.
I can only hope!
I really wanted to like Here.
Released in 2024, Here is the type of movie that I usually would like. It’s ambitious. It’s experimental. It’s about history and how certain patterns will always repeat themselves no matter what. It features Tom Hanks and Paul Bettany, two of my favorite actors. Also, unlike a lot of people, I haven’t turned on Robert Zemeckis. For the most part, I usually enjoy his movies, including the more recent ones. (Of course, when I say more recent, I’m thinking of The Walk, which came out eleven years ago. But still….)
Here has an intriguing concept. Over the course of 104 minutes, Here covers several thousand years of history. The stationary camera focuses on a single plot of land, which goes from being an area dominated by dinosaurs to being the road outside of Colonial Governor William Franklin’s house during the American Revolution to eventually becoming the living room of a house that is occupied by several different families. The story plays out in a nonlinear fashion with the marriage of Richard and Margaret Young (played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright) ultimately dominating the narrative. We watch as people fall in love, sometimes fall out of love, and eventually die. With the exception of one key moment, the camera never moves. Instead, we watch as life plays out in front of the camera and it’s often left to our imagination as to what’s happening on the other side of the lens. When Margaret, at one point, complains about how she can’t stand to keep looking at the same couch day-after-day, we know exactly how she feels.
As I said, I really wanted to like this movie but, unfortunately, it just fell flat. We meet a lot of characters but no one really feels human. Instead, all of the dialogue and the action has the shallow snappiness of an old sitcom. It’s easy to imagine this film being aired with a laugh track and an audience going, “Awwww!” after every emotional moment. As a result, watching Here feels less like witnessing history unfold and more like flipping around the nostalgia channels and trying to pick which old sitcom you want to watch. Do you want to watch the show about Ben Franklin not liking his son or the show that features Paul Bettany as a veteran dealing with PSTD? Do you want a show about a pilot who dies during the Spanish Flu epidemic or about a masked-up husband during the COVID lockdowns? One of the film’s final scenes features a character who is suffering from Alzheimer’s visiting the house and suddenly announcing that they remember everything about living there. It’s a moment that is meant to be heartfelt but, instead, it feels insulting to anyone who has ever taken care of a loved one with dementia. Alzheimer’s is never cutesy, regardless of what the movies may tell us. In the end, very little of the film’s vision of humanity feels authentic.
The other big problem is that the film occasionally uses digital de-aging to try to convince us that Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are both teenagers and it just doesn’t work. Hanks is playing Paul Bettany’s son but, whenever the two actors appear at the same time, it’s obvious that Hanks is considerably older than his screen father. Unlike The Irishman, which had a strong story and enough good performances to convince the viewer to suspend their disbelief and accept the imperfect de-aging technology, the de-aging in Here just emphasizes how inauthentic the film’s story feels.
As I said earlier, this film had potential but, unfortunately, most of that potential goes unrealized.
And that really is a shame.
Previous Icarus Files:
First released in the year 2000, The Patriot stars Mel Gibson (back before the arrests and scandals) as Benjamin Martin.
Benjamin Martin is a planter living in colonial-era South Carolina. When he was younger, he fought in the French/Indian War and was infamous for his ferocity as a combatant. However, in the year 1776, he is devoted to working the land and peacefully caring for his children. When, as a member of the South Carolina General Assembly, he is called upon to cast a vote for or against independence, he abstains. He’s no fan of the British but he’s also seen the harsh reality of war and doesn’t want his sons to have any part of it. However, the Assembly still votes for Independence and Martin’s oldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), is among the first to enlist in the army.
Four years later, the British come to the Martin farm and demand that Benjamin had over a wounded Gabriel to them. When Benjamin resists, the arrogant Col. Tavington (Jason Isaacs) kills one of Benjamin’s other sons. After Tavington has Gabriel arrested, Benjamin and two of his remaining sons track down the British convoy transporting him. While his two youngest sons look on in horror, Benjamin savagely shoots and hacks to death all of the British soldiers and rescues Gabriel.
The Patriot may be a film about the American Revolution but it’s also definitely a Mel Gibson film. That means that Benjamin is man driven as much be revenge as by a desire to win his country’s independence. The British killed his son and burned down his house. Benjamin responds by grabbing his musket and packing his axe and soon, it’s more common than not to see Benjamin covered in blood. Benjamin attacks like a feral beast who is determined to dominate anyone and anything that would invade his territory. Two of his sons go from being honored to be asked to come along to being terrified at the sight of their father murdering soldier after soldier. It’s probably the most emotionally honest moment you’ll ever find in a Roland Emmerich film. Of course, whether Emmerich meant for it to be so is open to debate.
And indeed, it should be noted that The Patriot is very much a Roland Emmerich film. The running time is an epic 165 minutes. The battle scenes are long and loud and carefully choreographed. Gibson was still rugged and handsome when he played Benjamin Martin. (Both before his downfall and after, Gibson has always been best cast as people who just want to be left alone and who finally snap once it becomes obvious that’s not going to happen.) Heath Ledger almost appears beatific in his scenes. The film looks great without ever quite looking authentic. It’s like a fever dream that is less about how the American Revolution was actually fought and more about how we imagine it was fought.
And you know what?
The film works for me. This is one of Emmerich’s best films, which admittedly is not a high bar to clear. Yes, it’s a bit simplistic. Yes, it’s not historically accurate. Yes, all of the British are portrayed as being one-dimensional villains. Who cares? Whether he realizes it or not, Roland Emmerich has always been a B-movie maker at heart and The Patriot is effective in much the same way that many crude but shameless B-movies are. The mix of Mel Gibson’s madness, Heath Ledger’s beatific earnestness, and Jason Isaac’s arrogance transforms The Patriot into a triumph of the pulp imagination. Much like America itself, The Patriot is big and loud and it makes absolutely no apologies.
