The Oscar Season Begins With The Gotham Nominations!

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Can you guess what my favorite time of year is?

If you guessed November, you’re right! My birthday is on November 9th, our own Dazzling Erin’s birthday is on November 24th, and then Arleigh’s birthday is on November 27th! November is a big month here at the Shattered Lens.

My second favorite time of year? October, of course! How can you go wrong with so much horror?

And then, of course, my third favorite time of year is December because that’s when I get most of my presents.

Along with being my favorite three months of the year, another thing that all three of those months have in common is that they comprise what is known as Oscar Season. Oscar Season is the period of time when the majority of the Best Picture contenders are released and all of the critic groups give out their awards in the hope of influencing the Academy’s nominations. I love movies and I love awards so how can I not love Oscar Season?

Well, I’m happy to say that Oscar Season officially began earlier today when the nominations for the 23rd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced. The Gotham nominations aren’t exactly the best precursor of what’s going to be nominated in January but, nonetheless, they usually manage to include at least a few legitimate contenders.

This year, for example, Oscar front-runner 12 Years A Slave managed to collect the most Gotham nominations. Personally, I’m just happy to see that my favorite film of 2013, Upstream Color, collected two nominations.

The Gothams will be awarded on December 2nd.

Here are the nominations:

Best Feature

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen, director; Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Bill Pohlad, Steve McQueen, Arnon Milchan, Anthony Katagas, producers. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

David Lowery, director; Tony Halbrooks, James M. Johnston, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Amy Kaufman, Cassian Elwes, producers (IFC Films)

Before Midnight

Richard Linklater, director; Richard Linklater, Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, Sara Woodhatch, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)

Inside Llewyn Davis

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, directors; Scott Rudin, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, producers (CBS Films)

Upstream Color

Shane Carruth, director; Shane Carruth, Casey Gooden, Ben LeClair, producers. (erbp)

Best Documentary

The Act of Killing

Joshua Oppenheimer, director; Signe Byrge, Joshua Oppenheimer, producers (Drafthouse Films)

The Crash Reel

Lucy Walker, director; Julian Cautherly, Lucy Walker, producers (HBO Documentary Films)

First Cousin Once Removed

Alan Berliner, director and producer (HBO Documentary Films)

Let the Fire Burn

Jason Osder, director and producer (Zeitgeist Films)

Our Nixon

Penny Lane, director; Brian L. Frye, Penny Lane, producers (Cinedigm and CNN Films)

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award

Ryan Coogler for Fruitvale Station (The Weinstein Company)

Adam Leon for Gimme the Loot (Sundance Selects)

Alexandre Moors for Blue Caprice (Sundance Selects)

Stacie Passon for Concussion (RADiUS-TWC)

Amy Seimetz for Sun Don’t Shine (Factory 25)

Best Actor

Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis (CBS Films)

Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club (Focus Features)

Robert Redford in All Is Lost (Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions)

Isaiah Washington in Blue Caprice (Sundance Selects)

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine (Sony Pictures Classics)

Scarlett Johansson in Don Jon (Relativity Media)

Brie Larson in Short Term 12 (Cinedigm)

Amy Seimetz in Upstream Color (erbp)

Shailene Woodley in The Spectacular Now (A24)

Breakthrough Actor

Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (Sony Pictures Classics)

Kathryn Hahn in Afternoon Delight (The Film Arcade and Cinedigm)

Michael B. Jordan in Fruitvale Station (The Weinstein Company)

Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Robin Weigert in Concussion (RADiUS-TWC)

6 More Trailers For A Scary October

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s the second Sunday in October and that means that it’s time for another horrific edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers!

1) The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972)

2) Horror Hotel (1960)

3) Repulsion (1965)

4) The Devonsville Terror (1983)

5) The Pit and The Pendulum (1991)

6) House of Usher (1960)

What do you think, Trailer Kitty?

6 Horrific Trailers For A Horror Month

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi! Welcome to the first October 2013 edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers. This month, of course, is horror month and therefore, all of October’s trailers will be taken from the horror genre.

Today’s edition starts with a Mummy, finds some room for Dracula and Karen Black, and ends with Frankenstein. Enjoy!

1) The Mummy (1959)

2) The Mummy’s Shroud (1968)

3) The Scars of Dracula (1970)

4) Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)

5) The Pyx (1973)

6) Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)

What do you think, Trailer Kitty?

Poll: Which Films Are You Most Looking Forward To Seeing In November?

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

It’s the start of a new month and you know what that means!

It’s time to combine two of my favorite things: a poll and a list of film titles.

Which four films are you most looking forward to seeing in November? Let us know by voting below. You can vote up to four times and, as always, write-ins are accepted!

Happy voting!

6 Trailers For 6 Films That Were Never Watched By Walter White

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First off, I must apologize for the lateness of this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers. The Trailer Kitties were so depressed over the finale of Breaking Bad that I had to resort to using the Trailer Possum to gather up this week’s trailers.

Let’s see what he dug up.

1) Kill Them and Eat Them (2004)

2) Suburban Sasquatch (2008)

3) I, Zombie (1998)

4) Teenagers From Outer Space (1959)

5) No Blade of Grass (1970)

6) Beyond The Time Barrier (1960)

What do you think, Trailer Possum?

Photograph by the Dazzling Erin Nicole

6 Trailers That Are Better Than Last Night’s Episode Of Dexter

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers. Now, usually, I would have the trailer kitties go out and track down six trailers to feature here. However, the trailer kitties were so upset by how Dexter ended that, for this edition only, I had to recruit a replacement.

Let’s see what he found for us!

1) The Lumberjack (2013)

2) Rawhead Rex (1988)

3) Grizzly (1976)

4) My Mom’s a Werewolf (1988)

5) The Kiss (1988)

6) The Guardian (1990)

What do you think, Trailer Lumberjack?

Well, that certainly explains all the trees…

Let’s Second Guess The Academy: 1987 Best Picture

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for another edition of Let’s Second Guess the Academy! This time, we’re taking a second look at the race for Best Picture of 1987.

Can you remember which film won Best Picture for 1987? Don’t feel bad if you can’t because Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is one of the lesser known Oscar winners. The film’s relative obscurity leads to one natural question: was it truly the best film released in 1987?

Or should the Oscar have gone to one of the other films nominated — Broadcast News, Hope and Glory, Fatal Attraction, or Moonstruck?

Let your voice be heard by voting below!

After voting for which nominated film you think should have won, give some thought to some of the 1987 films that were not nominated. Was Moonstruck truly a better film than Near Dark or Full Metal jacket? Ask yourself what would have happened if The Last Emperor hadn’t been released in the United States or what if Fatal Attraction hadn’t been a huge box office smash. What if none of the five best picture nominees had been eligible to be nominated in 1987? Which five films would you have nominated in their place?

Let us know by voting below. As always, you can vote for up to five alternative nominees and write-ins are accepted!

Happy voting!

Film Review: A Cry In The Night (dir by Frank Tuttle)

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Thanks to TCM, I’ve gotten the chance to discover a lot of old films that I, otherwise, would have probably never even heard about. One of those films is A Cry In The Night, a low-budget, 1956 crime story that I randomly came across last month.

Harold Loftus (Raymond Burr) has issues. He lives in a shack, he’s totally dominated by his overbearing mother, and he spend most of his time secretly peeping at couples who are parked at the local lover’s lane. When he comes across Liz (Natalie Wood) and her boyfriend Owen (RIchard Anderson), he overpowers Owen and kidnaps Liz. Now, Owen must work with Liz’s overprotective policeman father, Dan (Edmond O’Brien), to track down Harold and Liz. Making things difficult is the fact that Dan blames Owen for the kidnapping and simply cannot bring himself to accept that his daughter was actually “one of those girls” who spent her Saturday night sitting in a car and sharing chaste kisses with her boyfriend.

(Seriously, the film made it sound like this was the worst possible thing that a girl could do with her time. I’m not sure if Dan was supposed to come across like a reactionary or if this was just a case of the film having been made in 1956. Personally, if that’s what the 50s were like, I’m glad I wasn’t born until the 80s.)

As directed by Frank Tuttle, A Cry In The Night tells its story in a stark, no-nonsense, semi-documentary manner. (There’s even narration at the beginning and end of the film.) O’Brien bellows his way through the role and Anderson’s colorless performance does little to make Owen seem like any less of a wimp. However, Raymond Burr makes for a disturbingly plausible pervert and Natalie Wood is well-cast as Liz. The film came out a year after Rebel Without A Cause and, watching her performance in A Cry In the Night, you can tell why Natalie Wood was Hollywood’s favorite vulnerable teenager.

I have to admit that I love films like A Cry In The Night, not so much because they’re great films (and, while always watchable, A Cry In The Night is certainly not a great film), but because they’re totally a product of their time. As opposed to the big budget extravaganzas that were churned out by the Hollywood studio system during the 50s and 60s, low-budget B-movies like A Cry In The Night were designed to exploit contemporary headlines and contemporary concerns and, therefore, provide a lot of insight into what was going on with the American psyche at the time.

A Cry In The Night combines several themes that ran through the majority of the films of the period. In the role of Harold, Raymond Burr is the epitome of the 1950s weirdo. As opposed to the normal, all-American boys who make out with their girls in cars, Harold can only bring himself to lurk about and attempt to catch a peek of what normal society does on Saturday night. When he kidnaps Liz, he’s not only threatening Natalie Wood, he is by extension attacking America itself. Meanwhile, Liz’s boyfriend comes across like the type of intellectual liberal who probably cast two ballots for Adlai Stevenson while her father is definitely an Eisenhower man. Boyfriend and father do not get along at first but what’s important is that they set aside their difference so that they can vanquish the other. By the end of the film, the father is willing to invite the boyfriend to dinner and the boyfriend has learned that sometimes, you have to be willing to fight.

For those of you who keep crying about how the solution for all of America’s problems lie in bipartisan compromise, A Cry In The Night is the film for you!

For the rest of us, A Cry In The Night is an occasionally entertaining time capsule.

6 Trailers For An American Labor Day

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I left on my vacation, I sent the trailer kitties to collect some trailers that would be perfect for Labor Day! They returned with a bunch of movies about the mafia! I think they’re trying to make a subtle comment about the Teamsters but, regardless of their logic, enjoy this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers and Happy Labor Day!

1) Capone (1975)

2) Murder, Inc. (1960)

3) The Valachi Papers (1972)

4) The Italian Connection (1972)

5) Zebra Force (1976)

6) Mobsters (1991)

What do you think, trailer kitty?

Poll: Which Films Are You Most Looking Forward To Seeing In October?

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s in the end of the month and you know what that means!

It’s time to combine two of my favorite things: a poll and a list of film titles.

Which four films are you most looking forward to seeing in October? Let us know by voting below. You can vote up to four times and, as always, write-ins are accepted!

Happy voting!