4 Shots From 4 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.
This month, we’ve been using 4 Shots From 4 Films to honor some of our favorite filmmakers! Today, we pay tribute to the one and only Alfred Hitchcock!
Earlier this week, Spring Break get derailed in both the real world and here on the Shattered Lens. I had like four reviews left to go in my Spring Breakdown series before the whole Coronavirus panic broke out and I missed a few days of posting.
Well, fear not. I’m never one to give up easily and hey, I’m working at home for the next month! So, I should have time to watch a lot of movies, including at least four more movies to close out Spring Breakdown! For instance, this morning, I decided to clean out my DVR by watching the 2018 film, Age of Summer!
Now, I guess I should start things out by admitting that Age of Summer is not really a Spring Break film. In fact, it takes place during the summer. However, the entire movie pretty much takes place on the beach and really, that’s just as good as being about Spring Break. I mean, there’s a scene where a bunch of lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion and there’s some oddly gratuitous nudity and there’s whole big subplot about stealing a big marijuana plant. So, it’s a Spring Break movie in spirit, if not in plot.
Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly good movie. This is one of those movies that left me wanting to throw stuff at the TV and I probably would have if Jeff hadn’t pointed out that, if I broke the screen, it might be a while until I could get a new one. The film is about a kid called Minnesota (Percy Hynes White), because that’s where he’s from. (Fortunately, he wasn’t from Walla Walla.) Minnesota has moved to California and he wants to become a life guard. He also wants to get a girlfriend and retrieve his bike, which is stolen from him at the start of the film. A grown-up Minnesota provides us with voice-over narration, assuring us that we’re watching the most important summer of his life and that, as a result of what happened during that summer, he would always love the ocean. The problem with the narration is that, far too often, it tells us what we should be seeing. Instead of visually making us fall in love with the ocean, the most just tells us that we should love the ocean.
Oddly, the main theme of this film seems to be that everyone in California is a jerk. I’m sure that wasn’t what was originally intended but everyone that Minnesota meets is so obnoxious that you’re just kind of like, “Get that kid to Walla Walla!” Eventually, Minnesota is sent on a quest to get wisdom from the mysterious Rock God (Peter Stomare) who lives on the beach and who some people say is just a local legend. I’m not really sure what Minnesota got from his visit to the Rock God but at least Peter Stomare’s in the film.
Anyway, Minnesota does eventually become a lifeguard. All of the lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion. How are they going to save my life if they’re all drunk? Where the Hell’s David Hasselhoff? Someone needs to whip these boys into shape!
It wouldn’t be a Christmas here at Through the Shattered Lens without our yearly viewing of that most Christmas-y of all Christmas films: Treevenge.
I wouldn’t be out of place to say that this is the greatest film ever developed, put on celluloid and released for the world to see. We here at Through the Shattered Lens always wait for Christmas morning to see if the Christmas trees will make an appearance on the site and, lo and behold, they haven’t missed a Christmas morning since 2009.
Treevenge is a film that is full of Chrstmas joy. From it’s nostalgic opening music to the joy of families and friends enjoying their Christmas Eve with their new, hand picked Christmas tree.
It’s a yearly tradition to celebrate the birth of this particular site by reintroducing it’s readers (introducing those new to the site) to the greatest film ever made. It’s the greatest Christmas film and the greatest feel good film. In the end, it’s just the greatest film ever made and anyone who thinks otherwise is just misguided and wrong.
Treevenge has everything one should ever want and probably didn’t even know they needed or wanted. It has romance. Nostalgia for those who fondly remember getting to choose their first Christmas tree. It’s a family film where we see families celebrate the traditions of the holidays.
It even has moments of scandalous scenes that may make one go “OH MY!”. I know that many of the original contributors past and present look forward to this yearly TSL tradition. I may not have been as active this year as I have been year’s past, but this was one day I wouldn’t missed for all the world.
Under the Skin is one of the most brilliantly divisive films of the year. To some, it’s a pretentious mess, a collection of seemingly random scenes and obscure themes. To me, however, it is one of the most haunting films that I’ve ever seen. It’s a film that’s full of mysteries and questions, one that often demands that we supply our own answers. It’s one of the best films of the year and anyone who disagrees needs to rewatch it.
From the opening scene, Under the Skin is a dream of dark and disturbing things.
In Scotland, a silent motorcyclist (Jeremy McWilliams) finds a young woman’s dead body lying on the side of the road. He picks up the body and puts it in the back of a van. Inside the van, a naked woman (played by Scarlett Johansson) takes the dead woman’s clothes. As soon becomes apparent, both the motorcyclist and the woman are not human. They’re aliens and they’ve come to Earth on a mission that is deliberately left obscure. Though they never speak to each other, the motorcyclist always seems to be nearby.
The woman drives the van across Scotland. She stops men in the street and, after asking for directions, then attempts to coerce them into her van. (What makes these scenes especially effective is that the majority of them actually feature Johansson talking to nonactors who just happened to be nearby when she drove up.) The woman smiles and flirts and has little trouble convincing the majority of the men she meets to get into the van with her.
She drives them to an isolated building where the men follow her inside. As they step into a pitch black room, both the woman and her latest man start to undress. The naked man starts to walk towards the woman and is so hypnotized by the sight of her that he doesn’t even realize that the floor has become liquified and he’s sinking. As Johansson watches coldly, each man eventually vanishes, leaving behind only his empty skin.
(Warning: The two scenes below are definitely NSFW. Watch with caution.)
Detached from her surroundings, the woman can only watch as real human beings go about their lives. When she sees a man unsuccessfully try to save a drowning couple on the beach, she reacts by striking the man on the head with a rock. She drags the man away, leaving the couple’s terrified toddler on the beach. When the motorcyclist later visits the beach, he too ignores the child. (Perhaps no scene left me more disturbed and inspired more nightmares than this one.)
It’s only when the woman picks up a man with a severe facial disfigurement (a poignant performance from a nonactor named Adam Pearson) that she finally starts to show some emotion. The man is as much of an outsider as she is, with the main difference being that he can’t hide who he really is under a disguise. The woman feels sorry for him and this sudden shock of empathy causes her to reconsider her mission.
However, even as the woman attempts to flee to the Scottish highlands, the motorcyclist is never far behind. And, unfortunately, neither are real humans…
Under the Skin is pure cinema, a collection of scenes that alternate between being naturalistic and surreal, disturbingly serious and darkly humorous. Perhaps appropriately for a film about appearances, Under the Skin is a movie that is full of haunting images, the type that, 8 months after first being seen, remain vivid in your mind. It’s up to the viewers to decide what those images mean.
(For all of the discussion that I’ve seen online about what Under the Skin is truly about, it seems pretty obvious to me that the main message of the film is that guys are so led by their penis that they’ll even allow themselves to sink into a liquid void if there’s a chance they might get laid beforehand.)
Under the Skin has been a player (albeit a minor one) in the precursors leading up the Oscars. A few of the braver critical groups have nominated it for best picture and have also honored Scarlett Johansson for her wonderful work as an outsider who is both slowly discovering what it means to be human while also dealing with the reality that, try as she might, she will never truly belong in this world. However, with all that in mind, Under the Skin is probably too divisive and unique a film to ever truly appeal to the Academy.
But that’s okay.
Under the Skin is also a film that we’ll still be discussing years from now.
Through the Shattered Lens 