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!
Here are four classic shots, all featuring rain.
4 Rainy Shots From 4 Films
My Neighbor Totoro (1988, Dir. by Hayao Miyazaki)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994, Dir. by Frank Darabont)
Prisoners (2013, Dir. by Denis Villeneuve)
Toy Story 4 (2019, Dir. by Josh Cooley)
In honor of Director Frank Darabont’s 66th birthday, I’m sharing a scene from his masterpiece, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. One of the best things about this movie is how much humor is found behind those prison walls, often coming from seemingly unexpected places. In this scene, the humor is found when the characters take on the mundane task of cataloging the prison library. Enjoy!
I recently reviewed THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION on my son’s birthday.
In celebration of the 77th birthday of the great Director John Carpenter, I decided to watch his 1998 film VAMPIRES, starring one of my favorite actors in James Woods. I specifically remember the first time I ever read that this movie was being made and that it would star Woods. It was 1996, and I had just been hired to work for a company called Acxiom Corporation in Conway, Arkansas. It was at this job that I first had access to this new thing called the Worldwide Web. As far as I know, it was the first time I had ever looked at the internet. Of course, I immediately started completing searches on some of my favorite actors, including James Woods, when I came across VAMPIRES as a movie currently in production. These were the first times in my life that I was able to find out about new film projects without looking in a magazine or watching shows like Entertainment Tonight.
In VAMPIRES, James Woods stars as Jack Crow, the leader of team of vampire hunters who get their funding from the Vatican. We’re introduced to the team when they go into a house in New Mexico and proceed to impale and burn a nest of vampires. While the rest of the team celebrates the mission that night in a hotel filled alcohol, drugs, and whores, Jack can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right, as he doesn’t believe they got the “master vampire” of the group. Unfortunately, Jack is right to worry. As they’re partying, the master vampire Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) interrupts the fun and proceeds to kill everyone there, with the exception of Jack, his partner Tony (Daniel Baldwin), and Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a prostitute he decided to just bite on. Valek isn’t just a regular old master vampire, either. As it turns out, he’s the original vampire, and he’s on a quest to find the Berziers Cross, an ancient Catholic relic, that will allow him and other vampires to walk in the daylight. Against this backdrop, Jack, Tony, and a priest named Adam (Tim Guinee) use Katrina, who now has a psychic link with Valek, to try to kill the ultimate master vampire Valek, his cleric accomplice Cardinal Alba (Maximillian Schell), and just hopefully, save mankind in the process!
I know that VAMPIRES is not the most well-known or beloved John Carpenter film. He’s done so many great movies, but VAMPIRES is special to me as it was the first of his films that I ever saw in the movie theater. And the opening 30 minutes of the film is as badass as it gets. Carpenter is a master of the set-up. There’s lots of slow motion as Carpenter’s guitar riffs rock the soundtrack and the camera moves in on James Woods, with his cool sunglasses and black leather jacket, just before his team goes in and destroys a vampire nest at the beginning of the film. I also think the set-up of Thomas Ian Griffith as Valek is awesome, as he strolls up to the hotel room while the vampire hunters celebrate, completely unaware of the carnage about to befall them. Griffith has never looked cooler than he did in his long black coat and long hair, both blowing in the wind. These were awesome moments that illustrated Carpenter’s ability to project a sense of visual cool and power that I was mesmerized with. I wanted to see what happens next. And as a 25-year-old man at the time of VAMPIRE’s Halloween release in 1998, I also gladly admit that I really enjoyed the beauty of a 31-year-old Sheryl Lee. I would have definitely done everything I could do to save and protect her. The remainder of the film may have not been able to keep the same momentum as those first 30 minutes, but it’s a solid, enjoyable film, buoyed by the intense performance of Woods!
There are several items of trivia that interest me about VAMPIRES:
John Carpenter has directed some absolute classics like ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976), HALLOWEEN (1978), ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), THE THING (1982), and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986). There’s no wrong way to celebrate a man who has brought such joy into our lives through his work. Today, I’m just thankful that he has been given the opportunity to share his talents with us!
I sent our son a text the other day and asked him if he had an answer for the question “What’s your favorite movie?” I thought I knew the answer but it turns out I was only half right. I expected his answer to be THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Rather, the answer I received back was “The Hateful Eight or Shawshank Redemption!” Since I recently wrote about the time that he and I attended THE HATEFUL EIGHT roadshow in Dallas, I decided I would write about THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION this time around. It doesn’t hurt that it’s one of my favorite movies as well. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s the very top rated film on the Internet Movie Database.
Based on Stephen King’s “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” the story is well known… hot shot banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover, and gets sentenced to life at the Shawshank prison. Once on the inside, we meet a variety of characters that you expect in a prison movie. We meet Warden Norton (Bob Gunton), the hypocrite who speaks of the Bible while hiding a corrupt, evil spirit. We meet Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown), the brutal chief prison guard, who rules over the inmates with intimidation and a real willingness to inflict violence and pain on anyone who shows the least bit of independence. We meet Red (Morgan Freeman), the long-time inmate who has the ability and connections to get you anything you need. We meet other inmates like Heywood (William Sadler), the inmate who seems like a jerk when you first meet him but turns out to be a pretty good fella; Tommy (Gil Bellows), the young guy who comes into prison and may know something that proves Andy’s innocence; Brooks (James Whitmore), the old man who gets released after almost a lifetime in prison, and doesn’t know how to adjust to life on the outside; and Bogs (Mark Rolston), the sadistic prisoner who wants to force himself on Andy, and is willing to kill to get what he wants. Life isn’t easy at all in Shawshank, but Andy’s intelligence and ability to prove himself useful to Warden Norton and Captain Hadley allows him to finds ways to make life more bearable for him and his friends. After nineteen years in prison, even though he maintains his innocence, it appears that Andy is content to live out his remaining years in prison. Or is he??
I’ll never forget the first time I saw the movie THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. I didn’t see it until a year or two after its initial release in 1994. I was one of those guys who figured a movie that praised by the critics was probably not something that I would like that much. Plus, at the time, the title of the movie just seemed kind of weird. But I kept hearing about how great it was, so I finally decided to give it a viewing. I agree with my son, I think THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is one of the most emotionally uplifting movies ever made. Why is that you might ask? My answer would be because there’s something profoundly satisfying about people who persevere through the worst times imaginable and continue to find hope where most of us would be hopeless. Prison life is shown as horrific. One prisoner is literally beaten to death by Captain Hadley on his first night in prison for crying. Andy fights off the sadistic Bogs as much as he can, but he is unable to completely fight off his advances. But no matter what he goes through, Andy Dufresne is able keep moving forward, and he does not allow the prison life to completely crush his spirit. He keeps finding ways to persevere. Andy’s actions and endurance turn simple acts like listening to Mozart or having a beer into overwhelming emotional highs for us as the audience. The film also maintains a realistic sense of humor, which might seem difficult under the circumstances. This sense of humor is found in such mundane tasks as creating a prison library, providing tax prep services for the guards, or attending multiple parole hearings over the years. These comedic moments are earned by the way the movie takes it’s time letting us really get to the know the characters and then laugh with them as the individual moments occur. And the friendship between Andy and Red is something that deeply resonates with me. I think we all would like to have that kind of friendship. These kinds of friendships aren’t built overnight, and often they require a level of shared experience that is almost impossible to find. But they find it behind Shawshank’s prison walls, and it connects them for life. In my opinion, the friendship between these two characters leads to one of the most emotionally satisfying endings to any film, ever.
Director Frank Darabont was able to obtain some of career-defining performances from his cast. As good as Tim Robbins is as an actor, in my opinion, he has never been better than he was as Andy Dufresne. And I say this knowing full well he won an Oscar for MYSTIC RIVER. He maintains his dignity against all odds and only appears to break down a time or two. Morgan Freeman is great as always as Red, but his character is so important because we see him go from a hopeless skeptic, to a man who truly has hope thanks to his friendship with Andy. Freeman seems to handle this transition effortlessly. I’m going to give a shoutout to James Whitmore as well. With a career going all the way back to the 1940’s, his performance as Brooks Hatlen is one of the more touching and heartbreaking performances of the film. I haven’t seen all of his work, but I have never seen him better than he was in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Each additional cast member, from Bob Gunton, Clancy Brown and Mark Rolston, to Willam Sadler and Gil Bellows all have powerful moments that add to the overall effect of the film.
Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION did not win the Academy Award for best film. It lost to FORREST GUMP when the awards were handed out in 1995. It’s even harder to believe that the film did not win a single Academy Award even though it received seven nominations. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter to me. I just know that it’s a great film, and it reaches emotional heights that very few movies, if any, have ever reached before. That’s a pretty damn good legacy.
The old west could be a dangerous and haunted place, as was revealed in this episode of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt! Outlaw Billy Quintaine (Neil Guintoli) enters a saloon and discovers that the spirits of his victims have been waiting for him!
This episode originally aired on August 1st, 1992. Along with being directed by The Omen‘s Richard Donner, it was written by Frank Darabont.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s excursion into the world of televised horror, we have the 10th episode of the 2nd season of Tales From The Crypt! This episode, which originally aired on June 5th, 1990, is called The Ventriloquist’s Dummy!
Who doesn’t love a creepy ventriloquist story? And this is certainly a creepy one, with an ending that you’ll either love or hate.
This episode was directed by Richard Donner and written by future Shawshank Redemption director and Walking Dead showrunner, Frank Darabont!
Enjoy!
With just minutes left til the end of the day I thought it was time to wish one of my favorite a happy birthday.
I pretty much spent my junior high and high school years reading everything that Stephen King had written and published up to that point. The habit followed me after high school graduation and I’ve picked up on other authors since.
While Stephen King has slowed down some when it comes to the amount of novels he has released in the last decade or so, he is still one of the few authors whose books I will buy without even knowing what it’s about.
Here are just four films adapted from his stories that I consider favorites of mine. They’re just stories about a boy’s first car, a man waking up from a long sleep, a cat named Church and a grocery store full of people.
4 SHOTS FROM 4 FILMS
“Simply put, there is a vast ocean of shit that you people don’t know shit about.” — Sgt. Abraham Ford
[spoilers within]
The Walking Dead has been derided as badly-written (early seasons definitely had it’s story issues) with recycled themes and subplots with characters that barely rise above one-dimensional. Only the most ardent fan would take those criticisms of the show and dismiss them outright. The series has had it’s many flaws and the three mentioned have been ones earned through the show’s first three seasons of revolving door showrunners.
There was the show’s original creator, Frank Darabont, who injected a cinematic quality to a tv show that could easily have gone campy (Z Nation), but whose need to control every aspect of the show made him lose the support of the very studio that helped him get the show up and running. It didn’t help that his first half of season 2 where the group searched endlessly for Sophia almost sunk the show.
With Darabont given his walking papers the show turned to series writer and producer Glen Mazzara to right the ship after a listless first half of season 2. Things definitely turned for the better with Mazzara in charge and for the first half of season 3 it looked like Mazzara might have finally figured out what sort of show The Walking Dead should be. In the end, he too ran out of steam as season 3 limped into an underwhelming season finale.
Scott M. Gimple took the reins and things for the show has been improving at a steady rate since season 4 and finally culminates in a season 5 finale that was both full of suspense, action and melodrama in equal amounts that has been the mark of his current tenure as series showrunner. If the show has an award for series MVP it should be handed gladly over to Scott M. Gimple.
“Conquer” starts with a cold opening that already signals that great things are afoot for the rest of the season finale’s extended 90-minutes. We find Morgan asleep (quite peacefully) inside a derelict car in the middle of the woods. We see him wake up and go about what’s probably a daily ritual for him when his breakfast gets interrupted by a stranger who happens to be sporting a “W” mark on his forehead (with dirt instead of carved into). He’s the first person we meet who seems to be affiliated with the very Wolves this second half of the season has been working up as the next Big Bad to threaten Rick and his people. It’s a sequence that gives us a clue as to the sort of bad guys these “Wolves” are going to be for Rick and Company. With some fancy staff fighting and a zen quality to his actions, Morgan more than holds off the two “Wolves” looking to steal his gear and add them to their collection of “W” marked zombies.
The rest of the episode takes on three different storylines involving Rick, Father Gabriel and Glenn.
With Glenn we see him follow Nicholas seen climbing over the walls of Alexandria. While not the most smart thing he has done of late, Glenn has a right to be suspicious of Nicholas who has done nothing but get people (both his own and Rick’s) killed while pumping himself out to be a strong protector when Glenn and the audience know that he’s far from it. It’s a sort of chase sequence as Glenn and Nicholas end up going at it mano-y-mano with Nicholas starting it off with a failed ambush that only wounds Glenn, but does hurt him enough that at times during the episode there was a great chance it was going to be him that would be the significant death to mark the season finale.
The writers (Scott M. Gimple and Seth Hoffman) don’t do the obvious and kill Glenn off, but does make him teeter on the brink of doing what many in the audience hope would happen and that was kill Nicholas once he finally had him beaten down. Instead, Glenn shows that despite his extended time out in the savage wilds outside the walls of Alexandria, he still has some compassion (misguided it might well turn out to be) and the need to see justice done. While Glenn might not have died in this finale his growing role as the voice of reason and compassion in a group that’s become fractured emotionally and mentally means his days on the series could very well be numbered.
Father Gabriel was the more frustrating segment of tonight’s finale. His time with the group has found him to be both naively stupid of the new world around him and mentally unstable because of what he had to do to survive. Yet, we find him talking a walk outside the walls in a bright, clean white shirt like he has cleansed himself prior to make sure he dies with a clean conscience. Instead, the instance a zombie was about to do what he seems to want he finally decides to want to live. But then does another 180 degrees and decides to leave the compound’s gate unsecured knowing it means zombies will definitely wander in.
The writers don’t seem to know what to do with Father Gabriel. From the moment he was introduced they seem to be flailing in the dark with so many ideas on how to treat an unstable man whose faith has been shattered by this new world where the dead don’t remain dead and those who survive must turn to their darker instincts (him included). One moment he’s trying to poison the minds of Deanna about Rick and his people while not confessing to the dark deeds he has done. Next he’s trying to atone for those very sins only to turn around and do something that would add more sins to his ledger.
It’s a shame that Father Gabriel has become such an albatross this season for the show since Seth Gilliam is such a great actor (as his time on HBO’s The Wire has shown). There’s still a glimmer of hope for the fallen priest as we saw when Maggie arrives just in time to keep Sasha from killing Father Gabriel. Will Maggie’s own Hershel-like act of mercy be enough to finally turn Father Gabriel towards something more concrete (whether as a good guy or a bad guy) would have to wait for season 6 this coming October.
We finally come to Rick who is in a sort of timeout after his total breakdown in the previous episode. He finally understands that he might have gone a bit Shane-like and overboard with his behavior, but he also still believes that Alexandria’s best chance of surviving beyond the luck they’ve had before their arrival was for them to stay and takeover. Whether they take over by the examples of their words and deeds or through force if the Alexandrians try to kick them out would depend on the very people who don’t seem to understand what’s truly at stake.
Rick gets a sort of visit from all the differing voices within his group. There’s Glenn and Michonne who wonder if Rick never wanted for their stay in Alexandria to work. Then there’s Carol and, to a certain extent Abraham, who has seen enough of how Alexandria operates to know that these people are like children who have had the luxury of never having been confronted with a no-win situation to wake them up from their fantasy of trying to rebuild civilization. It’s the sort of angel and devil on the shoulder bit that could’ve gone terribly cheesy, but ended up being natural and poignant to the episode’s narrative. A narrative that showed how both Rick and Deanna have been both wrong and right in their stances of how Alexandria should be led.
It would take a death to someone Deanna holds dear for her to finally understand what Rick and his people have bee trying to tell her and the rest of the Alexandrians. Abraham (who has become the show’s go-to-guy for memorable one-liners) said it best himself during the night meeting to decide Rick’s fate. In the only way Abraham knows how he says, “Simply put, there is a vast ocean of shit that you people don’t know shit about.”
In the end, Abraham was correct in that the Alexandrians just do not understand the world they’re living in. They might have the strong walls (not so strong that people can’t climb over them) to keep the zombies out. They have power and running water and some luxuries of the life long past dead. Yet, they’re naive and delusional to think that they won’t have to get their hands dirty to keep their way of life going. These people need people like Rick Grimes and his band of survivors. They might not be the best examples of how society and civilization was before the zombie apocalypse fell on everyone, but they were the ones who best adapted to it and still kept a semblance of their humanity in some way.
So, season 5 ended with not just Rick using a brand of reasoning and a recent example of how things could easily go from good to bad to make his point, but with Daryl and Aaron bringing Morgan back to Alexandria for a reunion between the first two characters we met on this show. Last time we saw Rick and Morgan together was in season 3’s “Clear” and Morgan was definitely not in his right mind while Rick was still holding onto his pre-apocalypse principles. with their latest reunion it looks like things have reversed with Rick looking more and more like the Morgan of “Clear” while Morgan has recovered from his crisis of conscience to come out the other side clear of mind.
We already know that there will be a season 6 and a season after that (AMC knows a goldmine when they see it and this show is literally printing them cash). The questions left unanswered by tonight’s finale looks to be the driving force for the next season. The Wolves now have an idea that Alexandria exists (from the knapsack full of pictures Aaron dropped at the canned food warehouse depot) and will probably try to visit them soon. Then there’s the question of how will Glenn finally expose Nicholas’ cowardice and duplicity to the Alexandrians and whether Nicholas will remain a problem for Glenn moving forward. The biggest question remains on whether these Wolves will involve Negan of the comics in some capacity or just the tip of a bigger danger.
The season closes with a very appropriate scene before fading to black. A car in the canned food depot marked in stark white spray paint with the words: “Wolves Not Far.”
Notes
Season 5
This past summer saw the return of kaiju to the film vernacular with the release of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim. The very same studios which released this film, Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures return next summer with a similar film, but this time with the return of the granddaddy of all kaiju: Godzilla.
Godzilla is a reboot of the kaiju franchise with Gareth Edwards trying to make up for the travesty that was Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla of over a decade ago. This time around it looks like (at least from the teaser) that Edwards is going the serious route with this reboot. It helps that he has quite the cast to play around with. This Godzilla will star Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ken Watanabe.
We also get a brief glimpse of Godzilla itself right near the end followed by the iconic monster scream that’s as recognizable as the tweets and twoots of R2-D2.
Godzilla will return to the big-screen on May 16, 2014.
“Holy shit!” — Axel
[some spoilers within]
It’s been a year since the cliffhanger which ended Season 2 of AMC’s widely popular The Walking Dead. We found Rick and his group escaping from the herd of zombies which swarmed into and over Hershel’s farm. The group lost two more to the walkers in the form of hapless Jimmy and Patricia. Andrea has gotten separated from the main group with most of the guns. It’s only through the timely intervention of a hooded stranger dragging along two incapacitated walkers that Andrea even gets to make it to this new season. It’s this hooded stranger and the last image we see of a darkened prison complex in the distance that has brought a new sense of optimism for the show which had been up and down through most of it’s sophomore season.
The second season had been rife with struggles not just for the characters in the show but also behind-the-scenes as original showrunner and executive producer Frank Darabont was unceremoniously fired from the very show he helped bring off the ground. Fans of the show and of Darabont saw this as a bad decision, but as the season unfolded there seemed to be a major consensus that Darabont might have been the problem to why the first half of the second season moved along even slower than the walkers. The second half saw new showrunner Glen Mazzara taking over and even though some of the same problems in terms of characterization and dialogue still remained the show in the second half seemed to move with a better sense of urgency which culminated in two of the series’ best episodes to date to close off the season.
Season 3 now begins with the episode titled “Seed” (directed by veteran series director Ernest Dickerson) and we get a major timeskip from the end of last season to tonight’s premiere. Rick and his group look to still be on the move with no safe haven in sight. In what looks like a hint of good things to come in terms of pacing and dialogue the show starts off gangbusters as Rick and his group raid a country home, dispatching the walkers within with ruthless efficiency and searching the place for supplies and other useful things real fast. There wasn’t any time for standing around or even going off into long expositional scenes to try and convey what had happened between the end of last season to tonight’s start.
Glen Mazzara, the show’s new showrunner had promised that the show would be taking on a new direction when he took over halfway through season 2, but we’re finally able to see his experience as a TV show producer and writer bear strong fruit with tonight’s premiere. We get to see Rick and his crew acting with more of a sense of urgency in just the first twnety minutes of the show than they had in the first two seasons. We’re finally seeing everyone realizing that they’re now stuck in a world with new rules that doesn’t make room for personal quirks and emotional issues (though we still get hints that they’re still but set aside for the greater good of the group) that just saps the energy from everyone. This group looks more like the sort of team that Shane would’ve thrived in and it looks like Rick has taken on the role of leader much more forcefully. It hasn’t mended the rift between him and Lori for what had transpired over two seasons of interpersonal conflicts that got more than just his best friend killed but others as well.
Tonight’s episode does a great job of explaining through their actions and behavior just how much time has passed between the seasons and how that intervening time has tested the groups mettle and made them harder and more capable in holding their own against the walkers. Even useless characters like Beth, Carol and Carl have become more adept in protecting themselves. It’s surprising to see Carl actually becoming the character he was in the comic book. I’m sure some parent groups will not be approving of Carl actually handling his gun with expertise but this is that kind of show and just because one is a kind doesn’t mean they have to be helpless.
If there were complaints about Darabont’s handling of the show during his short tenure it was that he was too much into creating a very slow burn that culminated into a huge climactic finish. It was fine for a truncated first season, but it showed just how ill-conceiveda narrative style it was for a tv series over a full season. I don’t sense that same feeling with tonight’s episode. One could tell that Mazzara was now fully in charge and not working on whatever Darabont had come up with for season 2. It’s a great start to the new season which has a good chance in reversing some of the ill-will last season’s very slow burns and wheel-spinning had created with a segment of the fan-base.
It also helps that we didn’t have to wait too long to see the official appearance of Danai Gurari in the role of fan-favorite Michonne with her zombie pets and katana. It wasn’t an episode spent directly introducing us to her but enough time was spent away from the group in the prison. Michonne as a character could become too much a caricature of the badass comic book female character, but for tonight it was just refreshing to see a female character on this show as capable and clear-headed as her. There’s even a hint of the sort of friendship that seemed to have grown between Michonne and Andrea since the end of season 2. Shane may have been a bad influence (though helpful in getting Andrea out of her suicidal rut) in season 2, but here’s to hoping that Michonne will be the sort of influence that Andrea will be needing to get her to become the badass characteron the show that her character is in the comic book.
One thing that tonight’s episode also did great that we only saw hints of with the first two seasons was the action such a series could have when given a chance. This is a series about the zombie apocalypse and those trying to survive in it. While I don’t expect each episode to be as action-packed as tonight’s premiere it was an encouraging start to what looks to be the real beginning of the Glen Mazzara era of The Walking Dead.
Now onto episode 2. With tonight’s cliffhanger ending (one that really got me by surprise) it’s going to be interesting to see how Rick and the new group in the end will get along or will they. Just as long as it doesn’t take the show all of the first half of the season to do it then I am all for intergroup conflict until the walkers become a more pressing problem.
NOTES
Through the Shattered Lens 