Several states voted on Tuesday. Everyone was able to quickly count their votes …. except for California. Poor Spencer Pratt. I would have voted for him but it doesn’t look like he’s going to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. With each new update, he’s falling behind and it looks like the whiny commie no one took seriously will be in the run-off instead. It’s funny how this always happens in the state that takes over a month to count the votes. That said, it could also be argued that the results coming out of Los Angeles are a reminder that getting attention online doesn’t necessarily translate into votes on the ground. There’s a lesson there for us all.
The Facts of Life (Tubi)
I was having a panic attack on Wednesday night so I calmed myself down by watching random episodes of this slightly cringey 80s comedy. I ended up getting the theme song stuck in my head. If you hear them from your brother, better clear them with your mother….
The Hillside Strangler (HBOMax)
Yet another serial killer documentary. Cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono killed a still undetermined number of women in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Bianchi claimed that he had a second personality that was responsible for the murders. Fortunately, the jury did not believe him and he is currently serving a life sentence. Buono died in prison. Good riddance.
Impact x Nightline (Hulu)
This week, I watched an episode about the heart-breaking Kristen Smart case. Though Paul Flores has (after 20+ years) finally been convinced of murdering Smart, her body has yet to be recovered. I cannot imagine the pain that Smart’s family has been put through. This is actually a case that I’ve been following for a while, even before it became the subject of podcasts. It’s not just that Paul Flores murdered Kristen. It’s that he was so damn cocky about it. He really thought he would get away with it.
Susan Smith: Sex Behind Bars (Reelz)
This short documentary about Susan Smith, a young mother who drowned her children and then tried to blame it on an imaginary black carjacker, and the sexual affairs that she had with two correctional officers in prison was exploitive and icky. And yet, I watched it. So, shame on me.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 2001’s Donnie Darko!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and Tubi! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!
Mama’s Little Murderer opens with twenty-something Anthony (Isaac Kragten) being abducted and taken, with a bag over his head, to a random wooded location. Uh-oh, looks like Anthony is in trouble! Suddenly, we flash back to Anthony getting suspended from college because of his fearsome tempter. Then, a few weeks later, Anthony shows up at home where he is upset to discover that his mother, Constance (Sara Canning), is living with her boyfriend, Leo (Ian Kilburn). Anthony is jealous and goes to extremes to try to break up Constance and Leo.
Because of the title, I assumed that this film would be about a mom discovering that her son is a murderer. I also thought that the son would be much younger than he turned out to be. You don’t really refer to a twenty-year old as being “mama’s little anything.” Due to the title, I was expecting this to be a version of The Bad Seed. Instead, it just became a film about a selfish and rather annoying college student who couldn’t accept the fact that his mom was moving on with her life. Anthony went to extremes to try to break up Leo and his mom but, and please forgive the spoiler, he never murdered anyone.
While we’re watching Anthony act like a loser in the past, we’re also watching Constance and Leo trying to deal with him being kidnapped in the present. Now, I will say that there was some suspense as to whether or not Anthony was in on the kidnapping. Or at least, there was initially. But it soon became clear that, while Anthony was guilty of being a very bad son, he was not guilty of setting up his own kidnapping. Indeed, the kidnapping had very little do with his efforts to break up his mother and Leo.
As I watched this movie, I found myself thinking about how much I hated The King of Staten Island. That was the film that featured Pete Davidson as an annoying little jerk who got mad because his mother (Marisa Tomei) was dating a fireman (Bill Burr). My main issue with that film was that everyone seemed to be way too forgiving of Davidson’s character. The same thing happens here. Anthony does some terrible things. He doesn’t even tell his mom the truth about what happened at the college. But, when all of his lies and his schemes are revealed, he just apologizes and everyone’s like, “Oh, okay, that’s cool.” Whereas, in reality, they should have kicked him out of the house and had him committed somewhere.
(Needless to say, it’s never a good sign when a film makes you think about another film that you disliked.)
This was essentially two films in one. One film was about a mentally unstable son. The other film was a standard kidnapping film. Unfortunately, the two films didn’t really go together and neither one felt fully developed. It’s a shame because Sara Canning was likable as Constance and you really did hope that she would find happiness with Leo. It was hard not to feel that both Constance and Leo deserved better than having to deal with Anthony. They should have let the kidnappers keep him.
As a Texan who loves movie, I have to say that 2025 will always be a special year for me. 2025 was the year that Richard Linklater, the godfather of modern Texas filmmaking, was responsible for directing two of the best films of the year.
Blue Moon opens with famed American lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) collapsing in an alley and cursing under his breath as he dies. The film then flashes back a few weeks to Hart arriving at Sardi’s and waiting for the crowd to arrive from the Broadway premiere of Oklahoma! Hart is dismissive of Oklahoma!, largely because it’s the product of a collaboration between his former partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Hart dismisses it as being simplistic, a crowd pleaser with no depth. But as Hart speaks, it’s easy to see that his disdain has more to do with his own hurt feelings than the actual show.
(That said, he’s still right about Oklahoma!)
Hart talks. He talks a lot. Perhaps the simplest way to describe Blue Moon would be to say that it’s a film about one man who won’t stop talking to the people around him. Bobby Cannavale plays the friendly bartender who has obviously heard all of Hart’s stories before. Patrick Kennedy (not the former Congressman) plays author E.B. White, who politely listens as Hart pours his heart out and takes note when Hart talks about a mouse named Stuart. Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, a twenty year-old acting student who Hart feels might be the love of his life despite the fact it soon becomes obvious that Elizabeth is smitten with a student her own age and that she views Hart as being just a potential mentor. Hart is the type who will talk nonstop, even if no one is actually listening. The only time that Hart stop speaking is when he’s alone with Elizabeth.
Blue Moon largely plays out in real time. It’s essentially a theatrical piece, with Ethan Hawke delivering what amounts to a monologue in which he portrays Lorenz Hart as being witty, self-destructive, and ultimately painfully lonely. Everyone he talks to appreciates his talent but it’s obvious that they’ve had their fill of his addictions and his fragile ego. Even when Hart is at his most vulnerable, it’s obvious that he’s burned too many bridges to ever make it back to where he once was.
Hawke gives a wonderful performance as Hart, playing him as being a natural performer. Like all great actors, Hawke is willing to be annoying. Hart can be witty but he can also be corrosive. There’s a mean-streak behind some of his comments But your heart still breaks for him when he begs Rodgers to collaborate on a new show or when he talks about the people from his past who loved him but “not in that way.” The film definitely has a stagey feel to it but, as a director, Linklater has the confidence to allow his actors to truly dig into their characters. The end result is a rather touching movie about a talented man who could not get out of his own way.
In 2025, Linklater also gave us Nouvelle Vague, a French-language film about the early days of the French New Wave. Featuring gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, Nouvelle Vague follows Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) as he directs Breathlessand changes cinema forever. Aubry Dullin plays Jean-Paul Belmondo while Zoey Deutch plays Jean Seberg. Nouvelle Vague is a both a tribute to and an homage to the French New Wave. It’s also a film about the joy of creation and the excitement of working on a film. Nouvelle Vague may be about the shooting of Breathless but it’s also Linklater’s Day For Night.
It’s a fun movie to watch, especially if you know about the history of the French New Wave. (This film helpfully includes title cards to let us know who is who. Everyone from Roberto Rossellini to Francois Truffaut to Agnes Varda to Claude Chabrol and Jean Cocteau makes an appearance.) If Blue Moon was about the tendency towards self-destruction that haunts so many artists, Nouvelle Vague is a celebration of creativity, cinematic revolution, and being young and idealistic enough to break all of the established rules without a second thought. Linklater keeps the story moving and he directs with a clear eye for detail. Zoey Deutch is perfect as Seberg, playing her as a Hollywood survivor who is alternately thrilled and annoyed with Godard’s unorthodox style of directing.
I have to admit that I did get a little bit sad as I watched the movie. In real life, Seberg committed suicide in 1979 and Godard followed over forty years later. While Godard and Seberg both made good films after Breathless, none of them were quite as transformative as their one collaboration. No other director seemed to understand Seberg’s unique persona quite as well as Godard did. Godard, meanwhile, fell into the trap of placing ideology before creativity. At least Jean-Paul Belmondo seemed to go on to have a happy life.
Blue Moon received Oscar nominations for Ethan Hawke and its screenplay. Nouvelle Vague was ignored by the Academy but Richard Linklater did become the first Texan to win the Cesar Award for Best Director and for that, I certainly applaud him. Getting the French to honor someone from Texas? That takes talent!
Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague, two of the best films of 2025, can currently be found on Netflix.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties. On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday. On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? 1980’s Xanadu!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Xanadu on Prime, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there happily tweeting. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Taking place in a field in Saugerties, New York, Woodstock ’94 opened on August 12 and it ended two days later. Officially, it was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock and it was produced and promoted largely by the same people who were behind the original festival. They were hoping to actually make some money this time but that plan failed when the fence surrounding the concert area was torn down by people who wanted to see the bands and hear the music without having to pay an exorbitant amount of money for tickets. In all, 164,000 tickets were sold for Woodstock ’94 but it’s estimated that 350,000 attended. To be honest, that sounds like a good example of the Woodstock spirit to me. The people in charge of the festival disagreed, which is what led to the disaster that was Woodstock ’99.
Woodstock ’94 tends to be overlooked, precisely because it was neither the spontaneous celebration of the first Woodstock nor the epic trainwreck of the third Woodstock. Instead, the second Woodstock was a largely peaceful festival that featured a good mix of older and, at the time, newer acts. The original Woodstock featured open love and the third Woodstock featured random acts of arson. The second Woodstock, on the other hand, featured a lot of rain. Apparently, Green Day got pelted with mud. Maybe a time traveler went back to 1994 and told everyone about American Idiot before the band started playing. It makes sense if you think about it.
The first Woodstock lives forever as an epic documentary. The third Woodstock has inspired at least two docuseries, both of which examine the festival with the grim weariness of a true crime recreation. Earlier today, I discovered that the second Woodstock actually was filmed as well, though apparently Bruce Gowers’s Woodstock ’94 was never released in theaters and instead went straight to video. It’s a sign of how forgotten Woodstock ’94 is that the film has never even been released on DVD or Blu-ray. That said, after I learned of the film’s existence, I really did want to see it. (I’m a completist at heart.) I discovered that, fortunately, it’s been uploaded to YouTube.
From the start, Woodstock ’94 sets out to duplicate the style of the first Woodstock. There’s plenty of split screens. We open with people working hard to get the festival grounds ready. There are interviews with concert goers. There’s an interview with a guy selling food. We get a few random announcements from the stage. There’s a hint of nudity, though nowhere near as much as in the first film. Probably the funniest moment in the documentary is when we see a sign telling us that a certain area has been reserved for those wanting to watch the concert nude. During the first Woodstock, the nudity was spontaneous. For the second one, it was prepared for. The main thing that I noticed was how pleasant everyone seemed to be. There was none of the anger that defined Woodstock ’99. There was none of the bad brown acid that inspired so many warnings at the first Woodstock. Instead, everyone appeared to be having a good time. Even with Green Day getting pelted with mud, the Woodstock ’94 audience appeared to be rather mild-mannered. Most of them seemed like they probably play golf now.
The majority of the documentary is devoted to the music. We see tightly edited performances from, amongst others, Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Aerosmith, Crosby Still Nash & Young, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, The Cranberries, Green Day (though we don’t really get to see the incident with the mud, which is a shame), and Primus. The festival had a good lineup. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are a bit on the dull side but Primus more than makes up for it. My only real complaint is that we only get to hear one song from each featured group.
Woodstock ’94 was surprisingly pleasant. It’s too bad that, five years later, the whole idea of Woodstock fell apart.
This Lifetime film has a title that makes it sound like it should be one of those British murder mysteries, set in the 1920s and featuring a Scotland Yard inspector limping around a mansion while trying to figure out who killed the notorious ne’er-do-well, Freddy Gibbs. (The Inspector would limp because of the wound he received while fighting in the Great War.) Was it the maid? Was it the groundskeeper? Was it the flighty flapper or the grand dame with the mysterious past? Or was the murderer the shadowy visitor from America, the one who is rumored to be connected to bootleggers in Toronto. Fear not! Stanley of the Yard is on the case!
Where was I? Oh yeah, I was creating a different movie in my head. Anyway, let’s talk about the movie that I actually watched….
Andrea Gibbs (Candice Lidstone) is visiting her son, Ethan (Cameron Brodeur). Ethan is a somewhat nerdy college student who is rooming with a platonic female friend who he is obviously in love with. Andrea can tell that Ethan has been friend zoned and sweetly asks his roommate to let him down gently. Ethan’s roommate later ends up dead at a dinner party that is attended by Ethan and Andrea. The dinner party’s host is a psychology professor, Alan Jackson (Mark Day). Jackson posts his fascistic lectures online and he has a loyal following of all-male students. Gee, can you guess who was actually behind the murder?
(Last summer, Erin and I watched several episodes of an old show that featured Jim Hutton as Ellery Queen. We loved it whenever Hutton would suddenly look at the camera and say, “Well, I’ve figured this one out! Have you!?” I have to admit that usually, I had not. Erin was much better at figuring out who the murderer was than I was. But, in the case of this film, I think Ellery probably would have looked straight at the camera before the murder even happened.)
There’s nothing particularly subtle about Death At The Dinner Party. The film’s portrayal of dangerous, right-wing college professors gives the whole thing a dated feel, as if it should have aired ten years earlier than it did. The film could have just as easily have been called Murder On The Intellectual Dark Web or Death At Evergreen College. Today, I imagine that members of the angry dishrag brigade are a more realistic danger than a fight club of psych majors. But the lack of subtlety and even the dated premise give this film a certain charm. It’s over-the-top and it embraces the melodrama, just as every Lifetime film should.
Though she only appears to be a few years older than the actor playing her son, Candice Lidstone does a good job playing the mother who is rightly concerned about what her child is learning in college. Indeed, the mother-child relationship was this film’s secret weapon. When I was in college, I never would have had the courage to invite my mom to a dinner party with any of my professors. Then again, at my college, dinner with a professor usually meant a lot more alcohol and definitely a lot more weed. However, there was also significantly less murder so everything evened out in the end.
Red Sonja is one of those films that was in development forever.
In 2008, Robert Rodriguez was rumored to be planning to direct a Red Sonja film with Rose McGowan in the title role. Then, in 2012, it was Simon West who was being mentioned as the film’s director. In 2018, Bryan Singer announced that he would be directing but he was dropped from the project (and every other project he had going) in 2019. Joey Soloway, best-known for co-creating the briefly trendy show Transparent, was announced as Singer’s replacement. Soloway left the project in 2022 and was replaced by MJ Bassett. Red Sonja was filmed in 2023 and then sat on the shelf for two years before it was finally released in 2025.
Needless to say, a lot happened between 2023 and 2025. By the time Red Sonja was released, it felt like an artifact from a different world. Red Sonja is very much a film of the action girl era. Sonja can beat up just about anyone and she usually does it without breaking a sweat. As was so often the case with the films of the action girl era, the film is so proud of itself for featuring a woman who can fight that no one involved seemed to notice that they hadn’t really come up with anything interesting for her to do.
Sonja (blandly played by Matilda Lutz) has spent most of her life in the forests of a mythical land, searching for the otnher members of her tribe and communing with the animals. When she has to hunt and kill a animal in order to eat, she is sure to say, “Thank you for your sacrifice.” I’m sure her gratitude will provide comfort to the animal’s family. (I’ve never really gotten the whole attitude that hunting is somehow noble as long as you use every bit of the animal and thank it for dying. I’m sure the animal would still rather be alive.) When Sonja is captured and forced to become a gladiator, she discovers that her people are being held prisoner by the effete emperor, Draygan (Robert Sheehan, who is even blander than Matilda Lutz). In the arena, Sonja shouts questions at the emperor and the audience because, thanks to Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, that’s what gladiators do. She’s also given her famous chain mail bikini. The film is quick to make sure we understand that Sonja isn’t into the whole chain mail bikini thing but she has to wear something. Unintentionally, the film also reveals that the filmmakers aren’t really interested in making a Red Sonja film. Everything that made Red Sonja a memorable character in the comic books and the original film is either ignored or viewed with snarky disdain. The only reason the film is called Red Sonja is because Grim Barbarian Woman didn’t have the same zing.
Now, I will say that Red Sonja does get better as it goes along. In fact, the film’s climax features an unexpected twist and, if the entire film had that scene’s courage, this review would be very different. Unfortunately, Red Sonja looks and feels cheap and worst of all, it’s never fun. It’s very much a 2023 film and 2o23 was a year when anyone who dared to enjoy themselves was viewed with suspicion. It may have more of a political consciousness than the 80s version but it’s not as entertaining.
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on Mastodon, #TubiThursday watch party will be watching 1982’s Night Shift, with guest host Matthew Titus!
You can find the movie on Tubi and you can join them on Mastodon at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) The party will be using #TubiThursday hashtag!
Before I say anything else about Gus Van Sant’s new film, I feel that I should make something clear.
I am a huge Al Pacino fan. My love for the Godfather films (even the third one!) should be obvious to anyone who regularly reads this site. I love the majority of Pacino’s work, even the roles that occurred after he started bellowing all of his lines. I think his cop in Heat is one of the most entertaining characters to ever appear in a crime film. I loved his performance as Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman. I enjoyed the humor that he brought to his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I will always be happy to defend Al Pacino.
So, it gives me no pleasure to say that Al Pacino gives one of his worst performances in this film. He plays M.L. Hall, the owner of Meridian Mortgage Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. Pacino only appears in three brief scenes. Wearing a ridiculous wig, he delivers his lines in one of the worst Southern accents that I’ve ever heard. Playing a businessman who is so heartless that he won’t even negotiate with the man who is holding his son hostage, Pacino gives a performance that isn’t even entertaining enough to be considered cartoonish. It’s the type of performance that one might expect from the villain-of-the-week on a particularly heavy-handed episode of Law & Order. It’s not the type of performance that you would expect from Al Pacino.
Fortunately, despite all of that, Dead Man’s Wire is still a fairly compelling film.
Based on a true story, Dead Man’s Wire stars Bill Skarsgard as Tony Kiritsis, a real estate developer in 1970s Indianapolis who feels that Meridian Mortgage Company has cheated him out of the money that he hoped to earn through some land he developed. Because M.L. Hall is on vacation in Florida, Tony takes M.L. son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), hostage. Tony wires a shotgun to Richard’s neck so that any sudden movement by either one of them will lead to Richard getting his head blown off. Tony announced that he’ll only release Richard in return for immunity and an apology from M.L. Hall.
For three days, the city of Indianapolis watches as the situation plays out. Detective Michael Gable (Cary Elwes) tries to negotiate with Tony but Tony is only willing to talk to the DJ (Colman Domingo) at his favorite radio station. Meanwhile, Tony picks up some support from other people who feel that they’ve been screwed over by the M.L. Halls of the world.
Indeed, while watching this movie, it was hard not to think about the creepy cult that has sprung up around Luigi Mangione. Of course, being a blue collar guy who appears to have simply been pushed past his breaking point, Tony is a much more compelling figure than a phony intellectual like Luigi. That said, director Gus Van Sant is more interested in Tony as an outsider on the fringes of polite society than as a political symbol. Skarsgard plays Tony as a man who can go from being friendly to enraged in a matter of seconds and he’s actually quite frightening in the role. Meanwhile, Dacre Montgomery makes Richard into a rather sympathetic character. Even if you don’t agree with the actions of his father, it’s hard not to respect the way that Richard handles the situation. Watching this film, one gets the feeling that the unstable Tony thinks that he and Richard are developing a common ground but in reality, there’s no way that anyone could expect Richard to sympathize with a man who held him hostage for three days. The film respects the characters and the actors too much for that type of false sentimentality.
Towards the end of the film, there’s a rather odd moment where breaking news about the hostage situation interrupts John Wayne presenting the award for Best Picture at the Oscars. In reality, the 1977 Academy Awards were held a month after the hostage situation had been resolved and the ceremony seen in Dead Man’s Wire was held in 1979. (Wayne presented the Oscar just a few months before his own death from cancer.) It’s classic Van Sant move in that it seems like it should mean something but, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t. Van Sant is one of those directors who has been around long enough and who has made enough interesting films that he can get away with something like that.
Dead Man’s Wire is Van Sant’s first film in seven years and his best film since Elephant. It’s flawed but always watchable and it has a sense of humor and enough odd but memorable details to balance out the film’s angrier moments. There are a few moments where the film falls into the trendy and intellectually shallow anti-capitalism that is all the rage nowadays but, for the most part, this is a compelling recreation of a true story and a character study of two men who will be forever linked.
Through the Shattered Lens 