One Battle After Another Leads The Gotham Nominations

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For better or worse, Awards Season started today with the announcement of the Gotham nominations. The Gothams are supposed to honor independent films, though the line between studio and independent is now so thin that it’s sometimes difficult to tell which is which.

In the past, the Gothams honored obscure films and also low-budget films that captured the public’s imagination. This year, they gave the majority of their nominations to One Battle After Another, a big-budget film that starred a slew of Hollywood heavyweights. Meanwhile, Sinners, a genuinely independent feature, received one nomination.

It’s debatable how much of a precursor the Gothams are. They’re a critic-selected award and it’s always the guild awards that serve as the best precursors. Still, it always helps to be mentioned somewhere.

Here are the 2025 Gotham nominations!

Best Feature
Bugonia
East of Wall
Hamnet
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Lurker
One Battle After Another
Sorry, Baby
The Testament of Ann Lee
Train Dreams

Best Director
Mary Bronstein – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Jafar Panahi – It Was Just an Accident
Kelly Reichardt – The Mastermind
Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
Oliver Laxe – Sirât

Outstanding Lead Performance
Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Lee Byung-hun – No Other Choice
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Sopé Dìrísù – My Father’s Shadow
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Jennifer Lawrence – Die My Love
Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent
Josh O’Connor – The Mastermind
Amanda Seyfried – The Testament of Ann Lee
Tessa Thompson – Hedda

Outstanding Supporting Performance
Benicio Del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Indya Moore – Father Mother Sister Brother
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
Adam Sandler – Jay Kelly
Andrew Scott – Blue Moon
Alexander Skarsgård – Pillion
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another

Best Original Screenplay
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
It Was Just an Accident
The Secret Agent
Sorry, Baby
Sound of Falling

Best Adapted Screenplay
No Other Choice
One Battle After Another
Pillion
Preparation for the Next Life
Train Dreams

Best International Feature
It Was Just an Accident
No Other Choice
Nouvelle Vague
Resurrection
Sound of Falling

Best Documentary Feature
2000 Meters to Andriivka
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow
The Perfect Neighbor
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

Breakthrough Director
Constance Tsang – Blue Sun Palace
Carson Lund – Eephus
Sarah Friedland – Familiar Touch
Akinola Davies Jr. – My Father’s Shadow
Harris Dickinson – Urchin

Breakthrough Performer
A$AP Rocky – Highest 2 Lowest
Sebiye Behtiyar – Preparation for the Next Life
Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another
Abou Sangaré – Souleymane’s Story
Tonatiuh – Kiss of the Spider Woman

Horror on TV: Gargoyles (dir by Bill Norton)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on television, we have a made-for-TV monster movie from 1972, Gargoyles!

What happens when a somewhat condescending anthropologist (Cornel Wilde) and his daughter (Jennifer Salt) head out to the desert? Well, they stop by a crazy old man’s shack so that they can look at his genuine monster skeleton. Before Wilde can thoroughly debunk the old man’s claims, the shack is attacked by real monsters!

That’s right! Gargoyles exist and they apparently live in Arizona! There’s nothing particularly surprising about the plot but the gargoyles are memorable creations and Bernie Casey gives a good performance as their leader. The gargoyle makeup was designed by none other than Stan Winston, who won an Emmy for his work here and who went on to win Oscars for his work on Aliens, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park.

As well, a very young Scott Glenn shows up in the cast. I like to think that he’s playing the same character in both Gargoyles and Sucker Punch.

Enjoy!

Bonus Horror On The Lens: I Was A Teenage Werewolf (dir by Gene Fowler, Jr.)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1957’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf combines two genres that were very popular in the late 50s.

On the one hand, it’s a film about a teenage rebel. Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a teenager that means well but he keeps losing his temper. If he can’t learn to control his anger, he could very well be looking at a life behind bars.

On the other hand, it’s also a horror film. When Tony visits a hypnotist (Whit Bissell), the end result is Tony turning into a werewolf and going on a rampage, all while still wearing his letterman jacket.

All in all, this is a pretty fun little movie. You can check out my review of it by clicking here.

And you can watch the movie below!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.16 “Baby On Demand/The Last Dogfight”

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. The show is once again on Tubi!

This week, on Fantasy Island, it’s more of the same old same old.

Episode 7.16 “Baby on Demand/The Last Dogfight”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on March 10th, 1984)

Former “pop singer” Joanna Jones (Tanya Tucker) comes to Fantasy Island. She is no longer concerned with her musical artistry. (“If you can call that art,” Lawrence says — Lawrence, you bitch, you!) Now, she wants to have a baby but she doesn’t want to get married. Her fantasy is to get pregnant over the weekend and never have to see the guy again.

Okay, then. I mean, does she really have to go to Fantasy Island to have a one night stand? She’s a famous and wealthy woman so it just seems odd that apparently, this is something that only Mr. Roarke can make happen.

Mr. Roarke sets her up with Harley Batten (Dean Butler) but Joanna finds herself falling for Harley so she abandons him and instead hooks up with George, who is played by Mark Venturini. Venturini later played Vic in Friday the 13th Part V. Remember the guy with the axe who gets tired of Joey bothering him while he’s chopping wood? That was Mark Venturini!

By the end of the episode, Joanna has decided to take a chance on love and she leaves the Island with Harley. This fantasy just felt odd, largely because Tanya Tucker was a terrible actress and everyone on the show seemed to be embarrassed for her whenever she had to deliver her lines. I’m pretty sure that I saw both Dean Butler and Mark Venturini looking for an exit whenever Tucker started speaking.

As for the other story, it’s yet another aviation story. World War II flying aces Paul Spencer (Leigh McCloskey) and Hunter Richter (Grant Goodeve) are turned back into young men so that they can fly their airplanes over Fantasy Island and simulate a dogfight. However, Richter is haunted by the death of his wife at Dresden and, after discovering that Spencer’s wife (Leah Ayres) bears a strong resemblance to his late wife, Richter becomes determined to engage in actual combat. In the end, Spencer refuses to fight and Richter’s code of honor prevents him from shooting down a man who will not fire back. Because, of course, World War II-era Germans were famous for their sense of fair play….

The aviation story was, at least, well-acted. But it still felt very familiar. It was obvious that the show’s writers had run out of ideas. All in all, this was another disappointing Season 7 trip to the Island.

Scenes That I Love: The Opening of Suspiria!

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The opening of Dario Argento’s 1977 masterpiece, Suspiria, is about as perfect an opening as one could hope for. American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Frieburg, Germany. Both Argento and Harper perfectly portray Suzy’s confusion as she makes her way through the airport and, as torrential rain drenches her, attempts to hail a taxi and get a ride to the dance academy. (What Suzy doesn’t know, of course, is that the dance academy is home to the ancient witch known as Our Mother of Sighs.) With this opening scene, Argento both immediately establishes the off-center, nightmarish atmosphere of Suspiria and establishes Suzy as a character who we, as the audience, relate to and care about. Suspiria is a great film and certainly one that didn’t need a pretentious remake. The greatness of the original Suspiria all begins with this brilliant opening.

Horror Song of The Day: Main Theme From Suspiria by Goblin

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luciano Tovoli)

You knew this was coming!

Today’s horror song of the day is the classic main theme to Dario Argento’s Suspiria! (The Argento version is the only version that matters.) The iconic soundtrack was composed by Goblin. I saw an interview with Claudio Simonetti in which he said he wanted the song to be “almost annoying” in its intensity. While I could never be annoyed this song, I do understand Simonetti’s point. The score is designed to be as overwhelming as the evil at the center of the film.

All together now: “WITCH!”

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: 2000s Part Two

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we complete to the aughts!

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films

Halloween (2007, dir by Rob Zombie)

Paranormal Activity (2007, dir by Oren Peli)

Cloverfield (2008, dir by Matt Reeves)

The House of the Devil (2009, dir by Ti West)

October True Crime: Stolen Innocence (dir by Bill L. Norton)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1995’s Stolen Innocence opens with 18 year-old Stacy Sapp (Tracey Gold) trying to sneak back into her house after a long night of drinking and partying. Unfortunately for her, Stacey isn’t very good at sneaking around and she’s caught by her mother (Bess Armstrong) and her father (Nick Searcy).

“I’m 18!” Stacy argues.

“You’re going to end up pregnant!” her mother yells.

Stacy says that that her mother is just scared that she’s going to end up a loser “like you!” Well …. yeah, Stacy, that’s kind of the point. If your mother has experience with the life decisions necessary to become a loser, maybe you should listen to her warnings.

Anyway, Stacy runs away with a friend of her’s. After her friend decides to go back home, Stacy hitches a ride with a trucker. When the trucker stops off at a truck stop so he can get his brakes looked at, Stacy meets Richard Brown (Thomas Calabro, wearing a really bad wig). Richard is long-haired and has got a tough guy beard and a cheesy tattoo of a heart on his scrawny forearm. Stacy, of course, is totally smitten and she goes off with Richard and his “friend,” Eddie (Matt Letscher).

It doesn’t take long for us to figure out what Richard is bad news. He carries a gun. He’s financing his trip through stolen checks. He might not even own the truck that he’s driving. He and Eddie have a bizarre relationship in which Richard continually abuses Eddie but Eddie refuses to leave. Richard is obviously a bad guy and we can all see it. When Stacy finally calls her parents from the road, they immediately figure out that Stacy is in trouble. However, it takes Stacy forever to figure it out because Stacy’s kind of an idiot.

I cringed a lot while watching Stolen Innocence, not so much because of the film’s depiction of Richard’s criminal lifestyle but because I used to have a definite weakness for bad boys and I could kind of understand what was going through Stacy’s mind when she first met Richard. That said, I’m pretty sure that I would have figured things out a lot quicker than Stacy did. Stacy quickly goes from being a somewhat sympathetic rebellious teenager to being someone who you really start to get annoyed with. Oh, he’s threatening you with a gun? Okay, that’s when you leave! That’s when you start plotting your escape. You don’t make excuses for him. He’s financing his trip with stolen checks? I’m sorry, is that not a red flag? Add to that, as played by a miscast Thomas Calabro, it’s not like Richard is some boiling cauldron of charisma. From the first minute we see him, with his long hair and his cowboy hat and his tattoo, the guy seems like a joke.

Eventually, Stacy does figure out the truth but, by that point, Richard and her are holed up in a motel room and Richard is exchanging gunfire with the FBI. The film ends with a title card, reminding us that this was a true story. “He’s not a bad person!” Stacy wails to the police. I guess some people really are that stupid.

Horror On The Lens: The Last Man On Earth (Dir by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, I present to you one of the most important films in horror history. Though it wasn’t appreciated when it was first released back in 1964, The Last Man On Earth was not only the 1st Italian horror film but George Romero has also acknowledged it as an influence on his own Night of the Living Dead.

It’s easy to be a little bit dismissive of The Last Man On Earth. After all, the low-budget is obvious in every scene, the dubbing is off even by the standards of Italian horror, and just the name “Vincent Price” in the credits leads one to suspect that this will be another campy, B-movie. Perhaps that’s why I’m always surprised to rediscover that, taking all things into consideration, this is actually a pretty effective film. Price does have a few over-the-top moments but, for the most part, he gives one of his better performances here and the black-and-white images have an isolated, desolate starkness to them that go a long way towards making this film’s apocalypse a convincing one. The mass cremation scene always leaves me feeling rather uneasy.

The film is based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and no, it’s nowhere as good as the book. However, it’s still a worthy adaptation and one that stays true to the tone of the text, including the fact that Price’s main tormenter was also once his neighbor and best friend. This is one of those films that just hits differently in the wake of 2020’s COVID hysteria.

And now, it’s time for The Last Man On The Earth….

October Positivity: Revelation Road 2: The Sea of Glass and Fire (dir by Gabriel Sabloff)

Posted on October 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts is in this!

That, in itself, isn’t a surprise. Eric Roberts was also in the first Revelation Road. He plays the same role in the 2013 sequel. Roberts is Sheriff Jenson, the not particularly religious sheriff who has to deal with a town that’s gone mad in the wake of the Rapture. Over the course of one night, dozens of people (including Jenson’s mother) vanished as their souls flew into the air. Jenson isn’t sure what happened but he knows that there is panic in the streets and that there is also a crazed motorcycle gang to deal with. In the first film, Roberts was onscreen for maybe two minutes. He gets closer to five minutes in Revelation Road 2 and you know what? it’s always nice to see Eric Roberts!

As for the rest of the film, it picks up where the previous one ended. Josh McManus (David A.R. White) is trying to get home to his family while also resisting the urge to become a killer. It’s not easy. Flashbacks reveal that Josh was actually brainwashed by the CIA to be a remorseless killer. He’s haunted by a mission in the Middle East and the amount of people he killed over there. He’s joined in his drive home by Beth (Noelle Coet), a teenage girl who has been sent by Jesus himself (Bruce Marchiano) to help guide Josh in the right direction. Pursuing Josh is the fearsome Hawg (Brian Bosworth), a motorcycle gang leader who is haunted by his own personal tragedy. Hawg’s daughter, Cat (Andrea Logan White), struggles to understand her father’s anger and hatred.

Revelation Road 2 is a definite improvement over the first film. If the first film seemed to take forever to go nowhere, Revelation Road 2 is all about Josh’s determination to get back home. Once he starts that car up, nothing is going to stop him. If the first film seemed to be a bit too eager to show off Josh’s talent for killing people, Revelation Road 2 features Josh trying to hold back on his murderous instincts. Flashbacks to Hawg’s past life bring some much-needed nuance and context to his actions and they keep him from being just a one-dimensional villain. I would dare say that Bosworth actually gives a legitimately good performance in this film.

Though the film wears its influences on its sleeve (Hi, Mad Max!), Revelation Road 2 is still a surprisingly well-done action film.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: