4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Kurt Russell Edition

Posted on March 17, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Today, we wish a happy birthday to the great Kurt Russell! Last year, we pretty much reviewed every Kurt Russell films that we could find. It was a great day. This year, we cannot let the day pass without offering up….

4 Shots From 4 Kurt Russell Films

Used Cars (1980, dir by Robert Zemeckis, DP: Donald M. Morgan)

Escape From New York (1981, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

The Thing (1982, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

Tombstone (1993, dir by George Pan Cosmatos (and Kurt Russell), DP: William Fraker)

Join #MondayMania For Evil Nanny!

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone! Tonight, on twitter, I will be hosting one of my favorite films for #MondayMania! Join us for 2017’s Evil Nanny!

You can find the movie on Prime and Tubi and then you can join us on twitter at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) See you then!

Scenes That I Love: Erik Estrada in Guns

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to the one and only Erik Estrada!

Here he is in 1990’s Guns, bringing his customary style to the world of Andy Sidaris.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Bernardo Bertolucci Edition

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Bernardo Bertolucci Films

The Conformist (1970, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)

The Last Emperor (1987, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)

The Sheltering Sky (1990, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Vittorio Storaro)

Stealing Beauty (1996, dir by Bernardo Bertolucci, DP: Darius Khondji)

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us for Hard Ticket To Hawaii!

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie ! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be Hard Ticket To Hawaii!

If you want to join this watch party, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Hard Ticket To Hawaii on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!

Enjoy!

Lisa Marie’s Way Too Early Oscar Predictions For March

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now that the awards for the best of 2025 have been handed out, it’s time to think about what might be nominated next year!

Below are my first set of Oscar predictions for 2026! What am I basing these predictions on? Nothing but instinct, wild guesses, and hopeful thinking. Take them with a grain of salt. If nothing else, we’ll look back on these a year from now and we’ll laugh. Or, we’ll be amazed at my cognitive abilities.

Best Picture

Digger

Disclosure Day

Dune Part Three

I Play Rocky

The Invite

Mother Mary

The Odyssey

Queen At Sea

The Social Reckoning

Wild Horse Nine

Best Director

Lance Hammer for Queen At Sea

Martin McDonagh for Wild Horse Nine

Christopher Nolan for The Odyssey

Steven Spielberg for Disclosure Day

Denis Villeneuve for Dune Part Three

Best Actor

Nicolas Cage in Madden

Timothee Chalamet in Dune Part Three

Tom Cruise in Digger

Anthony Ippolito in I Play Rocky

John Malkovivh in Wild Hose Nine

Best Actress

Juliette Binoche in Queen At Sea

Emily Blunt in Disclosure Day

Isabelle Huppert in The Blood Countess

Mikey Madison in The Social Reckoning

Anya Taylor-Joy in Joni Mitchell

Best Supporting Actor

Tom Courtenay in Queen At Sea

Willem DaFoe in Werewulf

Stephan James in I Play Rocky

Edward Norton in The Invite

Jeremy Strong in The Social Reckoning

Best Supporting Actress

Anna Calder-Marshall in Queen At Sea

Michaela Coel in Mother Mary

Penelope Cruz in The Invite

AnnaSophia Robb in I Play Rocky

Meryl Streep in Joni Mitchell

The Eric Roberts Collection: Tripfall (dir by Serge Rodnunsky)

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In an effort to save their marriage, Tom (John Ritter) and Gina (Rachel Hunter) take a vacation in California. However, when they arrive at the home that they’re going to be renting, they are taken hostage by a group of redneck criminals led by Mr. Eddie (Eric Roberts). Mr. Eddie wants all of Tom’s money and this leads to a rather drawn-out hostage situation as Tom tries to get the better of Mr. Eddie and Mr. Eddie spends a lot of time purring threats in a thick Southern accent.

That’s plot of 2000’s TripFall. Don’t ask my why it’s called TripFall. It seems like a bit of a redundant title because a trip and a fall are pretty much the same thing. In fact, don’t even ask me what the point of the film is because there’s really not that much action or suspense. It’s mostly just Eric Roberts and the gang driving John Ritter from one location to another. I’m not a big fan of films about people being held hostage because they always seem to feature the same scene played over and over again. The hostage refuses to do something. The person holding him hostage gives a long monologue. It gets boring after a while.

TripFall is not a career highpoint for either Roberts or Ritter. It’s an action film in which there is very little action. Watching the film, I found myself thinking that it would have been more interesting if Ritter and Roberts had switched roles. Roberts could have played the likable family man for once and maybe the film could have explored the darkness behind Ritter’s goofy persona. (Comedic actors sometimes make the best villains.)

That said, it’s difficult to resist the oddness of John Ritter and Eric Roberts starring in the same movie. If there are two actors who feel as if they literally come from different planets, it’s Ritter and Roberts. Ritter is his typical goofy self, even when he’s trying to play up the drama of the situation. Roberts hisses his lines as Mr. Eddie and appears to be acting in a totally different movie from Ritter. They’re so mismatched that they become rather fascinating (if not exactly memorable) to watch.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The TSL Grindhouse: Grizzly (dir by William Girdler)

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1976’s Grizzly, something is making a national park a lot less inviting.

Campers are turning up dead. Bloody body parts are being found buried underneath leaves. It’s obvious that a bear is to blame but reports seem to indicate that this isn’t just any bear. This is a super bear, standing 8 feet tall and capable of knocking down an observation tower and picking up a helicopter. This is the most dangerous bear known to man and the park has to be closed.

Closing the park during tourist season!? Surely not!

Does this all sound familiar? Grizzly came out a year after Jaws. In all fairness to Grizzly, there were a lot of movies that ripped-off Jaws. As a matter of fact, there are still movies ripping off Jaws. The Jaws films eventually ended up ripping off themselves with three sequels. Still, it’s hard to ignore just how blatantly Grizzly rips off Jaws. We get shots from the bear’s point of view. Christopher George plays the sheriff who keeps demanding that the park be closed down until the bear has been taken care of. Andrew Prine is the hippie bear expert. Richard Jaeckel is the crotchety old man who knows more about bears that just about anyone else in the world. In Jaws, they needed a bigger boat. In Grizzly, they need a bigger helicopter. Jaws features scenes of people fleeing from the water. Grizzly features an unintentionally funny shot of hundreds of panicked campers fleeing down the side of a mountain.

Grizzly is Jaws, without the water and without the wit. And yet, in its own grim way, it works well enough. The fact of the matter is that bears are scary and the bear in Grizzly is really, really big. The gore effects are memorably grotesque and, perhaps even more so than Jaws, Grizzly goes out of its way to establish that anyone can die. As for the actors, I’ve always enjoyed seeing Christopher George in films like this. He was one of those actors who always seemed to try to give a convincing performance, even when he was appearing in a film that no one would mistake for a classic. Richard Jaeckel and Andrew Prine also do their best to bring their characters to life.

Finally, I should mention that the film ends on a properly silly and over-the-top note. Actually, it’s not that much different from the ending to Jaws. It’s just that Jaws was made with such skill that even the silly moments worked. Grizzly was directed by William Girdler, who was no Steven Spielberg. At the end of Grizzly, I found myself shouted, “Why didn’t someone just do that in the first place!?” Then again, if they had, we never would have gotten all of those point of view shots of the bear wandering through the forest while growling like an 70s obscene phone caller.

As a final note, I defy anyone to watch Grizzly without imagining Werner Herzog narrating the bear’s activities. It cannot be done!

Here Are The Oscar Winners

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s what won at the Oscars!

Best Picture — One Battle After Another

Best Directing — Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Best Actor — Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

Best Actress — Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Best Supporting Actor — Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Best Supporting Actress — Amy Madigan, Weapons

Best Original Screenplay — Sinners

Best Adapted Screenplay — One Battle After Another

Best Animated Feature — KPop Demon Hunters

Best Casting — One Battle After Another

Best Production Design — Frankenstein

Best Cinematography — Sinners

Best Costume Design — Frankenstein

Best Film Editing — One Battle After Another

Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Frankenstein

Best Sound — F1

Best Visual Effects — Avatar: Fire and Ash

Best Original Score — Sinners

Best Original Song — “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters

Best Documentary Feature — Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Best International Feature — Sentimental Value

Best Animated Short — The Girl Who Cried Pearls

Best Documentary Short — All The Empty Rooms

Best Live Action Short (TIE) — The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva

The Best Picture Race: 2020s

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

And now, we reach the 2020s. The Oscars are heading towards their 100th year and a lot has changed between then and now. Many of the films that are nominated today would have been unthinkable as nominees in the 50s or even the 90s. I’m glad to see that the Academy is now more willing to nominate genres like horror and science fiction.

That said, this is the streaming age and this is the age of AI and I do worry about the future of movies in general. The Oscars are no longer the big event that they once were but then again, the same can be said of movies in general. The times are changing. Who knows what we’ll be talking about when Oscar Sunday rolls around in 2030?

2020

The Father

Judas and the Black Messiah

Mank

Minari

Nomadland

Promising Young Woman

Sound of Metal

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Won: Nomadland

Should Have Won: These were the COVID Oscars. With the world shut down for a virus, movie theaters closed and the Academy was forced to give even more consideration than usual to the streaming platforms. A lot of studios held back on releasing their big movies and the end result was the weakest Best Picture line-up in recent history. Nomadland won, largely because it reflected the current national anxiety. (Interestingly, it was directed by the daughter of the type of communist official who would probably of thrown the majority of the Nomadland cast into prison for re-education.) Of the nominees, I would have voted for either Promising Young Woman or The Father. My favorite film of the year was an unnominated French film called Girl With A Bracelet.

2021

Belfast

CODA

Don’t Look Up

Drive My Car

Dune

Won: CODA

Should Have Won: CODA. The Academy got it right. With the world still recovering from the (totally unnecessary) COVID lockdowns, the Best Picture lineup was still weaker than usual but there was something very satisfying about watching the sweet-natured CODA overtake the presumed front runner, Power of the Dog. Power of the Dog was well-made but heartless. CODA was obviously limited by its low budget but it was all heart and, after two years of totalitarian excess, that was what was truly needed.

2022

All Quiet on The Western Front

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Banshees of Inisherin

Elvis

Everything Everywhere All AT Once

The Fabelmans

Tar

Top Gun: Maverick

Triangle of Sadness

Women Talking

Won: Everything Everywhere All At Once

Should Have Won: Literally anything else. Seriously, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a mess of a movie and nowhere near as profound as it thinks it is. I personally would have voted for Top Gun: Maverick, a film that is unapologetic about being entertaining. After all of the COVID stupidity, Top Gun: Maverick was the film that world needed.

(That said, I could also make a case for voting for TAR, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet On The Western Front, and even Elvis. After two rather weak Best Picture line-ups, the 2022 nominations were a return to form.)

2023

American Fiction

Anatomy of a Fall

Barbie

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Maestro

Oppenheimer

Past Lives

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

Won: Oppenheimer

Should Have Won: I can’t complain about Oppenheimer winning. It’s a great film. That said, I probably would have voted for another great film, Past Lives. This was another strong line-up of best picture nominees.