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, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Irish director Neil Jordan! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Neil Jordan Films
Mona Lisa (1986, dir by Neil Jordan, DP; Roger Pratt)
Interview With A Vampire (1994, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Philippe Rousselot)
The Butcher Boy (1998, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Adrian Biddle)
In Dreams (1999, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Darius Khondji)
Al Lettieri is one of my favorite cinematic bad guys based on his performance in MR. MAJESTYK (1974) with Charles Bronson. I’ll never forget how bad he wanted those Keys in the famous breakout sequence. Check it out!
6 Shots From 6 Films is just what it says it is, 6 shots from 6 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 6 Shots From 6 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Rest in Peace, Robert Carradine. The veteran character actor and son of John Carradine (as well as brother of Keith and half-brother of David) has passed away at the age of 71.
Most of the articles about his death describe him as being “Lizzie Maguire star Robert Carradine.” Robert Carradine, however, had a long career and it started long before Lizzie Maguire. Eternally youthful, he was still playing teenagers when he was in his 30s. (Let’s just say that he was a bit old to be a college freshman in Revenge of the Nerds.) Robert appeared in his share of 70s exploitation films but he also appeared in films directed by Hal Ashby, Walter Hill, and Martin Scorsese.
In fact, one of Carradine’s first roles was in Scorseses’s 1973 masterpiece, Mean Streets. Here he is, sharing an unforgettable scene with his brother David.
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on twitter, I will be hosting one of my favorite films for #MondayMania! Join us for 2014’s Stalked By My Neighbor!
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!
Today would have been Peter Fonda’s 86th birthday.
This scene is from Roger Corman’s 1967 film, The Trip. Corman dropped acid himself before filming Peter Fonda doing the same thing in this film. Regardless of how one views Corman’s cinematic recreation of Fonda’s experience with acid, The Trip is considered to be one of the first nuanced drug films. While it doesn’t endorse drug use, it also doesn’t descend into the hysterics of a film like Reefer Madness. Interestingly enough, the script was written by Jack Nicholson.
Here is Peter Fonda, exploring the city on LSD, in The Trip:
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 celebrate the 122nd anniversary of the birth of the great British film director, Terence Fisher. Though Fisher worked in all genres, he is best remembered for the horror films that he directed for Hammer Studios. Along with proving that there was still an audience for horror, he also helped to make stars out of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Terence Fisher Films
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)
The Horror of Dracula (1958, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)
The Mummy (1959, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960, dir by Terence Fisher, DP: Jack Asher)
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 1980’s Prom Night, the greatest Canadian film ever! I picked it so you know it’ll be good.
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, find the movie on YouTube, Tubi, or Prime hit play at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! The watch party community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
I was lucky to be part of a recent interview with actor Jordan Rhodes on the “This Week in Charles Bronson” podcast. Jordan worked with Bronson on two separate movies almost twenty years apart, MR. MAJESTYK (1974) and THE INDIAN RUNNER (1991), so he does offer valuable insight to my favorite actor. Jordan also worked with so many great actors like Joe Don Baker, Sean Penn, Andy Griffith, Gregory Peck, etc., etc. One of the most interesting works of his career is a stage play he developed about Ernest Hemingway entitled PAPA: THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND. I’ve seen a filmed version of the play on DVD and I can confirm that it’s incredible. He toured this play for over 7 years, with the emergence of Covid in 2020 effectively ending its run. During those Covid years, Jordan did find time to write a biography entitled “The Life of a Blue Collar Actor,” which I also own and have read. It’s such an interesting take on what life is like for your basic working actor who never becomes a star, but somehow carves out a four decade career. I found it very entertaining.
If you’re interested in character actors like Jordan Rhodes, you should enjoy this. You’ll find that we do very little interviewing. He just gets to talking and it goes from there. I did want to point out that he does misspeak about a situation in Bronson’s personal life during the episode. He issued this statement on his Facebook page a few days after we recorded:
“I want to apologize for making a misstatement about the death of Charlie’s son, which I quoted as having shot himself on Charlie’s Vermont farm. I was given that misinformation by a producer prior to working with Charlie on a film, and it was incorrect. Charlie’s adopted son, Jason, died from an overdose, and I apologize for making the misstatement.“
We sincerely thank Jordan Rhodes for taking the time to speak to movie nerds like us! I hope you enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 