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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to retired director Jack Sholder! It’s time for….
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 1979’s The Quatermass Conclusion! 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, 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.
A lot of my favorite actors and celebrities were born on June 7th. I picked out a few of them, based on how much I have enjoyed their work over the years. I may have even created my own movie marathon for the day!!
Dean Martin in RIO BRAVO (1959) – Dean would have turned 109 years old today!Liam Neeson in THE GREY (2011) – Liam turns 74 today!William Forsythe in STONE COLD (1991) – William turns 71 today!Prince in PURPLE RAIN (1984) – Prince would have turned 68 years old today.
On Jun 6th, 1944, Allied forces invaded Normandy, France, in the largest amphibious invasion in military history. This action laid the foundation for the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control.
There have been some incredible cinematic portrayals based on and around that historic day. Here are some of my favorites.
The Longest Day (1962)Where Eagles Dare (1969)The Big Red One (1980)Saving Private Ryan (1998)
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.
Pat Garrett, the man who shot and killed William “Billy the Kid” Bonney, was born on June 5th, 1850. He’s become a legend of the old west based on that fact, and he’s been portrayed by many different actors over the years in movies and on TV. I love westerns so the stories of Billy the Kid, and thus Pat Garrett, have always been fascinating to me. As such, on the anniversary of the man’s 176th birthday, here are “4 Shots from 4 Films” featuring some notable portrayals of Sheriff Pat Garrett.
Thomas Mitchell as Pat Garrett, behind Jack Buetel as Billy the Kid, in The Outlaw (1943)James Coburn as Pat Garrett and Kris Kristofferson as Billy the Kid in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)William Petersen as Pat Garrett in Young Guns II (1990)Ethan Hawke as Pat Garrett in The Kid (2019)
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.
