Diner (1982, directed by Barry Levinson)

Posted on April 6, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Which member of the Diner gang would you be?

I think that is the question that everyone, or at least every guy, asks themselves after watching Barry Levinson’s debut film. Most would probably want to say that they’re Boogie (Mickey Rourke), because he’s cool, all the ladies love him, and he makes creative use of a popcorn box at the movies. Some would probably say that they want to be Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) because he’s smart and sarcastic. No one wants to be Billy (Tim Daly) or Eddie (Steve Guttenberg), even though we would all want to be their friend.

The truth is that most of us would probably be Shrevie (Daniel Stern), the just-married one who is discovering that being an adult means working an unglamorous job and discovering the rest of the world doesn’t care about your taste in music. The luckiest of us might be Modell (Paul Reiser), the funny one who doesn’t get a story but who makes a lot of jokes.

Diner was one of the first great hang-out movies. There is no plot, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s about a group of long-time friends who live in Baltimore in 1959. They grew up together. They went to high school together. They’ve been hanging out at the same diner for as long as they can all remember. And now, they’re at the point in their lives where the world expects them to act like adults and accept all the responsibility that goes along with that. It’s a film that celebrates their friendship while also acknowledging that some of them are using that friendship as an excuse to not grow up. They escape into trivia and movies, with one minor character reciting Sweet Smell of Success by memory. Fenwick drinks. Boogie gambles. Even Billy, who doesn’t even live in Baltimore anymore, reverts to his old ways as soon as he returns for Eddie’s wedding and ends up sucker punching someone because of an old high school incident.

The preparations for Eddie’s wedding gives the film what structure it has. Eddie is marrying the unseen Elyse, assuming she can pass his demanding quiz about the Baltimore Colts. (That may sound unfair but if you’re from Baltimore, you’ll understand.) While Eddie gets ready for his wedding, Shrevie’s marriage to Beth (Ellen Barkin) seems to be falling apart and she finds herself tempted to cheat with Boogie, who has his own problems with a local bookie. Meanwhile, Billy learns that his girlfriend (Kathryn Dowling) is pregnant.

The film is about friendship and the friendships between the men feel real. Levinson held off on shooting the largely improvised diner scenes until the end of the film, by which time all of the actors had developed their own idiosyncratic relationships with each other. The heart of Diner is to be found in scenes like the one where Modell tries to ask for someone else’s sandwich without actually coming out and asking for it. The dialogue in that scene and so many others has the ring of age-old friendship. Though the film makes it easy to see why Mickey Rourke and Kevin Bacon become movie stars while Tim Daly has spent most of his career on television, the entire cast is still perfect in their roles. It’s about as strong as an ensemble as you could ever hope to see. They become the characters and watching the movie, it’s impossible not to see yourself and your friends in their performances.

Barry Levinson has gone on to direct many more films but for me, Diner will always be the best.

Retro Television Review: So Here’s What Happened 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on February 1, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing So Here’s What Happened, which aired on CBS in 2006. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

The first and only episode of this show has one message for all the mooks out there. And that message is …. NEW YORK, BABY!

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Michael Lembeck, aired on May 1st, 2006)

What to say about Vince Brophy (Bobby Cannavale)? Hey, he’s a New Yorker, you know what I mean? Hey, he starts every sentence by saying, “Hey,” y’know? He knows the name of every single athlete who ever played for a New York sports team, y’know? He meets a woman named Rochelle Jeter (Rashida Jones) and immediately asks her if she’s related to Derek Jeter, you know what I’m saying? She says, “Yeah,” and she’s being sarcastic but Vince thinks that she’s being serious because who in their right mind would come into the old neighborhood and make a sarcastic joke, y’know?

Vince is such a New Yorker that he narrates the entire episode while sitting in his favorite barber chair. His barber (Hector Elizondo) hangs on his every word, which is good since he presumably can’t see the flashbacks that the audience is forced to sit through. Vince works at his family’s car lot and he wears solid suits and pinky rings and the pilot finds several excuses for him to say the word “Escalade.” He’s not smart but he’s a stand-up guy, that Vince. His co-worker asks him to be the godfather to his newborn and Vince agrees but then he nearly drowns the kid at the christening because he gets distracted when someone tells him that Derek Jeter don’t have no sister named Rochelle. What a New Yorker!, y’know what I’m saying?

There’s a lot of talented people in this show. Rashida Jones was months away from appearing on The Office. Hector Elizondo is a comedy veteran. Steve Park, a favorite of the Coen Brothers, appeared as Vince’s boss. Mercedes Ruehl plays Vince’s mother. And then you’ve got Bobby Cannavale in the lead role. Cannavale is one of my favorite actors, a guy who is as good at playing sensitive as he is at playing tough. Cannavale can play drama and he can play comedy and he’s easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, all of these talented people were let down by a script that was written by none other than Paul Reiser.

The main problem with the show is that none of the characters have much of a personality beyond being from New York. Obviously, New Yorkers are a unique group of people but every New Yorker I’ve met has also had their own individual personality to go along with their identity of being a citizen of America’s largest city. The characters in this episode, on the other hand, have no identity beyond being a New Yorker in the most cliched ways possible. Even worse, none of the jokes are particularly funny. Vince crosses the line from being amiably dumb to being a buffoon far too quickly.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this was the only episode of this show. The pilot did not lead to a series. Fortunately, everyone involved went on to better things, y’know?

Axel Foley heads back West in the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F Teaser!

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Leonard Wilson

Personally, I think we’ve milked the Nostalgia Train for all it’s worth, but if audiences are looking forward to it, maybe it’s a good thing. I forgot there was a third entry in the Beverly Hills Cop films, but then recalled it was the one with George Lucas in it. While we’re not sure why Detroit’s Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is returning to Beverly Hills, it’s good to see that most of his friends are there to greet him. It looks like they brought in Judge Reinhold, Paul Reiser, John Aston and even Bronson Pinchot along for the ride. New additions appear to be both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon.

The film is due out next March.

Retro Television Reviews: The Tower (dir by Richard Kletter)

Posted on February 19, 2023 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1993’s The Tower! It can be viewed on YouTube!

The plot of 1993’s The Tower could probably best be described as, “Paul Reiser gets a job and gets everyone killed.”

Technically, Paul Reiser is playing Tony Minot, a guy who would rather spend his time in his apartment, composing new age synthesizer anthems and eating left over pizza, than actually go to work. But make no mistake about it. Tony is basically Paul Reiser, all the way down to the neurotic mannerisms and the bad jokes.

Anyway, through the help of an old friend, Tony has gotten a job. He’s going to be working in a state-of-the-art tower, one that is totally run by a computer system known as CAS. CAS is designed to eliminate any and all security threats. For instance, when an unauthorized pigeon lands on the tower’s roof, it doesn’t take long for CAS to reduce that pigeon to a bunch of floating feathers. Tony has been told that it’s very important that 1) he have his security card with him at all times and 2) that he not damage his security card in any way.

So, of course, Tony damages his security card.

With the help of a security guard, Tony still manages to get inside the tower but, since his card doesn’t work, CAS considers Tony to be a security risk. When Tony proceeds to casually violate several security rules and stays in the building after hours, CAS decides to destroy him. Unfortunately, since Tony is kind of needy and always has to have people around him, everyone else in the building ends up getting killed too.

(This is a 1993 film and it was made for television so none of the kills are especially interesting. One guy gets caught in the closing doors of an elevator. Someone else gets trapped in an overheated sauna.)

The majority of the film deals with Tony crawling around the building, just like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. CAS is determined to kill both him and his potential love interest. We’re supposed to be angry at CAS and concerned about the world’s dependence on technology but you know what?

THIS IS ALL TONY’S FAULT!

Seriously, if Tony hadn’t damaged his card, none of this would have happened. Tony was specifically told not to damage his card but obviously, it didn’t occur to him that maybe he should try to follow the rules of his new workplace during his first day on the job!

The Tower is very much a film of its time. That’s obvious just from the cartoonish CGI and the fact that someone thought casting Paul Reiser as a Die Hard-style action hero was a good idea. Beyond that, it’s a film that’s very concerned about the rise of computers and technology. In 1993, I’m sure audiences were like, “OH MY GOD! COMPUTERS CAN’T BE REASONED WITH!” but, when I watched the film last night, I was just like, “So, they don’t have voice or facial recognition? What type of company is this?”

Anyway, The Tower is not exactly a good movie but it’s oddly watchable. Maybe it’s just because of how strange it is to see Paul Reiser doing the whole Die Hard thing. (Before anyone asks, The Tower was not meant to be a spoof. In fact, it takes itself pretty seriously.) Or maybe it’s just the fact that, by the end of the movie, you’ll totally be on the Tower’s side.

Go, CAS, go!

The Films of 2020: Horse Girl (dir by Jeff Baena)

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Horse Girl tells the story of a lost woman named Sarah (played, in a bravely committed performance, by Alison Brie).

Sarah is an introvert who works in a craft store, where she can tell the customers exactly the right type of paint to buy and where she’s watched over by her friendly co-worker, Joan (Molly Shannon). During the day, she occasionally visits the grave of her mother, who committed suicide. Sometimes, she might have a conversation with her wealthy stepfather (Paul Reiser). She enjoys going out to the stables and watching a horse named Willow. When she was a little girl, she rode Willow and she still thinks of him as being her horse. The owners of the stable, however, are never particularly enthused to see Sarah hanging around. In one scene, Sarah attempts to give advice to the girl who was just riding Willow, despite the fact that the girl obviously has no idea who Sarah is. Despite her good intentions, Sarah tends to be so awkward in her attempts to socialize that she just leaves people feeling uncomfortable.

When she’s not at work or at the stables or trying to fit in with the other students at her zumba class, Sarah lives in an apartment with her roommate, Nikki (Debby Ryan). While Nikki has a boyfriend, Sarah spends most of her nights in her living room, watching a cheesy sci-fi adventure show called Purgatory. She knows every detail about the show and is always shocked when no one else is as interested in it as she is.

In short, Sarah is a misft but she’s a familiar misfit. We all probably know someone like Sarah. At the very least, we all follow someone on twitter who is like Sarah, someone who always seems to be trying to make a connection but who can never quite get comfortable enough to just relax and be herself.

Strange things start to happen to Sarah. She hears voices in the apartment. She has dreams in which she’s lying on the floor of what appears to be a spaceship. Sarah starts to sleepwalk and is soon waking up to find herself in random locations. When she sees a picture of her grandmother, she wonders if it’s possible that she’s a clone. Strange scratches start to appear on the walls of her apartment. Did Sarah put them there or are they result of something coming after her?

Horse Girl is a surprisingly effective film, one that keeps you guessing as to whether or not what we’re seeing is really happening or if it’s all just occurring in Sarah’s head. Horse Girl was produced by Duplass Brothers Productions and it really does feel like a mumblecore version of Repulsion, with Alison Brie stepping into Catherine Deneuve’s role of the repressed young woman who finds herself a prisoner of her own fears. Whereas Repulsion featured arms growing out of the walls, Horse Girl features alien abductions and clones.

It’s a film that is sometimes heart-breaking and occasionally darkly funny. As much as we care and worry about Sarah, the people around her are interesting as well. The world that Horse Girl creates feels very real and very familiar and even the actors in the smallest roles create an indelible impression. This is one of those rare movies where it actually seems like the characters in the film all have a life even when they’re not in a scene. Every performance and every character feels real and authentic. I particularly liked the performance of Molly Shannon, who brings a very natural and sincere kindness to the role of Sarah’s co-worker. Playing Sarah’s father and Sarah’s gently humorous doctor, Paul Reiser and David Paymer shine in small roles.

That said, the film works best as a showcase for Alison Brie, who is both sympathetic and, eventually, more than a little frightening in the role of Sarah. Brie gives such an emotionally vulnerable performance as Sarah that there are times when you really wish that you could step into the film yourself and assure her that everything’s going to be okay. It’s also a rather brave performance, one that wins our sympathy while also showing why the increasingly manic Sarah might be too much for some people to take.

I have to admit that I wasn’t necessarily expecting much when I started watching a film called Horse Girl but it turned out to be one of my favorite films of 2020 so far.

Horror on The Lens: The Tower (dir by Richard Kletter)

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and welcome to the October Horrorthon!

This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is horror month. For the past five years, we have celebrated every October by reviewing and sharing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music!

A part of the tradition of Horrorthon is that we begin every day in October by sharing a free movie. Now, I should warn you that most of these movies will come from YouTube and you know how YouTube is about yanking down videos. So, if you’re reading this in 2024 and wondering where the promised movie disappeared to … well, you should have watched it in 2018!

Let’s start things off with the 1993 made-for-television movie, The Tower!

Have you ever asked yourself what Die Hard would have been like if it had starred Paul Reiser and the Alan Rickman role had been played by an overzealous automated security system? Well, watch The Tower to find out! This is one of those movies where the hero, played by Paul Reiser of all people, manages to get almost everyone in the movie killed and yet we’re not supposed to hold it against him.

By the end of the movie, you’ll totally be on The Tower’s side!

Enjoy!

(I wrote a more in-depth review of The Tower over at HorrorCritic.)

Catching Up With The Films of 2017: The Little Hours (dir by Jeff Baena)

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You don’t necessarily have to be from a Catholic background to find The Little Hours to be hilarious but it probably helps. You also don’t have to be an expert in satirical Italian literature from the Medieval era but, again, it probably helps. Of course, what helps the most is to have a good sense of humor.

Technically, The Little Hours is based on The Decameron, though not even that famously bawdy book featured dialogue like, “Don’t fucking talk to us!” and “Stop fucking looking at us!” Both of those lines are delivered by Aubrey Plaza, who plays a nun in a medieval convent. The fact that Plaza is playing a nun tells you a lot about the humor in The Little Hours. The sets and the costumes are meticulously accurate. It’s easy to imagine that, if you got your hands on a time machine and traveled back to the Fourteenth Century, what you would see would look a lot like The Little Hours. But the dialogue and the attitudes are all straight from the 21st century.

The Little Hours tells the story of three nuns and the people who get in their way. Aubrey Plaza plays Sister Fernanda, the sarcastic nun who is willing to beat up anyone who looks at her for too long. Ginerva (Kate Micucci) is the repressed nun who can’t wait to get everyone else in trouble. Alessandra (Alison Brie) is the nun who is only a nun because her father (Paul Reiser) is making her.

When you’re bored and stuck in a convent, you find interesting ways to keep yourself amused. For instance, gossip is always a fun way to pass the time. Or you can get drunk on communion wine. If you get really bored, you can always join the local coven and dance around a fire. Or you can lust after the new handyman, a handsome deaf-mute named Massetto (Dave Franco). Of course, Massetto isn’t really a deaf-mute. He’s just pretending because he doesn’t want to be executed for having sex with his former master’s wife. Life was never easy in medieval Italy.

The film may be based on The Decameron but all of the dialogue was improved. Whenever I hear that anything’s been improvised, I always know that the end result is either going to be hilarious or it’s simply going to be unbearable. Fortunately, the cast of The Little Hours is full of comedic pros. They all play off of each other well. Each line of dialogue seems like a challenge being delivered by both the character and the performer. Behind every joke is a subtext of “Try to top this.” Supporting roles are played by everyone from Molly Shannon to Nick Offerman to John C. Reilly. Fred Armisen plays the Bishop who has the unenviable task of trying to keep straight everything that’s happened and his display of exasperation is absolutely brilliant.

As you can probably guess, I enjoyed The Little Hours. It’s probably not a film for everyone. As I said, it helps to not only have a Catholic background but to also have a sense of humor about it. But, for those in the right mood, it’s a hilarious film.

Film Review: War on Everyone (dir by John Michael McDonagh)

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

War on Everyone opens with a question.

“If you hit a mime,” Detective Bob Bolano (Michael Pena) asks, “does he make a sound?”

“Now, you know,” Detective Terry Malone (Alexander Skarsgard) replies, as he drives his car over a mime.

For the record, the Mime was a cocaine dealer so the detectives did have a reason for chasing him. Then again, the Mime was also on foot while the detectives were in a car. And the Mime was attempting to surrender when the detectives ran him over.

That scene pretty much sets the tone for the rest of War on Everyone, the latest film from Irish filmmaker John Michael McDonagh. McDonagh is best-known and rightfully acclaimed for his previous two films, The Guard and Calvary. Those two films were both darkly comedic and often violent meditations on life, death, morality, guilt, and redemption. While War on Everyone may not share either one of those films’ deeper concerns, it is definitely violent. And the comedy is definitely dark.

Bob and Terry are two of the most corrupt cops in the history of cinematic police corruption. Bob is a family man, who is full of useless trivia and usually seems to speaking a mile a minute. Terry is single and not quite as talkative. He views the world through permanently bloodshot eyes and always stands with an insolent slouch. Terry is the type who, when he drives down a city street, intentionally bumps into every parked car. When asked why he became a cop, Terry shrugs and replies that it was the only job available where he could shoot people without getting in trouble. When Bob and Terry confront an informant, they both get so caught up in snorting the informant’s cocaine that they forget what they wanted to ask about. Their lieutenant is constantly telling them to ease up on the corruption but, since he’s played by Paul Reiser, no one takes him seriously.

War on Everyone does have a plot but it’s debatable just how important it is. Bob and Terry learn about an up-coming heist. They decide to let the heist happen so that they can then bust the crooks and take the money for themselves. However, because there’s nothing that Bob and Terry can’t screw up, they not only fail to stop the heist but end up spending the rest of the movie trying to track down the money. Along the way, they bond with an orphan and Terry pursues a romance with a former stripper (Tessa Thompson, doing her best with an underwritten role).

The plot is really just an excuse for McDonagh to parody the conventions of the American cop film. Much like Seven Psychopaths (which was directed by John Michael McDonagh’s older brother, Martin), War on Everyone is a film about tangents. The point is to see how many weird directions the story can go in. This is the type of film where, at one point, Terry and Bob fly to Iceland just because.

(Don’t get me wrong. They have a reason for being in Iceland but still, you mostly come away with the feeling that McDonagh thought to himself, “What other New Mexico-set heist film features a trip to Iceland?”)

Particularly when compared to something like Calvary, War on Everyone doesn’t add up to much and yet that really is a part of the film’s charm. At a time when so many films are trying way too hard to be something more than what they actually are, War on Everyone is content to be a thoroughly over-the-top action comedy. It’s a bit like The Nice Guys, just with an even darker worldview.

What’s remarkable is how many critics have insisted in trying to find a deeper meaning where there clearly is none. I hardly ever do this but I have to point out that the A.V. Club review — headlined, undoubtedly by an intern hoping to impress the bosses with the power of snark, Sorry War On Everyone, but it’s not the best time for a comedy about giddily corrupt cops — is remarkable in just how thoroughly it misses the point of the film. If anything, it reads as if the reviewer couldn’t think of anything to say so he decided to engage in some preemptive political virtue signaling.

The review cited above makes the mistake of assuming that War on Everyone is supposed to be taking place in the real world. Everything — from the over-the-top violence to the mix of crude humor with philosophical asides to the mix of 70s music with modern technology — indicates that War on Everyone is meant to take place in a reality other than our own. It’s a dream-like world that was created by other cop movies and, ultimately, those other movies are the only thing that War on Everyone is attempting to critique. In much the style of early Tarantino, War On Everyone is a movie about movies.

(Unlike Tarantino’s last few films, War on Everyone only lasts 98 minutes, which would seem to indicate that McDonagh is superior to Tarantino in one important regard: he knows how and when to edit himself.)

War on Everyone is not for … well, everyone. It’s certainly not a masterpiece in the style of either The Guard or Calvary. It’s lesser McDonagh but, when taken on its own terms, it’s an enjoyable ramble of a movie that’s distinguished by the perfect casting of Skarsgard, Pena, and Reiser.

Just don’t take it too seriously.

Film Review: Whiplash (dir by Damien Chazelle)

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I really only need five words to review Whiplash:

J. K. Simmons kicks ass.

He so seriously does. The deep-voiced character actor, beloved by fans of Allstate Insurance, Spider-Man, Jason Reitman, and the Coen Brothers alike, has been memorable so many times in the past that it’s easy to take him for granted. However, with Whiplash, he proves himself to be not just a distinctive screen presence but to be a brilliant actor as well. There’s a lot of good things about Whiplash but, ultimately, it’s Simmons who makes the film something more than just another promising indie film.

Simmons plays Terrence Fletcher, the legendary and feared conductor of the Schaffer Conservatory jazz band. (We’re told that Shaffer Conservatory is the best music school in the country. Of course, in a real life, the best music school in the country is located at University of North Texas, where I studied Art History but still enjoyed occasionally listening to the One O’Clock Lab Band.) As played by Simmons, Fletcher is both a genius and a sadist. When he talks about music, he does so with a passion that makes it impossible not share his love for all that jazz. When he conducts his band, he does so with a cruelty that makes you question if the music is worth the cost of the emotional stability of the people playing it. When he hears that someone is out of tune, he responds by reducing a musician to tears. When he says, “Not my tempo,” it’s both a critique and a threat. The fact that he’s creative and quick-witted with his insults does nothing to lessen the pain that they cause.

Fletcher’s latest protegé/victim is a talented 19 year-old drummer named Andrew (Miles Teller). Andrew shares Fletcher’s love for jazz but nothing can prepare him for the lengths that Fletcher will go to manipulate him. Whether it means insulting Andrew’s father (Paul Reiser) or casually threatening to give Andrew’s spot away to another drummer, Fletcher’s nonstop and often viscous criticism makes Andrew a better drummer but also threatens to destroy his sanity.

Director and screenwriter Damien Chazelle understands that those of us in the audience have seen literally hundreds of films about intense teachers and the students that they teach. Chazelle cleverly manipulates all of our expectations. The minute that we expect Fletcher to say something encouraging or to reveal himself to actually be a compassionate mentor, Simmons instead barks out another insult or regards Andrew with a withering glare. And, as we wait for Andrew to stand up to Fletcher or prove his mentor wrong, we are instead forced to admit that Fletcher’s approach does seem to be working.

When, towards the middle of the film, Andrew crashes his car while rushing to a jazz competition and then attempts to play the drums with both blood on his suit and a broken hand, you can’t help but both admire his determination and fear where that determination is going to take him.

As I said at the beginning of this review, there’s a lot of good things about Whiplash. As you might expect for a film about jazz, it has a great soundtrack. Miles Teller gives a great lead performance, one that may be overshadowed by J.K. Simmons but which — along with his work in The Spectacular Now — indicates that Teller is an actor to watch. (We’ll just forget the fact that he was also in Project X.) Some of the film’s best moments don’t even involve J.K. Simmons, instead they’re just scenes of Teller obsessively drumming until his hands are bloody.

But, ultimately, it is J.K. Simmons who truly elevates this film. Simmons makes Fletcher into a truly fascinating villain, one who constantly leaves you guessing. By the end of the film, you may not like Fletcher but you definitely can not get him out of your head.

Ultimately, the success of Whiplash stands as a tribute to the talent of J.K. Simmons.