Happy Super Bowl Sunday! In four hours, some dreams will have come true and others will not. The important thing is never to stop dreaming, just like Charlie Brown in the scene from A Boy Named Charlie Brown!
Never stop dreaming, Charlie Brown! Enjoy the game!
In honor of Joe Pesci’s birthday, today’s scene that I love comes from 1990’s Goodfellas. This iconic scene was largely improvised by Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta. Reportedly, Pesci based the scene on an actual incident that he observed.
It’s also interesting to note that Tommy’s comment of “you might fold under pressure” turns out to be true.
Today is the 66th birthday of the excellent Canadian character actor Henry Czerny. My admiration and appreciation for the man stems primarily from two performances in big movies. The first time I really remember seeing him is when he played the ethically challenged Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Ritter in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994). He goes toe to toe with Harrison Ford at times in an incredible performance. Check out the scene below:
A couple of years later Czerny would play IMF Director Kittredge in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) with Tom Cruise. Once again, his performance adds greatly to the film and this scene with Tom Cruise may be the best of the movie!
Actors like Henry Czerny are a treasure and I always look forward to seeing them pop up in movies and TV shows. It made me so happy when he showed back up a couple of years ago in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING (2023). Happy Birthday, Henry! 🎊🎂🎉
Today’s scene that I love comes from my favorite Greydon Clark movie, 1990’s The Forbidden Dance!
Yes, this scene is technically a spoiler. It’s got music! It’s got dancing! It has some deeply questionable stereotypes and some obvious virtue signaling! It has that classic line, “We should just boycott their ass!” It’s got Sid Haig! It’s got everything you could ever hope for!
And remember — this film is dedicated to the preservation of the rain forest.
Today’s scene that I love features future President Ronald Reagan, giving what he considered to be his best performance in 1942’s Kings Row. He liked one of the lines in this scene so much that he used it as the title for autobiography.
On what would have been Ronald Reagan’s 114th birthday, here is today’s scene that I love.
Joseph Cotten passed away 31 years ago today. Cotten appeared in a lot of good films and worked with many important directors but he will always be remembered for bringing to life Jedidiah Leland, the drama critic in Citizen Kane. I liked the character so much that I paid tribute to him with my penname, though I substituted an A for the first I.
Cotten played Jedidiah as both a young man and an old man in Citizen Kane. The first time I saw the movie, I reacted to the young Leland. With each passing year, I think I understand better what the older Leland was talking about when he said that memory is the greatest curse ever inflicted on the human race.
(Even retired and living in what appears to be a nursing home, Jedidiah Leland still spoke like a drama critic.)
I can’t let Michael Mann’s 82nd birthday pass without sharing one of my favorite scenes of his filmography. Have y’all ever started watching a movie and immediately knew you were going to love it?! That’s what the opening 4 minutes of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS did for me. The credits start and the soundtrack reveals the powerful musical theme of the movie as well as its beautiful mountain setting. And then we join Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), his dad Chingachgook (Russell Means), and his brother Uncas (Eric Schweig) in the middle of their hunt as they’re sprinting through the woods after their prey. They just look so cool running together under Mann’s stylish direction. It’s not even the best scene in the film, but it’s the scene that drew me in and let me know I was in for something special.
Happy Birthday, Michael Mann and thanks for sharing your talent with all of us!
Enjoy this awesome scene, my friends!
Since today is Michael Mann’s birthday, today’s scene that I love comes from his 1986 film, Manhunter.
In this scene, a blind woman (played by Joan Allen) pets a sedated tiger while her new boyfriend (Tom Noonan) watches. This would actually be a pretty romantic scene if not for the fact that her boyfriend is also a homicidal maniac. This is a scene that, when you watch the film, seems to come out of nowhere but, when you look back, you realize it was one of the key moments in the narrative. While the killer watches the woman who represents a possible redemption embrace another predator, the profiler played by William Petersen continues his way into the killer’s tortured psyche.
This scene is Michael Mann at his best.
Today would have been George Romero’s 85th birthday.
Today’s scene of the day comes from Romero’s best film, Night of the Living Dead. In this scene, an attempt to escape from a farmhouse ends in disaster. As was typical of all of Romero’s films, the disaster has less to do with the zombies and more to do with humans that simply can’t work together.
The upload isn’t great but this scene still represents Romero’s vision of a society working to destroy itself.
My personal favorite Charles Bronson movie is HARD TIMES, and this is one of my favorite scenes.
As an appreciation gift for helping him all summer with his many projects, my dad took me to Wal-Mart sometime back in the 80’s and told me I could pick out a movie. Wal-Mart just happened to have a big stack of HARD TIMES videocassettes. I was about 13 years old at the time, and I was already obsessed with Bronson, but I had never seen this movie before. So, dad bought the movie for me and did something he didn’t often do, he sat down and watched it with me when we got back home. This one-punch knockout scene takes place at the very beginning of the movie, and I vividly remember my dad having a nice laugh when the scene occurred. That made me happy, as I was always wanting my family members to watch and enjoy my movies with me. It’s a special memory for me of a great time with my dad and of the very first time I saw HARD TIMES!
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens