The great actress Karen Black would have been 85 years old today.
Karen Black does not receive a lot of screentime in Nashville but she definitely makes an impression as the driven, self-centered, and oddly likeable Connie White. Here she is, performing one of the songs that she wrote herself for the film. The audience was largely made up of actual Nashville residents, who reportedly very much appreciated Black’s performance.
Donald Sutherland, R.I.P.
Here he is as everyone’s favorite professor in 1978’s National Lampoon’s Animal House. Watch he puts John Milton in his place!
We just received word that the Texas Branch is still currently down. It’s been six full days without power. I can’t even begin to imagine the impact, but we’re hoping that they back up and running soon. Case and I are keeping the fires lit here, but it also reminds us of Lisa Marie’s John Wick levels of legendary speed, sheer will, creative output and literary fortitude. We miss the Bowmans, and are rooting for their quick return.
In the meantime, we’re sharing some of our favorite scenes and films. It seems fitting that the Lighting of the Beacons sequence of The Return of the King is our focus here. With the city of Gondor under attack, the steward Denathor (John Noble) doesn’t wish to call for any help. With Pippin’s (Billy Boyd) help, Gandalf (Ian McKellan) gets word out to Rohan in a most spectactular fashion. Howard Shore’s score amplifies the sequence to epic levels.
Enjoy!
Today, we wish a happy birthday to the most recent winner of the Oscar for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy!
While Murphy won for his lead role in Oppenheimer, he’s been an intriguing cinematic presence for over two decades and, of course, he’s been a long-time favorite of director Christopher Nolan’s. In 2017’s Dunkirk he had a small but pivotal role as a shell-shocked soldier. Murphy’s haunting performance serves as a reminder that even the most heroic moments of a war often come at great cost to the soldiers involved.
Today is John C. Reilly’s 59th birthday. This provides me with a great reason to share a scene that I love from 1997’s Boogie Nights. In this scene, John C. Reilly and Mark Wahlberg star in one of the best films never actually made, Angels Live In My Town.
Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell were quite a team.
Today, we wish a happy 59th birthday to director Tom Tykwer.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Tykwer’s 1998 masterpiece, Run, Lola, Run. Everyone has their own system when it comes to gambling but I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a system as effective as Lola’s.
117 years ago today, Laurence Olivier was born in Surrey. The son of a clergyman, Olivier would go on to become one of the greatest stage actors of the 20th Century. He would also have a distinguished film career, one that led to him frequently being described as being the world’s greatest living actor.
He is perhaps best-known for his Shakespearean performances. He won multiple Oscars for directing and starring in 1948’s Hamlet. Today’s scene that I love comes from that film and features Olivier at his best, as both an actor and a director.
I saw that today was Mr. T’s birthday and, for a while now, I’ve been reviewing T and T, a Canadian detective show that he starred in for three seasons. I figured I could have shared a scene that I love from T and T but there really aren’t any scenes from T and T that are worth loving. Besides, we all know what we immediately think of when it comes to Mr. T.
For today’s scene that I love, here’s Mr. T as Clubber Lang in Rocky III:
Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1940 film, The Philadelphia Story, and it features my favorite Golden Age actor, James Stewart, carrying Katharine Hepburn and singing a song that might sound a bit familiar to our readers.
This is the performance, by the way, that won Stewart an Oscar. Stewart himself often said that he felt the Academy rewarded him to make up for not giving him the Oscar for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. That’s probably true but still, this film features Jimmy Stewart at his most charming. Teaming Stewart up with not just Katharine Hepburn but also Cary Grant makes The Philadelphia Story one of the best romantic comedies to come out of Hollywood’s pre-war era.
(Before the war, Stewart was Jimmy. After he served bravely in World War II and returned to America, he was definitely James.)
Today is Pete Townshend’s 79th birthday and today’s scene that I love features Pete Townshend (as a member of The Who) performing at Woodstock in 1969.
Roger Daltrey later said that this was the worst gig that they ever played and The Who did end up going on stage early in the morning, with the sun rising as they performed See Me, Feel Me. The majority of The Who’s performance was not included in the initial release of the Woodstock documentary but the noticeably grainy footage would later be included in various rereleases.
Unfortunately, no cameras recorded the moment when Pete Townshend became the hero that 1969 needed by kicking a ranting Abbie Hoffman off of the stage. But, audio of the incident survived.
Here is The Who at Woodstock:
Through the Shattered Lens 