Since I just reviewed Paul Schrader’s 1982 version of Cat People, I figured that I’d show a scene from the film that I love.
In this film, Irena (Natassja Kinski) has a dream in which her brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell) explains the curse under which they both live. This dream leads directly into the first part of the film’s best sequence, in which Alice (Annette O’Toole) suspects that she’s being followed while out jogging.
Everything about this scene — from the music to the sets to the cinematography — is horror perfection as far as I’m concerned.
I know next to nothing about the 1983 film Uncommon Valor, beyond what I read on Wikipedia and the imdb. (It’s an action film. Shit gets blown up.) But, a few days ago, I came across the end credits on Movies TV and I quickly fell in love with the little dance that ends the film.
The dancer, by the way, is a gentleman named Randall “Tex” Cobb, who was apparently a former boxer and who played the Warthog from Hell in Raising Arizona.
Hi, everyone! Well, as you read this, I am currently on vacation! That’s right — I put off my vacation for the entire summer because I had a job writing about Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog. Now that the show is over, I am officially on vacation for the next two weeks!
But don’t worry! Just because I’m going to be busy exploring this wonderful world of ours for the next two weeks, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t already written and scheduled several posts to keep everyone amused over the next couple of days!
Starting on October 1st, it’ll be our annual horror month here on the Shattered Lens. But, until that day, allow me to share a few dance scenes that I love and I hope that you’ll love them too!
Let’s get things started with one of my all-time favorites, Gene Kelly ad Cyd Charisse dancing in the Broadway Melody scene from 1952’s Singing in the Rain!
Like our intrepid TV correspondent, Patrick Smith, I also watched the Emmy Awards last night. There were bits of the show that I liked and there was a lot about the show that I didn’t care for. I felt that Andy Samberg fell flat as host. I thought that a lot of the acceptance speeches were so dull that I considered them to be a personal attack on anyone watching. (I’m looking in your direction, Lisa Cholodenko.) The political posturing felt shallow, as it often does at the Emmy awards.
(Even the political speeches that did work often seemed like they were being wasted on a crowd that has no concept of self-awareness. Viola Davis made a passionate, timely, and articulate plea for diversity but it’s hard not to feel that, even though all the white liberals in the room patted themselves on the back for listening to her and applauding, that’s probably all that they’re going to do.)
And yet I was happy because Veep — my absolute favorite show — finally won for Best Comedy! I love Veep because it’s a show where everyone in politics — regardless of party or ideology — is revealed to be either a terrible human being or totally and completely ineffectual. Julia Lous-Dreyfus won the Emmy for Best Comedy Actress while Tony Hale picked up his second consecutive supporting award.
The only disappointment in Veep‘s victory? Anna Chlumsky did not win the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. This season of Veep was truly Chlumsky’s season! The scene below — which is today’s scene that I love — shows Chlumsky at her absolute best. In this scene, Chlumsky’s Amy Brookhiemer finally reaches her breaking point as she realizes that her boss, President Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus), essentially stands for nothing.
Even though most of us will never work for or even know a President, I think we can all relate to Amy’s feelings. And, seriously — who hasn’t wanted to tell someone off as beautifully as Amy does here?
For this scene alone, Anna Chlumsky deserves all the awards in the world!
It’s also Dario Argento’s 75th birthday! And what better way to celebrate the maestro‘s birthday than with a scene that I love?
The opening of Argento’s 1977 masterpiece, Suspiria, is about as perfect an opening as one could hope for. American ballet student Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) arrives in Frieburg, Germany. Both Argento and Harper perfectly portray Suzy’s confusion as she makes her way through the airport and, as torrential rain drenches her, attempts to hail a taxi and get a ride to the dance academy. (What Suzy doesn’t know, of course, is that the dance academy is home to the ancient witch known as Our Mother of Sighs.) With this opening scene, Argento both immediately establishes the off-center, nightmarish atmosphere of Suspiria and establishes Suzy as a character who we, as the audience, relate to and care about. Suspiria is a great film and it all begins with this brilliant opening.
Earlier today, Jeff and I saw Ex Machina and we thought it was brilliant! Now, before I (among others here at the TSL) get around to posting a full review later this week, I thought I would share a scene that I loved from the film. This is the scene that, when it happened, everyone in the theater suddenly realized that they were watching a movie that they would never forget.
I’m not going to go into the details of just why Oscar Isaac and his “friend” are dancing in this scene. For now, all that’s important is that they are.
As I sit here typing this at nearly 2 in the morning, this is what our front yard currently looks like:
Now, admittedly, this is nothing compared to what fellow TSL writers Pantsukudasai56 and Leon The Duke are having to deal with up in Massachusetts. However, Erin and I live in Texas, where we consider 90 to be a cold front. So, to us, that is a lot of snow!
(Add to that, it’s still coming down…)
As I watched the flakes fall and I realized that our cat’s outside water bowl had now disappeared under a mountain of snow, I couldn’t help but think of one of the best (and most snow-filled) films ever made, 1996’s Fargo. Fargo is a film about many things: greed, love, home, fate, guilt, and innocence. It’s also a film that’s full of snow.
And tonight’s Scene That I Love comes from Fargo. When people talk about Fargo, they always seem to mention the woodchipper scene, the accents, and maybe the scene where William H. Macy flees the interview. However, for me, the film’s best scene comes towards the end. As Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) drives Gaer Grismund (Peter Stomare) to jail, she reflects on everything that’s happened.
Even though I’ve seen Fargo several times, this scene still always gets to me. First off, there’s always a part of me that’s scared that Grismund is somehow going to attack Marge from the backseat. But, beyond that, this is the scene where Marge reminds us that, for all the bad in the world, there’s still good as well.
Through the Shattered Lens 