Happy San Jacinto Day!
You can celebrate by watching my favorite scene from Richard Linklater’s Bernie! I really love this quick lesson about my home state:
By the way, that line about “Dallas snobs,” always got a big laugh from the audiences at the Dallas Angelika. It’s important to have a sense of humor.
Don’t worry, Vermont. You’ll learn how to laugh at yourself someday.
Today’s scene that I love comes to use from Andy Warhol’s 1965 film, Vinyl!
In this scene below, Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgwick dance to Nowhere to Run by Martha and The Vandellas. Malanga is playing an out-of-control juvenile delinquent. Edie is playing …. well, Edie is basically playing herself. No one smoked a cigarette with as much style as Edie Sedgwick.
Today, we wish a happy birthday to actor Hayden Christensen.
This scene that I love comes from the 2003 film Shattered Glass, in which Christensen played real-life journalist and fabulist Stephen Glass. In this wonderfully-acted scene, Glass’s (fake) reporting falls apart as Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) walks through Glass’s claims.
1983’s Star 80 features one of Eric Roberts’s best and most disturbing performances. On the one hand, it’s the film that proved Roberts’s talent. On the other hand, it’s a film in which he does such a good job bringing the repellent Paul Snider to life that he reportedly struggled to convince casting agents that he could characters who weren’t shady and/or mentally unstable.
In this scene, Roberts-as-Snider gets his look down. Snider, a man who has no real identity beyond his desire to be somebody, tries to disguise his emptiness through the right haircut and the right clothes.
This scene that I love features one of the greatest lines of all time. From John Milius’s 1984 masterpiece, Red Dawn:
Given how much I love the 1953 film, Roman Holiday, I’ve probably shared this scene before but that’s okay. It’s an incredibly charming scene and hey, April is the birth month of both Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn!
Today would have been the birthday of the great character actor, Frank Vincent.
Here he is in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, coming out of nowhere to (albeit briefly) take over the film.
The Shining (1980, dir by Stanley Kubrick)
Today would have been the 102nd birthday of character actor Philip Stone. While Stone appeared in a lot of films, he’ll probably always be best-remembered for his subtly menacing turn as the ghostly Grady in 1980’s The Shining. Here he is, having a conversation with Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) and letting him know that he’s always been caretaker.
I love Audrey Hepburn, especially in this wonderful film from director Stanley Donen! The dance starts 3:07 into the video.
Today would have been the birthday of actor Tom Noonan. Today’s scene that I love is a short scene featuring Noonan from 1995’s Heat. Noonan doesn’t have a lot of screentime but his character is key to the plot. In this scene, Noonan shows how much a great character actor can do, even with limited screentime.
Through the Shattered Lens 