Cyrus?
He’s the one and only.
From 1979’s The Warriors (which was directed by Walter Hill, who celebrates his birthday today), here’s a scene that I love. Playing the role of Cyrus, the man who could bring all of the gangs of New York together, is Roger Hill. Playing the role of his assassin is the great David Patrick Kelly.
Cyrus knew what he was talking about but the world wasn’t ready for him.
Can you dig it?
In 1925, on this very date, Lee Van Cleef was born in Somervillve, New Jersey. In honor of what would have been Lee Van Cleef’s 100th birthday, here he is with Klaus Kinski and Clint Eastwood in For A Few Dollars More.
There’s not a lot of dialogue in this scene but when you had actors like Eastwood, Kinski, and Lee Van Cleef, you didn’t need a lot of dialogue to make an impression.
Predator (1987, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Donald McAlpine)
Look at how happy everyone is! Well, everyone except for Dutch. I don’t blame Dutch for not smiling. He had to deal with a lot in 1987’s Predator. Still, today’s scene that I love encourages us all to stay upbeat, even when we’re being stalked through the jungle by a fearsome extraterrestrial hunter.
If the crew of the Nostromo had smiled more, Alien would have ended on a much happier note.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 61st birthday to the great Nicolas Cage. Over the years, Cage has become an icon of everything that we love about the movies. He’s appeared in great films. He’s appeared in bad films. He’s done films that barely had a budget and he’s appeared in blockbusters. He can do drama. He can do comedy. He can do horror. He can do action. His performances are often so wonderfully bizarre that will sit through the worst films ever made just to catch a Nicolas Cage cameo. And yet, for every strange Cage performance, there’s a Cage performance that is undeniably brilliant, like his performance in Pig.
Today’s scene that I love comes from 1990’s Zandalee. In this scene, Nicolas Cage and Judge Reinhold share a dance on a Louisiana pier.
Today would have been the 100th birthday of inventor and would-be automotive tycoon, John DeLorean. Today’s scene that I love comes from 1985’s Back To The Future and it features DeLorean’s most famous contribution to world of driving (not to mention Doc Brown’s most famous invention, as well!).
Thank you, John DeLorean, for giving us a car so cool that it could travel through time.
1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, which was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, was one of the most underrated of the Bond films. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also starred the most underrated Bond, Pierce Brosnan.
In this pre-credits opening scene, Brosnan shows us exactly who James Bond is meant to be. He’s the best at his job but he still knows how to enjoy himself. After the recent Daniel Craig films, it can be somewhat surprising to go back see how enjoyable James Bond was when he was angst-free.
Where does the admiral want his bombs delivered?
On this date, in 1941, future director George Pan Cosmatos was born in Italy. Cosmatos would go on to direct some of the most financially successfully (if critically lambasted) films of the 80s. He’s also credited as being the director on Tombstone, though it’s generally agreed that Cosmatos largely deferred to Kurt Russell on that film. (Cosmatos was a last minute replacement for the film’s original director.)
Other than Tombstone, Cosmatos is best-known for the films that he did with Sylvester Stallone. And today’s scene that I love comes from the 1986 film, Cobra. In this short but unforgettable scene, we get a chance to learn a little about the Cobra lifestyle. If you have any doubt that Cobra’s a badass, just wait until you see how eats a pizza. He handles his guns just as well as he handle a slice of Pepperoni and a pair of scissors. That Night Slasher better watch out!
(SPOILERS BELOW)
The final moments of Sergio Leone’s epic 1984 gangster film, Once Upon A Time in America, are filed with questions and mysteries.
Who did Noodles (played by Robert De Niro) see standing outside of Max’s mansion? When the garbage truck pulled up, did the mysterious man get in the truck or was he thrown in by some unseen force?
Why, in 1968, did Noodles see a car from the 1920s, one that was full of people who appeared to be celebrating the end of prohibition? Was the car really there or was it an element of Noodles’s past as a gangster suddenly popping into his mind?
Once Upon A Time In America was Sergio Leone’s final film. It’s one that he spent decades trying to get made and, once it was finally produced, it was butchered and re-edited by a studio hacks who demanded that the film tell its story in a linear style. Leone was reportedly heart-broken by how his film was treated. Some have speculated that his disappointment may have even contributed to the heart attack that eventually killed him. It was only after Leone passed that his version of Once Upon A Time In America became widely available in the U.S. This enigmatic epic continues to spark debate. One thing that can’t be denied is that it’s a brilliant film.
As today is Leone’s birthday, it only seems appropriate to share a scene that I love, the final moments of Once Upon A Time In America.
Metropolis (1927, dir by Fritz Lang, DP: Karl Freund and Gunther Rittau)
Since today is National Science Fiction Day, it seems appropriate that today’s scene that I love should come from one of the first great science fiction films! In this scene from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, we get a look at how the future was imagined in 1927. Lang really was not that far off!
Strange Days (1995, dir by Kathryn Bigelow, DP: Matthew F. Leonetti)
2025’s first scene that I love comes to us from a film that was released 30 years ago. With its portrayal of a society desperately looking for both meaning and sensation in an increasingly digitized and detached world, Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days predicted the future and it has continued to find new fans and admirers despite having been a box office disappointment when it was originally released.
In this scene, Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett bring in the new year with the knowledge that they have many more strange days ahead of them.
As do we all.
(It’s always somewhat jarring to see a science fiction film that is set in what is now the past. Welcome to 2000! That said, Strange Days did a very good job of predicting where the world was heading.)
Through the Shattered Lens 