This famous and iconic scene is taken from Federico Fellini’s 1960 film, La Dolce Vita. The film follows tabloid journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) over the course of 7 days and 7 nights. He spends the 2nd day pursuing a famous actress named Sylvia (Anita Ekberg). As the day comes to an end, he finds Anita wading into the Trevi Fountain.
As famous and celebrated as this scene is, it’s often forgotten that it ultimately ends with Sylvia being slapped by her loutish boyfriend, Robert (Lex Barker). That slap is not included in the video below but that’s okay. For today, at least, let’s allow Sylvia her happiness.
What better way to end 2014 than through one of my favorite scenes from Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining.
For those who have watched the film they understand the impact of this scene. For those still needing to see this classic piece of horror filmmaking then what better way to open up the new year than making a resolution to finally sit down and watch The Shining.
2014 has been a very good year in the realm of great television. We have the perennial stand-outs like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Justified and The Americans. Some shows that have been brought down a peg or two in seasons past made a resurgence in quality and consistency with The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy.
Yet, it is with the new kid on the block that I pick my latest “Scenes I Love” and probably the most memorable scene on TV all year. The scene I speak of is the “seance” scene of the second episode of Showtime’s gothic horror series Penny Dreadful. This scene wasn’t even the big reveal in the episode but it ultimately set the tone for what’s to come for the rest of the series’ inaugural season.
The scene focuses on Eva Green’s character, Vanessa Ives, as she attends and participates in a seance held by Madame Kali in the home of renowned Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle. It’s a powerful performance from Eva Green who has become an actor with a penchant for pulling off bravura performances in the small and big screen.
Green’s Ives has several more performances such as these during the rest of the season, but they all didn’t come with that first shock and awe this scene gave the episode and the series. It’s actually a shame that Green’s work on Penny Dreadful hasn’t garnered as much, if any, year end accolades. Her work as Vanessa Ives was that good.
The latest “Scenes I Love” comes courtesy of An Officer and a Gentleman.
This ending sequence to the film has become an iconic scene when one talks about some of the best romantic scenes in film. The film itself was your modern take on the age-old two people from the wrong-sides of the track falling for each other.
The ending scene made the film memorable in the end. It helped that the song written and composed for the film, “Up Where We Belong,” and sung as a duet by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes became as big of a hit as the film itself.
You know that a scene has become a cultural mainstay when The Simpsons did a parody of it which ended up being just as memorable as the original.
Up Where We Belong
Who knows what tomorrow brings in a world few hearts survive All I know is the way I feel when it’s real I keep it alive the road is long There are mountains in our way but we climb the stairway every day
Love lifts us up where we belong where the eagles cry on a mountain high love lifts us up where we belong far from the world below up where the clear winds blow
Some hang on to used to be live their lives looking behind All we have is here and now all our lives out there to find The road is long and there are moutains in our way but we climb the stairway every day
Love lifts us up where we belong where the eagles cry on a mountain high love lifts us up where we belong far from the world we know where the clear wind blows
Time goes by no time cry life’s you and I alive
Love lifts us up where we belong where the eagles cry on a mountain high love lifts us up where we belong far from the world we know where the clear winds blow
Love lifts us up where we belong far from the world we know where the clear winds blow
Love lifts us up where we belong where the eagles cry on a mountain high
Last week I put up as one of the entries for the 27 Days of Old School the classic song by Huey Lewis and the News. That song is “Hip to be Square” and I wrote how that song has become famous as not just being part of a great album of the 80’s, but due to the fact that it became the soundtrack to one of the best scenes from Marry Harron’s American Psycho.
Patrick Bateman’s personal take on “Hip to be Square” resonates not just as a description of the song but of the 1980’s as well.
“Do you like Huey Lewis & The News? Their early work was a little too ‘new-wave’ for my taste, but when Sports came out in ’83, I think they really came into their own – both commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He’s been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humour. In ’87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is ‘Hip To Be Square’, a song so catchy most people probably don’t listen to the lyrics – but they should! Because it’s not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it’s also a personal statement about the band itself! Hey Paul!”
It’s difficult to try and celebrate Halloween without at least remembering the classic John Carpenter film of the same name which help give birth to the slasher horror genre. Halloween has become a staple in my horror watching lists. It joins such other classic horror as the Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Craven’s The Serpent and The Rainbow.
Filmed on a tiny budget of $325,000 and released in 1978, Halloween would introduce to the film world one of it’s most iconic horror figures in the Michale Myers. The film’s opening would become famous in it’s own right as it didn’t just give us a look into Michael Myers backstory, but make the film audience become almost active participant in the murder that introduced us to our killer.
This extended introduction scene let’s the audience see through Michael Myers’ eyes as he stalks through the house towards his sister’s room where he commits his first murder. This point of view through the eye holes of Michael’s mask would be repeated several times throughout the film.
All I can say about this scene is that I guarantee every guy who watches this will want to cross their legs tight. They may just scream as well just as a reflex action to what happens in the end.
Yet, as one watches this torture scene of the main lead in the film the audience never really sees anything. Everything’s implied and we see signs of what’s about to happen throughout the segment.
The Serpent and The Rainbow continues to be one of my favorite horror films and one of my favorite Wes Craven offerings.
I know some people like and even love the vampire film Daybreakers when it arrived in theaters in early 2010. I’m not one of those who love Daybreakers as my review can attest, but I did like some of the ideas brought up by The Spierig Brothers who wrote and directed the film. One could say that I begrudgingly like the film despite its many flaws.
One of the things I did like about this film was how unabashed it was in keeping the whole affair a rated-R affair. Unlike most vampire films which have come out the last decade or so this one doesn’t shy from the grue that others have. Daybreakers was definitely not of the Twilight branch of the vampiric subgenre.
My favorite scene in the film happens pretty much around the end of it. It saved the film from becoming a total dull, boring affair into one worthy of being talked about if just for this one scene. One could come into the film just at this scene alone and forget that they’re watching a vampire film but a zombie one instead. The gore was just so over-the-top and it’s staging so well-done that I couldn’t stop from having a silly grin of enjoyment from escaping.
Anyone who have gotten to know me throughout the years (decades even) know one indisputable fact and that’s one of my favorite films of all-time is George A. Romero’s classic horror masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead.
This film is not just a great horror film, but just a great film. Sure, some have said that it hasn’t aged well, but those detractors only see the era it was filmed in. If one looks part that then they can see that Dawn of the Dead works just as well now as it did when it premiered in 1978.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is actually the beginning of the film. It’s rare that a film can fully capture and explain an overriding theme in the film’s narrative right from the beginning, but Romero did it and did it well.
The scene I’m talking about is the film’s intro that’s set in a chaotic Pittsburgh TV station. It’s a scene of chaos because the zombie apocalypse is already in full swing and people have begun to lose their trust in the fourth estate. In times of crisis the people depend on the news to bring to them answers or, at the very least, the correct information to survive said crisis. In Dawn of the Dead, the fourth estate has failed as in that they’ve become just as unreliable as the rest of the mechanisms which make civilization operate.
Even when the right information was being relayed by the the guest scientist in the scene, the audience reaction (the tv station crew themselves) was one of exasperation and disbelief. This scene would influence future zombie apocalypse stories both in film, tv and print in that the people would lose faith and trust in the very institution who were supposed to be trusted to be objective and informative.
This is just one of several scenes from Dawn of the Dead which I consider a favorite, but then the entire film I would consider a favorite scene as a whole in a story that hasn’t ended.
Through the Shattered Lens 