I’ve never actually seen the 1987 film Slaughterhouse Rock. I’ve just seen the trailer included in a few compilations and, thanks to YouTube, I’ve seen the scene below. The only context that I can give for this scene is what I read on Wikipedia.
Apparently, in this scene, a ghost played by the great choreographer Toni Basil does a dance that gives the main character’s spirit the ability to roam free of his physical body. And, during the dance, we see a lot of earlier scenes from the movie. Or something like that. I don’t know. I just like the scene because of the music and Toni Basil.
I’ve always felt that dancing can take you into a spiritual realm of existence. This scene proves my point.
This scene that I love comes from the classic 1931 horror film, Frankenstein. In this poignant scene, Frankenstein’s Monster (Boris Karloff) meets young Maria. Maria is the first human to treat the Monster with true kindness. Unfortunately, the Monster does not understand that, unlike flower petals, Maria does not float.
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.
Through the Shattered Lens 