The Exterminating Angel
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
CHARLES IN CHARGE
After having yet another disappointing Evanstonian dining experience, Viv and I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Monday night. I'll cut to the chase since I'm sure that anyone with a pulse knows the story.
The best thing that I can say about Tim Burton's version is that the prologue leading up to the tour of Willy Wonka's factory is far superior to the one in the previous film. These early scenes have a nice wintery gloom that captures the spirit of Dahl's book and a much stronger sense of pacing. We actually enjoy meeting Charlie and his family and don't feel as if we're just killing time until Willy Wonka makes his appearance. It helps that the actors who play Charlie and his immediate family are uniformly good. Freddie Highmore is much more natural than Peter Ostrum, the first Charlie; his Charlie is kind and caring, but he doesn't turn the character into a bland, goody-two-shoes. All of Charlie's grandparents are much better in Burton's film too. Unlike the prior film, they all register with distinct personalties, particularly Grampas Joe and George. I also liked Noah Taylor as Charlie's father; I don't think I've ever seen him in a film where he wasn't interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, as the film moves on to the tour of the Chocolate Factory it loses its crisp pace and distinct look. The vignettes featuring the disposal of the children have a static, slack feel that contrasts poorly with the brisk, snappy tone of the earlier film. The big problem is Johnny Depp's performance, or, more accurately, the director's failure to react to the performance. Depp's Wonka is an androgynous child-man; with his somewhat high-pitched voice and drugged demeanor there's more than a hint of Michael Jackson about him. This Willy Wonka is so odd that we stop anticipating the story moving forward and keep waiting for him to do something strange or disturbing. We react with nervous laughter to each bizarre thing that he does or says, but then nothing comes of it. Burton appears to have had the same reaction to Depp, letting each Depp outburst hang in the air until it dies, the puzzled looks on the faces of the children mirroring our own.
Burton and the other makers of the film seem to have lacked the courage to make Willy Wonka a truly frightening character; they've settled for surface oddity instead. Gene Wilder's Wonka was certainly a strange bird, but Wilder was so understated that it was difficult to tell if his intent was truly malicious or if he was merely playing games with his tourists. That ambiguity made the character fascinating to watch. Depp's Wonka is just pathetic; the only way to make him interesting would have been to push him much farther to the dark side. Instead, we get a back story of an abusive, candy-withholding, dentist-father, played by Christopher Lee. This newfound past for Wonka is a tacit admission by the film-makers that they don't want the character to be too menacing, that they would rather we sympathize with him. The effect is to reduce one of the great characters of children's literature to the stuff of Dr. Phil's waiting room.
I was also surprised that each set for each vignette so closely resembled the earlier film's design. I wasn't necessarily expecting a completely different look, but I didn't think it would be so similar. I'm assuming that the sameness stems from Burton's faithfulness to the book, but for someone that seems to put so much effort into the look of his films, it's strange that this film still looks quite a bit like the wonderfully cheesy early 70s film. That's the problem though; while the earlier film's look was just short of campy, it had a touching humanity to it. Everything felt the right size. Burton's film feels colder and more empty; Wonka's factory is bigger with large, ominous, dark spaces that dwarf the actors. There's more than a whiff of Stanley Kubrick about the whole thing.
What is it with Tim Burton anyway? I've never understood the appeal of his films. To me, they've just been a series of over-detailed sets surrounding quirky characters. Burton seems to be trying for disturbing and mysterious, but the films just seem cute and clever to me. I don't get the sense that anything tragic, or even unpleasant, has ever happened to Burton. I feel like he's fascinated with doom and gloom like a high school goth kid, and similarly, there's no experience or conviction behind his vision. He's a poseur. ¶ 9:37 AM 0 comments
The best thing that I can say about Tim Burton's version is that the prologue leading up to the tour of Willy Wonka's factory is far superior to the one in the previous film. These early scenes have a nice wintery gloom that captures the spirit of Dahl's book and a much stronger sense of pacing. We actually enjoy meeting Charlie and his family and don't feel as if we're just killing time until Willy Wonka makes his appearance. It helps that the actors who play Charlie and his immediate family are uniformly good. Freddie Highmore is much more natural than Peter Ostrum, the first Charlie; his Charlie is kind and caring, but he doesn't turn the character into a bland, goody-two-shoes. All of Charlie's grandparents are much better in Burton's film too. Unlike the prior film, they all register with distinct personalties, particularly Grampas Joe and George. I also liked Noah Taylor as Charlie's father; I don't think I've ever seen him in a film where he wasn't interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, as the film moves on to the tour of the Chocolate Factory it loses its crisp pace and distinct look. The vignettes featuring the disposal of the children have a static, slack feel that contrasts poorly with the brisk, snappy tone of the earlier film. The big problem is Johnny Depp's performance, or, more accurately, the director's failure to react to the performance. Depp's Wonka is an androgynous child-man; with his somewhat high-pitched voice and drugged demeanor there's more than a hint of Michael Jackson about him. This Willy Wonka is so odd that we stop anticipating the story moving forward and keep waiting for him to do something strange or disturbing. We react with nervous laughter to each bizarre thing that he does or says, but then nothing comes of it. Burton appears to have had the same reaction to Depp, letting each Depp outburst hang in the air until it dies, the puzzled looks on the faces of the children mirroring our own.
Burton and the other makers of the film seem to have lacked the courage to make Willy Wonka a truly frightening character; they've settled for surface oddity instead. Gene Wilder's Wonka was certainly a strange bird, but Wilder was so understated that it was difficult to tell if his intent was truly malicious or if he was merely playing games with his tourists. That ambiguity made the character fascinating to watch. Depp's Wonka is just pathetic; the only way to make him interesting would have been to push him much farther to the dark side. Instead, we get a back story of an abusive, candy-withholding, dentist-father, played by Christopher Lee. This newfound past for Wonka is a tacit admission by the film-makers that they don't want the character to be too menacing, that they would rather we sympathize with him. The effect is to reduce one of the great characters of children's literature to the stuff of Dr. Phil's waiting room.
I was also surprised that each set for each vignette so closely resembled the earlier film's design. I wasn't necessarily expecting a completely different look, but I didn't think it would be so similar. I'm assuming that the sameness stems from Burton's faithfulness to the book, but for someone that seems to put so much effort into the look of his films, it's strange that this film still looks quite a bit like the wonderfully cheesy early 70s film. That's the problem though; while the earlier film's look was just short of campy, it had a touching humanity to it. Everything felt the right size. Burton's film feels colder and more empty; Wonka's factory is bigger with large, ominous, dark spaces that dwarf the actors. There's more than a whiff of Stanley Kubrick about the whole thing.
What is it with Tim Burton anyway? I've never understood the appeal of his films. To me, they've just been a series of over-detailed sets surrounding quirky characters. Burton seems to be trying for disturbing and mysterious, but the films just seem cute and clever to me. I don't get the sense that anything tragic, or even unpleasant, has ever happened to Burton. I feel like he's fascinated with doom and gloom like a high school goth kid, and similarly, there's no experience or conviction behind his vision. He's a poseur. ¶ 9:37 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
PIANO MAN
Saw Jacques Audiard's The Beat My Heart Skipped at, you guessed it, Landmark's Century Centre last night.
Plot: Thomas (Romian Duris) is a Parisian in his late twenties earning a living harassing immigrants out of their apartments. He and his friends buy up the buildings at rock bottom prices to sell them at a profit. Thomas also has a difficult relationship with his bearish father(Niels Arestrup), who is in the same line of work. But there's more to Thomas. His late mother was a concert pianist and he was something of a prodigy himself, but he stopped playing not long after his mother's death.
One night, as Thomas is cruising around Paris, he spots his mother's former concert manager. He approaches the man, who remembers Thomas, and is asked to audition some time. From this point on, Thomas is consumed by the piano, hiring an Asian woman who speaks no French to give him lessons. The more Thomas devotes himself to the piano, the further he drifts from his old life, making his business partners very unhappy. Thomas must choose between the two.
The makers of The Beat My Heart Skipped shot on location in and around Paris, giving the film a realistic and, at times, gritty feel. It has a cool, sleek look, lots of grays and blues, and many scenes shot at night. They use handheld cameras too, but not to suggest an annoying, trite "immediacy," but to stress the tension,violence, and energy of Thomas's life.
The camera is often close in on the faces of their actors, giving the film an intimate feel. It also helps that all the performances were great, with Romian Duris standing out, in particular. Looking like a lost member of the Strokes, he's in almost every scene of the film; the camera often focused on his face in close-up. He shoulders the burden admirably, giving a superb performance, mostly through body language. He turns his chin downward to his chest, his shoulders slumped, suggesting the Thomas's need to withdraw into himself. This inwardness also makes it more shocking when Thomas bursts into sudden violence. Niels Arestrup is also good as Thomas's father. The character is a step away from a petty criminal and bully, but the actor shows us the character's charm and the power it has over his seemingly indifferent son.
While The Beat My Heart Skipped was very good, it could have been shorter by ten to fifteen minutes without losing anything. There are a few too many scenes of Thomas practicing the piano with his Asian tutor, arguing with his shady friends, and an affair with a married woman, that while fun, doesn't go anywhere. The film's finale, while tying everything together seemed rushed, not quite thought out. Still, this was an exciting, suspenseful, and moving character study. ¶ 9:15 AM 0 comments
Plot: Thomas (Romian Duris) is a Parisian in his late twenties earning a living harassing immigrants out of their apartments. He and his friends buy up the buildings at rock bottom prices to sell them at a profit. Thomas also has a difficult relationship with his bearish father(Niels Arestrup), who is in the same line of work. But there's more to Thomas. His late mother was a concert pianist and he was something of a prodigy himself, but he stopped playing not long after his mother's death.
One night, as Thomas is cruising around Paris, he spots his mother's former concert manager. He approaches the man, who remembers Thomas, and is asked to audition some time. From this point on, Thomas is consumed by the piano, hiring an Asian woman who speaks no French to give him lessons. The more Thomas devotes himself to the piano, the further he drifts from his old life, making his business partners very unhappy. Thomas must choose between the two.
The makers of The Beat My Heart Skipped shot on location in and around Paris, giving the film a realistic and, at times, gritty feel. It has a cool, sleek look, lots of grays and blues, and many scenes shot at night. They use handheld cameras too, but not to suggest an annoying, trite "immediacy," but to stress the tension,violence, and energy of Thomas's life.
The camera is often close in on the faces of their actors, giving the film an intimate feel. It also helps that all the performances were great, with Romian Duris standing out, in particular. Looking like a lost member of the Strokes, he's in almost every scene of the film; the camera often focused on his face in close-up. He shoulders the burden admirably, giving a superb performance, mostly through body language. He turns his chin downward to his chest, his shoulders slumped, suggesting the Thomas's need to withdraw into himself. This inwardness also makes it more shocking when Thomas bursts into sudden violence. Niels Arestrup is also good as Thomas's father. The character is a step away from a petty criminal and bully, but the actor shows us the character's charm and the power it has over his seemingly indifferent son.
While The Beat My Heart Skipped was very good, it could have been shorter by ten to fifteen minutes without losing anything. There are a few too many scenes of Thomas practicing the piano with his Asian tutor, arguing with his shady friends, and an affair with a married woman, that while fun, doesn't go anywhere. The film's finale, while tying everything together seemed rushed, not quite thought out. Still, this was an exciting, suspenseful, and moving character study. ¶ 9:15 AM 0 comments
Monday, July 18, 2005
MODERN LOVE
Vivian and I went to dinner in Evanston on Friday night. Evanston is a strange place. You know you're in a big city, or at least in a city next to a big city, but it has a quasi-suburban feel to it. It's really neither here nor there, neither city nor suburb. You feel this in its restaurants in particular. Many of them try to be interesting or off-beat, but they're tentative about it. They don't seem to want to offend anyone. It makes for dissappointing eating.
To combat high expectations, Vivian and I went Chili's. I felt very in touch with my inner, suburban-American child there. You know, its' the kind of place with a lot of crap on the walls and waitstaff in matching polo shirts. I ordered the fajitas, which had a weird processed-food taste, as if they had a frozen bag of fajita mix in the kitchen and just tossed it in a microwave after I ordered. Actually, that's probably what happened. Thankfully, I had a very large beer to go with the ersatz fajitas, which seemed to improved their taste, and my mood.
After buying a large, metallic frog candle-holder for my mother for her birthday, Viv and I went to see Wedding Crashers.
I don't have a lot to say about Wedding Crashers except that it was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I hadn't even thought about seeing it until Friday, when I noticed that it received almost uniformly positive reviews. This piqued my interest, but I still wasn't sold until I found out that Christopher Walken plays the Secretary of the Treasury. I figured that any movie that has Christopher Walken as the Secretary of the Treasury must have something to offer.
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play lovable sleaze-bags who have devoted their lives to picking up attractive, vulnerable women at weddings. The opening section sets up their M.O., with an extended montage of receptions of various religious faiths. Wilson does his laid back smooth-talker thing and Vaughn does his manic, fast-talker thing. Their styles complement each other perfectly. (By the way, has anyone noticed Vince's head these days? It looks like it weighs about fifty pounds. Is he using Barry Bonds's personal trainer? People need to start talking about this.)
The plot kicks in when our heroes decide to crash the wedding of Walken's daughter, the social event of the season. Both men then become involved with the Secretary's other daughters: Vaughn because he's looking for an easy lay, Wilson because he falls in love. As Wilson is smitten, he convinces Vaughn to tag along with him to Walken's summer home. Mayhem ensues, including: a violent game of touch football, a foul-mouthed drunken grandmother, a gay, artist son who paints a portrait of Vaughn, and a hunting accident.
Wedding Crashers isn't a great film; it gets more formulaic and cliched as it goes on. But it was frequently very funny and in W's God-besotted America, it had a nice bite to it. Indeed it had nudity, casual sex, and cussing. All of which was pretty damn refreshing in today's moral climate. ¶ 9:01 AM 0 comments
To combat high expectations, Vivian and I went Chili's. I felt very in touch with my inner, suburban-American child there. You know, its' the kind of place with a lot of crap on the walls and waitstaff in matching polo shirts. I ordered the fajitas, which had a weird processed-food taste, as if they had a frozen bag of fajita mix in the kitchen and just tossed it in a microwave after I ordered. Actually, that's probably what happened. Thankfully, I had a very large beer to go with the ersatz fajitas, which seemed to improved their taste, and my mood.
After buying a large, metallic frog candle-holder for my mother for her birthday, Viv and I went to see Wedding Crashers.
I don't have a lot to say about Wedding Crashers except that it was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I hadn't even thought about seeing it until Friday, when I noticed that it received almost uniformly positive reviews. This piqued my interest, but I still wasn't sold until I found out that Christopher Walken plays the Secretary of the Treasury. I figured that any movie that has Christopher Walken as the Secretary of the Treasury must have something to offer.
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play lovable sleaze-bags who have devoted their lives to picking up attractive, vulnerable women at weddings. The opening section sets up their M.O., with an extended montage of receptions of various religious faiths. Wilson does his laid back smooth-talker thing and Vaughn does his manic, fast-talker thing. Their styles complement each other perfectly. (By the way, has anyone noticed Vince's head these days? It looks like it weighs about fifty pounds. Is he using Barry Bonds's personal trainer? People need to start talking about this.)
The plot kicks in when our heroes decide to crash the wedding of Walken's daughter, the social event of the season. Both men then become involved with the Secretary's other daughters: Vaughn because he's looking for an easy lay, Wilson because he falls in love. As Wilson is smitten, he convinces Vaughn to tag along with him to Walken's summer home. Mayhem ensues, including: a violent game of touch football, a foul-mouthed drunken grandmother, a gay, artist son who paints a portrait of Vaughn, and a hunting accident.
Wedding Crashers isn't a great film; it gets more formulaic and cliched as it goes on. But it was frequently very funny and in W's God-besotted America, it had a nice bite to it. Indeed it had nudity, casual sex, and cussing. All of which was pretty damn refreshing in today's moral climate. ¶ 9:01 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
"EVERYTHING SHE SAYS IS A LIE, INCLUDING 'AND' AND 'THE'"
Well, I did it. I finally made my way back to a movie theater for the first time in about a month, catching Me and You and Everyone We Know at the Landmark Century Centre last night. It felt both good and bad to be back. The good: Being intellectually engaged with a new film for an hour and a half on a Monday night. The bad: The annoying people that I saw the film with and, sadly, the film itself.
First of all the audience: I got to the mall and stepped into the elevator to go up to the theater. Just as the door was closing, two other people got in, a man and a woman. The man - late twenties or early thirties, bad facial hair - began talking at the top of his voice to the woman about his brother coming out of the closet. It was a short elevator ride, but I got to hear all kinds of details about his brother's sexual and romantic life, dating from when he first popped out of the womb. As the elevator reached our destination, the woman asked, "And you had no idea?" To which the man replied, "You know fags, they're so secretive." Needless to say, they were going to see the same movie.
Me and You and Everyone We Know, written and directed by Miranda July, who is also the lead actress, is about a group of people leading interconnected lives in, well, uh, L.A., maybe. In the opening scene, Richard (John Hawkes) is separating from his wife; they have two sons, Peter (Miles Thompson), about twelve to fourteen, and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), about six. Richard is understandably upset about the situation, and tells his wife and children that they should do something to commemorate the break-up. They respond to his idea with blank looks. He then walks out to the front yard of the family home, douses his hand with lighter fluid, and sets it on fire.
How's that for an opener? We don't know Richard, don't know much about him, yet the film asks us to sympathize with him from the start, even though we've seen him do something incredibly self-destructive and almost certainly frightening to his children. It's not that I can't feel any sympathy for anyone that engages in self-destructive bahvior, it's that I need to know a little more about that person before I commiserate. But wait, you might say, you're not being fair, this was the first scene, didn't the movie go on to develop the characters so that you could make a more considered decision about whether you sympathized with them or not? My answer is that Me and You and Everyone We Know attempted to develop the characters, but in such an unbelievable manner that I wound up not caring about them at all.
For example, getting back to the burned hand. After that incident, the film moves on to Richard's everyday life as a shoe salesman in a department store. He mentions his burned hand to a co-worker, again saying something to the effect that he wanted to somehow mark his separation from his wife. The co-worker is generally sympathetic, acts like Richard is just fine. We then see Richard's sons coming to spend the weekend with him. Is it really likely that a man who has intentionally lit his hand on fire and talks about it nonchalantly would be treated as a friend by his co-workers? Would he be given joint custody of his children, one of whom is very young? It's possible, I suppose, but unlikely. The film doesn't address the potentially serious consequences of the hand-burning, instead it expects us to be satisfied with Richard's blithe, new-agey explanation, "I was trying to save my life." Well, I guess it's okay to light your hand on fire, if you have a nice poetic way of explaining it.
There are other equally unlikely developments in Me and You and Everyone We Know, I'll just list a few: six-year old Robby frequents internet sex chat rooms where he likes to write about poop; he arranges to meet a stranger at a park; the stranger turns out to be someone connected to the other characters; the young girl that lives next door to Richard and befriends Peter buys expensive home appliances so that she will have a "dowry" for her husband; Richard's co-worker has a sexually suggestive conversation with two teenage girls in the neighborhood and then posts signs on his living room window about the things that he wants to do to them; the two girls have an argument about who's better at oral sex and settle it by experimenting on Peter.
None of these incidents are entirely unbelievable, but they're all unlikely, and cumulatively they make Me and You and Everyone We Know feel false. I felt like I was just watching a lot of quirky behavior that was quirky for its own sake. I never came to a deeper understanding of any of the characters; they felt opaque from beginning to end. I couldn't tell you any more about them after the film was over than before it began.
The insidious thing about the quirkiness Me and You and Everyone We Know is that to many people it's judgment-proof. People just say, "Hey, it's quirky. So what? People do all kinds of strange things." My response is that art tries to engage with human experience, tries to say something, however small, about human existence. Observing behavior that is odd for the sake of being odd is one thing, but to pretend that it has something to say about human life is ludicrous. ¶ 8:10 AM 0 comments
First of all the audience: I got to the mall and stepped into the elevator to go up to the theater. Just as the door was closing, two other people got in, a man and a woman. The man - late twenties or early thirties, bad facial hair - began talking at the top of his voice to the woman about his brother coming out of the closet. It was a short elevator ride, but I got to hear all kinds of details about his brother's sexual and romantic life, dating from when he first popped out of the womb. As the elevator reached our destination, the woman asked, "And you had no idea?" To which the man replied, "You know fags, they're so secretive." Needless to say, they were going to see the same movie.
Me and You and Everyone We Know, written and directed by Miranda July, who is also the lead actress, is about a group of people leading interconnected lives in, well, uh, L.A., maybe. In the opening scene, Richard (John Hawkes) is separating from his wife; they have two sons, Peter (Miles Thompson), about twelve to fourteen, and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), about six. Richard is understandably upset about the situation, and tells his wife and children that they should do something to commemorate the break-up. They respond to his idea with blank looks. He then walks out to the front yard of the family home, douses his hand with lighter fluid, and sets it on fire.
How's that for an opener? We don't know Richard, don't know much about him, yet the film asks us to sympathize with him from the start, even though we've seen him do something incredibly self-destructive and almost certainly frightening to his children. It's not that I can't feel any sympathy for anyone that engages in self-destructive bahvior, it's that I need to know a little more about that person before I commiserate. But wait, you might say, you're not being fair, this was the first scene, didn't the movie go on to develop the characters so that you could make a more considered decision about whether you sympathized with them or not? My answer is that Me and You and Everyone We Know attempted to develop the characters, but in such an unbelievable manner that I wound up not caring about them at all.
For example, getting back to the burned hand. After that incident, the film moves on to Richard's everyday life as a shoe salesman in a department store. He mentions his burned hand to a co-worker, again saying something to the effect that he wanted to somehow mark his separation from his wife. The co-worker is generally sympathetic, acts like Richard is just fine. We then see Richard's sons coming to spend the weekend with him. Is it really likely that a man who has intentionally lit his hand on fire and talks about it nonchalantly would be treated as a friend by his co-workers? Would he be given joint custody of his children, one of whom is very young? It's possible, I suppose, but unlikely. The film doesn't address the potentially serious consequences of the hand-burning, instead it expects us to be satisfied with Richard's blithe, new-agey explanation, "I was trying to save my life." Well, I guess it's okay to light your hand on fire, if you have a nice poetic way of explaining it.
There are other equally unlikely developments in Me and You and Everyone We Know, I'll just list a few: six-year old Robby frequents internet sex chat rooms where he likes to write about poop; he arranges to meet a stranger at a park; the stranger turns out to be someone connected to the other characters; the young girl that lives next door to Richard and befriends Peter buys expensive home appliances so that she will have a "dowry" for her husband; Richard's co-worker has a sexually suggestive conversation with two teenage girls in the neighborhood and then posts signs on his living room window about the things that he wants to do to them; the two girls have an argument about who's better at oral sex and settle it by experimenting on Peter.
None of these incidents are entirely unbelievable, but they're all unlikely, and cumulatively they make Me and You and Everyone We Know feel false. I felt like I was just watching a lot of quirky behavior that was quirky for its own sake. I never came to a deeper understanding of any of the characters; they felt opaque from beginning to end. I couldn't tell you any more about them after the film was over than before it began.
The insidious thing about the quirkiness Me and You and Everyone We Know is that to many people it's judgment-proof. People just say, "Hey, it's quirky. So what? People do all kinds of strange things." My response is that art tries to engage with human experience, tries to say something, however small, about human existence. Observing behavior that is odd for the sake of being odd is one thing, but to pretend that it has something to say about human life is ludicrous. ¶ 8:10 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
Wow, I have really been neglecting the blog, although it's not as if I've seen a lot of films recently and have been too lazy to write about them. No, the last one I saw was My Summer of Love, which I dutifully reviewed. I plan to get back into going to the movies imminently, but, in the meantime, inspired by the Cinetrix, here are some of my favorite movie moments. I've assigned the moments numbers, but that in no way implies a ranking:
1. Rio Bravo - Ward Bond to John Wayne: "A bum-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Wayne: "No, that's WHAT I got."
2. The Third Man - Orson Welles's entrance and Alida Valli's exit.
3. Blue Velvet - Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper "singing" Roy Orbison's "In Dreams."
4. The Bad News Bears - Timmy Lupus's catch in the final game.
5. Tokyo Story - "If I had known things would turn out like this, I would have been kinder to her."
6. Dazed and Confused - Matthew McConaughey's entrance about halfway through the movie. Just when the film is starting to drag, Wooderson shows up and kicks the film into another gear. I can't think of another moment where such a late-appearing character provides such a lift to a film. Maybe The Third Man, but at a certain point you expect Harry Lime to show up. Wooderson is completely unexpected.
7. Bringing Up Baby - Cary Grant escorting Katherine Hepburn - minus the back of her dress - out of the restaurant. "I'll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!"
8. Jules and Jim - Jeanne Moreau singing Le Tourbillon de la Vie.
9. 8 and a Half - Guido's flashback to childhood: "Asa Nisi Masa! Asa Nisi Masa! Asa Nisi Masa!"
10. Dumber and Dumber - Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels drive their moped through the Rockies into Aspen: "We're there, man! Got a little nippy goin' through the pass, didn't it, Harry?"
11. Viridiana - Paco Rabal buys the dog that a peasant has been dragging under his cart. As he hands over the money, he notices another cart going by dragging another dog beneath it.
12. Love and Death - Countess Alexandrovna: "My bedroom at midnight?" Boris Grushenko: "Perfect. Will you be there too?"
13. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Anton Wolbrook in close-up, looking directly into the camera, delivering a nearly five-minute monologue about life in Nazi Germany.
14. Blow Up - David Hemmings developing the photographs.
15. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - The look on Daniel Day-Lewis's face as Juliette Binoche slowly dances up to him across the crowded room at the inn. His character is finally in love with hers for the first time - just hours before their deaths.
16. Last Tango in Paris - Brando's soliloquy over the body of his dead wife.
17. 2001 - HAL 9000 singing "A Bicycle Built For Two" as he is shut down by Dave Bowman.
18. Once Upon a Time in America - A young Jennifer Connelly reading the Song of Solomon to an admirer, pausing to interject her own caustic comments.
19. It's A Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed on the phone. "He says it's the chance of a lifetime, George."
20. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory - Veruca Salt: "Snozzberry? Who ever heard of a snozzberry?" Willy Wonka [grabs Veruca's chin and gives her a menacing look]: "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams." ¶ 8:16 AM 0 comments
1. Rio Bravo - Ward Bond to John Wayne: "A bum-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Wayne: "No, that's WHAT I got."
2. The Third Man - Orson Welles's entrance and Alida Valli's exit.
3. Blue Velvet - Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper "singing" Roy Orbison's "In Dreams."
4. The Bad News Bears - Timmy Lupus's catch in the final game.
5. Tokyo Story - "If I had known things would turn out like this, I would have been kinder to her."
6. Dazed and Confused - Matthew McConaughey's entrance about halfway through the movie. Just when the film is starting to drag, Wooderson shows up and kicks the film into another gear. I can't think of another moment where such a late-appearing character provides such a lift to a film. Maybe The Third Man, but at a certain point you expect Harry Lime to show up. Wooderson is completely unexpected.
7. Bringing Up Baby - Cary Grant escorting Katherine Hepburn - minus the back of her dress - out of the restaurant. "I'll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!"
8. Jules and Jim - Jeanne Moreau singing Le Tourbillon de la Vie.
9. 8 and a Half - Guido's flashback to childhood: "Asa Nisi Masa! Asa Nisi Masa! Asa Nisi Masa!"
10. Dumber and Dumber - Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels drive their moped through the Rockies into Aspen: "We're there, man! Got a little nippy goin' through the pass, didn't it, Harry?"
11. Viridiana - Paco Rabal buys the dog that a peasant has been dragging under his cart. As he hands over the money, he notices another cart going by dragging another dog beneath it.
12. Love and Death - Countess Alexandrovna: "My bedroom at midnight?" Boris Grushenko: "Perfect. Will you be there too?"
13. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Anton Wolbrook in close-up, looking directly into the camera, delivering a nearly five-minute monologue about life in Nazi Germany.
14. Blow Up - David Hemmings developing the photographs.
15. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - The look on Daniel Day-Lewis's face as Juliette Binoche slowly dances up to him across the crowded room at the inn. His character is finally in love with hers for the first time - just hours before their deaths.
16. Last Tango in Paris - Brando's soliloquy over the body of his dead wife.
17. 2001 - HAL 9000 singing "A Bicycle Built For Two" as he is shut down by Dave Bowman.
18. Once Upon a Time in America - A young Jennifer Connelly reading the Song of Solomon to an admirer, pausing to interject her own caustic comments.
19. It's A Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed on the phone. "He says it's the chance of a lifetime, George."
20. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory - Veruca Salt: "Snozzberry? Who ever heard of a snozzberry?" Willy Wonka [grabs Veruca's chin and gives her a menacing look]: "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams." ¶ 8:16 AM 0 comments
