As impressed as I was with Blue Man Group, I was even more knocked out by the wizard that opened for them. Mike Relm is harder to describe than BMG. Take 1,000 milligrams of military grade amphetamine, mix it with an arena-sized sound system and a MacBook Pro.
Category Archives: Best Scenes
Why ‘not’ work for the NSA?
Good Will Hunting is ten years old, but this scene seems as fresh as today’s news:
NSA Guy: The question isn’t… why should you work for the NSA… the question is…why shouldn’t you?
Will Hunting: Why shouldn’t I work for the NSA? That’s a tough one. But I’ll take a shot.
Say I’m working at the NSA and somebody puts a code on my desk. Something no one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it.
I’m real happy with myself because I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East and once they had that location they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding… fifteen hundred people that I never met, never had no problem with get killed.
Now the politicians are saying, oh, send in the Marines to secure the area ’cause they don’t give a damn…it won’t be their kid over there getting shot, just like it wasn’t them when their number got called cause they were off on a tour in the National Guard.
It’ll be some kid from Southie over there taking shrapnel in the ass who comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from and the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job ’cause they’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.
Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price and of course the oil companies use a little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon.
They’re taking their sweet time bringing the oil back, of course maybe they even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fucking play slalom with the ice bergs.
It ain’t too long till he hits one…spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic .
So now my buddy’s out of work, he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking fucking job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is giving him chronic hemorrhoids, and meanwhile he starving ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only Blue Plate Special they’re serving is North Atlantic Scrod with Quaker State.
So what did I think?
I’m holding out for something better.
I figure while I’m at it… why not shoot my buddy…take his job…give it to his sworn enemy…hike up gas prices…bomb a village…club a baby seal… hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard. I can be elected president.
What is really amazing to me is that gasoline today –at my local pump– is very close to $2.50/gallon. Nothing close to that when GWH was filmed, let alone written. Interesting, no? If I could ask Matt Damon and Ben Affleck just one question, it would be… tell me how you came to write that scene.
Reminds me of this post from 2004.
NETWORK: “Television is not the truth…”
“When the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome propaganda force in the whole goddamned world….” This scene from the movie Network (1976) is the reason the Academy gave Peter Finch the Best Actor award posthumously. The “Mad Prophet of the Airways” rants how it was, is, and always will be.
It’s gratifying to see that others remember this film and recognize its relevance in 2006.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Long-time readers might recall I’m fond of Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It makes me nostalgic for a time and a government that probably never existed. Usually leaves me depressed because it reminds me how venal our real-life congressmen are. I’ve posted clips from the movie going back years and decided to put them all in one post. Just watch the movie.
Category: Best End-of-Movie Shoot-Out
My nominee is L. A. Confidential (1997). Lots of longer, high-explosive endings, but I have to put LAC on the short-list. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll remember a scene where Russell Crowe’s character is in a bar, talking to some tough guy, when he (Crowe) reaches down and grabs the guy by the family jewels. I couldn’t help but wonder if the scene wasn’t inspired by Mississippi Burning (1988). Gene Hackman got a similar grip on Michael Rooker. For 100 Bonus Points, can you name other movies where somebody grabs somebody (else) in this sensitive area?
Movie Quote: The Bourne Supremacy
“You’re in a big puddle of shit, Pamela, and you don’t have the shoes for it.” –
– Brian Cox to Joan Allen, The Bourne Supremacy.
Flair
“People can get a cheeseburger anywhere, ok? They come to Chotchkie’s for the atmosphere and the attitude. That’s what the flair’s about. It’s about fun.”
— Office Space
Ferris Bueller: “You’re not dying”
As Ferris Bueller so bluntly put it, “You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do.”
Three Days of the Condor – Final Scene
I think the best answer can be found at the end of Sydney Pollack’s 1975 spy flick, Three Days of the Condor. Robert Redford’s character (Joe Turner) is talking to CIA agent Higgins (played by Cliff Robertson) about the no-longer-secret plan to invade the Middle East for oil.
Higgins: The fact is, it wasn’t a bad plan. It could’ve worked.
Turner: Jesus — What is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth.
Higgins: It’s simple economics, Turner… There’s no argument. Oil now, 10 or 15 years it’ll be food, or plutonium. Maybe sooner than that. What do you think the people will want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them!
Higgins: Now? (shakes head) Huh-uh. Ask them when they’re running out. When it’s cold at home and the engines stop and people who aren’t used to hunger… go hungry! They won’t want us to ask… (quiet savagery:) They’ll want us to GET it for them.
Great line: As Good As It Gets
“You don’t look sick. Just tired and bitter.” — As Good As It Gets