“When your heart breaks, you should die.” — Angels in America (HBO)
Category Archives: Best Scenes
How God sees the world
“And if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is.”
— Hannibal Lecter
Try not to puke (Hombre)
“Try not to puke. You may have to lay in it a long time.”
— Paul Newman to Martin Balsam in Hombre.
How things are (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).
Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.?
“Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot. Say I’m working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin’, “Send in the marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number was called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard. It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home 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 he’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 used the 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 takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it, while I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and 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 could be elected president.”
From Good Will Hunting, written by Matt Damon & Ben Affleck
Let’s leave it in
It’s probably been 30 years since I watched the original Frankenstein (1931). When a movie has been so often parodied, it’s easy to forget how good the original really was. I watched it tonight on TCM. If I could know only one thing about the making of that movie, it would be the story behind the scene (hell, it wasn’t a scene…it was just a moment), early in the film, when Fritz (played by Dwight Frye) went to see who was pounding on the castle door just before the creation of the monster. As he turned to go backup the stairs, he stops…to pull up his sock. It was…perfect.
“He’s gone. He’s escaped into the system.”
— Max Headroom
What did he do?
If Sean Combs makes the leap to actor (or even movie star) you gotta think he’ll drop all the hip-hop shit. “Puff Daddy,” “Puffy,” “P. Diddy”… I mean, the studios aren’t gonna play that game. And I thought he did a nice job in the movie Monster’s Ball. A powerful opening scene in which he says good-bye to his wife (Halle Berry) and his son… a quiet, powerful scene where he sketches his guards… and, finally, his execution in the electric chair.
Days later I found myself wondering, “What did Puffy’s character do to get the chair?” But then, the movie wasn’t about capital punishment, so it really didn’t matter. P. Diddy getting the chair was a necessary plot element and there was no suggestion that he was innocent. Maybe the long, smoking, frying execution scene was simply telling us that lethal injection is more humane. And, having witnessed the execution of James Henry Hampton (March, 2000), I can tell you that it is. Mr. Hampton went very quietly, indeed.
My first thought was to do a Google search for websites dealing with capital punishment in the movies (The Chamber, Dead Man Walking, The Green Mile, I Want to Live, True Crime). I havn’t found such a site yet but remain convinced there has to be one. What I’m wondering is, in how many of those movies, do they show us or tell us the crime for which the condemned is being executed?
I understand that, from an artistic standpoint, the writer or director is under no obligation to provide that background. If you feel that capital punishment is wrong in an of itself, you probably think the crime doesn’t matter. But I’m not sure we can reach morally suportable conclusions about capital punishment without looking squarely at the crime.
I decided to witness the execution of James Henry Hampton, in part, because it seemed like something I should be willing to do if I was going to be part of a society that put certain criminals to death. Doesn’t it follow that those opposed to the death penalty should be willing to visit a fresh crime scene? Step around the fresh blood and talk to the victim’s family? Just once. If you still feel that capital punishment is wrong, fair enough.
Maybe I should cut some slack for the writers and director of Monster’s Ball. The movie is about redemption, not capital punishment. Lawrence Musgrove told his son, “I’m a bad man. Don’t be like me.” And no matter how you feel about capital punishment, the electric chair is a bad way to go.
“I want more life, fucker.”
I had my 54th birthday a week or so back and this line (from Ridley Scott’s 1982 scil-fi classic, Blade Runner) kept running through my head. Replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) goes to see Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), the scientist that “designed” the not-quite-human Roy. Tyrell attempts to comfort Roy:
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.”
But Roy’s not having any of it and proceeds to poke Tyrell’s eyes out. As Roy observes,
“It’s not an easy thing to meet your maker”
…but I thought he handled himself pretty well. He came for some answers –if not a solution to his problem– and he was damn well gonna get them.
The replicants of Blade Runner only got four years (I think Sean Young’s character got more than that) but it wasn’t so much how many years they got as that they knew when they were going to die. Maybe in the end, Pris (played by Daryl Hannah) got it right:
“Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.”
We are and we will.
Boiler Room
A great “sales” scene from Boiler Room (2000), written and directed by Ben Younger and staring Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck, Scott Caan, Vin Diesel and Nia Long. The movie was just so-so, but the scene in which Ben Affleck’s character (Jim Young) explains things to a bunch of trainees in a small-time brokerage house is… chilling.
Jim Young: “Goddammit, you fuckin’ guys. I’m gonna keep this short, okay? You passed your sevens over a month ago. Seth’s the only one that’s opened the necessary forty accounts for his team leader. When I was a junior broker I did it in 26 days. Okay? You’re not sendin’ out press packets anymore. None of this Debbie the Time Life operator bullshit. So get on the phones, it’s time to get to work. Get off your ass! Move around. Motion creates emotion. I remember one time I had this guy call me up, wanted to pitch me, right? Wanted to sell me stock. So I let him. I got every fuckin rebuttal outta this guy, kept him on the phone for an hour and a half. Towards the end I started askin him buying questions, like what’s the firm minimum? That’s a buying question, right there that guys gotta take me down. It’s not like I asked him, what’s your 800 number, that’s fuckoff question. I was givin him a run and he blew it. Okay? To a question like what is the firm minimum, the answer is zero. You don’t like the idea, don’t pick up a single share. But this putz is tellin me you know, uhh, 100 shares? Wrong answer! No! You have to be closing all the time. And be aggressive, learn how to push! Talk to ’em. Ask ’em questions… ask ’em rhetorical questions, it doesn’t matter, anything, just get a yes out of ’em. If you’re drowning and I throw you a life jacket would you grab it? Yes! Good. Pick up 200 shares I won’t let you down. Ask them how they’d like to see thirty, forty percent returns. What are they gonna say, no? Fuck you? I don’t wanna see those returns. Stop laughing, it’s not funny. If you can’t learn how to close, you better start thinkin about another career. And I am deadly serious about that. Dead fuckin serious. And have your rebuttals ready, guy says call me tommorrow? Bullshit! Somebody tells you th-they money problems about buyin 200 shares is lying to you. You know what I say to that? I say, hey look, man, tell me you don’t like my firm, tell me you don’t like my idea, tell me you don’t like my fuckin neck tie, but don’t tell me you can’t put together 2,500 bucks. And there is no such thing as a no-sell call. A sell is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way, a sell is made. The only question is: who’s gonna close? You or him?! Now be relentless. That’s it, I’m done.”
Kind of makes me wonder if Ben Younger liked the Glengarry Glen Ross scene as much as I did.