Thought I'd celebrate by keeping my post brief. Here are some of my favorite scenes:
The truly creepy, nightmare-causing dungeon elevator ride taken by Hans Conried, Peter Lind Hayes and Tommy Rettig (where can I get a beanie like that?) in Roy Rowland's adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. This is kind of a scary movie for kids, I think, but it's cool because of that. Imagine watching THIS as a tyke:
Here I highlight the work of special effects master Ray Harryhausen in one of his best films: the 1969 classic The Valley of Gwangi. Here, after lovey-dovey stuff between James Franciscus and Gila Golan, we get what we came for: cowboys fighting dinosaurs. Check this out:
The greatest stage play-to-film adaptation: Mike Nichol's version of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The whole thing's available on YouTube, but you should really DVD it if you've never seen it. It's one of the world's most beautiful black-and-white films, photographed by Haskell Wexler. Here's a ten-minute chunk starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as the perpetually battling George and Martha, and Sandy Dennis and George Segal as their confused guests. The scene begins brilliantly with Martha's revelation of undying "love" for her put-upon-pie George.
Now I'm posting a clip from Dziga Vertov's silent classic Man with a Movie Camera. No story to recount, except to say that this experimental documentary photographs men photographing the day-to-day industrial workings of 1920s Russia. Amazing editing that works well with any piece of music you choose to accompany it. This is the silent era precursor to the MTV style of editing. Here, the pictures are seen with the Alloy Orchestra as score.
Finally, I'm featuring a short film by Simon Tofield called Simon's Cat: TV Dinner . It's the best representation I've ever seen on film of both cat and cat-owner behavior. If you don't have a furball that purrs, it's just like this, my friends. I love my fuzzy gray ones Marty and Angelo despite of and because of it all.
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