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Movie Title/Year and Scene
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Y Tu Mamá También (2001, Mex./US) (aka
And Your Mother Too)
In director Alfonso Cuaron's road movie:
- the unrated tale
of sexual discovery in the coming-of-age, sensual journey film about
a road trip with two 17 year-old Mexican boys: Tenoch (Diego Luna) and
Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and sexy and wise 28 year-old Spanish beauty
Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdu) to find an unspoiled mythical beach (known
as Heaven's Mouth) - a beach which they actually came upon
- the scene of the vicious fight between the two boys,
leading to Luisa's ultimatum that if she continued the trip with them,
they would have to play by her rules. ("We do things my way! One
more fight and I'm gone for good!...Now we play by my rules") She
counted out a 10-point Manifesto of rules - including: (1) "I
won't f--k with any of you. F--k each other, if you wish", (2) "I
sunbathe naked and I don't want you sniffing around like dogs",
(3) "I pick the music," (4) "The
moment I ask, please shut your mouths," (5) "You cook," (6) "No
stories about your poor girlfriends," (7) "If I ask, stay
10 yards from me. Or better 100", (8) "Obviously, you do
all the manual labor," (9) "You
may not speak of things you don't agree on. Even better, just keep
your mouths shut," (10) "You're not allowed to contradict
me, much less push me"
- the jukebox cantina sequence in which Luisa taught
the two vulgar lads lessons about life, after having had sex with both
of them separately; Tenoch asked: "Who f--ks better between us?
The truth." She
tried to answer diplomatically:
"Despite the fiasco, you each have your own charms." She then
advised:
"You both have to quit whacking off and work up your resistance...Both
of you, stop whacking off." She then told the waiter: "These
boys don't know how to go down on a girl" - and then told Tenoch: "You
were slurping like this was a lollipop. You have to be gentle. You have
to make the clitoris your best friend...Search and you shall find. The
greatest pleasure is giving pleasure." The trio then toasted: "Hail
to the clit!"
- the boys' jealous expression
of sexual rivalry and boyish machismo over her, while also bragging
about their sexual experiences (blow-jobs) with their girlfriends.
While 'spilling their guts', both teens admitted that they had clandestinely
slept with each other's girlfriend many times. Tenoch told how he had
slept with Julio's girlfriend: "I
f--ked Ceci a few times."
Julio counterpunched: "No big deal. I poked Ana a bunch of times."
Tenoch then claimed grossly: "So we're milk brothers!" Then
Luisa offered another humorous toast: "To your girlfriends who
are having 10 Italians at a time!" And shockingly, Julio also
confessed that he had sex with Tenoch’s mother -- the basis
for the film's title: "And your mother, too" - but was
it said in jest or not? He claimed: "And your mother, too, you
know?...Honestly, the day she cleaned my aura." The two boys
raised their shot glasses:
"Luisa! To all mothers!"
- the film's most famous and pivotal scene - after dancing
with both boys (one on each side) in the cantina, Luisa gradually led
the boys to their hotel bedroom for a threesome. Luisa successfully
encouraged the boys to kiss and to have sex with each other, and by
the next morning, they woke up sleeping naked next to each other
- the end of their journey
at the isolated beach where the narrator (Daniel Giménez Cacho)
explained the boys' departure, and provided Luisa's last words to the
boys: 'Life is like the surf, so give yourself
away like the sea.'
- a flashforward scene one year later in a coffee shop that
divulged Luisa's terminal illness
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Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
In director Michael Curtiz' classic musical biopic:
- the
sentimental legend of super-patriot and cocky Irishman-songwriter
George M. Cohan (Oscar-winning James Cagney), with his trademark singing,
strutting and wall-climbing as a 'Yankee Doodle Boy' during "I'm
a Yankee Doodle Dandy"
- his tap-dancing sequence in a spotlight
in the large production number "Give My Regards to Broadway"
- his trademark curtain call line: "Ladies and gentlemen, my mother
thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank
you"
- the scene
of Cohan and his wife Mary (Joan Leslie) singing "Mary" at
the piano together
- his energetic dancing style in "You're a Grand
Old Flag"
- George's
'final curtain call' death scene with father Jerry (Walter Huston)
at his deathbed
- his amazing, jaunty dance down the White House
stairs after visiting with President Roosevelt (Jack Young) with
a spontaneous, impromptu buck-wings tap dance midway
- his joining
a parade to march in step with troops and civilians down Pennsylvania
Avenue to "Over
There"
in the stirring finale
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The Yearling (1946)
In director Clarence Brown's family drama:
- the exciting
scene, set in the late 1800s, of 11 year-old Florida farm boy Jody
(Claude Jarman, Jr.) hunting "Old Slew Foot"
bear with his father Ory Baxter (Gregory Peck)
- and later, the scene in
which Jody realized he must shoot his beloved, but crop-devouring orphaned
pet fawn, named Flag, that he had earlier rescued - to put it out of
its misery after being mortally wounded by his mother (Jane Wyman)
- as Pa Baxter commented on the boy's growing up after he had run
off and returned: ("He aint a yearling no more")
- the film's final fantasy scene in which Jody
cavorted off with the deer
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Yellow Submarine (1968, UK
In the landmark animated film directed by George Dunning:
- the
colorful, inventive animations, especially the psychedelic count of
numbers to demonstrate the length of a 60-second minute in "When
I'm 64"
- the character of the Nowhere Man muttering to himself: "Ad
hoc, ad hoc, and quid pro quo, So little time, so much to know"
- the ultimate defeat of the invasive Blue Meanies
with the song "All
You Need Is Love" and the return of color
to Pepperland
- the live-action finale featuring the actual Beatles
singing the coda "All
Together Now"
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Yojimbo (1961, Jp.) (aka The Bodyguard)
In director Akira Kurosawa's samurai tale, remade as Sergio
Leone's spaghetti western A
Fistful of Dollars (1964, It.):
- in the conclusion, the influential scene of masterless
ronin "Kuwabatake" Sanjuro's
(Toshiro Mifune) return to the dusty, windy town's main street for
a decisive standoff and showdown by himself against Ushitora (Kyū Sazanka)
and his men, and Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), who fired his revolver,
but was struck by Sanjoro's knife in his forearm; then using his sword,
Sanjuro slashed the remaining men
- the dying words of Unosuke to Sanjuro: "Say, samurai
trash, are you there?...The entrance to hell - I'll be waiting there
for you!" Sanjuro spoke after he expired: "He died as recklessly as
he lived" and then promised to the town's three
remaining old men before walking away: "Now it'll be quiet
in this town...So long!"
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Young Frankenstein (1974)
In Mel Brooks' horror spoof:
- the funny horror film spoof from director Mel Brooks,
with its early scene in the medical classroom when grandson of the
original baron named Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder): ("It's
pronounced Frohn-ken-Shteeeen") must answer touchy questions
from an inquisitive student about his legendary grandfather Dr. Victor
Frankenstein - and he jabbed a scalpel into his leg
- the creation scene in which Dr. Frankenstein yelled
madly: "Give my creation...life!"
- the character of bug-eyed, leering Igor (Marty Feldman)
with a shifting humpback ("Didn't you used to have that on the
other side?...Your, uh...") who ignorantly used the brain of "Abby
Normal"
- the scene of Frankenstein marveling at large iron
door knockers on the Transylvania castle door:
"What knockers!", with assistant Inga's (Teri Garr) quick
response as he lifted her out of the carriage: "Oh, Thank you,
doctor!"
- the scenes of horses neighing (and lightning strikes)
whenever housekeeper Frau Blucher's (Cloris Leachman) name was mentioned
- and the charades sequence of Dr. Frankenstein acting
out the word 'Sed-a-give' ("Give him the sedative" with
an injection), using the game of charades, to control the violent
Monster (Peter Boyle) that was strangling him
- the classic scene of the Monster with the blind hermit
(Gene Hackman) in his shack - a tribute to a similar scene in The
Bride of Frankenstein in which he called the Monster "an
incredibly big mute", poured boiling soup on the Monster's lap,
broke the Monster's wine mug when toasting their friendship, and
lit the Monster's thumb, thinking it was a cigar - and then called
after him as he left in fear: "Wait. Where are you going? I
was gonna make espresso"
- also the revolving bookcase-fireplace sequence with
a secret passageway, and Dr. Frankenstein's continual request: "Put
the candle back" - and his failed attempt to block the turning
bookcase with his body: ("Now listen to me very carefully, don't
put the candle back. With all of your might, shove against the other
side of the bookcase. Is that perfectly clear?"); and then Inga
was trapped behind the bookcase
- Dr. Frankenstein's introduction of the Monster to
an audience as a "man about town" and their top-hat and
cane, tap-dancing duet of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz" -
with the Monster's slurred, squeaky, and high-pitched singing
of "Punnondariiiiiiiizz!"
- Dr. Frankenstein's request of Igor: "Igor, will
you give me a hand with the bags?" - and his reply - with growling:
"Certainly, you take the blonde and I'll take the one with the
turban"
- and the scene of nymphomaniacal fiancee Elizabeth's
(Madeline Kahn) infatuation with the Monster - "You're incorrigible,
aren't you, you little zipper-neck?" - and then after viewing
his "enormous schwanstucker" - she first breathed an aroused,
wide-eyed "Woof!", and then warbled the tune 'O Sweet Mystery
of Life' as he made love to her (offscreen), and her hair turned
white, a la The Bride of Frankenstein;
after sex, they shared a cigarette (similar to Now,
Voyager (1942))
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The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Fr.)
(aka Les Demoiselles de Rochefort)
In Jacques Demy's beautifully-choreographed, bright and
colorful, joyful musical - a fairytale about finding an ideal or dream
love (with lots of missed opportunities or connections and aborted chances,
but also chance meetings) - featuring a Michel Legrand original musical
score - a follow-up film to Demy's all-singing musical The Umbrellas
of Cherbourg (1964, Fr.):
- the opening musical number (during set up
in the main square of a traveling carnival company) in the small,
southwestern seaside town of Rochefort during a weekend's fair, when
a flash-mob of singers and dancers exploded onto the town's central
Colbert Square
- the story of two twin
sisters who ran a ballet dance school studio (overlooking the square)
and were seeking love: ballet teacher Delphine Garnier (Catherine Deneuve)
and piano music teacher and aspiring composer Solange Garnier (Françoise
Dorléac, Deneuve's real-life sister); their unmarried
mother Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) owned and managed the town's modern
shop/cafe near the square, and pinned for her long-lost fiancee whom
she rejected because his name was Monsieur Dame (she would have been
known as 'Madame Dame')
- the introduction of the fair's two carnies: visiting
sailor Étienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale) - who
performed the song and dance: 'Nous Voyageons De Ville En Ville'; the
two later recruited the twins as dancers for their song-and-dance show
in the carnival
- the catchy, repeated duet and tune for the two twins
as they danced in coordinated pink and yellow hats: 'Chanson Des Jumelles'
- their first song together in the film: "We are a pair of twins, born
in the sign of Gemini. We're two demoiselles who took to the boys long
ago. Our mama brought us up on our own. Working herself all her life
to the bone. Make sure our minds could expand. She's spent all her
time behind a French fry stand. Papa was somebody that we never knew.
But when we undress one thing is true. In the small of our backs in
the very same place. There's the same beauty spot he had on his face.
We are a pair of twins, born in the sign of Gemini. Who love catchy
tunes silly puns and repartee. We're a pair of carefree young things
Waiting for the joys that love brings, When our blood races When our
heart stops, We're ready to shout it from the rooftops We are delicate
souls, two romantics in love with art, music and antics Where's that
man? The man we long to find - Mr. Right - A few faults we won't mind...."
- the inevitable pairing of the three females with their
ideal mates:
- Yvonne with her former fiancee Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli) - unbeknownst
to her, the proprietor of a music shop in Rochefort
- Solange with Simon's American friend and composer Andy Miller (famed
American actor and dancer Gene Kelly)
- Delphine with blonde ex-sailor, poet and painter Maxence (Jacques Perrin),
who painted a portrait that resembled Delphine (his "feminine
ideal"), that was exhibited in the gallery of Delphine's rich boyfriend
Guillaume (Jacques Riberolles) (ultimately dumped)
- the film was most noted for the two chance meetings
between Solange and Andy when he helped her pick up items
dropped onto the street, and afterwards, his exuberant and spontaneous
dances (including with some of the passersby) about having found love
as he happily romped through the streets, and in the second instance
jumped up onto his white convertible after tap-dancing with a crowd
of street children
- the show-stopping performance 'Chanson D'un Jour D'été' of
Solange and Delphine on stage at the fair, in glittering and sparkling
red gowns, homage to Monroe and Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953)
- in the film's conclusion, a second graceful, courtship
dance (to the tune of a Legrand ballet concerto) by Andy when he was
ultimately reunited with Solange in the interior of the white-walled
music shop - ending with a kiss and the couple in each other's arms
as they walked away
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Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
In director John Ford's first collaboration with actor
Henry Fonda:
- the early scene of young and ambitious Abraham Lincoln
(Henry Fonda) in Illinois in 1832 reading aloud passages at the foot
of a tree, from Blackstone's mid-18th century published book: Blackstone's
Commentaries,
when young and pretty Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore) happened to appear;
in the bucolic setting (next to a river), a budding romance began
to develop between Lincoln and Ann as they strolled along; he
told her: "You gotta have education these days to get anywhere.
I never went to school as much as a year in my whole life"; she
reminded him: "Oh, but you've educated yourself. You've read poetry
and Shakespeare and - and now law"; he interrupted her next thought
by mentioning her beauty: "You're mighty pretty, Ann"; she
responded: "Some folks
I know don't like red hair"; he admitted openly: "I do...I
love red hair"
- after she walked off, he tossed a stone into the river
behind him; the ripples in the water dissolved into a wintry scene
of the ice-covered river with floating floes - to emphasize the passage
of time; he was at the snowy grave of his beloved Ann Rutledge who
had since died, and placing flowers next to her tombstone where they
had once talked; he was making a crucial decision about what career
to follow with his life - and due to Ann's earlier urgings, he chose
to pursue a law profession, delivered in a soliloquy: "Ice is
breakin' up. It's comin' in to spring. Well, Ann, I'm still up a
tree. Just can't seem to make up my mind what to do. Maybe I ought
to go into the law, take my chances. I admit, I got kinda a taste
for somethin' different than this in my mouth. Still, I don't know.
I'd feel such a fool settin' myself up as a-knowin' so much. Course,
I know what you'd say. I've been hearin' it every day, over and over
again: 'Go on, Abe. Make somethin' of yourself. You got friends.
Show 'em what you got in ya'. Oh, yes, I know what you'd say. But
I don't know. Ann, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let this stick
decide. If it falls back toward me, then I stay here, as I always
have. If it falls forward towards you, then it's - well, it's the
law. Here goes, Ann. Well, Ann, you win. It's the law"
- with country-store, homespun logic, the scene of
Lincoln's dissuading of a lynch mob at Sangamon County jail door
from killing two Clay boys, Matt and Adam (Richard Cromwell, Eddie
Quillan) who were accused of murdering drunken deputy Scrub White
(Fred Kohler, Jr.) by stabbing him in the back ("...We
seem to lose our heads in times like this. We do things together that
we'd be mighty ashamed to do by ourselves...")
- the scene of Lincoln's playing of "Dixie" on
a mouth harp
- Lincoln's empathetic comparison of
his Kentucky upbringing with the Clay family homesteaders - before
reading a letter from the jailed boys
- the courtroom scene when
defense lawyer Lincoln confronted fellow lawman and alleged eyewitness
John Palmer Cass (Ward Bond) - and brought a laugh from the audience:
("I'll
just call you Jack Ass")
- and tricked him - with page 12 of the Farmer's Almanac with
an account of the moon setting 40 minutes before the killing took
place ("So,
ya see, it couldn't-a been moon bright, could it? You lied, didn't
ya Cass? And you weren't tryin' to save these boys' necks, were you?
You were trying to save your own, weren't ya?... And these two boys,
Matt and Adam - they each knew that he didn't do it. Therefore,
each thought the other did it"); Lincoln was able to get Cass
to confess to the cold-blooded crime himself; Cass divulged that he
had drunkenly killed White with Matt's dropped knife (when he came
upon the scene and saw that White was still alive): "I
didn't mean to kill him!"
- the final celebrated scene when stove-pipe
hatted Lincoln was asked by Efe Turner (Eddie Collins): "Ain't
you goin' back, Abe?"; he responded: "No, I think I might
go on a piece. Maybe to the top of that hill" - and walked
off toward the hill in a gathering wind and rainstorm with lightning
(causing him to hold onto his hat) - to the soundtrack's playing of
the "Battle
Hymn of the Republic"
- the film's conclusion (with a heavenly chorus
now singing the tune) - and a dissolve into a sideview shot
of his statue in the Lincoln Memorial
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Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
In director Barry Levinson's mystery adventure:
- the
unauthorized premise of how young Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe) and
partner John Watson (Alex Cox) came together at an English boarding
school and became involved in an investigation of a long buried secret
and deadly Egyptian cult
- the startling, breathtaking CGI character
of the fighting medieval knight in a stained-glass window who jumped
to life - a pioneering moment in visual effects -- the first all-digital
animated character
- the other Oscar-nominated segments in
which other elements came to life (a roasted bird, skeletons, pastries,
gargoyles, wall decor, and an amusing sequence in which pastries attempted
to force themselves into Watson's mouth)
- the Egyptian Rame-Tep
sacrifice scene recalling the similar scenes from the previous year's Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (directed by executive
producer Steven Spielberg)
- the scene in which Sherlock's love
interest Elizabeth Hardy (Sophie Ward) blocked a bullet intended for
him and died in his arms
- also the back-story acquisitions of Holmes'
trademarks: his practice of the violin, his inheritance of a deerstalker
cap from beloved, deceased mentor Waxflatter (Nigel Stock), his receipt
of a pipe as a gift from Watson, and his overcoat from the villainous
Professor Rathe (Anthony Higgins) (aka Eh Tar - who seemingly perished
by drowning in the icy Thames River)
- the end credits sequence
in which Professor Rathe surprisingly signed his name in a guestbook
as "Moriarty",
closing on his devilish raised eyebrow
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Z (1969, Fr./Algeria)
In Costa-Gavras' political thriller masterpiece (based
on the real-life 1963 murder of popular Greek liberal Gregorios Lambrakis,
a professor medicine at the Univ. of Athens) - the Oscar-winner for
Best Foreign Language Film (and Best Film Editing):
- the skillfully-planned
conspiratorial assassination-murder scene of the pacifistic husband
of Helene (Irene Papas) - a liberal-minded Deputy (Yves Montand)
of the opposition party in Greece
- after he delivered a political speech
and was in a stand-off surrounded by demonstrators and the police,
he fell to his knees grabbing his lethally-wounded skull after a
blue truck passed and struck him
- the scene in a hospital conference
room where concerned and worried Helene was led while her husband was
undergoing a third operation - a white-coated doctor reported and viewed
a lighted wall of skull X-rays diagnosing a concussion that occurred
during the "stupid accident" ("the fall broke the dome
of the skull and no doubt the brain has been affected") - the
diagnosis was later radically re-evaluated - the skull fracture was
NOT due to his fall or to the impact of the truck but to "a blow
struck on the head" by a club wielded by a man in the back of
the truck
- the poignant final scene in
which widowed wife Helene learned from one of her husband's followers
that the right-wing assassins (military men including the general
and the police chief who sanctioned the murder) had been exposed
and arrested ("It's a real revolution,
the government'll fall and extremists'll be wiped out") -
she turned and looked out to sea, without triumph, but only with sadness
and despondency
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Zabriskie Point (1970)
In Michelangelo Antonioni's simplistic and failed view
of America:
- the characters of white rebellious youth Mark (Mark
Frechette), a student radical wanted as a suspect for killing a policeman
during a student strike-riot and for hijacking a small airplane,
and Daria (Daria Halprin), the pot-smoking secretary/mistress of
LA real estate tycoon/attorney Mr. Lee Allen (Rod Taylor), who was
helping to build the Sunnydunes development in the desert
- the controversial, hallucinatory, symbolic, dust-swirling
orgy scene filmed in the "no-man's
land" of Death Valley (at Zabriskie Point) - a lovemaking
sequence filmed at the lowest point in the United States - Zabriskie
Point) - as the two started to make love on the desert sand
dunes, several dozen other couples magically appeared, creating a
massive 'love-in'
- afterwards,
Mark remarked: "I always
knew it'd be like this." Daria asked: "Us?" But he replied: "The
desert"
- in the excessive, explosion-filled finale (another
anarchic wish-fulfillment hallucination or dream of Daria's? as she
drove away from attorney Allen's luxurious, ultra-modern, maze-like
desert dwelling), she stopped, parked, and turned around as the structure
was blown up (seen exploding from almost a dozen angles) as well
as various materialistic consumer items which were seen being destroyed
in slow-motion and in extreme close-up (pool furniture, racks of
clothes, a refrigerator with a cascading and disintegrating loaf
of packaged WONDER bread, a TV, and shelves of books)
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Zelig (1983)
In Woody Allen's brilliant pre-Forrest Gump mock-documentary:
- Gordon
Willis' cinematography that painstakingly matched authentic early
20th century newsreels and archival photographs with the look of this
Depression-era period film
- chameleon-like Leonard Zelig (Woody
Allen) - a man who was a celebrity of his time - appearing between
President Coolidge and presidential candidate Herbert Hoover, and alongside
others such as baseball player Babe Ruth, boxer Jack Dempsey, tycoon
publisher William Randolph Hearst, movie star Charles Chaplin, the
pope, the Fuhrer himself, and the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald
- the scenes
of real-life writer personages Susan Sontag and Saul Bellows providing
commentary on Zelig's cultural influence
- Patrick Horgan's authentic
BBC documentary-style narration
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Zéro de Conduite: Jeunes
Diables au Collège (1933, Fr.) (aka Zero For Conduct) (short)
In director Jean Vigo's somewhat surreal, semi-autobiographical,
satirical account of a rebellion against a rigid and repressive all-male
French boarding school - the low-budget work was an influential, anarchic
and controversial anti-authoritarian film (considered subversive and
banned in France until 1946) that served as the basis for Lindsay Anderson's
remake If...
(1968, UK):
- the scene during recess of the school's new, free-spirited,
tolerant, carefree jokester teacher Huguet (Jean Dasté)
impersonating Chaplin's 'Little Tramp' character for his students, with
a cane and trademark shuffling walk
- in the film's conclusion, a revolt against
the school's Commemoration Day celebrations, by four
disobedient, rebellious boarding school students, known as "Little
Devils at School":
Bruel (Coco Golstein), Caussat (Louis Lefebvre), Colin (Gilbert
Pruchon), and the shy, long-haired and lonely new boy Tabard (Gérard
de Bédarieux
- Vigo's alter ego)
- their full-scale defiant insurrection to take on the
tyrannical, bearded, disciplinary-minded dwarf Principal (Delphin),
beginning with the ransacking of the dormitory with overturned beds
during a wild feather-pillow fight sequence (including a slow-motion
celebratory ride through the falling feathers that rained and showered
down), and the raising of their own hand-made "Skull
and Crossbones" flag
- the prank of the misfit boys against detested monitor
Pète-Sec (Robert le Flon) (nicknamed Dry-Fart) who was tied
up as he slept in his uprighted bed, and then barricading of themselves
in the attic
- and then the interruption of the day's ceremonies by
their roof-top pelting and barrage of garbage (and other tossed objects)
at the assembled guests below, and ending with their escape by marching
off across the roof top with their hands in the air
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Zorba the Greek (1964, Greece/UK) (aka Alexis
Zorba)
In triple-nominated (for writing, directing and producing)
Michael Cacoyannis' Best Picture-nominated inspirational drama:
- the hammy trademark role of boisterous,
lusty, lively, flamboyant itinerant Greek laborer and bon vivant Alexis
Zorba (Oscar-nominated Anthony Quinn)
- his relationship with writer's-blocked British-raised
Basil (Alan Bates) who traveled to the island of Crete to reopen
his father's closed mine
- Zorba's romance with the hotel's manager
- lonely ex-prostitute and porn actress Madame Hortense (Oscar-winning
Lila Kedrova)
- Zorba's admonition to Basil
about the "greatest
sin": "If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will NOT
go!"
- Basil's yearning for a beautiful Widow
(Irene Pappas)
- the tragic, disturbing scene in which the Widow
was stoned by a mob after the village idiot committed suicide
- Hortense's moving
death in Zorba's arms from an unnamed illness (possibly pneumonia)
- the memorable, joyous scene in which Zorba taught
Basil to dance the sirtiki on a beach
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Zorns Lemma (1970)
In avante-garde US film director Hollis Frampton's experimental,
hour-long documentary - one that required and demanded patience:
- the opening (about two minutes in length) - audio only:
female narration against a black screen - composed of words read from
The Bay State Primer (a version of The New England Primer, an 18th
century Puritan grammar textbook to teach the 24 letters of the Roman
alphabet (not the modern English alphabet with 26 letters), with Biblical
phrases presented in alphabetical order, i.e., "In Adam's
fall We sinned all", "Thy life to mend, This Book
attend, The Cat doth play, And after slay, A Dog
will bite a thief at night", An Eagle's flight
Is out of sight, etc.)
- the main section of the film (about 47 minutes in
length) - video only: repetitive cycling of the 24 letters of the
alphabet [Note: the letters J and U were missing from the Roman alphabet]
- illustrated by one second shots of the first letter of single-word
signs in Manhattan (New York state) (i.e., Abbey, Baby, Cabinet,
Daily, etc.), then gradually replaced by labels and images that implied
each letter
- the brief ending or epilogue (about 10 minutes in length)
with both audio and video: a human couple (Robert Huot and Marcia
Steinbrecher) and a dog distantly walked away across a snowy field,
then disappeared into faraway woods as the screen flared white; on
the soundtrack, six women's voices read in monotone - to the beat of
a metronome - one word apiece (one word per second) from a medieval
13th century text - Bishop Robert Grosseteste's On
Light, or the Ingression of Forms: "…the first bodily
form I judge to be light..."
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