Children of Men [2006]
1. “I just don’t think about it.”
2. Prescient: everyone at work, no one working; watching the media coverage of the death.
3. Smashed in the face with a cinder block.
Planet of the Apes [1968]
1. Scratching out the message in the dirt.
2. Interspecies kiss.
3. “His destiny.”
High Life [2018]
1. Her body slowly moving further away.
2. Rivulet of fluid draining from the box.
3. A handful of earth in the bodybag.
Flowers of Shanghai [1998]
1. Wine and hot towels.
2. Ham congee.
3. We catch two glimpses of the outside world, both through open windows.
Matinee [1993]
1. Movie poster for Panic in Year Zero!
2. Tiny role for Naomi Watts in the film-within-the-film The Shook Up Shopping Cart.
3. He unthinkingly feeds popcorn to his goldfish.
The Merchant of Four Seasons [1972]
1. She calmly steps past his body and calls an ambulance.
2. Paper cones for fruit.
3. Shot after shot after shot after shot.
Topaz [1969]
1. Private conversation in a walk-in cooler.
2. An important document lies beneath a half-eaten hamburger.
3. Two boarding ramps; one plane is heading to Washington, the other to Moscow.
The Blue Dahlia [1946]
1. Monkey music.
2. “Am I under suspicion?”
“I don’t know. How do you feel about it?”
3. The glow of the glistening street under the nightclub’s enormous neon sign.
Fantastic. Not because the convoluted plot comes together in a satisfying way (it doesn’t) but because of its atmosphere, moment to moment how things unfurl. The nastiness is riveting.
The Souvenir [2019]
1. Dividing the bed with stuffed animals.
2. Awkward directing sequence.
3. She looks her steadily in the face and says, “The worst.”
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