The Spy Who Came in from the Cold [1965]
1. He takes his cup of tea and walks over to the bar.
Control looks over and asks, “Would you like a drink?”
“I’ll wait.”
2. “Oh, yes, yes. She was a Communist too. She believed in free love. At the time it was all I could afford.”
3. She suddenly goes limp in his grip.
The Heat [2013]
1. Someone else’s cat.
2. “You need to vent that furnace.”
3. Posing on the gurney.
That Touch of Mink [1962]
1. “Oh, no. She wouldn’t say yes till he came to the house. They have eight children now.”
“Well, that couldn’t have happened over the phone.”
2. She waves hello with an empty bottle on her toe.
3. He dumps her in the back with the poultry.
Shoddiest Cary Grant movie ever? Yet through sheer charm he nearly overcomes how sexist and prudish it is.
Ghostbusters [2016]
1. Hood ornament.
2. Dumpster.
3. “Oh now there’s a roomful of nightmares.”
Tig [2015]
1. Cat pictures with Conan.
2. Tig meets Harpo.
3. “This is the part where I have cancer!”
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World [2012]
1. Every line on his phone is blinking. He politely hangs up and vomits.
2. “That’s my Cale!”
3. A line of people waiting to get married at the edge of the ocean.
Mother [1996]
1. “It all comes from cows. Everything comes from cows.”
2. Barbarella poster.
3. “We’re not intimate, dear. We just have sex occasionally.” The look on his face.
A Multiple Choice Test [1972/2015]
1. “You know something?”
“What?”
“You’re stoned.”
2. Tooling around Cabrini Green in a convertible.
3. He taps the black man on the shoulder and asks, “What color are you?
This never-completed film from 1972 is as fresh and compelling as anything being made today. It makes me wonder, yet again, how many buried gems are out there that may never be seen. Every new generation feels like it’s on the cutting edge, but that’s an utterly misguided illusion.
Del Close is a revelation. I don’t know his cinematic work very well, but could this be his only lead performance?
Director’s Cut [2016]
1. Is it just me, or does Penn sound exactly like Kenneth Turan?
2. Stock footage sunrise.
3. Reality TV collision.
45 Years [2015]
1. The ideal Lee Hazelwood song.
2. Creaking of the piano bench as she plays.
3. Just before the song ends, she withdraws her hand.
Bonus: “Funny how you forget the things in life that make you happy.”
