Dead Ringers [1988]
1. "Pain creates character distortion. It’s simply not necessary."
2. The sharp point of the instrument glides along his abdomen. Cut to Elliot, the sound of a puncture, he winces. Cut. A stream of blood trickles through the gutter of the seat of his chair.
3. The look on his face as Beverly describes Claire’s vagina.
I’ve fulfilled my life’s ambition and become a catalog model.
The Spy Who Loved Me [1977]
1. Bond ogles the girl. “When one is in Egypt, one should delve deeply into its treasures.”
2. Stromberg’s iridescent suit: blackpurple.
3. When the Lotus emerges from the water, Bond rolls down his window and gives a small fish to one of the onlookers.
From my piece at CINE-FILE:
A work in which a single point is driven into the skulls of the audience again and again and again. But viewed as cultural artifact instead of as cinema, the movie is slightly more interesting. Devoid of all nuance, Gibson’s feature-length torture opus offers an unusually blunt peek at the S & M fascination of a particular dogmatic religious sect. That the movie is embraced and patronized by so many millions of mainstream Christians is proof enough that such a micro-articulated film, coming along at exactly the right moment, is paradoxically capable of meaning whatever its audience wants it to mean. Think of THE DARK NIGHT, which was interpreted differently by right-wing conservatives and liberals, or Garbo’s final gaze in QUEEN CHRISTINA. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST can be both a sincere expression of faith and a bloody mess. That is its true, unwitting genius.
The Exterminating Angel [1962]
1 Two of the guests are talking. Something smashes a window. “Must be a passing Jew,” says one of the men, cheerfully.
2. With an electric razor he absentmindedly shaves his leg.
3. A hacksaw slices across the strings of a cello. Later, the cello is smashed and broken up for firewood.
To Have and Have Not [1944]
1. “Cut out the baby talk.”
2. After the interrogation they go across the street to the Bar du Zombie. However, neither has any money to buy a drink.
3. He fires the gun while it’s still in the desk drawer and kills the gendarme.
I just saw it. Only one more performance left! Tomorrow (Sunday). See it! You’ll never get another chance. Some of it:
Usually a film tells a story better when it doesn’t tell the whole story. Which is why any film that’s bloated with backstory is already on a course to fail.
The Professionals [1966]
1. He crawls under the water tank to place the dynamite. Dark, dripping beams of wood.
2. The train barrels down the track, in reverse, belching a plume of black smoke. Mexicans on horseback in pursuit.
3. “You bastard.” While getting on his horse, Lee Marvin answers, “Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, sir, you’re a self-made man.”
