Tag Archives: Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites: Favorite Sequence – V for Vendetta

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

After the big news (on my birthday) that the Supreme Court had struck down DOMA and Prop 8, I knew I wanted to feature something related to the topic for my Friday Favorite.  There were many choices.  I could have used Lynn Redgrave’s amazing scene in Kinsey, or anything from Philadelphia or Rent, but I kept coming back to Valerie’s letter from V for Vendetta.  I know it seems like an odd scene given the happy news from this week, but I think it’s important to realize both how important this news is and how far we still have to go.

V for Vendetta is an interesting movie, given that I’ve heard positive things about it both from liberals and conservatives.   Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Scene – The Birdcage

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

The Birdcage is, for my money, a perfect movie.  I’ve seen it dozens of times and it has lost none of its wit, heart or humor.  I watch it fairly often on DVD, and I can’t pass it over when I see it on TV (truly, the sign of a great movie).  I could easily pick half a dozen scenes and lines as favorites (John Wayne, “It’s ASPIRIN with the A and the S scraped off,” the soup bowls, “Why you gotta be such a bitch to everybody?”), but for me there’s no scene better or more representative of The Birdcage than this one:

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Friday Favorites: Favorite Scene – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

Today’s Friday Favorite, from the final film of the trilogy, is one that I actually spent a long time discussing in part 1 of my Pirates of the Caribbean analysis.  As the final battle approaches, Elizabeth, Barbossa and Jack head to parley with Beckett and Davy Jones (with Will alongside, having lead the East India Company fleet to Shipwreck Cove).  Watch the scene below (in two parts, of varying quality, sorry) and then read on for my analysis: Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Moment – High School Musical

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

High School Musical is the sort of film that feels like it was made just for me.  I’m sure everyone has a couple of those, that feel like the opening credits should contain the words “This one’s for you!”  When I first saw it I was living alone in California, and at the time I watched a lot of the Disney Channel.  I would always catch pieces of it, previews for it, or song clips from it, but it was almost a year after it premiered before I finally caught it in its entirety, and I was immediately sucked in.  (I went out the next day, bought the DVD, and watched it two more times that night.)

It was the opening song that caught my attention, but what cemented the movie in my brain was the character of Kelsi. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Character – Juno

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

Juno is, for me, a near perfect movie.  It owes a lot of its success to a clever script by Diablo Cody and great direction by Jason Reitman, but the bulk of its magnificence rests on the shoulders of its cast.  Ellen Page is Juno, and all of the supporting cast (Michael Cera, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney and Jason Bateman, just for starters) give heartfelt and genuine performances that are simultaneously hilarious.  But one character that I feel has always gotten a bad rap is Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa.

I’ve had several conversations about Juno with people I know.  Some of them love the movie, some hate it, but one of the surprising things that I hear often enough to bother me is that people hate Vanessa. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Shot – Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a bit of an oddity.  It’s the third film in a trilogy of sorts, one that started with The Wrath of Khan and continued with The Search for Spock.  It has none of the hallmarks of any other Star Trek movie: there are no space battles, no action to speak of, no Enterprise, and almost none of the film takes place among the stars at all.  The Voyage Home is half fish-out-of-water comedy and half environmental sermon, and it’s the latter half that’s so remarkable.  In fact, it can be summed up by just one shot, my favorite in the film:

The Voyage Home was a bold move for Star Trek.   Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Song – Muppet Treasure Island

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

The Muppets were an important part of my youth, as was Jim Henson’s work in general.  Sesame Street taught me to learn and to love learning.  Fraggle Rock taught me about how to relate to the people around me in love and harmony.  But the Muppets were maybe the most important, because they taught me to be different, and to love that I’m different.  So it makes sense that the Muppets would be the ones to make my theme song:

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Friday Favorites: Favorite Scene – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

In this week’s “Trailer Tuesday” for Star Trek Into Darkness I talked about how, as a Trekkie, I’m not a fan of 2009’s Star Trek.  In particular I hated its depiction of Kirk’s Kobayashi Maru test, so today I thought I’d highlight my favorite scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where a middle-aged Kirk describes his solution to the test.

Wrath of Khan opens with Lt Saavik (Kirstie Alley) commanding the Enterprise when it receives a distress call from the Neutral Zone from the stranded freighter, Kobayashi Maru.  Saavik violates the Neutral Zone to rescue the ship, but the Enterprise is attacked and defeated by Klingon Battle Cruisers and Admiral Kirk emerges to tell Saavik she is dead.  He explains that the test is designed to be unwinnable in order to study how potential captains face death and a no-win scenario.

She repeatedly asks Kirk how he handled the test when he was in Starfleet, and each time he evades the question.  Eventually Kirk, McCoy, Saavik, Chekhov, Kirk’s son and his former lover are all trapped in an experimental cave deep within a moon, the Enterprise having abandoned them on Kirk’s orders.  Saavik asks Kirk again about his test, and here is his reply: Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Location – Dogma

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.  It could be a favorite character or casting choice, a favorite song or score, a favorite scene, line of dialogue, shot or simply a moment.  Anything is possible (costumes, sets, etc) and I’d love to hear your suggestions.  Note: Just because something appears here does not make it my absolute #1 favorite thing in that category, but it is simply “one of my favorites”.

Dogma is an interesting movie.  In fact, it’s a movie that feels like several different movies that don’t belong together wrapped into one.  One part tells the story of two familiar stoners who get caught up with the forces of heaven and hell, and is filled with sex and poop jokes of the lowest common denominator.  Another part is the ensemble comedy about a band of holy misfits trying to prevent the end of the world.  And the third part, the part that keeps me coming back to the film after 14 years, is an interesting drama about faith in the modern world, featuring two angels who were kicked out of heaven for showing mercy towards humanity, and their quest to get back to the place they belong without regard for the consequences.

My favorite scene in the film comes as these angels, Bartleby and Loki (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon), have encountered a setback.  They’ve been challenged by a heavenly host of misfits, including the 13th Apostle, the voice of God, the last descendent of Jesus’s family and the two stoners.  Take a look below and then read on for my thoughts (and turn your sound up to get the full effect):

Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Moment – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.  It could be a favorite character or casting choice, a favorite song or score, a favorite scene, line of dialogue, shot or simply a moment.  Anything is possible (costumes, sets, etc) and I’d love to hear your suggestions.  Note: Just because something appears here does not make it my absolute #1 favorite thing in that category, but it is simply “one of my favorites”.

I talk about “movie moments” a lot.  My definition of a moment is pretty amorphous, but it’s generally anything in a movie that makes a sharp impact.  It can sometimes stretch to an entire scene, and sometimes is as quick as a blink.  It can be a line of dialogue or a particular look, a bit of action, a single shot or something longer.  It’s almost impossible for me to define what I consider a moment without using the word “moment”.  It’s what makes your heart skip a beat, or that brings tears to your eyes or a sob to your throat, it brings you to your feet, makes you hide your face, causes you to burst into applause or just to laugh with abandon.  Movies are a string of moments, and everything between is providing context and connection between them.  They often occur at great moments of change, either to character or story, or as the culmination of a plot.  In a way, they’re tiny (in duration) climaxes to one section of story.  Some movies only have one moment and spend the entire film building to it, others have many; some are like a tsunami, others are barely a ripple.  Moments are the moments that stand out, that we remember, that are burned into our minds.

I have a personal connection to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Continue reading →