Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Moments of Distinction

The Film – Big Night, dir. Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci

The Set-Up – Well, there is no set-up. This is the final scene of this marvelous little gem of a film. If you’ve seen the movie, you would know it simply as The Omelet Scene. If you haven’t seen it, no amount of explaining could do it justice. It's a beautiful coda to the story of the relationship between two very different individuals – the brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci). So, if you know Big Night, enjoy. If you don’t, try to see it soon, OK?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Marquee

Chain Lightning, 1950

Saturday, July 26, 2008

This watch

Hello, little man. Boy, I sure heard a bunch about you. See, I was a good friend of your dad's. We were in that Hanoi pit of hell together over five years. Hopefully...you'll never have to experience this yourself, but when two men are in a situation like me and your Dad were, for as long as we were, you take on certain responsibilities of the other. If it had been me who had not made it, Major Coolidge would be talkin' right now to my son Jim. But the way it turned out is I'm talkin' to you, Butch. I got somethin' for you.This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Made by the first company to ever make wrist watches. Up till then people just carried pocket watches. It was bought by private Doughboy Orion Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-grandfather's war watch and he wore it everyday he was in that war. When he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the watch off, put it an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed 'til your granddad Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War II. Your great-grandfather gave this watch to your granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's. Dane was a Marine and he was killed -- along with the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death, he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island alive. So three days before the Japanese took the island, your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport name of Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he'd never seen in the flesh, his gold watch. Three days later, your granddad was dead. But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad's gold watch. This watch. This watch was on your Daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it'd be confiscated, taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, that watch was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.

Pulp Fiction - screenplay by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary

Friday, July 18, 2008

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Dr. Fassbender

I, uh, decided to follow you here.

If you followed me here, how did you contrive to be here before me?

I followed you... very fast.

What's New Pussycat?

Monday, July 07, 2008

Sunday, July 06, 2008

On Location

Errol Flynn and Brigitte Bardot get acquainted. Does anyone have any idea of where and when this photo may have been taken?

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The Marquee

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, 1938