Doc’s Bag O’ Clips: Misc

Idle Hands, Devil's Workshop Dept

Here's a little 'human characteristic observation test' I whipped up.

Trapped By The Truth: A Politician's Worst Nightmare

A clever scene from the movie Dave.  The cameras clicking away in the background add a great 'keeping it truthful' feel to everyone's words.

Wake Me Up When It's Over

We native Californians view earthquakes quite differently than other Americans.  The Midwest had an earthquake the other day and Glenn Reynolds actually had links to people 'earthquakeblogging' it.  I didn't read any of them, but I presume they went something like this

We barely survived!  Things were threatening to fall off the shelves and the cup on my bathroom sink actually fell down and shattered!  And shattered are what my nerves are, I can tell you!  Now I know what the victims of Hurricane Katrina felt like!

Or something like that.  I'm sure it was very, very exciting.

Rookies.

I remember one earthquake back around '78.  I was working in a 2-story office building and was up on the second floor stopping by Accounts Payable.  Suddenly, it was rock 'n' roll time as this rickety aluminum-and-glass building started doing the shimmy-shake.  There were probably fifteen women in the room, with all the out-of-towners screaming and crying and crawling under desks and all the rest.

Right in the middle of it, the Accounts Payable manager — a real sweet lady and native Californian — yelled to me across the room, "So, what'ya give it, Doc?"  I calmly hollered back, "Oh, about a 3.8, maybe a 3.9."

No big deal, in other words.  Kind of a cupcake, really, by quake standards.  Barely worth noticing at the time.  "…maybe a 3.9.  So, is the coffee fresh?"

Here's a clip from L.A. Story that absolutely nails that moment.

Great Rants

I don't know if anyone collects 'great rants' by movie characters, but I'd certainly hope that Al Pacino's 'Eddie Barzoon' speech in The Devil's Advocate would be somewhere near the top of the list.

Mystery Man

This is actually kind of intriguing.  It's from the Steven Seagal movie 'Exit Wounds'.  Watch the second salesman throughout and note how he never says a word.  Watch his lips closely the second time they show him.  Note how you see his lips moving briefly, giving us the impression that he's just another actor with lines, yet he never says a peep during the whole scene.

But why?

The guy's name is Gregory Vitale and we note he plays "Gregory" in the movie.  At the time of filming, he had no other acting credits to his name.  As I understand it, as soon as an actor speaks a real line in a movie, he has to be a member of the Actor's Guild and pay dues and all that.  My guess is that this is a buddy of Seagal's or the director's and they wanted to give him a fun part, but not force him to go through a bunch of legal hoops, hence the silence.  And the guy is pretty cool.  What a great smirk!

It's A Dog-Eat-Cop World Out There

'Lethal Weapon 3' provides an excellent lesson for any streetwise detective:  Always carry an ample supply of dog biscuits with you.

In The Days Before PETA

From the IMDb 'Trivia' section for 'The Shawshank Redemption': 

The American Humane Association monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks' crow.  During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the AHA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes.  One was found, and the scene was filmed.

I presume no further commentary on the state to which reality has sunk is necessary. 

So imagine how refreshing it was to be watching 'The Outlaw Josie Wales' the other night and see the following.  In any movie made today, the horses falling off the raft would have to be computer-generated, simply because the 'animal cruelty' complaints would come roaring in.  Imagine, if you dare: actually using the animals in the movie as…animals!

The mind recoils in horror at the very thought!

Fulcrum Point

Under the same heading, this scene would have been — without question — viewed by the American Humane Society and PETA as "undue cruelty to animals" because — wait for it! — they were treating the horses like… horses!

I am intrigued that horses exist in the first place.  They don't really seem to have much place in the animal world, and what good do the hooves and massive amounts of muscle do, outside of enabling it to run at a decent clip, over any kind of terrain, and for long periods of time?  But what good does any of that do in the animal world?  Why does practically every other mammal seem to get along just fine without either of these attributes?

A cheetah is fast because it uses speed to get food.  A mountain goat has hooves because it walks on sharp rocks.  An elephant has muscle and endurance because it migrates hundreds of miles for days on end.  But a horse walks on soft prairie, doesn't migrate long distances, and all it has to do is move ten feet if it's looking for a fresh patch of grass on which to graze.  So there really doesn't seem to be any reason for a horse to exist in the first place.

But then you bring man into the picture, and here's this absolutely 100% perfect mode of transportation just waiting for him.  You simply couldn't have drawn up anything better, up to and including the level back upon which a human can sit perfectly.  Personally, I think the Intelligent Design people are looking in the wrong places for proof.

Here's another clip from 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' showing Clint exhibiting a feat that, in a way, is truly amazing.  How does a 175-pound man bring a 2,000-pound animal completely to the ground?  Leverage. 

You Can't Fault A Guy Just For Thinking Ahead

In truth, I was fairly disappointed with Ken Burns' documentary on World War II, 'The War'.  Easily half of it was what was going on over here at the time (yawn), and most of the action scenes dealt with (here it comes) the horror of war!

Yawn.

There was almost no talk of overarching strategies, and very few 'victory' scenes.  Picture endless, lingering shots of dead civilians and you've got the idea.  There was a section on Iwo Jima — and how costly it was in terms of human lives, of course — but no shot of the famous raising of the flag.  That probably would have been too imperialistic for the sensitive Mr. Burns.

Nonetheless, I found this particular scene quite interesting.

Transdimensional Interpreter

A fun, clever scene from 'Always'.  Richard Dreyfuss has died and come back to earth as Ted's guardian angel, although people can't see or hear him.  In this scene, Dreyfuss is trying to dissuade Ted from dating his ex-girlfriend Dorinda.

Guess The Celebrity

Check out this nice affable ticket seller in 'Let It Ride'.  Doesn't he seem kind of familiar?  I can almost guarantee you've seen a very popular movie he was in later on, and I can definitely guarantee you've seen pictures and posters of him in the role he plays.

Go ahead, give it a shot.

Give up?  Answer here.

"Creative Sportsmanship"

Johnny Depp discusses sound business practices in Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

Translatory Moments

One small problem when producing a movie and dealing with foreign languages is whether or not to have the foreign characters actually speak in their native tongue.  If they do, you have that 'air of authenticity', but you have to deal with distracting subtitles.  If you don't, it just seems kind of fake.

How they crossed that bridge in 'The Hunt For Red October' was nicely done.

Along similar lines, the way they showed Antonio Banderas in 'The 13th Warrior' as an Arab traveling with a bunch of Norsemen and slowly learning their language was also well crafted.

Spot The Similarities

So, think you've got good eyes?  Are you good at spotting 'goofs' in movies?  Then maybe you'll be able to spot the veiled similarities in these three crazy characters.

On Being Ernest

To me, one of the most intriguing things in all of filmdom is the difference between the 'Ernest' movies.  My first was "Ernest Saves Christmas" and I thought it was terrific.  Great sight gags, great impersonations (see above clip), and certainly an original plot.  Then I saw "Ernest Goes To Jail" and was equally impressed.  Excited, I rented "Ernest Goes To Africa" and almost threw up.  I hit the KILL switch about five minutes into it.  Ditto "Ernest Scared Stupid".  They were both just lame.  So it's quite interesting why some of his movies would be so good, yet others, all using the same theme and characters, go straight into the toilet.  Here's a quick clip from 'Jail' showing off Jim Varney's prowess at impersonations.

Timing Is Everything

The movie 'Deal', starring Burt Reynolds and some kid named Bret Harrison, was eminently forgetable as far as gambling movies go, but as far as surprise endings, it had one of the all-time greats.

The kid has been taking poker lessons from his mentor (who's lost his nerve at the table but still knows the game) and they go on the big circuit, winning a few bucks, but eventually having a falling-out.  They meet again at the biggest poker tournament of them all.

The aging mentor hasn't played in 20 years, and will probably never play again.  Still, it's a battle of wills and wit in the final hands.  The kid against the old guy.  New School versus Old School.  The student challenging the teacher.  The brash rising star versus the fiery old dragon. 

And the kid loses, and it's okay.  They reconcile and share a few moments, then go their separate ways forever.

And you don't really understand what happened until the final two seconds of the movie.

Quiet: Genius At Work

Granted, Quentin Tarantino is probably certifiably insane, but he certainly has a gift for cinematography.  Check out this scene from 'Kill Bill 1' — the great camera angles, the way it transitions between slo-mo and real-time, the way the slo-mo photography somehow seems to go with the hard driving music — a very cool scene.

Costume Change

The greatest career move I've ever seen an actor make was Keanu Reeves going from the goofy dude in the two 'Bill & Ted' movies to a tough, determined, gutty FBI agent in 'Point Break'.  Pairing up with a couple of big-name actors (Gary Busey, Patrick Swayze), a tight script and lots of action didn't hurt, either. 

Or let me ask you this:  Whatever happened to that other guy in the 'Bill & Ted' movies?  Ol' whats-his-name.  See what I mean?  Once most young actors get labeled in some kind of goofy, nutty role, it's hard to shake.  Keanu gets credit for breaking out of the mold in exactly the right way.

Here's a scene from 'Point Break' near the beginning of the movie.  It's literally the first time — after four hours of 'Bill & Ted' movies — that we actually hear him… raise his voice(!)  And a splendid piece of armchair psychology on his part.

Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work

The movie 'Pentagon Wars' was based on a true story. 
  
One cringes to think how much. 

Three Clips from Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'

  • How Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference 2,200 years ago.

  • The vastness of size is an amazing thing.  To get an idea how large things go from our little world outward, watch this clip.  And the amazing thing is that it goes just as far in the other direction.

  • For those who don't believe in evolution, one big argument they make is that "the fossil record is incomplete."  And they're right, there are huge gaps in the fossil record — and understandably so.  Bones are just organic material, after all, and it's astonishing that any bones have survived the onslaught of countless millennia.  For every thousand cave men who died, one had to clutch his chest from a heart attack, go "Arrggh!", stumble three steps and fall into a great big tar pit.  For every thousand dinosaurs that died, one had to collapse by the river bank — and at precisely that moment a huge water surge created a massive mud flow that covered the entire body with 10 feet of mud before it could be eaten and the bones scattered — just as the rainy season ended so the fresh mud wouldn't be washed away by the next big rain.  You see what I mean?  The circumstances that would allow organic material like bones to survive millions of years would had to have been few and far between.  So it's certainly understandable that the fossil record is incomplete.
     
    Of course, that's just the fossil record.  There are other records, as well.