Sunday, January 19, 2014

Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome!!!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: Here's a terrific post about a key scene in one of my favorite movies, Say Anything.

When people think of Say Anything..., the first thing that pops into their head tends to be the boombox scene. That’s understandable—grand romantic gestures are one of the things the movies do exceptionally well, in part because a movie can just cut away and ignore the less stirring aspects. As a thought experiment, try imagining how Lloyd Dobler’s “In Your Eyes” serenade must have ended. The camera dramatically tracks in on him standing there with the boombox held over his head, then moves on to the next scene. We never see the moment when he concludes Diane isn’t going to rush out and fling her arms around him, decides he’s stood there long enough, turns off the music, gets in his car, and drives back home. Now imagine that same moment from Diane’s perspective. See what editing accomplishes? In a way, though, grand gestures are easy. It’s taking the first step that’s truly difficult, and that difficulty is one of the many things that Say Anything..., in all its adorable awkwardness, gets exactly right.

I still consider Say Anything the finest teen romance film ever made.

And by the way, that post is part of a series called Scenic Routes that examines specific movie scenes. I haven't read too much into it, but on the basis of the Say Anything post, it looks like there might be some nifty commentary there!

Also by the way: in the scene discussed above, my favorite touch is Lloyd's ordering of his young nephew into the corner to remain silent while he makes The Most Important Phone Call Of His Life.

:: This looks neat. I won't be doing this at Casa Jaquandor any time soon, though. I shudder to think what our two fat and dumb lummoxes would do to structures like this. Those of us who live our lives in the presence of cats well know how often the stereotype of cats as "graceful and elegant creatures" turns out to be completely untrue.

:: Last week, FOX Sports -- I'm assuming as part of their coverage of the Seattle Seahawks' playoff game -- showed a bit of footage that turns out to be one of those ideas that's so obvious that I can't believe nobody ever thought to do it until now. The idea? Well, you know how at public markets and places where they sell really fresh fish, as in "right off the boat", the workers will through whole fish to one another in a kind-of blue-collar seafood ballet? Well, someone actually attached a camera to the fish itself, so here's what it's like to be tossed about by fishmongers!



I first saw this here.

Stay weird and awesome, Internet! More next week!

1 comment:

Andy said...

"Say Anything" would NEVER be made today, too 'stalky'!!! There would be too much outrage from women groups!!!!