A tour de force by titans of the silver screen: Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart, and Bette Davis. Mr. Howard insisted that a relatively unknown Bogart be cast for the role of iconic outlaw Duke Mantee; it became the actor’s first big breakthrough. Mantee, a Dillenger-like desperado, sets new elite standards for an obsession with people sitting down. Howard’s character, a down and out man of letters, provides the philosophical dimension. His interactions with the imposing Mantee are some of the greatest exchanges in film history.
Month: November 2019
The Jack Lemmon.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of blackest hue:
In vain with cymbals’ ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue.
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshower’d grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,
Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud:
In vain with timbrel’d anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp’d ark.
from On The Morning of Christ’s Nativity. {John Milton}
Rosie: What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind…
{Wordsworth}
Sparky: Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul’s immensity;
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind…
{Wordsworth}
Piglet: Beyond that, he has roused us, among thoughts of universe or universes and of our smallness in the majestic vague, to the awareness of “our private immensity” in the presence of those particles of which there are always more and more, and of which we are finally constructed…
{Gustav E}
The work of maestros, read either by Tom O’Bedlam, or the poets themselves.
Addendum: John Gielgud chimes in with some Percy B Shelley, as does Bryan Cranston, and Milton is presented on the page. As is Nerval, for that matter.
Javier Bardem.
Actor Javier Bardem won a well-deserved academy award for his portrayal of the formidable/sociopathic Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, a Coen Brothers film.
The featured scenes above bring existential dread to new heights.
Barton Fink {1991}.
This film by the Coen Brothers follows the travails of a bespectacled, bedeviled, embattled writer in Los Angeles, who encounters some quite interesting individuals during his journey. These scenes feature Steve Buscemi, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Lerner, John Goodman, and John Turturro.
Lamar Jackson.
See Campbell video here.
The two greatest running backs I have ever viewed, Earl Campbell and O.J. Simpson. Both combined speed and power with an uncanny, innate sense of how and where to maneuver. Like Larry Bird or Steph Curry in basketball, it was as if they were prescient, seeing how all and everything was developing just a shade before the other players. Or, perhaps, more than a shade.
The indomitable Arthur Brown, who possesses the most profound dance moves and world-view in the world, is also a pretty astonishing vocalist.
The AC/DC, featuring Bon Scott.
The great Bon Scott, one of the most charismatic, difficult-to-remove-eyes-from lead vocalists ever. Though the band prospered after his extremely untimely death, never were they the same.