While watching Slap Shot, I noticed this hilarious marquee behind the victory parade. I’m sure it was a plot point, but I missed it. What a fantastic movie that is, and what a good movie to watch instead of the Stanley Cup.
Today we lost a Slumber Party giant. William Finley , the star of Brian De Palma’s gothicampy masterpiece, Phantom of the Paradise, died today. Tongue firmly planted in a raw, bloody cheek, Phantom of the Paradise stretched the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief. Stretched? Make that tortured. We were supposed to believe that Jessica Harper rocked the house, that Gerrit Graham was super studly and, the biggest stretch of them all, [SPOILER ALERT] that anyone would ever make a deal with The Devil so that they could look like this for the rest of eternity.
The one thing that we found it very easy to believe, was that William Finley could play the holy heck out of one of the creepiest motherf#**ers we’ve ever seen
This is the scene in the movie, Roller Boogie, where Linda Blair and a mop on a pair of skates compete in something called a Big Boogie. This clip is too bizarre and scary for the human brain to properly process, so I added narration to make it easier to understand. If your eyes start to bleed, just close them…and listen. (If your ears start to bleed it’s because I totally messed up the audio…I’ll fix that for the next one.)
While I was researching for an upcoming post comparing Flashdance and Showgirls, I saw that Slap Shot (1977) was on that minute. I turned the channel and they were all fighting on the ice. But fighting led to…
Everything about this scene is magic. That marching band deserved an Oscar for best soundtrack. Happy Friday, y’all!
Dang it, Lerlenes*! I meant to post something about the April Fool’s Day Showgirls marathon on Logo, but I was but I was too busy trying to figure out which Shakespearean witch created Joe Eszterhas in her cauldron (I’m going with the ugly one). Here. I’ll make it up to you with this picture of two supposedly sentient women talking about eating dog food.
*In my mind, three women read this blog. They are all named Lerlene.
In honor of Spiegelmama’s birthday, I am posting about one of her favorite movies and the best scene that has ever been in a movie ever. I will also give you the Top Ten Reasons why it is the best scene that has ever been in a movie ever…as if I even have to explain.
10. It features Morris Day in 1984. And in ’84, Morris Day was the hottest thing to swing a pimp cane.
9. What? Yes! The hottest! Why? Yeah, I know he had a pompadour and a mustache, and he occasionally wore a doo-rag with a zoot suit, but there was no one, I repeat NO ONE, hotter than Morris!
8. Okay, fine. You want to play it that way? Number 8 is: It features Morris Day in 1984. And in ’84, Morris Day was the hottest thing to swing a pimp cane. Don’t mess with me. I can do this all day.
7. Speaking of pimp cane, Morris is doing his best pimp routine, but this scene would still pass the scrutiny of Prince’s religious overlords. He’s not asking them to have sex for money. He’s asking them to perform the world’s simplest dance steps ever. What is their problem? Their shoes must indeed be on too tight.
6. The way Jerome shakes his head when the girls suggest that they make up their own dance moves. This is the best because it not only suggests that at one point there existed dance steps even worse than the ones we see here, it also seals Jerome’s character as a toadie with a mind of his own. Yes, he brings Morris comically large mirrors on demand, but he has his on opinions. Sure they are always the same as Morris’s opinions, but that is just a coincidence. (Please see: That was f***ed up what you did. Morris doesn’t like it. I don’t like it either.)
5. Seriously! Those dance steps are bad. They are so easy my five-year-old could do them, and I can’t imagine even the tightest of black ’80s pumps keeping anyone from performing them to even Morris’s high standards.
4. While Morris is asking for perfection, he also clearly asks to see some asses wiggling. At no point during this scene, do these girls wiggle their asses. They clearly can’t take direction.
3. It’s filled with puzzling moments like this one: Morris points his pimp cane at his band and warns the girls that they are going to make his boys look bad. But does Morris really care about “his boys”? He lets them languish all day in a warehouse that looks like it was decorated by Prince’s mom, watching girls in tight shoes not wiggle their asses and miss the same dance steps over and over. Why didn’t he just use a tape? We know they had the technology. Unless of course, Morris was paying them by the hour. I’m not sure why, but I get the idea that Morris paid well.
2. Re-watch the movie so you can see the beginning of this scene. Just do it, you’ll thank me. Pay attention to Jerome. He appears to be playing an interesting new rhythm instrument called The Lampshade Fringe. You are welcome.
1. As you can see from this next video, Morris finally got the perfection he was looking for. And listen to the way he says “a girl’s group.” Too sexy! What? Don’t start that again.
Excellent work. You’re a fast reader! But it’s pretty fast-paced, so I’m not surprised it didn’t take long.
We’ve all seen the movie, of course. We love it. Quoth we from it frequently and well, and likely not even realizing that we’re doing it anymore because it’s just what we say. We all love the Vizzini scene. (I have a theory that iocane is actually an inhaled poison, and he was dead before he took a drink.) We all think of the bishop when we go to weddings. We all know a little head-jiggle’s not going to make almost-dead Wesley happy.
Blah, blah, blah. I’m not listing those scenes. You know those scenes. Think of this post a s a longtime viewer’s companion: a guide to the stuff you didn’t notice until the twelfth, or twenty-fourth, or twelfth-squared viewing. Every movie should be good enough to warrant a second viewing, because in the first viewing, you’re only getting the plot points and the highlights. Second viewing, you’re enjoying the dialogue.
By the 144th viewing, though, you should still find something new. (I only recently just noticed that Peter Venkman gets the crap scared out of him by the hotel manager when they go to catch Slimer. Hilarious.) So here are my favorite moments that it took 50+ viewings to find; please add your favorites in the comments. And if it involves a line about storming the castle, it doesn’t count.
5. The Cliffs of Insanity tableau.
I noticed this probably some time during my freshman year of college, while I was taking Intro to Film and knew words like “tableau.” I’m not a huge film geek anymore, but this particular scene is so beautifully constructed that I have to mention it every time, thus annoying my husband every time we watch it.
4. Exiting the Fire Swamp.
It’s not the way they look bedraggled and beat to hell, although that’s part of it. It’s also not entirely Wesley’s WTF look at Buttercup when she’s pleading for his life, although that goes in, too, along with his sidelong glance at Count Rogan. It’s also not “We are men of action. Lies do not become us.” Rather, this is one of only two times where we see Count Rogan have an emotional reaction: when Wesley mentions that he has six fingers on his right hand, Count Rogan’s eye twitches and then he clocks him soundly on the head.
It could be because he was going to shut him up that way, anyway, but I prefer to think that of all the things you could say or do to Count Rogan, you never, EVER mention the sixth finger. Like EVER. And the reason he killed Senõr Montoya was not so he couldn’t pay him, but because Senõr Montoya said, “This is the sword I made you for your six-fingered hand.” And Rogan was all, “WHAT did you say?” *stab*
Sidenote here: Christopher Guest is brilliant in many ways, but he’s most brilliant as a chameleon. It wasn’t until college that I bothered to look at the credits and realized he was actually Count Rogan. He’s unrecognizable as anyone.
3. The Inigo/Fezzik Reunion
It’s not a moment, sure. It’s a scene. But it starts with Inigo recognizing Fezzik because of the size of his hand–which totally makes sense, because Inigo is a swordsman, and he would probably recognize someone’s hand before anything else on their person. It moves on to Inigo counting on his fingers; he’s brilliant, but not very smart, as he’s already told us himself.
And then he says “There will be blood tonight!” Which is rousing, to say the least, but also kind of funny, considering Inigo’s recent lookalike.
2. Inigo Slays Ass in the Hallway.
This was a scene I never fully appreciated until I read the book, because the book’s line is utterly brilliant (and I hope I’m not misquoting): The fourth was dead before the first hit the floor. And by gum, that’s what Rob Reiner filmed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any YouTube clips that didn’t involve The Man in Black or Count Rogan, so you’ll just have to watch it again.
And drum roll, please….
1. Count Rogan’s First Name is Tyrone.
That’s it. That’s all. Count Rogan’s first name is Tyrone. You can’t beat that with a stick of iocane.
When Madeline Kahn’s diminutive, delightfully homicidal Mrs. White tries to come up with the right words to explain the hate she had for the fancy French mistress of her philandering husband, she delivers a line that soon becomes legendary in Clue, a movie filled with legendary lines. A generation has used this line to describe our hatred for everything from high gas prices to leaky garbage bags to philandering husbands to ovarian cancer, and it has served us well. Now, I propose we bring this rage-explaining shorthand to the Internet. We could make it even shorter and just say fatsomf whenever someone pisses us off. Or we could use an emoticon like “o,o” …or we could use this handy dandy meme I made for you. (It clicks through to the original scene…in case you’ve forgotten it.)
Maybe some people don’t think of Glenn Close as a Slumber Party Movie icon, but I do…for two reasons. Number one, she did coke with William Hurt in The Big Chill. Boom! Right there. Icon status. Two: Maxie! Now, this movie was by no means a big hit, or a sleeper hit, or a cult hit or any kind of hit at all. But it had Glenn Close saying cute 30s slang like “now you’re cooking with gas”, dressing in Art Deco fashion, singing on pianos and having ghost sex with Mandy Patinkin. Oh and bonus! Her neighbor was Slumber Party Movie Lifetime Achievement nominee, Ruth Gordon. Come to think of it…why wasn’t it a hit? Baffling.
Spiegelmama wrote about Peggy Pope’s pivotal role as the redeemed office lush in 9 to 5. Peggy Pope turned her catch phrase in the movie, Atta Girl, into the title of her book, Atta Girl…which got 5 stars on Amazon. Peggy….You know what I’m going to say to you, right? Nice job, Peggy!
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