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Chris E's Movie Clip Party - 7th Edition
12.27.03

YOJIMBO [Chris]
opening credits

EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE [Chris]
to the secret lab

SLACKER [Warren]
backseat monologue

PAPERHOUSE [Laura S]
drawing a pair of legs

IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER [Deirdre]
"Baby, You Knock Me Out"

25TH HOUR [Laura M]
poetry class

MILLER'S CROSSING [Sean]
"Danny Boy"

DOWN WITH LOVE [Paul]
"Fly Me to the Moon"

HUMAN TRAFFIC [Harriet]
record shop

THE PIANO TEACHER [Mike B]
glass in the coat pocket

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
(aka STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN) [Tod]
conversation from the cockpit

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS [Tim]
"Suppertime"

LOST IN AMERICA [Christa]
quit your job

< intermission >

A WAKING LIFE [Matt]
frontseat monologue

CHOPPER [Mike D'A]
puncturing Chopper repeatedly

WHITE CHRISTMAS [Anne]
"Sisters" (reprise)

KANDAHAR [Jim]
running on crutches

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE [Elise]
handbag and tie; uncovering an affair

LOVELY AND AMAZING [Miriam]
an assessment of her body

TALK TO HER [Deirdre]
preparing for the bullfight

MADAM SATAN [Paul]
zeppelin production number

MURDER BY DEATH [Christa]
yes, murder

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS [Laura S]
patient Bill Murray

JACOB'S LADDER [Sean]
strapped to the gurney with the squeaky wheel

BARBARELLA [Elise]
meeting the tyrant

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN [Tim]
"Make 'Em Laugh"

BIRDY [Chris]
ending

< intermission >

TRON [Matt]
sending in the tank program

GALAXY QUEST [Laura S]
stompers

DOWN WITH LOVE [Anne]
garters and socks

ATANARJUAT (aka THE FAST RUNNER) [Jim]
running and falling on ice

101 REYKJAVIK [Miriam]
breaking up the small talk with a shotgun

DUMB AND DUMBER [Chris]
can't triple stamp a double stamp

THE KID [Deirdre]
the authorities take the kid

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE [Laura M]
watching as a friend is captured

ROAD HOUSE [Paul]
the rules

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST [Sean]
the baseball game

BAD SANTA [Mike D'A]
taking the kid home

SABRINA [Chris]
ending

- end -

COMMENTS

Fascinating, as always, to see what people come up with. The rhythm of the evening was a little tough to surf, but that was perhaps due to the fact that eighty percent of the clips came on DVD this year, slowing down transitions between clips to a crawl. That also meant fewer total clips over the course of the evening.

Our 7th edition felt a bit restless, as well, in ways difficult to identify. Some people felt they could identify an undercurrent of unease, from the antiauthoritarian rant of A WAKING LIFE to the quiet cruelty of THE PIANO TEACHER. A couple of you mused about the concentration of movies from the 1980s. I attribute that trend to you all reaching back into the cinematic cupboard for films from your formative moviegoing years--two clips from the current video release DOWN WITH LOVE is not surprising, but two from the 1986 musical of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is an aberration. Call it a curious confluence of demographics and timing.

Of course all this talk about the 1980s reminds me that the 1970s--the decade most critics consider the height of Hollywood's artistic achievement--have been sorely neglected at the clip party. One brief scene from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST was a palpable reminder of that (I don't know that I would count MURDER BY DEATH).

In a promising sign for the future, nearly a third of the clips were from films made outside the US. Keep that up.

AWARDS

The Audience Award was more of a toss-up this year, but once again it went to Tod, for his single contribution from A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. While the clip's length violated the official time limit (clocking in at five minutes and forty-five seconds) enough audience members were willing to forgive the faux pas and name the clip their favorite of the evening.

(Future restrictions may be placed on this sort of flagrant rulebreaking--upon reflection I realize that the extra time allowed for greater emotional attachment to the characters and their dramatic situation. I note that the clip received more votes at the end of the evening than it did at the first break.)

Once again my choice for the Baxter recognized an accidental collaboration of three clips that created an interesting theme. I have to pause and recognize Jim's individual achievement--his clips from KANDAHAR and ATANARJUAT offered striking portraits of men running, over flat ground, at vastly different points on the globe. Certainly a hot topic was the recurring theme of institutionalization (JACOB'S LADDER, CHOPPER, BIRDY, CUCKOO'S NEST and Matt's unscreened clip from 12 MONKEYS). But the trope of bare walled confinement is common enough in cinema to be considered its own genre, so instead I'll award the Baxter to Laura S, Jim, and Deirdre for three meditations on the human leg: PAPERHOUSE, in which a child magically creates a pair of legs; KANDAHAR, in which artificial legs fall from the sky; and IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, in which Cyd Charisse is, well, all legs. (Some attendees have since reminded me of the amputated legs in the scene from JACOB'S LADDER, but they were mixed in with other human body part, and were really background dressing for the star of the scene, the gurney's squeaky wheel.)

I'm trying to find a name for the accidental juxtaposition of two matching clips, a near-Baxter, if you will. My clearest memory of a comparable phenomenon is Jack Barry's voice on the Joker's Wild: "Joker... Joker... and Biblical Stories." But I'm not convinced I should call these pairings Joker Jokers:

SLACKER + A WAKING LIFE

Richard Linklater monologues delivered in moving automobiles

DOWN WITH LOVE (#1) + TALK TO HER

ritualized dressing for a big event

THE KID + RABBIT-PROOF FENCE

bad men carting kids off in trucks

THE KID + BAD SANTA

in which a tramp cares for a kid known only as "The Kid."

LOVELY & AMAZING + ATANARJUAT

in which actors stand naked before the camera and we wince at the pain we imagine they feel

The Teller, for recognition of a wordless clip, has to go to Sean's selection from MILLER'S CROSSING. Technically, the vocalist crooning "Danny Boy" from the phonograph is singing words, but the clip could have worked as well with an instrumental recording. As a cinematic sequence this clip was unmatched over the course of the evening for its camera placement, editing, and yes, wordless storytelling, with a beginning, middle, and an exclamation point of an ending. The party was created for clips like this.

The Montalban, for recognition of a clip we can't believe we haven't seen before now, goes to Tim and Donald O'Connor (1925-2003) for the indomitable "Make 'Em Laugh" from SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. Yes, the song was a made-for-litigation ripoff of Cole Porter's "Be A Clown", but O'Connor's antic brilliance wipes all memory of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland's lazy performance of the original.

Laura M's clip from RABBIT-PROOF FENCE takes home a Jessie for its essentially wordless evocation of childhood helplessness and fear.

Finally, and of course, there were no contenders to the throne of the What the Hell Was That? award to match the brain-crushing power of the zeppelin-based oil company advertisement-cum-production number in Cecil B. DeMille's MADAM SATAN. Thanks to Paul for pointing the way.

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