Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Roy Scheider in Jaws August 5, 2010

Here are a few reasons for Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema being Roy Scheider’s iconic reaction shot to the monstrous great white shark in Jaws:

1. It’s Shark Week, so only it seems apropos.
2. When I was home sick on Monday, I decided to re-watch Jaws because sometimes it’s important to shake it up and stray from my usual sick-day viewing requirements.  Variety is the spice of blah, blah, blah.  Also, it’s Shark Week, so that too seemed apropos.
3. Mostly, though, I’m firmly of the mind that believes Roy Scheider’s reaction in the above image is fabulous, and this is the most important reason, so let’s take a quick respite from living every week like it’s Shark Week and discuss, shall we?

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Angelina Jolie in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow August 3, 2010

Estimated budget of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow as according to Box Office Mojo?  $70 million.  Total worldwide box office of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, again, as according to Box Office Mojo?  $57, 958, 696; in other words, just shy of $58 million.  If you’re going to be an accountant about it, I guess that makes Kerry Conran’s loving homage to Classic Hollywood film serials, kitschy sci fi aesthetics, and New York City architecture in the late 1930s (seriously, the scene where Gwyneth Paltrow goes into Radio City Music Hall is an instant Art Decorgasm) something of a box office failure.  Not an outright bomb, for sure, but also not about to get Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 2: 2 Late for 2morrow greenlit any time soon.  BOOO, 0bviously.  Obviously?  Obviously.

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Carla Gugino in Watchmen July 30, 2010

When you consider how I feel about Carla Gugino in Watchmen, and then you throw in how I feel about fabulous ladies in fabulous glasses, Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema of Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre, replete with latex jowls and rhinestone-studded granny glasses, is a no-brainer.  Seriously, where’s the boozy old-lady Silk Spectre spin-off we all (and by “we all,” I mean me) have been demanding?  Hollywood, I smell a sequel, and it smells like cheap liquor and Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds!

Oh, and do be sure to click to enlarge and appreciate the faux-geriatic fabulousness of it all.

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel July 29, 2010

If I’m going to be completely honest about these sorts of things, I must admit that my first introduction to Marlene Dietrich–and naturally the beginning of my obsession–didn’t come from Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg’s first film together, The Blue Angel.  Hell, I can’t even claim to have come around when I saw her infamous same-sex kiss in von Sternberg’s Morocco, which forever boggles my mind that they were able to get Dietrich in a tuxedo kissing another woman past the censors in 1930, during an in-class screening of The Celluloid Closet.  No no, I first swooned for Marlene Dietrich thanks to a Mercedes Benz, this Mercedes Benz commercial to be exact:

Today’s Fabulous Image(s) in Cinema: Julia Ormond in I Know Who Killed Me July 27, 2010

I don’t know what persuaded Julia Ormond to get on board the Hot Mess Express and play Lindsay Lohan’s mother in the thriller/slasher/torture porn/masterpiece that is I Know Who Killed, but I do know I’m forever happy she did.  Without her commitment to the craft, the line “This is Mr. Jervis” would be a line about a teddy bear like any other; instead, Julia Ormond makes it one of the most dazzling, mind-bogglingly bizarre things I’ve ever seen committed to film.  I mean, what in the world is she doing with her voice?  And what’s going on with her face?  No, seriously:

Pure FACE poetry is what’s going on with her face, y’all.

Sure, it’s all too easy to take a line delivered to the girl you believe is your only daughter–the daughter who’s been abducted by a serial killer, lost portions of her arm and leg through a brutal amputation process that involves dry ice and blue glass surgical utensils (don’t ask), and somehow managed to escape–like a she’s just gone through a serious trauma (so, you know, like a normal person), but it takes a special caliber of actor to play that line like you’re in the midst of an exorcism, and that caliber is BRILLIANT.  Lindsay Lohan’s reaction shot pretty much sums it up:

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby July 26, 2010

Nothing puts me in the mood to caterwaul “DAAAVID!” quite like the delightfully crazy-eyed focus that Katharine Hepburn brings as she attempts to pop an olive into her mouth while wearing one of the most decidedly bonkers veils I’ve ever seen in my all-time favorite screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby.  I mean, have you seen the masthead?  I wasn’t simply punning on Dirty Dancing, y’all.  No no, think of the masthead as  a multi-layered, metatexual tapestry of terrible punnage that looks like a four-headed ouroboros (one for each of the leading ladies in Sex and the City 2).  Seriously, I’m not sure anything will ever be as egregious as the one-two pun(ch) of “Abu Dhabi Doo!” and “Lawrence of my labia,” and it should probably remain unknown if such a pun exists, but much like Judy Garland or Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in the following clip from Bringing Up Bay:

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Miranda July’s Pink Shoes in Me and You and Everyone We Know July 23, 2010

I recognize that Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema isn’t the sort of fabulous we’re used to dealing with over at this particular corner of the internet, but Dictionary.com does define fabulous as “extremely pleasing or successful,” and the fact of the matter is that the moment when Miranda July (who also wrote and directed the remarkable and sublime Me and You and Everyone We Know) makes a video piece in which  her two pinks shoes eloquently pantomime the ways we try and connect with each other is indeed extremely pleasing (aesthetically) and successful (at making me want to give Miranda July a hug), so you know what?  Yes, this image is fabulous.

Oh, and do be sure to click to enlarge and appreciate the ))<>(( forever fabulousness of it all.

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Fiona Shaw in The Black Dahlia July 22, 2010

A few years back,I gushed to my mother about what a steal it was when I dropped $5 for a used copy of The Black Dahlia from a nearby Blockbuster.  I went on and on and on about how bad it was, and finally mother stopped me and asked, “Why would you even want to spend $5 dollars on it then?”  I guess that’s a reasonable question (for other people), so consider the above image of Fiona Shaw delivering a perfectly executed side-eye just before sipping her martini my argument for The Black Dahlia being five of my best-spent dollars.

Seriously, when it comes to performances, The Black Dahlia is by and large one of the most baffling experiences of all time.  Most everyone seems to be aiming for ’40s-film-noir only to achieve awkward-and-forced-like-bad-pulp-dialogue, Hilary Swank looks absolutely nothing like “that dead girl” despite Scarlett Johansson having a line of dialogue that explicitly insists otherwise, and then there’s Fiona Shaw.  She plays Hilary Swank’s wealthy boozehound of a mother, Ramona Linscott, and she’s incredible.  I’m not entirely certain what–if any–direction Brian DePalma gave her because her performance is from a completely different movie about a batshit crazy drunk who won’t take anybody’s sass.  She’s like Carla Gugino in Watchmen, lighting up the screen and warming the camp-adoring cockles of our hearts with each slurred word and wildly over-exaggerated gesticulation.  For example, a less inspired actress would probably sloppily eat the pot roast in this scene, but not Fiona Shaw:

Today’s (Much Belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema: Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal July 21, 2010

When things get quiet over at this particular corner of the internet, the reality is there’s only person we have to blame, and that person is me.  The only problem with this is that I’m a blame shifter, so when things get quiet over at this particular corner of the internet (at least this time around), it’s Christopher Nolan’s fault.  Seriously, he’s the man behind Inception, and I’m merely the owner of the mind that movie melted, which mean he’s the one who committed the mind crime!  (Get it?!?)  Besides, Joseph Gordon Levitt looking positively dapper (or do I mean Draper?) in a suit and vest will muddle your brain for days like that.  Oh, and the Mad Men Fever obviously isn’t helping my crazy, either.  Anyways, we’re not here to talk about Inception (YET); we’re here to talk about Today’s (much belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema, and Today’s (much belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema is from Notes on a Scandal, so let’s talk about it.

Today’s Fabulous Image in Cinema: Lana Turner in Peyton Place July 15, 2010

The first time I saw this particularly melodramatic moment from Mark Robson’s 1957 adaptation of Grace Metalious’s notorious novel Peyton Place, I found myself marveling at how much emotional anguish she projects through her hands.  She grasps at the railing as if it its physicality were the only thing allowing her to hold down her emotions; however, since this is a melodrama we’re talking about, of course Lana has to sink to the stairs and sob as she clutches to the posts, which is the sort of thing that reduces me to a haphazard assortment of gay male stereotypes.  That’s just how these things how these things work, and you can’t brush them off as cheap cliche when they play out so exquisitely.