Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Titanic (1997)

by Nathaniel R and other Best Shot participants

As our season finale (series finale, too, at least in this format) we thought 'Why not go down with the ship!!!' The RMS Titanic to be specific. Twenty-five years on James Cameron's Oscar-winning prestige disaster film Titanic (1997) is still giant with audiences and one of those rare movies that "plays" for everyone.

After the jump the choices from the Best Shot club...

Click to read more ...

Klute, pt 3: Fresh Produce, Real Tears, and a Sick Confession

In the first third of Klute (1971) we met the two fascinating central characters, a smart angry prostitute/actress Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) and a hard-to-read detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) investigating the disappearance of a man who might have been her client. In the middle of the picture, a volatile romance between the two blossoms just as the speculative danger becomes real. 

part 3 by Mark Brinkerhoff

01:17:20 As we left part two of this retrospective, the body of another of Bree's friends was found. Klute is putting the pieces together and it doesn't look great for Bree, the only one of the three prostitutes involved with the mystery man who is still alive. Boy does the suspense really ratchet up towards the end! So we'll keep this final installment briefer in appreciation of quickening heartbeats...

Click to read more ...

Klute, pt 2: Sleazy Pimps, Dead Ends, and Surprising Intimacy

by Ben Miller

In Part 1 of this Klute retrospective (and best shot appreciation) Nathaniel guided us through the introduction of a vague central mystery and soon to be classic film characters in sex worker Bree Daniels and the titular character, John Klute, who is investigating the disapperance of his best friend, who the police believe to be a former client of Bree's. In part two, I'll be guiding you through the middle act.

We pick back up as Bree keeps switching tactics, alternately trying to seduce Klute, turn the tables on him, or rage at him, rather than play dutifully along with his questioning. 

Obviously these retrospectives contain SPOILERS so if you've never seen this classic, head to HBOMax first before continuing...

Click to read more ...

Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Klute (1971)

The next episode in our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives Thursday night. This week we're celebrating Alan J. Pakula's seminal Klute with multiple posts. You still have time to participate! In the meantime, here's Cláudio's entry:

"I'm afraid of the dark, " says Bree Daniels, a New York sex worker trying to keep herself from becoming a serial killer's next victim. This confession happens relatively early in a film bearing the name of the taciturn Pennsylvania detective who comes to the Big Apple to investigate his friend's disappearance. He is the man to which she tells of this private fear, not necessarily a gesture of honesty but a weaponizing of her vulnerability. As ever, Bree wants control of the situation, and to bear herself naked is often the key to such dominance. Nakedness, of course, can come from truth rather than bared flesh. Watching Klute, one gets the sense that Bree is truly afraid of the dark, even though that very darkness is the poisonous womb within which she exists at all time, like an unborn babe striving for the light of birth while keeping itself smothered in the comfort of shadow…

Click to read more ...

Final Episodes of 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot'

little change of scheduling for "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" with no episode this week. 

 

1) watch the movie
2) pick your favourite shot (whatever you think is "best" however you would define that)
3) post it, with or without an explanation wherever you play online #bestshot

FINAL TWO EPISODES

Post before Thursday June 23rd Klute (1971) streaming on HBOMax
Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland star as a call-girl and the detective following her, respectively, in this paranoid classic. Leading up to the "Best Shot" post on we'll do a tag team retrospective. In other words it's a Klute week (June 20th-23rd) for its 51st anniversary (yes, we're kicking ourselves that we didn't do this last year) in our ongoing endeavor to get everyone to see this classic. If you've never done a "best shot" before but often thought of doing so, why not?

Post before Thursday June 30th SEASON FINALE Titanic (1997) streaming on Netflix
We have to watch this again for the next SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN so why not make a party out of it? Climb on that floating door with Rose -- there's room for everyone.