Monday Monologue: "Three kinds of pipe" in Moonstruck

Bringing back an old series Monday Monologue* for fun - will try to do this weekly since we love amazing combos of actors and screenplays.

The women of Moonstruck (1987), mother and daughter Rose (Olympia Dukakis) and Loretta Castorini (Cher), get all the credit. It's not hard to see why since both actresses won richly deserved Oscars but the men in the movie are indispensable to its pleasures, too. Though we've seen Moonstruck many times, when we were prepping for a recent episode of Streaming Roulette, we chanced upon a brief character comedy scene we'd completely forgotten about. In the scene, the family patriach and plumber Cosmo Castorini (Vincent Gardenia) is trying to convince a couple that they need to pay for a huge upgrade to fix their a bathroom leak...

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Serious Lip-synching skills. That's all.

Well, you’ve been asking for her. Ladies and gentlemen: Miranda Priestly 👠 pic.twitter.com/4En4f61m1n

— Ben Yahr (@benyahr) July 12, 2019

A Very Batty Birthday

Today is the inception date of one of the world's all time most compelling screen characters. It's Replicant, Roy Batty (of Blade Runner fame). Oh the places he'll go... 

Or, rather the things he'll see in his short life: Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; C-beams glittering in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate.

We speak of course of Replicant N6MAA10816 Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) of Blade Runner fame. Who will be incepted at some point... today (gulp). Given how prescient so much of Blade Runner was, particularly in its inarguably genius production design (which hilariously lost the Oscar to Gandhi - okay, Hollywood *rotflmao* you do you!), this shouldn't surprise us.

With Alicia Vikander's gloriously sly Ex Machina performance winning recent honors (BAFTA & Globe nominations) for a brand new potentially classic synthetic antagonist, this is a perfect time for us to honor Rutger Hauer's greatest performance yet again. Hauer's work as Roy Batty has long since become a personal symbol of what heights actors who are in tune with their film's message, their auteur's vision, and their genre's style can soar to... even if awards bodies have historically always had trouble understanding the level of difficulty and the mad genius that shapes the best genre acting, nearly always to their detriment since these performances often become classics examples of great screen acting nearly the very second people are done cordoning of the movies that house them as "sci-fi" or "horror" or "comedy" and have started thinking of them as simply "a classic."

After the jump a slight reworking of a tribute written by yours truly in 2007 on the occasion of his film's then 25th birthday...

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Monday Monologue: Henry II's Eulogy

Anne Marie here to celebrate the holiday with a furious monologue from my favorite Christmas movie. "Christmas movie" is a terrible description for Anthony Harvey's 1968 film The Lion in Winter, though it is technically correct. This is a political thriller of one very long Christmas night between Henry II of England (Peter O’Toole), his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), and their three conniving sons as they battle over who will be the next King of England.

And you thought your family was dysfunctional.

While we've written extensively about Katharine Hepburn's Oscar-winning performance in The Lion in Winter, this Monologue Monday before Christmas I'd like to shine the spotlight on Peter O'Toole's underawarded performance as the manic, magnificent Henry II of England. The movie is filled with great dialog for the Irishman to chew on, but O'Toole's best (or biggest) moment comes midway through the film, after a midnight meeting with the King of France.

A eulogy for a king after the jump...

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Monologue: Cheng Pei-pei in "Lilting"

Andrew here.

Last week’s BIFA nominations saw a mix of expected names and surprises, but the inclusion I was most excited for was the citation of the quiet, lovely performance of Cheng Pei Pei in Lilting. Lilting premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival to good reviews but it’s the type of smaller film, one in a dozen each year, that seems destined to be forgotten by the time the year draws to a close. It’s a shame, because even when its story falters slightly Lilting remains a thoughtful, and affecting, piece.

Like a profound monologue Pei-Pei has towards the end of the film. Up to this point in Lilting, Hong Khaou (writer and director) has elongated the crisis of when Junn will find out that her dead son’s friend, Richard, who keeps visiting her at her convalescent home is actually his ex-lover. Though it threatens to lag in the middle, Lilting begins and ends with aplomb. The audience has been wondering just why Richard doesn’t just tell Junn the truth. And, in his final big scene as he explains to Junn, Whishaw is fantastic. And like mother oftentimes do, Junn reveals she already knew Kai was gay and launches into a monologue of her own.

“It’s pathetic for a mother to fight for her own son’s attention. I felt so jealous of you…”

It's not so much a justification for Junn's passive aggression towards Junn, so far but instead an essential glimpse into Junn – a lovely clarification of this heretofore inscrutable woman.

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