30 Day Movie Meme: Day 1

I found this meme floating around and it looked like an interesting challenge to only make one choice for each topic.


THE 30 DAY MOVIE MEME
Day 1- FAVOURITE FOREIGN FILM
Day 2- A film that is underrated
Day 3- A film that brings you unadulterated happiness
Day 4- A film cliche that you love
Day5-  Favourite love story in a film
Day 6- Favourite actor/actress
Day 7- The most surprising plot twist/ending
Day 8- The best opening/closing credits
Day 9- The best soundtrack/score to a film
Day 10- Favourite classic film
Day 11- Favourite black and white film
Day 12- A film that permanently altered your point-of-view
Day 13- A guilty pleasure...
Day 14- A film that you used to love but now hate
Day 15- Favourite film sequel
Day 16- Favourite film character
Day 17- Favourite film quote
Day 18- The best overall cast in a film
Day 19- The most hilarious film you've seen
Day 20- A moving (emotional) scene
Day 21- Favourite film from your favourite actor/actress
Day 22- Favourite Academy Award acceptance speech
Day 23- A character you can relate to the most
Day 24- The best page-to-screen adaptation
Day 25- Favourite film villain
Day 26- Favourite film poster
Day 27- A film you wish you had seen in theatres
Day 28- Favourite film from your favourite director
Day 29- A piece of trivia from your favourite film
Day 30- Your favourite film of all time

Day 1: FAVOURITE FOREIGN FILM
BICYCLE THIEVES/Ladri di biciclette (Italy, 1948)
Written and Directed By: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola

THE PLOT:
Antonio Ricci is an unemployed father struggling to provide for his family in post-Second World War Italy. He must support his wife and two young children in a tough economy. Antonio has access to a steady job putting up posters around Rome, so long as he has daily access to a bicycle.

His ragged bicycle is inevitably stolen right from under his nose and Antonio spends the rest of the film with his young son, Bruno, searching the streets for the thief who has stolen the only means with which he has to make money for his poverty-stricken family.

WHY I LOVE IT:
Director De Sica wanted to give the film an authentically raw and gritty quality. Bicycle Thieves is now considered one of the most famous Italian neo-realist films of all time. The entire film was shot on location in Rome and De Sica didn't use any professional actors in the roles. Lamberto Maggiorani, who played Antonio, was a factory worker in the city when he was hired for the lead role.

It's a gorgeous little piece of cinema. Its story is so simple, yet the relationships between the characters, especially Antonio and Bruno as father and son, are so genuine that you immediately care about their struggles. Considering none of the cast were professional actors, the performances are all the more remarkable for it. It's stark black and white images only add to the raw realism of the film. You feel as though you are walking the streets of Rome with this man and his young child, watching their relationship deepen as they essentially search for a needle in a haystack. It also has one of the most emotional final scenes in film history.

Favourite Film Scenes: The Godfather (1972)

THE GODFATHER
DIRECTED BY: Francis Ford Coppola
STARRING: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan

BASIC PLOT: Based on the novel by Mario Puzo, it follows the lives of the Corleone family. Set in 1950's New York, when patriarch Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is at his height of power in the Mafia underworld, the plot trails the passing of the torch between Don Vito and his second-oldset son, Michael (Al Pacino). Business remains all in the family.

FAVOURITE SCENE: The restaurant scene when Michael meets with rival Mob leader, Sollozzo, and the dirty cop, McCluskey. Michael's father, Don Vito, has been the target of an assassination attempt and Michael, who is Ivy League-educated and a decorated Second World War veteran, wants vengeance for the actions taken against his father. This is the first time Michael is involved in the "family business" and while he may seen soft-spoken and willing to co-operate with Sollozzo, there is barely concealed anger in his eyes. Will he kill the two men or won't he?

WHY? Francis Ford Coppola lensed countless memorable moments in his masterpiece, however, the restaurant scene leaves a lasting impression due to the fact that, once Michael commits the two murders, there is no turning back for him. It's the start of his journey that will eventually see him move up in the ranks into a leadership position himself.

The scene starts off with a glass of wine and a business discussion in Italian. There are no subtitles to translate the conversation, therefore, the audience is left to come to their own conclusions as to what is being said based on tone of voice, body language and overall expressiveness. The audience is in the same position as Officer McCluskey; left alone outside of the conversation, waiting to see how it will all pan out.

When Michael excuses himself to use the washroom you know that, in actuality, he's looking for the gun that was left for him behind a toilet bowl. The only sounds that can be heard are that of a passing train; reflecting the inner turmoil and brief hesitation we see in Michael as he discovers the gun.

Coppola's decision not to use a background score (until after the murders take place) adds to the building tension in the scene. You can clearly hear the conversation, as well as city sounds in the background. One can perceive that the lack of a musical score at this time reflects Michael's emotional state; he's calm and focused and nothing will distract him from what he's come to do. Only after he's brutally shot the two men at the table, does the score kick in, as though to reflect the release of Michael's tension.

The scene is beautifully executed (no pun intended) and Al Pacino instills Michael with fire and brimstone beneath a calm exterior. In that brief moment we see the man that Michael will become and we understand that, for his character, there is no turning back. His fate was cemented the moment he show Sollozzo and McCluskey as an act of revenge for his father's near-death experience. 

Every subsequent Mafia film has tried, and failed, to capture that same amount of tension and realistic violence Coppola has in his film classic.

Favourite Film Scenes: City Lights (1931)

CITY LIGHTS
DIRECTED BY: Charlie Chaplin
STARRING: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherill

BASIC PLOT: A Tramp (Chaplin) falls in love with a young blind woman (Cherill) who sells flowers on the street as a means of earning money for herself and her grandmother. She hopes to raise enough money to have an operation that will restore her sight. The Tramp does everything in his power to raise money for her, including befriending a wealthy duke and entering a boxing match. The blind woman thinks that the Tramp is a wealthy benefactor and, since he's fallen in love with her, he doesn't want her to know that he's actually poor.

FAVOURITE SCENE: It's the final scene of the film. The blind girl has had the operation and her sight is fully restored, although she never discovered the identity of the man who helped her. She now owns her own flower shop where she witnesses the Tramp being harrassed by people on the street. At first, she laughs along until she notices the way the Tramp is looking at her, through the window of her store. This is probably one of my favourite Chaplin reactions, as he's staring at her through the glass. At first he's shocked to see her, then he just stands there, so thrilled that her life took such a turn for the best. It's obvious he still loves her. Then, she goes outside on the street, to give him a flower and some money. When she touches his hand, she recognizes how it feels, and it slowly dawns on her that the Tramp was the young man who so selflessly raised all that money for her. The title card for Chaplin reads, "You can see now?" to which the girl responds, "Yes, I can see now." Cue tears.

WHY?: Without using actual words, Charlie Chaplin was able to convey one of the most honest and moving  reactions to love that I've ever seen on film. His face is that of genuine happiness.

In high school, my English teacher showed us Modern Times. Everyone knows the iconic image of Chaplin's body flipping around in the wheel of a giant machine. I enjoyed the film but it still took me a few more years to fully appreciate the talent that was Charlie Chaplin. About six years ago I decided to watch City Lights based on the recommendation of one of my friends. He promised me that the ending of the film would blow my mind. But that's all he said. He was right.

I remember watching the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films of All Time. City Lights made the cut (at number 10, if I'm not mistaken) and AFI aired a clip of the late Jack Lemmon commenting on how much he loved the film, specifically the famous final scene. Lemmon choked up just talking about.

Everything about the finale is perfection. Usually, when a film makes you cry, it's out of sadness. Something tragic that has happened to the film's hero. City Lights is part of the small percent of Hollywood classics that make you cry tears of happiness. Even if you've never seen a Chaplin film, please do yourself the favour and watch the clip. It never ceases to amaze me, every time I watch it.

Book Review: Somebody, The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando

SOMEBODY: THE RECKLESS LIFE AND REMARKABLE CAREER OF MARLON BRANDO (2008)
By: Stefan Kanfer

"To the end of his life, Marlon Brando insisted that he had done nothing special. In his view acting was a trade like plumbing or baking. The only difference was that he played characters instead of unclogging drains or kneading loaves of bread. This was not false modesty; he believed what he said. But what he believed was untrue."
~Stefan Kanfer (opening passage from "Somebody")

Film historian Molly Haskell once wrote, "there is only one Brando." In his 2008 biography on the late actor, Kanfer goes above and beyond in proving Haskell's observation. In only 323 pages, Kanfer manages to do what few other Brando biographers have done; portray the man as he really was, without including empty rumours or petty gossip and speculation. Kanfer portrays Brando as a flawed, complex human being with an incredible talent.

Kanfer provides context to the life of Brando, from his early childhood in Omaha to his death in 2004, by setting the stage with issues that were going on in the world at the time. When Brando was born in April of 1924, two youths kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy in a Chicago suburb. It was the time of Prohibition. Since the Great War, the area where young Marlon grew up saw a rise in its black population, causing resentment and racial strife. Not only do you learn about Marlon Brando, but Kanfer makes sure his readers are aware of the America in which the actor was growing up.

It becomes a historical text in so many ways. Kanfer discusses America, classic Hollywood and the sex, drugs and rock n'roll culture which Brando witnessed. It helps the reader to better understand why Brando did what he did and why certain causes were closer to his heart than others.

The book is full of interesting anecdotes that Kanfer dug up through his extensive research, including the fact that young Marlon was always drawn to those who were seen as social outcasts. As a child he befriended the only black boy in one of his classes and took a female classmate, who had issues with her vision because her eyes were crossed, to the school dance. Later in life, this could still be seen in his friendship to Michael Jackson, even when the King of Pop was on trial for child molestation charges, and in his dedication to the plight of Native Americans.

Despite these good deeds and his loyalty to those friends who stood by him, Brando had a quick temper and always had volatile relationships with the women in his life. Interesting fact: actress Rita Moreno once attempted suicide after Brando broke up with her. Their relationship, both personal and professional, always remained rocky from then on. Brando was father to ten children, although there are at least two others who claim they are his as well. He never connected on an emotional level with any of his three wives and would often go months, even years, without seeing some of his own children.

However, Brando often considered himself an activist, first and foremost. He battled against racial segregation, he fought to help establish a Jewish state and took up the cause of Native Americans. After the 1968 murder of Martin Luther King Jr., Brando made it his mission to help further the works of the late King Jr. in the public eye.

Kanfer details Brando's time in Tahiti, his love/hate relationship with his acting profession and the Hollywood friendships and enemies (such as his nemesis, Frank Sinatra) he made along the way. Kanfer believes Brando was happiest in Tahiti, although the actor often left for Hollywood for long stretches of time. It seemed that even though Brando hated what Hollywood represented, he was always drawn to film.

Brando often claimed he made films because of the large paycheques (which would help him when it came time to pay what he owed in his divorce settlements and child custody disputes). However, his comments on acting make for some of the best moments in Kanfer's account. Despite his flippant attitude towards his profession, Brando was a master of his craft and, without ever admitting it, seemed to be aware of that fact. One of his most famous interviews took place in his house in 1994. The infamous hour-long Larry King interview truly captures the persona of Marlon Brando, and Kanfer's novel manages to do that as well.

Brando never abused drugs. He drank very little. His vices? Sex and food. Even though he remained married to his third wife, Tarita, until his death, Brando had three children by his housekeeper and ate so much that his weight ballooned in a short span of time.

Kanfer's engaging prose and film knowledge go a long way towards making this one of the best and most unbiased celebrity biographies out there. Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of Marlon Brando, his life and unique personality make for a compelling read.

GRADE: A

BRANDO QUICK FACTS
-Born on April 3, 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska
-Nickname: Bud
-Parents: Marlon Brando Sr. and Dorothy "Dodie" Pennebaker Brando
-Siblings: Two older sisters, Frances and Jocelyn
-His mother became a depressed alcoholic, his father was a traveling salesman who slept with other women
-Pupil of legendary acting teacher, Stella Adler
-Revolutionized film acting, used the Method Approach in his performances
-Tennessee Williams re-wrote the character of Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire) to suit Brando's Broadway portrayal of the character
-First screen role: as a paraplegic in 1950's The Men
-Most famous roles: A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, On the Waterfront (for which he won his first Oscar in 1954), The Godfather (for which he won his second Oscar in 1972) and Last Tango in Paris
-In 1990, son Christian Brando shot and murdered Dag Drollet in Marlon's own house; Marlon attended Christian's trial and even testified in court
-Penned his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me in 1994
-Lived next door to close friends Jack Nicholson and Michael Jackson
-Brando's son, Miko, was Michael Jackson's bodyguard
-In 1995, daughter Cheyenne committed suicide at the age of 25
-Married three times: #1 Anna Kashfi (one son, Christian), #2 Movita Castaneda (two children: son, Miko and daughter, Rebecca), #3 Tarita Teriipaia (two children: son, Simon Teihotu and daughter, Cheyenne)
-Children with his longtime mistress and housekeeper, Maria Christina Ruiz: Ninna, Myles and Timothy
-Other children: Stefano Brando (mother unknown) and one child he adopted on his own, Petra Barrett Brando
-Two others claim they are Marlon's children: Maimiti Brando and Raiatua Brando
-Final film: The Score (2001) with Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton
-Gave acting lessons at his house in L.A. during the last two years of his life: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Edward Norton are among those who attended group acting sessions with Brando
-Died on July 1, 2004 in Los Angeles at the age of 80 of complications from pneumonia, diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis
-Considered the greatest screen actor of all time

Hollywood Profile: Edward D. Wood Jr.

Edward D. Wood Jr. (1924-1978)

I know very little about the life of the notoriously terrible film director, Ed Wood. What little I do know is gleaned from Tim Burton's 1994 tribute, Ed Wood, and various small articles and tribute videos floating around the Internet. But from what I do know...he makes for a fascinating Hollywood eccentric.

The infamous Mr. Wood has been the subject of numerous biographies, documentaries and films focused on his eccentricities and general awfulness. Ever since he passed away of a heart attack at the age of 54 in 1978, Wood has achieved an astounding cult status only a select few people ever obtain.

Known for his showmanship and his ability to attract every oddball in Hollywood, Wood "won" the honour of the Golden Turkey Award for Worst Director of All Time in 1980, only two years after his death. This only cemented his rise in popularity after his death.

The first film to bring Wood fame (or, rather, infamy) was based on the true story of Christine Jorgensen, the first well-known person to go through sex reassignment surgery. The initial working title was I Changed My Sex! (complete with exclamation point). Wood convinced producer George Weiss that he had something special that only he could bring to the film. That little special something? Wood's own secret desire of dressing as a woman (something his close friends and second wife, Kathy O'Hara, insisted was not a sexual inclination, but an emotional connection to angora material).

Wood immediately wrote the script and cast himself in the lead. The only problem was that Wood made the film more of an autobiography, veering away from the original premise. Wood retitled the film Glen Or Glenda and it was released in 1953 in only three American states. Surprisingly, the film co-starred former horror film legend, Bela Lugosi. Best known for his role as the original Dracula and his alleged rivalry with Boris Karloff, Lugosi appeared in the film both for the desire to work again (he hadn't appeared in a motion picture in nearly five years by that time) and as a favour to his new, vibrant young friend, Ed Wood.

Throughout the film, Wood appeared in full women's clothing. Despite its unpopularity it gave Wood the confidence boost he needed to start appearing in public in drag. His alter ego was Shirley and he would often direct in a full dress and wig.

Bride of the Monster (originally titled Bride of the Atom) was Wood's own brainchild. It starred Lugosi in his last speaking role. He played a mad scientist who wanted to create his own super-race. Every horror story ever told about the hardships of bringing this film to fruition are true. The backdrops were all hand-painted, the 400-pound Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson knocked over many of the set pieces during filming and Lugosi actually did have to thrash around in freezing water with a fake octopus despite the fact that he was old, frail and cranky due to his drug addiction. Even more noticeable was the stock footage of alligators and octopuses randomly inserting itself in the film. Released in 1955, Bride of the Monster was reviled.

Plan 9 From Outer Space, for which Wood is most famous, debuted in 1956. Originally, Wood wanted to film his script The Ghoul Goes West, but turned back to his Plan 9 script when a southern Baptist church group agreed to pay for the production with the promise that the film would be such a huge success that they would be able to make a film series on the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ. Wood and the Baptists made an unlikely pairing.Lugosi died before filming so Wood inserted stock footage of the late actor and hired his chiropractor to be Lugosi's stand-in. Terrible sets, lousy acting and an incomprehensible script helped lend a hand to the cult status it would eventually achieve.

Part of Wood's legend is his genuine friendship with Bela Lugosi. While some accused Wood of stringing along a frail, drug-addled old man who was desperate for Hollywood to want him again, Wood helped Lugosi through the worst period of his life. Through the duration of their friendship, Wood comforted Lugosi when he overdosed on drugs and convinced him to enter into rehab to get sober. Wood was one of the few people who attended Lugosi's funeral. Hollywood may have forgotten the former horror legend, but Wood was loyal to the end.

After Lugosi's death, Wood's fan base dwindled and the director turned to heavy drinking for comfort. He made a series of pornographic films and wrote sex novels for as little as $100 in an attempt to make as much money as he possibly could. By this time, Hollywood was officially done with Edward D. Wood Jr. He fell deeper and deeper into depression and alcoholism before succumbing to a heart attack. The last years of his life were marred by financial instabilities and empty attempts at making films that mattered to him. Wood was survived by his second wife, Kathy, and his daughter.

His ashes were scattered in the sea. Plan 9 and its cult status reached fever pitch. It even revived Lugosi's cult status.

FUN FACTS:
++Wood's mother always wanted a daughter and, when he was 12, she started dressing him as a girl when he was at home.
++He considered himself a heterosexual transvestite.
++He had a fetish for angora sweaters.
++Wood fought in the Second World War and participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal...while wearing women's underwear and brassieres (he didn't fear death; his only fear was that people would discover his secret).
++He was missing his top four front teeth and had a disfigured leg.
++Upon returning from the Second World War, Wood joined a freak show. He played the role of the Bearded Lady.
++Glen Or Glenda and Plan 9 have both been remade into porn films (Glen & Glenda and Plan 69 From Outer Space).
++In 1996, Reverend Steve Galindo founded the Church of Ed Wood. There are over 3500 baptized followers in Sacramento, California, where it was established. Worshippers refer to themselves as Woodites and celebrate Woodmas on October 10th (Wood's birthday).
++In 1998, the film I Woke Up Early the Day I Died was released. It was based on a Wood script. The film starred Billy Zane and Christina Ricci.
++The University of Southern California hosts an annual Ed Wood Film Festival.

SUGGESTED READING:
"Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr."
By: Rudolph Grey

Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland

DIRECTED BY: Tim Burton
STARRING: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover

Despite it's huge haul at the box office, one of the most anticipated films of 2010 is also one of its biggest duds.

Tim Burton's disappointingly dull re-imagining of the famous Lewis Carroll story, Alice in Wonderland suffers from extreme bouts of boredom and poor script pacing.

Alice (Aussie newcomer Mia Wasikowska) is much older, but none the wiser, in Burton's Wonderland sequel. Now nineteen years old and expected to marry, Alice once again falls down that crazy rabbit hole and into a world fantasy and violence. She can't recall her first time spent in Wonderland as a child and brushes off her current adventures as nothing more than an outlandish dream. Along the way she reunites with old friends, specifically the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who informs her that the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) leaves behind destruction and death wherever she goes. Alice is expected to slay a dragon (?!) and help the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) regain the throne she lost to the Red Queen after an epic battle.

Despite everything just mentioned, there actually isn't any discernible plot. Burton and his screenwriters have taken bits and pieces from both of Carroll's books and strung them together into little vignettes which amount to nothing of any significance. Alice still takes a drink from a bottle and grows in size. She still meets up with the Mad Hatter in the midst of a tea party. But why replay these scenes if this film is to be treated as a sequel? Despite the subplots of having to slay a dragon and aide the White Queen, Alice in Wonderland does very little during its two hour running time. The pace is so leisurely that it quickly becomes boring; something is never recovers from.

The much ballyhooed 3D amounts to nothing. Unlike James Cameron's Avatar, which made full use of its CGI and 3D technology, Alice in Wonderland pales in comparison. The 3D effects are so poorly utilized it's easy to forget you aren't just watching it in normal 2D.

Tim Burton's lavish sets (often inspired by his love for the German Expressionist films of the 1920's) are lacking due to the largely CGI-created visuals. The unique visual style Burton so often brings to his modern fables is missing here. Instead of dark, ominous corridors (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), structurally inept houses (Beetlejuice) and dark, threatening skies (Batman, Sleepy Hollow), we get a computer-animated world that bears no resemblance to the Burton films we know and love. One of the charms of Burton's films are his set designs and the fact that he rarely relies heavily on CGI. Too much green screen and so few actual props and sets makes for an unimaginative and an un-Burtonesque film.

Burton excels at bringing out the humanity in every quirk and weirdo in his films. Alice in Wonderland is full of these types of characters. What Wonderland lacked, more than anything, was that human touch that Burton so charmingly brought to life with his unique characters in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood.

As Alice, Wasikowska is a bore. There is no reason to root for Alice or to even worry about her character's fate. She moves through each scene in a charming blue dress, with little to do or say. Granted, the script gave Wasikowska little to work with, however, she wasn't able to rise above the drudge and create a feisty heroine. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is given little to do. It's as though Burton decided to rely solely on giving Mad Hatter a strange costume and CGI-enlargened eyes; as though that would be enough to make everyone rave about Depp and the film. It would have been more effective had Burton and Depp conspired to make Mad Hatter a genuinely unhinged character; someone who wanted to help Alice while also making sure that his Wonderland maintained an air of lunacy. It seemed as though Depp was just going through the motions. Three excellent British actors (Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit and Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar)are all wasted in small speaking roles that are given such a tiny amount of screen time that their roles are rendered pointless.

The two standouts are the always reliable Helena Bonham Carter as the ranting and raving Red Queen and the wonderfully oddball Crispin Glover as her eye-patched henchman, Stayne.

What once seemed like an ideal pairing (Burton and Carroll) has instead become a major disappointment. Instead of a dark, dangerous and terrifying Wonderland for adults and teens, we get, at best, a mediocre children's film. Burton has such a strong resume that it's doubtless that he will bounce back and recover with a better film. Here's hoping he goes back to his roots doing what he does best: making Tim Burton films.

GRADE: C

Favourite Film Scenes: Amadeus (1984)

AMADEUS (1984)
DIRECTED BY: Milos Foreman
STARRING: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Jeffrey Jones and Simon Callow

THE BASIC PLOT: Based on Paul Shaffer's play, Amadeus takes a fictional look at Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's astronomical rise to fame in the late-eighteenth century Vienna. The genius Austrian composer and former child prodigy (played in the film by Tom Hulce) transforms from a charming, albeit arrogant, youth into a raging paranoid alcoholic. However, for the most part, the story unfolds through the eyes of Mozart's rival, Italian composer Antonio Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham). According to popular myth, Salieri had a hand in Mozart's premature death in 1791 at the age of 35. The film went on to win a total of 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (for F. Murray Abraham).

MY FAVOURITE SCENE: The very end of the film, when a dying Mozart lies on his deathbed, too weak to complete his final composition, the Requiem Mass in D Minor. He enlists the help of Italian composer Antonio Salieri, thinking he is a loyal friend when, in fact, Salieri is insanely jealous of Mozart's talent and is tempted to pass off the Requiem Mass as his own piece, once Mozart is dead.

WHY?: This scene is incredible, powerful and well-edited. It illustrates Mozart's genius through the way that he can make up something as epic as the Requiem Mass right on the spot, with little or no self-editing. This was an actual fact about Mozart, who very rarely had to edit his own work. He was naturally gifted and, more than any other scene in the film, this grand finale really allows to the audience to experience his brilliance.

I love how director Milos Foreman chose to have a sickly Mozart weakly vocalize and try to articulate his music to Salieri as he lay in bed. Meanwhile, the soundtrack translates it into actual music. I love how Mozart's fading voice and the soundtrack play over top of one another in layers. Before your eyes, a piece of music is created for the audience. You can literally hear and experience it all coming together. It's all layered and beautifully presented on film.

The performances by F. Murray Abraham, as Salieri, and Tom Hulce, as Mozart, are absolutely perfect. I love the look on Abraham's face when his Salieri realizes he will never be the talent that Mozart is, no matter how great his attempts, no matter how feverish his prayers to God. Despite the fact that he loathes Mozart and feels he is an ungrateful, spoiled brat, Salieri wishes he had the ability to hear and see music as Mozart does; to be "God's instrument." The awe is evident in Salieri's face. It outweighs his jealousy, in the end. Salieri is a music-lover first and foremost and he can appreciate the unique and effortless genius of Mozart. One of the real tragedies, though, is that Salieri wasn't mediocre at all. However, history may suggest otherwise as his compositions are rarely heard anymore.

Abraham is flawless in this film and it's one of my all-time favourite male performances. He registers Salieri's jealousy perfectly. Despite Salieri's self-appointed title as the "patron saint of mediocrity", he is an incredibly sympathetic character. Who hasn't, at some point in their life, felt inferior to someone else's seemingly effortless talent? We all fear mediocrity, of being forgotten when we are gone. No one can really begrudge Salieri that feeling. Abraham gives a wonderfully subtle performance. Instead of going over the top, his emotions are always just below the surface, ready to burst. His demeanour is in direct contrast to the childlike exuberance that Hulce gives Mozart.

Even if you've never seen Amadeus (and, if you haven't, you really should), at least do yourself the favour and watch this scene. Mozart died at the age of 35 without having completed his Requiem Mass, but the parts he did leave behind are haunting and beautiful. Though the film is not an accurate biographical account of Mozart, by any means, it's a captivating look at the battle between two composers, one with genuine talent and the other who struggles with mediocrity. And this final scene between Mozart and Salieri is the best moment of this often-forgotten cinematic masterpiece.

Watch the scene here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nJ226kQJiHY