Sunday, January 25, 2015

Two good scenes...

...from very different shows.

In The Fades, two best friends combat ghost zombie apocalyptic warriors.  No, not all at once, in succession-it makes sense on TV planet.  In any case, there's a great scene that I'm not sure came from the writers, the directors, or the actors.  Two best friends are sitting on a bench eating ice cream, delivering some fairly mundane exposition.  However, what makes the scene cool is that they eat a bite, trade ice cream, and then eat a bite. Then they trade again.  It's a wonderful character moment to show that these guys have been friends since they were probably about two years old.  It's also a good  Pope-in-the-pool moment from "Save the Cat." Pope-in-the-pool means that if you have to deliver exposition, there better be something fascinating like the Pope swimming in a backyard pool to hold the viewers' interest.  These guys trading ice cream sure did the trick.

Another one is more of a line reading.  In Empire, Terrence Howard as Lucius Lyon is the patriarch of a family of three sons and a hip-hop impresario.  When one of his sons begins to date one of the hot young artists, Lucius says to his girlfriend/Girl Friday "Let's keep them together." It's a tossed off line, but the result is chilling because it shows not only the extent of his power but how far he's willing to meddle in the lives of those he's purported to love.  Terrence Howard gives it no weight at all in his delivery, which is what makes it land so hard.

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