walken sans trousers
Most Sunday mornings, I wake before anyone else and go through a routine that, while somewhat banal, is comforting to me. It involves the paper, some coffee, and a rare period of quiet that I somehow manage to miss during the week. It is not uncommon for me to turn on the television while I look over the news, usually leaving a program on without sound. It can be very interesting, watching shows without a soundtrack of any kind. The film in which Keanu Reeves plays Siddhartha is actually quite lovely when you don't have to hear it. Similarly, Scorsese's Kundun, which benefits from sounds that are not embarrassing, is absolutely commanding and provokes a sharp emotional response.
However, on this most recent Sunday morning, I saw a few scenes from The Country Bears, a movie that is a feeble welterweight when placed against such masters as Scorsese or Buddha. I came across a scene in which Christopher Walken was asking a large bear some leading questions about his property, and the bear pointed in the opposite direction and said something to the effect of "Well, looky there...monkey!" Walken, in true vaudevillian fashion, turned sharply to see nothing. When he turned back, the slow-moving bear was several hundred feet away, safely on his front porch. I found the subtle foolishness of this scene endearing and went back to my paper.
Later, I came across Walken, sans trousers, walking jauntily through his study. He seats himself behind a large desk and sets up a wooden replica of the bears' home, dropping a large, Looney Tunes/Monty Python-style weight on it, splintering the thing to pieces. He repeats this several times. Understandably, he is an evil banker out to foreclose on the bears' property. Suddenly I comprehended the film's brilliance.
The image of Christopher Walken giddy and pantless was enough for me. It took hours to get it out of my head. Strangely, I clicked over a few stations away and found Walken from decades earlier, freaking out a snarling reporter in the adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone.
It's a small world, indeed.
However, on this most recent Sunday morning, I saw a few scenes from The Country Bears, a movie that is a feeble welterweight when placed against such masters as Scorsese or Buddha. I came across a scene in which Christopher Walken was asking a large bear some leading questions about his property, and the bear pointed in the opposite direction and said something to the effect of "Well, looky there...monkey!" Walken, in true vaudevillian fashion, turned sharply to see nothing. When he turned back, the slow-moving bear was several hundred feet away, safely on his front porch. I found the subtle foolishness of this scene endearing and went back to my paper.
Later, I came across Walken, sans trousers, walking jauntily through his study. He seats himself behind a large desk and sets up a wooden replica of the bears' home, dropping a large, Looney Tunes/Monty Python-style weight on it, splintering the thing to pieces. He repeats this several times. Understandably, he is an evil banker out to foreclose on the bears' property. Suddenly I comprehended the film's brilliance.
The image of Christopher Walken giddy and pantless was enough for me. It took hours to get it out of my head. Strangely, I clicked over a few stations away and found Walken from decades earlier, freaking out a snarling reporter in the adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone.
It's a small world, indeed.
posted by scn at 12:31 PM
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