American Beauty's Paper Bag Scene (Re-Blog)

It's been a while since I've roamed around the blogosphere visiting the sites of the brilliant people I tend to think of as internet "friends." 

Today I popped in on my friend Optimistic Existentialist at his blog, Musings of an Unapologetic Dreamer, where he had recently posted about one of his favorite movie scenes of all time. Say, film is on of my favorite things of all time regardless of which movie it is!

I checked it out, and while I have never seen American Beauty, I had to admit that the scene in question at least sounded like one of the most powerful statements about film that I could imagine . . . told through the medium of film. Doesn't that make it that much more powerful?

Here's what Optimistic Existentialist says about the onscreen moment.

I recently had a conversation with a friend in which our favorite all-time movie scenes were brought up. When my friend asked me about my all-time favorite movie scene, the answer came easily - the floating plastic bag scene in American Beauty.

American Beauty is by far my all-time favorite movie; and this scene is a perfect example of why. To set the scene up, Ricky (a troubled but fascinatingly deep individual) wants to show Jane (The girl he is falling in love with) the most beautiful thing he’s ever filmed. 

One random autumn day, he saw a plastic bag floating in the wind and began filming. He describes it as follows:

Click here to read the rest of the post at Musings of an Unapologetic Dreamer

The Avengers' Glorious Gag Reel

As a film fan and dabbling filmmaker, I can't get enough of gag reels. That peek into the world of wonder behind the cameras of today's greatest cinematic hits feeds my fantasies about what it must have been like to walk among those screen gods and goddesses and be considered as a peer, a coworker, a brother in arms, somebody who dared to laugh when they messed up a perfectly good kissing scene. I fully and whole-heartedly justify the extra expenditure involved in editing and releasing footage never intended for use in the film just to provide dreamers such as myself with this glimpse--even in the cases of animated films like Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and A Bug's Life which involved scripting completely fictional bloopers which then needed to be recorded by voice talent and animated in post production undoubtedly adding thousands of dollars to the project's budget.

Yeah, I'm gaga for gag reels.

Imagine my delight when the summer blockbuster of the century, none other than Marvel's The Avengers, released it's very own gaga reel yesterday! You'll have to excuse the absence of Travel Tuesday (again), but this is a GAG REEL we're talking about.

My apologies in advance if this embedded video becomes invalid due to copyright infringement some time in the near future.

My Top 10 Thoughts Upon Stopping to Reflect on This Gag Reel:

10. Jeremy Renner has an evil laugh.
9. Mark Ruffalo is just as funny without really trying as Bruce Banner is without really trying.
8. As if Coulson's death wasn't darkly humorous enough, we now know that it took half a dozen god-awfully goofy takes to get it right.
7. "Stop fighting!!!" Baha. I love crew members.
6. Not nearly enough Star Trek references.
5. Chris Evans is a colossal dork.
4. Why was there not a Coulson and Captain America love story as a sub plot?
3. Nothing reinforces the idea that everything looks better in slow motion like Chris Hemsworth playing patty-cake with that hammer while Chris Evans keeps right on beasting through the fight choreography.
2. *GASP* AGENT HILL IS FREAKIN' ROBIN SCHERBATSKY!
1. Tom Hiddleston should totally play young Severus Snape in a Harry Potter prequel.

What were your thoughts? I don't necessarily need to hear ten of them, but I would love for you to leave a few in the comments. Was it entertaining, or could you not be bothered? Thoughts on gag reels in general? Worth the wait, or a waste of time? Give me anything!

Also, who's stoked that The Avengers comes out on DVD September 25th? Hurray for bonus material!