Almost nothings more important than a first impression.
Its a chance to put your best foot forward and leave a mark that folks will remember.
But what if you dont want them to remember your best foot?
Technically Sauron is just an impressive piece of armor work by costumer designers Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor.
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However, the power of a single performance can move mountains.
Consider thenDenzel Washingtons deceptively quiet introduction in Antoine FuquasTraining Day.
He does this by forcing Jake, and ourselves, towaitwhile he finishes the paper.
Every second of dead air adds to the unexpected tension.
In a minute, hes corrupted the hero and the kind of film were watching.
And the designs this characterand by extension director George Miller and costumer Jenny Beavanimagined are quite ingenious.
The brilliance of Immortan Joes introduction is were shown the truth first through a series of extreme closeups.
Others intrigue and seduce with the velvet glove.
Such is our run-in with the titular character of Joseph L. MankiewiczsAll About Eve.
Eve the cover girl, the golden girl, the girl next door, Sanders mockingly intones.
The girl on the moon.
Time has been good to Eve.
Life goes where she goes… You all know all about Eve.
What can there be to know that you dont know?
Yet there was always something creepy and dangerous about storm drains, no?
It is where runoff and sludge dissipates into a sewer filled with even grosser, grayer waters.
Most folks would even prefer to avert their eyes and minds from such practicalities.
A TV movie beat him to the punch.
And then the real disarming (and dismembering) begins.
That scene is chilling, too, but its not the first time we see the evils presence.
That comes in a sequence filmed on location in the ruins of Hatra in modern day Iraq.
The eeriness comes from the fact that Friedkin does not initially shoot it as a horror movie.
The scene then becomes apocalyptic, even though its just an old man staring at a piece of art.
The T-800 in The Terminator (1984)
Arnold Schwarzeneggerdid not have high hopes forThe Terminatorwhen he was cast.
Schwarzenegger thought it would be a paycheck B-movie that would come and go.
That begins with Schwarzeneggers first scene in the film as a robot constructed like an Austrian bodybuilder.
Unlike the roles Schwarzenegger would become famous for, the T-800 is practically mute.
They laugh when he says, Give me your clothes, but its whistling past the graveyard.
Perhaps thats why his first scenes are the best.
), and the dirt and decay of the grave.
Children of the night, Lugosi purrs, what music they make!
So do you, Count.
But its not a doctor he seeks.
Rather we next find him at the nearest bank to verify his claim on a newly discovered oil deposit.
He is a manifestation of American capitalisms bottomless hunger which accepts no denials.
He is a man of his superficial moment.
Its methodical, yet empty.
The blankness on his face betrays the void of a human or perhaps a soul beneath the good looks.
It sends a shiver down the spine as the potential rot within becomes manifest.
In voiceover narration, Bale applies a benignly friendly affectation while citing the luxury brands and products he uses.
But there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory.
One of the worst mistakes Disney ever made was to attempt to rehabilitate this all-time great badun.
She arrives to investigate the death of her sister and to confront little Judy Garlands Dorothy Gale.
You probably just mouthed the words in Hamiltons ascending falsetto, didnt you?
John Doe in Seven (1995)
Ninety-four minutes.
Before this moment, John Doe is a shadow that increasinglyappears to take on the shape of a myth.
However, we never see his face until the movie is almost over.
It is then that John Doe gingerly walks into the police precinct and turns himself in.
Clearly the actor understands something of darkness, and teases reservoirs of pride and vanity beneath the false piety.
Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.
(1950)
Spiders, bats, and other wretched things generally prefer the dark.
It is the easiest place to avoid attention and to wait for prey.
So it is with Gloria Swansons wasted movie star from days gone by, Norma Desmond.
However, Norma isnt a femme fatale, at least not in the classical sense.
Shes something worse: an actor out of work.
She hisses, I am big.
Its the pictures that got small.
Shell have a comeback if it kills her… or someone, at any rate.
Several have beendrastically different takes on Batmans arch-nemesis.
In extreme IMAX close-up, Ledgers prosthetic scars and self-applied pancake makeup are unmasked and overwhelm the frame.
There seems to be no rhyme or reason to his methodology, but his cunning and execution is flawless.
Its a promise the rest of the movie delivers on in spades and a Jokers Wild.
Leone savors revealing Franks face with a spinning camera that lands on unexpectedly kind, watery eyes.
He might even be straining a half-smile as he recognizes something of himself in the lad.
What should we do about this one, Frank?
Frank spits tobacco from his teeth before his first line of dialogue.
Now that youve said me by name, he says in a trailing voice while drawing gun.
The eyes never stop smiling, even after the child is murdered.
All the while, the character stares unblinking into the frame.
In the hands of director Stanley Kubrick, this future is at once hypnotic and repellent.
This is a heavily stylized rendering of youth in revolt.
Kubrick shoots it with a feigned frivolity, including some classical Henry Purcell samplings.
Their gaiety makes the actual horror of what these monsters inflict absolutely terrifying.
A bad guy in a bad guy hat arrives on a farm where he massacres a family of innocents.
Which makes Christoph Waltzs conviviality and friendliness evermore disorienting.
Waltzs Col. Hans Landa of the SS is a tour de force in bold and idiosyncratic acting choices.
When the smile finally drops, so does the temperature of the movie.
Tarantino then recreates the classic final shot ofThe Searchersas Landa intentionally lets one young Jewish woman escape.
Actor Nick Castle is simply listed as the Shape.
Slowly he applies a mask and then collects a large kitchen knife.
See, the killer is neither a man or shape.
Hes a little boy named Michael holding a knife and totally unfazed by the sister he murdered upstairs.
After all, they read the script.
So was birthed one of the most ingenious and horrible moments in film history.
The sexual and even feminist implications of the idea are amplified toa Freudian fever pitchwhen Scott and designer H.R.
Giger envisioned that alien to burst from Hurts chest like an erect penis with fangs.
Its a visual assault on the characters and the audience that has left lasting scars on the zeitgeist.
Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949)
Orson Welles relished the role of Harry Lime.
The setup is Joseph Cottens novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in post-WWII Vienna beleaguered and cynical.
For a moment, Holly sees the face of his stalker in a darkened doorway… and its Harry.
With a devilish grin, Welles nods before vanishing again into the dark.
Such is the first time we glimpse Darth Vader in George LucasStar Wars.
An icon is born.
Hes a loving father and grandparent who provided for his large family, helping them attain the American dream.
Therein lies the evil of Vito.
But you dont feel that evil when you spy Marlon Brando shrouded under makeup inThe Godfather.
Not for immigrants and others deemed to be second-class citizens.
And he seals this act of promised violence with a kiss while his own newly wedded child dances outside.
Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Anthony Hopkins is totally still.
Its immediately unnervinglike coming across a snake in the wild coiled before a strike.
Its all there in the first moments of the movie.
