indelible moment: Adam McKay's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006)

  Credit: Columbia Pictures

In anticipation of the latest Will Ferrell-Adam McKay collaboration, "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues"  (opening December 18), I off this hilarious scene - the"Baby Jesus" grace - is from their best movie to date,  McKay's slyly subversive "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," in which Will Ferrell plays a clueless George W. Bush (yep)  in the guise of clueless NASCAR stock car racing sensation Ricky Bobby.

The sequence in question has the Bobby family gathered around the table for a feast of fast-food takeouts. The clan includes Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), Ricky's BFF (Cal is "shake" to Ricky's "bake"); Carley Bobby (Leslie Bibb), Ricky's hot wife; Chip (Ted Manson), Carley's father, and Walker and Texas Ranger (Houston Tumlin and Grayson Russell), Carley and Ricky's obnoxious sons. The wicked dialogue was written by Ferrell and McKay and There's a reason why Manhola Dargis touted "Ricky Bobby's" script as one of the five best original screenplays in her 2007 New York Times essay on recommended Oscar nominations for 2006.

And let the grace (and its sureally profane aftermath) proceed...

Ricky: Dear Lord Baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you, Jesús, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family, my two beautiful, beautiful, handsome, striking sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, or T.R. as we call him, and of course, my red-hot smoking wife, Carley who is a stone-cold fox.

Cal: Mmmm.

Ricky: Also wanna thank you for my best friend and teammate, Cal Naughton Jr. who’s got my back no matter what.

Cal: Shake and Bake!

Ricky: Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife’s father, Chip. We hope that you can use your Baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg. And it smells terrible and the dogs are always bothering with it!

Cal: Mmmm.

Ricky: (continuing) Dear tiny, infant Jesus...

Carley: Hey, you know, sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him “baby.” It’s a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby.

Ricky: Well, I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grownup Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus or whoever you want.

Carley: You know what I want? I want you to do this grace good so that God will let us win tomorrow.

Ricky: Dear tiny Jesus, in your golden-fleece diapers, with your tiny, little, fat, balled-up fists...

Chip: He was a man! He had a beard!

Ricky: Look, I like the baby version the best, do you hear me? I win the races and I get the money.

Carley: Ricky, finish the damn grace.

Cal: I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T shirt, 'cause it says, like, “I wanna be formal..."

Ricky: Right!

Cal: "... but I’m here to party, too.” 'Cause I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.

Walker: I like to picture Jesus as a ninja fighting off evil samurai.

Cal: I like to think of Jesus, like, with giant eagle’s wings.

Ricky: Yeah!

Cal: And singing lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd, with, like, a angel band. And I’m in the front row, and I’m hammered drunk.

Carley: Hey Cal, why don’t you just shut up?

Cal: Yes, ma’am.

Ricky: Okay. Dear eight-pound, six-ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant and so cuddly, but still omnipotent, we just thank you for all the races I’ve won and the 21.2 million dollars – woo!

Cal: Woo!

Carley: Woo!

Walker and Texas Ranger: Ow!

Ricky: Love that money! - that I have accrued over this past season. Also, due to a binding endorsement contract that stipulates I mention Powerade at each grace, I just want to say that Powerade is delicious...

Cal: Mmmm!

Ricky: ...and it cools you off on a hot summer day. And we look forward to Powerade’s release of Mystic Mountain Blueberry...

Cal: Mmmm!

Ricky: ...Thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God. Amen.

Carley: Amen!

Cal: Amen!

Ricky: Let's dig in!

Cal: That was a hell of a grace, man. You nailed that like a split hog!

Ricky: I appreciate that. I'm not gonna lie to you, it felt good.

Walker: Dad, you made that grace your bitch.

Carley: (to Walker and Texas Ranger) Hey, boys, I wanna see some napkins in the lap.

Ricky: Boys, how was school today?

Walker: I threw a bunch of grandpa Chip's war medals off the bridge!

Ricky: Sounds like a good day. Texas Ranger, how about you?

Texas Ranger: Well, the teacher asked me what was the capital of North Carolina.

Ricky: Mm-hmm?

Texas Ranger: I said, "Washington, D.C."

Cal: Bingo!

Texas Ranger: She said, "No, you're wrong." I said, "You got a lumpy butt." She got mad at me and yelled at me and I pissed in my pants.

Ricky I'm so proud of you, boys. You remind me of me - precocious and full of wonderment.

Chip: I can't hold my tongue. These kids are my grandchildren, and you are raising them wrong. They are terrible boys.

Walker: Shut up, Chip, or I'll go ape-shit on your ass!

Texas Ranger: I'm gonna scissor-kick you in the back of the head.

Cal: Yeah!

Ricky:: Yeah! Turn up the heat!

Cal: Go on and get some, boys!

Ricky: Come on.

Walker: I'm 10 years old but I'll beat your ass.

Texas Ranger: Chip, I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey.

Ricky: Chip, you brought this on, man.

Chip: What is wrong with you?

Texas Ranger: Chip, I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew.

Ricky: Whoo-hoo, I love that!

Chip: You gonna let your sons talk to their grandfather like that? I'm their elder.

Ricky: I sure as hell am, Chip. I love the way they're talking to you. 'Cause they're winners. Winners get to do what they want. The only thing you ever done with your life is make a hot daughter. That's it. That's it! That is it!

Carley: We wanted us some wussies, we would've named them Dr. Quinn and Medicine Woman, okay?

Ricky: I worked too hard for your bull, Chip. Everyone just keep eatin'.

Carley: (to Ricky, lunging at him) Come here! I'm hot!

[She lands on him and they kiss passionately - and inappropriately.]

Cal: Alright! I'll hold your hair.

façade: Pamela Tiffin

Pamela Tiffin. Even the name has the perfect movie-starlet allure, circa 1960.

Tiffin's star shined briefly in the early 1960s when she made an auspicious Hollywood debut in three major back-to-back films, starting with Peter Glenville's 1961 adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, "Summer and Smoke," starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey. She followed this later the same year with a game, comic turn in Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three" and in José Ferrer's remake of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "State Fair," in 1962.

And then, it suddenly seemed over. A list of forgettable, youth-oriented films followed and then a turn in Italian films before she retired. She was married briefly to New York editor Clay Felker and, when last reported, was married to Edmondo Danon and lives with Danon and their two daughters in Manhattan.

Tiffin was a wisp of an actress, turning in small, quiet and yet craft-like performance in those first three films. Her rendition of "It Might as Well Be Spring" in "State Fair" (whether dubbed or not) is downright palpable, a beautiful moment in an otherwise forgotten film. I sense that she was an actress who needed the protection and direction of the studio system, which was on its last leg when Tiffin came along.

A few other noteworthy titles dot her filmography - John Sturges' "The Hallelujah Trail" (1965), Jack Smight's "Harper" (1966) and Jerry Paris' delightful "Viva, Max!" (1969) - but her potential was never truly fulfilled.

In 1964, she made "The Pleasure Seekers," Jean Negulesco's remake of his 1954 romance, "Three Coins in the Fountain," with co-stars Ann-Margret and Carol Lynley, who were probably her chief rivals at auditions in those days. In the early '60s, in terms of ingenués, they were the only game in town - the resident blonde, redhead and brunette.

(Artwork: Pamela Tiffin on the cover of a summer 1962 issue of Screen Stories, which profiles her film, "State Fair," inside)

indelible moment: "Picnic" (1955)

Ah, the days when filmmakers had to be creative.

I'm not talking about cinematics but content. However, in this case, cinematics and content are irrevocably intertwined. In bringing William Inge's seminal play of longing to the screen (by way of Daniel Taradash's fine screenplay), director Joshua Logan faced the challenge of having the piece's star-crossed lovers - stumble-bum Hal and small-town queen Madge - be intimate with actually showing them engaging in sex.

He shrewdly solved the problem with a dance that has become an iconic screen moment, even though is lasts only a minute or so. Swooning and gyrating to "Moonglow" and "The Theme from 'Picnic,'" expertly intertwined by composer George Duning, stars William Holden and Kim Novak seem to be improvising their choreographed sex act.

But, in actuality, the dance was overseen by choreographer Miriam Nelson who, for some bizarre reason, was never credited.

Nevertheless, what she created in ... indelible.

Note in Passing: Turner Classic Movies will screen "Picnic" at 8 p.m. (est) on Wednesday, 1 September - in anticipation of Labor Day, aptly enough the backdrop of the film.

directing versus filmmaking

On paper,  the proposed remake of “Carrie” is nothing short of fabulous, what with Kimberly Pierce as director, Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore, as her well-cast stars, and writer Lawrence D. Cohen recruited to update the lean script that he wrote for the Brian DePalma original in 1976.

But, in execution, the completed film is something else, and part of me would like to point to Marvel Comics wunderking Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa, brought in as co-scenarist and to seemingly mess up Cohen's model script, specifically the ending. Seemingly (I hasten to stress). 

Whatever the reason, a mess it is.

While DePalma’s “Carrie” is unusually painterly for a horror film, Pierce’s is blunt and, frankly, crass, qualities in full view in the film’s gross and gratuitous opening sequence – in which Margaret White (Moore) is a frantic, demented bystander to the blood-spurting birth of her own daughter, Carrie.  While Piper Laurie was almost ethereal as the religious-nut mother in the first film, poor Moore is presented as a perspiring, smelly hag. As for the gifted Moretz, she does little else here than walk around with her shoulders squeezed up to her ears.

It’s a hunched performance in more ways than one. Sissy Spacek, twice Moretz's age when she starred in the original, somehow seems years younger - a permamently, fascinatingly stunted child, if you will.

Pierce, whose first two films (1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and 2008’s “Stop-Loss”) I admire, may be a case of someone who was prematurely lauded by the critics.  Aside from being hardly prolific, she seems to lack a feel for the camera’s eye.  Pierce inarguably knows a solid story when she sees one and she’s a good director of actors, but she simply isn’t a filmmaker. And that’s what sets her apart from Brian DePalma who is.

And it’s what makes her film so wildly different from – and inferior to – the original.  The new “Carrie” underlines Kimberly Pierce’s few strengths as a director, as well as her major weaknesses as a filmmaker.   

cinema obscura: Charles Walters' "Ask Any Girl" (1959)

Michael Gordon's "Pillow Talk," released by Universal in October of 1959, is largely regarded as something of a first - "the fluff sex comedy," a modern subgenre of the time-tested battle-of-the-sexes romps. It was a huge hit, both a turning point in Doris Day's career and an on-going source of references for subsequent comedies trying to be just like it.

But predating it by a few months was Charles Walter's "Ask Any Girl," a working-girl lark released by Metro in May of that year. Shirley MacLaine, in a role that Day would patent, plays a career woman and romantic naif caught between two men - her bosses who also happen to be brothers. She's interested in nabbing dashing Gig Young, see, and leans on his older brother, stuffy David Niven, for pointers and guidance, not realizing that he's really the guy for her and that, in fact, he's interested.

On the sidelines is Rod Taylor, delightfully on the prowl.

"Ask Any Girl," a bit of wispy fun with a distant relationship to "Pygmalion," doesn't have the legendary reputation of "Pillow Talk." It virtually has no reputation at all and, for the most part, is almost impossible to see. But it's worth searching out, if only for the ace supporting cast - Elisabeth Fraser, Dodie Heath (fresh off "The Diary of Anne Frank"), Jim Backus, Claire Kelly, and the inimitable Carman Phillips.

There are a couple interesting connections here: MacLaine previously appeared with Niven in Michael Anderson's "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) and with Phillips in Vincente Minnelli's "...Some Came Running" (1958). Niven would play opposite Day a year later in Walters' "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960), and Young, of course, was something of a Day staple, appearing with her in Gordon Douglas' "Young at Heart" (1954), George Seaton's "Teacher's Pet" and Gene Kelly's "Tunnel of Love" (both 1958) and Delbert Mann's "That Touch of Mink" (1962).