And Yet Another New Slideshow

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Midnite and I had the hardest time deciding between two screen caps for today's quote. In the end we finally went with the one on the BoardIndex that shows the house. But it would be a shame if the alternative never saw the light of day, so here it is:

1972 - Vicki: 'Still, not every family has a house like this.
Or a whole town named after them.'

[Midnite]

I'm so glad you got the alternate image and quote on the board, MB!  Her expression is priceless.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

One of my most favorite scenes in the film is definitely the dining room scene in which Vicki meets the rest of the household for the first time. Right from the moment Roger walks in, all fidgety flexing fingers, until the very end, the scene is filled with so many fascinating undercurrents that there's so much subtext going on that it would require another entire DS film to explore it all fully. And I'm so happy that Midnite hit on some of the best moments with her quotes - including these so far:

1972 - Julia: 'You're a liar. I can tell, you know. Just from a
person's face. Yours says: "I might look sweet and innocent,
but I have secrets. Secrets that'll make the hairs on your
arms stand straight up."'

Of course, Julia doesn't know that Vicki is masquerading under an assumed name, not to mention all the other secrets/tragedies in her past (that even the audience isn't privy to yet), but it's amazing that Julia seems to have Vicki's number right from the get-go. It's really too bad that Julia's suspicions weren't picked up at some point later in the film. But then, like I said, material that really needs to be a part of that whole other film.

1972 - Vicki: 'You're the doctor.'

I have to confess that it wasn't until after I saw the film a few times that I noticed the disdainful expression on Vicki's face once she realizes that Julia is the doctor. And, of course, even if others in the audience noticed it upon first viewing, they wouldn't have realized why it's there because at that point the audience has no knowledge of her past as Maggie and being institutionalized for most of her life. It's no wonder doctors wouldn't exactly be her favorite people. And again, it's too bad none of that was explored once the audience is clued in. But then, again, enough material to be another part of that whole other film.

1972 - Julia: 'Yeah, and you're "the nanny," and she's
"the bitch." Honey, how do you ever expect us girls to
advance if we keep reducing each other to labels?'

I absolutely love the expression on Liz' face after Julia refers to her as "the bitch":

And I would love to know what it is within the Liz/Julia relationship that prompts the comment. But alas, yet another thing that there wasn't time enough to explore in the existing film. Add it as another part of that whole other film.


And as if all that wasn't interesting enough, we haven't even gotten halfway through all the quotes that will be coming from that scene throughout Midnite's quotes from the rest of this month and into my first six quotes for March. But more on those moments as they come up in the coming days...

[dom]

So far so great, Midnite! I was thrilled to finally see a Roger slide and quote. I absolutely love JLMiller's performance in this film. And the Liz, Vicki & Carolyn exchange. I totally missed that in the film, well, I mean that I was never able to decipher the 'living in New York' banter and I saw the film three or four times. And now I realize that I got the intent wrong of this current slide, I thought Julia was referring to herself as 'the bitch'. I'm getting a lot more out of this presentation than just viewing great caps & quotes.

[Uncle Roger]

This is one of my favorite parts of the movie. I saw it eight times and I didn't get that Julia was referring to Elizabeth as the bitch. That throws a whole new angle onto the sequence. I find it quite interesting that Julia and Vicki have sized each other up pretty well. What a shame that these relationships weren't explored further.

[dom]

HBC was a hoot as a reboot Julia. At least in this scene.

[dom]

I'm a big OS Vicki fan and mostly because of the tender way she handled David during the first year. I loved this scene in the 2012 movie when Vicki says, 'Terrified beyond belief.'  I loved the fact that she won him over instantly with the right words at the right time.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I totally agree.

1972 - David: 'I was gonna scare you. Were you scared?'

1972 - Vicki: 'Terrified beyond belief.'

And just look at the smile on his face and then hers:

And because of all that I wish we had seen more of Vicki and David interacting with each other, particularly when it came to matters of the supernatural in general and his mother in particular (but more on the latter after the slideshow has reached that part of the scene). Just more material introduced in this scene that could easily be a part of that whole other film. 

[Gothick]

This whole scene feels as if it's setting up stuff that NEVER comes into play in the finished film as released.  Granted I only saw it once... and I feel as if I missed out a lot of the nuances in this scene... just as was the case with those who saw it more often.

I guess this is the one extended time we spend with the characters where BarnaDepp is absent.  Once BarnaDepp shows up, it's all about him and Angelique, with Liz stepping into Julia's role in the original show as Barn's ally and defender.

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I've said this before, but I really wish we'd gotten some sort of commentary track on the DVD/Blu-ray. Sometimes they're not even worth the time spent listening to them, but other times they will go into things like why certain scenes, even though they may have been ones that were really liked by the director/producer(s), got cut. And I still suspect that they're are a lot of scenes in the script that were shot but never made it into the finished film - mainly because Seth Grahame-Smith himself said that enough material for a whole other film (no doubt the mythical whole other film that I brought up a few posts ago ) ended up being cut because when the film was first put together it ran so long. And we also know from Grahame-Smith that the actors who had a good deal of their parts cut were Jonny Lee Miller, Helena Bonham Carter and Chloe Moretz. And barely any of their cut material even made it to the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray, which is a shame. Though as I said when I announced this slideshow, quotes from the deleted scenes that actually are included will show up in the slideshow in their proper place in the film. (For instance, scenes #59 and #61 will show up in May - and scene #108, which actually does pick up somewhat with what was laid down in the dining room scene's sequence between Julia and Vicki, will show up at the end of August and the beginning of September.) Unfortunately, it's quite often the case that a scene or scenes are cut because of the perception that they slow down the momentum of the film. And I'm guessing if that was the case with this film, the momentum of the film was considered to be squarely on Barnabas' shoulders and his story.

As for people in the audience not necessarily picking up on everything that may have been set up in certain scenes, well, the fault of that lies mostly with the audience members themselves and not the film itself because all the set ups and subtexts are there in the scenes. When it comes to me, I know it's definitely my own fault for originally having missed things like Vicki's facial expression when she realizes Julia is the doctor. And the reason it's my own fault is that both times I saw the film in a theater, right after Julia delivered her line about Vicki having secrets, I turned to the person sitting next to me to say how much I loved those lines. I never even saw Vicki's face until I watched the film at home and alone on Blu-ray. And I'm pretty sure that I've already mentioned elsewhere that there are also other things that I didn't notice until I watched on Blu-ray. But in my defense I have to say that the IMAX screen was so big that at times it was often hard to take everything in - especially if there were multiple characters in a scene and on screen. Though one of the things I definitely caught in the theaters was Liz' expression after Julia refers to her as a bitch. Her expression is priceless - as are several other expressions Liz has in the scene at other moments. And those will certainly be gotten into as their places in the slideshow come up. 

Also, I thought that swapping bits of Julia and adding them to Liz was a brilliant choice for the film. However discussing that here is really out of scope for this particular topic (at least at this point) because we'd like to keep the discussions here focused more on the quotes from the film that are coming up in the slideshow. The changes to Liz and Julia are broader discussions that are better suited for the film's current main topic, so that's why two posts originally made here in this topic have been moved to that topic (starting here:

Re: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

). 

[Gothick]

I think David (sorry can't recall the boy's name--Gulliver something) also got masses cut because I recall one of the writers or producers saying that an entire storyline between Barnabas and David was cut out of the final release print.

Would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall during and immediately after the screening of the cut Burton delivered to the studio suits, wouldn't it?

G.

[michael c]

this introductory dining room scene is one of my favorite in the film. which is interesting since it's before either barnabas or angelique show up...


and i also love that julia has the absolute nerve to call the woman who's house she's been living in(no doubt free of charge and amply supplied with booze)a "bitch". i agree the look on liz's face was priceless. i liked liz's ensemble and hairdo alot in this scene as well. very "regal".

makes one wonder what julia and liz's relationship was really like.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

this introductory dining room scene is one of my favorite in the film. which is interesting since it's before either barnabas or angelique show up...

Well, as I've observed before, it seems very much like DS fans fall into two major categories: those who watch the show mostly for Barnabas, and those who enjoy the show as a whole. And I've never meant to imply that one method of watching is better than the other - it's just the way it seems to be. But for those of us who fall into the latter, this dining room scene is great chiefly because it's dealing with characters that we want to get to know. Though perhaps if you're a mostly Barnabas (and/or Angelique) fan, maybe the scene is boring as hell. I don't know. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Because February has an extra day during Leap Years, Midnite designated that during non-Leap Years today's capture/quote should fall on the 28th, but during Leap Years it would actually appear on the 29th preceded by a different capture/quote on the 28th. But considering that we won't see another Leap Year until 2016, here's what we have to look forward to:

1972 - Elizabeth: 'Carolyn, go to your room.'


1972 - Carolyn: 'Everybody in this house tiptoes around him,
 but no one cares how I feel!'

And the real reason why I'm sharing that now is because I want to talk about Elizabeth's facial expression after she orders Carolyn to her room, yet Carolyn hasn't budged. I love it!

I also suspect that there's more to Carolyn's outburst than mere childish rebellion and more than anything having to do with Carolyn's own secret. (Think possibly more along the lines of Carolyn's apparently absent father (which is very briefly touched on in the film) and what we were told about in Liz' character descriptions but was nowhere to be heard in the film). But if that is the case, apparently it's more stuff that could be dealt with in the whole other film I keep mentioning.

And speaking of Carolyn's outburst, I have to say that I love Julia's three-pronged reaction to it: first, it's like, "Hmm, wow" - then it's like "Oh my God, how will Liz react?" - but then it's like "No, don't look at Liz. Avert your eyes and look down at the table," which is exactly what she quickly does:

The whole sequence, which lasts only a few seconds, is nonetheless priceless!    And one also wonders if Julia's quick aversion of her eyes has anything to do with why Julia made her "bitch" remark? Yet more undercurrent/subtext that could be dealt with in that whole other film. 

[Gothick]

MB, these captures are a hoot!  I'm enjoying this more than I did actually watching the movie.  And you're achieving what I had thought was completely impossible--making me want to sit through the movie again!  Although I still cringe at the thought of having to sit through a lot of it anytime soon.

HBC is such a hoot.  I wish more of her deleted scenes had been released.

I don't remember anything being said, anywhere, about the Depp Shadows' Elizabeth's husband.  Can you refresh my memory?
 
G.