AllThatJazz Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Angels & Demons, director Ron Howard's sequel/prequel to The Da Vinci Code, is less about actual angels than it's about Action Tom Hanks running, jumping, and climbing trees to solve a city-wide Sudoku puzzle and save the world from the Illuminati. At least that's what I think it's about from watching the trailer, and from the five pages of Dan Brown's book that I read before I gave up and threw it across the room.

But it did get me thinking about angels in movies, and what a fascinating subject they are -- even when they're mishandled. Here's a few favorite movie seraphim:

1. All That Jazz - Bob Fosse's wickedly raw, musical autobio offered a luminous Jessica Lange, who appears to Roy Scheider's Fosse as a sexy angel of death, flirting and cajoling him into finally going towards the light. As the embodiment of all that Fosse found seductive in his self-destruction, Lange was a heavenly body, indeed.

2. Dogma -- Kevin Smith's irreverent examination of faith and religion cast Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as two laid-off angels headed for New Jersey, hoping to find a loophole that'll put them back in God's graces. Along the messy, uneven way, Smith gives his characters some wonderful lines -- like when the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman) explains, "Human beings have neither the aural nor the psychological capacity to withstand the awesome power of God's true voice. Were you to hear it, your mind would cave in and your heart would explode within your chest. We went through five Adams before we figured that one out."

3. Wings of Desire -- Wim Wenders' 1987 fantasy about an unhappy angel (Bruno Ganz) who longs to be human is a slow, seductive dream of a movie, full of sadness and beauty. Henri Alekan, the cinematographer who shot Jean Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast, came out of retirement to make this film, and it's a masterpiece. Plus, it's got Peter Falk, and an amazing performance by Nick Cave:

It's a good thing that Steven Spielberg's Jaws is a film that gets watched over and over again by generation after generation, because that means Roy Scheider has now become immortal. Sad news, movie fans: Roy Scheider, star of Jaws, Klute, The French Connection, All That Jazz, Blue Thunder, 2010, Marathon Man, and a whole bunch more, passed away earlier today at the age of 75.

According to The New York Times, "Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said."

Born in New Jersey in 1932, Mr. Scheider made his big screen debut in 1964's The Curse of the Living Corpse. From those inauspicious beginnings he became one of Hollywood's most unlikely leading men. Although his later career was peppered with lots of low-end product, the actor left behind a lot of excellent work*. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award (The French Connection and All That Jazz), but to millions of movie-lovers he'll always be remembered as the uncomfortable, no-nonsense, oddly lovable Police Chief Martin Brody, the island cop who hated the water.

* I'm sure you have your favorite Scheider moments, but here are a few (relatively) lesser-known titles that you might enjoy checking out: The Seven-Ups (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Still of the Night (1982), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and Naked Lunch (1991). One of the actor's last quality jobs was providing the narration for The Shark Is Still Working, a Jaws documentary that he endorsed quite happily. Fans will definitely want to check that one out.

Rest in peace, Mr. Scheider. I'm about to go grab my Jaws DVD.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."