I'm not exactly sure why, but I found Stella Roche (Annie McEnroe), a supporting character in yesterday's Film Club flick
The Hand, to be...I don't know-
fascinating might be too strong of a word. Intriguing, maybe? Yes, intriguing. Stella was a townie girl who had a reputation of being a bit stuck-up, though who can say why. She worked at the grocery store. She rode a motorcycle. She was taking classes at the local community college- in cartooning of all things, and her sketchbook efforts were absolutely dreadful but she didn't seem to notice. She drank her beer out of a can and she liked to "make it" in a bed- as her professor, Jon Lansdale (Michael Caine), found out one afternoon. She was just one of those characters I wanted to learn more about.
I never really got a chance. For reasons unknown, Stella decided to spend the 2-week Christmas holiday vacation in Los Angeles with Jon's friend- and he was hinting to Jon that it would be nothing but 2 weeks-o-humpin'. This made Jon mad. This made Jon's severed hand attack! Poor Stella felt the hand's fury underneath Jon's Christmas tree. The tragedy of death seemed...err, not so tragic later on when police found Stella stuffed in the trunk of Jon's car:
Siiiigh. She looks like an extra from the recently released DVD
Dawn of the Dead '78: The Special Needs Edition.
Siiiigh. She looks like an extra from the recently released DVD Dawn of the Dead '78: The Special Needs Edition.
Heh... the '78 Dawn of the Dead was its own catalog of Ridiculous Faces of Death.
ReplyDeleteThe worse part was that as the walking dead, they had to parade those faces around in public.
Embarrassing. No wonder they were cranky...
Wasn't she something?
ReplyDeleteI think dude called her "stuck-up" because as she explained, he was dying to fuck her and she wasn't too interested. She seemed like a pretty righteous chick to me.
I could watch ten more movies about Stella. I wonder if she got direction to cross her eyes like that, or if she gets points for the extra-effort herself, but it sure was memorable. She made her mark on history.
Ha, I'm glad to see that you were as morbidly delighted by Stella as I was. She goes down as one of my all time favorite WTF? characters. Honestly, what the hell? The stilted line readings, the sketch book, the inexplicable crying over the lingerie-- WTF? But then it seems that most of Jon's students were mentally challenged to some degree.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the best cross-eyed look I've seen, ever.
ReplyDeleteHer sketchbook was AWESOME.
ReplyDeleteDid she cry over the lingerie because it was a nice gesture and no one was ever nice to her, or did she cry because someone she barely knew gave her lingerie as a gift and that sort of means she's really only good for one thing?
Stella's waters run deep!
Maybe she was hoping it would be a brand new kick ass sketch, so when it wasn't she got so profoundly disappointed that she just broke down and cried.
ReplyDeleteOk I admit not as deep or thoughtful. But still...
She must have been turned on by Michael Caine's black leather glove over his giant, metal hand.
ReplyDeletePfft. okay I have to admit, I nearly choked on my apple cider when I saw that face! I mean, come on! There's cross-eyed, super cross-eyed and there's THIS! haha, nice! nice! funniest face of death for me!
ReplyDelete