Walken Dance
March 31, 2020 11:30 AM Subscribe
National treasure
posted by growabrain at 11:47 AM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by growabrain at 11:47 AM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Or Dancen Walk, as you see fit.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:18 PM on March 31, 2020
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:18 PM on March 31, 2020
This is delightful!
posted by Hold your seahorses at 12:26 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Hold your seahorses at 12:26 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
. (?)
Buddy, my heart could use a tiny bit of context...
posted by humboldt32 at 12:37 PM on March 31, 2020
Buddy, my heart could use a tiny bit of context...
posted by humboldt32 at 12:37 PM on March 31, 2020
It's real hard to make it look that easy.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:53 PM on March 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:53 PM on March 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Has anybody ever edited together Christopher Walken dancing and Ted Danson walking?
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:02 PM on March 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:02 PM on March 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
Man. Young Walken was h-a-w-t.
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 1:09 PM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 1:09 PM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Less dancing, more brooding (but he does dance!)
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:06 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:06 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Coincidentally, CW and I share a birthday and today is it! Happy birthday, Christopher!
posted by Lynsey at 2:12 PM on March 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Lynsey at 2:12 PM on March 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
I forget where I saw the interview, but I remember hearing him say he’s a song-and-dance man at heart, and tries to sneak a little bit of dancing, even just a few steps, into every role he can.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
Some even say that Christopher Walken likes dancing more than he likes hot dogs.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:19 PM on March 31, 2020
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:19 PM on March 31, 2020
That Madonna video reminded me of the first memory I have of seeing a Walken movie, At Close Range (video of title track), which is one of the most haunting, saddest movies I’ve ever seen. And I don’t recall any dancing but I recall Walken being about as fucked up as is humanly possible.
posted by waving at 2:26 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by waving at 2:26 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
First time I saw Weapon of Choice, I had no idea about Walken's song and dance background, so it was quite the surprise.
posted by tavella at 3:15 PM on March 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by tavella at 3:15 PM on March 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
First time I saw Walken was The Deerhunter, a very sad film.
posted by Oyéah at 3:56 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 3:56 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Needed more cowbell.
posted by Graygorey at 6:13 PM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Graygorey at 6:13 PM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Wow, that was really well edited!
posted by aka burlap at 7:22 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by aka burlap at 7:22 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Unreal! It really makes you aware of how body movement is also such an integral part of (great) acting. This man has it!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:24 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:24 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Walken's dance number in Pennies from Heaven is such a mind fuck because on the one hand he's playing a truly horrifying pimp who threatens to cut women's faces, but on the other hand oh my god is he a sex monster. It's especially upsetting in context, where we know just how dire things have gotten for Bernadette Peters' poor little mouse of a character. Walken's arrival in that movie is electric like a downed power line, swinging free.
It's a shame there weren't more movies like Pennies from Heaven when Walken was young. Most dance movies tend to be pretty wholesome, and Walken was a superb dancer but he had such an air of danger and weirdness that he just wouldn't have fit in Grease or Footlose or other dance fare of the era. He needed movies with dark dancing, and that's a very specific niche. He might have been great in Saturday Night Fever, a movie that's a lot darker than we tend to remember, but we would have lost one of Travolta's iconic roles and Walken's more sinister variety of sexiness would have made the film some whole other deal. His career followed this weird trajectory of Wow that young guy is weird but he can act, Wow that middle-aged guy is great in character parts, Wow that old guy is great at playing weirdos, Wow that old guy sure was a fantastic dancer (and super sexy) when he was young. He's given us a lot of wonderful weirdness, but he could have give us so much more.
Years ago, during a Conan interview, Walken talked about how he'd shopped around a cooking show but nobody bought it. WTF, American media? You didn't make young Walken a sex god superstar, and now you won't let old weirdo Walken host a cooking show where he teaches us how to prepare shremp sallid with CYOO-cumb-ah? For shame!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:24 PM on March 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
It's a shame there weren't more movies like Pennies from Heaven when Walken was young. Most dance movies tend to be pretty wholesome, and Walken was a superb dancer but he had such an air of danger and weirdness that he just wouldn't have fit in Grease or Footlose or other dance fare of the era. He needed movies with dark dancing, and that's a very specific niche. He might have been great in Saturday Night Fever, a movie that's a lot darker than we tend to remember, but we would have lost one of Travolta's iconic roles and Walken's more sinister variety of sexiness would have made the film some whole other deal. His career followed this weird trajectory of Wow that young guy is weird but he can act, Wow that middle-aged guy is great in character parts, Wow that old guy is great at playing weirdos, Wow that old guy sure was a fantastic dancer (and super sexy) when he was young. He's given us a lot of wonderful weirdness, but he could have give us so much more.
Years ago, during a Conan interview, Walken talked about how he'd shopped around a cooking show but nobody bought it. WTF, American media? You didn't make young Walken a sex god superstar, and now you won't let old weirdo Walken host a cooking show where he teaches us how to prepare shremp sallid with CYOO-cumb-ah? For shame!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:24 PM on March 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
"boom"
posted by sleepingwithcats at 7:54 PM on March 31, 2020
posted by sleepingwithcats at 7:54 PM on March 31, 2020
(Might someone be willing to take a crack at identifying sources for these clips? IMDB lists 138 acting credits.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 8:18 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 8:18 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Uh - as noted above, the bar striptease is from Steve Martin's "Pennies from Heaven" (1981?); the dancing-at-the funeral is "Undertaking Betty" (2002): the woman in the green dress is from one of the "Wayne's World" movies....
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:07 PM on March 31, 2020
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:07 PM on March 31, 2020
He's a hoofer!
posted by kirkaracha at 9:52 PM on March 31, 2020
posted by kirkaracha at 9:52 PM on March 31, 2020
Walken talked about how he'd shopped around a cooking show but nobody bought it.
Cooking with Christopher Walken (Scallops a la Walken)*
posted by kliuless at 11:17 PM on March 31, 2020
Cooking with Christopher Walken (Scallops a la Walken)*
posted by kliuless at 11:17 PM on March 31, 2020
My movie viewing history is very spotty -- I have yet to see either The Deerhunter or Pennies from Heaven, for instance. So, my first encounter with Christopher Walken was in Communion, where he played the execrable Whitley Streiber, which a UFO obsessed friend insisted we see.
Not a great film but one in which Walken was physiognomically typecast with those cheekbones and that sinister otherworldly air. But jeez, there was a dance sequence in that which blew me away. So, as long as I known who he was, I have known what a great dancer he is.
So, the thought came to me that perhaps someone or other has done a compilation of his dancing and entered Walken Dance in YouTube's search box. And voila, you see the pick of the litter among the results.
What stunned me was it had never been posted to Metafilter as yet.
posted by y2karl at 11:39 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not a great film but one in which Walken was physiognomically typecast with those cheekbones and that sinister otherworldly air. But jeez, there was a dance sequence in that which blew me away. So, as long as I known who he was, I have known what a great dancer he is.
So, the thought came to me that perhaps someone or other has done a compilation of his dancing and entered Walken Dance in YouTube's search box. And voila, you see the pick of the litter among the results.
What stunned me was it had never been posted to Metafilter as yet.
posted by y2karl at 11:39 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also, some years back there used to be a mostly t-shirt shop named Hot Topic in the Broadway Market, right outside where I caught the bus to work then.
And one morning I saw this in the window.
I have owned one ever since, going on my third as of now. I believe it began as someone else's bright idea but became his when he found out about it.
posted by y2karl at 12:01 AM on April 1, 2020
And one morning I saw this in the window.
I have owned one ever since, going on my third as of now. I believe it began as someone else's bright idea but became his when he found out about it.
posted by y2karl at 12:01 AM on April 1, 2020
What I want to know is, can he sing? Because I need to hear him sing Bacharach:
"Raindrops ... keep... falling on... my... head"
posted by sjswitzer at 10:39 AM on April 4, 2020
"Raindrops ... keep... falling on... my... head"
posted by sjswitzer at 10:39 AM on April 4, 2020
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posted by fedward at 11:40 AM on March 31, 2020 [4 favorites]