R.I.P. BERNIE MAC

I'll always remember Bernie Mac best for his work in 'Bad Santa,' where he played an unscrupulous mall detective.  Most of his work in movies amounted to little more then sneering and snide asides, but in "Bad Santa,' at least, he participated in at least one scene that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The manager of the mall, played by John Ritter, comes to Mac's office to discuss the matter of the, well, Bad Santa.  While Ritter squirms uncomfortably Mac downs a glass of metamucil, chain smokes, and peels an orange.  He does all of these things will some depraved relish, and while it may be the content of their conversation that makes John Ritter uncomfortable, it's watching Mac go through with this little routine that made me churn in my seat.

I don't know quite how to describe it--it's just gross.  I felt like I could smell the weird stale air in the office.  It's not often that a film can get across such a tactile feeling as that, and yet that one sequence gets it across completely.  Maybe it's the way he used his hands, peeling the orange and stamping out cigarettes in an overflowing ashtray, all the while those big creepy eyes locked on to poor Ritter...

Mac was good with his hands, and in fact they basically steal every scene that he's in in all three of the 'Ocean' movies.  In fact, if memory serves, he spends a lot of time in those movies discussing different moisturizers and manicure techniques...