Yeah, well, we only bash Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” because it sucked. 
In The Incredibles:
A purse snatcher has emptied the contents of a purse and if you look carefully you can see a “Mr. Incredible” Pez dispenser.
In Breaker Morant (a favorite of mine), Morant is sarcastically explaining that there isn’t time for courts-martial in the field or elaborate legal codes while fighting a counterinsurgency (the Boer War). He says his unit simply shot prisoners under “Rule 303.” There’s a quick cut to the trigger guard of a rifle, at night, as the gun is being fired, and you can just barely see its caliber engraved there: “.303.”
In 2010, Dr. Floyd is talking to the ghostly Dave Bowman in the hangar bay of Discovery. In one shot, Bowman is very elderly, as we saw him near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then there’s a tight reaction shot of Dr. Floyd, dumbfounded by what he sees. The next shot shows a closeup of Bowman as the Star Child, from the very end of 2001. Then a long shot of Dr. Floyd again, deeply shaken, alone in the hangar bay. The entire sequence is subtle, completely silent and beautifully composed.
In Monsters Inc., when Mike asks a bizarre, floor-sliding coworker how jury duty went, the coworker rolls his single eye. And of course the chic restaurant Harry Hausen’s is an homage to early SFX pioneer Ray Harryhausen.
Both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Lion and Mr. and Mrs. Smith use the gag of a character purposefully dropping something to reveal the superhuman reflexes of someone she/he suspects. Subtle but effective.
When the elderly brothers are patronizingly explaining the commodity futures market to Eddie Murphy in Trading Places, he very briefly “breaks the fourth wall” to look ironically at the audience.
In Animal House, Bluto falls away from the side of the sorority house on his ladder after seeing a beautiful woman undress. It was a long time before I realized that it was his erection which pushed him away from the wall.
The throwaway scene with the experimental watermelon in Buckaroo Banzai always cracks me up.
What I liked about that scene was how earlier in the movie, the real marriage counselor was played by B.D. Wong.
Singing in the Rain…
When Dora Bailey asks Don Lockwood about his past, and Don answers “Dignity, always Dignity” Cosmo rolls his eyes.
Ha! Ha! Ha! I never realized that. You learn something new every day.
How about in L.A. Story, Victoria Tenant’s character calls her mother long distance in England over a speaker phone, just so they can play music together (her on a trombone, her mother on a harpsichorde). What is most striking is that they are playing “Doo Wah Diddy” by Manfred Mann. (I won’t spoil it, but that song is a particularly important plot-point.)
Since nobody has mentioned it maybe it’s not what would ordinarily be considered a subtle moment, but I think it’s great (subtle) writing. In Sideways, when Miles and Maya are talking about wine on Stephanie’s porch, and she asks him why he likes pinot so much, he goes into a detailed explanation of how delicate the grape is, how it takes a really trained vintner to tend to it and nourish it, and only someone who really takes the time to understand it and care for it will be able to really bring out its full essence, etc. I’ve since spoken to plenty of people who didn’t realize that (unbeknownst to him) he’s talking about himself. So many, in fact, that I went back and watched it again, and I left shaking my head about how obvious it was. But I guess it’s subtle since so many people didn’t catch it.
An alternative explanation (and I have no idea if this is actually what happened in Topsy Turvy) is that the scene – showing the character onstage in costume – was cut.
If things work out nicely, you have a moment of subtlety. If you’re less fortunate, you have a continuity problem.
Thanks to this thread, Amazon is shipping me the DVD of What’s Up Doc as we speak. I haven’t seen that film in years and it will be a welcome addition to my home library.
Lots of good subtle jokes in that movie. Like the name of the highly-exclusive restaurant, which they pronounce “Liddy-O” but you see in a quick shot is spelled “L’Idiot”. And the hotel they go to near the end, “El Pollo Del Mar”, which translates to “Chicken of the Sea”.
Personally, I like when he turns his shower control to “Slo-mo”, and the next shot is him showering in slow motion.
In the movie A Beautiful Mind
Before we learn that the young girl is just a figment of Nash’s imagination, she is playing on a lawn, running around. There are pigeons on the lawn, but they don’t react to her running near them.
I felt there was something unusual in that seen, but didn’t realize what it was until I listened to the commentary.
Uh oh – I’ve never seen that movie and that happened to me one time at a county fair…I ought to call up my mom tonight and ask herif the young girl who came up to me at the county fair 10 years ago and started talking to me out of the blue like she knew me was real, since neither my mom nor my sister acknowledged her or asked me who she was!Thankfully the passage of time has probably ruled out progressive psychiatric disorder :eek:
A TV example, in one Scrubs episode there is a pan up from one floor to another. Where normally there is just a black bar representing the floor the camera just came up through, there was actually a maze of pipes and ductwork with rats running around. Very subtle, I have seen the episode many times, but only caught it this time.
This was in a Bob Hope movie, the title of which I can’t recall. He was playing his usual simple, goofy character, and his costar portrayed a scheming blond who pretended to love him. At one point, he’s crying or apologizing for something as she strokes his head, with a disgusted look on her face, which he can’t see, of course. As he bemoans his bad situation, he says: “I feel like a dog, and you’ve been like a mother to me.”
That was too subtle not to have been deliberate.
Actually Giovanni Ribisi died taking out the machine gun nest that none of the squad wanted to attack and which had nothing to do with Ryan.
I love that movie. I think I counted six Shakespeare references.
There’s also the scene where Harris is describing a painting in great detail; the lovers embracing, the onlookers in the background, the puppy (he’s right, it’s a bit much) while the screen only shows the four people looking at the painting. And of course it turns out to be a bland abstract with none of what he was describing. Watch the faces of the other three people. His friend Ariel is trying not to laugh. Roland the art snob is really trying to see those things in the painting. And the object of his affections, Sara, is somewhere in the middle, wondering exactly what she’s gotten herself into.
An even better one from that movie. At the end as Timothy Dalton straps on the rocket, he turns around, grins and evilly says “I’m going to miss Hollywood.” He then proceeds to crash in to the Hollywoodland sign, knocking out the letters “land” leaving the letters “Hollywood” behind.
He did miss Hollywood.
sigh
I suck at explaining these things.
See, I didn’t notice that he’d picked up something from the Nativity scene at first. Just that he grabbed something, took a bite, got a disgusted look on his face, cursed “Jesus,” and threw whatever it was away.
All of this is happening in a frenetic scene where the husband and wife are racing back and forth, trying to prepare for the arrival of their son, grandmother, brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephews.
On the umpteenth time watching, I realized it was a Nativity scene on the buffet, and that he’d picked up the Christ child and bitten its head off.
My favorite part of that scene (or maybe another one) is when Puss in Boots says he hates mondays.
(i guess it’s not that subtle, but I was the only one laughing!)
Just after he says that, our hero (who has sabotaged the rocket pack) mutters, “I don’t think so…”