Do you have any single scenes from movies that just stick with you? The movie as a whole doesn’t have to be memorable–just that one scene.
One of mine is from Joe vs the Volcano. When Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are shipwrecked on the floating luggage and he’s dying of thirst, this ineffably beautiful moonrise happens. He’s so overwhelmed by the awesome beauty of it he says something like:
I forgot. Oh my god, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life.
THE scene from the Wizard of Oz: when Dorothy opens the door and the world is suddenly in technicolor. My grandson’s eyes just about popped out of his head when he saw it the first time.
In the theater: the opening of Star Wars (oh, Episode IV). A spaceship, of a type not previously scene and of immense size, comes directly overhead. I wasn’t the only one who ducked.
The death scene that opens Cliffhanger. What a horrible way to open what should have been a (relatively) fun movie.
Put me down for that one too. For years, I watched the movie on a black&white TV. The first time I saw that transition on a color TV, I was just like your grandson, and I was probably much older at the time. To this day I think this is one of the most effective visual effects in all of film. I don’t think it could be any more dramatic with modern CGI techniques.
Having seen Oz the Great and Powerful, I can tell you: it ain’t.
The silent coach scene in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday. Currently available on Netflix streaming. I tried looking on Youtube, but didn’t find the scene I wanted.
I think it is also on On Demand on cable TV in the US right now.
William Peterson crashing through the Tooth Fairy’s picture window just as the crescendo of in a gadda da vida blasts out at full volume in Manhunter.
John Wayne standing alone, framed in the doorway in the final shot of ‘The Searchers.’
“You talkin’ to me?..You talkin’ to me?.. Well I don’t see anyone else here, so you must be talking to me.” - Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver
"I amuse you? . . . " - Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas
And, an amazing scene from True Romance where Dennis Hopper as Christopher Worley outsmarts and outtalks Christopher Walken as Don Coccotti:
Clifford Worley: Ya know, I read a lot. Especially about things… about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here’s a fact I don’t know whether you know or not. Sicilians were spawned by nigXXXX.
Coccotti: Come again?
I don’t know if this is really the most memorable one for me, but it is the one that popped into my head at first. Early in Altered States, Bob Balaban is talking up William Hurt to Blair Brown as someone she should meet. Bob then says “There he is.”, Blair turns and sees William down a hallway framed in a doorway, lit from behind. Nice way to make a first impression.
Imagine if you will that you live a long, long, long time ago, and all the movies are silent. There’s a guy playing a piano to the soundtrack. And you’re watching a movie about a Hebrew cantor who wants to sing popular music in the latest style, but your father forbids it. And in the middle of the movie, the cantor turns to the audience and blasts the audience out of the seat by actually speaking: “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” and proceeding to SING from the screen.
I’m not that old, but my seniors remembered it as one of the most vivid sensations of having just entered the future they ever experienced.
That’s one of my favorite shots ever.
The end of Fight Club when the Narrator takes Marla’s hand as they look out at the skyline crashing down, with Where is My Mind?. Great scene.
This scene from a bizarre Mike Figgis film called The Loss of Sexual Innocence (video is SFW).
The lead-up to this scene shows two women, both played by Saffron Burrows, starting their day. They are apparently separated-at-birth twins, wholly unaware of each other, and by chance they both end up at the same airport. For a moment their eyes meet… they stare blankly at each other but the look on their faces is somehow confused, sad, and understanding all at the same time, like in that one moment their lives suddenly became both crystal clear and completely shattered. And just as quickly it passes and they go on with their separate lives…I don’t remember shit else that happened in this movie, but I will never forget that scene.
The helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now, with Ride of the Valkyries blasting.
Not that that movie lacked for memorable scenes.
John Wayne’s showdown scene in the original True Grit
“I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”
“Fill yore hand, you son-of-a-bitch”
Ripley in the escape pod, Alien.
The eyebrow shaving scene in Pink Floyd: The Wall. Incredibly creepy and permanently imprinted on my brain.
Godfather, Part II: Michael and Fredo on New Year’s Eve. “You broke my heart. You broke my heart.”
“Coffee’s for Closers” in Glenn Garry, Glenn Ross. An excellent use of a Baldwin.
The President’s speech in Armageddon.