Top Five Cinematic Moments

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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In no particular order:

Alien: Jones the cat recoils and hisses at the full-grown alien, which is standing up (unbeknownst to him) behind Harry Dean Stanton. The audience knows right then and there, based on the angle of the cat’s stare, that The Game Has Suddenly Changed.

The Caine Mutiny: The moment of silence, punctuated only by the clacking of the steel balls, just after Capt. Queeg loses it on the stand. You just know that it’s all over, and Keefe and Marek aren’t going to be convicted.

Se7en: Morgan Freeman opens the box. Right away, before anyone says a word, you know what’s in it.

Casablanca: Renault’s look just before he decides not to tell the police that Rick shot Maj. Strasser. Faced with the necessity of making a moral decision for the first time in a while, he slam-dunks it.

Dead Again: Mike looks in the mirror in his dream and realizes he is Margaret, not Roman. So obvious, but it was handled pretty deftly, and the first time you see it, it works perfectly.

And five more for the hell of it:

Vertigo: When Judy goes over the edge of the tower at the end. That look on Jimmy Stewart’s face . . .

Bull Durham: Bat boy: “Get a hit, Crash.” Crash: “Shut up!” I just about wet my pants the first time I heard that, and it hasn’t gotten any less funny.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Dreyfuss is on the phone talking to his wife, the model is taking up his entire living room, and Devil’s Tower appears on the news report, and you’re thinking, “Turn around, dammit!”

Bambi: When Bambi turns around and says, “We made it, mother! Mother . . .?” Cripes, that STILL makes me cry.

The Godfather: Moe Greene gets shot in the eye. Nothing crucial to the plot or paticularly touching, but it was pretty frigging cool.

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Jaytini

No problem. You’re doing fine. You described the scenes just to set up the context for the moments, much as I did.

Spoke

A great one indeed! What totally made that moment for me was the unsustained, heavily aspirated diminished 11 chord. [wiping beads of sweat…]

Here’s another:

Just plain “ho”. — Buloxi Blues

The sargeant has just instructed the new batch of arrivals that the answer to his questions is “ho”. Matthew Broderick, in his inimitably understated style, unthinkingly responds to a question, “Ho, yes.” Catching himself, he says, “Ho, no!” Meanwhile, Christopher Walken is playing a great straight, and Broderick, desperately trying to recover, says, “Ho, nothing.” And finally, “Just plain ho!” If you didn’t see it, you probably won’t get it. But if you did, you probably loved it.

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Phil

That reminded me of another.

Sharp shootin’ — Saving Private Ryan

The bullet through the scope. 'Nuff said.

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In the last part of the movie Giant. Where the hero Rock Hudson get his ass beat by the cook of a dinner. Who refuse sevice to Rock’s Mexican daughter inlaw, and grandson. Eventhough Rock was a rich, and powerful oil baron, and could have bought out the dinner many times.
Another. Also on Giant. When Rock went over to the Mexican family, who had lost their son Sal Mineo to WW2. Handed them the flag of Texas.

25

Add to the list of favorite cinema scenes:

Lawrence of Arabia - Lawrence coming out of the Devil’s Anvil desert and certain death with his rescued man.
Mahmoud [?] one of his pair of young boy servants, is waiting for them with some water. Nothing on the
horizon and nothing all around except Mahmoud sitting
on his camel - there are only two or three basic colors: blue sky and dirt sand and dark jellabia robe, yet Mahmoud spots something moving towards him.

Camera shot shows the ground slowly begining to move as Mahmoud and his camel try to get a better view; the music begins to speed up. Such joy, relief, happiness, uncontrolled exurberance as he rushes past Lawrence.
Scene ends when Lawrence says: Nothing is written.
Love it.

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Hi all! I’m brand spankin’ new here and I figured the best place to start my posts is on a subject I love: movies.

Some awesome cinematic moments. ( I could never come up with “top five” since I can never decide which is better. To me they’re all awesome!)

  1. “The Emperor is not as forgiving as I” -Star Wars:Return of the Jedi
    That has to be my favorite Star Wars moment. Just to imagine that Darth Vader considers himself forgiving compared to The Emperor… shiver

  2. “Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls… Dyin’ time’s here.” -Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
    Just before Mad Max enters the Thunderdome for the fight with Master Blaster. That announcer really got me into the fight with just that one line.

  3. “Did anything about that seem weird to you?” - Men In Black

The look on Will Smith’s face when Tommy Lee Jones asks that question… oh, I was rolling on the floor.

  1. “Okay, get a cane pole and catch me the fish that ate him.” - The Fugitive

Talk about your obsessed cops! If we had more cops like Sam Gerard, criminals wouldn’t have a chance in hell.

  1. “What did I tell you?! Eighty-eight miles per hour!” -Back to the Future

Just an awesome moment! The time machine actually worked!

  1. “We’re on a mission from God.” - The Blues Brothers

'nuff said.
Ridley

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Welcome, Ridley! Movies seem to be a hot topic just now. That’s fine with me; I love 'em, and the discussions going on are giving me great ideas on what to rent. Top of the list for next trip to blockbuster: Apocalypse Now.

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There’s a thin line between ‘moment’ & ‘scene’ isn’t there? ‘Moment’ seems to draw emotion with a brief image - I’ll stay away from over-the-top stuff (like Old Yeller & Bambi) to the more subtle:

  1. Seven Samurai - When Kyuzo, the emotionless fighting machine, is waiting to ambush the bandits by their horses the camera cuts to him playing with a delicate flower with a blank look on his face - such a conflicting image.

  2. M - That damn ballon drifts up into the power lines and your heart immediately falls the other direction.

  3. 2001 - The moment when we see that HAL can read lips. A very juicy scare!

  4. Nostalghia - The initial shot inside Domenico’s “house” with the camera panning over a luscious garden of eden that is revealed to be nothing more than a puddle on the floor. How profound perspective can be! (Similar, but opposite to the concluding shot of Solaris - which should also be on this list)

  5. Aguirre: The Wrath of God - At the end of the movie when Aguirre stumbles around a monkey-infested raft he picks one up, squeezes it and tosses it with a wild look in his eyes that says it all. His final speech was unnecessary.

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Shawshank Redemption:

Red says, “I hope I can make it to the border. I hope to see my friend Andy again and shake his hand. I hope the ocean is as blue as in my dreams. I hope…”

Long shot of Morgan Freeman walking on to the beach and Tim Robbins seeing him…the two running towards each other and embracing. What a classic moment–triumph of human spirit through such adversity. I cry every time.

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Bridge on the River Kwai - The look that comes over Alec Guiness’ face when he realizes what he’s been doing all through the movie.

Bull Durham - When Crash gets tossed from the game for calling the ump a csucker and it cuts to Susan Sarandon saying "He must have called him a csucker."

This came up in another thread: Casablanca - “Shocked! Shocked I am to discover gambling here!” “Your winnings, sir.” (I know I butchered it. It’s been too long.)

Cheezey movie, but the ending of No Way Out - Kevin Costner spilling his guts in Russian.

I had several others, but got beaten to the punch.

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Wow! Thanks for the memories! Well, what you guys said.

Two of my favorite quickie scenes are from Dead Zone:

The shot of the semi sliding up the hill toward Walken’s VW bug.

The look on Walken’s face when his married ex-girlfriend starts to unbutton her shirt. Sorta shy, and unbelieving.

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A few pefectly edited endings are my favorites …

“Jaws” : Roy Schieder saying “Smile, you son of a bitch”; the gunshot and the explosion. Perfectly timed editing.

“Brazil” : I won’t ruin the end for those who haven’t seen it, but the every end when a sudden intrusion reveals Sam Lowrey’s final fate.

“The Usual Suspect” : again, the very end. “And like that … he’s gone.” Cut to black. Beautiful.

Also …

“A Few Good Men” : Jack Nicholson’s scene, “Did you order a code red?” “You’re damn right I did!”

And my favorite special effect is from “Volcano” when we finally see the volcano exploding out of the La Brea Tar Pits.

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Many of my favorites have already been posted, but here’s a few more:

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane - the buildup to when Bette Davis takes the cover off Joan Crawford’s dinner platter and there’s a huge dead rat lying there.

The English Patient - in the little church, when Naveen Andrews lights the flare and quickly swings Juliette Binoche up so she can see the paintings high up on the walls.

Marathon Man - the moment when Dustin Hoffman is strapped in that dentist chair and he realizes exactly what Laurence Olivier is planning to do with all those picks and drills and he knows there is absolutely no escape.

Shane - the end, when the little boy is calling, “Shane! Come back, come back!” and Shane slumps over in the saddle, dead.

The Mission - when you see that guy floating along on water that’s quickly turning into rapids, and then the camera pulls back and you realize he’s tied to a cross heading straight for a waterfall, and then it slowly goes over.

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Couldn’t resist. Here they are:

  1. In Kubrick’s Spartacus, when Kirk Douglas and the other gladiator are waiting their turn to fight each other to the death. They are in a little claustrophobic waiting box that opens into the arena. They are facing each other, and listening to the sounds of the preceding unfortunate pair of gladiators as they battle to the death. The door to the arena is between them, and we do not see the battle, either – we just stare at the door. N.B., Sake Samurai, the scene in Kubrick’s 2001, as Hal and Frank talk in the pod, is set up visually exactly like this, his earlier film, with Hal visible through the window between them. The tension in both scenes is excruciating.

  2. The opening to The Big Chill, where there is a close-up of a woman’s hands sensually dressing a man – shirt, tie, jacket. Then you realize it is a mortician dressing a corpse. What a lead-in for a movie that starts with a funeral!

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“Raiders” full of good moments but “asps, very dangerous, you go 1st”.

Star Trek Movie 1, the 1st 5 minutes were great (the rest was eh), but…: the look on the Klingon Commanders face when he realizes his weapons didn’t work and he’s gonna die.

Can we stretch the definition to include “the chalice from the Palace” routine?.. "Court Jester.

“Last Crusade”…“He choose poorly”.

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Dammit, y’all have named most of my favorie moments–the one that popped up in my head right away was Sigourney Weaver’s “Get away from her, you bitch!” in Aliens, as already listed. Now lessee what I can manage from what’s left to assemble…

  1. Amadeus The scene where Mozart, on his dying bed (hey, anyone read the new Discover? They’re theorizing he died of congestive heart failure brought on by rheumatic fever), is dictating the “Confutatis” section of his Requiem to Salieri. It is truly hypnotic, in a freakish, brilliant, magnificent way.

  2. Good Morning Vietnam The bizarre irony of Louis Armstrong sweetly singing “What a Wonderful World” as background to various gruesome scenes of war carnage.

  3. Jurassic Park This scene is rather blasé now, but when the movie first came out(and when seen on the big screen), seeing that T-Rex walk over the fence was breathtakingly awesome and frightening. I will always remember my mother’s jaw-dropped hushed drawl, “Oh my worrrrrd!” when that beast first presented himself.

  4. Awakenings I bawl like a PMSing baby (hey, it could happen!) when Leonard–“awakened” after 20 years of a catatonic state–opens his arms and cheerfully, lovingly greets his now elderly mother who has cared for her unresponsive son all that time. A bit of an obvious heart-string tug, but I still succomb. A close second from this film is the “fucking miracle” when the entire wing of catatonics was treated with L-Dopa. I bawl more there. (Yes, this is my crying movie.)

  5. Top Gun Purely for the lusty beefcake factor: the volleyball game scene. I’m calling my fiancé!

  6. Schindler’s List “More…I could have saved more…this ring, I don’t need this ring…I could have saved one, maybe two more…this car, I could have saved 10 people with this car…”

Whoops…you said top five, and I could have kept going. Note that these weren’t in order of first to last, just in order of when they came to mind.

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l. Witness for the Prosecution-When Marlene Dietrich rasps to Charles Laughton after the trial, and his look when he realizes what has just happened…

  1. Gunga Din–Sam Jaffe,wounded and dying, climbing to the top of the turret to blow his bugle to warn the troop…talk about hair standing up on your neck. Eat you heart out, Dr. Kildare!

  2. Psycho How can anyone ever take a shower, by themselves, without worrying, ever so slightly, about that sound they just heard…

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Since I’m probably one of the only people reading this who’ve seen the animated film The Plague Dogs, I guess I might as well explain the scene. Two dogs have escaped from a testing facility and are being hunted by the military after it’s revealed that, among other things, said facility was conducting tests on bubonic plague. At the very end, the two dogs wind up on a beach and are backed into the ocean as a line of troops prepares to open fire upon them. Having no other option, the dogs swim out to sea. Trying to spur his partner on, the terrier named Snitter begins telling his labador friend, Rowf, about the island they are swimming to where they’ll be free and have real owners instead of the men in the facility. The shoreline recedes, the dogs’ strength ebbs away to the waters… Rowf mentions that he’s getting very weak but they must be near the island by now. Snitter replies, right before the credits begin, “I lied, Rowf. There is no island.”

Well! There was a real pick-me-up!

39

Speaking of Kubrick…

The first part of “Full Metal Jacket”, with R. Lee Ermey as the Marine drill Sergeant (good casting - before becoming an actor, R. Lee Ermey WAS a Marine Drill Instructor)

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In no particular order:

1)Fight Club: The midair plane collision.

2)Mr. Holland’s Opus: a)The moment when you realize his son is deaf. b) “Ladies and gentlemen, our esteemed governor, the honorable Gertrude Lang!”

3)Heavenly Creatures: “Go on, Mum…Treat yourself.” Mum’s daughter and her friend are twenty minutes from murdering Mum; the flat hate in the daughter’s eyes will curdle your milk.

4)Deep Impact: The montage sequence with the teenage wedding and the older woman making herself up before taking an overdose. I know there are people here who don’t like that film. Sue me.

5)Aliens: Vasquez and Drake, the Okie guy, sacrificing themselves. I love those two; they’re like Gimli and Legolas. Their loss would be cause for much gloom…except the film is only starting to rev up.

6)Silence of the Lambs: Catherine, the “girl in the hole”, driving home and singing raucously along with the radio. You just know nothing good can happen to her, if she’s in this film.

7)Holy Grail a)“Knights of the Round Table”. b)Launcelot storming Swamp Castle. It’s all good, but those two scenes are just freight trains.

8)Lucas"We were thinking of going out for a pizza. Why don’t you come with us?"

9)Clueless: Stacey Dash unintentionally driving on the freeway. Another freight train, and especially funny to me because I learned to drive in LA.

10)Boogie Nights: The “Jessie’s Girl” scene at the dealer’s house. The look on Mark Wahlberg’s face is probably the same as the look on mine the first time I saw it.