I took this from Big Stupid Tommy. Make sure you go check out his answers!
1) What moment from what movie still makes you laugh out loud – no matter how many times you see it?
The Stone Henge moment in Spinal Tap.
Madeline Kahn’s entire performance in almost anything – but mostly in What’s Up Doc.
Cary Grant falling down in Bringing Up Baby – falling flat on his ass, completely spontaneously, and his top hat stays in place. I howl. Every time.
The audition scene of Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara in Waiting for Guffman. The 2 of them in their matching sweat suits doing “Midnight at the Oasis”.
There’s a very very brief moment in Philadelphia Story which I adore and it’s hard to explain, but it’s the “morning after”, and a hung-over Katherine Hepburn talks with a hung-over Jimmy Stewart – and Stewart says something about how he doesn’t know where his watch is (which confirms Hepburn’s worst fears about her own behavior) – and her entire FACE changes, into a flat tragic mask, she looks straight forward and says, almost moaning it: “You have no idea how sad that makes me.” Hard to explain, but I howl every time I see it.
The “phone scene” in Swingers, when Jon Favreau has an entire imaginary relationship with a girl’s answering machine. It’s awful, it’s hilarious.
2) What moment from what movie still makes you cry like a baby – no matter how many times you see it?
The last moment in Field of Dreams, when Kevin Costner asks his dad for a catch. I have tears in my eyes right now.
Emma Thompson’s spontaneous teary breakdown at the end of Sense and Sensibility
In Apollo 13 – Everyone is waiting to hear from the astronauts – to see if they have made it back onto earth. Brilliant film-making. The suspense is huge – and then when you hear their voices come through, and everyone in Mission Control erupts into cheers – Tears.
3) What moment from what movie made you actually turn your head from the screen – either in fear, revulsion, or contempt for the fact that you actually paid money to see the film?
Turn away in fear: — the horrible moment in The Ring when she comes out of the television at the ex-husband. I have never been so scared in my life.
Turn away in revulsion: — the ear-cutting-off moment in Reservoir Dogs, the Russian Roulette scene in Deer Hunter
Turn away in contempt: — the gobble-gobble sex scene in Gigli. I literally felt sick to my stomach.
BONUS) What is one single moment from a film that is indelibly etched in your brain? Not a scene or a sequence exactly, but three or four seconds from a movie that contain an image or phrase or concept that transcends normal movies?
I love this question.
A couple come to mind:
— Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman saying goodbye at the airport in the fog
— the close-up shot of Meryl Streep’s face when she makes “the choice” in Sophie’s Choice – actually, that could also be listed in the former question, under: I turn away from that moment, it is hard for me to look at that close-up, very very hard. It’s the most awful moment I can think of in movie history. Unbearable.
— the shot of Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson (in his football helmet) on the bikes in Easy Rider
1) john belushi, falling backwards on the ladder in ‘animal house’.
2) seeing the little girl in red on the wagon, in ‘schindler’s list’
3) the scene in ‘unforgiven’ where clint eastwood strolls in to the bar to start killing the posse. just the combination of events ending in that culmination. i could feel the purpose, the intent. it gives me goose pimples just thinking about it.
bonus) harrison ford in ‘patriot games’. after they tried to kill his wife and daughter and he was sitting there. alone, quiet. you could just see the rage building. then he started hunting them down.
-When the warden tosses the chess piece and discovers the hidden tunnel in “The Shawshank Redemption.” Sometimes I still cheer out loud during that sequence.
-God, yes, the phone scene in Swingers. I laughed when you mentioned it because I fast-forwarded it last time I watched!
-Emma Thompson’s crying scene in Sense and Sensibility always makes me laugh at first, when she hears he isn’t married, then get all teary just after.
-When Ewan McGregor is typing at the very end of Moulin Rouge. Waterworks.
-A few points in Philadelphia always get me, particularly when Denzel Washington lets him know they won the case AND when Tom Hanks is losing himself in the music as Denzel realizes he’s a real human being.
-I always cringe in the tunnel scene of Willy Wonka.
-I still cheer at the home run in The Natural. Wow. I just completely buy it.. don’t ask me why, but I do.
-Finally, and most recently, when everyone bows to the four hobbits at the end of The Return of the King. After all that pain and struggle, it was the first point of release, when I felt they were really safe home. God, I’m such a woman.
Memorable Movies
I lifted this from Red, who in turn found it courtesy of the Big Stupid One.
Laugh my a** off: When Ralphie uses the f word in “A Christmas Story” I always laugh.
Cry: Field of Dreams (of course) and when the older Ryan asks his wife if he has lived a good life in “Saving Private Ryan”. It is as if all the emotion that movie evokes is yanked from you at that moment, particularly if you have been trying to hold back.
fear revulsion: I have to think about that one.
Bonus: The transition in “Lawrence of Arabia” when Peter O’Toole lights the match and “snap” desert.
Well Chick strikes again!
Dan – I seem to remember you and I joking before about needing to get caller ID because “well-chick” keeps calling …
“Oh dammit. It’s that freak at the bottom of the well again – I’ll let the machine get it.”
hehehe exactly.
And how on earth I could’ve left “A Christmas Story” off my list is beyond me – so many hilarious moments.
“Fra-gee-lay! It’s Italian! Fra-gee-lay!”
Tragic – yet so so funny.
How does that line go? The leg lamp was ‘ the warm glow of electric sex in the window?’
hahahaha. Thanks!
Friday Movie Stuff
From Sheila and Tommy, 1) What moment from what movie still makes you laugh out loud – no matter how many times you see it? A Fish Called Wanda, “K-k-ken is c-c-coming to k-k-kill me!”. Gets me everytime. 2) What…
Friday! Guilt Post! Random Nonsense!
At the risk of my co-blogger converting this site into Fox News Lite (go ahead, Ken! Do your worst!), I’ve decided to check in with a few random notes from this week: *Do you know what I hate? When you’re…
Oh, just the thought of Catherine O’Hara “singing”…”You don’t have to answer…”
Ugh. But dead funny.
I also love the moment after Eugene Levy’s TERRIBLE audition when he leaves the room and Corky gives a soft whistle of awe at Levy’s talent.
Bob Balaban KILLS me, too – as the stick-up-his-ass unhappy musical director.
I love when he’s trying to tell Corky that the cast needs to work more on the music, and Corky says “Why are you whispering? I’m right here.”
Hmmm… Bona-fide rednecks shouldn’t get all misty-eyed at the movies, but here’s two scenes where “my allergies caused inadvertent eye-watering”…
The kid letting his father fire off the rocket at the end of ‘October Sky’, and together they watch it soar into the stratosphere.
The end of ‘The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain” where the narrator says that the mountain Ffynnon Garw had settled 6 feet, and is now only a hill. You hear the old Reverend Jones sigh, and in the next scene, hundreds of people, kids, housewives, shopkeepers, punkers, are all heading up the hill with buckets and pails of soil to build it up again, the old Welsh song “Men of Harlech” playing in the background.
I know it’s just a movie scene, but the idea of that shared sense of purpose and community just floors me.
As for scenes that never fail to crack me up, in ‘The Thin Man Goes Home’, where Nick Charles is repairing the sidetable leaf, and it cracks him on the head, knocking him out. His father comes home to find him senseless on the floor, his flask lying beside him, confirming his worst fears about his lush son.
Kevin Kline’s entire performance in ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ and
Gary Oldman’s gadget construction in ‘Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ still give me chuckles.
I’m glad you all liked my questions – please visit http://theaterthursday.blogspot.com/ every week and sign up for notifies if you like ;)
Here are my own answers to them:
LAUGH: In “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, when Mr. Rooney is sneaking into Ferris’ house looking for the kid, and encounters his sister Jenny who thinks he’s Ferris. When they come face to face, she screams and kicks him in the face, running away. That one gets me every time.
CRY: “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, a) when Richard Dreyfuss sings ‘Beautiful Boy’ about his son, Cole, and b) when they hand him the baton to let him direct ‘American Symphony’ at the end.
CRINGE: When either C. Thomas Howell or Jennifer Jason Leigh (I don’t recall which) absently picked up a severed finger from a basket of fries and almost ate it, from “The Hitcher”, got me.
MOMENT: In the original ‘Superman’ – Superman has pulled a dead Lois Lane from her car and she’s lying on the side of the road. He crouches beside her, sobbing, shaking his head. As he begins to stand, Christopher Reeve looks straight up at the camera, snarls, and leaps screaming into the air. That one moment of rage and grief captured on film gets me every time.
Friday! Guilt Post! Random Nonsense!
At the risk of my co-blogger converting this site into Fox News Lite (go ahead, Ken! Do your worst!), I’ve decided to check in with a few random notes from this week: *Do you know what I hate? When you’re…