movie moments 2G3

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One thing that Film Comment does that I really like is their end-of-year wrap-up where they have a big ol' list of great moments in that year's movies. I thought on this thread we could make a list of our own as the year progresses. Should you see a movie (released in this year) that you like or think has a great or memorable "moment" worth mentioning, then this thread would be the place to do it.

then at the end of the year we can sell the list to Film Comment and all become millionaires.

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 22:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I know I should start this off with something great and inspiring, and I wish I'd realized that I haven't really seen many new movies this year (besides some shitty shit) before posting this thread.

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

OK OK I got one--

The flatmates (who barely know each other) go out drinking and get ridiculous in a very endearing way, L'Auberge espagnole...

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Brian Dennehy's voice-over at the end of 25th Hour.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 5 May 2003 23:12 (twenty-two years ago)

(surely you mean Brian Cox? but I'm with you there--wait though, wasn't 25th Hour 2002?)

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 23:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, yeah, Cox.

2002/2003 is iffy. It was released on five screens in late December, but didn't get a national release until early in January.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the ending of 25th Hour was great. I think it's a modern classic although most critics greeted it with indifference or muted enthusiasm.

For me a great movie moment was in Japón when the protagonist wakes up. The light coming through the window is blinding, and the screen is a wash of bright white and yellow. The camera cranes and tilts up to and over the windowsill, until we're looking outside. There are loud squeals. Two people arguing. Suddenly, a spill of deep red in the center of the bleached-out frame. And just as suddenly we make out where we are and what's happening. Underneath an awning, just below the window, a pig has had its throat slit. The bright white subsides and the details are filled out.

That one shot perfectly captures the sensory confusion of being woken up too early, too violently. It's also strikingly beautiful in itself.

There is also an astonishing final shot to this film but I wouldn't want to give it away.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's a modern classic although most critics greeted it with indifference or muted enthusiasm.

I agree, and i think the reason for the hostility is the 9-11 angle, which, especially in the credit sequence, is handled wonderfully. also, making the movie post-911 (that is, after the Fall) makes PERFECT sense, and ties in beautifully with what the final scenes say about america, especially about america and race.

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I love the 9-11 stuff--the way the music swells so dramatically during the Ground Zero scene.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a modern classic though; some of it I think fell short, like the nightclub sequence, which I thought was pretty anti-climactic, considering how it should've sorta owned the movie. And the PS Hoffman subplot I thought was a little weak.

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

B-b-but Anna Paquin

(OK I am becoming the resident perve, sorry.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked Anna Paquin a lot, actually--I was into her kind of awkward, badly-made-up teenage steez. (she's lovely in X2 by the way)

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Will Ferrell's going ape shit after getting shot with a tranquilizer dart Rampage from Old School.

― PVC (peeveecee), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

(ha! I was actually thinking about mentioning that one--that was really funny!)

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember seeing She's All That and noticing that Paquin was the only actor in that film to capture anything like the actual body language and cadences of a real teenager. Which actually not quite to her credit, since it didn't fit the movie, which was your stylized 90210 type deal which everyone playing oversized stereotypes. But given that the movie was horseshit I didn't mind. She's got a funny-shaped mouth doesn't she? And there's something appealing about her line readings, which always sound a little haughty but I think it's partly a funny byproduct of her trying to cover over her Kiwi accent.

At some point in the 1990s Natalie Portman seemed to have that awkward teen thing down too, but one could never be sure if it was just her natural uncomfortability in front of the camera dovetailing with the shape of her characters -- or if she had some genuine ability. Several years and two Star Wars later the answer is sadly obvious.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey hey hey, I'll give Portman a pass for the last two Star Wars movies. Nobody made it outta there alive.

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:20 (twenty-two years ago)

But Paquin has shown pretty good taste in roles, I gotta say.

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Although her obvious discomfort contributed to the hieratic De Mille-esque quality of those Star Wars love scenes which I really liked, perhaps perversely.

I mean I think Lucas really succeeded in doing with those films what he wanted, it's just that what he wanted is extremely out of step with critical fashion (and much audience expectation) and modeled after films which weren't so great themselves, albeit entertaining.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I wouldn't give him that much credit. The original SW flicks were throwbacks too, and far smarter, funnier and more entertaining on the whole.

(crosspost!)

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, I want to believe that Portman can do better, so I'm going to keep pretending that she can.

(boy this thread has sure digressed from its original aim! we were going to become millionaires!)

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

(I apologize for the awkward wording in that last post)

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

my view of the new SW movies is simply that lucas bought into the campbell myth-making crud of his old movies and is now self-consciously creating Uber-Myths sprung from the Collective Unconscious! Behold!

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:32 (twenty-two years ago)

my view is the dude is just a shitty writer and director

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:33 (twenty-two years ago)

touche

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean, he hasn't done either since the first SW, right?

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:37 (twenty-two years ago)

There were nice old-fashioned zooms in there. I liked it.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:38 (twenty-two years ago)

In the first one?

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:39 (twenty-two years ago)

i just seems to me like he simply copied his favorite tricks from other directors (kurosawa obv) but then again i never watched that closely

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:40 (twenty-two years ago)

That I can forgive.

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 03:41 (twenty-two years ago)

my theory is that Lucas is so dosed with meds that he doesn't even KNOW what is good and what is bad, just what's pretty and makes him feel nice and evened out. I can practically sense his discomfort every time there is some dramatic tension or an actor begins to emote.

I'll keep giving Portman the benefit of the doubt cause she's foxy.

― PVC (peeveecee), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 07:56 (twenty-two years ago)

i nominate the scene in man without a past in which the salvation army band starts playing their new "rock" material, and the various downtrodden folks pair up and dance.

(i'm a cornball, i know)

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

haha, i love how derailed and drooly this thread is! anyways, i'm buzzing off of x-men2 yesterday, so my movie moment is the opening nightcrawler assault...the way they depict his bamf clouds is really pretty. on the pervy end, there's something about the way famke jannsen underspeaks her lines that has me doing that foot-pounding thing from old cartoons.

― dave k, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

George Lucas story, told to me by a friend who is a casting assistant. Her boss, the casting director, had a close friend who made a date with George Lucas. At the time he said that he would pick her up, a limo pulled up to her apartment building, and she got in. No George. The limo took her to a private airfield, where she was led to a small plane. No George. The plane flew her to Skywalker Ranch, where George had arranged to have dinner made for them in his dining room. Then they walked around his gardens, and she was flown/driven back home.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Did he talk all about the advances in kitchen technology he'd pioneered to make the meal possible?

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

The opening scene of Lilya 4-Ever, of course. I don't expect anything else this year to match the sheer G-force of that. I'm not even sure I want anything else to.

― JesseFox (JesseFox), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

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