What is the Most Famous Movie Scene?

[mariab]

Kind of reminds me of the a*shole who didn't let me in at the post office this afternoon, just at the time when they were closing. I sprinted like nuts in ankle deep black water and melting ice/snow and the post office dude goes like “Oh hi! How are you today? How can I help you?“ (very warmly), and I “You can totally help me if you let me in, there's an envelope with some documents that I really need to have today, could I please?“, and he (self importantly) “Nope. It's already 14.00 p.m., and stop pushing at the door“, and I “Arschloch“.

[The Good Michael]

German efficiency often leaves no room for humanity... and wait a sec! You were suggesting that I and this public servant had a similar attitute?

I need time for self-reflection... I will be in the flagellation chamber should anyone need me.

Morose Mike

[Errata]

did i miss it? or did no one suggest the "Here's Johnny!" scene from The Shining?

some iconic scenes from a slightly more recent era

Braveheart: The "They'll never take our freedom!" scene
Priscilla Queen of the Desert: Guy Pierce in his wings outfit on top of the bus
Gladiator: the death of Maximus
The Lion in Winter: The quarrel in the queen's chamber (the "of course he has a knife" scene)
Costner Hood: The "are you going to finish what you've started" scene
Amistad: Givus us free!
Saving Private Ryan: The scene with the wrong Ryan, the end in the cemetary
The Right Stuff: whistling in the bathroom stalls
Temple of Doom: the bug scene that still gives me the shivers
The Abyss: the "russian water tentacle"
Jurassic Park: the T-Rex chasing the Jeep
The Big Chill: when sarah is telling meg about her affair with alex, the dance/chore scene

[The Good Michael]

Here's Johnny was of course memorable. Braveheart, the whole movie I have forgotten. I hated that movie.

The Lion in Winter was all memorable. Every scene was good.

Mike

[mariab]

The Good Michael wrote:
German efficiency often leaves no room for humanity... and wait a sec! You were suggesting that I and this public servant had a similar attitute?
“German efficiency“ is overrated. Of course, when compared with the French's obsession with strikes and demonstrations... In reality the British and the Americans are generally equally efficient as the German, and inexplicably even the French are VERY efficient (when not in the public service). This guy at the post office was NOT being “efficient“ (as I was still in the margin, within seconds off their closing time), he was clearly leading me on, playing “nice“, then refusing to accommodate me. Anyway, this episode is ancient history now, as I've had a very long and eventful day after that.
No Michael, I wasn't suggesting that you had a similar attitude with your student. When I teach seminars, I try to be accommodating with the students who have personal stuff going on and missing classes, unless it's obvious that they're trying to take advantage of the situation.

To Errata:
The big chill is a VERY good movie. I have it on VCR tape and watch it very often, and it's nice to watch with my friends when they stay over. I even own the music score.

[mariab]

In Jurassic Park the cinematographically clever scene was of course the moving of the water glasses (and later of the rain water inside the T-Rex' tracks) to the resonating approaching pace of said T-Rex. Reminds me a bit of Victorian policemen approaching in their boots, which probably saved JTR from being caught both at Buck's Row and Mitre Square.

[sleekviper]

I think that there are multiple ways to make a scene famous. "Goldfinger", for example, would have had several. Bond on the table, legs spread, Lazar beam moving up, is a scene remembered well. Goldfinger's secretary, covered in gold paint from head to toe, dead on the bed was accompanied by the dialog by Bond that she died from paint covering every pore of her body, and that dancers had to leave a small patch on the stomach clear from paint so the body could breathe. No one had died of that before, but people sure remembered that scene and took it like the Lemmings myth as a fact.
Bond wakes up on a plane and asks the female who she is, she replies ***** Galore, and Bond gets a rather interesting look and says "I must be dreaming", to which Galore explains that she is a good pilot, so turn off the charm because she is immune. Name like that, talking to THE James Bond, she is immune.. When pigs fly! That scene of dialog probably made her one of the most remembered Bond girls by name. Just how scenes hit me generally. Still confused how censors allowed that name to make the film, a Bond film especially.

[mariab]

Man, not again that scene with the dead chick covered in gold paint! That flick is SO old that I saw the scene in a special documentary about Bond flicks. Actually the kind of sexual jokes sleekviper mentions were typical for the first phase of James Bond movies, with Sean Connery. It's like a time capsule. In the second phase with Roger Moore we get to see chicks being spies and shooting guns, flying helicopters. And recently we had Judi Dench as “M“ calling Bond a “dinosaur, relict of the cold war“, we have convincing female villains like Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, and Bond girls bleeding injured and laughing (as I've done many-many times) like Halle Berry in Die another day. It's a culturally totally transparent progression. (Still, the most ridiculous Bond girl ever: Denise Richards, who otherwise is super cute.)
My “fetish“ scene from a James Bond movie (besides Ursula Andress exiting the ocean) is Barbara Bach by the pyramids in a sleek black dress with an X-formed neckline (which I designed for my barbie and my mom knitted the dress.). My favorite Bond flick as a little kid was For your eyes only, because it featured both under water scenes and figure skating. As a kid I used to think Lyn-Holly Johnson was enthralling! I was even hoping to go visit that “place“ where they scuba dived over an ancient temple in the Greek islands. I wasn't particularly gullible as a kid, but for that one I really wanted to believe in the existence of that place.()

[sleekviper]

Bach was in The Spy Who Loved Me. Joined a Bond site once, and those are some deadly serious people. Never ask about an unofficial Bond film, that was on par with asking if W.C. Fields was a Ripper suspect.

[kensei]

After reading my previous post to my girlfriend, she insisted that I add the scene from the end of "The Black Stallion" where Alex wins the race.

[mariab]

sleekviper wrote:
Joined a Bond site once, and those are some deadly serious people. Never ask about an unofficial Bond film, that was on par with asking if W.C. Fields was a Ripper suspect.
Reminds me of the 3 nerds arguing about who's the better Bond (Connery, Moore, or Dalton) in Buffy the vampire slayer.

Kensei wrote:
After reading my previous post to my girlfriend,
This kinda reminds me of Barnett!

[FrankO]

I was thinking about the lunch scene in 'A few good men', where Tom Cruise and Demi Moore visit Colonel Jack Nicholson in Guantanamo Bay. Great scene and a superb role by Nicholson.

[mariab]

Nicholson was first rate (inspired in his acting, for once) in A few good men, but the scenes mentioned by Frank Oploo are not visually impressive enough so as to leave a lasting impact on the “collective conscience of movie goers“, which is what we're talking about in this thread. Incidentally I found A few good men a very OK movie, with solid acting by everyone (Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J.T. Walsh as “weasel“ Colonel Markinson, James Marshall and Wolfgang Bodison as the two accused marines). Except Demi Moore, who was the “alibi female“ and essentially a superfluous part in the movie. A few good men is the only watchable flick starring Tom Cruise, besides maybe Born on the 4th of July.

My favorite movie with Nicholson is probably One flew over the cuckoo's nest, Chinatown, and The postman always rings twice. I haven't managed to ever watch Easy rider yet, which I know is a huge lacuna! From the recent ones, I thought Wolf (directed by Mike Nichols) was very good. As a story, because the werewolf special effects were crap. James Spader was hilarious in Wolf. Another hilarious movie with James Spader is Bad influence, where Rob Low takes Spader under his wing and shows him how to be more assertive in the office, and they go and beat up Spader's rival at the office, named Patterson. It's sooo funny because with my friends we know who's each other's archenemy in the work environment and there's been a lot of trashing of “Pattersons“, without having ever met them. We still haven't done the part like in the movie where they go and beat up the guy, but often we've been tempted. If there weren't for legal consequences... Everything to help out a friend, it's good karma.

[belinda]

Hello CD. Well, if one includes British cinema, and if suspense defines movies, 2 great ones are:

1. "The Trollenberg Terror" (AKA, "The Crawling Eye"), a Baker and Berman opus. The scene, after about 61 minutes of titillation, the monster breaks down the door of the Hotel Europa, appearing for the first time.

2. "The Quatermass Experiment" (AKA, "The Creeping Unknown"), a Val Guest offering. The scene, Gordon Jackson has his camera crew pan up at Westminster Abbey and the creature, fully morphed, makes its appearance.

Alas, how many young laddies and lassies will remember these?

Cheers.
LC

Val Guest is brilliant I've seen a Quatermass but I can't remember which one.

Marilyn Monroe singing Diamonds Are A Girls Best Freind in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

The Time Warp in The Rocky Horror Picture Show



Have you seen his later film Dangerous Davies with Bernard Cribbins?

[belinda]

I've tried watching Casablanca, but I have to confess I fell asleep. And I confess that the same happens to me each time I try to watch Clockwork Orange: This film is unwatchable, in the sense that it puts me to sleep like a baby. I've never even managed to watch the alleged rape scenes in the beginning, I was out cold before that.
OK, let's make a list of visually powerful film scenes that have defined my “formative years“ (;-)) (or possibly, the formative years of my entire generation), organized by genre.
Oldies:
- Vivien Leigh digging the ground with her hands, munching vegetable roots, throwing up, then uttering her famous monologue “I may steal and kill, but I'll never be hungry again“, while the camera backs off to a crane shot of her shadow by a huge tree and the Tara sunset, accompanied by the famous Gone with the wind music.
- The other famous receding crane shot in Gone with the wind, slowly revealing the space in front of the Atlanta hospital filled with injured soldiers, while (very cleverly) military music on the pipe and drums starts playing gently.
- Steve Mc Queen jumping wire fences on his motorcycle, chased by the Nazis in The great escape. (I tried to imitate this with my bike at age 10. Ended up all beige, covered in mudd, then all red under the shower, covered in blood. Good times.)
- The scene in 2001 Odyssey in space where the ape just discovered the use of weapons and utensils, throws the bone in the air in slow motion, and the scene switches via match cut to an orbital satellit (and to the black obelisk) 4.000 years later.
- Ursula Andress (un-dress?) exiting the ocean holding shells in a 1950s bikini in – whichever James Bond movie is that? (The deep reason for my rich collection of bikinis in 1950s style!)
- The scene by the redwood tree or any scene with Jimmy Stewart following Kim Novak by car or feet around San Fransisco to an “obsessive“, rich music score by B. Hermann in Vertigo.(Very stupidly ripped off in Basic instinct!)
- Ray Milland's close up checking his watch over smoke from cigars, switching to a cut to the automatic telephone dialing in Dial “M“ for murder.
- Grace Kelly's close up entering the scene in Rear window, while a “neighbor“ (nicely) vocalises in high pitch.
- Woody Allen running through Manhattan in black and white to get back Mariel Hemingway in the last minute, accompanied by Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue. (This scene was ripped off in When Harry met Sally, which is a very mediocre movie.)

Horror:
I'm afraid I've never seen the entire Psycho, just bits and pieces from TV reruns, so no reference.
- The Exorcist makes me laugh. Rosemary's baby's much better (without being scary), but then, it's Polanski. The only scary (sad) scene in The Exorcist is Linda Blair at the hospital. And Jason Miller is majorly cute as the priest agonizing about having lost his faith.
- The only horror movie that's ever scared me (as a young adult) is Don't look now.
- Jaws: A classic. The most powerful scenes for me is when they find the corpse of the girl (but very cleverly don't show it all), or the (often cut) scene with the old guy's foot going off. Because EVERY surfer worth his salt has extensive thoughts about the aftermaths of a shark attack.
- The scene with the old guy fishing with his legs in the water having said legs disintegrate within minutes in Piranhas.
- The sheesh kebab scene in Happy birthday to me. (I went inside to see this movie alone when in school, as my friends were scared and abandoned me in front of the movie theater.)
- Any scenes with Nastasja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell in Cat people (the remake). I still own the LP from that movie (somewhere at my mom's).

oldie French:
- Louis de Fynès as a gendarme chasing extra-terrestres.
- Catherine Deneuve in Les parapluies de Cherburg or in Belle de jour.

oldie Italian:
- Anita Ekberg with a kitten on her head in a fountain in La dolce Vita.
- Dirk Bogarde on a Venice vaporetto or watching Bjorn Andresen from afar over Mahler's Adagietto from the 5th symphony in Death in Venice.
- Giulietta Massina's incredibly vulnerable eyes in La strada.

oldie Swedish:
- Any close-up of Liv Ulman or Max von Sydow (the latter in black and white).

generational:
- In addition to the already mentioned scenes from Taxi Driver, Jodie Foster having French toasts with Robert de Niro and dropping the entire sugar jar on them.
- Brook Shields in The blue Lagoon. (Most embarrassingly, the reason I decided to wear my hair long as a teen!)
- Foxes: The girls all dressed up to go out (to an Angel concert), a bunch of guys shouting “dykes!“ to them, the girls kiss each other and collectivelly shake their ass. Cherie Currie and Jodie Foster heat up a dorky guy at the supermarket. Scott Baio skates under a truck in a chasing scene. Jodie Foster and Scott Baio walking a wasted Cherie Currie, while her legs drag on the ground. Cherie Currie spitting blood inside of her oxygen mask before dying.
- Christy McNichols lighting up behind a clothesline, then kicking a guy in the balls in Little Darlings. (I used to recreate that scene when I was 13. The kicking was a piece of cake, but I couldn't inhale smoke at that age.)
- Kristianne F. bringing birthday cake to her crush at school. (Another scene I've recreated, I'm such a pathetic copycat.)
- Christopher Reeves as Superman.
- Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly running up a sand dune in super slow motion, coached by Scott Glenn in Personal Best.

comedy:
- Whoopey Goldberg in her pink dress and hat and her antics at the bank in Ghost.
- Sharon Stone repeatedly on Michael Douglas in Basic instinct.
- Rick Moranis playing with his dolls and sipping coffee through his Darth Vader helm in Spaceballs.

Oh Yes it is touching when Christiane takes Detlef the cake. I thought she took it to the station?