For 35 years, on and off, critics Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy have annually assembled a montage of memorable impressions from the year's movies in a feature called "Moments Out of Time." It began in the pages of the Seattle Film Society's magazine, Movietone News, and continued in Film Comment under Jameson's editorship. This year, it's at MSN Movies. Whether the films themselves are big or small, good or bad, "Casino Royale" or "Climates," nearly all of them have their indelible moments...
A few samples to whet your appetite:
- In "Brick," our hero's dreamgirl (Emilie de Ravin) dead in a drainage ditch...
- "Little Children": In a dark playground, the accused child molester (Jackie Earle Haley) hunches over on a swing ... all menace drained...
- Lucy, the dog in "Old Joy," always finding a stick to carry, and undeterred when it's too big...
- "Shortbus": The lights go out in all the windows of a colorful, handcrafted model that stands in for New York's skyscrapers, and a trick of shadow turns the buildings into crowded tombstones, a city of the dead...
- At the end of a New York pocket park in "Man Push Cart," Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi) opens his cart for business just before dawn, as the lights in a line of little trees blink out one by one...
- "The Queen": The royal face arranged as public mask, softening imperceptibly when Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) asks a child if she can place a bouquet of flowers among the great drift of Diana's tribute, and is told: "It's for you."...
A few selections of my own:
The Bridge - a windsurfer glides past the spot where seconds earlier, a man plunged to his death
The Bridge - the family dog chews on the hand of Dad as he talks about his son. After a brief cutaway the dog is calm in Mom's arms.
United 93 - black screen before end credits come up
The Descent - Sarah gets stuck in a passage. It's as if the cave is getting tighter, pushing down on her. She calms down and starts to move when...the cave pushes down on her!
The Descent - the first appearance of a crawler.
Tristram Shandy - the camera pans from the 18th century to the 21st as a woman gives birth in front of a film crew.
The Science of Sleep - the opening scene
Cars - Lightning's prep-talk is interrupted when memories of Radiator Springs seep into his imagination.
Inland Empire - "You gotta shake your hips now." SNAP!
Inland Empire - Laura Dern enters an empty theater playing Inland Empire.
Inland Empire - "You dyin, lady."
Inland Empire - You know, really the whole movie is one big 3-hour moment out of time.
Happy Feet - A group of penguins struggle through a windstorm and only manage to get through it by pushing each other.
Happy Feet - "You're in Heaven, Dave."
The Fountain - Hugh Jackman dresses his wound with sap from the tree of life. Plants grow out of the wound and spread over his whole body.
Snakes On A Plane - "We've got no electricity, about a hundred passengers, no radio, the cabin is full of about a thousand sex-crazed snakes, and you've gotta keep this bird in the air for another two hours."
Snakes on a Plane - Death of a pooch.
Borat - "May George Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi man, woman, & child!" *cheers*
Out of many, one comes to mind right now. The last shot of "Mongolian Ping Pong." Period.