At MSN Movies, Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy continue their tradition of conjuring indelible cinematic moments of the previous year -- made all the more indelible by their luminous descriptions of them. A few samples, from some terrific movies, and some not-so-terrific ones:
• In "The Edge of Heaven," a brown ribbon of road glowing under the last shrinking patch of blue in a lowering, end-of-day sky ...
• "In Bruges": The twinkle and the glower: First views of the "Belgian s---hole" by, respectively, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) ...
• In "Revolutionary Road," April stands in milky light with her back to us, gazing out her picture window as blood pools at her feet. Hats off to Douglas Sirk . ...
• As a hospital explodes in the background, a nurse sporting an obscene mask of white, black and red greasepaint totters in the street, gazing into the camera as though daring us not to get off on the way the Joker plays in "The Dark Knight" ...
• "I was a guard!" -- the courtroom profession that instantly defines the literal and moral limits of Hanna Schmitz's (Kate Winslet) imagination, and perhaps a nation's, in "The Reader" ...
• In "Che," the most romanticized revolutionary ever (Benicio Del Toro) staggers up a steep wooded hillside, wheezing with asthma. ...
• A scene of pastoral skinny-dipping suddenly turns cold and black with the threat of death, and in "Tell No One," nothing afterward is as it seems. ...
• Wendy (the superb Michelle Williams) gazes helplessly from the backseat of a cop car as her tethered golden Lab recedes from view -- the first in a cascade of losses in "Wendy and Lucy."...
• "The Happening": Mark Wahlberg delivering a monologue to a houseplant, just in case ...
• "Let the Right One In": At snowy evening, a man making his way home passes out of a tunnel, and the dark little creature Eli drops on him as if from above the screen itself. ...
• "Burn After Reading": Chad Feldheimer's last grin (Brad Pitt, sublime) ...
Many more here.
Care to contribute some of your favorite movie-moments from the past year?
35 Comments
Before I go to the positive, I first have to say that "Tell No One" was probably one of the worst films I saw last year. Not only because I was able to guess each step before it happened, but because I was able to guess each shot before it happened. Blah...now onto the positive...
A little robot as Charlie Chaplin holding an umbrella over his true love Eve, as she sees for the first time, through her memory banks, how Wall-E cared for her.
A cockroach as best friend, watching Wall-E leave Earth.
Indiana Jones putting his hat on after getting out of the trunk of a car, and the 4 almost reveals that build up to it.
The keys to a keyboard spelling out "F*** You" after being broken across a "best friends" face in "Wanted".
The awkward Clint Eastwood drunkenly explaining to a teenager how he just fixed a washing machine only a moment ago in "Gran Torino".
4 Kiss-like Warriors approaching the battlefield in "Role Models".
The rolling of the credits after "Saw V" and "Max Payne".
"Rambo" blowing everything up in his path.
The eyeballs of a kitty in "The Spirit" rolling to the drain of a sink.
Wondering if Kiera Knightley would throw the baby into the placid pool of water rather than give it up to her lover's family in "The Duchess". Such calm and cool tension.
Ralph Fiennes showing his teeth as he gives chase to Colin Farrell in "In Bruges".
Randy "The Ram" getting his groove on at a super market deli.
Oskar picking up the same red stick to defend himself, that was used to drown a victim in "Let the Right One In".
The bridge fight in "Kung Fu Panda".
Coogan as the director of Hamlet 2 singing "Rock Me Sexy Jesus".
The camera sliding across the slanted floor as they rescue the love interest in "Cloverfield". Oh, and the exploding head behind the white sheet!
Laughing through the last 20 minutes of "Vantage Point".
The three jump cuts as Danny Boyle pulls back from the microcosm in the slums to reveal the entire area. Much like one of the first moments in "The Hulk", as the helicopter shot up the side of the shanties and buildings on the side of the hill goes uncut.
The Joker calmly asking the henchman "Why so serious?" before slicing up his boss.
This is more than I set out to write...I'll stop.
How could I forget...
The first shot of "The Dark Knight" in which we see it's daytime!
The semi flipping over onto it's back followed by a collected Batman using a wall to turn his bat bike around. Awesome.
Two favorites that come to mind (mostly because they're two of the movies I've seen most recently):
In Milk, as Brolin bends down to look closely at Penn on the television, his own reflection taking place besides Penn's image, giving him a glimpse of the life he could've had.
In The Wrestler, the several minutes of the barbed-wire fight as we see first the conclusion, then the fight reconstructed through the repair of the vicious injuries, the violence of the scene being a brutal mix of the real and the pretend.
"GET OFF MY LAWN" - vintage Eastwood, one of his finest roles and a perfect film to bookend his career
I have a lot. (It's a sad, sad movie that doesn't have one moment of transcendence.)
"The Dark Knight": The Joker saying, "Did you really think I'd risk losing the battle for Gotham's soul on a fistfight with you?" The crowning moment that said, "This is not your old Batman movie, this isn't just about action, there are real emotions and consequences to this story."
"Burn After Reading": Clooney's character reveals what exactly he's actually built in the basement.
"Speed Racer:" Speed punches a ninja so hard the ninja flies out of his pants, revealing heart boxer shorts. This is half of what movies are about.
"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist": tied between Where's Fluffy? striding out to meet a raving audience, neither Nick nor Norah in attendance, and love in the music studio.
"Let the Right One In": I'm torn between the part where the girl finds out why you should always get an invitation, and, well, the swimming pool.
"Paranoid Park": the scene at (near?) the end with the fire and Elliot Smith's "Angeles" concluding an adolescence.
"Cassandra's Dream": the moment when the uncle, after having been built up as a saint, arrives and turns out to be a scumbag. Terrible movie (utterly pointless), but I thought that turn-around was great.
"Traitor": you'll know it if you saw it. The scene in the rain, when you realize somebody knows somebody they shouldn't know, and things are much more complicated than you thought.
"Dear Zachary": the description of the dead man's gunshot wounds played over photos, not of his corpse, but of him when he was a baby. Heartbreaking.
"Chicago 10": Cops putting their name-tags in their pockets before busting hippie heads.
"Slumdog Millionaire": Jamal sees his love through the windows of a speeding train like frames in a film-strip: a single breathtaking shot combining everything the movie has to say about love, memory, time, commerce, identity, and art.
"Wall-E": two robots dancing in space.
"In Bruges": Ken struggles up the stairs towards redemption, while Harry hurries downstairs towards destruction.
"The Visitor": Jenkins, thrust into caring about an issue, and people, he had never considered before, makes a stirring statement of outrage at the way his friends have been treated. Not because of any political ideology. Just because they are his friends.
"Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay": Kumar's math poem.
"Iron Man": the very last pre-credits moment, when the movie manages to surprise you one last time about the genre rules it is willing to shatter in the name of realism and respect for its audiences' intelligence.
"Redbelt": Mike's first lesson to the lawyer, a romantic scene to mirror the one at the other end of Mamet's career, in House of Games, in which a very different Mike teaches a psychologist about tells.
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull": an alien spaceship blasts off, in one of the only moments worthy of the series.
"Wanted": two words: exploding rats. Perhaps the only intentionally absurd moment.
"Tropic Thunder": exit the director, stage left.
"Towelhead": the very last moments, which make all the horrors of womanhood experienced in the previous few hours seem worth it.
"Battle in Seattle": a pregnant woman runs from danger, finding herself caught between outraged protesters and furious police officers.
"RocknRolla": the thugs who just won't go down. And the dancing. Oh, the dancing.
"Pride and Glory": Colin Farrell, after threatening to burn a baby with a hot iron, gives the child back to its mother carefully, and you can just hear him saying, "she's beautiful."
Alternatively, the moment when Norton and Farrell start putting their rings on the bar and you realize it's on.
"Synecdoche, New York": the priest's monologue. Sometimes, you just have to hit the nail on the head.
"Quantum of Solace": Bond interrupts a very secret meeting.
"The Wrestler": waking up in the house of a girl inexplicably aroused by firefighters.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": the short-film-within-a-film about the coincidental, fateful intersection of lives.
"Valkyrie": a sweating Goebbels holds a suicide capsule in his mouth. Just in case.
(One of Bryan Singer's few creative liberties, in fact.)
"Revolutionary Road": A hard, heartless cut from youth and beauty and promise and hope to worn, older faces, lit harshly, desperately unhappy.
And on the happy side of things, the moment when everybody in their hats is rushing up the stairs to work, and Frank stops to look out and smile.
In Birdsong, when one of the Wise Men seems to be mouthing words,or perhaps just sucking in air, in the still-dark dawn light.
In Birdsong, as the Wise Men, absent for the last 20 minutes, suddenly walk into frame with Mary and Joseph. Mary asks "Hey, who are these guys?"
In Birdsong - three silhouetted figures far down a road pause perhaps never to move again.
Randy "the Ram" Robinson plays himself on Nintendo with a neighbor boy who can only humor his friend for so long.
In "Still Life," an older gentleman can't understand Sanming's accent no matter how hard he tries.
In "Still Life" when Sanming and his John Woo-loving friend exchange phone numbers. A human connection made personal by dial tones.
A penguin hurtles into oblivion in Encounters at the End of the World.
A woman performs a rap song that conveys the pain and hope of a lifetime in Trouble the Water.
Flo Jacobs offers weapons of mass nutrition to a troubled son in Momma's Man. Can I get you toast? Soup? Cereal?
Poppy feels agonizing back pain at the doctor's office... and laughs every time it hurts because she wouldn't think to do anything else.
Wendy's (Michelle Williams') humming - the greatest original soundtrack of the year - both off-screen in the glorious opening shot and on-screen in a later scene.
A plane flies above Jesus' head in Religulous.
Frozen horse heads dot the landscape in My Winnipeg.
A dead father in the living room in My Winnipeg.
Ann Savage convinces a man not to jump off a ledge - every week - on local TV. In My Winnipeg.
The Punisher literally punches a man's face into the back of his skull. Literally.
Scarlett Johansson poses in front of a giant picture of Hitler in The Spirit.
Every single frame of picture and sound in Le genou d'Artemide.
Iron Man: "I am Iron Man."
Wall-E: The Dawn of Man.
W.: George Bush squinting at the camera.
Let the Right One In: A little girl standing alone in the cold without a jacket, or possibly shoes.
Slumdog Millionaire: A boy covered in human waste triumphantly thrusts an autograph into the air.
Death Race: Joan Allen delivers one of the worst lines of dialogue in film history.
Tropic Thunder: We find out what kind of farmer Robert Downey Jr. is.
The Dark Knight: Batman mourns at the rubble where someone important died.
Hellboy 2: The death of the elemental.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall: The death of muppet Dracula.
Josh, thank you for reminding me of my other favorite movie this year... RocknRolla...the dancing. Both dances. With the subtitles, and with his friend. Too many great things in that movie to count.
The final scene of The Wrestler where Randy does his Ram Jam move. So beautiful, so tragic.
The transition from the filmed candle light vigil to archival footage in Milk was extremely powerful.
That all-too-short shot of Batman flying through Hong Kong in The Dark Knight. In fact, there were a lot of great shots in The Dark Knight...
No point in doing this unless there are going to be SPOILERS.
Two friends(?) do leap frogs in the forest while getting a caterpillar super high in Pineapple Express.
Two friends smoke weed while walking through a forest, before they see something under the ice in Snow Angels.
James Franco weeps while eating a cheeseburger on a swing set in a playground while being watched by a little girl in a swim suit holding a sandwich in Pineapple Express.
Sam Rockwell slow dances with a woman dresses as Freddy Krueger in Snow Angels.
Philip Seymour Hoffman lays on a matress in a closet apartment, being told everyone he knows is dead in Synecdoche, New York.
Rosemarie DeWitt jumps to touch the sealing of her parents house after her sister has left in Rachel Getting Married.
Richard Jenkins works out his pain on djembe in the subway in The Visitor.
A frozen sea of horse heads in My Winnipeg.
Rebecca Hall and Javier Bardem take in a late night spanish guitar performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
The three women of Blindness take a shower together, unencombered by body consciousness.
Emile Hirsch calls everyone he knows, Sesame Street style, in Milk.
Jay Baruchel explains the Blu-Ray/HD DVD format war in Tropic Thunder.
A coke-addled Colin Farrell questions a dwarf and his prostitute, before Brendan Gleeson pops over his shoulder in In Bruges.
Seth Rogen decides he's made a horrible mistake by calling his girlfriend in Pineapple Express.
Parents watch their son perform in the highschool band when it begins to snow in Snow Angels.
A little girl plays dead in flashback, and in present day dies in a gigantic hospital room, while one of her flow tatoos wilts and falls to the bed.
Honestly, one of my favorite movie moments from the past year is Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding out in a lead lined fridge. Absoltutely ridiculous and hilarious.
The link at the bottom of the page (here) doesn't seem to go anywhere. I eagerly await your "Exploding Heads" post. I thought "The Fall" was overflowing with great moments; the intro in slow-mo black and white with the wonderful, dramatic music accompanying, all the way through to the ending, with the ridiculous silent-era stunts finishing with the caveman blowing a kiss as he falls into the water below (as seen in the Architecture of Gravity post) while the young girls says "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much." Brilliant. Also, the montage of sweded films in Be Kind Rewind perfectly captures the joy and creativity of film-making. The story is a silly, idealized fantasy, but Gondry's goal is to please and entertain, and I was.
In Encounters at the End of the World, the first time we go below the ice, panning up to see a diver floating like an astronaut in the big blue/black. Leave it to Herzog to convey the magic of nature.
In Four Nights with Anna, a dead cow floats by.
A montage of the sleep-walking citizens in My Winnipeg.
Someone already mentioned the greatest cinematic "bait-and-switch" of 2008 - the big reveal of George Clooney's secret project in Burn After Reading... I could not believe my eyes when I saw what it did (or, I should say, was supposed to do).
Four other favorite moments:
- Ben Stiller holding his arm out to the side while shooting a machine gun full of blanks (Tropic Thunder).
- Someone already mentioned this one, too. The frolic scene between Seth Rogan and James Franco in the woods... I didn't expect to see that kind of poetic filmmaking in a stoner comedy, though it was really just that one shot in the entire film that stood out (Pineapple Express).
- The trademark image of Heath Ledger sticking his head out of a police car (Dark Knight).
- The Fall (technically not a 2008 release, other than the DVD) - practically every shot is amazing.
A withered flower pedal tattoo falls from Olive's arm in "Synecdoche, New York".
The final shot of "The Wrestler", Randy "The Ram" Robinson himself into the ring, and back out of life, once more.
The Bollywood dance sequence at the end of "Slumdog Millionaire". The film was enough of a joy without it. With it... gatdam.
The distant sound of two gunshots disrupts a high school football halftime show in "Snow Angels". The second time around, we know what those shots meant.
"I'm Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you!" Every shot with Sean Penn in "Milk".
The final, mesmerizing exchange between Batman and the Joker in "The Dark Knight". R.I.P. Heath Ledger.
The morning after a malicious fight, April cooks a loving breakfast for her husband Frank in "Revolutionary Road", and any moral stability these characters may have acquired is pitched out with the bacon grease.
WALL-E stumbles upon a small box with a diamond ring in "WALL-E", only to find the box infinitely more fascinating than the precious jewelry.
Brenden Gleeson scatters his loose change down into the fog, so that no one will be underneath him when he jumps to his death in "In Bruges".
She wasn't there before... A mysterious twelve year old girl appears on the jungle gym behind Oskar in "Let the Right One In".
- Rachel Getting Married: the moment Anne Hathaway's reception dinner speech shifts from squirm-inducing awkwardness to heartbreakingly poignant (i.e., when it stops being about herself. Talk about an entire movie captured in a single transcendent moment!)
- Synecdoche, NY: On a park bench at the movie's end: a brief moment of human kindness in an empty post-apocalyptic wasteland.
- Slumdog Millionaire: the look of sheer joy on Dev Patel's face, barely keeping from laughter, when he hears the final question: "I don't know!"
- The Dark Knight: Ledger as the Joker as a demented Nurse, giggling while the hospital explodes behind him.
The sun rises - then sets! - in "Silent Light"
The rooftop chase in "Slumdog Millionaire"
Fictional footage becomes actual footage at the end of "Milk"
Brad Pitt bungles a blackmail phone call to John Malkovich in "Burn After Reading"
A baseball does not drop from the sky in "W."
Richard Nixon calls David Frost in the middle of the night in "Frost/Nixon"
Clint Eastwood confronts some punks and then, well, you know, in "Gran Torino"
A balloon drifts alongside a passing subway in "Flight of the Red Balloon"
Two women sit down for dinner at the end of "4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days"
Randy 'The Ram' stands up on the ropes and then jumps in "The Wresler"
Flamenco class in "Happy Go Lucky"
A clock is submerged in water in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
A man waits on the beach for his father to return in "The Edge of Heaven"
Dishes are placed in the dryer in "Rachel Getting Married"
Wall-E and EVE float around in space; Wall-E teaches EVE how to dance with a trash can lid; and Wall-E builds a sculpture for EVE in "Wall-E"
Iron Man: "Do you ever wonder...about that night?" "The one where we danced, and you went to get me a drink...and you left me there!?" "...yes, that one." Tony Stark soaring into the sky--and then falling right back down. "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart." And of course, "I am Iron Man."
Forgetting Sarah Marshall: "Please put your pants back on...." The music video ("insiiiiide of you...."). The death of muppet Dracula, already mentioned.
Frost/Nixon: The pick-up on the airplane. "And to think--I prepared to talk about Vietnam!" Any line as delivered by Langella, really.
Burn After Reading: The phone call to Osbourne Cox. ("I'm a good samaritan!") Cox calling the gym manager a moron, a member of an army of morons (reminiscent of "an army of preverts" from Bat Guano in Dr. Strangelove). George Clooney smashing the "present" for his cheating wife. J.K. Simmons in utter disbelief.
The Dark Knight: Gordon talking to Dent in the hospital, and him slowly turning his head to reveal half of it scarred. The Joker combing his hair with his hand as he saunters over to Rachel. Dent flipping a coin and letting Moroni go, then flipping and shooting the driver.
Wall-E: The first step onto a new planet. Wall-E standing by Eve throughout the changing seasons. Eve, robotically, slightly disappointed, whispering, "Wall-E...."
Cloverfield: The tape cutting back to the romantic day out. "It's been a good day."
Benjamin Button: "Did I ever mention I'd been struck by lightning seven times?" Benjamin and Daisy dancing to The Beatles as with both in their prime. A teenage Benjamin propositioning an elderly Daisy for one more night together.
Wanted: "...because this is NOT ME."
At the end.
W.: George Sr.'s disappointment at losing his election and his son's self-righteous anger. Laura and W.'s meeting at a BBQ (OK, this is mostly just about how much I love Elizabeth Banks--and the most obvious scene I could think of this year). Dick Cheney: "There is no exit strategy."
Rocknrolla: A merry jig for Thandie Newton and Gerard Butler. Tom Wilkinson meeting his fate.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: Norah's moan caught on microphones, in a sound studio, reaching higher and higher into the treble.
Some great moments from this year:
What we see the moment the cameraman in "Cloverfield" turns on the night vision in the subway tunnel.
The stunning locations in "The Fall."
Prince Nuada's introductory scene- the breathtaking ballet-like sword practice - in "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army."
Robert Downey Jr.'s epiphany moment near the end of "Tropic Thunder."
Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow semi-flirting at the party in "Iron Man."
Brad Pitt's wonderfully goofy exchange with John Malkovich in "Burn After Reading," and the last line of the film.
The shot revealing the scale, and years of Wall-E's piles of compacted trash.
The austere cold suburban nights in "Let the Right One In," and how daylight doesn't seem to make it any warmer.
Renée Zellweger and Viggo Mortensen standing in the frame of a house under construction in the afternoon sun, and the sound of boots on fresh timber in "Appaloosa."
Unfortunately, I didn't see many films that were actually released this year, and wish I could list scenes from some of the classic films I watched instead. So many films to catch up to...
Moments contributors: These are wonderful! Please keep 'em coming!
A Viking head bangs to heavy metal in Severed Ways.
Richie Ashburn says "I'm outta here, Harry I'm gonna grab a bat" in Richie Ashburn: A Baseball Life.
A town hall meeting runs late into the morning hours... and changes a city's fate in "The Unforeseen."
Marianne Faithful grabs another tissue in Irina Palm.
"Don't make me hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry." In Spanish. In The Incredible Hulk.
The mother and child reunion is only a (vigorous) motion away in Savage Grace.
A man gets on a wire in Man on Wire.
JCVD poses for a picture with fans.
Hector 2 turns round and round in the forest trying to find the right time to scare the bejezus out of Hector 1 in "Timecrimes."
Nothing but words for 20 minutes in the middle of Hunger.
Werner Herzog stars as an animal-strangling poker player in "The Grand."
"What the f*** do I do with two yuan?" as spoken by the year's best villain in Up the Yangtze.
Mick still looks like Mick in Shine a Light.
Australia finally ends.
"Happy Go Lucky": On a dark night when she lets down her guard for a crazy homeless man.
I only have two to offer. One from each of my two favorite movies of the year.
In "Happy-Go-Lucky" nearly every scene could be a moment for me, but every scene of Poppy and Scott as he tries to teach her how to drive. It's hard to believe these two are only acting.
I could also point to a number of scenes in "The Wrestler", but Randy and Cassidy shopping in a thrift store for his daughters present is wonderful.
I guess when I really put my mind to it, there's more.
When Alex breaks up with Jennifer in slow motion, with no detectable dialogue audio and Nino Rota's score from "Amarcord" soaring over Jennifer's disgruntled face in "Paranoid Park".
Every scene with Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder"
Aldus and Peter discuss the killer cell phone movie that Sarah starred in. The "Animal Instincts" show with Jason Bateman was great too.
So many good morable moments, and most of my picks are already mentioned. So I'll give an example that is highly unlikely to be on anybody else's.
Disaster Movie - I only watched it because I have this trainwreck fascination with Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Watching one of their movies is like staring into a vacuum. Say what you will about Dr Uwe Boll, he at least put his misguided heart into his work. Friedberg and Seltzer don't even try. There is not one moment in their movies that has anything to do with humor, story, character, parody or irony. It's a void. Any given scene only exists to fill screen time. Has to be seen to be belived. Not that I recommend that.
There was a scene late in the movie that was supposed to be "spoofing" A Night at the Museum. (Do I need to bother pointing out what a stupid gesture it is to parody a movie that's trying to be funny in the first place? Didn't think so.) The supposed parody consisted of extras dressed to resemble the wax figures come to life from that movie, wandering around a museum set. The bored, embarrassed expressions on their faces were priceless. They were hired, showed up on set, put into costume, and given zero direction whatsoever. Just walk around. I imagined a conversation between the poor extra playing the Teddy Roosevelt wax figure asking the directors if he should do anything, ya know, funny. At least act like Teddy Roosevelt. Run around. Chew scenery. Mug. Hold out his sabre and yell, "charge!" What Robin Williams did when he played Teddy in the original film. Anything! Then I picture the directors telling him, "no, walking around the set will do just fine." Then the extra, shaking his head in disbelief, returning to the set, wishing to himelf he hadn't told all his family and friends about being cast in this movie.
There are movies that are so bad they're good. This was a moment so unfunny, it was hilarious.
still life: a monstrously ugly tenement building returns to the mothership
happy-go-lucky: poppy's flamenco instructor has a breakdown
helen: helen learns about her mother
wall-e: wall-e catches some stardust as he rides a spaceship across the universe
tulpan: a lamb is born
frost/nixon: frank langella, greatest working american actor:"is this what they call a dachshund?"
reprise: the entire opening jules and jim knockoff
The Visitor : Subways. In the midst the noise, Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) expresses himself, the way he learnt it.
JCVD : Van Damme lost in thoughts, literally above everything else...
Burn After Reading : "Today, I win..."
Waltz With Bashir : (This Is Not) A Love Song
The Dark Knight : The Joker (Heath Ledger), waiting in his cell, just for a call.
In Bruges : The Belltower, coins falling...
Wall-E : The titular robot, discovering remnants of a long dead civilization. At first funny, but really immensely sad.
And from movies I disliked/hated/loathed :
The Happening : A disastrous use of the lawnmower, think about it the next time you are passing a divergence test.
Oxford Murders : Brain-damaged genius (Alex Cox) trying, in vain to communicate with what's left of him.
Martyrs : Super-8 footages : this is how you grow up "Peeping Tom"-style
And not a movie but as cinematic as anything on the list :
Mad Men : Maidenform : Duck Phillips decides to have a little stiff drink... alone.
i haven't seen enough this year, but i'll throw these on...
-an a cappella rendition of Neil Young in 'Rachel Getting Married'
-the aforementioned shot of the Joker, his head out the window of the moving police car: the transcendent moment of 'The Dark Knight'
-i'll also second a cockroach watching his friend's departure in 'Wall-E'
-Ted Treffon's eyes at the end of his last conversation with Linda, the burning wide-open heart in an otherwise hilariously chilly 'Burn After Reading'
-Glenn lets his dog out of the pickup truck in 'Snow Angels'...
-a dying man crawls towards a teenager in a railyard in 'Paranoid Park'
-"i can fix that for you" a just sweet enough ending line/moment in 'Ghost Town'
The Joker explaining to Harvey Dent that killing Rachel and burning off half of Harvey's face was nothing personal: "Do I look like a guy with a plan? I just do stuff!"
Pepper Potts squeamishly assisting Tony Stark in replacing his heart magnet in Iron Man: "Oh,God, it's slimy!" "Okay, doing great, just don't touch the sides or I'll go into *AARGH!* cardiac arrest...it's okay, just keep going!"
Pepper tearing off in her six inch heels, dragging the S.H.I.E.L.D agent behind her as she flees Stain's office: "I'm gonna give you the meeting of your life! Right now!"
The first time the little girl smiles in The Fall. You'd do anything for her.
April's monologue at the dance shack to her next door neighbor, pregnant, drunk, dispairing.
I will definitely think of more!
My Winnipeg: the perpetual evanescence of the sleep-chugging train.
Finally saw The Wrestler tonight. It had a lot of them, but I'll say:
A stripper dances, looking at no one and nothing, until she seems to wake up, and walks off stage.
• Walter takes his friend's mother to see "Phantom" in "The Visitor"
• A jujitsu instructor teaches a rape victim how to defend herself in "Redbelt"
• Frank Wheeler waves goodbye to his wife for the last time in "Revolutionary Road"
• A red ape and a bipedal fish-man drink Tecate and sing their hearts out in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army"
...and two from the small screen:
• John Locke tells Ben and Hugo they have to move the island in "Lost"
• Dr. Horrible's final, hopeless refrain in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog"
I was thinking of adding some small screen moments. Trying to restrict it to a few per series, and noting that these are just about incomprehensible to non-fans of each:
Mad Men: Peggy calmly explaining to Pete that she "could have made him be with her," if she'd wanted to; Duck Phillips and Don having it out at the merger talk; Betty going through Don's old notes, a quick tour through Don's emotional revelations of every previous episode, but meaningless to her; the awkward dinner between Sal and Ken and Sal's wife, where Sal tries so hard to get closer to Ken without hinting to either (or himself) about his sexuality....
Battlestar Galactica: Tyrol angrily snaps at Adama's attempts to console him over his wife's death, decrying her and refusing to deify her because she is dead; Adama sitting in a raptor in the middle of empty space waiting for his love to return; a near-mortally wounded Baltar confessing to Roslin that he led to the attack on Earth, and her decision to undress his wounds and let him die, and her later panicky reversal....
The Office: Toby putting his hand on Pam's leg, pausing awkwardly, then announcing out of nowhere he's moving to Costa Rica and then running off and jumping over the fence when the staff was locked out; Jim finding the perfect moment to propose to Pam and being completely co-opted by Andy's sudden proposal--the biggest punch to the gut I ever felt at a moment that didn't happen; the dinner party from hell at Michael and Jan's, and especially Dwight's entrance....
The Daily Show/The Colbert Report: Samantha Bee talking about "vagina Americans'" support of the Palin pick; Stewart and Colbert's horror as (black correspondents) Larry Wilmore and Wyatt Cenac prepare to take over their respective shows now that there's a black president....
Saturday Night Live: Feylin.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (web): sweet/creepy image of Billy freezing time to be with his love ("We'll make time stand still..."); the opening theme music playing at the end of Billy's triumphant "Slipping" song ("Go ahead! Run away! Say it was horrible..."); the final minutes of glee and despair rolled into one....
I'll do one for each of my top ten of the year, in order (not that the order matters, of course).
The final realization by Caden Cotard followed immediately by a white-out in "Synecdoche, New York"
The homeless man reaching out to touch Poppy's face and then pulling back in "Happy-Go-Lucky"
The Joker's face when he realizes there's not gonna be any fireworks and "What a funny world we live in"
"Raglon Road," "In Bruges"
The scary determination of the penguin wandering toward its death in "Encounters at the End of the World"
George Clooney losing it at the end of "Burn After Reading"
Any scene Hanna Schygulla is in in "The Edge of Heaven," but particularly the one where she visits her daughter's lover in the Turkish prison
Clint Eastwood unleashing all his bitterness, anger, bigotry and fatherly affection on Bee Vang in his neighbor's basement, "Gran Torino"
The seance in "My Winnipeg"
The wonderful, spontaneous conversation in the diner at the end of "Pineapple Express"
In the full version of this article, it includes a moment that never fails to make me misty-eyed.
"Clinging to the hull of the spacecraft carrying him who-knows-where, WALL∙E taps on the window and points back at the receding Earth..."
The ways he says "EVA" there is too cute and sad for words. It's like the tourist trying to point things out to the local who's seen it all before (I know EVE was shut off in that scene, but it's the same idea).
JVCD: Van Damme's raw , somehow beautiful , exposing his guts to the world confession. If you don't understand French , the english subs simply don't do it justice. A performance on par , if only for sheer brutal honesty , if not better , than Mickey Rourke's in The Wrestler.
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