100 Things I Love About My Favorite Movies (Pt. 1).

Hello all. So, yes, it’s been quiet again, and the movie reviews I’m behind on are piling up (I’m three back now, going on five.) In the excuse department, work has been even busier than usual, of late, and, obviously, the political scene has been depressing. So there’s that.

Anyway, in partial recompense, here’s my first entry of a fun meme I saw at Cryptonaut-in-Exile a few weeks ago: “100 Things I Love About My Favorite Movies. The rest will follow in a leisurely fashion at some future point.

Here’s the rules: “Rather than posting your 100 favorite films (which has been done and overdone), you simply post your favorite things about movies…[I]nstead of obsessing over whether the films you put on a list are ‘objectively good enough’ to put on said list, you simply jot down 100 moments/lines/visuals that have made a lasting impression on you or sneak their way into running gags between you and your friends.“

And, so, without further ado and in no particular order:

1. Sam Rockwell in Galaxy Quest: I’m starting off with this one because I’m borrowing it from Jonathan Hardesty, from where cdogzilla saw this meme. Sam Rockwell is pretty consistently the best thing about a lot of so-so movies (most recent case-in-point, Cowboys and Aliens), but here he has the distinction of shining bright in a very funny movie regardless.

2. Out of Sight — Timeout at the Bar: “By that time I had been thinking about you a lot, and just wondering what it would be like if we met, if we could take a time-out.” This was on Cryptonaut‘s list, and for good reason. One of the sultriest seduction scenes ever filmed.

3. He Got Game — Opening Homage to Basketball: The last scene of The 25th Hour might well make it into one of the other 80 slots. But for now, I really love this Aaron Copeland-scored opening montage to He Got Game, which makes the case for basketball being the real Great American Pastime.

4. Citizen Kane — News on the March! — “Then, suddenly, less than one week before election, defeat. Shameful, ignominious. Defeat that set back for 20 years the cause of reform in the US!” Like Casablanca, Citizen Kane is one of those movies I originally put in to study up on film history, and left amazed at how powerful it remained. This movie still feels like it could’ve been made yesterday.

5. Big Trouble in Little China – Elevator Scene: “‘I feel pretty good! I’m not scared at all! I feel kind of invincible.’ ‘Me too! I’ve got a very positive attitude about all this!‘” Sure, this is a goofy movie regardless. But I dig how Big Trouble just takes a break for a few moments here to lets its characters get their chill on.

6. Annie Hall — Final scene: “After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was, and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I thought of that old joke, y’know…” The Marshall McLuhan scene is a keeper too, obviously, but this funny and poignant close is Woody’s relationship movies condensed into 30 seconds. (Fun film fact: The scene right before this, where Alvy runs into Annie at The Sorrow and the Pity is Sigourney Weaver’s first movie appearance.)

7. The Shining — The Twins: “Come play with us, Danny. Forever and ever and ever.” I talked about this scene here. Nowadays, when I watch The Shining, I’m frightened by the Gods-eye-view in the opening moments, the shower scene, and Jack Torrance’s insanity-inducing writer’s block. But, when I was a kid, it was the twins. Definitely the twins.

8. In the Loop — Malcom visits the White House: “I’m sorry, I don’t… This situation here is… Is this it? No offence, son, but you look like you should still be at school with your head down a f**ing toilet…Don’t get sarcastic with me, son. We burned this tight-arsed city to the ground in 1814. And I’m all for doing it again, starting with you, you frat f**k.” Arguably the funniest scene in a very funny film, although it’s always hard to pick a favorite moment from this comedy classic. And doesn’t it seem like the WH is really like this these days?

9. Batman Begins — Batman gets the drop: “WHERE ARE YOU?!” “Here.”” The bat-man that preys on the wicked — This is the Dark Knight in a nutshell.

10. Tom Reagan in Miller’s Crossing: This along, with Brazil and the next film in this list, have been my three favorite movies for awhile now. I was looking for the scene where Tom drunkenly crashes the powder room at Leo’s club (“Close your eyes, ladies! I’m coming through!“) to chat with Verna. (“I bet you think you raised Hell.” “When I’ve raised Hell, sister, you’ll know it.“) But it’s not online, and since I love the whole film anyway, here’s the trailer instead.

11. Amadeus — Don Giovanni. “And now…the madness began in me. The madness of the man splitting in half…As I stood there understanding how that bitter old man was still possessing his poor son even from beyond the grave. I began to see a way, a terrible way, I could finally triumph…over God.” A lot of great scenes here too. Here, the patron saint of mediocrity conjures up his master plan.

12. The Fellowship of the Ring — Frodo and Sam first look upon Mordor: “Mordor…I hope the others find a safer route…I don’t suppose we’ll ever see them again.” “We may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may.” Obviously, it’s hard to pick one scene from the trilogy, but the closing seconds of FotR, when Frodo and Sam look out at Mordor from afar just before entering the Emyn Muil, is high up there. It’s the entire journey, distilled in one perfect moment.

13. Menace II Society — Interrogation Scene: “So you bought the bottle of beer — definitely at 12:15? Now you see something, you done f**ked up, you know that, right?” The Hughes brothers’ breakout movie is underappreciated, imho, and also eminently quotable. (“Snaps for the petrol!“) This is where it seems like the jaws are snapping shut on Caine — They should use this technique on Take the Money and Run…then it might be watchable.

14. Blade — Opening Rave With all due respect to Guillermo del Toro’s Aliens-style Blade 2, the Blade franchise peaked in the first ten minutes of the first film, when a fratty B&T’er finds himself in the wrong club in the meat-packing district. Special bonus for the pulse-pounding Pump Panel remix of New Order’s “Confusion.”

15. I’m Not There — Riddle and “Going to Acapulco”: Another film that’s hard to pick one scene from, but this is one of the loveliest musical numbers in the movie, in a town that literally recreates, per Greil Marcus, Dylan’s “Invisible Republic.”

16. The Charlie story in High Fidelity: “Charlie, you f**king b**ch! Let’s work it out!” A lot of funny, painfully-on-point scenes in this movie, and Rob’s scenes with ex-girlfriends #2 and #4 (Lili Taylor) are equally memorable. Still, great self-deprecating cameo by Catherine Zeta-Jones here, and this film is definitely Cusack’s post-teenage peak.

17. X2 — Nightcrawler at the White House: Bamf! As I said in my original review, it’s really a toss-up between this and Magneto’s escape for the best scene in Bryan Singer’s second X-flick. But this moment, kicking off the movie as it does, illustrates how much more fun the second film in comic-book franchises can be, once all the origin-story throat-clearing is out of the way.

18. Carter Burwell’s score for Being John Malkovich: Burwell has done a lot of great work for the Coen brothers over the years, but this is one of his best. It’s hard to imagine the film’s out-of-left-field conceit working as well without the low-key, yearning sadness of the score.

19. Hudson in Aliens: “Maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, man!” Ah, Hudson. This all-time action film, with a great slow-burn first act, is obviously another very quotable movie, and Bill Paxton has more gems than anybody. “Maybe we’ve got ’em demoralized!“

20. 28 Weeks Later: Robert Carlyle runs like hell: Another great and memorable opening scene that quickly establishes the grim moral economy at work in this surprisingly good sequel. Some folks think of Trainspotting‘s Begbie when they see Carlyle — I always think of this.

The Patron Saint of Mediocrity (and the NCAA).

“And now a madness began in me. The madness of a man splitting in half…I began to see a way — a terrible way — I could finally triumph over God!” Well, ok, I’ll settle for winning a few of my pools. Yes, it’s March Madness time once again. I’ll post my bracket here once I’ve consulted the oracles (and the ghost of Leopold) further.

Update: And, after all that, I forgot to post my bracket. It’s here. After the first weekend, I have 12 of the Sweet Sixteen and a possible seven of the Elite Eight. Final Four: UNC over Memphis, with Louisville and Pitt watching.

Can I Quote You on That?

I’m not normally one for blog memes here, but this movie quote game via Divine Comedy of Errors looked like particularly good fun. The rules, as direct from DCoE: “1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies. (Ok, I picked 20.) 2. Find a quote from each movie. 3. Post them here for everyone to guess. 4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie. 5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search or other search functions.” Gotta stress that last one, y’all. That’s not cricket.

1. “The rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way, sometimes, and I live here.” [SB got it. This is Annie Hall (not Manhattan.) Hard to pick one quote from this great, great film.]

2. “Are we like couples you see in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?” [Tessa pegged it: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, from the Chinese dinner scene where Joel and Clementine wallow in quiet desperation. Sunshine, by the way, often gets particularly quality remix treatment on Youtube.]

3. “Sister, when I’ve raised hell you’ll know it.” [sb got this one too: Miller’s Crossing, concluding one of the classic Tom-Verna dust-ups.]

4. “Defeat! Shameful, ignominious! Defeat that set back for twenty years the cause of reform in the U.S.” [An old wooden sled to sb, who correctly identified this as Citizen Kane. The line is from the News on the March newsreel opening the film, when Charles Foster Kane loses the governor’s race, on account of what we would now indelicately call a “bimbo eruption.”]

5. “Three: If asked if you care about the world’s problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will not ask you again.” [Props to Rob Newland (nee Aaron Jacob Edelstein.) This is one of the “Seven Simple Rules for a Life in Hiding” from I’m Not There, my favorite film of last year (and, still, I think, one of the more underappreciated.)]

6. “Nothing is f**ked? The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain!” [Mark it eight: CJS correctly conjured up The Big Lebowski, still a treasure trove of hilarity for these dark times.]

7. “I got the *right* man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?” [A bit of a stickler for paperwork, J. Dunn got this one. It’s GitM’s namesake: Brazil. The line is Jack Lint (Michael Palin) rationalizing his murderous interrogation of Tuttle, ‘er, Buttle.]

8. “That Casey. He might have been a preacher but he seen things clear. He was like a lantern. He helped me to see things clear.” [10 points for Gryffindor and Kris. This is Tom talking about the Rev. Casey in The Grapes of Wrath. (Of course, if you’ve never read the book or seen the John Ford film, the Boss can summarize it for ya in 4:24.)]

9. “So I graduate, I call him up long distance, I say ‘Dad, now what?’ He says, ‘Get a job.’ Now I’m 25, make my yearly call again. I say Dad, ‘Now what?’ He says, ‘I don’t know, get married.’” [Kudos to Eric Sipple, despite his breaking the first two rules of Fight Club.]

10. “As Bertrand Russell once said, ‘The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.’ I think we can all appreciate the relevance of that now.” “Was that on a beer mat?” “Yeah, it was Guinness Extra Cold.”” [MattS correctly called it for Shaun of the Dead. Good on ya, mate.]

11. “We were frightened of being left alone for the rest of our lives. Only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at the age of 26, and we were of that disposition.” [Also got by MattS, this is High Fidelity, another very quotable movie. Rob (John Cusack) is talking about his dalliance with Lili Taylor’s Sarah.]

12. “Everybody liked me. I liked myself.” [SB knocks it down with Amadeus. Salieri is referring to the good ole days before God’s Instrument arrived in Vienna.]

13. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?” [Recognizing the hand of the Good Doctor, CJS got it: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (And it seems the line actually made it into the trailer as well.)]

14. “Daddy what’s gradual school?” “Oh Gradual school is where you go to school and you gradually find out you don’t want to go to school anymore.” [Not even an Ellen Jamesian, mikefromeseattle made the call: The World According to Garp.]

15. “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” [Kris beat several others to the punch here: The Empire Strikes Back. This deal is getting worse all the time…]

16. “Have you never heard of situationism, or postmodernism? Do you know nothing about the free play of signs and signifiers?” [Trust an academic and music lover, Ted, to get this one. It’s 24 Hour Party People, as Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) is explaining to a reporter why “Joy Division” aren’t in fact a bunch of Nazis.]

17. “You’re born, you take s**t. You get out in the world, you take more s**t. You climb a little higher, you take less s**t. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what s**t even looks like.” [Welcome to the Layer Cake, claxton6. (This is Michael Gambon explaining the title.) By the way, I just learned very recently that chameleon Ben Whishaw played Sidney in this flick. Must’ve been focused on something else…]

18. “I was told to tell you that you’re a fascist pig.” [Points for Eric & Wendy: This is from Children of Men, when Clive Owen is making contact with Michael Caine’s police “friend.” (My favorite line from the movie would’ve been a dead giveaway: “Well that was even worse, everybody crying. I mean…Baby Diego ? Come on, the guy was a wanker!“)]

19. “You broke into my house, stole my property, murdered my servants and my pets, and THAT is what grieves me the most!” [Stephen recognized this as Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. But does he know the riddle of steel, and what is best in life? One hopes, or Crom will cast him out of Valhalla!]

20. “You’re going to make yourself a new home out there. You’re a New Yorker, that won’t ever change. You got New York in your bones. Spend the rest of your life out west but you’re still a New Yorker. You’ll miss your friends, you’ll miss your dog, but you’re strong.” [Ted also caught this one. It’s from the final Brian Cox monologue of The 25th Hour, still arguably the best movie yet made about the impact of 9/11 on NYC.]

Roll Over Beethoven.

“Extraordinary! On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse – bassoons and basset horns – like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly – high above it – an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God.” A very happy 250th birthday to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (And, just to be fair to that patron saint of mediocrity, Salieri turns 256 in August.)

Finally Here.

Two long-awaited (at least by me) releases dropped today…the special edition DVD of Amadeus, with 20 new minutes of footage (I’ll check it out tonight), and Peter Gabriel’s much-delayed release Up. I must admit, halfway through the first track (“Darkness”) I was wondering when Pete had started hanging out with Roger Waters, but after listening to the album once through I now think it’s definitely a return to form, with “Growing Up,” the remixed “I Grieve,” and “The Barry Williams Show” currently the stand-out tracks.