I'll take that rhino "giving birth" to Jim Carrey over all these other so-called "magic moments" any day.

And I'll see your Ernie Borgnine, and raise you Burt Young.

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Let's see, I'll take an untraceable gun taped to the back of the commode in a cozy Italian restaurant for fifty Alex and let me have a bloody horse head wake up call for seventy five and an offer you can't refuse....

quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
Just saw that again last night!

What a coincidence - so did I!

I've been watching the "Thin Man" series. One of my favourite moments in "The Thin Man" is when Myrna Loy comes into a room to find William Powell embracing Maureen O'Sullivan, and Powell and Loy make faces at each other. Nick and Nora have one of the greatest relationships of all movie couples.

grasstains,
Burt Young would have been a great Marty.

Nick and Nora forever! And their little dog too.

Chapter 31:
The Thin Man:
Why didn't they make a couple extra movies, and store them away for 50 yrs? Loved the whole series.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nSNJ-8ouQEM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fkbPRU_yRp0

I concur on Alastair Sim, about to knock on his nephew's door, and hesitates. He looks back at the maid, and she nods.

And not only when the Elves came and stood by Men in the war in LOTR ("there is an ancient bond...), but also when the Ents, in their anguish over murdered trees, joined the war.

Now my other choke-ups:

Field of Dreams: when the son says of his late, now-returned father as a youth: "I only saw him later, when he was beaten down by life. There he is, so young - he's got his whole life ahead of him, and I'm not even a glint in his eye." (Can't talk now, my throat aches.)

Driving Miss Daisy: I'll probably never watch it again, but the end scene where he fed her her pie shattered me several times over two days.

The Scarlet Letter (a story written against rigid self-righteousness): each begs the other, "save yourself, betray me" - neither would do so.

Allegro Non Troppo animation is funny, except for the cat in Sibelius' "Walze Triste". Can't watch it if I need to be composed or dry-eyed.

Same for the ending of the Simpsons episode, "Old Money". Grampa's lover Bea dies and leaves him her money. After much to-do of how to spend it, he remodels his own retirement home, with a lovely new restaurant, and says, "Come in. Dignity's on me, my friends."

OK, I can't talk or see now.

My Girl: hearing the apparently adults-only memorial for her young friend being held in her funeral-director father's home mortuary, she stumbles slowly down the stairs toward the room, blind with grief. Just as the eulogist is saying, "...suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven..." she walks up to the front of the seated group and starts grieving loudly over her friend. The people in the room are taken aback, shocked, and stop her. The scene would be good anyway, but the timing of the eulogy words to the real child creating a "disturbance" is visual and auditory poetry with humanness and irony woven into its core. I have never heard anyone else mention this moment, which led me to wonder if anyone even noticed it. (No religious thread-hikacking, please.) The scene is potent irony to make a point of suppression of humanness, of our words vs. our actions.

This one could not be portrayed the same way in the written word. But if someone starts a thread on "magic moments" in written stories, I could contribute ones just as potent.

quote:

Originally posted by dragonfly:
Driving Miss Daisy: I'll probably never watch it again, but the end scene where he fed her her pie shattered me several times over two days.

Reminds me of another: When Hoke says, "They done bombed the Temple, Miss Daisy."

Why is it that you say you will probably never watch it again, dragonfly? I must ask because I thought it was the best picture of 1989.

The single most magical moment in my movie viewing life was the scene when Dorothy opened the door from the house and saw the Land of Oz in blazing color for the first time.

Remember, you jaded late-comers to the movies, all cinema was in black and white, shades of greys, until the late thirties when Technicolor came about. Because of its expense, it saw only limitied usage for a few years, until the viewing public demanded it as the standard, much as we take the special effects that are well done today in computer graphics for granted.

I was but a child when I vicariously stepped into OZ and never went back completely to the real world, just ask my wife!

Hi, Doug Spaulding:

It was very good. It was one of the movies that I need to see only once, and remember... Some of the excellent movies are harder on me than others. (Inhumanity or betrayal, it seems, get to me more than watching star-fighters explode each other) Plus the scene at the end cuts me to the quick.

I may never watch "The Return of Martin Guerre" again though it was wonderful, because seeing someone hanged does me internal violence, as do the scenes (one old movie, one new) of people in mental hospitals getting treatments that send them into convulsions.

Well, that's me.

More good magic moments coming up! (When I think of them.)

“Pride and Prejudice” The TV miniseries.
DVD, Disk 1, Chapter 10, The Netherfield Ball
The sequence where Lizzy and Darcy dance to “Mr. Beveridge’s Magot”. The tempo was wonderfully slow and the dialog was verbatim to the book (chapter 18).

“Crimson Tide”
The scene where Denzel Washington commands the hatch to be closed, men are drowning and you hear the male chorus sing the Navy Hymn.

For some reason, on the way to work this morning, I remembered a great moment in "Woman Of The Year": Spencer Tracy sitting uncomfortably on a stage while Kate is giving a speech. He's fumbling with matches and, well, it's a great rare slapstick moment!
(Similar to a moment toward the end of "The Gods Must Be Crazy")

I wish Tracy could have worked with Stan and Babe just once. Oh, how sweet that could have been. A very funny man.

Magic moment:
The scene at the end of SMOKE, where Harvey Keitel tells his Christmas story, as his 'gift' to William Hurt - a lingering close up and a brilliantly understated performance (and a testament to the power of great tale-telling). I also love the sequence that follows, where the story is played out, minus dialogue, to the strains of Tom Waits' 'Innocent when you dream'. Absolutely brilliant filmmaking.