60 more Magic Movie Moments Part 3

Lawrence of Arabia: Match cut

It took me a long time to get around to seeing Lawrence of Arabia, and by the time I had decided to address the oversight we were only about a year away from the inevitable 50th anniversary re-release, so I waited.  I'm glad I made that choice for so many reasons, but mainly for this tiny moment.

I am often of the opinion that the best editing is the editing you don't notice (for proof, in the form of a counter example, see Tony Scott's late films).  That, however, is not always the case and an impactful, well chosen, cut can be as powerful as anything in cinema.  The cut from Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) blowing out a match to a low sun turning the desert sky red is something no other medium can do in the same way.  It instantly transports us thousands of miles, alters our context.  

I would argue this is the best single edit I've ever seen.  It was lodged in my head for weeks after I saw the film, and jumped immediately to mind for this list despite the fact I've not yet rewatched it. 

Little Children: Blind date

Jane Adams is a great actress who seems to specialise in scene stealing; think of her college admissions secretary in Orange County or her topless conversation with John C. Reilly in The Anniversary Party.  This, the second historically bad date of her screen career, may be her finest bit of scene theft.

Adams plays a woman on a blind date with Jackie Earle Haley's Ronnie; a paedophile who has recently been released from prison and seems to be trying to make an effort at a normal life on the outside.  The scene starts out quite touching, with Adams and Haley both utterly convincing as people who are both a bit damaged and bruised, but it takes a sinister turn when Ronnie drops his date home.

The turn the scene takes should turn the focus on Ronnie and his now apparent inability to function as a normal person, even after a quietly successful date, but in fact it's Adams you end up watching.  Her silent hurt and disappointment at the turn a nice evening has taken is dveastating, and she plays it with customary subtlety and reality. 

Lord of War: The life of a bullet

The quality of Andrew Niccoll's ideas often outstrips the quality of his films, and Lord of War - though it's certainly better than Simone, or In Time as a whole - is no exception.  That is perhaps made more acute by just how strong this opening title sequence is.

These titles, by showing the journey from manufacture to firing in a single POV take, graphically illustrate both the enormity of what one bullet can do and the miniscule part of the larger issue that is represented by that one bullet.  It's a perfect lead in to a film with an arms dealer as its main character, largely because this title sequence then lies behind everything else in the film. 

Lourdes: Christine sits down

At 2009's Venice Film Festival Lourdes won several awards, but two were especially notable.  The Signis award, which is presented by a Catholic group and the Brian award, presented to a film that, among other things, "highlights and enhances the values of rationality".  I wouldn't be surprised if the two judging panels usually felt that their aims were diametrically opposed, and that's what is so brilliant about Lourdes and about this, its final scene, in particular.

Sylvie Testud gives a brilliant performance as Christine; a woman in her 30's now paralysed due to multiple sclerosis.  While on a pilgrimage to Lourdes she suddenly is able to walk again.  The film asks, but never answers, whether this is permanent nor whether it is a medical phenomenon or a miracle.  In the closing moments, Christine has been dancing with a man she's attracted to.  Then she goes to sit down.  The camera stays with her for a long time.  

Is Christine resting, will she be able to get up and start dancing again or has her paralysis returned?  Again, the film leaves us to decide for ourselves, and Testud's performance suggests that even Christine may be unsure.  It's a brave and endlessly thought provoking ending, the only one this film could have.

Millennium Actress: Trip through history

As I've said before, the death of Satoshi Kon at just 42, with only 4 completed films to his name, was a tragedy for movie lovers.  This sequence (and this film) is just one more example of why that's the case.

Millennium Actress is a film that thinks in much the same way as this list does; filtering experience through cinema, seeing cinema as a series of moments that resonate with the audience (in this case a documentary filmmaker interviewing a legendary actress).

In this hugely energetic sequence, through a series of match cuts, we see the main character Chiyoko ride through her iconic roles, and 1000 years of Japanese history, all the while observed by the filmmakers.  It's an astonishing sequence of animation, it develops the characters and comments on the relationship between film and reality that lies at the film's heart.  One of Kon's finest sequences.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington: Filibustering

Perhaps it's because it's election season and I'm feeling that the best thing I can do is spoil my ballot that this popped into my head.  That and the fact that, corny and idealistic as it may be, I love this movie and this scene.

Mr Smith Goes To Washington, I'm sure, was never anything but a fantasy and Jimmy Stewart's naive and self-scaracficially idealistic Jefferson Smith a ridiculously optimistic vision of a politician, but I can't help wishing we had a few like him to vote for whenever I watch this scene.

James Stewart's Oscar for The Philadelphia Story was widely seen as an apology for failing to give him the prize the year before for this performance.  That's probably unfair to The Philadelphia Story, but Stewart is magnificent here; at the height of his persona as the fundamentally decent American everyman, pouring passion and fervour into his every word.  I defy anyone not to be rooting for him throughout this brilliant scene.

The Muppets: Fozzie's dressing room

The reboot of The Muppets managed to find emotional engagement and pathos in amongst an almost non-stop chain of gags, almost every one of which hits, and for me the combination is seldom better done than when Kermit and Fozzie see each other for the first time in years.

It's already apparent that Fozzie has fallen on hard times, reduced to featuring in a tribute band called The Moopets, but that is hammered home when he and Kermit go to Fozzie's dressing room to talk.  It turns out that the dressing room is outside.  It's a funny visual, but it's also deeply sad.  The puppetry here is masterful, as Steve Whitmire suggests how embarrassed Kermit is that he's allowed his old friend to end up here and Eric Johnson gives us a sheepish Fozzie trying to put the best face on things, even when it begins to rain.

The scene as a whole is a perfect encapsulation of why this film works.

The Naked Gun: Driving lesson

I don't have any deep, meaningful rationale for this one.  It's not a moment that contributes to some overarching metaphor, it's not a particularly virtuoso piece of cinematic technique.  It just makes me laugh, a lot, and has done for more than 20 years.  That seems a good enough reason to list it here.

Natural Born Killers: Diner

As a teenager I was a much bigger Quentin Tarantino fan than I am now, at that time Natural Born Killers wasn't available here, having been pulled by Warner Brothers in the wake of the Jamie Bulger murder, so my first experience of the film was at double speed, played back on my basic VCR at long play speeds an a pirated tape.  What's remarkable is that it's only marginally less insane watched at normal speed.

This sequence establishes what the film is going to be.  Even before the violence begins it's off kilter; the angles canted, the picture switching between colour and black and white seemingly at random.  When L7's Shitlist blares on to the soundtrack the scene explodes  in violent energy.  The whole thing; performances, soundtrack, angles, cutting speaks to Oliver Stone letting himself completely off the chain.  It's bravura stuff, and something it's hard to imagine appearing in a relatively mainstream release in the days of PG-13isation.

A Nightmare On Elm Street ['84]: Freddy on the wall

If you ever want an example of how a remakes cheapens its source, look to the abysmally awful 2010 take on A Nightmare on Elm Street and the way it replicates this moment from the original.  In Wes Craven's film we have built up a dread of Freddy Kruger and when he emerges from Nancy's wall it's a small moment; a presence that threatens but isn't powerful enough yet to act on that threat.  It also looks amazing, clearly present in the same physical space as actress Heather Langenkamp.  The effect was achieved by the film's effects coordinator leaning in to a wall made of spandex, and it might be the creepiest image in 80's horror.

In the remake that dread of Freddy is absent to begin with, but worse is the fact that what emerges from the wall (and comes much further out into the room in this case) is clearly fake; a blob of CGI that hasn't appreciably advanced since Peter Jackson made The Frighteners, 15 years previous.  This is a cinematic equivalent of a Pepsi challenge, and the winner is clear.

Nymphomaniac: Mrs H

Much of Lars Von Trier's work is darkly funny, and Nymphomaniac is no exception, with a mischievous streak of humour running through even the film's more unforgiving passages.  This scene, from Volume 1, is perhaps the film's best moment and the one that combines the duelling tones of Von Trier's work best.

Uma Thurman plays the wife of a man who has been having an affair with Joe (played here by Stacy Martin) and now wants to move in with her.  Mrs H. has come with her husband, their little boys in tow, to see "where Daddy will be living".  Her wounded screed to Joe, her husband and their children, culminating in her asking Joe "would it be okay if I showed the children the whoring bed?" is both funny and painful.

Thurman storms the screen, giving her most vital performance in years (one which, in a just world, would have won ALL last year's best supporting actress prizes) , but Stacy Martin is great here too; discomforted as Joe's ordered promiscuity comes home to roost, perhaps for the first time, and giving the scene an extra layer of awkwardness making it plain through her body language that she doesn't want H to leave his wife.  

It would be great if we can see more of this reinvigorated Uma Thurman.  To be honest I'd forgotten she was this god an actress.

The Piano Teacher: Toybox

I'm not sure that this will be the scene that leaps to most people's minds from The Piano Teacher.  I hear discussion of the last shot and of the unparalleled coldness of the scene in the public toilets more frequently, but this moment has always stuck with me thanks to Isabelle Huppert's incredible performance in it.

Huppert, as piano techer Erika, has become obsessed with her student, played by Benoit Magimel.  In this scene she has written him a letter, detailing the s and m fantasies she wants him to help her enact.  As he reads, clearly more and more appalled as he goes on, Erika begins to lay out the contents of her toybox for him.

I have always found this a crushingly sad moment, casting Erika as a child, pleading with one of her peers to play with her, to make sure that she's no longer left out, as she has been in the past.  Huppert expresses this without dialogue, often without her face actually being on camera.  It's all in her posture, in the systematic way she lays the contents of the box out for Magimel.  That she can do so little yet say so much is proof of just how gifted Huppert is. 

60 more Magic Movie Moments Part 2

A Fish Called Wanda: "Disappointed!"

I'm not one for throwing movie quotes out in conversation - most of the people I speak to offline wouldn't get the references anyway - but I've quite often been tempted to throw out a line from this clip after a highly anticipated film has turned out not to live up to expectations.

Kevin Kline's deservedly Oscar winning work in A Fish Called Wanda is masterpiece of comic tone and timing.  In this scene he discovers that he has been double crossed and the the loot stolen during the robbery at the beginning of the film has been moved.  His reaction is priceless.  The dialogue itself "Okay... okay... DISAPPOINTED" isn't funny, but the detail of Kline's performance is.  First there's the drop of the head when he sees the empty safe, then the perfect delivery of the line, then the frustrated kick of the car that's also in shot.  It's a mini masterclass in comedy acting.

Georgia: Take Me Back

If I had to explain with a single sequence why I think Jennifer Jason Leigh is the best and most underrated actress working (and I don't, see below) I'd choose this one.  She is astounding in Georgia, playing a small time singer with drink and drugs problems, whose sister (Mare Winningham) is a country music star.

In this scene, Leigh's Sadie has been invited to play at a charity concert, a high profile gig set up by her sister, and one that could give her a shot at recognition.  In ten minutes, Sadie sabotages that shot, playing an extended version of Van Morrison's Take Me Back, in which she slaughters the song.  Leigh recorded this sequence live, and it's painful to watch, not just because it's simply a bad version, but because Sadie is pulling the song out of her guts; as exposed as if she were naked up there.  It's a sequence I almost want to turn away from, but Leigh's so good that I can't.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ['11]: Opening credits

David Fincher's take on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is one of the more pointless films I've seen.  It's considerably better looking than the Swedish film, but an inferior work in almost every other aspect, especially when it comes to the two lead performances.  This title sequence doesn't help, because it is much, much too good for the film.

It sets up the film brilliantly and even seeds some images - the match - which won't pay off until the third book/film (which seems unlikely ever to be made in English, at least with this team).  What makes the sequence such an attention grabber is the music; a propulsive cover of Immigrant Song by Trent Reznor, featuring Karen O, sounding more than a little like Robert Plant as it happens, on vocals.  The film never recaptures the thrilling energy or even the visual verve of this sequence, indeed for me the whole thing made me long to watch the film these titles advertised.

Still, brilliant opening titles.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2: Ron and Hermione

The Harry Potter series is perhaps the great 21st century example of franchise filmmaking.  They were wildly popular, but didn't dumb down in search of commercial success, always finding plenty of room for character beats in amongst the plot and special effects.  One great example of this is the way that the relationship between Ron and Hermione (Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) grew organically in the background throughout the series, before paying off in the final film.

Their first kiss was much commented on, but for me the moment that resonates comes soon after, as they walk hand in hand find Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) in the aftermath of the battle of Hogwarts.  There's a smile of recognition from Harry, and then Hermione just gives a slight look down, indicating their hands.  Watson plays it beautifully, making it a beautiful, low key, way to seal the relationship that says more than any line could have.  After a film long action sequence, one of the most moving moments is silent, and all the better for it.

Hellboy II - The Golden Army: Angel of death

Hellboy II is a sorely underrated film, Guillermo Del Toro's best fusion of the personal and commercial sides of his cinema.  This scene should have been a lead in to an even better third chapter of the franchise, but instead it will have to stand as a moment.  

I liked the relationship that both films established between Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his love interest Liz (Selma Blair), but in this scene that relationship develops a soulfulness it hasn't had before as Liz, a dying Hellboy in her arms, is offered a choice by the Angel of Death (a gorgeously creepy design) "The world or him".  The thing that hits hardest about the scene is not just the conviction of Blair's "Him" but the fact there is no thought before it, the fact it's instinctive makes it seem all the more deeply felt.  If only the franchise could have built from this moment.

The Hudsucker Proxy: “A thingimajig that would bring people together”

Yes, it's Jennifer Jason Leigh again.  She doesn't often get to play broad comedy, but she does it brilliantly in the Coen Brother's fast paced and wordy homage to screwball comedy.  This whole speech, in which she takes Tim Robbins' corrupted innocent Norville Barnes to task for his recent decisions is hilarious throughout.  Leigh's crisp delivery is a key reason for this - I especially like her periodic  "Shut up" to anyone who dares try to interrupt her - but there's one line that just makes me roar with laughter.

Talking about the reasons that Norville invented the hula hoop and the reasons people took to it she says "Finally there would be a thingimajig that would bring them together... even if it kept them apart spatially".  Not only is this a great line, it's character appropriate.  As an undercover journalist Leigh's character, Amy Archer, is concerned with accuracy and that line comes across as her own editorial note on what she's saying.  It's also just a great line.
 
Incendies: Intake of breath [SPOILERS]

The word 'breathtaking' can get thrown around in criticism, I'm certain I've done it myself at times, but it's rare that it's literally true.  I saw Incendies twice at the cinema, and have since shown it to a couple of friends, and every time I've seen and felt this moment do the same to the audience as it does to the character.  

The film revolves around twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette).  Their mother, Nawal (Lubna Azabal)  has just died and she has left them each a letter.  Jeanne's is to go to the father they never knew, Simon's to the brother they didn't realise they had.  Throughout the film, Jeanne traces her mother's life, discovering her time as a double agent during civil war and as a prisoner who was raped by her guard.  She also hears stories, legends really, about who her brother became.  In one terrible moment at the end of the film's second act, she comes to realise a connection between her father and her brother.

Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin keeps the reaction very simple; just a sharp, disturbed intake of breath as she, in a horrific second, understands the truth.  It's an incredibly impactful moment, and further proof that some of the things that are said most clearly and loudly in cinema are never actually spoken.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The legend begins

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is one of my favourite films; one that, the instant I put it in my Blu Ray player, turns me back into the enthralled eight year old who first saw it at the Angel Centre cinema in 1989.  Picking a favourite sequence is almost redundant, as the whole film is so perfectly executed, but the opening does stand out.

In this age of prequels, when we're being given endless background information on characters whose mystique is a key part of their appeal (that's you I'm glaring at, every horror remake of the last 15 years), Last Crusade provides a masterclass in filling in a character's background without overexplaining him.  This is because Spielberg sticks to the iconography; Indy's hat, his whip, his scar, his fear of snakes, wraps it up in a thrilling action scene and, most importantly, does it all in under 15 minutes.  

The sequence sets the scene well, shaking up the traditional intro to the Indy films, which always feel like the ending of previous adventure, but it also has a bittersweet tone now because, good as he is here, you can't but mourn that we may have missed out on a great young Indy film with River Phoenix.

Jurassic Park: First encounter

Another literally breathtaking moment, though obviously in a very different way to the one I picked from Incendies.  As with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, this is a film I have a clear memory of seeing for the first time and of this moment in particular.  I was too young to have seen Terminator 2, so Jurassic Park was my first experience of the major advances in CGI.  I had been interested in dinosaurs as a kid, even toying with the idea of being a palaeontologist until I discovered movies.  

This sequence was like wish fulfillment.  I couldn't believe how real the dinosaurs looked, how much like they had seemed in my imagination.  I remember gasping, just like the characters in the film do, in sheer awe.  It was the first time a film had ever done that for me and, remarkably, it still holds up.  Okay, the integration of the CGI is a little rough around the edges now, but I still feel like the dinosaurs have presence in the scene, which is perhaps thanks to how strong Sam Neill and Laura Dern's performances are here.  Once again, Spielberg transports me back to my childhood every time I see this moment.

Katalin Varga: The story [SPOILERS]

Katalin Varga is far from a typical revenge film.  It's quiet, the revenge non-violent and the morals not always cut and dried.  Its centrepiece is this five minute scene.  Having tracked down the man she believes raped her years earlier, making her pregnant with her son, Katalin (Hilda Peter) is out on a boat trip with the man and his wife.  On the water with what is effectively a captive audience, she relates the story of her rape.

Peter's performance is incredible.  Her delivery of the story hits hard, but it's the way she watches Antal (Tibor Pálfy) as he becomes uncomfortable, clearly realising this is him that she's talking about.  My favourite moment comes when, towards the end of the scene, Katalin sees that Antal knows.  She leans back in the boat, there's a sense of victory, a sense that even making him recognise her, with his wife sitting right there, is a victory.  Director Peter Strickland makes the scene visually unsettling too, with the background unstable behind Katalin as the boat turns, but it's Hilda Peter's performance that holds the attention here.

Lady Vengeance: Removing eyeshadow

Lee Young-ae is seeking a more conventional vengeance than Hilda Peter's (see above), but as I'm finding so often with this list it is a smaller, quieter moment that makes the most impact on me.  I wasn't able to the still I wanted for this moment because the only DVD I have of Lady Vengeance is the fade to white version, and that ruins this moment.

Throughout the film Geum-ja (Lee) wears striking make up, with her red eyeshadow the standout feature.  As the film begins to wind down and the final vengeance is accomplished she goes to the bathroom and rubs that eyeshadow away; a heavily symbolic moment suggesting that now blood has been spilled she can wipe away this figurative blood, the job done.  This is why I'm baffled that the fade to white version is Park Chan-wook's preferred cut of the film, because the fact the the film is by this point entirely in black and white in that version robs this image of its symbolism and much of its power.  

I didn't love Lady Vengeance the first time I saw (I do now, it's in my Top 20), but this may well have been the shot that made me want to revisit it.  It hit hard in the cinema, and continues to whenever I see the film in full colour.

The Last American Virgin: Ending [SPOILERS]

Newsflash: Being a movie nerd doesn't exactly make you a girl magnet in high school.  I think that's (part of) why I love The Last American Virgin; it's a film that captures the crappy feeling of being on the outside looking in when, as a teenager, social standing is important to you. 

AJ, a friend of mine, hates the ending of The Last American Virgin, and I get why.  By the end we're rooting for nerdy Gary (Lawrence Monoson) to get it together with Karen (the impossibly lovely Diane Franklin), not just because that's what's expected at the end of a high school movie but because he has genuinely shown, over and over, that he cares about her and has gone to a lot of trouble to be there for her, while his rival is a douchebag.

The thing is, douchebags quite often get the girl.  They certainly did when I was at school, and in acknowledging that this film feels much more reflective of my high school experience (and, I'll wager, that of most other viewers) than most its time and genre.  It's certainly an unexpected kick in the balls on which to end a comedy, but there's a truth to it that resonates.

60 more Magic Movie Moments Part 1

Cinema has always been, literally and figuratively, about the big picture but that big picture is composed of many smaller moments. In the editing room these moments are knitted together.  Hopefully the end result is a cohesive whole, but even when that is the case and sometimes when it isn't, there are moments that stick out.

Five years ago, when 24FPS was relatively in its infancy, I made a list of 50 movie moments that stuck out in my memory.  They weren't my definitive favourites, nor were they the most important or well respected moments in cinema history, though many could have fitted as well on one or both of those lists.

Over the past few months I've found myself struggling to write and searching for more of the passion for cinema that drove me to create this site just over six years ago.  Composing this list began as a way to remind myself of those things.  In choosing the entrants on this new list of 60 magic movie moments I've tried to stick to my original selection criteria.  I (largely) haven't worried about what anyone might think about my choices, about whether they would be seen as worthy enough, nor have I concerned myself with defining the greatest moments in cinema.  Nor, it should be noted, have I taken 'Magic' moments to be synonymous with 'nice' moments.

Each of these moments means something to me, each of them adds to who I am as a cinephile.  Hopefully that will come through as I run the list down over the next five posts.

Spoilers will be unavoidable in some entries, but they will be indicated. 

Alien: Opening credits

The opening credits sequence has largely become a lost art, with more and more films withholding even their title cards, let alone any more extensive credits, for the tail end of the film.  I think this is a great pity, because while they can simply be a dull preamble to the film (can't they Woody Allen?), at their best opening credits sequences lay down the mood and establish the world in which we are to spend the next few hours.

Few, if any, do this better than the opening credits for Alien.  The emptiness of space, where we find ourselves for this sequence, is foreboding in itself and through this, the deliberate pace and the simplicity of the sequence, tone is laid down.  There is also a quality that is foreboding,  menacing even, about the way the lines that will form the letters of the title appear; abstract at first, then gradually forming into the single, strikingly scary, syllable.  Two minutes in, before we've seen much of anything, Alien has laid the groundwork; we know this film may take its time, but also that it is likely to scare us.  It's a textbook example of how to do an opening credit sequence.

Alps: Prince

In Yorgos Lanthimos' third feature, the Alps are a group of four people who hire themselves out as a sort of therapist, substituting for people who have died so that their family and friends can say the things they weren't otherwise able to say.  It's a skill they need to hone, and that's exactly what they do in this deeply odd scene.

Both Dogtooth and Alps tread a fine line of black as night comedy, but this is a close as either film gets to a traditional comedic scene.  The game of guess the impression hits its comic high point early on with Ariane Labed's singularly non-specific take on Prince, which leads to an an argument about whether Prince is dead.  It's quite a silly scene, but highly entertaining and a bit of light relief from the darkness of the rest of the film.

Badlands: Holly's voiceover

Just in case I hadn't  mentioned it before [I had], Badlands is my favourite film.  It's as close to a perfect movie as exists, and I could have picked any number of moments from it.  Ultimately, I've cheated a bit, because my 'moment' actually runs through the whole film, but it is such a singularly effective element that I felt it merited cheating (also, it's my list, I'll make and break the rules as I damn well please).

Voiceover has featured heavily in all of Terrence Malick's films, but this film, by drawing that voiceover from a named source - the diary its main character - works differently  compared to Malick's other films.  Rather than the ethereal stream of conciousness voiceover that has increasingly driven his work, this one plays convincingly as the obsessively noted thoughts of an average teenage girl thrown into a situation she didn't expect (being on the run with her older boyfriend).

Sissy Spacek's voice is another reason I love this voiceover so much, first of all it's a characterful voice, but in it she also fully delivers Holly's mix of naivete and nous; her love for Kit and her irritation with him.  Every other great thing in Badlands is informed by this film-long magic moment, that's why I cheated and chose it.

Before Midnight: “I don't think I love you any more”

I have grown up with the Before series, having first seen Before Sunrise a few years after it was made, when I was 15.  At first I didn't want there to be a sequel, but now the series is among my most treasured film experiences.  Jesse and Celine fell less like characters than they do friends that I am only able to visit briefly every nine years, each visit a privelige.  That's why Before Midnight, and especially this moment, resonate so much.

The film finds the pair at a fractious moment in their relationship and the 25 minute scene where they hash out their problems in a hotel room is raw and difficult to watch, as if you're watching a private moment between your best friends.  When Celine tells Jesse "I don't think I love you any more" it hits like a punch to the gut, like him we're desperate not to believe it, but worried that we may have to.  Cinema rarely feels this personal or this painful.

The Beyond: Headsplosion

If I pretended that I chose this moment from The Beyond for some deep reason - because it says something damning but interesting about how casually the horror genre is willing to discard even a young character, or some such bullshit - would you indulge me?  Probably not, so I'll just be honest.  I chose this because it might be the best exploding head in movie history, and sometimes that's more than enough.

Beyond the Hills: List of sins

Beyond the Hills is an intense film.  The film is set in a convent where Alina (Cristina Flutur) is visiting Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), having not seen her for a few years after having left the orphanage where they grew up and were, the film hints, closer than Voichita's order would see as appropriate.  Over time, as Alina stays, there is pressure on her to join the order, and one of the first stages is for her to confess to her sins.  Not know what is seen as sinful, Alina simply sits as the nuns read a list of potential sins, and nods that, yes, she's been guilty of that one.

In a film that isn't big on lighter moments, this is a deft combination of a moment that is deeply sad, as Alina is told that most normal, inoffensive, everyday actions are sinful and one that is darkly funny.  This aspect grows as the list goes on ever longer, and Alina's passivity only makes it that bit more amusing, especially when she asks how many items are on the list, and is told "468".  It's a sly indictment of religious dogma from director Christian Mungiu.

The Brady Bunch Movie: Carjacking

The Brady Bunch Movie shouldn't have worked, especially in the nineties.  Who wanted an update of a TV show so completely rooted in the naffest parts of the seventies?  Happily, the answer to that was nobody, and rather than update the Bradys the film simply lifted them out of their show and set them down two decades later, having failed to change while the world altered around them.  This choice led to some wonderful comedic moments like the one above.

What I love about this, and about many of the other gags in the film, is that it's not mocking the Bradys.  They aren't stupid, they're just not a part of this world.  They still inhabit an older TV universe where few things ever go wrong and those that do can be resolved in half an hour.  They have always assumed the best of everyone, and still do so when Eddie attempts to carjack them.  It's a charming and very funny joke that not only stands out in but exemplifies the film.

Broken Arrow ['95]: "Hush”

Throughout the list I've picked a lot of longer 'moments'; scenes and sequences that feel like something singular within a film, but this is one that really is only a moment, it lasts barely a couple of seconds, but it never fails to make me laugh.  Unfashionably, Broken Arrow is my favourite of John Woo's mixed bag of American films and that's largely down to John Travolta's performance; pure honey roast ham sliced to the perfect thickness.

Throughout the film, Travolta, as an Air Force captain who is stealing nuclear missiles to order, is increasingly annoyed by his employer (Bob Gunton) and his irritation that things haven't gone exactly to plan.  In one moment, as Gunton rages at him, Travolta breaks his neck in a fit of anger and shouts "Hush... hush".  It's so sudden, and the line so mild compared to the violence, that I find it hilarious.

Chocolate: Meat factory fight

Again, I could pretend I had another excuse, but honestly this is on here because it's just so damn cool.  

The film's conceit is that its autistic heroine (played by the deceptively slight Jeeja Yanin) is able to pick up martial arts styles by watching them, either in movies or in real use.  This leads to a series of fights paying homage to classic martial arts movies.  While the fight inspired by Bruce Lee is directly referencing a famous sequence (the ice factory in The Big Boss), this Jackie Chan style fight simply draws from the general feeling of his style.  What ensues is a fast and furious fight with extensive and intricate prop use and some breathtaking dexterity from Yanin.  Like the other sequences in the film, this one demonstrates that the then 22 year old, in her first film, can easily stand the comparisons the plot encourages you to draw.

Confessions: Vengeance [SPOILERS]

Confessions is built around 'holy shit' moments, and the biggest of them come at either end of the film.  Throughout the film, teacher Moriguchi (Takako Matsu) has been seeking revenge on the children from her former class who contributed to the death of her young daughter.  By the end of the film she has found the weak point of Shuya (Yukito Nishii) the child who held the most responsibility and discovered that he is planning something else; suicide by bomb, which will also kill all of his classmates.

The vengeance is brutal and spectacular but also low key because by its nature, at least as Shuya experiences it, it is a silent vengeance.  The bomb goes off in a stunning sequence which plays the explosion backwards, in gorgeous slow motion, but it's when Shuya realises what has happened that the film really grabs you by the throat, leaving a lingering feeling of discomfort and shock that stays with you long after the credits roll.  It's one of few screenings I've been to in recent times in which not one person got up as soon as the credits started.  If they were feeling like me it was because their legs had suddenly turned to jelly.

Don't Go In The House: The burning

The Burning was the original title of this video nasty, but it was changed to the more innocuous sounding Don't Go In The House because of that title being taken by a not very good slasher (which also made its way to the DPP list). Don't Go In The House isn't a brilliant film, but it has two great sequences, one of which stands out as one of the most brutal in any of the DPP films.

The film essentially follows the slasher model, but the killer doesn't have an edged weapon, instead he uses a flame thrower. He killls his victims in his house, in an asbestos lined fireproof room, wearing a fireproof suit. We only see one killing in detail, but the sequence is credible, disturbing, and has some brilliantly realised and extremely clever effects. Unable to afford dummies for the post burning bodies, make up artist Tom Brumberger came up with an ingenious idea, he got extremely thin dancers to double for the bodies, covering them in make up to make them look like shrunken, dried out, post burn versions of the larger actresses cast as victims. It works brilliantly and along with the unblinking nature of the scene contributes hugely to how shocking the film is to this day.

Drunken Master 2: Final fight

Jackie Chan is looking tired now, but for decades he could do almost no wrong.  Even if the films weren't great (and they often weren't), he'd have a standout fight or stunt sequence.  There was pressure on Jackie to make Drunken Master 2 one of his best, because it had to live up to his classic breakthrough film.  It was a troubled production, and you can see elements of that in the film, thanks to the differing choreographic styles of Jackie and co-director Lau Kar-Leung.  

The final sequence is all Jackie; a classic, frantic, funny brawl that sees him up against his real life bodyguard Ken Lo and famously took almost four months - Yes, MONTHS - to shoot.  Picking a highlight of the sequence is tough, but the showiest moment is clearly when Jackie falls on to some red hot coals, which are real, because this is Jackie Chan.  He's done some strong work since, notably in his Hong Kong films, but this may be the last time we saw Jackie Chan at the very height of his powers.  It's a wonderful thing.

50 Magic Moments (Part 4)

This last part of this list contains some nudity. If that offends you please skip this post. Thanks.

Say Anything: A pen

Say Anything, while often very funny, is also a wonderfully raw film; it feels exactly like first love, that same mix of giddy excitement, disbelief in one’s luck, and searing pain when it goes wrong. So, when Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) is dumped by his girlfriend Diane Court (Ione Skye), there can hardly be a single person who doesn’t feel his pain as he drives around late at night, vowing to become “Power Lloyd”. In the case of the guys in the audience this identification is likely down to the fact that we’re all also in love with Diane. It’s when he gets out of the car that the movie cuts to your heart though as Lloyd, on the phone to his sister in the pouring rain, says “She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen.” If that doesn’t get you choked up then, truly, you have no soul.

Schindler’s List: A real shower

Spielberg’s best drama is perhaps the only one that utterly refuses to give in to its director’s patented sentimentality.  An unblinking, searing, and deeply upsetting Holocaust movie, it set the standard for all that have followed it. When talking about this film the scene that usually gets singled out is that of the little girl in the red coat during the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, powerful to be sure, but for me another sequence completely dwarfs that one. We are on a train bound for Auschwitz, we know it, the Jews on the train don’t, they are supposed to be Oskar Schindler’s workers, and as the train draws up to the gates of the camp the sense of terror and panic is overwhelming. A long sequence see them herded into the bowels of the camp, made to strip and then to go into the infamous shower room. Even seeing this sequence a second or subsequent time, knowing the outcome, doesn’t dilute the power of the moment that the lights go out, nor that of when they come back on and water, not gas, flows from the shower heads. In a depressing film, in a sequence set in one of the most terrible places on Earth, it is a moment of pure, unvarnished, joy.

The Shining: Blood in an elevator

Stanley Kubrick’s film may not be a favourite of Stephen King’s, but it positively hums with an atmosphere of otherworldly terror. It’s full of surprises, but few so well sprung as this, mainly because very little seems to prompt this shot, it’s just a surreal image from a primal nightmare. Elevator doors open in slow motion and (extremely convincing) blood pours out. It’s the slowness of it, and the way it flows out from the sides, and the length of time that it takes to stop pouring out, all those things add up to create a strange and haunting image.

Short Cuts: Underdressed for the occasion

Julianne Moore is a brave actress, and that’s seldom been better demonstrated than in this scene from Short Cuts. Preparing for a dinner party Moore agues with her husband (Matthew Modine) about what he perceives as a mutual attraction between her and the husband of the couple they are expecting that night. It’s a huge row, full volume, lasting for some five minutes, but when Moore spills wine on her skirt, and removes it to clean, she reveals that she’s not wearing underwear and for several minutes, in full view of the camera, she continues to argue, bottomless. When Director Robert Altman offered her the role he specified that she’d have to do this scene, apparently she said “Not only can I do that, but I’ve got a bonus for you; I’m a natural redhead”.

Show Me Love [a.k.a.: Fucking Amal]: Kissing in the back seat

This is one of the great kisses. It’s very brief, less than ten seconds, but those few seconds are both funny, thanks to the way director Lukas Moodysson has Foreigner’s uber-cheesy anthem I Want To Know What Love Is swell on the soundtrack and very sexual. This is the second kiss between the two girls in the movie. The first is a peck on the lips that comes about because of a dare. This one, however, seems to be all about hunger. Both actresses throw themselves into the moment, seeming to lose themselves in the kiss, only to be as rudely awakened as their characters are by the driver's intervention.

Spider-Man 2 and 3: Ursula

If there was a major complaint to be made about the first two Spider-Man films it was that the love interest provided by Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane Watson was both weak and completely different to the spunky comic book character. Spider-Man 3 didn’t help matters either, being generally rubbish and adding another dull girl in the form of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). However, lurking in both sequels is the best girl in the Spider-Man movies; Mageina Tovah as Ursula the smitten daughter of Peter Parker’s landlord. She’s sweet, gorgeous and totally charming. There’s something about Mageina Tovah, she just holds the screen so well and through her Ursula, a character who really shouldn’t be memorable at all, ends up stealing every one of her too few scenes.

Taxi Driver: Phone call

Cinema can evoke all sorts of emotions and reactions in its audience and this moment, perhaps despite or perhaps because of its stunning simplicity, is as strong an evocation of pain and of loneliness as I’ve ever seen in film. I remember being staggered by Taxi Driver when I first saw it, but never more than by this one shot. Travis (Robert DeNiro), having previously taken the beautiful Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) on a disastrous date to a porn movie is one the phone begging for a second chance. As we listen to Travis’ side of the conversation, which is sad and pathetic on its own, Martin Scorsese tracks away from Travis, leaving us looking down an empty hallway. It is a perfect shot, one that says everything about the past present and future of these people in one brief camera move. That’s what cinema should always be like.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): Sliding door

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, even 35 years after it was made, conjures up an atmosphere of dread unrivalled by most horror films (certainly by its own remake). That despite the fact that the film’s violence is very brief and quite infrequent, and that barely a drop of blood is spilled. For all this seeming restraint what marks TCM out is the fact that all the violence in it seems really to hurt, and never more so than in this vicious moment, which lasts barely a second. Just as we think one of the group of kids we’ve been following is about to escape the house of horrors in which they are a trapped a metal screen door behind him whooshes open, Leatherface appears, smacks the kid over the head with a mallet, drags him through the door and slams it closed. It’s the speed that really disturbs, the nonchalance, the practiced nature of it. It’s a chilling kill in a very scary film.

Toy Story: “You are a TOY”

I always love Buzz Lightyear, but he’s most fun when he actually believes himself to be a Space Ranger, rather than a toy, and this wonderful moment from the first Toy Story (a film from which I could pick almost any moment for this list) contains perhaps Tim Allen’s finest reading as Buzz. When Woody (Tom Hanks) finally gets too exasperated to contain himself any more he explodes at Buzz: “YOU! ARE! A! TOYYYYY! You aren't the real Buzz Lightyear! You're - you're an action figure!  You are a child's plaything!” It’s a testament to the character work that Pixar put in that in the split second before Buzz replies we get to see a thought process, as he decides that Woody can’t be right and tells him: “You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity." It’s one of those moments that makes this list for no other reason that that it is joyously, uproariously and endlessly funny.

The Truman Show: Leaving [SPOILERS]

The ending of The Truman Show pulls its audience in two directions, we know what has to happen, that Truman has to leave, enter the outside world that he’s been denied during his first 30 years, and we know that that’s the happy ending, something we want to happen. Yet the movie is so good that you almost end up as one of The Truman Show’s viewers, wanting him not to leave, because you want to keep watching him. In the end this sequence contains one of Peter Weir’s most startling images; Truman walking up a staircase and opening a door in ‘the sky’. It’s a story, and an image, you can’t fail to be moved by.

The Vanishing (’88): Boxed in [HUGE SPOILERS]

The final minutes of George Sluizer’s original version of his thriller about a man with an obsessive need to know what happened to his girlfriend, who vanished three years previous, are some of the most nightmarish ever put to film. When Rex finds the man who kidnapped his girlfriend (a chilling, brilliant Bernard Pierre Donadieu) he is offered the knowledge of what happened, but only by experiencing the exact same thing that happened to her will he ever know. The next time we see Rex he is waking up inside a coffin, already buried, and with the knowledge that he is soon going to die, just as she did. It is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t for the life of me understand why, when he remade the film for the US market, Sluizer allowed the ending to be changed so that the Rex character lives.

Water Lilies: Pulling away

Water Lilies is one of the smartest films I’ve ever seen about being a teenager and first love. Unlike most it appears to be written and directed by someone (Celine Sciamma) who remembers what being this age was actually like – the teenagers, even friends, are often cruel to one another, that love isn’t always reciprocated, and that both of these things are sources of frequent pain. In this standout scene Marie (Pauline Acquart) has been dragged to a club by the (possibly) unknowing object of her affection Floriane (Adele Haenel). Pulling Marie on to the dancefloor Floriane begins to dance rather provocatively with her impassive friend, leaning in closer, closer, until they almost kiss, only to pull away, leaving Floriane dancing with a guy, and Marie, frustrated, seething in the middle of the dancefloor.

Wolf Creek: “That’s not a knife”

Most of the time films referencing other films feels smug, and like the film has run out of ideas, so its borrowing someone else’s, but in this case I’ll let that slide. This Aussie slasher’s nod to Crocodile Dundee is so beautifully timed and delivered, so blackly comic, and followed up by an act so vicious that it feels completely appropriate. Advancing on a cowering victim as she produces a penknife the killer (John Jarrat) quotes Paul Hogan’s character, telling her “That’s not a knife, this is a knife” before using his own to slice off the girl’s fingers in a great shock moment.

50 Magic Moments (Part 3)

Martyrs: Removing the staples [SPOILERS]

Pascal Laugier’s horror masterpiece, still the best film released in 2009, has many skin crawling moments. It’s packed with scenes calculated to have you diving for cover behind the sofa, but few achieve it so well as this moment. Having found an emaciated torture victim in a basement room Anna (Morjana Alaoui) takes her upstairs and places her in the bath, so she can begin to remove the metal ‘clothes’ that have been nailed to this girl. Using a metal screwdriver she begins to remove the staples that hold a makeshift helmet to the girl’s head, producing rivers of blood as she goes. It’s so hideous as to be palpable – a moment that makes you physically recoil from the screen in pain and anguish. That’s a rare and impressive achievement.

Matinee: MANT!

I love 50’s and 60’s sci-fi. The nuclear paranoia films like Them! and red scare movies like the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers have a timeless magic. Joe Dante also loves those movies, as is evident from the way he re-creates the very particular style and feeling of them in Matinee with perhaps the best ‘film within a film’ ever – MANT! It’s all sorts of awesome, capturing the hilarious cheapness of some of those movies, but also the sheer entertainment value. It’s brilliantly shot entirely in keeping with the style of those films (notably calling the original version of The Fly to mind) and is so completely entertaining that, as great as Matinee is, you may find yourself wanting to watch Mant! instead.

Monsters Inc.: “Kitty” [SPOILERS]

Monsters Inc. is Pixar’s most underappreciated film, and remains one of their best. At its heart is the touching story of Sulley and Boo – a monster and a human child who come to rely on each other. Boo (voiced by the 18 month old daughter of one of Pixar’s employees) can’t speak very much, she only really manages a few real words, but this final moment will melt your heart. Having thought he’d never get to see Boo again Sulley is given another chance to go through her door, we don’t see Boo, just Sulley’s sheer contentment at seeing her, and hearing her recognise him and say “Kitty”. It’s the perfect ending to a wonderful film.

Nosferatu: Shreck

A lot of old horror films have lost their power to shock and scare, but despite approaching its 90th birthday Nosferatu is still, at times, horribly freaky. That’s thanks entirely to the terrifying visage of the rat like Max Shreck. Shreck is so scary, and outside of Nosferatu so little is known about him, that a legend grew up that FW Murnau hired a real vampire to play his version of Dracula. You could believe it. It’s hard to pick a single moment in which Shreck is most terrifying, but the moment when he rises, in a horribly unnatural way, from his coffin, and his fading from view in the sunlight are particularly indelible. You can watch the whole film here, since it’s out of copyright.

Oldboy: Hammer fight

Oldboy is a fast, vicious, impactful film, which makes this centrepiece fight scene a perfect fit for it. Captured in a single shot, and performed entirely by star Choi Min-sik without the aid of doubles, it sees vengeance fuelled Oh Dai-su confronting a corridor filled with heavily armed goons with the aid of just the claw hammer he’s been using to torture their boss. It’s a fast, furious and fantastic scene, brilliantly designed and lensed by Park Chan-wook.

Paprika: Opening Credits

Satoshi Kon is a visual genius, and simply one of the finest directors working in cinema, his medium may be animation, but he’s a craftsman who can rank with any of the current live action greats. This beautiful and breathtaking opening to his most recent film is as good a demonstration of his talent as you’ll ever see. It introduces us to the titular Paprika, and to the way that she can bend reality, in fast moving and endlessly inventive credit sequence. It’s playful and funny, but also staggeringly detailed and beautiful to look at.

Primal Fear: “Never was” [SPOILERS]

It’s not often you can see the very second somebody becomes a movie star, but this is that moment for Edward Norton. Primal Fear is a pretty generic piece, a courtroom potboiler elevated by a great supporting cast which also includes Frances McDormand and a very young Laura Linney, but Norton’s nuanced turn as Aaron Stampler, the gentle kid accused of murder, whose other personality – the vicious Roy – committed the crime, steals the show completely. After Roy emerges on the stand, ensuring Aaron a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, his lawyer (Richard Gere) goes back to talk to him, but after Aaron makes a slip up Gere thinks he’s got it figured out “there never was a Roy”. It still pricks the hairs on the back of my neck when Norton says “There never was an Aaron”.

The Princess Bride: Swordfight

You can argue all you want for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or for Hero, or even for The Adventures of Robin Hood. For me there’s no contest; this is the finest swordfight ever captured on film. Like the rest of Rob Reiner’s wonderful, wonderful movie it is hilariously funny, and performed with tongue in cheek glee by Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin. The etiquette early in the sequence is particularly funny, but the fight itself is a thrilling beast, ranging all over set and taking several invetive turns. It’s intricate too and, bar one somersault, entirely performed by Elwes and Patinkin.

Project A: Safety Last

Jackie Chan is a great fan of silent comics like Chaplin and Keaton, and here he apes a Harold Lloyd gag, from Safety Last, for one of his greatest ever stunts. Chan spent seven days trying to do this fall, and then chickening out and getting his stunt team to pull him back in. His colleagues Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao begged him to pull the shot, fearing he’d kill himself. At the last time of asking Chan goot his stunt team to leave him, so that he had no option but to fall. Having done so, and limped away, Chan promptly did the fall two more times.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: A gun at a swordfight

The greatest visual gag in cinema? Certainly it’s right up there, and it only came about because Harrison Ford, who was due to have a long fight sequence with this swordsman, had dysentery. Given this case of the trots he said to Spielberg “Why don’t we just shoot the fucker?” The rest, as they say, is history.

Ringu: 3D TV

Confession time. I saw Gore Verbinski’s remake The Ring before I saw Hideo Nakata’s Ringu. That being the case I knew exactly what was coming here, I knew as Sadako crawled ever closer to the TV screen that she was going to emerge from it, and yet I was still incredibly freaked out when she did. It’s a more primitive looking effect than in the American film, but for some reason its infinitely creepier, perhaps it’s the strange contorted way Sadako moves, perhaps its that the low tech makes it feel more organic, but either way, this is one of the stand out moments of modern horror cinema.

Robocop: “Paramedic”

Paul Verhoeven’s films are shot through with truly black humour. Robocop is perhaps his funniest, and this outwardly horrific sequence is one of the film’s most amusing. When the test of a new battle robot; ED-209 goes hideously wrong and a man is shot to pieces by the machine Verhoeven goes all out in show the total destruction of the body, reduced almost to a pulp. All of which makes the moment when someone says “someone call a paramedic” one the biggest, guiltiest, laughs in this very funny film.

50 Magic Moments (Part 2)

Here’s Part Two of the list. There will be SPOILERS for many of these films; I will indicate clips and comments that contain spoilers.

5 X 2: Dance

5 X 2 is a grim and often depressing film. The story of an unravelling marriage, told from the aftermath of divorce backwards to an idyllic first meeting. This sequence is one of the few moments of levity in the film as, after dinner, wife Valeria Bruni Tedeschi dances with her husband Stephane Freiss’ brother. It’s not key to the story, but the scene, helped by a brilliant choice of song, is intoxicating and not a little sexy.

Funny Face: Basal Metabolism

Another dance scene, but this one has an utterly different mood to the one above. Funny Face is a lightweight musical romance starring a slightly awkwardly paired Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Astaire is as brilliant a dancer at 57 as he ever was, but Hepburn steals the show with this exuberant jazz dance. Director Stanley Donen insisted that Hepburn, otherwise clad entirely in form fitting black to accentuate her lithe frame, wear white socks. This clever choice draws focus to her amazing footwork. This is a joyous scene, easily the standout in a film that doesn’t quite work.

Ghostbusters: “Listen…”

Picking one moment from Ghostbusters is so hard. Do you go with the amazing pre-credits scare, Venkman’s test subject spitting his gum out, the Stay Puft man, Bill Murray warning of “Cats and dogs living together”? I’ve gone for something much smaller, but one that makes me snort with laughter every time I hear it. Exploring the library early in the film Ray gets all the Ghostbusters to stop in their tracks saying, “Listen, you smell something?” It’s such a wonderful piece of complete nonsense.

Gremlins: Father Christmas

Gremlins is a perversely wonderful Christmas movie. It’s a film that places us in a town so quintessentially American as apple pie that it feels like we should be watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and then proceeds to let a thousand little monsters rip it to shreds, at Christmas. Then, of course, there’s this scene, in which Phoebe Cates character relates the most tragic Christmas story ever told in movies. It's to Cates' credit that she doesn’t overplay it, because the dialogue could easily be comic, but she makes it a sad and moving moment.

INLAND EMPIRE: “Some heavy shit”

David Lynch has created some breathtaking cinematic moments in his career, and INLAND EMPIRE contains a fair few of them. This, thanks to Laura Dern’s incendiary performance, is the most impactful of them. It’s unclear by this point just who Dern is playing, but we find her in what seems to be a psychiatrists office describing a time that she was sexually assaulted, and fought back extremely effectively, only to be asked by the Police what had happened. She says "He's reaping what he's been sowing, that's what." They said 'Fucker been sowing some pretty heavy shit'." It’s one of the most striking and memorable lines I’ve heard, and drew gasps both times I saw the film at the cinema. This line alone should have won Dern the Oscar.

IRREVERSIBLE: Wrong man? [SPOILERS]

I should warn you that the clip above is hugely extreme, disturbing and NSFW.

This list is not, by any means, composed entirely of nice moments, but this one from IRREVERSIBLE is easily the most disturbing. Gaspar Noe’s backwards revenge thriller starts with one of the most disorienting sequences ever filmed, a nightmarish odyssey through a gay club called Rectum, searching for a man called Tenia, who the protagonist believes raped and beat his wife. The fact that we, in this scene, watch as a man’s face is reduced to a pulp through a beating with a fire extinguisher is bad enough, but it’s made worse by the fact that we later discover that this is not Tenia, but some innocent man.

Junebug: “Just the way you are”

Amy Adams’ performance in this fine film won her her first Academy Award nomination. As Ashley she is nothing less than a ray of sunshine, and she plays every line with a perfectly judged, slightly forced, happiness. She clearly loves her family, and especially her husband, and that’s shown beautifully in this one lovely line. When he gets frustrated Ashley tells her husband “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way”. It’s a perfectly in character mix of unconditional love for her husband and real concern for him, because he’s clearly depressed, but it’s also a line that is as funny as it is heartwarming.

Last Action Hero: “Not to be”

John McTiernan’s much underrated satire of action blockbusters had the misfortune of opening opposite Jurassic Park, and thus becoming a major commercial disappointment, it didn’t deserve that fate. Last Action Hero is hilarious, and the action scenes are also well executed, while Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a very fine tongue in cheek performance in the lead. In a standout fantasy sequence young movie fan Danny Madigan, bored in his English class, imagines Hamlet with his action hero Jack Slater (The Governator), in the form of a trailer. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet is taking out the trash” goes the voiceover. The best moment, though, is when Arnie intones the famous line “To be, or not to be?” takes a drag of his cigar and finishes the line with “Not to be” and shoots someone. Even the stiffest Shakespeare purist must think that’s funny.

The Last Picture Show: Creaking

The Last Picture Show is a bittersweet film, and the most caustic story in the film is perhaps that of the affair between young Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and his basketball coach’s wife Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman, in an Oscar winning performance). Their first sex scene is excruciating in many ways. Ruth folding her clothes so carefully, Sonny’s disappointment with the sex, Ruth’s tears. The thing that really encapsulates the sadness of the scene though is a tiny and simple one, the creaking of the bed frame. It cuts through the scene like a knife, almost suggesting Ruth’s tears before she cries, and it’s genuinely moving. Apologies for the fact that the clip is from a commentary track, it's all I could find.

Lawn Dogs: "It's not my chest I want to show you"

At the heart of Lawn Dogs lies a beautifully realised and very unusual friendship between two misfits; 10 year old Devon (Mischa Barton) and 22 year old Trent (Sam Rockwell). In this lovely scene they talk in a field and Trent shows Devon the scars from when he was shot. Then Devon begins to unbutton the front of her dress, Trent turns away, and to his back Devon says “It’s not my chest I want to show you, stupid”, and reveals that she actually wants to show him a long scar of her own, from heart surgery. It’s the simplicity and love with which Barton delivers that line, as much as the physical bond between the two friends in this moment, that makes this one of my magic moments.

Magnolia : The date

Magnolia is, in a lot of ways, a film about the search for connection, and that’s never better expressed than with the story of the two lonely souls at the centre of this scene; fundamentally decent Jim – a cop who has become a laughing stock because he lost his gun, and beautiful fuck up Claudia – a drug addict who Jim impulsively asks out when called to her apartment on a noise complaint. The awkwardness of their date is beautifully observed by writer/director Puaul Thomas Anderson and actors John C. Reilly and Melora Walters. This scene is the centre of the web that Anderson weaves, and Walter’s line “Now that you’ve met me would you object to never seeing me again”, taken almost verbatim from an Aimee Mann song, was the first thing Anderson wrote for the project. For me though the great moment in this scene is Rielly’s beautiful reaction to the question “you want to kiss me Jim?” His instant and heartfelt “Yes” sums up the spirit of both his character and this scene in one moment.

The Man With Two Brains: Little girl

The Man With Two Brains is endlessly hilarious, and I could have picked any number of moments from it, but this unexpected gag is perhaps my favourite. It’s the ending that really slays me, Steve Martin’s condescending tone as he shouts after a four year old “It’s not sub-dural, it’s epidural” and the hint of triumph in his voice never fails to have me creased up, helpless with laughter.