Top 7 Most Powerful Moments in Movie History (vanity)

PA Times | 12/12/05 | Santa Pissant

[pissant]

Everyone knows by now that Pissant is not an expert, like MaximusofTexas, when it comes to movie reviews. The main problem of course is that Pissant has generally avoided anything that Hollywood has produced in the last 20 years. Fortuantely, most of the cinematic classics were made well before this self-imposed boycott started. So now, I will list the definitive "most powerful moments".

They may be sad, scary, heartwarming, patriotic, etc.

Top 7 Most Powerful Moments in Cinema History

7. The Deerhunter- Russian Roulette POW scene --The actors in the Deerhunter, particularly DeNiro and Cristopher Walken make it seem incredibly real. The intensity of that scene as POWs being forced to play Russian roulette and the subsequent escape is one for the ages.

6. Outlaw Josie Wales - Snoose on the Dead guy's head -- After a gunfight where Josie (Clint Eastwood) and his sidekick end up killing the bad guys, his young companion frets that they should at least bury the dead out of respect. Instead, Clint hocks a mouthful of tobacco juice onto a cadaver's forehead, and flatly states that "the buzzards gotta eat too"

5. Casablanca- Rick says goodbye -- Thinking that she would be staying with Rick (Humphrey Bogart) as her husband Lazlo gets on the plane to America, Bogie gives Ilsa (Ingrid) the bad news. The strength to be able to give up her love in the cause of patriotism is amazing.

4. Exorcist- The head spin -- If you grew up Catholic, you believe in the devil. And that's what makes the Exorcist SO real (plus it was based on a true story). If the head spin scene did not creep you out, nothing will.

3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being- Girls playing -- I know, not everyone's cup of tea. But seeing Thomas' wife (Juliette Binoche) meet his mistress (Lena Olin) and the two have a playful, flirtatious rendevous.....well it's powerful to me. It helps that both are very gorgeous!!

2. Patton- "the speech to the Third Army" -- This movie is near perfect all the way through, but is most powerful just listening to George C. Scott recite the (somewhat sanitized) speech to the troops. Hollywood is incapable anymore of treating our Generals and Soldiers as the heroes that they are.

1. It's a Wonderful Life - George sees the light -- The angel Clarence's hard work finally pays off. George Bailey realizes how important he is to his family, community and to God, and has a tearful reunion with his family. It chokes me up, no matter how many times I see it. Merry Christmas!

[Gay State Conservative]

I liked "does this mean that Ann Margaret isn't coming?"

[xsrdx]

"Easy. You use less lead."

Actually, "Easy - you just don't lead 'em so much."

[Woman on Caroline Street]

Good Day, Pissant.

Of course, because I'm a woman, my examples are the moments that tug at my heartstrings and leave me in a slobbering hormonal cry fest.

1. Without a Trace with Kate Nelligan and the guy from Taxi (Judd Hirsch). A mother (Nelligan) has finally accepted the fact that her little boy will never return home after disappearing "without a trace". At the end of the movie, Hirsch finds the boy in a neighboring state after checking out a lead from a woman who regularly has "tea with Jesus". Hirsch, along with the missing boy, are escorted by many police vehicles, as they return back to the NY neighborhood where Nelligan is returning home from the market. Upon seeing her son exiting from the car, she drops the groceries and runs to him, while all the escorting police officers watch on.

I bawl every, single time.

2. The last scene of The Color Purple, when Celie's long lost sister Nettie returns to America, bringing back Celie's children, Adam and Olivia. Again, I'm just a blubbering mess. CE-LIEEEE! NETTIEEEE!!

Now I need chocolate, and lots of it.

[maestro]

Top 7 Most Powerful Moments in Movie History (vanity)

The filming of the Atomic-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Gay State Conservative]

From Good Morning,Vietnam: "It's 0600,What does the O stand for? Oh my God,it's early"

Or...."do you know what three up and three down means?"

"End of an inning?"

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

What is you fascination with the break dancing?

[najida]

Oh my!

I saw The Color Purple in a theater full of women (it seemed)....there was a line out the ladies room door afterwards...and we were all passing back rolls of toilet paper, we were squalling so hard.

[xsrdx]

Every line Holliday has in "Tombstone" is quotable. Easily Kilmer's best work, and outstanding writing.

A terrific movie, start to finish, and underrated.

[InterceptPoint]

Love Actually

Jamie (Colin Firth) proposes in very broken Portugese to Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) in the restaurant where she works . A wonderful scene in a wonderful movie.

[Gay State Conservative]

Actually, "Easy - you just don't lead 'em so much."

If you watch that scene closely,you see the door gunner's face turn solemn for a second,as if he understands the significance of what he does.

Of course,I sincerely doubt that it was SOP for Marine or Army door gunners to deliberately shoot innocent civilians despite what Kerry and Oliver Stone would have us believe.

[Phsstpok]

The first war film my Dad thought got the feeling right was a very minor one from 1969, The Bridge at Remagen. It wasn't much of a movie (not bad, just not that memorable) but he said it really nailed the atmosphere, particularly the constant dust clouds and the noise of engines and the like. And, of course, the fact that 90% of the time was tedium and schlepping from one place to another.

Ryan caught all of that and combined it with the terror and confusion of combat and how you just had to "soldier on." Not heroics, per se, just doing the job. And he'd been a drill instructor at Camp Croft since the lead up to Operation Torch, then on to England for the build up and more training. He had all of the actions down as second nature through all of the drills. It wasn't the same, but you fell back on training, he said, as the only thing you could do.

[hattend]

"Wolverines!" - Red Dawn
When a monkey learns to kill - 2001, A Space Odyssey

[Mr. Blonde]

I love in the directors cut when Doc is leaving to go hunt down the Cowboys and Kate asks him what she would be left with if he died, and he replied "without a meal ticket I suppose."

[hattend]

What? You don't remember "Spies Like Us" "The Great Outdoors" or "My Stepmother is an Alien"?

That's understandable...hehehe

[mhking]

10: The Ten Commandments -- the parting of the Red Sea...

9: The Wizard of Oz -- "Follow the Yellow Brick Road...follow the yellow brick road?"

8: Casablanca -- "You played it for her, you can play it for me, now play it!"

7: (and yes, the entire movie was cheesy, but this one line made it for me) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier -- "Excuse me...what does God need with a starship?"

6: The Blues Brothers -- The opening sequence when the gates of Statesville Prison open and Jake Blues comes strolling out of the blazing light behind the gates to embrace Elwood.

5: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre -- "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges."

4: Animal House -- "Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

3: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly -- "BLONDIE!!!!"

2: Raiders of the Lost Ark -- The entire opening sequence with the idol and the run out of the temple ahead of the giant boulder.

1: The Usual Suspects -- The final sequence where Detective Kulyan realizes who he was talking to, along with the switch in walk along the sidewalk... "And like that...he was gone..."

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[drjimmy]

Some other powerful scenes that have come to mind:

The end of Shawshank Redemption when Red and Andy meet on the beach.

The Agincourt speech from Henry V (I like the Branagh version best): "And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day until the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves acursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day!"

The scene in Sophie's Choice where she has to make her "choice." Meryl Streep makes the heartbreak so utterly real, just thinking about this scene makes me want to go home and hug my kids right away.

In Blow Out, when Nancy Allen is being killed and John Travolta can only listen and isn't able to help her; then he uses the tape of her sceaming as the sound for a slasher film.

For shockers, a couple of powerful moments include the scene in Alien when the crew is eating and John Hurt has a bout of "indigestion," and the very end of Carrie, when Amy Irving is kneeling at Carrie's grave and the arm reaches out and grabs her. Everyone in the theater let out a gasp at that one; something less likely to happen these days because audiences have become used to something shocking happening after a false ending.

[King Prout]

you didn't include "KHANNNNN!!!!"???

[End Times Sentinel]

What is you fascination with the break dancing?

And why can't you keep it real?  I still feel umbrage with you for laughing at me when I  got those linoleum burns.

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

[woodbutcher1963]

Apocalypse Now
Robert Duvall " I love the smell of napalm in the morning....

[wideawake]

"One dog's lookin this way, the other dog's looking the other way and the old man is saying 'Whaddya want from me?'"