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National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
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The character of Faber College's animalistic John "Bluto"
Blutarsky (John Belushi) - with numerous belches and slobbish behavior
(such as crushing beer cans on his head) - and especially his progress
through the cafeteria lunch room counter piling up food on his tray and
sucking down a plate of Jell-O in one gulp - and Bluto's guess-what-I-am-impersonation
of a zit when he punches his cheeks to send food in all directions ("I'm
a zit. Geddit?"); the cafeteria's food fight scene and Bluto's battle
cry ("Food fight!"), the wild "Toga, Toga, Toga" party scene in Delta
House at Faber College; and his challenge to his fellow frat brothers
to join him ("Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!...It ain't
over now. Cause when the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'. Who's
with me? Let's go. Come on!") to seek revenge on Dean Wormer (John Vernon)
and the clean-cut Omegas; the voyeuristic Peeping Tom scene outside the
window of self-pleasuring Mandy Pepperidge's (Mary Louise Weller) sorority
house causing Bluto's ladder to fall backwards; and the ruinous homecoming
parade, in John Landis' classic frat house comedy
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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
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The scene in which family head Clark Griswold
(Chevy Chase) has waxed his sled with a revolutionary grease - and his unexpected
streak of fire in the snow, and the electrocution of the cat during the
lighting of the Christmas tree - and other outrageous sight gags, in director
Jeremiah S. Chechik's slapstick-filled comedy |
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National Velvet (1944)
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The youthful glow of a violet-eyed, 12-year-old
Velvet (Elizabeth Taylor in her first starring role), Velvet's supportive
mother (Oscar-winning Anne Revere), the scenes of English ex-jockey Mike
Taylor (Mickey Rooney) teaching Velvet how to ride, and the exciting climactic
Grand National Steeplechase horse racing sequence, in director Clarence
Brown's animal-related children's film |
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The Natural (1984)
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The beautiful sun-setting scene of pitcher Roy Hobbs'
(Robert Redford) three strike-out pitches thrown as a wager to Babe Ruth-like
slugger "The Whammer" (Joe Don Baker); the shocking scene of the shooting
(with a silver bullet) of Roy by deranged funeral-clad Harriet Bird (Barbara
Hershey) in her hotel room after asking him: "Will you be the best
there ever was in the game?"; and 16 years later, middle-aged rookie
Roy's first batting practice (where he repeatedly knocks balls into the
stands), and his knocking the cover off the ball as lightning strikes
to get a triple when he substitutes for Bump Bailey (Michael Madsen) in
his first major-league at bat for the New York Knights against the Phillies
with his magical "Wonderboy" bat (reminiscent of Arthurian legend
with a lightning bolt inscribed on it and carved out of a tree struck
by lightning); the ending of his long slump in Chicago with the appearance
of the pure "lady in the white dress" in the stands - ex-girlfriend
Iris Gaines (Glenn Close) - who stands up just before he slugs a tremendous
blast of a home-run that shatters the giant clock on the scoreboard in
Wrigley Field (it ends the game although the Cubs should still have a
turn to bat the bottom of the inning); Iris' visit to Roy in the maternity
ward of the hospital and their discussion about having two lives ("The
life we learn with and the life we live with after that"); and then
the last game of the World Series playoffs in the bottom of the ninth
when (without his "Wonderboy" bat
- after he shattered it hitting a foul ball, and then requested of the
batboy: "Go pick me out a winner, Bobby" - the Savoy Special)
Roy (inspired by a note written by Iris about fathering a child years
earlier) hits the giant set of lights - to win the series for his team
- that sets off a cascade of exploding floodlights and showering electrical
sparks; and the final (tacked-on) concluding scene of a redeemed Roy with
Iris and their 16 year old son playing catch on the farm, in Barry Levinson's
allegorical baseball film based on Bernard Malamud's story and with Randy
Newman's soaring score
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Natural Born Killers (1994)
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The flashback of the abusive family
life of Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis) - portrayed as a situation-comedy
parody called "I Love Mallory" (with a canned laughter track)
featuring comic Rodney Dangerfield as Mallory's perverted, beer-drinking
dad Ed; the scene of Mickey (Woody Harrelson) killing Mallory's family (her
father was drowned in the fishtank) and the violent, cross-country (Route
666) Southwestern random killing spree of the white-trash outlaws and their
pursuit by slimy Detective Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore); the Drug Zone
arrest scene shot entirely in flourescent green; the incredibly violent
live interview/prison riot-escape scene; the controversial see-through view
of the bullet hole in the right hand of TV tabloid show host/reporter Wayne
Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.) who made them famous celebrities for his sensationalist
"American Maniacs" show; and the shocking ending when the two
outlaws in a rural setting shoot Gale - broadcast live on camera, in Oliver
Stone's visually-riveting (MTV-style and color-switching), controversial
and brutal film about two serial killer-lovers and media sensationalism
(from a Quentin Tarantino original script) |
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The Navigator (1924)
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The story of well-to-do Rollo Treadway and
girlfriend Betsy O'Brien (Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire) on a deserted
and adrift yacht (named S.S. Navigator), with numerous and elaborate
sight gags including his encounter with a toy cannon tied to his leg, his accidental hitting of a lever sending the galley's interior cabin rotating and tossing them around like within a dryer, efforts to make breakfast (and coffee), boil an egg, set up a folding
deck chair, race around the deck, shuffle a wet deck of playing cards; also
the scene of underwater diving and a swordfish duel; the mistaking of fireworks
for candles, and a swinging-portrait on a nail mistaken for a ghost; and
the climactic finale - the routing of an attack by a tribe of island cannibals,
in Buster Keaton's classic comedy |
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Near Dark (1987)
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The famous
setpiece in which wise-cracking, vicious desperado-like, outlaw 'rebel'
vampire Severen (Bill Paxton) (dressed like rock singer Jim Morrison) -
a part of a vampire family led by Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen) that travels
the countryside in a blacked-out Winnebago van and conducts raids on bikes
- engages in a blood-lusting, drawn-out roadhouse diner fight with hicks
- in the massacre, he slits the bartender's throat with his boot's spurs
and hisses: "Finger lickin' good"; the skin sizzling, blistering
and smoking effects that sunlight has on exposed vampire-skin, and the choreographed
shoot-out scene in which dreaded shafts of light caused by bullets do considerable
damage, in Kathryn Bigelow's directorial debut, low-budget vampire-western
horror film |
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Network (1976)
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The character of smart, driven programming executive Diana Christensen's (Oscar-winning Faye Dunaway) rant to her various program directors: (" I want angry shows. I don't want conventional programming on this network. I want counter-culture. I want anti-establishment"), and the Messianic, raging figure of maniacal veteran TV anchorman
Howard Beale (posthumous Oscar-winning Peter Finch) as an "angry prophet"
and his rousing, rallying battle cry challenge to listeners to defiantly
yell out their New York City windows ("I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not
going to take this anymore!"); also Diana Christensen's unrestrained turn-on by media ratings during
the Beale controversy and during a sexual affair with veteran network
news boss Max Schumacher (William Holden); Schumacher's put-down of Diana
when he leaves her: "...everything that you and the institution of
television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana, indifferent
to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common
rubble of banality"; the scene of Beale's chastisement by the powerful
conglomerate head Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) ("You have meddled with the
primal forces of nature") and Howard Beale's speech about how "democracy
is a dying giant", and the superb and moving monologue in which Max's
wife (Oscar-winning Beatrice Straight) berates her husband for unfaithfulness,
in Sidney Lumet's satire on TV and the media (based on Oscar-winning Paddy
Chayefsky's script)
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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
(1941)
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The Great Man's (W. C. Fields) restaurant
ordering scene with a tough, obnoxious waitress named Tiny (Jody Gilbert),
his leap from an airplane to retrieve his booze bottle and his fall into
the mountain top retreat of wealthy matron Mrs. Hemogloben (Margaret Dumont)
and her lovely daughter Ouliotta Delight Hemogloben (Susan Miller), and
his mad drive through downtown LA to take an oversized woman (he presumes
she's pregnant) to the maternity hospital, in another of W.C. Field's unusual
comedies - directed by Edward F. Cline |
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The New World (2005)
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The first meeting in 1607 of
the so-called "naturals" by expedition leader Captain Christopher
Newport (Christopher Plummer) and his men - who timidly approach the strange
visitors "like a herd of curious deer"; the scene in which the
favored daughter of Powhatan (August Schellenberg) - lovely and graceful
"princess" Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) - saves Captain John
Smith (Colin Farrell) from death out of curiosity and empathy - and the
sublime sequence of them falling in love - as he teaches her English words
("Water", "Sun", "Eyes", "Lips",
etc); the extensive use of narrated internal monologues; the winter scene
in which the "princess" brings food to the starving Jamestown
fort inhabitants; the scene of Pocahontas playing hide-and-seek with her
child in a manicured English garden - and the reunion scene in the English
garden with her first love: regretful Captain John Smith, asking: "Did
you find your Indies, John? You shall" - and his response: "I
may have sailed past them" - followed by her expression of fully devoted
love (and kiss) to loyal farmer-husband John Rolfe (Christian Bale) ("My
husband"), with a score enhanced by Mozart's concerto and a recurring
prelude from Wagner's Das Rheingold, in writer/director Terrence
Malick's visually-stunning poetic historical epic |
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Niagara (1953)
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A sensual, adulterous Rose Loomis
(Marilyn Monroe) lounging naked in her bed sheets in the Rainbow Lodge cabins
next to the Falls; also with her memorable hip-bouncing walking scenes,
first briefly in a light blue dress, and then overtly flaunting herself
at an outdoor party in a bright red dress and her singing along with the
tune "Kiss" (the illicit lovers' theme song) just before her crazed
husband George (Joseph Cotten) destroys the phonograph record with his bare
hands; another scene of her backside in a tight black dress and red top,
walking away from the camera; her husband's stalking of scheming Rose up
a clock-bell tower before murdering her; and the exciting finale in which
pretty honeymooner Polly Cutler (Jean Peters, who later married Howard Hughes)
and George are adrift in a boat and heading toward the precipice -- before
her rescue by helicopter from a rock outcropping and his demise down the
falls, in this Techni-colored noir directed by Henry Hathaway |
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Night After Night (1932)
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Maudie Triplett's (Mae West, in her first
talking film) bawdy, wise-cracking entrance scene and her famous dialogue:
("Goodness, what lovely diamonds" Maudie: "Goodness had nothing
to do with it, dearie") - creating havoc for speakeasy owner Joe Anton's
(George Raft) private dinner party, in director Archie Mayo's comedy/drama |
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Night and Fog (1955, Fr.) (aka Nuit et Brouillard)
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The gruesome, graphic, sobering images of
the corpses of Holocaust victims, in director Alain Resnais' documentary-style
short film |
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A Night at the Opera (1935)
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The classic parody scene of contract negotiations between
shyster Driftwood (Groucho Marx) and manager Fiorello (Chico Marx): "The
party of the first part...", ending with Fiorello's concluding that "There
ain't no Sanity Clause", the egg-ordering scene that precedes one of the
Marx Brothers' most famous scenes - the small stateroom scene onboard
a cruise ship crowded with all four brothers, chambermaids, an engineer,
a manicurist, the engineer's assistant, a passenger looking for her Aunt
Minnie, and staff stewards - and Mrs. Claypool's (Margaret Dumont) opening
of the door that spils all the occupants out onto the floor; the scene
at City Hall in which the stowaways pose as bearded air heroes and Fiorello's
speech when he describes the aviators' difficult trip to America, the
hilarious bed-switching scene in Driftwood's apartment to confuse Detective
Henderson, and the opera's opening night scene including madcap havoc
- wild backdrops, backstage and onstage chaos, and "Take Me Out to the
Ballgame" in the finale, in this superb Marx Brothers classic directed
by Sam Wood
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Night Moves (1975)
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The character of ex-football player
and LA private eye Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) and his famous quote when
asked to attend a Rohmer film: "I saw a Rohmer film once; it was kind
of like watching paint dry"; the missing persons case in which Harry
tracks promiscuous runaway 16 year-old daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie
Griffith in an early role) in the Florida Keys - the step-daughter of wasted
ex-actress and sexually-liberated studio boss divorcee Arlene Iverson (Janet
Ward); the night-time nude dive sequence from a glass-bottom boat when Delly
discovers a crashed plane with the remains of a stunt pilot named Marv Ellman
(Anthony Costello) - later revealed to have been killed by suspicious mechanic
Quentin (James Woods); and its conclusion involving Delly's orchestrated
death in LA during a failed film location stunt with Joey Ziegler (Edward
Binns), the revelation of smuggling of pre-Colombian art by Delly's ex-stepfather
Tom Iverson (John Crawford), and the shocking ending of the deaths of four
individuals (Iverson's murder of Quentin, Iverson's fight to the death with
Harry, Ziegler's drowning in a seaplane that crashes, with Iverson's mistress
Paula (Jennifer Warren) being hit by the plane's propeller after emerging
on the surface from scuba diving) while dying Harry's stranded boat (named
"Point of View") goes around and around in circles about the ocean
wreckage, in Arthur Penn's moody, post-Watergate noir detective film with
the enigmatic title 'Night Moves' - or more significantly 'Knight Moves'
symbolizing the protagonist's chessboard of life in which he was 'blind'
to the events of his case |
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The Night of the Hunter (1955)
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The image of terrifying preacher
Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) driving in his car in one of the opening
scenes, the tattoos LOVE and HATE on the fingers of his right and left hands
(including his favorite hand-wrestling sermon told to young John Harper
(Billy Chapin) - "Ah, little lad, you're starin' at my fingers. Would
you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?"
- that provides commentary on the eternal battle between the forces of good
and evil that grapple together); Powell's shadow filling the window of the
children's bedroom; the tortuous wedding night scene with widowed wife Willa
Harper (Shelley Winters), the scene of the preacher coaxing Pearl (Sally
Jane Bruce) to disclose where her father hid the money; Willa's frightening
knifing murder scene in a A-frame bedroom - and the discovery of her corpse
sitting underwater in a Model T with her long billowing hair tangled in
the reeds; the pursuit sequence in the basement as Powell (Frankenstein-like)
chases the two children up the stairs with arms outstretched; the children's
escape and flight to a rowboat and the lyrical nighttime sequence of their
floating down the river; the distant silhouette of the preacher on horseback
against the night-time sky as the children sleep in a barn's hayloft; the
preacher's first acquaintance with strong-willed opponent and savior Rachel
(Lillian Gish) - and the scene of Rachel sitting on the porch in a rocking
chair with a shotgun (looking like Whistler's Mother), followed by the scene
in which they both sing their versions of the religious hymn "Lean on Jesus",
in actor/director Charles Laughton's only directed film |
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
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The opening scene in a cemetery,
in which living dead Johnny (Russell Streiner) teases sister Barbra (Judith
O'Dea) by approaching her in the graveyard and taunting: "They're coming
to get you, Barbra!", but then finds himself bitten by one of the zombies
(Bill Heinzman); the horrific scene of the horde of crazed, lurching, flesh-eating
zombies surrounding the old farmhouse and terrorizing survivors Barbra and
black hero Ben (Duane Jones), the attack and murder of Barbra by her own
zombified brother and other instances of cannibalism including the moment
when a young girl dies and she returns as a zombie to kill her traumatized
mother with a trowel, and the tragic shooting of Ben by vigilantes mistaking
him for a zombie in the last scene, in George Romero's raw and uncompromising
low-budget midnight movie about flesh-eating zombies |
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A Night to Remember (1958)
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The climactic ending in which
the Titanic oceanliner hits an iceberg and slices a hole in the ship,
sending hundreds of passengers to their icy death, in Roy Baker's documentary-style
accounting of the April 14, 1912 sinking |
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The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
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The technical brilliance of the
stop-motion animated puppets and originally-composed songs (by Danny Elfman),
and the scenes of the disastrous circumstances when Jack Skellington - the
Pumpkin King of Halloweentown - kidnaps Santa Claus and delivers scary Halloween
gifts instead of Christmas gifts from a coffin-shaped sleigh pulled by reindeer
skeletons - at the conclusion of the "Making Christmas" sequence;
rag-doll friend Sally's warning to him; the image of terrified children
opening up their horrific presents ("And what did Santa bring you,
honey?") (i.e., a scary yellow duck, bats, a shrunken head, a large
toy snake that eats Christmas trees); and the fantastic "Poor Jack"
song when Jack realizes his mistake and sings a torch song in an angel headstone's
arms - lamenting: "What have I done? / What have I done? / How could
I be so blind?", and the triumphant finale, with Jack finally realizing
his love for Sally ("...for it is plain as anyone can see: we're simply
meant to be") with a closing kiss on a snowy curlicue hill, in Tim
Burton's (and director Henry Selick's) imaginatively dark musical fantasy
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
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The character of burn-faced, striped sweater-wearing Freddy
Krueger (Robert Englund) with a fedora hat, bladed-clawed hands in this
original film and all its sequels - a child murderer who attacks during
dreams; the scene of teen girl Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) - during her dream
- being invaded by Freddy and dragged up the wall and across her bedroom
ceiling by the invisible Krueger; and policeman's daughter Nancy Thompson
(Heather Langenkamp) napping during a bubble bath, with Freddy's gnarled
hand appearing and moving towards her crotch area; also the silhouetted
image of Freddy reaching his 10 foot arms out to touch the walls in an
alleyway, or Freddy's transformation of a phone into a demonic tongue;
also the liquifying death scene of Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp in his debut
movie role) when he drifts off to sleep with a blaring TV on his lap and
Freddy's clawed hand bursts through, pulls him through the bed cover and
reduces him to a bloody geyser that gushes toward the ceiling, in Wes
Craven's horrific and unpredictable film teen slasher film
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9 1/2 Weeks (1986) (aka Nine 1/2 Weeks)
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Wall street executive John's (Mickey
Rourke) question: "Does this excite you?" before caressing blindfolded
art gallery assistant Elizabeth's (Kim Basinger) naked body with melting
ice cubes; also one olive, a bowl of maraschino cherries, one cherry tomato,
a pint of strawberries, one glass of champagne, two spoonfuls of Vick's
cough syrup, a forkful of cold spiral pasta, a spoonful of cherry Jello,
four jalapeno peppers, one glass of milk, a bottle of sparkling water, and
gobs of honey with her eyes closed - to the tune of Bryan Ferry's "Slave
to Love"; and the steamy sex scenes behind a giant roof-top clock-face
and in a rainy brick stairway, in director Adrian Lyne's sensual, soft-porn
film |
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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
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The opening credits sequence of governmental propaganda
films (featuring Big Brother - "played" by Bob Flag), the screaming
Two Minutes Hate, oppressed middle-class drone Winston Smith's (John Hurt)
narration from his diary writing: "April the 4th, 1984. To the past,
or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big
Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man... greetings";
Winston's job at the Ministry of Information (ironically-titled) to alter
the past by turning people into non-existent "unpersons"; Winston's
oft-repeated dream of a green pasture with isolated trees on the horizon
that is turned into a reality during an idyllic
love affair with rebellious Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), and once found out
the excruciating torture/brain-washing of Winston administered by O'Brien
(Richard Burton): ("If you want a vision of the future, Winston,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever") in Room 101 with the notorious rat-cage torture,
and the bleak ending in which Winston plays chess with himself in the
Chestnut Tree Cafe (as he admits his crimes on a television screen), after
having an unromantic encounter with Julia ("Under the spreading chestnut
tree / I sold you / You sold me") - he turns to the image of Big
Brother and tells it: "I love you", in director Michael Radford's
grim adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel
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Nine to Five (1980) (aka 9 to 5)
|
Personal secretary Doralee Rhodes'
(Dolly Parton in her film debut) tirade at lecherous boss Franklin Hart
(Dabney Coleman): (" If you say another word about me or make another
indecent proposal, I'm gonna get that gun of mine and I'm gonna change you
from a rooster to a hen with one shot!"); the "old fashioned ladies'
pot party" in which Doralee, new secretary Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda),
and senior office manager Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) fantasize about
killing their boss in various ways (Judy hunts him down with a rifle, Doralee
hog-ties him and puts him on a spit, and Violet portrays Disney's Snow White
and poisons him); also the scene of Violet - thinking she'd poisoned Hart
with rat poisoning - stealing a corpse from the hospital; and the scene
of Hart held captive by the trio in a bizarre suspension system; also Hart's
reaction to his unwanted transfer: "Brazil?"; and Hart's sycophantic
assistant Roz's (Elizabeth Wilson) reaction to the triumphant, champagne
drinking trio: "Holy merde!", and the catchy Oscar-nominated
title song sung by Parton, in director Colin Higgins' feminist-leaning workplace
farcical comedy |
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Ninotchka (1939)
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The two instances in the film
in which Garbo states her famous wish to be alone: "We want to be alone"
- and "We want to be left alone"; and the celebrated cafe scene
in which suave Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas) tells joke after joke - without
any reaction - and then accidentally falls off his chair causing dour, stone-faced
Russian commissar Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) to laugh and laugh uncontrollably;
the famous "execution" scene; the stinging repartee between Grand Duchess
Swana (Ina Claire) and Ninotchka; and the last shot of Kopalski (Alexander
Granach) picketing the restaurant with a sandwich board that reads: "Buljanoff
and Kranoff Unfair to Kopalski", in Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated romantic
comedy (with the tagline "Garbo LAUGHS!") |
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