100 Reasons I Love the Movies

McCabe and Mrs. Miller – McCabe has poetry in him

McCabe and Mrs. Miller was one of those films that subtly grew on me the whole time I was watching it – at the beginning I was having trouble getting into it and by the end I thought it was incredible. Though it was gradual, this scene was probably the turning point; the moment when we see there’s more to McCabe than the reticent gunslinger-turned-businessman.

Back to the Future II – hoverboard

It’s a freaking HOVERBOARD. What more do you want?

Black Dynamite – who the hell is interrupting my kung fu

I swapped out about four different Black Dynamite clips before just deciding almost randomly to go with this one. It gets at the action in the movies that Black Dynamite is homaging, and also the kind of irreverant loving humor Michael Jai White brings to the film. The impossible but never-confusing choreography and his irritation at getting interrupted are indicative of the kind of movie this is all the way through – both a parody and a near-perfect imitation of blaxploitation stylistics.

A Star is Born – “The Man That Got Away”

After a four-year absence from the screen following Summer Stock, Judy Garland returned for one of her greatest roles ever, a wanna-be starlet in a relationship with a self-destructive actor. This song, the one that brought her to her mentor’s attention, became a standard for her, and it’s easy to see why. One of her most emotion-filled performances, and that’s saying a lot for Garland.

Jurassic Park – welcome to Jurassic Park

We all know what’s going to happen at Jurassic Park with a T-Rex and a bunch of velociraptors running around, but it’s impossible not to get caught up in the magic promise of the park, as Sam Neill and Laura Dern do at their first sight of a real-life brontosaurus. Welcome to Jurassic Park!

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane – Jane loses it

It’s hard to think of more inspired casting than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as two aging show business sisters who basically want to kill each other, and Davis in particular turns in one of the best performances of her career as the bitter former child star Baby Jane. In the most powerful and haunting scene, she snaps a bit and reverts to her once-popular childhood persona. It’s positively terrifying.

Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein is the perfect homage, taking a specific film series (especially the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein) and paying loving tribute to it as well as lampooning it at every turn. You have to love the things you parody, and Brooks clearly loves his targets. This is one of my top three-or-four most quoted films, easily.

To Have and Have Not – “you just put your lips together and blow”

Lauren Bacall burst on screen with this little bit of sexiness, and neither Humphrey Bogart nor movie audiences ever looked back. It’s still utterly iconic – often imitated, never matched.

North by Northwest – blowing out the match

Every scene in North by Northwest is worthy of this list. But I had to highlight what I think is one of the sexiest fully-clothed moments on screen – I mean, the whole conversation is, but when Eva Marie Saint grabs Cary Grant’s hand and pulls it closer to her to blow out the match (much closer than she would’ve needed to)…yeah.

Down Argentine Way – Nicholas Bros

Most people would pick the end of Stormy Weather to highlight the fantastic talents of the Nicholas Brothers, and that’s an incredible routine. But this is the first time I remember seeing them (and is actually their first film appearance after Harold was grown up), and it’s stuck with me ever since – especially the part when Harold dives underneath Fayard’s legs in a split. They’d do that move again and often, but I think it’s the best here.

Utterly preposterous and over-elaborate science labs

I wish I could find more and better examples of this, but every time I’m watching an old horror or science fiction movie and there’s a scientist with a lab, I’m utterly fascinated by the elaborate systems of beakers and tubes and bubbling liquids that cannot POSSIBLY serve any purpose for what they’re trying to do. it pleases me muchly.

Contempt – title sequence

Godard was always experimenting with form, and here he takes on the credit sequence itself. Instead of just having the words printed on the screen, a narrator reads them off while a camera tracks toward us (run by cinematographer Raoul Coutard). At the end, a quote from New Wave-inspiring critic André Bazin, and Coutard turns the camera to us, a typical move by Godard to implicate the audience in the action. The only character onscreen here is the translator, a character Godard added to the story (not in the source novel) that represents the communication/translation/adaptation issues at the heart of the film – a nice nod right at the beginning as to what Godard is getting at in the film.

The Trouble with Harry – Harry’s feet

This is one of Hitchcock’s most humorous films, and a lot of the humor comes from this simple camera set-up, which is repeated over and over as everyone in the film tries to figure out what to do with Harry, who turns up dead in the woods and no one seems to know what happened.

The Man from Snowy River – rounding up the brumbies

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I watched The Man from Snowy River as a horse-crazy kid, and this has stuck in my memory as one of the most exciting scenes ever. Rewatching it, all that joy came flooding back, and it holds up just as well as I hoped it would.

The Philadelphia Story – “Oh C.K. Dexter HAAAAAVEN”

James Stewart in one of the best drunk scenes in cinema, with Cary Grant being the perfect foil. YouTube won’t let me embed it, but you can check it out over there starting here (more clips in the related section).

Targets – Boris Karloff as basically himself

After playing Frankenstein’s monster in the 1931 film, Boris Karloff was essentially typecast in monster/villain/horror roles for the rest of his career, something the highly cultured Englishman always rued. But at the end of his career, Peter Bogdanovich cast him as an aging actor who had been typecast in monster/villain/horror roles for most of his career. As Orloff (his character’s thinly disguised name), he and his would-be director (played by Bogdanovich) plan a personal appearance at a drive-in, which happens to intersect with the other plotline, of a young man coldly picking off random people with a sniper rifle. Art imitates life, life imitates art, and art collides with life in this highly underrated film that finally gives Karloff a chance to be himself, and he does so magnificently.

The Young Girls of Rochefort

Every frame of this movie makes me happy, from the bright pastel color palette to the jazzy score by Michel Legrand to the impossibly beautiful Catherine Deneuve to the sunny seaside setting. If pure joy has a cinematic expression, this film is it.

Chariots of Fire – Eric Liddel running

I pretty much grew up watching and loving Chariots of Fire, and no moment holds more pleasure for me than when Eric throws back his head and runs for the glory of God – “God made me for a purpose, for China. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.” Cue the only Vangelis score I actually like.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – Indy shooting the guy

Nothing says more about the kind of hero Indiana Jones is than when he eschews dilly-dallying with this guy and simply shoots him. Honor where honor is called for, but when it ain’t? Get business done and move on.

His Girl Friday – rapid fire dialogue

In early sound features, directors made sure to keep all dialogue separated so that audiences could clearly hear each line before the next one started, which sometimes leads to unnatural and awkward cadences in conversations. Howard Hawks said screw that, let’s overlap the dialogue the way it actually is in most real-life conversations, with people cutting in on each other, fighting verbally for the upper hand. It helps that His Girl Friday has a magnificent script and two great actors to play it off each other, but the speed with which it flies by continues to be its trademark. Here’s just a taste of it, from near the beginning.

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