Magical Movie Moments

Superman: “I’m here to fight for truth, and justice, and the American way.”

Magical Movie Moments

There are lots of movies out there! Movies have our favorite little bits that we watch for the second time around. We love the “I coulda been a contendah” speech in On the Waterfront. We liked it when Tom Cruise takes off the rubber mask in Mission Impossible. We look forward to the exchange between Dorothy and the Good Witch, “Toto too?” “Toto Too!”

And, I think, many movies have personal little moments that we enjoy that are not the big moments; things that we picked out ourselves that we like or sit up and think “did I just see that?”.

I am sure that you have yours, here are a few of mine:

Shall We Dance
Richard Gere is an unhappy man who decides to take dance lessons. Early in the film, he is learning the waltz from Jennifer Lopez when the camera shows us their hands and how they clasp for the dance. Late in the film, Richard dances with Susan Sarandon, his wife, and we see the same camera shot but now it is two much older hands, the hands of a husband and wife who love each other. I love that bit.

Mama Mia 2
The dance number Waterloo. The camera pans up so that it is looking down on a Busby Berkeley type of dance pattern. There is a wheelchair whipping around in a circle. I want to see that again.

Harper
Paul Newman, what an actor! In some movies the camera points at him for minutes at a time, he was so handsome and charismatic. In Harper, he plays a detective. There is this one little bit that he does, he is entering a bar to ask some questions and then he steps back and shakes his shoulders and changes is posture so that he now looks dumb and stupid. That bit is very funny and quick and you’ll miss it if you are not looking for it.

The Sound of Music
We’ve seen this Oscar winner many times. The scene that I don’t want to miss is from the number Sixteen Going on Seventeen. I’ll show a clip. At one point in the choreography he runs her around the gazebo like he is training a horse! Wait, what? He is going to train her? The slow step out of it is like a horse step. It is brief but tells a whole story. I love it.

At the 3:15 mark.

The Winds of Change
Now and then the director will use the wind to tell us that change is afoot.

The obvious one is straight upfront in Mary Poppins. Bert: [singing] Winds in the east, mist coming in. / Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin. / Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, / But I feel what’s to happen all happened before.

In Parent Trap, both with Haley Mills and Lindsay Lohan; the turning point in the movie is when the wind blows into their shack. With papers scattered, they help each other and get over their hatred.

In The Holiday by Nancy Meyers, Kate Winslet, who has been thoroughly depressed having loved the wrong man, now stands in the El Nino winds talking to her soon-to-be boyfriend Jack Black and it is as if she has been cleansed. See the change in her after that!

Those are some of my personal favorite movie moments. I think all of us have our own private little specials when we re-watch a film.