Remembering films not by the "classic" scenes

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 Blue Straggler 05 Jul 2019

Something I've been pondering a while. 

There are some films that etch themselves into my memory not with the classic scenes or moments, but some other more minor aspect. 

Apocalypse: Now springs to mind. Sure, the whole thing is full of classic set pieces etc but it's the bit after Clean is shot and is dying whilst a cassette letter from his mother is being played, that has always really stuck with me. 

On a much much smaller scale, I remember Ghost World not for anything that Thora Birch or Steve Buscemi do or say, but for a simple bit of body language from the young Scarlett Johansson, who in the film has grown up just a little faster than Birch who calls upon her to come out and make mischief; Johansson simply tilts her head and gives an insouciant shrug, which says "I've grown out of you, I might still only be 16 but I have a part time job to get ready for and I'm not coming out to play". This is a film I've seen only once, on a small screen during a flight, in 2001. I think you're meant to remember some other stuff from it. 

The Big Lebowski....I mainly associate it with David Thewlis' weird and deliberately annoying laugh, in the scene where The Dude properly meets Maude Lebowski for the first time. Not the bowling, not the Nihilists, not the toe, not the big fantasy dream sequences. Thewlis' laugh. 


Plenty more but I'll throw this to the crowd for now. 

 Tom Valentine 05 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Catch 22 for a scene I cant find on You tube: Yossarian is walking down a dingy street at night while opera is playing in the backgound and all manner of stuff is going on around him: a man is being fellated in a doorway; another is beating a horse mercilessly, and so on. Yossarian seems oblivious to it all.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The state of this thread is reminding me of tumbleweed scenes in a load of Westerns!

 Tom Valentine 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

An argumentative person would challenge you to name one without googling.....

 MonkeyPuzzle 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> The Big Lebowski....I mainly associate it with David Thewlis' weird and deliberately annoying laugh, in the scene where The Dude properly meets Maude Lebowski for the first time. Not the bowling, not the Nihilists, not the toe, not the big fantasy dream sequences. Thewlis' laugh. 

For me it's where he tries to flick his roach out the closed car window and it lands in his crotch, burning him, so he pours his drink on his own crotch and crashes the car into skip. Funniest car crash on film.

 Tom Valentine 10 Jul 2019
In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Check out Alex Cutter's crash into the neighbour's car in "Cutter's Way". Drink driving isn't funny but I can't stay po -faced watching this.

 Tom Last 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Ghostbusters

Police officer to Walter Peck

”You do your job pencilneck, don’t tell me how to do mine...”

 MonkeyPuzzle 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Tom Last:

Poor old Walter Peck:

youtube.com/watch?v=G-b-CfHbPGQ& 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Wagons East 

 Jon Stewart 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> The Big Lebowski....I mainly associate it with David Thewlis' weird and deliberately annoying laugh, in the scene where The Dude properly meets Maude Lebowski for the first time. Not the bowling, not the Nihilists, not the toe, not the big fantasy dream sequences. Thewlis' laugh. 

Absolutely! My very favourite scenes in the movie. "Look I'm sorry if your stepmother is a nympho, but... have you got any Khalua?". 

There aren't any "classic" scenes in Living in Oblivion, but the line I remembered from the first time I saw it was, "I freak out in my dream, I freak out in your dream...no wonder I'm f*cking exhausted!". A year cannot go by without a viewing of that film.

Not to answer your question in a different way, this isn't possible with Withnail, because every single scene is classic. But "leg bound in polythene" has become an everyday part of my vocabulary (since I moved to Cumbria).

 Tom Last 10 Jul 2019
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> Not to answer your question in a different way, this isn't possible with Withnail, because every single scene is classic. But "leg bound in polythene" has become an everyday part of my vocabulary (since I moved to Cumbria).

Yeah, “Stop saying that Withnail, of course he’s the f*cking farmer” is I think my favourite line in that film.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Stallone in First Blood when he breaks down at the end “And he's laying there, he's f*cking screaming. ... I can't find your f*ckin' legs !”

became a bit of a laugh with my mates doing Stallone impressions saying “my f*ckin legs” he really chews the scenery

 Tom Valentine 11 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Not familiar to me for which I'm grateful since it scores 0% on Rotten Tomatoes., Sherlock.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Your loss then. 

 Pefa 12 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Off the top of my head remembering instrumental scenes that showed the landscapes in Gregory's girl with lovely modern jazzy sounds and silhouettes against the horizon. Rather than all the classic comedy scenes. 

 HansStuttgart 12 Jul 2019
In reply to Blue Straggler:

 

> Apocalypse: Now springs to mind. Sure, the whole thing is full of classic set pieces etc but it's the bit after Clean is shot and is dying whilst a cassette letter from his mother is being played, that has always really stuck with me. 

I simply love the scenes where nothing happens and the boat is moving along the river. It is so beautiful.

Hooper in Jaws saying he can't get spit up, for lining his dive mask. That's the main bit I remember from it. Just saw it at the cinema tonight and was mostly looking forward to that line!


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