The rules are:
- Each choice must be a specific moment from a film, not the film itself, even if it's a movie like My Dinner With Andre or Twelve Angry Men.
- Since picking out scenes is hard, you can write about as many different moments from as many different films as you like. There are no specific restrictions in what types of films you can draw from, even if it's one of Godard's movies or Tarkovsky's Solaris or any other film I have criticized in this blog. I'll even try to control myself is you pick a scene from one of Connery's James Bond films (emphasis on the try).
- I'd encourage you to try and diversify your range of choices as much as you can. In both my lists I cover movies in the science fiction, war, western, comedy, surrealist, and adventure genres with periods ranging from the 1950's to the present day.
- For each film you refer to you can only discuss one scene. For instance if you decide on writing about 2001: A Space Odyssey, you can't do both the shuttle docking sequence and the scene where Dave disconnects HAL, you'd have to make a choice between one or the other.
- For each scene, you should provide a reasonably clear description. I would advise some context regarding what is happening in the scene (though you are not required to do so depending on the circumstances, i.e. if you want to avoid spoiling a crucial twist that happens here), but the focus should be on what you like about that particular moment.
- I would also recommend making sure your descriptions are not too long. I'm not going to give a precise maximum length but try to keep your explanations from being longer than necessary.
My first choice is from The Goonies (surprise surprise I hear you say) this is my all time favourite film so why wouldn't my favourite scene come from it. It's The Wishing Well Scene:
This was an epic scene where they had to decide whether to carry on to find One Eyed Willy's treasure or go up the wishing well and back to their boring normal lives. There is no big set pieces or giant octopusses to distract you it's just Mouth (Corey Feldman) and Mikey (Sean Astin) making big speeches to their friends and I love it. In fact this came up in my Top 10 Film Quotes as well.
My second choice is from Toy Story 3, this scene had no words but I sobbed like a baby. Its the key scene in the movie where the toys are in the incinerator and have no way to escape so they just look at each other and hold hands, knowing what is about to happen. It seemed like such a grown up scene for a children's film but it made it for me.
I wanted to ask if it was wrong to love a movie scene even though it makes you cry every time, but I think Jenna's already answered this for me! I briefly studied animation in college and so animated films have always had a soft spot in my heart. One of my all-time favourite films (I don't have just one) is Monsters Inc, and although there are many funny scenes, this touching scene is the one that stuck with me.
I tend to sob quite often during films but what amazes me is how much you can fall in love with an animated character. It's easy to relate to a human actor, and sympathise with whatever they're feeling, but it's brilliant how animators can make us feel exactly what these cartoon-y monsters feel.
Have you ever watched Wallace and Gromit? Gromit, the dog, doesn't even talk and yet you know exactly what he would be saying just by his facial expression!
Confession time. Jenna chose her favourite scenes ages ago, and she's been patiently waiting for me to do mine. I've only recently widened the spectrum of films that I watch, and so most of my favourite films and scenes are from comedies. So with that in mind, you'll have to forgive me for now and ask me again in a years time, and then you might get a different answer!
Thanks again to John at Hitchcock's World for this Blogathon, it's been great fun to do and really made me think about why I love the films that I do.
