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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

100 Great Things from Movies

Patton Oswalt did something like this a few years back, and I recently saw someone else post something similar online, so I felt like coming up with my own.  It’s by no means a complete list – I am sure there are things I will kick myself over for forgetting – and it’s in no particular order.  These aren’t the 100 greatest movies or moments, but just things that always stood out.  There are even three or four that were inspired by (or lifted wholesale from) the previously mentioned lists, but for the most part these are things that came to mind that could only happen in the movies:

  1. Talos in Jason and the Argonauts
  2. Werner Herzog’s voice overs
  3. Orson Welles’ reveal in The Third Man
  4. Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke
  5. The bike jousting in Quick Change
  6. Gary Jules’ version of “Mad World” in Donnie Darko
  7. “No prisoners!” in Lawrence of Arabia
  8. Burt Lancaster stepping over the foul line in Field of Dreams
  9. Gene Wilder’s blanket freakout in The Producers
  10. Frankie Faison as the landlord in Coming to America
  11. The diaper-stealing scene in Raising Arizona
  12. The baptism scene from The Godfather
  13. Miller’s Crossing
  14. Hannibal Lecter’s psychological dissection of Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs
  15. Burning Bright: a thriller centered on a young woman and her autistic little brother who are trapped in a house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane.
  16. Steve McQueen
  17. The gauntlet, sachem’s decision, and ending of Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans
  18. Anton Chigurh at the gas station in  No Country for Old Men
  19. Black Hawk Down
  20. Terence Stamp as General Zod in Superman II
  21. Clive Owen walking the baby out of the battlezone in Children of Men
  22. Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
  23. Bloom and Penelope in The Brothers Bloom
  24. Charlie Kaufman
  25. The Iron Giant being Superman
  26. John McClane and Hans Gruber in Die Hard
  27. Aliens
  28. The rainstorm scene in Freaks
  29. The Wages of Fear
  30. The wall in King Kong
  31. The Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin
  32. Regan telling Father Damien what his mom does in The Exorcist
  33. Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate
  34. “Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria” from Fantasia
  35. Leatherface’s mallet work and door slam in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
  36. Clarence Boddicker’s request for a phone call in Robocop
  37. The head sprouting legs and Palmer’s response in The Thing
  38. James Gammon as Lou Brown in Major League
  39. On the Waterfront
  40. Mugatu’s freakout in Zoolander
  41. The rebel fleet taking evasive action in Return of the Jedi
  42. The man in the bear costume in The Shining
  43. Dr. Strangelove gaining the ability to walk
  44. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood
  45. Peter Lorre in M
  46. Things to Come
  47. Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West
  48. The 1942 version of To Be or Not to Be
  49. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  50. John Huston in Chinatown
  51. E.T. seeing Yoda on Halloween night
  52. Ralph Feinnes as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List
  53. Mr. Orange’s brick of weed story in Reservoir Dogs
  54. Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher
  55. Groundhog Day
  56. Jeff Bridges as The Dude in The Big Lebowski
  57. Michael Myers’ head-tilt in Halloween
  58. The ending of Le Trou
  59. The opening titles sequence for Charade
  60. Brad Pitt, Dennis Hopper, and Christopher Walken in True Romance
  61. The song “Up There” in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
  62. The drug deal in Boogie Nights
  63. The plane explosion seen from the terminal in Final Destination
  64. Jim Carrey’s multi-directional morning pee in Me, Myself, and Irene
  65. Gary Oldman in Hannibal
  66. The Electric Mayhem bus in The Muppet Movie
  67. Bill Murray’s Richard Burton impression in Scrooged
  68. The “married life” sequence in Up
  69. John Cazale
  70. Utah! Get me two!” from Point Break
  71. Getting the retainer in Good Will Hunting
  72. The destruction of the machine in Contact
  73. “Tech Noir” in The Terminator
  74. discovering “Sloth” in Seven
  75. The opening scene of Narc
  76. The fight among the bamboo posts in Master of the Flying Guillotine
  77. Ben Foster as The Stranger in 30 Days of Night
  78. Harold and Maude
  79. Chunk’s discovery of the ice cream in The Goonies
  80. Ed Harris’ blue hand in The Abyss
  81. Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story
  82. Forrest Whitaker in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
  83. Kevin Kline yelling “Asshole!” in A Fish Called Wanda
  84. The Indianapolis speech in Jaws
  85. The opening battle in Gladiator
  86. Lee Marvin beating a man with a chicken in Emperor of the North Pole
  87. Wilford Brimley’s Cajun accent in Hard Target
  88. Mighty Joe Young and the burning orphanage
  89. The body bag moving down the hall in A Nightmare on Elm Street
  90. The plague of locusts in The Good Earth
  91. “Peggy Gordon” in The Proposition
  92. The church “hello” in 28 Days Later
  93. Joaquin Phoenix telling the kids to “vamanos” in Signs
  94. Frank Dux’s shidoshi and dim mak in Bloodsport
  95. The gremlin gargoyle in Gremlins 2: The New Batch
  96. Diving into the fountain in The Way of the Gun
  97. Liam Neeson in Taken
  98. The umbrella in Rififi
  99. The ninjas in The Last Samurai
  100. “Fragglestickcar” in Bad Santa 




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