61 Reasons I Love Movies

These are numbered, but really I don't have them ranked, per se. It's mainly just an organizational device!


1.) In "Nights of Cabiria" the incomparable Giulietta Masina is hypnotized into thinking she is in love in a powerfully vulnerable scene that becomes a symbol for love itself in all of its beauty and humiliation.

2.)Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction tracing an outline of a square right on the screen in a playful breaking of the fourth wall that reminds us that movies still have the power to surprise.

3.) Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman dancing on the clouds in Moulin Rouge while Ewan sings "Your Song." And oh yeah, the moon sings along. The moon!

4.) The creepy canibalistic toys in Toy Story.

5.)Peter O'Toole going back into the desert for the one man left behind in "Lawrence of Arabia."

6.) Warren Beatty trying to convince the vultures that Dustin Hoffman isn't dead in "Ishtar."

7.)The opening credits of "Apocalypse Now."

8.)The closing credits of M*A*S*H.

9.)"Scully... RUN!" Swarms of bees mass over Mulder and Scully in a great tense and kinetic moment.

10.)Jack Nicholson explaining the Donner party to his son in "The Shining."

11.)The jazzy, irrereverent music that propels "Get Shorty."

12.)John Travolta meeting Bruce Willis in "Pulp Fiction" and calling him a "palooka," as if to serve him notice, in this meeting of on-screen movie stars, that he was a big deal way before him.

13.) Kevin Costner poetically attempting suicide in the opening of "Dances With Wolves."

14.)The last two minutes of "Back to the Future" where Doc Brown returns in the DeLorean, which can now, to Marty's surprise, fly.

15.)Robert Deniro pressuring Joe Pesci to hit him in "Raging Bull."

16.)"You shoulda looked out for me a little, Charlie." Marlon Brando confronts his brother in "On the Waterfront."

17.)That huge-ass boulder in "Raiders."

18.)The amnesiac father remembering his daughter in "A Little Princess."

19.)A really fun mudslide for Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in "Romancing the Stone."

20.)Steve Martin conversing with a freeway sign in "L.A. Story."

21.)"You have no idea." Jeremey Irons playfully teasing his lawyer in "Reversal of Fortune."

22.)Bill Murray and the electroshock psychic test in "Ghostbusters."

23.)Jack Nicholson triumphantly reveling in the make-believe baseball game in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

24.)Jimmy Stewart's filibuster in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

25.) Adam Sandler making a poor choice by going back to work too soon after being dumped in "The Wedding Singer."

26.) A bone thrown into the air by the primates in "2001" fades into an image of the spaceship.

27.)"There's no crying in baseball!" Tom Hanks explains the finer points of the game.

28.)Tom Cruise and Willem Defoe fight each other in wheelchairs in "Born on the Fourth of July."

29.)Kevin Spacey finds a way to get a nice severance package in "American Beauty."

30.)Carol Ann speaking through the staticy television in "Poltergeist."

31.)Holy water squirt guns in "The Lost Boys."

32.)"I'm walkin' here!" Dustin Hoffman screaming at a cab in "Midnight Cowboy," later echoed in "Forrest Gump" by Gary Sinise.

33.)Sigourney Weaver in that forklift walker thingy at the end of "Aliens."

34.)Michael Keaton talking into a tape recorder in "Night Shift." "Edible paper!"

35.)Gene Kelly dancing and singing "I Got Rhythm" with the French kids in "An American in Paris."

36.)Cate Blanchett freaking out when considering taking the ring in "Lord of the Rings."

37.)The fight to the finish in the attic at the end of "War of the Roses."

38.)Arthur's drunken dinner with a prostitute in "Arthur."

39.) The IKEA catalog come to life in "Fight Club."

40.)Charlie Sheen breaking down at being arrested in "Wall Street."

41.) Lloyd Dobler with a boombox.

42.)The Raising Arizona theme music.

43.)The final heartbreaking two minutes of "All Quiet on the Western Front."

44.) Julie Andrews teaching the Von Trapp kids how to sing in the space of one song.

45.)"Turn into the spin, Barbie!" Sound advice from Hamm to Barbie in "Toy Story 2."

46.)Kneel before Zod!" General Zod, not mincing words in "Superman 2."

47.)Alan Rickman reading Bruce Willis' note in Die Hard: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho. Ho. Ho."

48.)What Kevin Costner believes in in Bull Durham.

49.) Chris Farley pretending he had nothing to do with the car door falling off in "Tommy Boy." "What'd ya do??!!"

50.) The opening dream sequence in 8 1/2.

51.) The orientation film in "Being John Malkovich."

52.) "I'm sorry, I thought you were Richard Pryor." Bill Murray's explanation for dousing a waiter with water in "Scrooged."

53.)"I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer." Cary Grant bantering with Katherine Hepburn
and Jimmy Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story."

54.)Joan Crawford and her theories on cooking in "The Women." "If you throw a lambchop into a hot oven, what's gonna keep it from gettin' done?"

55.)A copier/fax machine gets what's coming to it in "Office Space."

56.)Captain Kirk losing his cool and screaming "KHANNNN!" up into the heavens.

57.)John Malkovich's mantra, "It's beyond my control" from "Dangerous Liasons."

58.)Mark Wahlberg gets an interrogation he didn't count on in "Three Kings."

59.)"How am I not myself?" An existential refrain undoes Jude Law in "I Heart Huckabees."

60.)Dan Ackroyd putting a fish in his pants in "Trading Places."

61.)A hapless Charlie Chaplin is strapped into the robotic feeding device in "Modern Times."