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Movie Title/Year and Scene
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Screenshots
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The General
(1927)
- the many spectacular train chases, ground-breaking
pursuit sequences and acrobatic stuntwork as Southern Confederate
locomotive engineer Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) pursued his
own hijacked train (The General) and faced innumerable
challenges
- Johnnie's deadpan expressions and the perfectly
timed and staged scene of Johnnie with a stumpy, snub-nosed howitzer
cannon and his ride on the cowcatcher of the train as he flipped
away cross-ties strewn across the tracks
- the most expensive sight gag in silent film history
(filmed in a single take with an actual train - not a miniature)
when the pursuit train confidently moved half-way across a burned-through
bridge and it fell downwards - both the train and collapsing
bridge plunged into the river, a mass of hurtling metal, exhaling/hissing
smokestack steam, burning bridge logs, and a geyser of belching
smoke
- the romantic relationship between Johnnie and
lady-love Annabel (Marion Mack) - especially the scene when he
found her stoking the locomotive with toothpick-sized wood and
half-playfully grabbed for her by the neck, throttled and shook
her and then swiftly planted a small, loving kiss on her lips
- the almost-perfect image of his absent-minded
ride on the General's driveshaft (alternately raising
and lowering him)
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Ghost
Busters (1984)
- Ray Parker Jr.'s catchy theme song tune and the
catchphrase: "Who ya gonna call? - Ghostbusters!" and
the film's logo: a red-lined "No Ghosts" sign
- the unorthodox group of defrocked, eccentric
Columbia University para-psychologists or self-described
maverick "ghostbusters" in
modern-day New York, introduced to the tune of the theme song:
Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd),
and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), who were in the offbeat
business of supernatural extermination of poltergeists, spirits,
ghosts, and other haunts, using proton pack weapons
- the parody covers of various magazines proclaiming
their heroic fame
- the scene of Venkman conducting an ESP test (to
identify symbols on 80 cards) with two paid student volunteers,
and always accepting whatever answer the cute female (Jennifer
Runyon) provided: ("Incredible! Five for five. You can't
see these, can you?...You're not cheating me, are you?"),
but electrically shocking her male counterpart for every response
- the image of Venkman covered in ectoplasm after
being attacked by a green ghost, and sighing to his fellow Ghostbusters
with the oft-quoted one-liner: "He slimed me!" after
being covered in slime
- Venkman's statement - a paraphrasing of the famous
Latin phrase: "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass" -
spoken to the Hotel Manager (Michael Ensign) about capturing
their first ghost Slimer in a box: ("What you had there
was what we refer to as a focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm,
or a class-five full-roaming vapor. Real nasty one too")
- however, the manager refused to pay a special offered price
of $5,000 for entrapment and storage of the beast
- two of the Ghostbusters' customers: demonically-possessed
cellist musician Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) and her nerdy
accountant neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), (possessed by
the "Keymaster") who realized that their apartment
building (and her refrigerator) had become a gateway for hell
and the residence of ancient demi-god Zuul (the "Gatekeeper")
- the City Hall scene of EPA lawyer Walter Peck
(William Atherton) accusing the Ghostbusters in front of mayor
Lenny Clotchof (David Margulies) of being con-men and of causing
an explosion: ("These men are consummate snowball artists.
They use sense and nerve gases to induce hallucinations. People
think they're seeing ghosts, and they call these bozos who conveniently
show up to deal with the problem with a fake electronic light
show"); when Raymond retorted to Peck: ("Everything
was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by
dickless here"), Venkman confirmed: ("Yes, it's true.
This man has no dick")
- Venkman's seduction by the possessed Dana, who
proposed:
"I want you inside me" - and when he refused ("I
can't - it sounds like you got at least two people in there already"),
her levitation above the bed - and his later description of her: "I
find her interesting because she's a client and because she sleeps
above her covers... four feet above her covers"
- the scene of the Ghostbusters confronted
by the monstrous god Gozer, the Gozerian (supermodel Slavitza
Jovan) atop the skyscraper; Ray threatened Gozer: "As a duly
designated representative of the city, county and state of New
York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity
and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest
convenient parallel dimension"; Gozer angrily responded: "Are
you a god?...Then die," blasting them with lightning bolts from
her fingertips;
fourth Ghostbuster Winston Zeddmore
(Ernie Hudson) chastised Raymond for his stupidity: "Ray,
when someone asks you if you're a God, you say YES!", followed
by Venkman's threat: "All right. This chick is toast...Let's
show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown" - and
the Ghostbusters, with full strength, neutronized the "nimble
little minx," explaining her extermination as "a complete particle
reversal"
- the stunning conclusion and appearance of an evil,
gigantic mascot come to life - a 100 foot tall The Stay-Puft
Marshmallow Man, selectively imagined as harmless by Raymond:
("I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something
I loved from my childhood. Something that could never, ever possibly
destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft")
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The Girl Can't Help It (1956)
- the main character - curvaceous blonde bimbo Jerri
Jordan (Jayne Mansfield), the girlfriend/fiancee of retired ex-slot
machine gangster Marty "Fats" Murdock (Edmond O'Brien),
who wanted her to become a rock 'n' roll star in six weeks ("What
we're talkin' about is already built!")
- her spectacular hip-swinging walk down the street
(wearing a tight-fitting dark blue dress and broad-rimmed hat)
- and the racy reactions, causing ice in an iceman's (Henry Kulky)
delivery truck to melt - and her swiveling moves up an apartment
stoop's steps past a milk bottle delivery man (Richard Collier)
- causing the milk in the bottle to overflow frothily from the
top (an ejaculatory metaphor), and a downstairs apartment neighbor's
eyeglasses shattering (accompanied by the film's title theme
song sung by Little Richard)
- the scene of Jerri's climbing to the second floor
for her first meeting with recently-hired alcoholic press agent
Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) when she held up two recently-delivered
glass bottles with fresh milk to her gigantic, well-endowed chest
- one in front of each breast - an obvious visual gag, and greeting
him:
"Good morning, Mr. Miller"
- the scene at breakfast when she was cooking,
and she provocatively leaned forward while pouring his coffee
and serving the meal to tell Tom about how she was ready for
domesticity and motherhood: "I'm domestic. I hope you like
eggs souffle....It's not exactly a breakfast, but it's eggs.
I figured you for strong coffee... It's one of my favorite pasttimes...cooking...keeping
house, you know, keeping everything neat. How's your souffle?...I'm
glad you like it, Mr. Miller... You know, sometimes I think I'm
mixed up...You should see me in the morning without makeup. I'll
show you sometime. 'Pretty' is just how good you apply your base...I
just want to be a wife and have kids. But everyone figures me
for a sexpot. No one thinks I'm equipped for motherhood!"
- the film's Porky Pig-like cartoonish ending in
which male star Fats Murdock (Edmond O'Brien) stepped through
the enclosing frame of the final shot, walked forward through
the black, now-empty space to directly address the audience: "Don't
listen to him, folks. I'll see ya outside in the lobby when you
leave. I'll sing anything you want. I'm a Jim-Dandy singer."
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The Gold
Rush (1925)
- the scene in which the Little Tramp/Lone Prospector
(Charlie Chaplin) was marooned with another starving cabin mate
Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), daintily eating a boot like a gourmet
meal of spaghetti (the shoe laces)
- the brutish McKay hallucinating that the Tramp
was a giant chicken and chasing him with a shotgun
- also the scene of the precariously-positioned
log cabin on the edge of a crevasse
- and later the Tramp's charming and entertaining "Dance
of the Rolls" in
which he made two bread rolls (stabbed with forks) perform a
balletic dance on a table-top (the rolls appeared to be the two
feet of the dancer)
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Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
- the non-stop, on-air, improvised
radio patter of Armed Forces Radio disc jockey Adrian Cronauer
(Oscar-nominated Robin Williams) with his wake-up catchphrase: "Goooooooood
mooooooorning, Vietnaaaahhm! Hey, this is not a test! This is
rock and roll! Time to rock it from the Delta to the D.M.Z.!",
with topics ranging from a description of Nixon's testicles: ("That
they're soft and they're very shallow and they serve no purpose")
to the DMZ's similarity to The Wizard of Oz: ("What's
the demilitarized zone? It sounds like something from The Wizard
of Oz -- 'Oh no, don't go
in there!' 'Ohhh-wee-ohh, Ho Chi Minh...Follow the Ho Chi Minh trail!'")
- and the Pope's bathsoap product: ("Also the Pope decided
today to release Vatican-related bath products. An incredible thing,
yes, it's the new Pope On A Rope. That's right. Pope On A Rope.
Wash with it, go straight to heaven")
- and during his first break - his off-mike question
to his assistant Edward Garlick (Forest Whitaker): "Too much?"
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The Graduate
(1967)
- the opening sequence in which
passive recent college grad Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) was told
at his materialistic parent's celebratory party - a famous one-word
line of advice - to enter the career field of "Plastics!...there's
a great future in plastics"
- the scene of bumbling and bewildered
Benjamin's reactions to neurotic, lecherous and cynical close family
friend Mrs. Robinson's (Anne Bancroft) cool but firm sexual advances
and brazen seduction as she lured him into her house, poured drinks,
and left him flustered and confused; she was
perched with her left leg up on a bar stool (with the
camera shooting under her upraised leg); Benjamin delivered a befuddled
reply-question:
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me! - Aren't you?"
- the sequence of Benjamin's attempts
to be suave as he checked into the Taft Hotel for the first of
their many trysts; signing himself in as "Mr. Gladstone"
and feigning sleepiness, he assured the room desk clerk (Buck Henry)
that he had his toothbrush
- during the seduction scene
in the bedroom, he prematurely kissed her while she was
trying to exhale cigarette smoke; aggravating his bad
case of nerves by her coolness, she asked before starting to undress: "I'll
get undressed now, is that alright?"; he queried: "Shall
I just stand here? I mean, I don't know what you want me to do,"
then agreed to watch and clumsily retrieved a hanger for her
clothes; he asked, ridiculously:
"Wood or wire? They have both"; then, he spontaneously
grabbed Mrs. Robinson's right breast and banged his head against
the wall in frustration, babbling moral platitudes ("I think
you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends"); Benjamin
resolved to end the affair before it began, because he could not
believe that an older married woman, one of his parents' best friends,
was seducing him
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Grandma's Boy (2006)
- in this crude R-rated comedy, intoxicated and wasted
gaming expert/project manager Samantha's (Linda Cardellini) sexy
karaoke rendition of Push
It at
a party, when she ended up the song by attempting to lick her own
clothed breast, and then collapsed; boyfriend Jeff (Nick Swardson)
screamed out: "I
f--kin' love this girl"
- the "Milk Maid" sequence at the same
celebratory drinking/drug party when heavily-endowed Milk Maid
(Heidi Hawking) revealed her huge breasts to Barry (Jonah Hill):
(she
enticed him: "Look
how young and cute you are...Baby wants some milk?") and allowed
him to nuzzle his entire head in her chest (he told her: "Baby
loves milk") - for hours;
friends cheered him on as he gave a thumbs-up: "Yeah, suck
those jugs, kid"; later his
friend Jeff noted: "So Barry sucked on his
first boobie last night"
and Barry proudly responded: "For 13 hours"
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The Great Dictator (1940)
- the scene of unnamed Jewish barber (Chaplin) shaving
a customer in rhythmic time to a radio broadcast of Brahms' Hungarian
Dance No. 5
- the sublime mock ballet sequence of Hynkel dancing
with a globe balloon - a floating map of the earth's world - a
visual, satirical metaphor of what he hoped to dominate
- the comically-tense scene in which he faced a suicidal
mission if he found a coin in his pudding cake and his painful
consumption of three coins (only to hiccup them out at the last
moment, like winnings spit out from a slot machine)
- the comedic scene of egomaniacal Hitler look-alike
Tomainian dictator Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplin) and Mussolini-like
Benzino Napaloni (Jack Oakie) seated adjacent to each other in
adjustable barber's chairs as they competed to be higher
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Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
- the cameo scene in which Leonard
Maltin (Himself) was attacked by angry gremlins and strangled for
panning the original
Gremlins (1984) ("I was just kidding! It's a ten!...a
ten!")
on a cable network broadcast from the Clamp Enterprises Tower
- the scene of the discussion of flaws in the Gremlin
rules regarding the prohibition of feeding the creatures after
midnight
- the funny
parody sequence that poked fun at the "Why I Hate Christmas" dialog
by Kate (Phoebe Cates) from the first film - but this time a fear
of anything related to Abraham Lincoln
- the many cameos, and rapid-fire
movie and cultural references (Hulk Hogan, Rambo, "I'm melting"
from The Wizard of Oz, Daffy Duck, The Phantom of the Opera, The
Munsters, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and many more) - especially
the Marathon
Man (1976) spoof
when Daffy the Gremlin reenacted the "Is it safe?" scene
in a dentist's office
- Brain Gremlin's (voice of Tony Randall) "what
we want is civilization"
speech and his belting out, Broadway-style "New York, New York"
at the climax, joined by hundreds of Gremlins in the lobby
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Groundhog Day (1993)
- the fascinating, existentialist premise of the film: "What
would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was
exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?"
- the character of grumpy, obnoxious Pittsburgh weather
forecaster Phil Connors (Bill Murray), who despised reporting on Groundhog
Day, and told his co-workers Rita (Andie
MacDowell) and Larry (Chris Elliot) while on-camera: "This
is pitiful. A thousand peopIe freezin' their butts off, waiting
to worship a rat. What a hype! Groundhog Day used to mean something
in this town. They used to pull the hog out, and they used to eat
it. You're hypocrites! All of ya!"
- the first time that Phil
re-awakened on the
"Groundhog Day" morning of February 2nd at 6 am in Punxsutawney,
Pennsylvania (for the annual Groundhog Day festival) to the tune
of his clock radio playing Sonny and Cher's I Got You, Babe
- and realized that he was in an inescapable time loop ("What the
hell?"), and he confronted another hotel guest: ("Didn't
we do this yesterday?...Don’t mess with me, porkchop! What day is
this?")
- the scenes of his annoyance, boredom, exhilaration,
and self-destructive despair over the repetitive day, and his repetitive
reaction: "Aw nuts!"
- his conversation in a local restaurant with attractive
customer Nancy Taylor (Marita Geraghty), when he gathered biographical
information from her (her name, her high-school, her 12th grade
English teacher), and then the next day used the info to get her
attention and charm her: "Nancy... Lincoln... Walsh"; he claimed
that he was a classmate who asked her to the prom; he was able
to make out with her, but kept mistakenly calling
her "Rita"
- the 4th waking in which Connors again met annoying
insurance salesman "Needlenose" Ned Ryerson (Stephen
Tobolowsky), a former HS classmate - also known as "Needlenose
Ned" or "Ned
the Head" on the street with an enthusiastic "Ned!" -
and this time punched him to the ground with one sock; and
later, Phil pretending to be gay and hitting on Ned to get him
to leave: ("I don't know where you're headed, but can you
call in (sick)?")
- Phil's many successful rescues and repetitive daily
chores (catching a boy falling out of a tree, saving the mayor
from choking during dinner, and rescuing a homeless bum during
a cold night)
- his successful suicides and self-destructive behaviors
(driving off a cliff into a deep rock quarry in a stolen pickup
truck (while holding absconded Phil the groundhog behind the wheel
("Don't drive angry") and spouting the line as they crashed: "It's
showtime, Phil!"), electrocution with a toaster in a bathtub, stepping
in front of a moving truck, swan-diving off a building, stuffing
his face with food, robbing a bank's cash delivery, etc.)
- his lunch date with his lovely film producer Rita,
when he stuffed his mouth with a sandwich, and told her: "I
don't even have to floss"
- Phil's line to Rita: "I'm a God. I'm
not the God, I don't think..." - he explained that
he had survived numerous threats to his life: ("I
didn't just survive a wreck. I wasn't just bIown up yesterday.
I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, eIectrocuted
and burned....Every morning, I wake up without a scratch, not a
dent in the fender. I am an immortaI... I want you to beIieve in
me"); when she was unconvinced, he revealed his all-knowing,
omniscient ability about all the restaurant's customers and employees
(their names, desires, quirks, etc.)
- the progression of Phil's learning day after day
about how to woo-seduce the idealistic Rita by learning her likes
and dislikes (including 19th century French poetry and a sweet
vermouth on the rocks with a twist), that would help him to become
her ideal man after repeated dates:
"I know all about you. You like producing, but you hope for
more than Channel 9 in Pittsburgh....You like boats but not the
ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the
mountains. There's a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards
missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawI underneath
to be alone. You're a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones.
You're very generous. You're kind to strangers and children. And
when you stand in the snow you look like an angel"; Rita emphatically
rejected him when she realized he had rehearsed every part of the
date
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