Great Movie Scenes

As yet another way of getting you all out there in the blog reading world to continue to get to know me better (and as continued motivation to get me to write more on this thing), I thought I would start writing down great movie scenes that I can remember or jot them down as I see the movie. So to get things started, there are 2 great scenes that I have seen very recently on two movies that I thoroughly enjoyed, the two scenes are as follows:

• The Wrestler, I think most people will agree that Mickey Rourke did a great acting job in this movie, but there was one particular scene in the movie that almost brought a tear out of your boy. In the movie, it is established that Rourke's character, Randy "The Ram," had a huge falling out with his daughter, Stephanie (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and basically doesn't speak with her. When he tries to mend the relationship, the daughter is very hesitant, but eventually gives him a chance. Randy takes her to the beach as a memory that he loved from when she was younger and they walked and talked to each other catching up. During this time, Randy explains how he regrets the mistakes that he made in his life, and then emphasizes how lonely his life is. When they are walking back from the beach, his daughter responds to him pouring out his heart to her by putting her arms in his arms to walk with him…WOW…powerful. Granted the relationship between the two is ruptured later in the movie, but Aronofsky (director) did a great job with this scene.

• Lost in Translation, I really enjoyed this movie when I first saw it, now that I am expatriate living in a country where I basically don't speak the language, this movie has easily become a top 3 movie for me. The situations that Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray, and Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson find themselves in with the language barriers and cultural differences ring very close to home with the situations I encounter on a daily basis. Actually, I can't confirm this, but Sofia Coppola, writer and director, had to have written this movie from first hand experience, the nuances in the movie would only be able to be translated from someone who experienced these things. Anyway, the scene that especially struck me (as there were many great scenes) is when Charlotte is in her room sitting on the windowsill looking out on the vast city of Tokyo. Even with all the people and all the things in Tokyo, as Charlotte gazes out, she not only is physically distant from the place she is currently living, the scene brings out how utterly lonely she is, even in a place that has so much. I think Jim Rome puts it best when he says…Great….Scene…Period.