From Shakespeare’s Sister, one of The Great Film Questions, and one that I’ve somehow never had to answer: what movie scenes always make you cry?
I kind of cry at movies easily, I admit, but the biggies would include:
-The end of Brief Encounter, when Laura and Alec are having tea for the last time. There’s clearly so many things they want to say to each other, and then that loud woman comes over and starts yammering, and Alec has to leave for his train, and they don’t even get to say goodbye.
-The end of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Shut the fuck up.
-The end of City Lights. I have a thing for good endings. Sorry.
-The “Baby Mine” sequence in Dumbo for reasons that have nothing to do with film, and everything to do with remembering watching it as a 4 year-old.
And from Amanda at Pandagon, what movies always make you laugh? Gonna have to admit that this is a harder question – mostly, after 2 or 3 times, I tend to watch with an amused grin, but not actual laughter. Anway, I’ll second her choice of Jack Lemmon’s whole damn performance in Some Like It Hot, and add to it the mirror scene from Duck Soup, and the first 40 minutes of The Lady Eve, the most manic film ever made (“I need him like the axe needs the turkey”). And it’s not a movie, but the “Basil the Rat” episode of Fawlty Towers always leaves me helpless.