Twelve Insane Movie Moments

by Lons

12. The Closing Scene from "3 Women"

Altman's dream-like feminist parable is fairly insane all the way through, but the last scene - in which the three (or possibly fewer) characters have settled into a vacant but superficially pleasant domesticity - just turns the entire rest of the film on its head.  Altman himself has suggested that the final scene in the film may immediately precede the first scene, but it's not like that makes it any less loopy or intentionally confusing. I'm pretty sure there's a case to be made here that these 3 people are merely manifestations of a single individual, so them settling down somewhere "together" would fit in to this theory somehow, but I'd have to watch the film several more times to be sure.

11. The Train Conversation in "The Manchurian Candidate"

I love this scene because it blatantly makes no sense and isn't resolved in the film.  Mjr. Marco (Frank Sinatra) and Eugenie Rose (Janet Leigh) are clearly speaking in some kind of code here, because the dialogue is completely out of step with reality, and yet we're never given insight into the special significance of this contact or their relationship.  Has Marco been brainwashed as well, and is here receiving some sort of hypnotic suggestion?  That would seem the most plausible theory.  I've read reviews that dismiss this scene as an attempt at comedy, or as some sort of strange way of indicating that these characters have some kind of special bond or whatever, but I think it's by far the most intriguing moment in the whole movie, and one of the most peculiar inclusions in any American espionage film, a genre that typically demands everything be tied up in a neat little package by the conclusion.

10. Alien Sex in "The Man Who Fell To Earth"

David Bowie portrays an alcoholic alien with slimy, very extraterrestrial genitals who nonetheless manages to maintain a sexually active lifestyle in Nicholas Roeg's cerebral '70s sci fi film, and that's not even the most insane thing about this scene.  Bowie's character gets an Earth woman into bed.  Okay, that's reasonable enough.  He is, after all, David Bowie.  But they play around with a loaded gun even as they go at it.  Was that really necessary?  Was just the prospect of filming alien-human intercourse wasn't titilating enough for Roeg and Bowie?  "Just inter-planetary lovemaking?  No gunplay?  This movie is gonna be BO-RING."

9. The Banquet Scene in "Salo"

This one's insane as in "insanely disgusting."  Four demented aristocrats force young children to save and then consume their own...erm...waste.  There's an underlying purpose to Pasolini's madness here, but that doesn't make the scene any less stomach-turning.  I saw this movie at the New Beverly with a savvy revival crowd audience that knew what it was getting into, but there were still walkouts during the so-called "Circlle of Shit" sequence.

8. The Birth Scene in "Gozu"

This one comes right at the end of Takashi Miike's hybrid of Lynchian surrealism and yakuza thriller, so I don't want to say too much and spoil the fun.  But the fact that Miike manages to present one of the most grotesque, outrageous images of his entire filmography AND a nod to Jules and Jim within the space of about 3 minutes is just really impressive.

7. "Find the Fish" from "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life"

The so-called "middle of the film" is this completely ludicrous segment in which Terry Jones (wearing arm extensions and drawn-on whiskers) and Graham Chapman (dressed up like a mixture of Aladdin Sane and Grace Jones) search a Willy Wonka-inspired mansion for a missing fish.  Jones repeats that the fish would follow "wherever I did go" while unseen audience members yell out suggestions for hiding places.  Then an elephant waiter arrives.  The whole thing makes so little sense, it's actually creepy and unsettling, and it doesn't actually build to any kind of joke to break the tension.  Just weird...

6. Sam Elliott Greets Patrick Swayze in "Road House"

You pretty much have no choice but to admire the chutzpah of a film like Road House, which doesn't just invent a genre (the Bouncer Film) but an entire fantasy world in which there's some sort of importance to being a Bouncer beyond throwing people out of a bar.  This would be like making a film in which a Traffic Cop saves the universe or about a guy in a sandwich shop inventing cold fusion.  Elliott welcomes Swayze to town and they have a metaphysical discussion about the nature of Bouncing, and what it takes to be "the best" at said vocation, which is a very very silly goal to have.  Regrettably, the responsibilities associated with being the best bouncer aside from kicking people out of a bar are not mentioned, but presumably they have some connection to pulling out the tracheas of one's opponents.

5. Zion Dance Party in "The Matrix Reloaded"

Most of the scenes on here are just oddities from good-to-great movies, little scenes that have stuck with me because they're just so strange and idiosyncratic.  But this made my list because it's one of the most insanely stupid sequences I have ever seen.  Evidence Point #1 in the People's Case that the Wachowski Brothers disappeared completely up their own rectums while making these Matrix sequels, the Zion Dance Party not only has no business in a Matrix movie, it would feel out of place in pretty much every movie ever made.  With the possible exception of Robert Altman's Quintet, which maybe could have benefited from some phat beatz and a cheesy Lawrence Fishburne monologue to break up the icy monotony.

4. Crazy Homeless Guy in "Mulholland Dr."

In one of the single most frightening shots I have ever seen in a film, a creepy homeless man comes darting out from behind a dumpster outside a Los Angeles diner in an early scene from Mulholland Dr.  What makes the image so unsettling?  I'm not exactly sure.  There's music with very low, heavy bass and a sudden, loud crescendo.  The homeless person's motion is unnatural (I think the actress playing the character is on some kind of conveyor belt).  Lynch films the sequence slowly and deliberately to build the tension, moving the camera slightly in random directions to give the viewer a queasy sensation of uncertainty.  The "grime" make-up obscures the actress' face almost completely except for the eyes.  Whatever it is, this scene gets me every time I see the film, without fail.  I actually get kind of nervous when the scene begins, knowing that this is coming.

3. Animal Costumes in "The Shining"

So, most of the haunting in The Shining is fairly straightforward.  People died in the hotel and their spirits remain behind, giving the hotel supernatural power, turning it evil.  I understand all that.  But what's with the people in the fuzzy animal costumes in that one room?  Was this Stanley Kubrick's shoutout to the burgeoning Furry culture?

2. Guy's Head Explodes in "Scanners"

Among the most memorable shots in all of '80s horror, Michael Ironsides uses mind bullets to make some poor bald schmuck's head explode in Scanners, thus demonstrating his awesome powers of telekinesis.  Scanners isn't much of a horror movie, when it comes down to it, but this scene is so gross it almost makes up for a film that's far too thoughtful and introspective to be truly scary single-handedly.  Cronenberg's classic is a reminder of the visceral power that only hand-crafted effects can provide.  There have been numerous films in which computers have simulated an individual's head bursting, but none are as memorable as this one, which was actually made in reality as opposed to being grafted in later digitally.   This sort of work will soon be a lost and forgotten art, which makes me kind of sad.

1. Making Out With a Statue from "L'Age D'Or"

Many films, including David O. Russell's delirious I Heart Huckabees, have paid homage to this classic silent Bunuel sequence, in which a woman kisses the feet of a statue.  Presumably, it has some connection to Bunuel's own lifelong foot fetish, but it's just such an oddly compelling image, a woman prostrating herself before a stone man while a lush, swooning crescendo swells on the soundtrack.  The choice for #1 was, naturally, between two Bunuel scenes - this or the calf's eye being slashed in Chien Andalou.  But that one has been borrowed so much, it has come to feel less insane over time, leaving L'Age D'Or with the title.