Memorable Scenes in Forgettable Movies

Back in the day, when I lived in Manhattan and was a movie theater manager, I used to see pretty much every movie that was released. It was easy; most of them were free.

One year I saw 152 movies in theaters, including 30 in one month. You have to dig pretty deep to see 30 movies in one month.

Now, I'm lucky if I see 30 movies a year in theaters, and I pretty much only go out to see the movies I want to see. Ebert & Roeper recently did a show on the Worst Movies of the Year, and I hadn't seen any of them. There was a time when I would have seen them all.

Looking back at the lists of movies I saw back then (yeah, I kept a list), I realize that there are entire movies that I have no real memory of. "Bordello of Blood"? Something about vampires, right?

I know "My Fellow Americans" is a Jack Lemmon movie, but I'm surprised that I actually saw it... but there it is on the list. "City of Industry"? "Metro"? "Night Orchid"? No memory.

Other movies I've seen in the past will sometimes have only a single sequence that sticks with me. And there's something fascinating about that. These are the things that I think we want to capture as writers/filmmakers; the moments that people will always remember. And the fact that you can remember them, even when the movie was otherwise pretty forgettable, is something too.

Here's a random memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable movie for me. In "Pump of the Volume" (which wasn't nearly as edgy or funny as it really needed to be), Christian Slater is an underground DJ, and Samantha Mathis is the girl he likes, and... I don't know. There was a plot there somewhere.

But what I remember is a great moment in the early second half of the film, when Christian and Samantha are arriving at school after... I can't recall. Doing something the night before.

But they meet up, in a crowd of people. The camera spins around them, and moves in tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until it's just their faces filling the frame, as their lips slowly, tentatively move closer. And then they have a great, little, perfect kiss.

A piece of visual ballet in an otherwise flawed film.

What moments are there for you, banging around in your memory? Resonant, perfect little pieces of films that are the only reason you hesitate when you come upon them on late night cable, hoping that fate will drop the scene in, right there, just at that moment?

Dredge them up. Let us know.