Best Cinema Scenes
Who doesn’t love going to the cinema? Immersing yourself into the darkness, surrounded by strangers in (hopefully,) comfy seats as your favourite actors tell stories on screens bigger than your humdrum television. There are few times where your concentration is completely centred on the escape into the world of films and the cinema is one of them as you have complete (and hopeful) silence. So if we love movies so much, then it’s safe to say the characters we love adore cinemas too. And sometimes we get to see them, sitting in a chair, like we do, to watch a film, like we do.
So here are the best cinema scenes in films.
Gremlins
The Gremlins is a dark comedy and Christmas movie that everyone loves. An instant cult classic, the movie centres on the titular named creatures who wreak havoc on the small town of Kingston Falls. The movie was famous for its spin on black comedy and the silly Gremlins who are equally horrific and hilarious at the same time. Puncturing the “fourth wall,” the Gremlins seemingly mess around with the original film roll before revealing they are doing their own ad hock editing of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. Piling into the cinema to watch the movie gives our heroes Billy, Kate and Gizmo (the cutest monster you’ll ever meet,) a great way to kill them all. Special mention goes to the sequel and Hulk Hogan having a go at them when they do the same damn thing in a tongue in cheek salute to the original.
Dancer in the Dark
Jemmaroid recently posted about Lars Von Trier’s weepy musical. In fact, it’s one of the greatest films of all time and stars talented but often misjudged singer Bjork. Famously, Von Trier and Bjork hated one another but together, they were still able to produceDancer in the Dark; a film about a worker, Selma, going blind but keeps going forward in order to save her son’s sight. The thing is Selma loves musicals and immerses herself in the world of song as much as she wants. In a brilliant scene, Selma and her friend, who she passionately calls Cvalda, watch a black and white musical. But Selma finds it hard to see so Cvalda (actually called Kathy) re-enacts the dancers moves on Selma’s hands.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is the reality-bending, time travelling cult movie that launched the career of Jake Gyllenhaal. It is a weird old movie with Donnie, our lead role, twisting through the turns of psychology and philosophy. But Donnie is haunted by a big deformed bunny, much like Harvey from back in the day. So when he goes on a date to the Cinema with his equally different (which makes them the same,) girlfriend Gretchen, she falls asleep on his shoulder and that’s when the bunny, named Frank, appears and utters that most iconic line “why are you wearing that ridiculous man suit,” then blows our minds by taking off his mask, revealing exactly how important he is to the story.
Leon: The Professional
Well known killers and murders have better things on their mind rather than to go and see a film, right? Wrong. Because even the hardest of criminals need a night off once and a while. Or at least, Leon does. For those out of the know, Leon: The Professional is about an assassin who befriends a twelve year old girl (a young Natalie Portman) after finding her beaten up by her father. In this brilliant performance by Jean Reno, the once brutal and hard-faced killer becomes enchanted by the superb dancing of Gene Kelly, shedding the previous shell he had and becoming almost innocent in this charming scene.
Inglourious Basterds
Who hasn’t wanted to kill Hitler? Seriously, if anyone want to go back in time, the first act that is brought up in conversation is killing Hilter. So it is truly up to Quentin Tarantino to do just that in his movie which launched the phenomenal career of Christoph Waltz. In this movie, most of the climax revolves around a cinema, with Tarantino being an avid fan of the talkies. Shoshanna Dreyfus (played amazingly by Melanie Laurent) is on a revenge mission. And lo and behold, she owns a cinema that is hosting a premiere of the latest Nazi film. All those villains in that compact space, perfect for someone to set alight the nitrogen lined films and blow the whole place up. With one final message for them via the silver screen, Shoshanna commands her lover to blow it up. Not only burning a beautiful movie theatre down but burning some trapped Nazis too. And for extra measure, some Basterds turn up to plummet bullets into Hitler’s face.