Noah Henry Morriss

  • 100 Movie Moments

    Here’s a big list of 100 movie moments that stick out to me. I was inspired by a list in Patton Oswalt’s book Silver Screen Fiend, and thought it’d be fun to give it a try.

    I set a timer for an hour and went at it without doing any research or being able to google anything. I did name check song titles afterwards for specificity.

    Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk.

    1. All That Jazz: “Everything Old Is New Again” Dance
    2. Local Hero: Victor’s song
    3. True Stories: John Goodman’s rendition of “People like Us”
    4. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: “Hushabye Mountain”
    5. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:The dancing toys. When Dick Van Dyke looks in the mirror.
    6. Mary Poppins: David Tomlinson’s face during “A Man Has Dreams”
    7. The American Astronaut: Hertz Donut
    8. Amadeus: Intro scene to Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183
    9. Five Easy Pieces: Chopin scene
    10. American Graffiti: “Here I sit, suckin’ on popsicles”
    11. Hellraiser: Frank’s rebirth
    12. Blood Simple: Bullet holes
    13. Watership Down: Intro scene done by John Hubley
    14. The Jerk: “He hates these cans!”
    15. It’s a Wonderful Life: “Auld Lang Syne” Ending
    16. Harold and Maude: Fourth wall break
    17. The Muppet Movie: “Life’s Like a Movie”
    18. The Muppet Movie: “I have a dream too, but it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy”
    19. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “You lost today kid, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it”
    20. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure: “Tequila” dance
    21. Night of the Hunter: “Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly”
    22. Bicycle Thieves: Walking away hand-in-hand ending
    23. Down By Law: Ice cream scene
    24. Blue Velvet: Dean Stockwell’s “In Dreams” rendition
    25. Dune (1983): Harkonnen introduction
    26. The Exorcist III: Dream Sequence
    27. The Illusionist: “Magic isn’t real”
    28. Brazil: Michael Palin’s death
    29. Blade Runner: “Tears in rain” speech
    30. The Truman Show: Truman’s escape
    31. Batman (1989): “You can call me, Joker”
    32. Nashville: “It Don’t Worry Me”
    33. Batman Forever: Jim Carrey’s scream as Batman approaches
    34. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas: Charles Durning
    35. Vertigo: Dream sequence
    36. Toy Story: “We’re flying!” “No, we’re falling with style”
    37. Singin’ in the Rain: “Make ’em Laugh”
    38. Kiki’s Delivery Service: Catching Tombo
    39. Raising Arizona: Diaper chase scene
    40. Back to the Future: Skateboard chase
    41. Back to the Future: George McFly punching Biff (and all of Crispin Glover’s performance, really)
    42. The Shining: Jack’s conversations with Lloyd
    43. Home Alone: Church scene
    44. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: Gene Wilder rolling
    45. Nightmare Before Christmas: “Jack’s Lament”
    46. Casablanca: Singing “La Marseillaise”
    47. A Clockwork Orange: Opening
    48. The Elephant Man: Escaping the circus
    49. The Graduate: Pool to bed transition
    50. Lost Highway: “We’ve met before”
    51. Young Frankenstein: “Puttin’ On the Ritz”
    52. The Darjeeling Limited: “Look at those assholes”
    53. The Fly: “I’m an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it, but now the dream is over and the insect is awake”
    54. Repo Man: “Ordinary $&@#ing People”
    55. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Dracula puppet show
    56. Hair: Berger’s death
    57. 2001: a Space Odyssey: Bone to spaceship transition
    58. Being There: Ending
    59. Better Off Dead: Hamburger dance
    60. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: “We’re going the wrong way”
    61. Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Paul Reuben’s death
    62. Dodgeball: “If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball”
    63. Ghostbusters: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
    64. Groundhog Day: Saving the day montage
    65. Rushmore: “Oh, I’m a little lonely”
    66. Amélie: Box of old treasures
    67. Oh Brother Where Art Thou: KKK meeting failure
    68. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Flamethrower
    69. Paper Moon: Madeline Kahn
    70. Poltergeist: Meat scene
    71. Breakfast Club: Shop class lamp
    72. Smokey & the Bandit: “Two Diablo sandwiches and a Dr. Pepper”
    73. The Abyss: Michael Biehn’s performance
    74. The Incredibles: Opening interviews
    75. My Neighbor Totoro: Tree growing dance scene
    76. Tommy Boy: Chris Farley talking to waitress
    77. The Third Man: Harry Lime introduction
    78. The Thing: Defibrillator scene
    79. The Secret of Nimh: Sword fight
    80. Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers: Train chase
    81. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Holy hand grenade
    82. Toy Story 2: “But I don’t wanna use my head”
    83. Fantastic Mr. Fox: Rat fight
    84. Stand By Me: Lardass story
    85. Frankenhooker: Patty Mullen’s face
    86. Possession: Subway tantrum
    87. The Sandlot: “Forever”
    88. Saving Mr. Banks: “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”
    89. Saving Private Ryan: Tom Hanks’ end
    90. Invasion of the Body Snatchers: “They’re here!”
    91. Paris, Texas: Walking on opposite sides of the street
    92. Stromboli: Tuna scene
    93. Ed Wood: Martin Landau
    94. Aguirre: The Wrath of God: Left surrounded by monkeys
    95. Naked Lunch: “Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?”
    96. Limelight: Chaplin and Keaton
    97. Nightmare Alley (1947): “Wait. I just happened to think of something. I might have a job you can take a crack at. Course it isn’t much and I’m not begging you to take it, but it’s a job”
    98. My Darling Clementine: Hamlet recitation
    99. Under the Skin: Deflation
    100. Giant: Old, drunk James Dean

  • Photographs From a Trip to Maine

    Photo of two fisherman taken through a viewfinder
    Hallway in Fort Knox
    Husk of a crab shell found on a beach in Acadia National Park
    Another hallway in Fort Knox
    Penobscot Narrows Bridge
    Another, another hallway in Fort Knox (It was a cool place)
    A beach in Boston

  • Thoughts on Steve Martin

    I just finished reading Steve Martin’s autobiography Born Standing Up. I picked it up yesterday, read half of it, and and then read the other half this morning.

    It was a short book, just over 200 pages, so nothing to run home about in terms of length, but I think it still speaks to how it grabs you.

    I really only knew him from his films; The Jerk, The Three Amigos, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles… and not really from his standup. At the back of my mind I might have known that he had made a real impact with it, but I’d never sought out any of it.

    Watching some of it now it’s really amazing how confident he appears and how lively he moves around the stage in comparison to the dry humor and humble attitude that the book takes.

    As far as I know he hasn’t done any stand up since giving it up in the early 80s which strikes me as maybe not bizarre, but a bold choice. I’m not saying it was a poor choice, I love his film career and it’s clearly been lucrative for him, but to quit an art form cold turkey after honing your craft for more than a decade seems frightening.

    He mentions near the end of the book the idea that art is abandoned when it’s “finished”, if ever finished at all, and I guess this was his motivation for moving on.

    When you’ve mastered one skill, it’s time to begin learning another.

  • The Intoxicating Charm of Song and Dance in Movies

    About a month ago I finished reading Patton Oswalt’s Silver Screen Fiend, his short memoir of his years being addicted to film. I recommend it both to the cinephiles of the world and to anybody who has a love for any sort of hobby or niche subject. I think it’s pretty universal in that regard. It doesn’t have to be movies, it can be any passion that has consumed you upon being introduced to it, for better or for worse.

    This post isn’t about the book, though, it’s more about where the book took me. In one of the appendices, Oswalt includes a list of his 100 favorite movie moments. Inspired by it, I decided to give it a go myself, and over a few days I came up with about 100 movie moments that I felt really moved me. Some were silly (M. Emmet Walsh shooting the oil cans in The Jerk with Steve Martin yelling “He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!” for example) and some serious (M. Emmet Walsh staring at built up condensation at the end of Blood Simple).

    But after completing the list, I think the most interesting connection would be just how many moments contain characters either singing or dancing.

    Now, to tell the truth, a lot of the examples are from musicals, so it’s expected that there be at least some song and dance, but a lot of the movies are not musicals. Local Hero, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Blue Velvet, Harold and Maude, Night of the Hunter, Casablanca, Young Frankenstein, Forgetting Sarah Marshall… these aren’t musicals, but certainly have moments that are.

    Here’s what I think: music is intoxicatingly charming. That’s not really a big whoop, people listen to music all the time.

    But it’s a big step to make your own music, especially when you don’t really know how, and especially when it’s in front of other people.

    Singing, at least in my experience, can be a pretty terrifying thing for a person to do. There’s no instrument to blame if things go wrong, it’s just you. It’s like the fear of public speaking but doubled.

    So when a character does it, especially when they don’t do it well, it is intoxicatingly charming. It really feels very freeing and it’s often impossible not to fall in love with the characters right then and there. They’ve opened their soul to you in a medium that all about voyeuristically invading people’s lives and so you fall in love.

    Same can be said for dance. It’s just you and your body, there are no tools really (maybe tap shoes), and when a person really goes at it (think Napoleon Dynamite) it’s impossible not to smile.

    So, really, I love moments when a character truly shows who they are. When they are carefree and they sing as loud as they can and dance like mad. I love these moments because all they are doing is proving that it’s ok to be you.

    To sing and dance even if you think you can’t, because you probably, very likely, most definitely can.

© Noah Morriss 2023–2025

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