There are a couple of wicked scenes in a couple of movies I've seen lately. I thought both of these scenes were so cool I watched them over and over again.
25th Hour is a Spike Lee movie starring Ed Norton. I'm a big Ed Norton fan, so I was looking forward to this one in a big way. I thought it was quite good, but there's one scene in particular that killed.
I'm referring to the scene where Ed Norton's character Monty looks in the mirror and gives everyone a big F-You. It's an extremely powerful monologue delivered effectively by Norton. I found a transcript of his reflection here. I've seen the movie twice, but this scene a dozen times. It's that good.
Another movie I saw recently with an amazing scene wasn't nearly as good as The 25th Hour, but the scene was worth the price of admission. The movie was The Rules of Attraction and the scene was a character's high-speed travelogue of his drug-and-sex-infused trek through Europe. Speed kills, and this fast-forward tour of Europe kills. The rest of the movie is sort of a mess, but I had to watch this one scene a few times I enjoyed it so much.
Sometimes a great scene can bounce around in your head for weeks, months or even years. I'm thinking of Travis Bickle's "You talkin' to me?" scene or Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield's "Royale with cheese" scene. The monologue from 25th Hour and the high-speed travelogue from The Rules of Attraction are right up there.
