Cinema Paradiso (1988, It./Fr.)

#48
#58

• the scene of teenaged projectionist Salvatore (nicknamed Toto) (Marco Leonardi as teenager) of the local Cinema Paradiso movie theatre being advised when leaving the small Sicilian town of Giancaldo at the train station bound for Rome, to never return or look back, by his loving, blinded mentor/surrogate father Alfredo (Philippe Noiret): ("Don't come back. Don't think about us. Don't look back. Don't write. Don't give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don't come see me. I won't let you in my house. Understand?"). Toto then thanked Alfredo: "Thank you. For everything you've done for me." Alfredo's last words were: "Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt."
• also, the touching moment when middle-aged, world-famous Italian film director Salvatore Di Vita (Jacques Perrin as adult) returned to his peasant childhood Sicilian hometown of Giancaldo after 30 years to attend the funeral of Alfredo, whom he succeeded as the town's movie theatre projectionist after a devastating fire blinded him. He was given a gift of a reel of film by Alfredo's widow. When he returned to Rome, he projected the reel, watching the long montage of romantic ("pornographic") amorous screen kisses ordered spliced out of numerous films by the village priest Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste) when he was a boy

Spliced Together Censored Kisses

See "The Censored Kisses and Scenes of Cinema Paradiso (1988): The Kissing Montage" (i.e., His Girl Friday, The Gold Rush, The Outlaw, The Son of the Sheik, The Adventures of Robin Hood, etc.)

City Lights (1931)

• one of the greatest endings in cinema history, in which the now-wealthy Flower Girl (Virginia Cherrill) encountered the vagrant Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) in an accidental meeting for the first time since the Tramp selflessly sacrificed his own money to restore her sight -- when the Flower Girl recognized him, the Tramp's face showed a bevy of mixed emotions: shame, fear, bravery, pain, tentativeness, love, bliss and joy. At first, she appeared slightly dismayed and confused - he looked so completely different from what she expected - and then she was moved. The Tramp smiled and his eyes lit up when she recognized and accepted him for who he was

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

• the finale in which the doors opened and humans who had been missing emerged - and young Barry (Cary Guffey) was reunited with his mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon)
• the choosing of Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) - 'adopted' and taken into the 'mother-ship' alien craft; the final shot of Roy ascending into the wondrous, ethereal heart of the mothership

Roy's Ascent into the Mothership with Aliens

• one of the aliens communicating 'farewell' with hand signals to UN scientist Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) before the Mother Ship ascended and departed, as John Williams' score soared in triumph - incorporating "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio (1940)

Cocoon (1985)

#29

• the reckless behavior of retirement home residents unwittingly drained the life-giving qualities of a nearby magical swimming pool - and caused the death of one of the ancient Antarean aliens (one of the ground crew) in one of the cocoon pods; the Antarean leader Walter (Brian Dennehy) announced: "All this time to energize the pool. Now the life force is completely drained from the water. I'm not gonna be able to bring them back"; he basically admitted that his mission from Antarea to Earth had failed to save the twenty cocoon pods submerged in the Gulf of Mexico and return them to his home planet
• in a heart-breaking scene, Rose (Herta Ware) suddenly died due to dementia and respiratory failure; she was discovered dead in her bed by her husband Bernie Lefkowitz (Jack Gilford) - after which he carried her in his arms over to the non-functioning life-giving pool near the Florida retirement community and tried to revive her, completely stricken with guilt over earlier forbidding his wife to sample the pool's power out of fear and timidness; he asked Walter: "Can you help me? I have to do something for her. She - she's..." and was coldly told: "The pool doesn't work anymore, it's too late." Bernie vainly offered: "I'll give you everything I've got." Walter: "I'm sorry, Bernie, I wish I could help you, it's just too late." He sobbed over her: "Rosie, oh, Rosie!"
• in another poignant scene, Ben Luckett (Wilford Brimley) bid his 10 year-old grandson David (Barret Oliver) goodbye - while standing in knee-deep water fishing - and what he would miss on Earth (grandsons, fishing holes, hotdogs, baseball games, etc.) as a result of his decision to "go away" forever to another planet in "outer space" - but he also saw the benefits - an idyllic afterlife: ("When we get where we're goin', we'll never be sick, we won't get any older, and we won't ever die")

Descent of Antarean Spaceship to Pick Up Seniors - Raising Up The Entire Charter Boat Into an Alien Spacecraft
Boat-Load Departure of Seniors Transported to Spaceship

• in the film's finale, the boat-load of seniors (seeking immortality on an unknown planet) was transported upwards into a Antarean spaceship before it departed

The Color Purple (1985)

#48

• the scene in which two sisters were separated: young Celie (Desreta Jackson) and her teenaged sister Nettie (Akosua Busia) - when Nettie was forcibly thrown off the farm by Celie's brutish husband "Mister" Albert (Danny Glover) after Nettie had painfully rebuffed Albert's sexual advances during an attempted rape - Nettie cried out asking: "Why? Why? Whhhhhyyyy?"; Celie urged: "WRITE!", and Nettie responded: "Nothing but death can keep me from her!"
• the emotional scene in which juke joint singer Shug Avery (Margeret Avery), Albert's old sweetheart, sang "Maybe God Is Tryin' To Tell You Somethin'": ("Speak to me! Speak to me!") to her estranged preacher father Rev. Samuel (Carl Anderson) who hadn't uttered a word to her in decades; she shed tears of absolute happiness when he returned her hug as she whispered in his ear: ("See, Daddy? Sinners have soul too")
• the joyous reunion of a middle-aged Celie (Whoopi Goldberg as adult) with Nettie (who had emigrated back from Africa), beginning with Celie happily calling out "NETTIE!" - and followed by the kisses the sisters gave each other, barely daring to believe the other was real; and Celie's first introduction and heart-rending reuniting with her two adult children (a son and daughter); very improbably, Nettie had gone to Africa with a missionary and his wife who had adopted Celie's two children

Coming Home (1978)

• the stark, violent breakup scene between housewife Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) and her returning husband-vet Bob (Bruce Dern) (Sally: "It happened. I needed somebody. I was lonely..." Bob: "Bulls--t...if it's over with us, it's over...What I'm saying ISSSS I do not belong in this house. And they're saying that I don't belong over there")
• wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet Luke Martin's (Jon Voight) impassioned speech to high school students about the futility of war: ("...And now I'm here to tell ya that I have killed for my country, or whatever. And I don't feel good about it. Because there's not enough reason, man, to feel a person die in your hands or to see your best buddy get blown away. I'm here to tell ya it's a lousy thing, man. I don't see any reason for it. And there's a lot of s--t that I did over there that I find f--king hard to live with. And I don't want to see people like you, man, comin' back and having to face the rest of your lives with that kind of s--t. It's as simple as that. I don't feel sorry for myself. I'm a lot f--kin' smarter now than when I went. And I'm just tellin' ya, there's a choice to be made here")

Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt (1989)

• the six compelling, emotional stories told by the friends and families of AIDS victims (four gay men -- including film historian and AIDS activist/storyteller Vito Russo --a straight man and a hemophiliac boy) and the making of their personal quilts, accompanied by the news broadcasts following the development of AIDS from its euphemistic origin as GRID (gay-related immuno-deficiency disease) in 1980
• the famous speech by 36 year-old victim Roger Gail Lyon: ("This is not a political issue. This is a health issue. This is not a gay issue. This is a human issue. And I do not intend to be defeated by it. I came here today in the hope that my epitaph would not read that I died of red tape")
• the unfolding of the giant AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington, DC composed of thousands of quilts, each a separate, personalized tribute to an individual AIDS victim -- all accompanied by jazz musician Bobby McFerrin's affecting a capella lullaby "Common Threads"

Contact (1997)

• in a heartwarming, poignant scene, agnostic astrophysicist and scientist Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) saw her long-dead father Ted (David Morse) when she arrived on a beach on the alien planet of Vega - after her mystical journey, he told her as a proxy for the alien beings: ("You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable...is each other")

Ellie's Meeting with an Alien - A Shimmering Holograph of Her Deceased Father "Ted" Arroway (David Morse) on Vega

• after she regained consciousness back in the transport on Earth, Ellie was told that the machine to the alien planet had malfunctioned - "You didn't go anywhere"; she was astonished when she was told that "nothing happened" and that there was only static on the recording; Ellie was brought before a Congressional Committee to testify about her experience; ex-NSA official Michael Kitz (James Woods) and others who headed up the executive investigation were highly dubious of Ellie's fantastic story - she insisted that the elapsed time for her trip was 18 hours: ("What I experienced as 18 hours, passed instantaneously on Earth"); since Ellie had no physical proof or any evidence to show them to back up her experience of space travel and an alien encounter, Kitz accused her of suffering from a self-reinforcing delusion
• another panel member continued to denounce Dr. Arroway's account: ("Dr. Arroway, you come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts. Only a story that, to put it mildly, strains credibility. Over half a trillion dollars was spent, dozens of lives were lost. Are you really gonna sit there and tell us we should just take this all on faith?"); Ellie was forced to admit to Kitz that everything might have been an hallucination, and that she would react the same as the panel members "with exactly the same degree of incredulity and skepticism!"; Kitz stood and angrily berated her: "Then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony, and concede that this 'journey to the center of the galaxy' in fact, never took place!"
• Ellie responded to Kitz about the impact of the almost 'religious' experience that she had - and asked the panel to just trust her and have faith in her vision; she had now come to the belief that her experience was absolutely true, but that she could never prove it: ("Because I can't. I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not - that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and that hope. But...that continues to be my wish")
• as she left the US Capitol building after her testimony, thousands of supporters held up signs: "Ellie Discovered the New World," and "Open Our Minds Open Our Universe"

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, HK/US)

• the tearjerking death of heroic warrior and martial arts master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat), who was poisoned by arch-villain Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei) with the Purple Yin, and his final, long overdue declaration of his love for fellow warrior Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) with his dying breath: ("I've already wasted my whole life. I want to tell you with my last breath that I have always loved you"), followed by small, passionate kisses
• Li Mu Bai's final romantic farewell to Yu Shu Lien: ("I would rather be a ghost drifting by your side as a condemned soul than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit")

The Crying Game (1992, UK)

• the tearful and vengeful "interrogation" scene between a gun-toting Dil (Jaye Davidson) and IRA volunteer soldier Fergus (Stephen Rea), whom Dil had tied to his bed after finding out he had been complicit in the accidental death of his ex-lover - British soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker), as the song "The Crying Game" played on Dil's tape deck. Fergus told Dil that he loved him, would do anything for him and would never leave him - with Dil responding, as he laid his head on Fergus' chest/shoulder: ("I know you're lying, but it's nice to hear it")
• in the following scene, after Dil had killed IRA assassin/femme fatale Jude (Miranda Richardson) in his apartment, he turned the gun on Fergus, but admitted: ("I can't do it, Jimmy. He (Jody) won't let me"). Fergus reassuringly took the gun away when Dil put the gun in his mouth to commit suicide, and asked him with deep love and caring to run away - promising Dil he would see him again.
• after Dil fled, the police arrived on the street below - so Fergus took the gun, wiped Dil's fingerprints from it, and told Jody's smiling picture: "You should have stayed at home." He then sat down as he waited for the police to arrest him in Dil's place

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

• the tearjerking, strained relationship ("under unusual circumstances"), in David Fincher's sweeping but overwrought historic recreation, between young childhood sweetheart and later youthful Broadway dancer Daisy (Cate Blanchett, or as younger Elle Fanning/Madisen Beaty) and reverse-aging miracle-baby Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), when for a brief moment their lives intersected when they were both in their 40s
• Button's decision to leave Daisy as a wanderlust when a child Caroline (young Joeanna Saylor, older Julia Ormond) was born to them out of wedlock in 1968, so as not to burden Daisy ("You can't raise the both of us") - and writing postcards each year about regretfully missing various important events in Caroline's life: (e.g., 2nd birthday: "Happy Birthday. I wish I could have kissed you goodnight," "Five - I wish I could have taken you to your first day at school," "Six, I wish I could have been there to teach you to play the piano," "I wish I could have been your father. Nothing I ever did will replace that," etc.)
• Benjamin's words of life-advice for his daughter Caroline, as he roamed the world: ("For what it's worth, it's never too late or, in my case, too early, to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. And I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that will startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. And I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. And if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again")
• the instant of Benjamin's death as an infant in Daisy's arms in the spring of 2003: ("He looked at me, and I knew that he knew who I was. And then he closed his eyes as if to go to sleep")
• the concluding coda came after Daisy's last words: "Good night, Benjamin" - it was a poignant tribute to the characters in Benjamin's life: ("Some people are born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people dance")