ROUNDERS: The last scene where Mike flops the nut-straight and waits Teddy KGB out. Honorable mention to the scene where Worm gets caught dealing off the bottom of the deck in a room full cops. Also shoutout to the flashback scene of Mike putting a move on Johnny Chan at the Taj.
THE GODFATHER: When Michael Corleone is at the restaurant, goes to the bathroom to get the gun hidden gun, and comes back to blast the two men responsible for the attempted murder of his father.
WHAT ABOUT BOB: The scene where Dr. Leo Marvin is choking, Bob saves him with the Heimlich maneuver, and afterwards everyone runs to Bob to congratulate him on his efforts instead of making sure Leo was okay. “I just never lost hope…”
Honorable mention to the scene where Bob and Leo’s son are jumping on their beds late at night and shouting all sorts of profanities and cuss words while pretending to have tourettes. Also the entire scene where the news crew comes to Leo Marvin’s lake house and Bob takes over to make it completely about him is a classic.
UNCLE BUCK: The scene where Buck is in the principal’s office and tells that lady “You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, I’m coming looking for you! Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.”
Honorable mention to the scene where he’s walking through that big house party and one of the patrons takes his hat and the scene where the clown shows up drunk to the kids birthday party.
CASINO: The scene where Joe Pesci’s character puts a guy’s head in a vice and pops his eyeball out.
Honorable mention to the scene where Robert De Niro’s character meets Pesci out in the desert and tells him to never go over his head again.
Also the scene where Pesci tells the finance guy to go get his money, the scene where he tells the degenerate he’s giving money to, to turn the heat back on in his house “let me find out you fucked up, I’ll leave you wherever I find ya.”
And, of course, the scene near the end where Pesci and his brother meet the bosses out in the cornfields somewhere.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS: The scene where Dan Aykroyd says to his wife (in the backroom while he’s shaving and she’s in the shower) “Why do Chet’s kids look at him like he’s Zeus and my kids look at me like I’m a rack of yard tools at Sears?” [The wife attempts to answer by saying ‘maybe if he spent more time with them…’ but gets cut off when Aykroyd’s giant cell phone rings and he says “Put a cork in it honey, I’m talking business.”
Honorable mention to when John Candy is on water skies and yelling at Aykroyd, repeatedly calling him a ‘bastard’. Everyone in the boat thinks he’s yelling ‘faster’ and all hell ensues.
And of course the scene where John Candy tries to take down the big 96er.
GROUNDHOG DAY: Any of the repeated scenes sprayed throughout this movie would qualify. The Ned Riarson scenes. The scene at the bowling alley/bar drinking a beer with those two guys (“I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank Piña Coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over…”) Or all those scenes where he keeps getting to know Rita better by making mental notes.
CHRISTMAS VACATION: Eddie. He’s standing outside wearing a bathrobe in the snow at 9am draining his RV toilet into the sewer drain with a big hose in one hand while holding a beer in the other as a cigarette dangles out of his mouth. The neighbor comes out of his house in expensive jogging gear getting ready to go for a run, catches a whiff, and looks over at Eddie, disgusted. Eddie raises his arm, beer in hand, and says “Merry Christmas! Shitter’s full!”
MAJOR LEAGUE: Harris…The crafty veteran pitcher in this comedy about the Cleveland Indians baseball squad which is littered with all sorts of characters and misfits. Eddie Harris. The 40+ year-old pitcher who knows all the tricks of the trade. He shows young Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn some of them in this scene…”[ as he wipes his finger across his chest] Crisco; [as he wipes his finger across his waist line] Bardol; [as he wipes his finger along his head] Vagisil. Any one of them will give you another two to three inches drop on your curve ball. Course if the umps are watching me real close I just rub a little jalapeno juice up my nose, get it runnin’, and if I need to load the ball up I just wipe my nose.” Haha.
In a different scene Pedro Cerano, another player on the team who is a Buddhist worshiping someone named Jobu, tells Harris he does so because Jobu will help him hit the curveball. Harris tells him he might wanna consider putting all that nonsense aside and accepting Jesus Christ as his savior….
Cerano: “Ah, HEY-ZEUS, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.”
Harris: “You trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?”
Then veteran catcher and team leader Jake Taylor jumps in and says “C’mon Harris let’s not start a Holy War here.”
Honorable mention to every scene Bob Uecker is in as the teams radio play-by-play announcer.
PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES: John Candy doing the Mess Around. Easily YouTube-able. I watch it several times a year. One of my best friend’s dads told me in high school it was the best scene in movie history and in the 20+ years since I’ve grown to agree with him. Honorable mention to the “those aren’t pillows”, “My dogs are barking”, and the rental car scenes. That whole movie…unbelievably good. They don’t make movies like that anymore.
