Magic Moments

I was thinking about doing a "reviews hall of fame" post or a "my favorite food photos" post, but then...Steve Jobs died.  I'm not much of a techno geek and the only Apple product I own is an iPhone (and not because of any ideology, but because my nephew and I can do Facetime), but I was struck by how sad so many people seem to be.  People who didn't know him personally.  I also have been struck by all of the lovely quotes by Jobs that are making the rounds on the 'web, especially the ones that came after his cancer diagnosis.  He seems to have taken a real 'live life to the fullest' approach, which is beautiful.  I frequently think that I could grab life by the throat a little more fully and stop getting bogged down in the day-to-day minutiae of living in NY.

On top of thinking these thoughts, I also caught a rerun of the movie French Kiss last night.  French Kiss is by no means a great movie, but it has a spectacular moment in it that always just takes my breath away, no matter how many times I've seen it.  So I decided to do a brief(ish) post about moments.  And maybe I'll be even more encouraged to make my every moment count.

Movie-wise, moments that strike me breathless every time include the scene in Sense and Sensibility when Alan Rickman comes into Kate Winslet's sick room and she thanks him.  The stricken yet relieved look on his face is heartbreaking--you see a whole life flit across his face in that one moment.  Gorgeous.  Of course, I could probably do a post on all-Alan Rickman moments, since he's a god, but that can wait... :)

In French Kiss, it's all silly and goofy and Meg Ryan is annoying, but suddenly there's a moment on a train, where Kevin Kline realizes what he feels for her.  The look on his face--love, passion, disbelief, fear--is astounding.  It always makes me wonder what that movie could've been, with someone other than Meg Ryan as the female lead...

Oh, another Kate Winslet movie:  Titanic.  Yes, Titanic.  And my favorite moment has nothing to do with Jack or Rose (btw, has anyone ever counted how many times the names Jack and Rose are mentioned?  The sheer volume is an indicator of how unfinished the screenplay must've been when they started filming).  It's all about Victor Garber for me.  He is so incredibly real and moving in that film--I would much rather have seen a movie about his character, starring him.  The most-sparkling moment for me is the look on Victor's face after Kate asks him if he's going to make a try to get off the boat.  Chilling.  That moment is followed closely by the mini-scene dramatizing the affection he shows the previously-unseen maid who isn't wearing her life vest.  Jeeminy.  He should've been nominated for maybe five Oscars for that flick...

Courage Under Fire.  Denzel Washington should've been nominated for an Oscar for his performance in this movie.  I think he's incredible here.  Glorious moment for me is when Denzel is talking to the soldier in the hospital and he realizes the soldier is giving himself a morphine overdose because the episode they're discussing is just so painful.  Sometimes I find Washington to be an actor commenting on his characters, like he's much smarter than the character, and isn't he a good actor to be playing him?  But in this movie, I feel like we're all on the journey together, and Denzel is a little rough, a little unfinished, a lot sad and he allows us inside during all the discoveries.  I like that.

Theater-wise, it's harder for me to remember moments, because the experience is so ephemeral anyway, but I do have images that are imblazoned on my brain.  Some of my very favorite moments include when Spalding Gray said 'god bless you' to me when I sneezed during Morning, Noon and Night; the finale of The Scottsboro Boys, when the boys turn around and they're in black-face--it's horrifying and chilling and scary and theatrical and wonderful, all at the same time.  I saw the show three or four times and every time, I found this moment to be so thrilling.

I enjoyed Triumph of Love well enough--I thought the cast was grand, the music was fine and the production was well-done.  But all of a sudden, Betty Buckley came downstage and sang "Serenity," and the production came to electric life.  I just wanted the production I was watching to stop time, and I wanted to see a new play, about that woman, and where that song came from.  It was amazing.

Same with the song "In Lily's Eyes" in The Secret Garden.  I was enjoying the production (it's one of my favorite childhood books), but then Mandy Patinkin and Robert Westenberg came downstage center and sang that song.  It was thrilling and raised the bar so high.  I could barely breathe throughout the song. 

Tom Stoppard has a couple of my moments--the beginning of Coast of Utopia, with one of the actors as an old man, sitting in a chair high above the stage, and suddenly there's swirling music and swirling cloth, and the chair turns and descends into the cloth.  Then the cloth is pulled off-stage and you see a mirrored stage with seemingly hundreds of people onstage.  I can't describe it very well, but it was stunning.  Then, in Rock n Roll, there is a moment between Rufus Sewell and Sinead Cusack where they realize they've missed out on so much over the course of 25 years.  Heartwrenching and it's just a look between them.

The end tableau of Journey's End.  The lights come up and the cast is standing in a line, each in a spotlight.  Then the scrim comes down, with names of the dead reaching as far as you can see, all the while, the sounds of bombs get louder and louder.  It was devastating.  In the best theatrical way.

Too many moments in Sondheim shows to list now, maybe someday I'll do a 'oh my god, I love Sondheim' post, but for now I'll just say one word:  "Epiphany."

And the moment that always makes me cry and the one that made me want to be in the theater--in Gypsy, when the strobe lights start blinking and the young kids go off stage, and the older kids come on stage.  So simple, so magical.  It makes me cry every.single.time.  I'm easy.  :)