Is there a better New Year’s Eve movie scene than this one in When Harry Met Sally? The movie makes perfect use of the holiday, including Harry Burns’s (Billy Crystal’s) questions about “Auld Lang Syne.”
Below is the climactic scene from the movie. {Spoiler alert: This clip is the film’s ending.}
After When Harry Met Sally shows Harry’s loneliness magnified by the special night, Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) wonders about the role the holiday played in Harry’s surprise appearance. She wonders if he is just lonely because he is by himself on New Year’s Eve. Harry directly confronts that possible explanation for why he ran to Sally: “And it’s not because it is New Year’s Eve. . . When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Where are my tissues?
But the movie New Year’s Eve kiss that one might compare to When Harry Met Sally for dramatic impact is when Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) kisses Fredo (John Cazale) with the kiss of death at a New Year’s Eve party in The Godfather: Part II. Michael tells Fredo, “You broke my heart. You broke my heart.”
More tissues, please.
Happy New Year. In the new year, may your kisses be of the When Harry Met Sally type instead of of the Godfather: Part II type.
What is your favorite portrayal of New Year’s Eve? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Because nothing says Christmas as much as a quiz, here is another Christmas quiz to go with our previous quiz on music from classic Christmas films and TV specials. Here, see how many questions you can answer out of the following nine questions about Christmas in the movies. Answers appear at the end.
One of the most anticipated movies for the coming year is Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and its trailer was just released. The film will be released in December 2012 as the first of two films adapting the novel, and it looks like anyone who enjoyed The Lord of the Rings movies will also like this one.
As you can see from the trailer, many of the actors from The Lord of the Rings movies appear, so that the “prequel” feels like a part of the series rather than a different movie altogether. The trailer includes Andy Serkis (Gollum), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), and Cate Blanchett (Galadriel). The Hobbit is set sixty years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring and follows Bilbo Baggins, who is played by Martin Freeman, on a journey where he discovers Gollum and the ring featured in The Lord of the Rings. I can’t wait.
In other anticipated trailer news this week, a theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight Rises was also released.
Around the country, some people are paying off Christmas layaway accounts for people they do not know. In a cool act of random kindness, Good Samaritans are going to Kmarts and anonymously paying off a customer Christmas layaway account or two for random strangers. In one case, a woman in Indianapolis paid off the layaway accounts for 50 people, saying she wanted to do something nice in memory of her husband who had just passed away. Other individual acts are on a smaller scale but still make a gigantic difference to the aided family. The acts of kindness began in Michigan and has spread to many other parts of the country. While the Good Samaritans have appeared in other stores, most have occurred in Kmarts, apparently because of that chain’s history of offering layaways. I know what our cynical readings are thinking, but Kmart officials deny any involvement.
The story reminded me of the film, Pay It Forward (2000), which starred Kevin Spacey, Haley Joel Osment, and Helen Hunt. In the film, a teacher played by Spacey gave an assignment to change the world, and in response, Trevor McKinney (Osment) developed his “Pay It Forward” plan. Under his idea, a person does a good deed for another and then asks that person to “pay it forward” to three other people who need help. If the plan works, the good deeds in the world will multiply exponentially. The film follows a reporter investigating the effects of McKinney’s idea while McKinney, his mom, his grandmother, and his teacher all struggle with their own problems.
The film got mixed reviews from critics but did better with audience members as shown by the 40% critic rating and 82% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While the film has some flaws, it is a decent entertaining movie that also addresses some serious issues. I suspect many went to the film expecting either an uplifting happy movie or a light romantic comedy and did not get what they expected. While the movie is ultimately not a downer, it does pull at the heartstrings. The movie was based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde, and there is now a Pay It Forward Foundation inspired by the book and film.
The Kmart holiday Good Samaritans do not appear to be asking anyone to pay their good deeds forward, but anytime someone does an act of kindness it involves a leap of faith that the deed will somehow make the world a little better place. And anytime someone else does an act of kindness it reminds us all that we should aspire to be better people too.
While speaking of layaway and good things, let’s do a good deed and listen to the best song about layaway, the 1972 song “Lay Away” by the Isley Brothers. Like the Kmart Good Samaritans, the Isley Brothers are putting some love on layaway.
Bonus Song of “Calling All Angels”: If you have seen the movie Pay It Forward, you probably recall the powerful use of a song at the end. I did not want to ruin the ending of the film for those who have not seen it, but you may see the ending along with Jane Siberry singing her song “Calling All Angels,” which she recorded with k.d. lang. Warning: If you have not seen the film, the link at the song title shows the movie ending. You may hear the song without ruining the ending here.
Test your knowledge of the classic songs appearing in movies and holiday television specials with these ten questions (plus a bonus question). How well do you know your Christmas music? Answers and videos of all the songs appear at the end with your score.
For romance, one might compare Meg Ryan’s New Year’s Eve meeting with Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle. That movie does a good job of not overplaying when the two finally meet.
