Favorite Scenes of the Year

Before I bust out the always exciting end-o'-the-year Favorite Films list, here's something a bit more fun-size and digestible: my favorite scenes of the year. In no particular order!

THE SOCIAL NETWORK / Dating the Stairmaster
This opening scene--a back-and-forth, give-and-give-harder between Mark Zuckerberg and the future Mrs. Dragon Tattoo--is a showcase for Sorkin's razor-sharp dialogue and Eisenberg's sparkling delivery of it. It's a perfect set-up for a fascinating character and what makes him tick. And it displays a David Fincher that's committed to his characters, that's going to give us as much story as style. It's a promise of things to come, and that promise is kept.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON / Guided Tour
Maybe my favorite use of 3D this year was the spectacular flight over and through animated rocky islands. The audience soars along with Hiccup (boy) and Toothless (dragon) as the young Viking gets a test drive on the winged creature and the experience is surprisingly breathtaking.

THE A-TEAM / Team Building
I liked The A-Team, ok?? And I'm using the term "scene" loosely here, since I'm essentially highlighting the film's first fifteen minutes in which we meet every character and steamroll from one tightly-wound, cleverly-choreographed action beat into the next. It's giddy, roller-coaster fun that makes use of helicopters, speeding vans, and discarded tires. You can't help but feel like you're following the trail of a sparking lit fuse toward the climactic bomb. OK, poor choice of words there, but you know what I mean.

BLUE VALENTINE / The Song-and-Dance
Blue Valentine is pretty heavy on the blue, but it also makes good on its promise of a valentine. As Cindy (Michelle Williams) slowly gives in to Dean's (Ryan Gosling) relentless wooing, she finds herself outside a storefront, offering her "hidden talent." As she dances, pushing through the embarrassment and putting herself out there, he begins to croon "You Always Hurt the Ones You Love." It encapsulates the relationship, despite being a rather warm, happy moment.

INCEPTION / Lionel Richie Predicted This
You know which scene. Joseph Gordon Lovett is mid-kick (or whatever--I've forgotten a lot of the terminology) and battling a ...Subconscious Protector Agent. OR WHATEVER. Anyway, gravity ceases to exist, and the hand-to-hand combat is literally off the walls. Visually, it's incredibly arresting, but let's not forget how sonically impressive this film is either. The kicks, punches, and crashes all pop with crisp aural details and if you don't sit up in your seat, you should get your spine checked.

THE TOWN / Whiplash!
I think maybe Ben Affleck watched his buddy Matt's Bourne films a few times in order to understand how thrillingly in-the-moment a car chase can be. (I haven't seen Friends of Eddie Coyle, so I can't speak to the film's--or the scene's--plagiarism.) The getaway car chase, in which a collection of rubber-faced nuns flee the convent with a sack full of spending money, puts you directly in the action with its license plate-level camera angles and perfectly timed choreography. I jumped in my seat a few times and, at the end, let out a held-up breath.

ANIMAL KINGDOM / One Bad Mother
It's downright impossible to talk about my mixed feelings regarding Animal Kingdom without giving too much away and, indeed, it's difficult to even discuss this particular scene without giving away details from the film's brutal first two acts. But for those who have seen it, it's clear what moment in the film has brought Jacki Weaver her flurry of accolades; after a prison visit with her criminal offspring, Janine Cody (Weaver) meets with a lawyer and sets a plan in motion. She does it so calmly--with such self-preserving logic--that you suddenly understand how her kids inherited their psychoses.

TRON LEGACY / Daft Punk Mario Kart
As underwhelming, and confusing, and full of arbitrary rules as the story was, I would have happily watched "people" play hopscotch in the Tron world for 2 hours. The laser-on-leather look of the world was pretty damn awesome, and it made me understand why people like video games. The scene that really grabbed my attention due to its whiz-bang hypnotics was the light cycle race. As someone who played with Marble Track rather obsessively as a child, I was totally won over by the twisting tracks, speed-burst arrows, and boomerang energy attacks.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK / The Geoffrey
I've gotten bored with the drug-use-is-inherently-funny theme that runs through several Apatow(ian) films, and they must have picked up on that because Nicholas Stoller raises the game big time in Get Him to the Greek. In one Vegas-set scene, our main characters--along with Diddy and Colm Meany--take a hit of a joint that, apparently, has every street drug laced into it. All of them. It's called, amusingly, a Geoffrey. The physical comedy and verbal chaos that ensues is roll-on-floor hilarious, although I suppose it would make more sense, in this case, to roll across a furry wall.

TOY STORY 3 / Trail of Tears
I would say "the scene that makes me cry" but then you would all say in unison, "WHICH SCENE THAT MAKES YOU CRY, AARON?" Toy Story 3 could have easily filled four slots on this list, but I'm going to skip over the montage of Andy growing up, Woody's first playdate with Bonnie's toys, and the hand-holding. OH MY GOD, THE HAND-HOLDING WHEN THEY'RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE. (Deep breath.) No, let's go with Andy and Bonnie, playing with the toys together, a passage of ownership--and partnership--that reminds every viewer how special the relationship between kid and toy is, especially a toy that requires no batteries but tons of imagination. It magically transports every viewer back to his/her childhood while confronting the (emotional) reality of growing up. It's cinema at its best.

For the nostalgic: Favorite Scenes of 2009; Favorite Scenes of 2007