I was introduced to an actor today, and about an hour later we were standing on the platform at Sloane Square station, heading the same way home. And we got to talking about Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler.
A bit before that, we'd been talking about the industry and acting-- he was really interested in what I had to say because he'd not done much screen acting and was on the hunt for some advice. He brought up Jim Carrey to challenge my concepts about 'natural' acting and the 'less is more theory'. After that I rambled about how Carrey's films are different, because the world that exists in his movies is different-- like with Sandler, or Will Ferrell, the films give them permission to be bizarre and over the top.
Anyway, that's not what this post is about. The interesting part came after we stopped talking about the craft (our jobs), and instead, randomly, started talking about our favourite Jim Carrey films and moments.
I shared my favourite Carrey moment, and I was in hysterics as I explained it -- and then it got funnier because I remembered how the scene made me and my friend Nick laugh back when we were in school many a year ago.
Here's my favourite Jim Carrey moment. It's in 'Dumb and Dumber'. Harry and Lloyd have stopped talking to each other-- they go their separate ways.
A few scenes later-- Harry is walking through the desert, alone-- and then in a wide shot we hear Lloyd calling "Harry! Harry!".
Then we see it: Lloyd on a tiny, pathetic scooter. Then there's a BANG, and Lloyd swerves and skids, and then....
The rest is irrelevant. THAT is my favourite moment. And the actor today was like "That's so specific!". But that's the point! That's what we love about movies, those little moments that stick.
'Dumb & Dumber' is hilarious and I find that particular scene masterful for numerous different reasons, there's just something quietly hilarious about it. You couldn't reproduce it, couldn't copy it. The magic is etched in a moment caught on film nearly twenty years ago. It's amazing to me how I can love a scene in such an exact way, and recall it so randomly and unexpectedly on a tube platform in London. And the actor guy GOT IT. And I also remembered Nick from school, and how we spent the whole of school just quoting that damn movie and laughing and laughing.
Aren't movies just magic?
Just when I think you can't get any DUMBER, you go and do something like this....
ReplyDeleteAND COMPLETELY REDEEM YOURSELF!!
Hilarious, memorable movie moment!
Jim Carrey is good at creating those moments. I met him once. He was exactly like he is in his movies, which is to say he is completely over the top. So maybe his movies world does mimic the real world, for him--at least a little more than it does for the rest of us.
Great post. :)
My favorite is in Ace Ventura when he's in the mental institution wearing a tutu doing that backwards re-enactment of the "laces out" football play and then he goes to the water fountain, smacking water toward his face while slurping, then just kneels down and falls forward, banging his forehead into that bench.
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