Screen Test #111 - Happy New Year

It's time, once again, for the Cinema Playground Scream Test.

Happy New Year, friends.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Ringing in the new year with your Cinema Playground Scream Test.

We're counting down to the new year with new beginnings and new resolutions

and three New Year's movie quotes.

We play the clip, you guess the movie.

Here's clip number one.

Happy New Year.

Let me speak to Betty.

Party's over, she probably went home.

She lives there!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know her.

Well, then get on the phone.

Tell her it's an emergency.

Who?

Who should I say is calling?

You tell her it's Teddy from work.

On the phone, and there's a major emergency.

Hi, Ted.

I'm Margaret.

You sound down.

Has this not been the happiest of New Year's?

No, Margaret.

This hasn't been my happiest New Year.

This one's starting off pretty badly.

Four Rooms from 1995, starring Tim Roth, Antonio Banderas,

Madonna, and the band's new song, The New Year.

The New Year.

Selma Hayek, Lily Taylor, Marissa Tomei, and Bruce Willis, among others.

Tim Roth plays a bellhop in an aging hotel,

and the main character, whose first night on the job,

consists of four very different encounters with various hotel guests.

What's the problem?

I haven't got a problem.

I've got problems.

Plural.

Each room written and directed by four different directors,

Alison Anders, Alexander Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino.

The film was originally conceived as Five Rooms,

with Richard Linklater contributing a segment.

However, he withdrew before productions began.

Here's clip number two.

Hello, I'm Claire Morgan of the Times Square Alliance,

and as you all can see, the ball has stopped halfway to its perch.

It's suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year.

To stop and reflect on the year that has gone by.

To remember both our triumphs and our missteps.

Our promises made and broken.

The times we opened ourselves up to great adventures,

or close ourselves down for fear of getting hurt.

Because that's what New Year's is all about.

Getting another chance.

A chance to forgive.

To do better.

To do more.

To give more.

To love more.

And to stop worrying about what if, and start embracing what will be.

So when that ball drops at midnight, and it will drop,

and it will fall,

let's remember to be nice to each other.

Kind to each other.

And, not just tonight, but all year long.

Thank you.

From 2011, New Year's Eve, featuring an ensemble cast centered around New Yorkers on New Year's Eve,

including Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Catherine Hagel,

Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, and this scene with Hilary Swank.

Directed by Jerry Marshall.

The film was announced as some kind of continuation for Jerry Marshall's holiday-themed Valentine's Day, released a year earlier,

but the project evolved into a different entity, recasting some of the protagonists into different roles.

And here's your final clip.

Sorry, Harry. I know it's New Year's Eve.

I know you're feeling lonely, but you just can't show up here, tell me you love me, and expect that to make everything all right.

It doesn't work this way.

Well, how does it work?

I don't know, but not this way.

How about this way?

I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out.

I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.

I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts.

I love that after I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes,

and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.

And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve.

I came here tonight because 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.

When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the title roles from 1989,

Nora Ephron credited Meg Ryan with the idea for the famous restaurant scene.

And if you visit the real Cat's Deli in New York,

the table at which the scene was filmed now has a plaque that reads,

Where Harry Met Sally. Hope you have what she had.

I'll have what she's having.

At the end of the film, Billy Crystal is running through the streets of New York to see Meg Ryan on New Year's Eve.

At the end of Sleepless in Seattle, also written by Nora Ephron,

Meg Ryan is running through the streets of New York to see Tom Hanks on Valentine's Day,

and both are reminiscent of a scene from the 1960s film The Apartment,

where Shirley MacLaine runs to Jack Lemmon on New Year's Eve.

That's it for your New Year's edition of the Cinema Playground Screen Test.

I'm James Gagliardi.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for playing.

Thanks for subscribing.

Until next year.

Somebody forgot them.

Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something.

Anyway, it's about old friends.

Buh-bye.

Join us next week for another episode of the Cinema Playground Screen Test Podcast.

Please remember to replace the speaker on the post

when you leave the theater.

Visit the Cinema Playground at cinemaplayground.com.