Great pauses in movie history

The exact moment we pause a movie -- to go to the bathroom, to answer the phone, to get a drink -- is usually somewhat random.

Unless you're trying to wait until the end of the scene, you usually just choose a moment and press pause. There's little to no premeditation.

And so I think it's kind of funny when you happen to get a really good one.

In fact, I've taken pictures of funny pauses before. After the one I got last night during Gnomeo & Juliet, I think it's time to start an unofficial, sort-of series on my blog.

I'll show it to you first, then I'll explain why I think it's so great.

Juliet (left, voice of Emily Blunt) has just told her faithful frog sidekick Nanette (Ashley Jensen) that she has just met a boy, and he's "a blue." Believing that she's kidding, Nanette, whose real life function is a plastic, water-squirting toy, bursts out in laughter, spraying water everywhere.

However, at the moment I picked up the remote, Nanette had not yet had her reaction. Right as I hovered my thumb over the pause button and pressed, she exploded into laughter, leaving water droplets floating in the air, and Juliet closing her eyes to avoid the spray.

Just struck me as funny. Nothing more profound than that.

To give you a little more of the background behind Great Pauses in Movie History, I took a picture of a paused Angela Bassett a couple months ago during Jumping the Broom. I can't actually remember what's going on in the scene, but this pause just struck me as very funny:


I am pretty sure she had not just taken a bite out of an onion, but beyond that, I don't remember.