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I saw “Mr. Deeds” last night. You know how a movie can be so bad it’s good? This wasn’t that kind of movie at all. It was just bad. I’m not even going to link it from this page.

There was this one scene which was kind of amusing, where Adam Sandler and his new buddies were singing “Major Tom” while on a helicopter to New York. And then today I heard Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and was reminded of the scene in Almost Famous where everyone on the bus sings that song and quits being mad at each other. That was a great scene — one of my favorite movie music moments.

So, like the borderline obsessive that I am, I began to try to think of my other favorite movie music moments, like:

The scene in Wayne’s World where the guys in the car are jamming to “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
The scene in the Big Chill where they are making a Spaghetti Dinner and dancing around singing “My Girl.”
Tom Cruise in Risky Business dancing in his skivvies singing “Old Time Rock n Roll.” (and Ron Reagan spoofing that scene later on SNL)
The scene in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” when everyone at the table spontaneously sings “I Say A Little Prayer For You” to Julia Roberts.

So what are yours? It’s a fun little pop culture exercise worth a few minutes conversation over dinner tonight. Now to narrow the choices and make it more interesting, here are the Movie Music Moment rules:

It doesn’t have to be a good movie obviously.
It can’t be a musical.
The music must be worked into the scene, not on the soundtrack in the background.
The characters must interact with the music in some way.
That said, it can’t be a movie about musical performers like Fame or The Rose ’cause then it’d be way too easy.

I’ll strike the most obvious one off the list — The “play it again Sam” scene from Casablanca.