Top 10 Most Awkward Family Moments
Regardless of the season, it’s always important to make time for family. And with family comes some of the most awkward, amusing, cringe worthy or downright creepy moments on film.
Regardless of the season, it’s always important to make time for family. And with family comes some of the most awkward, amusing, cringe worthy or downright creepy moments on film. This selection of titles, including the much loved SIDEWAYS, covers some of the best and most guffaw-inducing moments out there, whether it be a talk about the birds and the bees, lying to mom, or perhaps something even a bit more weird…
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
10. SIDEWAYS (2004)
Paul Giamatti as manic Miles fakes a little visit with mom, just to steal some of her money. What makes this even more hilariously watchable is the fact that Miles isn’t a freeloading college student down on his luck and pinching some twenties from mom’s purse; he’s a severely middle-aged schmoe who should be very, very past this.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching9. AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)
There are so many deliriously awkward moments in this film, with Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham mooning and swooning over Mena Suvari to the bottomless disgust of his daughter Jane (played to a T by Thora Birch). Perhaps the best (but really they’re all so good) is when Lester is first struck by Mena’s, er, beguiling charm, and fumbles dreadfully while offering her a ride after a high school basketball game, all in front of both his daughter and wife.
As Jane puts it, right at the beginning of the film: “I need a father who's a role model, not some horny geek-boy who's gonna spray his shorts whenever I bring a girlfriend home from school.” True that, Jane. True that.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching8. CHINATOWN (1974)
For anyone who hasn’t seen this remarkable Roman Polanski classic, stop reading: the twist in this film is one for the record books. Although the moment doesn’t happen amongst family members, Faye Dunaway’s legendary breakdown, crying “She’s my sister and my daughter!” as Jake Gittes (Nicholson) slaps her repeatedly, reveals a whole layer that you never saw coming at all, and what an icky layer it is.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching7. STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
Oh, the good old days. When you could kiss your own brother passionately on the mouth and not have to deal with the fallout until the next movie!
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching6. BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS (1986)
This 80s film adaptation of the Neil Simon play captured the essence of what it meant to live in a cramped Brooklyn tenement with your entire Jewish immigrant family, with quarters a bit too close for any modicum of privacy. The awkwardness reaches a boiling point when one son is walked in on while on the toilet, as he pleads, “Close the door! Close the door!” and reaches for the shower curtain. Oy.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching5. BLACK SWAN (2010)
It’s such a relief when Natalie Portman, in her Oscar-winning portrayal of a severely overstressed New York City ballet dancer, finally lets loose, relaxes and starts playing with herself upon waking. Which makes the shock of finding her mother asleep in a chair not 3 feet away from her bed all the more uncomfortable, awkward and ever so slightly insane.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
4. THE HOUSE OF YES (1997)
This whole film is one long amazingly awkward family moment, what with Genevičve Bujold (perhaps the most awkward actress of all time) as the family matriarch, gawkish Tori Spelling (one of the few projects she is welcome in), and Parker Posey…always Parker Posey. In this tour de force, Posey is actually fairly smooth and non awkward, and if it weren’t for her sexual infatuation with her twin brother, things would just be peachy keen.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching3. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008)
Perhaps the most cringe-worthy film toast of all time, the crown jewel of Anne Hathaway’s performance in this film comes when she is called upon to make a little speech at her sister’s rehearsal dinner. This she does, but in the process digs herself so deep, makes it so totally about herself and her troubles, no one seems to be breathing by the end. Awkward!
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching2. AMERICAN PIE (1999)
Oh man, we just looked up this scene to refresh our memory, and happened upon the original, uncensored, two-minute long version of the puppet sex scene in this movie. There’s puppet poop play! Puppet watersports! (And we’re not talking windsurfing.) Puppet salad-tossing! But even the much cleaner final cut that made it into the movie -- less than a minute long -- is simultaneously hilarious and wrong. Some of the sex positions are not humanly possible -- and even if they were, you could never show them in an R-rated movie. We love the swift transition from candle-lit chest-stroking and sensually intertwined legs to hardcore doggy-style fucking -- all to the tune of a romantic power ballad. Pretty impressive for a plastic doll with no penis.
The later it gets, the hotter it gets. Enjoy your HOT SUMMER NIGHTS with Sundance Channel. Tune in for a triple bill of films every Friday and Saturday night in August.
Author: Em and Lo1. THE ICE STORM (1997)
The '70s still had an innocence in which it may have seemed A-OK for a Dad to have a ‘heart-to-heart’ with his son about certain ‘facts of life’, but in Kevin Kline’s case in Ang Lee’s subtle masterpiece of a period film THE ICE STORM, it all amounts to a 3-minute meandering speech in which he ostensibly instructs his poor son (played by a boyish Tobey Maguire) on where to masturbate. Yikes.
Do you thrive in dysfunction? Don't miss SIDEWAYS starring Paul Giamatti as a hopeless author with anger issues, airing this month on Sundance Channel.
Author: Dan Heching
