Watching a film now titled Employee of the Month and note the nearly blind optometrist shows a mangled plastic aircraft model after he is asked by one of the character how the P-51 Mustang is coming along. It was quite funny. 1/48 scale from the size.
I also recall Morgan Freedman is building wood ship model kits in Along Came a Spider as therapy following the death of his police partner.
Any others?
The child who stars in this past summer’s movie, Super 8, built models and even talked about dry brushing to the girl he was sweet on. They used a train he built as a prop for the movie they were making during the movie.
In 40 days and 40 nights,Josh Hartnett’s character built models to keep his mind off his"problem"
I seem to remember the man in “Moon” having quite an elaborate model town.
This has been discussed before.
Some notable modeling references in the movies and TV:
Three Days of the Condor: a control/contact (possibly Max von Sydow?) for Redford’s character is painting a Napoleonic miniature.
40 Year Old Virgin: Steve Carell’scharacter is painting a Zouave figure in one scene
In the Line of Fire: Eastwood’s character picks up a Scale Auto magazine
Chuck Norris: one of his 80’s films has him tutoring ther kid next door on building model airplanes
Sopranos: there’s an episode where one of Tony’s antagonists has a bunch of scale model cars
Leave It To Beaver: there was a model ship on the shelf in Wally’s and teh Beave’s room (TV show)
Tool Time: Tim had a bunch of model cars in his living room
The miniature painting reference reminds me of two more:
Ronin, of the characters is painting/detailing the Ronin Samurai diorama as he explains what Ronin are to Robert De Niro’s character.
Also Wesley Snipes has a pool table sized diorama of the Battle of Bull Run in Murder at 1600.
In Sunshine Cleaning, the one armed owner of the cleaning supplies store is a model builder.
2 1/2 men had Allen building models during one episode including the Mystery Machine and smokey and the Bandits Trans Am.
In the TV show, Our House, Shannen Doherty’s character built model jets because she wanted to be a fighter pilot.
That one was FUNNY! and what happens to one of those builds…
In The Good Shepherd, the main charecter builds ships in bottles.
On CSI a season or two back there was a wack-job who was building exact models of the crime seasons of people that were being killed. Wierd, freaky stuff!
The King’s Speech features a model biplane during a key sequence.
As mentioned, Super 8 (I LOVED the depiction of childhood in that movie).
Admiral Adama in Battlestar Galactica spends his downtime building an elaborate wood sailing ship. The he gets drunk when something awful happens and beats the tar out of it.
Rodney Dangerfield…Easy Money…
…Theres a Messerschmitt in the kitchen…
Tool time had a scene where Tim and Mark were building a model together that ended up a monster truck plane. Also seem to remember seeing something about a half plane half car and the comment “we need to coordinate a bit better”
“Walter Wickland”.
“In The Line of Fire” where they are tracking down leads on Leary, and they visit a long haired professional model builder in a chair.
I remember that one. Super detailed dioramas. Turned out to be some girl who’s father commited suicide and she blamed the CSI team.
The scene where they showed her workstation was really awesome. Something resembling a dental chair with modelling tools hanging off of it instead of dental tools. It was in the middle of a workstation with paint and other supplies within arms reach.
I remember seeing it in a CSI I believe, I think the victim was a kid who built models and there was a room with filled with hanging planes. I’ve also seen a couple episodes of That 70s Show that has had models…one was a Revell Memphis Belle was a prize at a church carnival and the other one was Fez was given a Revell P-51 to occupy himself
Tom Hanks in Big. After he’s become an adult, Josh has a model ship (aircraft carrier?) in his Manhattan apartment that he tells his “date” not to touch because the glue’s not dry…
I remember an episode of “Tales from the crypt” where an old guy loses his wife and the annoying but well meaning neighbor keeps bringing him model kits. I vaguely remember the episode itself but remember thinking how much I would love to have the pile of kits he had.
EDIT: The episode is “Collection completed”. Guy works 6 days a week, every week for 47 years, never home. Wife becomes crzy cat lady from being alone for so long. Guy retires, grumpy as hell about it and has to spend his time with his wife who has animals all over the place and treats them very well. Neighbor tries to get him into model airplanes, he’s not interested, loses his mind about the animals everywhere and takes up taxedermy instead. Wife doesnt like that kills husband.
Top Gun, some of the characters play with models when pretending to “work”.
Lovely Bones, The murdered daughter builds ships in bottle with her father.
Butterfly Effect, one of the characters builds models (and has a room full of) models