When Morgan Spurlock was doing publicity for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold earlier this year, he claimed that 1988’s Mac and Me contained the worst example of Hollywood product placement. After watching the following scene on YouTube, it’s hard to disagree.
SPOILERS
For the latest “Scenes I Love” I had to pick one of the most powerful scenes in cinema in the past ten years. I happened to catch this scene once again while channel surfing and came across it just exactly where the scene in the clip begins. I speak of the Miracle Cease Fire scene in Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 sci-fi dystopian (though the film does offer a glimmer of hope in the end) film, Children of Men.
This scene must be given some basic ground work to be understood why it was so powerful. In Children of Men the world hasn’t had a single birth for almost 18 years. In this mix is the only birth which has become the contention between a resistance group calling themselves the “Fishes” who are opposed to the government’s fascists policies concerning immigrants. So, with this in mind this scene comes across as powerful indeed.
The looks of everyone from the refugees, the armed “Fishes” to the government troops when they heard the baby crying in the arms of Kee as Clive Owen’s character escorted them from the battle-scarred tenement building was the pay-off that the film was building towards from the very first seconds of the film. Both sides intent on destroying each other stopped fighting just to be able to allow something which hasn’t happened in 18 years to find a safe haven from the fighting.
Cuaron’s direction of this scene also made it one of my favorite scenes ever in how he doesn’t try to preach that love and peace conquers everything. Once the baby’s cries were far enough from those who listened to it the fighting resumed in earnest. This scene had both hope and joy balanced with despair and futility all occurring in the same scene. It’s a shame this film wasn’t seen by many when it first came out during the 2006 Christmas season.
Don’t ask me why I love this scene from the 1980 grindhouse classic House on the Edge of the Park because I’ll go on and on. I could say that I love dancing in general. I could talk about how I own a red dress just like the one that Lorraine De Selle wears in this scene. I could rave about how pretty Annie Bell and Christian Borromeo were when they made this movie or the time capsule appeal of David Hess’s canary yellow suit.
But, in the end, I love this scene for two reasons:
1) The song playing in the background, composed by Riz Ortolani, is so bad yet so addictive and,
2) Giovanni Lombardo Radice is just so adorable doing his little dance.
During the weekend it looks like several people saw Final Destination 5 to the tune of over $18million dollars. From what has been said about this fifth entry in the on-going series of Death playing with his food this one was actually quite good and enjoyable. I’ll probably end up seeing it this week, but until then I re-watched my favorite in the series to date: Final Destination 2.
It’s from this second entry in the series that I pick the latest “Scenes I Love” and this scene I still consider the best opening disaster-kill sequence in the series. It’s the opening highway car crash and pile-up which sees one of the best car crash sequence ever put on film since the days of George Miller and his Mad Max post-apocalyptic series. This scene had everything.
This opening disaster-kill sequence beats out the plane crash from the first, the rollercoaster in the third and the NASCAR disaster in the fourth. I may change my mind once I see the bridge sequence in the 5th but it’ll take a lot for that to happen.
The scene in Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” where the crew reaches Mercury is one of my favorites. It may not be as powerful as Kaneda’s Death, but this is one of those moments I can watch and smile at. There are no words, but visually, It’s an awesome moment of reflection in the scheme of things. John Murphy and Underworld’s music add a nice touch to this.
Stephen King’s novels and short stories were mined relentlessly during the late 70’s and through the 80’s and the early 90’s. For the most part the film and tv adaptations of his work were adequate and passable. Some were downright awful and made one wonder if King was just trying to cash as many of his work for licensing paychecks or if he really thought the studios who purchased the rights would actually do a good job adapting them. One such studio which seemed to have done a very good job adapting one of King’s greatest works, Salem’s Lot, was Warner Brothers who adapted the classic vampire novel to become a mini-series for CBS.
I never saw the mini-series when it first aired in 1979, but I did see it a few years later when it re-aired on TV and then many more times on VHS and then on DVD. Tobe Hooper directed the hell out of this mini-series and turned what was a very complex modern retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a 3-hour mini-series that was both gothic and downright terrifying despite the restraints of TV.
While the mini-series does seem dated now it still retains that creepiness, foreboding atmosphere and scares which made Hooper’s Salem’s Lot one of the better King adaptations. The scene which will always stick with me and still gives me the chills whenever I watch it is when Danny Glick’s younger brother visits him in the hospital. This scene is just downright scary whether watching it as a 9 year-old or one in their 30’s.
While looking over at something to watch as the night wore on I came across a film that I still consider to this day one of the best action films ever made. People may try and guess that I’m looking at a Michael Bay flick (wrong). Maybe it’s a John McTiernan classic 80’s actioner (wrong again). Or maybe it’s one of those Luc Besson Euro-action flicks which became such the rage amongst the hipster cineaste during the 90’s (wrong thrice). No the film I’m talking about comes from Hong Kong and was the last actin film directed by the master of bullet ballet himself, John Woo, before he left for Hollywood to try his luck.
The film is Hard Boiled and it has so many iconic film scenes that it would be difficult to just choose which one I love. So, I decided to go right at the beginning and picked the “Tea House” gun fight which opens up the film. To call this scene awesome would be an understatement. The scene looks like chaos the moment the first gun goes off, but looking at this scene over and over one cannot help but wonder at the musical-like dance choreography in how the gun fight unfolds from beginning to end.
It’s not a surprise that the musicals of the 50’s and 60’s were some of John Woo’s favorite films and it shows in how he choreographs and films the scene. Chow Yun Fat as the coolest cop ever to walk a beat with the kickass nickname of “Tequila” almost goes through the scene like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly except this time the lead is not dancing in the rain or with Ginger Rogers, but shooting and weaving his way through a tea house full of Triad gangsters.
Two of the coolest sequences in this scene would be the body grind down the stair bannister and then the final climactic sequence in the end. Also, the way Chow Yun Fat and the main gangster look as they shoot it out reminds one of samurai dueling each other right down to the very stance they sometimes use.
Michael Bay and his supporters could learn and thing or two from Woo and this scene.
(Lynda Day George’s primal screen courtesy of 1982’s Pieces, directed by J. Piquer Simon.)
I’m watching one of my favorite movies, Walk Hard, on Comedy Central right now. One of the highlights of the film for me is when Dewey Cox goes to India and meets “the Beatles.” I love the way everything in this scene parodies every single music biopic ever made.
Just been watching The Social Network on Starz and I couldn’t help but think back to this important scene from one of my favorite films of all-time. It was the film which propelled Arnold Schwarzenegger from just being a bodybuilding icon but into superstar film icon. The scene occurs during the part of the film where Conan has just gone through years of becoming the best pit-fighter in all the lands and now repaing the accolades from other warriors, warlords and women. One of the warlords (looking like a Mongol horselord) asks the important question that everyone should be asking: “What is best in life?”
The scene finishes with Conan answering this important life question. An answer which actually has it’s roots from a much more detailed quote from the greatest conqueror in history: Genghis Khan. A quote that goes like so…
“The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.” – Genghis Khan
Conan’s answer is quite similar but has been simplified for the film, but still retains it’s impact. This is a life lesson everyone should live by. Mark Zuckerberg definitely lives by them.
Through the Shattered Lens