Tag Archives: Scenes I Love

Scenes I Love: Up

Posted on by Arleigh

The passing of Steve Jobs has brought out condolences and praise for one of the most innovative and creative forces in technology, entertainment and how the world interacted in the digital age. One of the many things he has created and fostered was the animation studio we’ve grown to love and call Pixar. It’s difficult to fathom of anyone who doesn’t have at least one fond memory from watching a Pixar film. I have my favorite from several Pixar releases, but one that I really have enjoyed reliving over and over (sometimes with my brother who also loves the film) is the film Up from 2009. It’s from this cg animated film that I’ve chosen the latest “Scenes I Love” in honor of Steve Job.

I’m sure there’s many scenes other people love from this film. Whether it’s the great opening sequence that will bring the most cynical person to tears or scenes between crotchety, old Mr. Fredrickson and Wildlife Explorer Russell. I’m also sure that many would choose scenes involving their talking furry companion Dug. It’s the scene where Dug first meets up with Russell and Mr. Fredrickson which I love the best.

I would try and describe why I love this scene but I think watching it would be the best explanation why I love it so. The one below is a bonus and just shows why Dug is a favorite.

 

Scenes I Love: Zombie

Posted on by Arleigh

Lisa Marie picked her favorite scene from Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombie (aka Zombi, Zombie Flesh Eaters) and now I counter with my own favorite scene from this film.

This scene has a simple set-up. The wife of the doctor researching zombification on the island of Matool gets herself in a sort of a pickle. Zombies have laid siege to her island home and most of her servants have either fled into the night or have become zombie chow. She’s barricaded herself in a room as zombie begin to batter down doors to get to her. It’s in the sequence where she has thought herself safe as she’s barricaded the door to her room when the hand and arm of a zombie breaks through the door (for some reason quite flimsy and prone to splintering) and grabs her by the hair and begins to pull her out through the splintered hole in the door.

I could continue to describe the scene, but I think it’s better for people to see why this scene is the one I love from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie.

Scenes I Love: Zombie Vs. Shark

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so I realize that this is a pretty familiar scene.  Along with being one of the highpoints of Lucio Fulci’s seminal Zombi 2, it was also used — out of context — in a television commercial a few years ago.  I can’t remember what the commercial was for but I do remember being ticked off whenever I was on twitter and I saw people who had probably never even heard of Lucio Fulci going, “Awww!  I love the Shark/Zombie makeout commercial!” 

(Oh!  Wait, I do remember — it was one of those “Windows So-and-So was my idea!” commercials.  God, I hated that advertising campaign.)

Anyway, here’s a scene I truly love, shown in its proper context — the Zombie/Shark fight from Lucio Fulci’s 1979 masterpiece Zombi 2.  One thing I always wondered was whether or not that the shark came back as a zombie shark.

I kinda hope it did.

Scenes I Love: Jim James Sings Goin’ To Acapulco in I’m Not There

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When I’m Not There was first released in 2007, most critics gave most of their praise and attention to Cate Blanchett’s performance as one of the film’s six different representations of Bob Dylan.  In fact, Blanchett was even nominated for Best Supporting  Actress for grabbing her crotch and wearing a painfully fake mustache.  When I first saw I’m Not There, I thought that Blanchett’s performance was overrated.  Having recently rewatched it on DVD, I’ve changed my opinion slightly.  I now think that her performance as “Jude Quinn” is probably the worst performance she’s ever given.  Once you get over the fact that Cate Blanchett’s playing a man, the quicker it becomes obvious that she’s not a very convincing man. 

In fact, on subsequent viewings, I’ve come to realize that the only part of the film that really works for me is the final section.  This is the section where an aging Bob Dylan is played by (of all people) Richard Gere.  This is the section where Gere is known as Billy the Kid and he ends up wandering through a surrealistic frontier town while searching for his dog.  The town is full of people who look like they escape from an especially grim Fellini film and Bruce Greenwood pops up as Pat Garrett.  When I first saw I’m Not There, this final sequence seemed drawn out and rather silly.  However, on subsequent viewings, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that, with this end sequence, director Todd Haynes is at least finally being honest about being pretentious.

Another point in this sequence’s favor is that it features a haunting performance of Dylan’s Goin’ To Acapulco by Jim James and Calexico.  The contrast between the heartfelt delivery of the song, the intellectual pretensions of the entire film, and the inherent Hollywood slickness of Richard Gere all add up to create a scene that I truly love.

Scenes I Love: Children of Men

Posted on by Arleigh

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.

Scenes I Love: The House On The Edge of the Park (dir. by Ruggero Deodato)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Scenes I Love: Final Destination 2

Posted on by Arleigh

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.

  • tree log vaporizes highway cop
  • motorcycle crushes it’s rider
  • stoner’s car get rammed and dies in explosion
  • mother and son crashes headlong into wreck and explodes
  • fratboy looking guy being burned alive before huge semi finishes him off
  • SUV full of spring break college kids rolls over before getting the smi truck treatment

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.

Scenes I Love: Salem’s Lot (Part 1)

Posted on by Arleigh

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.

Scenes I Love: Hard Boiled

Posted on by Arleigh

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.