Best......Scene......Ever

[Guest godthedog]

Though I haven't seen it in ages, I remember being absolutely stunned by the long take that opens "Touch of Evil".

the opening shot is the most-often mentioned one, since it's the flashiest, but long takes permeate that movie. if you pay close attention, you'll notice that they're everywhere. my favorite is the interrogation shot in sanchez's apartment, it's over 5 minutes long and so well done that most people don't even notice that there's no cuts.

 

i really wish welles was still alive today. with the cheapness of film equipment he'd still be cranking out movies like a mad mo fo, and with the advent of digital film he could teach that pretentious fucker mike figgis how to REALLY do a whole movie in one take.

[Guest MrRant]

Spaceballs:

 

Dark Helmet: Who made that man a gunner?

Major Asshole: I did Sir, he's my cousin.

turns to Sandurz

Dark Helmet: Who is that guy?

Colonel Sandurz: He's an Asshole Sir.

Dark Helmet: I know that but what's his name?

Colonel Sandurz: That is his name Sir. Asshole, Major Asshole.

Dark Helmet: And his cousin?

Colonel Sandurz: He's an Asshole too sir. Gunners Mate, 1st Class Philip Asshole.

Dark Helmet: How many assholes we got on this ship anyway?

Crew: YO!

lowers helmet

Dark Helmet: Keep firing assholes!

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

Watching "Spaceballs: The Movie". They reach "now" in the movie.

 

Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?

Colonel Sandurz: You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.

Dark Helmet: What hapened to then?

Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.

Dark Helmet: When?

Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.

Dark Helmet: Go back to then.

Colonel Sandurz: When?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: Now?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: I can't.

Dark Helmet: Why?

Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.

Dark Helmet: When?

Colonel Sandurz: Just now.

Dark Helmet: When will then be now?

Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

After they say "Yo!" He says, "I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes." Then he lowers the helmet and says "keep firing...assholes."

 

The end of Touch of Evil where Vargas is tracking them under the bridges and such up until the end are all farely long shots and a great sequence. A fantastic line from the film is when Dietrich tells Welles, "your future is all used up."

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Get Carter's penultimate scene where he beats the shit out of the dude at the rave-ish house party.

 

Trance + Stallone Kicking Ass = RATINGS!!

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Every scene in Touch of Evil could probably be rightly called the best scene ever. The opening, the tracking at the bridge, Quinlan's exit from the madame's place...

 

I'll second the ferris wheel scene from The Third Man, and add what I think to be another of Welles' best moments: the destruction of the bedroom in Citizen Kane, ending in a cathartic sob as Kane settles on the snow globe. And then there's the mirror sequence at the end of Lady From Shanghai...ooooog, Welles.

 

I adore the Layla sequence in Goodfellas, cutting between all the murdered mob men with long steady takes. Scorcese uses music impeccably, and that might be his best effort.

 

I will also vote for both the serious and comedic Baumer breakdowns in The Royal Tenenbaums. The first, the comic flashback to that "strange day at Windswept fields," is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

 

"He's sitting down, and he's taken off both shoes, one sock...and...yes, yes, I think he's crying!"

 

The second, to the tune of Elliott Smith's "Needle In The Hay," is chilling.

[Guest Gamengiri2002]

Just some others:

 

Various scenes in Fight Club (probably the most singularly "cool scene after cool scene" movie out there)

 

The Deer Hunter: Walken and DeNiro (this might be one of the most intense things i've ever seen)

 

The ending sequence of Taxi-Driver (come to think of it, also the entire sequence where Travis prepares for "battle")

 

The ending sequence in Chinatown

 

And, one of my favorite flicks of all time One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest:

 

The scene where Randle improvises the World Series when Ratched refuses to let the inmates watch it.

 

The entire aftermath after the party leading up to Randle's attack on Nurse Ratched

 

Randle coming back from Electro-shock faking being brain dead.

 

Cheswicks plea for his cigarette's ends when Randle punches through Nurse Rathced security glass.

 

where he gets the Chief to play basketball

[Guest Banky]

godthedog, how can you critisize anyone for enjoying a Kevin Smith scene? Is he not as much of a director as Scorecese, Fincher, or Nolan? Gimme a break. Kevin Smith delights millions throughout the world, and no cinematic elitist like yourself has any position to discredit his work. If you don't like it, fine, but don't tell me I have to see more movies because I enjoy it. I've seen enough in my lifetime to distinguish what I enjoy, but thanks for your advice.

[Guest godthedog]

**********some spoilers***********

 

ok, i can't resist any longer: i'm comandeering this thread and turning it into the "best orson welles scenes/shots" thread. it'll be my revenge against the kevin smith love.

 

there's the aquarium scene in 'the lady from shanghai', with all the shadows.

 

there's the stairwell scene between george & fanny in 'the magnificent ambersons'. i was amazed the camera followed them all the way up the stairwell in one shot.

 

supposedly there's a virtuoso ballroom shot from 'ambersons' that welles said was the best thing he ever filmed, but it was destroyed in re-editing.

 

from 'touch of evil', where to start...the abduction scene at the hotel, the strangling scene with the flashing light through the window, the interrogation scene, the scene with menses wearing the wire...

 

from 'chimes at midnight', the incredible battle scene that is about neck-and-neck with 'the seven samurai', and the climactic scene with falstaff in the throne room...not so much for the visuals as the emotional payoff.

[Guest godthedog]

godthedog, how can you critisize anyone for enjoying a Kevin Smith scene? Is he not as much of a director as Scorecese, Fincher, or Nolan? Gimme a break.  Kevin Smith delights millions throughout the world, and no cinematic elitist like yourself has any position to discredit his work.  If you don't like it, fine, but don't tell me I have to see more movies because I enjoy it.  I've seen enough in my lifetime to distinguish what I enjoy, but thanks for your advice.

there's nothing wrong with enjoying a kevin smith movie, i myself enjoy them a lot. 'chasing amy' is one of my personal favorites. but there's a huge difference between saying "i like _______" and saying "i think _______ is the greatest scene of all time" (which is what this thread is about). kevin smith is an incredible writer of dialogue, & that's why i love him, but that's about it. he just doesn't have any visual flair. it isn't that i don't like kevin smith, it's just that there's so much more stuff out there than 'clerks', 'mallrats', etc. it's like saying bret hart is the greatest wrestler ever without having watched any puro.

 

i also like saying things like that because it promotes discussion. otherwise it's just a bunch of lists.

[Guest Mattdotcom]

I really hate being sixteen. I can't enjoy an Orson Welles movie like older people. I'm just now getting into his films, and, as I sat down to watch Citizen Kane for the first time, I realized WHY I hate my age: every classic film has been ruined by Tiny Toons and The Simpsons. Seriously, I've seen Citizen Kane without ever seeing it. I'm sure a few of you get this ramble of mine.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

I agree with godthedog, but that means I personally just agree with him personally. This is all opinion. It's the greatest scenes you have seen and that you like. I can disagree and make a counter argument and then you can make an argument back and it's all great.

 

I do think that Kevin Smith is a great dialogue writer and can do very subtle characterizations, but as a director he's very bland. He sets up the camera and he shoots what's in front of him. I have even heard Smith himself say on many occaisions that direction is not his strong point outside of "stand here, is the camera straight? good. action."

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

But now Matt you get to see where all these references come from. How are you going to get the joke fully if you don't know where the joke is coming from?

[Guest Youth N Asia]

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate, some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it, well, he gets it, I don't like it...anymore then you do."

 

COOL HAND LUKE...BEST...MOVIE...EVER!!!

 

I also like Marvin getting his face blown off in Pulp Fiction.

 

And Hooper trying to convince Banky that Archie and Jughead are gay lovers..."He's just offering to help him with his homework!"

 

Then from a less then great movie...Cobra...when the guy is threatening to blow up the store.

 

"I'll blow this place up, man!" (not word for word)

"That's ok...I don't shop here"

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

I think we need to start differentiating between great lines and great scenes.

 

I love Cobra as a guilty pleasure. My favorite is at the end where they're running through what looks like an orange grove in Florida and wind up in a steel mill in Pittsburgh that seems to be in the business of producing open flames.

[Guest cabbageboy]

I'm surprised that Lady From Shanghai has entered this without a mention of any of the scenes involving Glenn Anders. God that guy was a nutjob! I loved the scene where he first proposes to Orson that he will pay him 5,000 to kill him and finishes with "so long fella!"

 

I also liked the scene on the bay where he tells Orson he wants to die and be away from major cities before "they start dropping those bombs!"

 

It's funny but Orson had better chemistry with everyone but Rita in that movie...no wonder they got divorced.

 

How can anyone mention the Third Man without mentioning:

 

1. The famous scene of the light showing Welles' face for the first time as he stands smirking in the dark corner.

 

2. The legendary sewer finale.

[Guest godthedog]

it's been forever since i've seen 'the third man', i should've rented it last night.

 

'lady from shanghai' was one of my favorite movies in high school, but looking at it now, it just seems like a toned-down version of 'touch of evil'. it follows the same formula: film noir/b-movie with classic visuals; just with some less in-depth characterizations. it's kind of hokey to me now, & just something that's kind of fun to watch.

[Guest Incandenza]

The entire closing sequence of GoodFellas is the bee's knees. That part where Liotta, in the courtroom, starts talking directly into the camera, gives me chills every time. I love it love it love it love it love it.

[Guest Big McLargeHuge]

Don't really have a face scene, but my favorite shot in most of cinema takes place in Evil Dead 2. I'm quoting a post I made sometime earliere here:

 

Ash standing on the edge of the busted bridge, as the sun sets.

 

The way the sun sets and Ash strikes this pose straight out of some comic book. I loved it.

[Guest godthedog]

lots of great stuff in 'goodfellas' too. it oozes with style. it's too bad that it had to infect almost all scorsese's subsequent work & make him think he had to give movies a 5-second attention span. it works for 'goodfellas' because of the lifestyle, but...'casino' seems to me just to be a rip-off of the format (with the same writer even), and 'bringing out the dead' had more tricks than necessary.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

You want a hokey Orson Welles film, rent The Stranger.

[Guest Incandenza]

I won't argue with anyone who says that Casino is a GoodFellas knock off, but I find it has its own charm...and an overrated Sharon Stone performance.

[Guest cabbageboy]

I will admit that Lady From Shanghai isn't really Welles' best film. It kinda drags a bit during the first half hour, but once it gets going it's crazy.

 

Another great scene is in Ed Wood where Lugosi shoots up on morphine (?) and then gets in the water to wrestle the octopus. Come to think of it, the actual last scene in Bride of the Monster that is depicted in Ed Wood is hilarious stuff.

[Guest JHawk]

Just a few that I liked, even if they're not necessarily cinematic marvels.

 

The scene from the Green Mile where the asshole refuses to get the sponge wet.

 

From Blazing Saddles, the "Where the white women at" scene.

 

The Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "'Tis but a scratch."

 

 

 

 

*POSSIBLE SPOILER (skip rest of post if you haven't seen Star Wars Episode 2)*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yoda going apeshit during the final fight scene. I've never heard a movie crowd pop like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*END SPOILER*

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

The courtroom scene in Boondock Saints. Fucking incredible. It still gives me chills, every time.

[Guest Mr. Pink]

Why the shit did nobody mention Reservoir Dogs?

 

 

The Mr. Blonde/Marvin torture scene > everything else.

 

 

 

Runner Ups:

 

Godfather Part II: Vito watches his mother get killed. Simply shocking how she just flies back, and young Vito's look is just eerie. Kinda.

 

Legend of Drunken Master: Under the train fight...Say? What TOTALLY REEKS OF AWESOMENESS?!

 

Dogma: Garage scene. Loki and Bartleby's argument is freakin awesome, and Damon's build-up and delivery of the "You sound like Lucifer, man!" is really really cool...

 

The Untouchables: Baseball/"Team Players" discussion. Robert De Niro = Al Capone character = Coolest of all time.

"I order to be a successful baseball team, we need to have team players....and one of you, isn't being a team player"

 

 

 

 

*******S*P*O*I*L*E*R**A*L*E*R*T**************

 

The Usual Suspects: Verbal walking away from police department/Det. Kuyan's realization of who Keyser Soze is. That, quite honestly, was the one time my jaw ever dropped. Simply amazing, and Verbal suddenly going from gimp-walk to normal walk was SO cool.

 

 

 

 

"Casino...yeah, I liked this movie....when it was called Goodfellas!"-David Spade

[The Dames 0]

Yoda going apeshit during the final fight scene. I've never heard a movie crowd pop like that.

That and the reaction for the Matrix trailers are the biggest pops I've ever heard...and I was at Skydome for Hogan vs. Rock.

 

I saw Star Wars at the Ziegfield in Manhattan btw.

 

Dames

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

You want a hokey Orson Welles film, rent The Stranger.

FEAR THE COMMUNIST, DAMMIT!

 

Over the past year I've managed to see every single one of the films Welles directed, and the dinner scene where Franz Kindler (Welles) just goes ranting for seriously about 2 minutes about the proletariat and so on...it's possibly the most overwrought thing he ever shot. I do like the snow scenery though, and the chess/clocks motifs interest me.

 

Now, you want a REALLY, REALLY cheesy Welles movie--rent Journey Into Fear. It clocks in at under 70 minutes and features most of Welles' Mercury Players (Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Morehead and so on) in really silly spy thriller roles...but the coup de gras. The finishing touch. The moment of brilliance.

 

Orson Welles as a gigantically fat chief of secret police.

 

A gigantically fat TURKISH chief of secret police. In a TURBAN. It made me so, so happy.

[Guest DrTom]

It's hard to pick just one scene. Maxim picked Phoebe Cates emerging from the Pool in Fast Times At Ridgemont High as their best scene of all time, but I'm afraid I can't agree. I can't pick one scene I like more than any other, so I'll name a couple from my 2 favorite movies.

 

From Scent of a Woman:

-- The scene when LTC Slade (Al Pacino) tries to kill himself with the gun, and he and Charlie (Chris O'Donnell) end up struggling over it. VERY intense. I thought O'Donnell should have won Best Supporting Actor for that scene alone: he made me believe 100% that he was deathly afraid of getting shot, right down to the quivering upper lip.

-- The scene towards the end, when Charlie faces the headmaster and the disciplinary committee before the entire student body. Pacino's performance there was incredible. "And Trent, Harry, Jimmy, whereever you are... FUCK YOU TOO!"

 

From Tombstone:

-- The gunfight toward the end, between Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) and Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn). You know who has to win, but I liked how Holliday, dying of TB, kept begging for Ringo to shoot him before the mortally wounded man finally fell.

 

There are so many good scenes that I've seen over the years -- the Death Star run, Yoda kicking ass, etc -- that picking just one is impossible.

[Guest Banky]

godthedog, I have seen plenty of movies, I have seen the puro of movies YET I still enjoy the hell out of that one scene. Does that make me less of a connaseur (sp?)? No, it means I am comfortable with the fact that I love the shit out of a dick and fart joke from a quality flick. I am not saying tis the best, but its what floats my boat.

 

In this case, I might as well slam people for loving the hell out of Scarface, a movie with no real point that practically promotes gang life. The Scarface character was decent at the beginning, but falls to shit at the end. He is an unintentional walking contradiction. If any of you think that any scene in that flick is good, then you need to check out more flicks.

 

Now tell me, how ignorant do I sound by saying that? I shouldn't dispute anyone's intelligent opinion.

 

PS. I am shocked by the lack of Apocolypse Now support. This movie is the most traumatising cinematic experience ever. But the utter beauty of it is that it is addressing a major moral issue. There are no winners in war, soldiers are blatently exploited by their countries, and for the msot part, lied to about their ultimate goal. As someone said during World War 1, Hell is in't spelt h-e-l-l it is spelt m-u-d. Aspects such as trench warfare, were people spent countless amounts of time in mud, blood, shit, piss, and rotting carcases have made war so traumatising. You'll never hear anyone say anything good about war as their are no winners. That is the ultimate message of this show. War is the most major part of our society today, and this movie adresses it better than any other in the same category. Hopefully one day people will recognize the absolute "horror" of war. This is why that scene is the best scene ever. Both Sheen and Kurtz can't go back to everyday society after living in hell. Both realized the brutal truth about this battle, and are emotionally torn in every direction. The horror, the horror.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

As Edwin and I continue to have our hokey Orson Welles film battle, let me toss up Mr. Arkadin.

 

Now for Apocalypse Now. I love the movie, It's one of my all time favorites. There are a lot of great lines and scenes throughout, but I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There isn't a scene that I think can be representative of the whole. With that being said, great scenes from the movie include:

 

-Willard in is hotel room

-Willard meeting the photo journalist

-Willard first meeting Kurtz

-when we first meet Kilgore tossing playing cards on dead bodies

-"The Ride of the Valkries" attack sequence, probably one of the best sequences ever laid to film and one of the best uses of music I can think of.