Great Film Moments!

[Brian G Turner]

Thought I'd open up a thread for recommending favourite films moments....

Ben Hur - The Chariot Race

The film itself has some excruciating long Christian evangelising - but hopefully easily fast forwarded on DVD. There are lots of nice moments - I love the Arab who owns the horses - he was the original inspiration for a couple of Chronicles characters - notably Qas, but Ali also formed (and then escaped) from that mould. But the high point is easily the chariot race - truly one of the most spectacular moments in cinema history.

Cleopatra - Cleopatra enters Rome

A film of two halves, the Cleopatra/ Caesar first half is easily the more interesting, the second section where Richard Burton's "Anthony" takes over becoming terribly prone to long melodramatic scenes. It's just a shame that the grand entry of Cleopatra was actually cut - magnificent viewing, though. Certainly don’t make films like that anymore....

Jaws - "You're going to need a bigger boat..."

Yup - Roy Scheider's character sees the shark while aboard the Orca. The line says it all, and with a single sentence opens for the audience the fearful vulnerability of their position...

Return of the Jedi - Attack of the Rebel Fleet

Well, really, 'nuff said. The advent of computer graphics has yet to replace the realism that a few well constructed models can bring. And despite being 20 years old, it remains the best space battle sequence ever seen at the cinema.

 

[mac1]

Tombstone - The Revenge Of The Brothters And The Doc

What a classic film moment. When Wyatt decides to become the law in tombstone, and vows to kill any man wearing the Cowboys band. I love when they ride off into the sunset, backed by that amazing score, to rid the land of organised crime. The shootout at the OK Coral is magnificent too, in fact its just a classic film

 

[Brian G Turner]

Hm...I haven't actually seen "Tombstone". That could be embarrassing... :-[

 

[mac1]

Rent/Buy it on DVD, in my opinion its quite possibly the most underated film of the 90's.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ah - and while I remember...

Conan the Barbarian

The invaders have defeated the male villagers, and the little boy Conan holds on to his mother's hand as she points the sword at James Earl Jones' character.

Then JEJ swings back with the sword....

And then the superb slowmo low shot of Conan still holding his mother as she slips aside, her head suddenly falling separately through the frame of the shot...

 

[nemesis]

The sunrise over the black monolith.

 

[mac1]

The Godfather
The scene in which Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey after getting the gun from the bathroom. It is the absolute pinnacle turning point in the Godfather Trilogy, the moment Michael decides to follow in his fathers footsteps. The scene in which he orders the death of his own brother Fredo at the end of The Godfather Part II was also incredible. Michael practically devoid of emotion, becomes everything his father Veto never wanted for him, it is probably the darkest moment in the trilogy.

 

[mac1]

Hmm curious. The two Godfather pictures have stopped working.

 

[FutureXec]

The Godfather

At the end of the first when his closest kiss him on the hand...he becomes...The Godfather.

Romeo and Juliet

No, it's not film history but one of my favorites of the late 90's. The last scene when they both kill themselves. Love at it's highest peak.


There are so many...

 

[Brian G Turner]

I've been listening alot to an old tape of Star Trek film music in the car - so I have to nominate two scenes from Wrath of Khan -

1/ Reliant turns to finish off the enterprise, Kirk brings down the Reliant's shields

2/ The confrontation in the Motara nebula.

 

[mac1]

Soylent Green

The scene flowing into the end credits - so downbeat - yet so ironically beautiful

 

[nemesis]

Singing on the boat in Jaws. Then the creak. A good movement of mood.

Also Colonel Deering in lycra in Buck Rogers.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Here's a new one - watched "Saving Private Ryan" last night.

The moment towards the climax conflict, when you hear the German tanks approaching. For what seems like a couple of minutes there's a constant thundering whine getting loader and louder. In Dolby 5.1 it really is very effective!

 

[dwndrgn]

[quote author=brian link=board=7;threadid=146;start=0#msg3983 date=1061899516]
For what seems like a couple of minutes there's a constant thundering whine getting loader and louder. In Dolby 5.1 it really is very effective!

[/quote]

This immediately reminded me of seeing Jurassic Park in the theater with Dolby sound...chaos theory is being explained with water...you hear a distant thump...the water in the cup in the front of the SUV quakes...the thump comes again...
the anxiety builds and builds with only sound and a little shaking...I loved it!

 

[Foxbat]

The fist fight in 'The Quiet Man'

Sergeant Steiner screaming Demarcation as his men are mown down by machine gun fire in 'Cross of Iron'

The last pod of flora and fauna being tended by a small robot as it floats off into space....Silent Running.

 

[littlemissattitude]

dwndrgn's comment about "Jurassic Park" reminds me of the second time I went to see it. A good friend and I had gone to see it the first time about the second day it was outl. A week or so later we decided we wanted to see it again, and this time we took a friend of his who hadn't seen it yet with us.

So, we get to the part where T-rex shows up to attack the jeep during the storm. My friend and I knew what was coming, but his friend didn't - that boy (actually a grown man of 21) nearly jumped into my lap when the dinosaur appeared, he was so scared. Now that makes for a classic moment.

One of my own favorite classic film moments is from "The Abyss". Virgil (Ed Harris) and Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) are trapped in an underwater module that is rapidly filling with water. There is no way that they can both get out and to safety because there is only one breathing apparatus. Because it is so cold, there is a chance that if she drowns she might be able to be revived. So, she lets herself drown and Virgil takes her back to safety in the other module. He immediately begins CPR to revive her. And nothing works. The other crew members try to get Virgil to give up, but he won't. He promised Lindsey it would be okay. And so he tries again, and........No, I'm not going to spoil the outcome for anyone who hasn't seen the film. Just go rent it.

 

[GnomeoftheWest]

Favorite scene from "On The Beach":

The last known survivors in Australia, waiting for the fallout to reach them, welcome a U.S. submarine that was patroling and therefore not involved. Anyway, they recieve a signal from San Francisco (via telegraph) that doesn't make sense and decide to make the trip in the sub to search for survivors. Without giving the plot away, what they find when they hunt down the source is one of the saddest scenes I've seen in film.
Second only to the scene were they load the coffin onto the airplane in "Missing".

 

[scifimoth]

LOTR:Two Towers- when Gandalf is charging down the steep hill on that white horse riding to the rescue with a tidal wave of warriors behind him.

Of Men and Mice- when they talk the old guy into putting his old dog out of it's misery...(terrible and sad)

 

[Brian G Turner]

Lawrence setting out into Arabia, passing by the ruined pyramid...

Also, later when he leads the Arab army he's built up out, and the men are singing on their camels and with their flags, and the women are all about the caves above howling out. Strong atmosphere.

 

[silvercloak]

Ah - and while I remember...

Conan the Barbarian

The invaders have defeated the male villagers, and the little boy Conan holds on to his mother's hand as she points the sword at James Earl Jones' character.

Then JEJ swings back with the sword....

And then the superb slowmo low shot of Conan still holding his mother as she slips aside, her head suddenly falling separately through the frame of the shot...

I forget if this is in Conan the Barbarion or Conan the Destroyer. Its where he is in the witches hut, uhh for lack of a better word, banging her when she turns all evil then he throws her in the fire. That is one of my favourite moments of all time.