Favorite Scene Friday! Bullitt: Just Keep Driving

Steve McQueen is the actor-of-the-month over at the LAMB, so I'm taking a moment to celebrate one of the best moments from one of his less good movies. Bullitt isn't terrible, but if it wasn't for the central chase sequence I don't think many people would discuss it today, so you can be damn sure that's the scene in question this week.

Bullitt painting by Arthur Benjamins

If you're unfamiliar with the plot, I'll take a stab at it: Steve McQueen plays Lt. Frank Bullitt of the San Francisco Police Department. He is tasked with protecting a star witness over the weekend, but events occur that require said witness to be hidden somewhere, with only Frank and his team knowing the location. As such, a couple of men (seen in the clip, known to me as "Stern Face" and "Glasses") are sent to follow Frank to see where he goes, in the hope that it'll lead to the witness' whereabouts. This is what happens next:

I only really want to follow on that first segment as being the best scene, as the entire chase goes on for at least another 7 minutes, but for the sake of not depriving you here's the rest of it too:

OK, now you've got that out of your system (did you count the hub-caps? Go back and count the hub-caps) let's get back to that first segment. The key moment occurs at 2:14, when Frank, having quite easily slipped his tail, appears in their rear-view mirror, turning the tables and making the hunters the hunted. It's an ingenious and wonderful manoeuvre, and is filmed beautifully, with the camera in the back seat of the villains' car, the mirror nonchalantly positioned in the centre - because that's where it would be anyway, given we're looking out the windscreen with them for Frank's car - and then it just appears in the mirror, popping up and saying "Gotcha!". I think the zoom in goes a little too far to accentuate the reveal, but only a little.

The whole chase uses the streets and hills of San Francisco perfectly, weaving in and out of traffic, utilising the sharp right angle corners to crash and screech all over the road, all the while tormenting those roaring, guttural engines and trashing the chassis on the bumps. The entire scene has no dialogue, it's all about the concentrated expressions and wheelmanship on display.

I'd argue it amongst the best car chases of all time - I previously looked at another contender from The French Connection - but this might just beat it, at least in terms of longevity. I like the temporary satisfied smirk Glasses gives to Stern Face when he thinks they've gotten away, when Frank stopped to check a crashed motorcyclist was alright. I love the use of the mirror outside of the reveal too, allowing us to see the face of the driver and/or passenger as well as the road ahead, just perfect.

What's your favorite movie car chase?

Favorite Scene Friday! Deep Blue Sea: Enough is Enough

I've made no secret of my belief in the fact that Jurassic Park is the greatest movie of all time, so it should be no surprise to learn that I also love some other films that have taken more than a little inspiration from it. Deep Blue Sea follows an almost identical template - a skeleton crew of scientists, trainers and visitors are trapped in a remote, water-surrounded facility when, during a storm, a combination of human error and digestion-based natural instincts cause the crew to rapidly diminish in number whilst trying to safely find a way home - oh, and they both feature Samuel L. Jackson. The main difference between Deep Blue Sea and Jurassic Park - other than the abundance of giant brainy sharks instead of lysene-deficient dinosaurs - is that Deep Blue Sea is more often ridiculous, and potentially the pinnacle of this nonsense is the subject of today's FSF.

Deep Blue Sea wallpaper available on AlphaCoders from darkness

It's easily the most famous scene from the film. In fact, it's a scene I'd seen before I'd even heard of the film itself. It's the kind of film where someone will show it to you by skipping just to this scene, and ending it right afterwards. And yes, that's exactly what happened to me. It took me a few years to actually watch the rest of the film and, whilst I highly enjoy the various scenes of shark-spearing, helicopter-exploding and bird-eating, it's still this scene that stands out from all the rest. Prior to this point the pressure in an underwater shark research laboratory has potentially been compromised and the few remaining survivors - shark wrangler Carter (Thomas Jane), scientist Susan (Saffron Burrows), terrified marine biologist Janice (Jacqueline McKenzie), skittish engineer Scoggins (Michael Rapaport) and corporate executive/avalanche survivor Russell (Samuel L. Jackson) - are coming to blows over their best course of action. There are deadly sharks on the loose and their submersible is damaged, so the best means of escape seems to be climbing up an elevator shaft, but opening the door to the shaft could drown them all. Anyway, here's the scene:

Most of this is Russell's monologue. Sam Jackson has had a fair few phenomenal monologues in his time - Pulp Fiction of course springs to the forefront of my mind - so there really is no-one better to deliver these lines. Granted I could have done with the occasional "motherf*cker" thrown in here and there for good measure, but I'll take what I can get. What I really love about this scene though, and what makes it genuinely annoying that so many people see or hear about it before seeing the film as a whole, is that the end of it comes as a surprise. The scene itself is a cliche - the characters are panicking and heading in different directions, so one member, generally the most senior, makes a rousing speech to bond everyone together to face the climax as a team - but what breaks it from the mould is as Russell comes to the end of his speech and begins laying out his plan of action he is violently taken out by an appalling CGI shark emerging from the very pool Russell is suggesting they seal up. His body is dragged back into the pool which, after a little churning, becomes a bloody hot tub of commotion. We witness the reactions of the other characters and, unusually for this sort of film, we're as surprised as they are. Not only is it a shock that someone got taken out mid-motivational speech, but that person was Samuel L. Jackson, the biggest name in the film and one of the first character we met. As the outsider to the facility he has essentially been the audience surrogate so far, the character we've clung to during his tour and introductions to the rest of the characters, and now he's nothing but chum.

Deep Blue Sea is a film full of decent character deaths - very few characters actually survive the film - but Russell's demise is easily the most memorable and iconic, despite chronologically falling in the middle of them all. It almost feels as if the entire film has been created around this moment, and if it means getting to witness a scene like this then as far as I'm concerned that's a pretty great reason to make a movie.

What's your favorite Samuel L. Jackson movie moment?

Favorite Scene Friday! King Kong: Grab the Raid

Kong: Skull Island, one of my most anticipated movies of the year, is released in cinemas today, so it seems like the right time to discuss another movie that featured the enormous ape, 2005's King Kong directed by Peter Jackson. It's a film I've discussed before when looking at our favourite fight scenes, because seriously, show me a better fight sequence than one between a 25ft tall gorilla and three giant T-Rex-like dinosaurs, but I'm here today to talk about another sequence from the film that has a completely different tone, but one that I love almost as much.

King Kong poster by Matt Ferguson

This scene takes place after our group of seamen and film-makers, in search of the kidnapped Ann (Naomi Watts), have been unceremoniously thrown from a log bridge down into a dark, rocky crevice. The meagre survivors - including writer Jack (Adrien Brody), director Carl (Jack Black), ship's cook Lumpy (Andy Serkis) and cabin boy Jimmy (Jamie Bell) - awaken to find themselves at their lowest point - literally - as they're surrounded by the corpses of their friends, and are soon to be feasted upon by an array of vile and horrific beasties.

It's fair to say that I'm not a horror fan. In fact, I often say so myself. So it puzzles me as to why one of my favourite scenes from this film is easily the most horror-like. I think it might be the nature of the horror, essentially being effects-driven creature-feature, meaning I can appreciate the design of the beasts attempting to devour our heroes, as well as the skill required to render them onscreen.

There's no question as to the most inventive and horrendous of these, and which character undergoes the most traumatising departure because of them, that of the giant penis-teeth slugs and their limb-by-limb consumption of Lumpy. When the first of these bulbous, nightmare-inducing death worms rears up and flails out the sniffing, probing mouth like the creature from Alien, it's downright terrifying. What is that thing? What is it going to do? WHY DOES IT EXIST? Lumpy sticks with his absolutely spot-on first urge - punch it in the closest thing it has to a face - and continues to do so until one starts to creep up his leg, then an arm, and finally his head. The way his scream becomes muffled as the ring of pulsating teeth consume his mouth makes me shudder, and his impotent thrashing of the machete as more of the creatures swarm in, poking and gauging at him truly removes any kind of dignity he had left. There's a chance I won't be sleeping tonight.

This really is the scene where our protagonists have lost everything. Not only are many of them dead and they're stuck at the bottom of what might very well be the gateway to Hell, but Carl's film, the one thing he's been fighting for this whole time, lies unspooled and ruined in the sunlight. Up until this point he has been a driven and single-minded presence, aiming above all else to bring the film canisters home, but the moment that is no longer a possibility he becomes a whirling dervish of fury, the only survivor to take on the hordes of beasts single-handed. Whilst Jimmy miraculously saves Jack from a swarm of bugs the size of cats without actually shooting Jack himself, Carl is kicking thorax and taking names as he dispatches anything and everything that dares approach.

How the scene ends is a little bit too convenient, but it allows for the great Bruce Baxter (played by the equally great Kyle Chandler) to swing in on a vine, gun blazing, in an attempt to redeem himself for earlier cowardice, and that surely must be a great thing, regardless of how super-imposed he looks against the background.

What's your favorite moment from a King Kong film?

Favorite Scene Friday! Up: Taking Off

All this month we'll be looking at the last decade of films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. However it's also February, which is the month of Valentine's Day, so I'm picking a film that was nominated for Best Picture, but also means a great deal to my relationship, as it was the first film I saw with my fiancée, and remains one of our favourites to this day, Pixar's Up.

Artwork by Posterinspired, available on Etsy

The most discussed - and most romantic - scene from Up is easily the opening montage, depicting the life-long relationship between Carl and Ellie, from mis-matched children through their wedding, failed attempts to have children, plans to seek adventures elsewhere and eventually Ellie's heartbreaking demise, but that's not my favourite part. It's not the scene where they meet Dug (although the lovable talking dog is easily one of my top Pixar characters, probably in the top 10), nor is it anything to do with the film's villain, Charles Muntz, or occasionally annoying sidekick Russell. No, the greatest scene in Up lasts just 6 seconds, and is when Carl's newly-flying house passes by the window of a little girl, casting her room in a kaleidoscopic disco of colours and shapes.

The moment is a classic Pixar notion, a creative extrapolation of how their main plot could tangentially - and beautifully - impact the most minor of characters around them. In this instance it's how Carl's house being carried away by hundreds of helium-filled balloons would look to the people nearby. Onlookers understandably stare in disbelief, mouths agape. A window cleaner on a skyscraper gives a confused wave. And a little girl delights in her room being temporarily decorated like a giant bag of Skittles. It warms my heart every time I watch it.

Granted that snippet is part of a bigger whole, so let's also take a quick glance at the rest of the scene. I really like the two orderlies who come to collect Carl to take him to the nursing home. I don't know why I love that one of them has the label sticking out of this shirt, but I do. And the other one, George, is voiced by Donald Fullilove, who also played Mayor Goldie Wilson in Back To The Future. I enjoy the storytelling of the scene. Beforehand we don't know what Carl's plan is, we just know he's due to be shipped off to the retirement home after attacking a construction worker for accidentally damaging his sentimentally invaluable mailbox, but clues are given immediately as the nurses walk away from his front door, remarking on the poor upkeep of the yard which was formerly pristine, but is now littered with empty gas canisters from all the balloons.

OK so some scene elements are a little far fetched - just where did Carl get that impossibly large bag holding the balloons from, and where exactly were they before he unleashed them, and what were they tied to, and how the heck does the tiny little weather vane act as a rudder for something literally the size of a house - but frankly who cares? Just forget all that rubbish and listen to Michael Giacchino's fabulous score and bask in the glorious visuals.

What's your favorite moment from Pixar?

Favorite Scene Friday! The Princess Bride: Get used to disappointment

It's the start of a new year, which here at To The Escape Hatch means only one thing, an Escape-athon! That means we're spending the next few weeks looking at escapist movies, from the realms of fantasy and sci-fi, and I'm kicking things off with one of my favourite fantasy films, The Princess Bride. Regular readers should be very familiar with this film, given that it's received two FSF celebrations before, looking at the climactic fight between Inigo and Rugen and text the wedding scene, included in a compilation post, but today it's all about one of the most famous scenes of the film, the battle at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity.

Artwork by toonbaboon on DeviantArt

Now granted this isn't a terribly fantastical scene - it's inspired by and wouldn't be out of place in something like The Adventures of Robin Hood - but the film is a fantasy, so as far as I'm concerned it counts, and I couldn't think of something from Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings that I was really in a mood to discuss. Plus, do I really need that much of an excuse to talk about the boundless joy that is watching any moment of The Princess Bride? For me it's easily amongst the most flat-out endlessly entertaining films ever made, and the reasons why are all over this scene:

The Dread Pirate Roberts, who is really a farm boy named Westley (Cary Elwes), is on the trail of Buttercup (Robin Wright), his childhood love and the intended wife of Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). Buttercup has been kidnapped by a trio of apparent criminals (Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant and Mandy Patinkin), and Westley must defeat each of them to save his love, and the first of these three he encounters is Patinkin's master swordsman Inigo Montoya, who is himself upon a quest of vengeance against a fabled six-fingered man who murdered Inigo's father. The two fight and Westley eventually bests Inigo and continues on his way, but not before one of the most entertaining sword fights ever committed to celluloid.

In fact, the fun of the scene starts long before the blades are even drawn. Westley must first reach Inigo at the top of the cliffs and Inigo, who is impatient for his chance to further practise his skills in preparation for eventually encountering the six-fingered man, is willing to help Westley up with the use of a rope, but Westley is understandably cautious of this assistance from a man whose primary intention within the scene is to kill him. I adore the comedic nature of the very premise of the scene, how these two men so intent on battling one another to the death can still respect and admire the skill of the other at combat, and the blase attitude they seem to have to the whole affair, even mid-fight. There's so much emphasis on sportsmanship and fair play to make it almost ludicrous.

The scene allows for some natural exposition - in the break Westley is given to catch his breath after climbing the rope, Inigo provides his tragic back story, immediately empathising us with his character - and the dialogue within the scene is so quotable, as it is with almost the entire film. Plus, everything Inigo says is made ten times more fun by virtue of Patinkin's impossibly thick accent. Imagine Beauty and the Beast's Lumiere, but is he was Hispanic. It's wonderful.

The choreography of the combat gets more than a little goofy, especially once the gymnastics and sword-throwing come into play, but vitally it never gets boring, it's always fun to behold, and I always want it to last far longer than it does..

Do you have a favorite fantasy fight scene?

Favorite Scene Friday! The Thing: Doctor, Teeth, and the Infected Flaming

As usual, for the month of October we're looking at our favorite scenes from the world of horror.

I'm not a horror guy. I don't love a lot of the classic horror movies, and the ones I do love tend to be for reasons in spite of their horror roots. Take John Carpenter's The Thing, for example. Yes it's a film about a terrifying creature horrifically mutilating the inhabitants of a research base cut off from anywhere, with a palpable sense of dread and a fear of the monster's unknown appearance in every scene, but it's also a monument to character actors, mounting tension and, of course, some of the greatest practical effects work ever committed to film, and that's why I'm talking about it today.

Poster by Randy Ortiz, damnthedesign.com

One of the best scenes - the Blood Test Sequence - has already been discussed here by Lackey, so I'm taking a scene that occurs just slightly before then. The story so far is there's an American research expedition at a secluded base in Antarctica. A wild dog ran onto their compound. and it soon becomes clear that the dog was actually a shape-shifting being in disguise, capable of killing then taking the form of any living thing it comes into contact with. Despite killing the dog-beast, the men of the base are increasingly paranoid that at least one of their number is not who they appear, especially after some of them die. MacReady (Kurt Russell) seems the most likely of being a monster after his clothes are found torn when he is separated from the group. Whilst Mac holds the rest of the men at bay with the threat of dynamite, Norris (Charles Hallahan) appears to suffer a heart attack, and the doctor (Richard Dysart) attempts to revive him, when this happens:

Amazing. As the doctor goes to resuscitate, Norris' chest becomes a giant mouth and just eats his hands. The first time I saw this I lost my mind. It completely comes out of nowhere, as up to now Norris had not even been hinted as to being a suspect, and milliseconds earlier you were concerned for his well-being and presuming him dead from shock but nope, he's a monster, he's going to kill everyone, and he's starting with the doctor and his defibrillator paddles.

I'll admit, the effects work on the hands being ripped off isn't great - the cut appears some distance above where the teeth bite - but the rest of the scene more than makes up for it. Not-Norris' gut-mouth erupts with flailing tendrils and projectile vomits a flurry of yellow-green bile into the air, along with a Norris-faced, snake-necked spider monster that has yet to leave my nightmares. Understandably MacReady does the sensible thing and unleashes his flamethrower upon this hell-beast, but the monster has another trick, this one involving the still-attached not-Norris head, which stretches at the neck, tongue lolling all over the place, until the neck tears, more bile erupts and the head becomes a separate, night-terror-inducing entity of its own, complete with a whip-like tongue and a haunting noise reminiscent of a tortured soul trapped in a conch shell. If that wasn't enough, the head - in possibly the greatest 6 seconds of cinema history - produces eight long legs and two creepy-as-all-get-up tentacle eyes and scuttles away. Palmer (David Clennon) takes it upon himself to play the audience surrogate here, by resignedly decrying "You gotta be f*cking kidding me," as truly it seems there's no limit to just how hideous this creature can be.

What I love most about this scene is how unexpected it is, coming in the middle of an already tense and frenetic moment that gets diverted into a completely different direction, and also just how phenomenally impressive the effects are. Despite having seen this scene dozens of times, I'm still always shocked at just how long the legs that emerge from the head are, and I'm fascinated by the practical effects that went into making them. And yes, my mind does occasionally wander and freak me the heck out by imagining my own head dropping off, sprouting legs and eyes before running away into a doorway and being burned alive. Guess I wont be getting much sleep tonight then.

What's your favorite practical effects scene?

Favorite Scene Friday! King Kong: Kong vs. the Dinosaurs

All month long we'll be looking at fight scenes for FSF! So tune in every Friday for some brawling.

When Robert told me this month we were celebrating our favourite fight scenes in film, I took my usual tactic of trying to work out how I could crowbar in a Jurassic Park scene somewhere. Other than a brief but pivotal climactic showdown, the first JP movie is largely devoid of small-scale confrontations, as is The Lost World, and if you think I'm even going to consider the T-Rex vs Spinosaurus debacle from JP3 then clearly you don't know my feelings on that travesty. Jurassic World has the awesome fight at the end, but still it didn't feel quite worthy of this list, so I sought for some dino-on-something carnage elsewhere, and I think I struck giant furry gold with Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong.

Sanjulian via ComicArtFans.com

WI think I'd consider this my favourite "long" (read: more than 3 hours) films, with Titanic, Magnolia and The Green Mile following closely behind in an undetermined order, and it's one I deeply regret not seeing in the cinemas, being released at a time where films didn't seem all that important to me. Now I see it as the visually astounding if a little drawn out action-adventure-romance spectacle that it is.

In the scene in question, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) has been brought to the mysterious Skull Island to shoot on location for a new film, but she has been kidnapped by the giant ape Kong (motion-captured by Andy Serkis), who took a liking to her ability to scream louder and more shrilly than anyone has ever screamed before. Now, Ann has attempted to escape Kong's capture, only to run into a giant Vastatosaurus Rex, or V-Rex for short, but fortunately Kong is on hand to save her. The trouble is, there's more than one V-Rex around:

I love this scene, in fact I love pretty much the whole movie, but this scene has always been one of the stand-outs for me. The action is so kinetic yet fluid, and the choreography makes great use of the environment and the specific movement abilities of the combatants. Kong uses all four limbs and his jaws to his best advantage, all the while having to keep Ann safe from the monstrous beasts, who in turn attack the great ape with everything they have. I've never been a wrestling fan but this fight reminds me a great deal of wrestling matches, particularly with Kong throwing the dinosaurs around and body-slamming into them. Kong's opening gambit is awesome too, swinging round to deliver the first V-Rex a massive kick to the face, then landing, catching Ann as she falls from a ledge, and sailing her just out of reach of the attacker's snapping jaws; it's almost balletic.

I enjoy the entrances of the other two dinosaurs as well, each adding something to the overall scene. As Kong fends off the first guy he keeps Ann well out of its reach, only for her to spot number two approaching from the distance (slurping up the remains of his last meal seen in a previous scene), thus adding even more tension as she must somehow alert Kong of this newcomer's presence before it eats her. Then, once Kong has marginally subdued both attackers and retreats in a near stalemate position, number three attacks from behind, instigating round two of the whole bloody affair. The clip above ends with all involved falling into a mesh of vines, which in itself leads to a tremendous scene with one dinosaur swinging trying to get Ann whilst Kong dangles with another V-Rex below, but unfortunately I couldn't find a clip of that. Instead there is this clip of what happens when Kong is left one-on-one, Kongo e Dino, with his last opponent:

This is where it gets a bit brutal, but damn if Kong's finishing move isn't effective. Plus, and this is something I missed the first few times I watched it, but Kong rips out the V-Rex's tongue with his own damn teeth. That is badass.

What's your favorite scene giant monster fight?

Favorite Scene Friday: The Adventures of Tintin: Falcon Around

I've often heard it pondered as to why there aren't many great family films these days. Not films aimed solely at children, or ones that have just enough wit to keep parents engaged simultaneously, but films that are genuinely fun, entertaining and appealing for people of all ages. Films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future or Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Large scale action/adventure romps that are endlessly thrilling but have plenty of depth for repeat viewings. One recent potential candidate that unfortunately failed to grasp the public's affections was Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Poster by Jonas Ståhl

It's by no means a perfect film, but it's far better than it's lack of notoriety would have you believe, and there's one scene in particular that should be discussed amongst the conversations of great long tracking shots. Granted this shot comes with a fairly hefty asterisk in that it's in an animated film, but considering it was made using motion capture then large chunks of it - possibly the whole thing, I don't know - would have been shot in sequence. The film concerns Tintin (Jamie Bell), an intrepid Belgian reporter who recently came into contact with one of three scrolls which may lead to the location of a large stash of treasure previously considered lost. Tintin's adventure has brought him into the companionship of sozzled salt Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), and up against the villainous Sakharine (Daniel Craig), who wants the treasure for himself and has just succeeded in acquiring all three scrolls. Haddock, through little fault of his own, lost Tintin's scroll to Sakharine just before this scene, which is the final straw in terms of Tintin putting up with the captain's alcohol-soaked antics. Anyway, here's the scene. The shot I'm particularly focusing on begins at the 2:10 mark and ends at 4:41.

Great, isn't it? It's such a fun scene. I love the repercussions small events have on the rest of the action, like Haddock accidentally shooting the bazooka backwards and hitting the dam, causing the sluices to open and a river to appear through the middle of the scene. Every character always has something to do, down to Tintin's impossibly proactive dog Snowy, Sakharine's even more useful falcon and his drivers, played by Mackenzie Crook and Daniel Mays. The smaller beats within the larger scene all make a certain kind of sense within the rules of the film and all flow wonderfully into one another, and there are enough surprising, unexpected moments too, such as the tank trundling along with a building on top of it. Everything happens very quickly yet is still relatively easy to comprehend and keep track of, even once almost everyone is on their own personal mode of transport, and the final moments, with Tintin sailing along a handy wire with the remnants of his motorcycle and then a lantern are just awesome. It's that kind of thing that really showcases what animation can really do. Sure, that kind of shot would be possible in live action, but to do so as part of - and at the end of - a shot already two minutes long in which a dog and falcon fight in mid-air over some ludicrously robust ancient scrolls? I don't think so.

This was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy, with Peter Jackson helming part two and an as-yet unconfirmed director for the third instalment, but alas production seems to have stalled. There are rumours that Jackson is now just producing, but the project has been off-and-on since before this film even came out, so I'm not holding my breathe. Regardless, if you've not checked out The Secret Of The Unicorn then I'd highly recommend that you do.

What's your favourite under-rated long shot?

Favorite Scene Friday: Final Destination 2: Evan Gets An Eyeful

It's Friday the 13th! That's a date with scary connotations, so it seems only right that this week's FSF look at the horror genre, but seeing as it's landed on my designated monthly slot don't go expecting anything too horrific. The obvious choice here would be to look at something from the Friday the 13th franchise, but seeing as how I've never seen any of those films, we'll instead be looking at one of my favourite almost-horror franchises, Final Destination, and in particular the spectacular sequel, Final Destination 2.

If you're not familiar with the Final Destination franchise, they all begin with some form of premonition by one of the main characters of an upcoming catastrophic event that sees them, their close friends and numerous others being killed in horrific ways, before the premonitionee (not a word) awakes from their vision and prevents said catastrophe from occurring. Death - in the form of a mysterious puddle, improbable wind or flock of pigeons - feels cheated from the claiming of these souls, so sets out to pick the unplanned survivors off one by one in a designated order, with numerous mini premonitions seen along the way. The first Final Destination established the rules - in death there are no accidents, the order you get killed is the same as the order you would have died in that initial vision - but Final Destination 2 added an utterly arbitrary twist for the benefit of no-one but the audience - this time around the deaths happen in reverse!

FD2 is my favourite of the franchise, mainly because it has the best, and often the most ludicrous, death sequences. My actual favourite scene from the whole series is the opening car crash pile-up - I will not drive behind a truck carrying logs, this is something that will never happen - but here I'll be looking at one of my top individual death sequences, the first one in fact, concerning lottery winning douchebag Evan (David Paetkau). Here it is:

So why is this my top death scene from the entire franchise? To be honest I'm not saying it is - there are some stellar ones across the board, and I'd need to re-watch the whole series making notes to really put that list together - but this would definitely make the top 5. What I love about it is how many fake-outs there are, how much fun the director and writers had playing with audience's expectations. It's within this scene that they establish there really aren't all that many rules in this franchise, other than everyone will die in as ludicrous a manner as possible.

Let's break down how Evan kicks his bucket: He's just won the lottery, and as many of us would do he's treated himself to something of a shopping spree. After tossing his old spaghetti out the window he begins preparing a frankly vile looking meal, before checking out his new bling - a chunky gold watch and diamond-studded horseshoe ring. Suddenly the microwave sparks - a magnet fell into his noodles - and he drops the ring down the sink. Being an idiot, Evan reaches down the drain with the new watch on his arm, only for it to get stuck as the microwave continues to spark and the pan on his stove catches fire, spreading around his apartment. It looks like Evan will perish by being burned alive whilst trapped in the sink, until he miraculously frees himself. He grabs a fire extinguisher, but the fire is too large to handle, then the windows all slam shut and Evan is unable to open them - to be honest I've never loved that detail, it feels very forced - so he throws a chair through one instead. Just as he climbs out the window onto the fire escape, the apartment explodes, but Evan remains unharmed. At this point he's gotta be considering himself pretty blessed, right? He's won the lottery and escaped death twice, all in the space of a few days. He descends the fire escape ladder, but when it sticks and he throws his full weight against it he falls, but lands safely, only to slip onto his back on that spaghetti he threw out earlier that we'd all forgotten about. He lands on the broken glass, head directly below the ladder, which suddenly breaks free and falls, stopping inches from his face. Evan exclaims "JESUS CHRIST!," assuming he has once again survived something miraculous, only for the ladder to jerk down into his eye socket and through his brain. Lovely.

What I love here is the little details. The magnets on Evan's fridge spell out "Hey E" until the "H" falls into the noodles, at which point we get the foreshadowed "Eye" as a clue to how Evan will die. It's a pretty vague clue, but I like it nonetheless. Also, the voicemail messages Evan is listening to whilst stuck in the sink are terrific. They're from a couple of girls who presumably wanted absolutely nothing to do with Evan - neither has seen him for some time - until they discovered he won the lottery, and they seem to have no ability to be even slightly subtle about their gold-digging intentions. My favourite element though is how Evan dies in a similar manner to the opening crash sequence. There, he narrowly avoids being decapitated as his new sports car gets turned into a convertible by the truck passing overhead, only for him to get trapped in the burning car, unable to free himself from his seatbelt. Just like in the kitchen, it looks like he'll be burned alive whilst unable to escape, that is until the giant truck appears behind him, ploughing through his car like a ladder through an orbital socket, as the saying goes. Later in the film we get death by air-bag, elevator and fence, and the franchise attempts other demises via car-wash, tanning bed, gym equipment, nail-gun, massage and a completely different kind of fence, but Evan's ladder will always be one of my faves.

What's your favourite Final Destination death scene?

Favorite Scene Friday! Jurassic Park: Mr. DNA

Our month of Jurassic Park appreciation comes to a close today. Surely one of the greatest themes of the series is tampering with nature. So much like Hammond and his park scientists we have spliced together my FSF with Jay's. It's like the old saying goes: God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Man creates Favorite Scene Friday. Oh, the humanity!

Beware minor spoilers for Jurassic World!

RZ: A lot of scenes in Jurassic Park were awesome simply because of the awe factor or they were just interesting. As we pointed out earlier in the month, the movie could feature scenes with no dinos at all and it was still awesome. Exposition is the name of the game here. The Mr. DNA scene doesn't really have any dinos but it's one of the best scenes in the movie. What do you think, Jay?  

JC: This is one of my favourite scenes because it's perhaps one of the greatest methods of exposition delivery in all of cinema. All too often plot explanations are given through stilted, forced dialogue between two people who both already know everything that is going on, and is purely for the audience's sake, but here it makes perfect sense. The main question on everyone's mind - both watching the film and the characters in it - is how are dinosaurs being made considering they're very definitely extinct, so of course there would be some kind of video explanation. And of course it will be simple enough and told through the kinds of easily understood cartoons you'd see in education videos at school, because children will be there trying to understand it! Every detail of the video is perfect, from the crude, simplistic animation to the manic anthropomorphised Mr. DNA, as how will kids possibly pay attention without a DNA strand with eyes jumping around and flying all over the place?

Jurassic Park Wikia

RZ: Was John Hammond supposed to be here for this thing every time? Or was this maybe supposed to be for friends, family and investors? Maybe they'd get another actor to do the regular tours?

JC: This is something that actually bothers me about this scene, as it's clearly set up for John Hammond to be there for every screening. If it's only going to be shown once a day then fine, I imagine that's conceivable, with maybe a backup video with Dr. Henry Wu there instead just in case Hammond is ill or otherwise engaged, but if it's going to be shown multiple times a day, or even continuously, then it's just implausible. And the Hammond on stage has so little interaction with the video - all he does is say maybe three lines from his script, then pretends to take a sample of blood from on-screen Hammond - that it seems ridiculous to even have someone interacting with the video in the first place. It'd make much more sense for the on-screen Hammond to do the entire introduction himself, pricking his own blood and going from there. Using a live person for thirty seconds outside of the video is just gimmicky.

RZ: The voice of Mr. DNA - Greg Burson - is great. I'm not familiar with any of his other work despite the fact that he's in a movie called Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland that I used to watch all the time. What did you think of Mr. DNA's cameo in Jurassic World? I was personally wanting more, I think it actually would have been great to have the John Hammond video playing on the exact same ride somehow.

JC: Whilst I was happy to see Mr. DNA cameoing in Jurassic World (even if his original voice by Greg Burson had been replaced by Jurassic World's director's, Colin Trevorrow) I didn't mind his limited screen time. It makes sense within the context of the film that there isn't a mandatory behind-the-scenes ride to go on now, seeing as people have become bored of the attractions, I can't imagine many would care how they came to exist, but those who do can see it on the relatively small mini-attractions in the museum area. I wouldn't have minded more of Mr. DNA, but I think they used just the right amount. Why do you think Mr. DNA has become such an iconic character?

RZ: I think maybe it's because he's just such a weird goofy bit of whimsy in a movie that's otherwise scary and/or serious. It was also just a great bit of world building that Spielberg and co. put into the film, so much so that I was hoping it would make a follow up appearance in Jurassic World.

JC: The only other scene in the original film that has aged worse than this is the hacking scene, which has its own set of flaws and problems, and there's no big surprise that we aren't covering it this month. It's a problem that occurs whenever technology is shown on film, it immediately becomes dated as soon as something more advanced comes along, and nothing looks more dated than virtual reality gloves, especially when those virtual reality gloves are being used to manipulate vitual reality DNA strands. Nonsense. The actual ride portion has aged well, although nowadays there'd probably be individual harnesses descending from above to restrain people into their seats, but then you wouldn't have the surprise that it's a ride, and the magic would be lost. And Mr. DNA would be CGI-motion-captured by Andy Serkis.

RZ: It is a bit of a novelty to see hand drawn animation in this day and age. And of course, the way they talk about supercomputers and virtual reality is chuckle worthy. The VR specifically reminds me of the goofy ass virtual reality scenes in Disclosure. Also, double breasted suit, what???

JC: I love how even though he's being shown the wonders of how dinosaurs are being created in the modern day, Ian Malcolm still takes a moment to check out Ellie whilst she marvels at the discovery of cloning. She seems mesmerised and fascinated with the whole process, whilst there's a sense of realisation behind Alan's eyes that he may no longer be necessary to the world. In the brief shot of Malcolm, he seems to already be forming his arguments for the lunch scene against the whole ordeal, and when we see Gennaro, well he may as well just have dollar signs covering his whole bemused face.

RZ: Everyone genuinely seems to love this video, yes, even the blood sucking Gennaro. But I totally agree, you just know he's gotta have dollar signs on the brain still. Regarding the main three heroes, I love that they're almost instantly talking about "massive sequence gaps". I also particularly love the shot of Grant as the camera zooms in on him and under the restraint bar.

What's your favorite scene in Jurassic Park?

Favorite Scene Friday! Jurassic Park: Not From The Front, But From The Side

Last week I was here moaning how difficult it is to pick just one favourite scene from Jurassic Park, and  here I am doing it again. There's just so many! I left the selecting process up to the misshapen, worryingly sticky hands of YouTube by just picking a scene from amongst the first few that came up after searching "Jurassic Park Scene", and wouldn't you know it but I opted for one that calls back to last week's scene? You may recall (and if you don't then you can go read about it here) last week Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) set up everything we'd need to know about velociraptors, whilst simultaneously traumatising a child for life. His main point regarded the raptors' hunting technique; setting a decoy to distract their prey, whilst the rest of the pack catches them unaware and opens the human buffet. Anyone who's ever seen a film before will notice the blatant foreshadowing, and now, over an hour later, it's time for that little speech to pay off.

Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), Jurassic Park's game warden, is the most badass character in the first film, and only really has Pete Postlethwaite's Roland Tembo from The Lost World as any kind of competition within the franchise, so the scene in which Muldoon dies must be iconic. Before now, the dinosaurs have only taken out the incompetent, the evil or the evilly incompetent - Rex snacking on Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) on the toilet, a dilophosaurus killing the thoroughly deserving Nedry (Wayne Knight) - but this is the first time they take out someone competent. And not just competent, but the most competent. If there's anyone stranded on that island who should be capable of surviving and handling themselves in the midst of a dinosaur attack, it's Muldoon. If they can take him out, all hope is lost. And then this happens.

Whilst protecting Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern) as she reboots the park's power, Muldoon finds himself in the presence of a velociraptor. He can see it directly in front of him, but it's unclear whether the raptor has seen him or not. As quietly as possible (whis is actually pretty damn noisily it turns out) Muldoon slowly readies his gun, aims, and then the camera swings around to reveal a second raptor attacking not from the front, but from the side, leading to perhaps the most quoted line from the entire franchise, "Clever girl." Then there's teeth and flailing, a bush being shaken vigorously to hide the actual death, and Muldoon is no more. He really shouldn't have taken his hat off, clearly that was the source of all his power.

You know what makes this scene terrifying? The way the first raptor, the decoy, doesn't join in on the attack once it has begun. She just stands there, watching, barely even blinking her eye at the carnage. For her, this was not a kill necessitated by hunger, she just knew Muldoon was in the way, and needed to be forcefully removed. And why not throw a snake in for good measure?

One of the biggest positives I regularly laud over Jurassic Park (and what makes it far superior to Jurassic World) is the use of animatronics and practical effects, real solid things that can be touched and interacted with, and here is a prime example of them being used well, The raptors are all puppets, well hidden by the use of the aforementioned active foliage. Today this scene would probably be predominantly CG, and it really doesn't need to be. And I love it. And the screeching! Dear lord the screeching. That truly is the stuff of nightmares. This may not be my favourite death scene from even the original Jurassic Park (I had a freeze frame of Genarro being half-bitten by the T-Rex as my desktop wallpaper for years) but it's up there. Despite my love for Muldoon, it sure is exciting watching him die.

What's your favorite death scene from Jurassic Park?

Favorite Scene Friday! Jurassic Park: Show A Little Respect

When Robert suggested celebrating the release of Jurassic World by dedicating a month's worth of Favorite Scene Fridays to Jurassic Park, I of course didn't hesitate for a second before signing up for a couple of posts. However, it's been a somewhat difficult task in picking which scenes to discuss, especially seeing as I've already covered a couple of my personal highlights in the past, with the "Shoot her!" opening, and Hammond's flea circus. The original Jurassic Park is a film where pretty much every scene (that doesn't involve hacking) is one I'd happily talk about at length, so for my first June post I've picked one that includes some of the dialogue I quote most often in every day life.

Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neilllll) has just experienced and explained away some ill-placed scepticism at his theory of dinosaurs being closly related to birds, using an image of a velociraptor skeleton on the computer screen, when an obnoxious child (Whit Hertford) points out that the raptor doesn't look very scary, more like a giant turkey. For starters, a giant turkey would be terrifying. They're already hideous at their current size, but imagine a turkey 6 feet tall and you've got that rarest of things; a delicious dinner I'll do my utmost to run away from. The crowd of onlookers parts before the kid like Richard Schiff's torso parts from his legs in The Lost World, leaving Alan to make his rebuttal, in the most traumatising way possible.

Just as Grant turns on the kid, you can barely hear Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) mumble "Here we go." It's clear this isn't the first time Grant has faced opposition about how terrifying raptors are. And it's probably not the first time he's terrified a child on the topic either. We know Grant doesn't like kids (I often wonder whether my love of dinosaurs came from Jurassic Park, or my love of Jurassic Park came from a love of dinosaurs, in a similar way to how I'm not sure if I've also hated kids, or if Grant hating them inspired me to do so), and this particularly rude example is in for the full brunt of Grant's fossilized fury.

A lot of the film's elements are established in this scene - Grant mentions the T-Rex's vision is based on movement (not true) which of course comes back later in the film, as does the method of the kill described by Alan to the kid, when death comes not from the front, but from the side (you have no idea how often I squeeze that nugget into conversations). Bear in mind, Alan has placed the kid into this story he is telling, explaining exactly how he would be killed if he encountered a raptor in the wild. And he puts a button on it all with the raptor claw, the one item from Jurassic Park that I'd dearly like to own (we have a 3D printer where I work, and I'm very tempted to make one). Grant is the kind of man who wanders around with a 6" retractable raptor claw in his pocket, purely for the purpose of pretending to lacerate children with it, and so he does. It's another element called back to later, when Grant tosses away the claw, symbolising how the world doesn't need palaeontologists any more.

It's not the callbacks that are the reason I love this scene though, it's just watching a guy who knows his stuff, getting to use it to put a jumped-up little sod in his place for being disrespectful. Alan Grant isn't what you'd call a traditional movie badass, especially in a film that already has Bob Peck's Robert Muldoon, but here he gets a moment to be cool. Yes, it involved leaving a small boy with I can only assume at least a few weeks worth of nightmares (hopefully involving giant turkeys), but it's still cool.

What's your favorite scene from Jurassic Park?

Favorite Scene Friday! Miller's Crossing: Slippers and a Tommy Gun

We're celebrating March of the Coens over at French Toast Sunday, so here's one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite under-rated Coen brothers movies.

Miller's Crossing tells the story of two rival mob factions during Prohibiton-era America, and Tom (Gabriel Byrne), the right-hand-man caught in between them, attempting to play them off against one another in a way that won't necessarily leave him on top, but will hopefully at least leave him alive. There's a great deal of Coen-esque rapid-fire dialogue, some of it delivered even faster than usual, a large cast of characters and an ever-twisting plot, but for me the movie's highlight is a very simple, dialogue-free scene that works without knowing any context, relying solely on Albert Finney being a badass.

(Apologies for the poor video quality, you can see a better quality clip here.)

Finney is Leo, one of the bosses of the aforementioned mob factions. For reasons we don't need to get into, an assassination attempt is being made on him by rival boss Caspar (Jon Polito, the second best reason to watch this film other than this scene). Leo is at home, in his bedroom, reading the newspaper and smoking his cigar in his fine red smoking jacket, listening to Frank Patterson singing Oh Danny Boy on his record player. He notices smoke wafting through the floorboards, where the two would-be assassins have set fire to his house, so Leo stubs out his stogie and reaches for his gun at the bedside. The goons come in and Leo falls to the floor and rolls under the bed whilst they unload into the floor with their tommy guns. They fire wildly and blindly, but Leo lets off just two shots, one to the ankle of a guy, and the second into his head when he slams to the floor. The second goon scarpers, but Leo grabs the gun and runs after him, ducking through the hallway and into another room, vaulting out the window and down to the floor. No, Albert Finney clearly does not do this. No, I don't mind.

The surviving goon enters the room and looks around, searching for the target he just seconds ago saw go in there. He goes to the window and looks back into the room. And that's when Leo fills the man with lead from the ground outside, causing the man to perform a macabre dance, whirling his own tommy gun around like a catherine wheel, shooting in every direction going, whilst jiggling and convulsing to a beat not present in Danny Boy. That's not enough for Leo, though, because there's more goons to be dealt with. They drive past, their own guns never ceasing to fire, but Leo walks towards them without a moment's hesitation, shooting all the time, slowly pacing down the street in their direction and somehow never being hit by a single bullet. The car crashes, sets alight and explodes, leaving just Leo stood there in the street, wearing his smoking jacket and embroidered slippers, holding his smoking tommy gun. There's nothing left to do but pick his cigar out of his pocket, and place it back in his mouth. All in an evening's work.

It's worth noting that before this point we've been introduced to Leo as a mob boss with a hefty amount of clout and a beautiful young ladyfriend, but we've yet to really see why he has managed to not only gain this position, but keep it for a considerable amount of time. This scene, aside from being so darn cool, cements the fact that the character of Leo is not one to be messed with, and in fact from here on out he becomes a great deal more forceful, which Tom soon feels the brunt of. The scene also looks stunning, particularly when Finney is stood in front of his house, which is now thoroughly ablaze. I know the Coen brothers aren't for everyone, but it's scenes like this that are why they are easily amongst my top directors.

What's your favorite scene from the Coen Brothers? 

Favorite Scene Friday! The French Connection: Catch the train

Last week, Will took some time to discuss a scene from Black Narcissus, a beautiful, slow-moving, dramatic moment that focussed on the relatively small action of someone applying lipstick. This week, continuing February's Oscar-Month, I'm looking at the polar opposite to that scene; 1972 Best Picture winner The French Connection's car chase.

Police detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) has just had an attempt made on his life by a sniper (Marcel Bozzuffi), who is making his escape on an elevated train across New York City. Doyle commandeers a car and sets out to chase the gunman down, but unfortunately he hasn't banked on the sheer volume of New York traffic in his way, leading to my favorite car chase committed to film.

What makes this scene spectacular isn't necessarily what's involved in the scene, but more the much-documented way it was made, in that most, if not all, of the segments spent careering through the oncoming traffic were filmed without permit or permission. All those cars coming in the opposite direction, narrowly avoiding potentially fatal collisions, are not manned by stunt drivers or set on rails, those are real people going about their day, unwittingly embarking on the most dangerous journey of their lives. I don't condone this kind of thing, but it harkens back to a grittier, more visceral time when studios were less terrified and took more chances. Think of Robert Redford running along the top of a moving train in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or all the antics Buster Keaton almost killed himself doing. Sure, nowadays we get Tom Cruise climbing the side of the Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but it's not like he wasn't wearing a harness, and that scene took a great deal of meticulous planning. To hear The French Connection's director, William Friedkin, describe it, the scene shown above was made almost on-the-fly after he criticised stunt driver Bill Hickman's unsatisfactory attempts to produce a chase to Friedkin's liking. Friedkin himself operated the camera from the back seat as Hickman drove through the streets and across the intersections, as the director claimed that, should anything untoward have happened, his two regular cameramen both had families, whereas he was single with no dependants.

All the dangerous shots were made in one 6 block stretch, reportedly travelling at around 90 mph without stopping (although the actual footage in the clip doesn't seem quite as extreme as that). The only thing present to warn the other drivers to get the heck out of the way was a police-style siren on top of the car, and the only way a city official allowed them to crash the elevated train was by giving him a $40,000 bribe and a one-way ticket to Jamaica, because he knew he'd get fired once his superiors found out (which, according to Friedkin, is exactly what happened).

This guerilla film-making approach left the film makers with a limited amount of footage to work with, so the chase sequence is a real feat of editing, inter-cutting between the camera in the car, over Bill's shoulder (standing in for Hackman as the driver), the camera mounted to the front of the increasingly demolished car and various shots of Hackman, presumably driving at a much safer speed without endangering quite so many people not insured to work on the film, mashing at the pedals and pounding on the horn, but it all cuts seamlessly together in a highly kinetic, pulse-pounding way. And that's not even mentioning the fragments going on aboard the speeding train, as the assassin hijacks it, holding the driver at gunpoint whilst dealing with the guards attempting to apprehend him, resulting in a shoot-out and train crash. 

I don't blame today's directors for not utilising the more dangerous methods of making movies, and I can say for certain that if I were a film-maker, I'd be doing it in the most conservative, safest, most boring way possible, but that doesn't mean I can't reminisce about the old days, when schedules were pre-padded to allow the time the actors might spend in hospital. There's something more intense about watching a scene that feels spontaneous, that is missing from the perfect sheen we see on today's blockbusters, and I miss that.

What's your favorite scene from The French Connection? 

 AND what's your favorite dangerous movie moment?

Favorite Scene Friday! Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Badly Drawn Girl

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is one of those movies, along with the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terminator 2, where I still can't quite fathom how it was made when it was. It was released in 1988, and there isn't a moment when I think about this and it doesn't boggle my mind. The seamless integration of animation with live action would be impressive today, 27 years later, and there are times in this film that I'm still not quite sure how they did it.

The scene I'm looking at today is not one such moment, but it's still a great scene that uses the mixture of mediums very well. We've already met Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner, body provided with thanks from my adolescent dreams) with her song-and-dance number (which is worthy of a Favorite Scene Friday in its own right) but here she truly takes on the role of the film noir femme fatale, visiting our heroic gumshoe Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins, who apparently never actually met Kathleen Turner) in his rundown office and a state of undress, coaxing him further into the film's plot.

First off, let's get it out the way, the animation of Jessica is stunning, Her character design is the epitome of, well, teenage boner causing, helped of course by Turner's sultry voice, that jello-on-springs saunter and the heavy use of double entendres ("My offer stands firm, think about it."). As much as I'm a fan of Jessica, what really makes the scene is Hoskins. He has no shame in essentially looking like a pudgy gorilla, dressed in just his unbelted trousers and a tie, dangling loose over his hairy chest. The last thing he expects is to have a woman looking like Jessica Rabbit come into his office. The bit with the mirror, which Jessica is holding but shows Hoskins' reflection, is perfectly framed, visually iconic and technically impressive, as is Eddie's head bouncing off Jessica's ample bosom as he stands up, caught in the act by his girlfriend, accusing him of dabbling in watercolors.

Robert Zemeckis used to direct amazing, crowd-pleasing, genre-hopping films, but the last great one he made was back in 1994 with Forrest Gump. Sure, he's made some good movies since - Contact and Cast Away, for example -  but nothing has reached the heady heights of the likes of Gump, Roger Rabbit and, of course, Back to the Future. I'm glad he's no longer dabbling in exclusively motion-capture stuff, but Flight was underwhelming and the upcoming The Walk looks about the same. I need Zemeckis to find his fun side again, and I hope it happens soon. He was always great at pushing the boundaries of the medium, as shown in today's scene, but it's been a long time since he's done so whilst still producing a highly entertaining movie.

What's your favorite scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 

 AND do you think Robert Zemeckis can make another great movie?

Favorite Scene Friday! The Birds: Pecked

This week's Favorite Scene Friday! was written by Jay from Life vs Film!

HitchcOctober is being celebrated both at French Toast Sunday and Life vs Film, plus it's Horror month pretty much everywhere online, so it seemed right to fuse the two together and pick one of my favourite scenes from one of Alfred Hitchcock's horror movies. I'm not taking the low-hanging fruit of Psycho's shower scene, I'm instead opting for 1963's The Birds, and again, I'm not taking the obvious birds-gathering-on-the-climbing-frame scene, or even one of the big bombastic set pieces, instead I'm going for the moment the film takes a sudden lurch into horror.

Lafar Posters via JoBlo

Before this point in the film, the small San Francisco fishing town of Bodega Bay has suffered a few inexplicable attacks from feathered fiends - a lone seagull clawed at the head of our heroine Melanie (Tippi Hedren), another flies into a closed door, a flock of seagulls set about a children's birthday party and a swarm of sparrows wreaked havoc in the lounge via its chimney, but nothing serious has occurred other than a little scarring - both physically and mentally. However, when Lydia (Jessica Tandy) goes to visit a fellow farmer to discuss the odd behaviour of the town's birds, we discover the true peril these people are in store for.



That's right, he's dead. And not just dead, he's had the eyes pecked out of his head. There are deep red pools where his eyes used to be, and it's ruddy terrifying. It isn't helped by the film's complete lack of score, making Lydia's slow approach down the corridor seemingly take all the longer, as there's almost no sound whatsoever. Similarly, she looks around the room in silent confusion, noticing the extreme disarray and littering of bird corpses, one of which apparently bled to death whilst impaled in a window. This is the point where we realise that a bird attack, which previously sounded more comical than actually fatal, could in fact be incredibly dangerous and life threatening, and every attack that comes after this point comes with its serious consequences, but it all starts here.

Lydia's silent, gasping fleeing from the scene looks a little odd, but was an homage to Edward Munch's The Scream. I'm grateful that we don't actually see the attack take place - if there's one thing I can't watch, it's eye trauma - but I think not showing it makes it all the more powerful anyway, especially in the jump-scare value of the moment Lydia sees the body, as the camera zooms in on his face not once but twice. It's an image I won't soon forget.

What's your favorite scene from The Birds?

Favorite Scene Friday! Jurassic Park: Petticoat Lane

Today's scene was written by Jay from Life Vs Film.

August has been a pretty horrific month for losing legendary actors, claiming Robin Williams, Lauren Bacall and, most recently, Richard Attenborough. Originally I wanted to highlight one of Attenborough’s other films I love – The Great Escape, Flight of the Phoenix or The Sand Pebbles – but I knew that there’s really only one film a guy like me can talk about when Attenborough is brought up: Jurassic Park.



As much as I love the dinosaur-based action scenes, the moments of comedy and the general badassery of many of Jurassic Park’s bigger scenes, there is something touching and eminently watchable here, with Attenborough’s John Hammond, the creator of the attraction, lamenting the failure of his project.

The key factor here is that Hammond believes the catastrophic failures endured on Isla Nubar are merely a stepping stone towards the final endgame of a successful, fully functioning park, and the mistakes made this time around are areas to improve upon within the next project. It is up to Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler to quash these dreams, and the moment of realization upon Hammond’s face when it finally sinks in that his dreams will never be successfully brought to life is just heart-breaking, preceding the saddest, most dejected use of his “Spared no expense” catchphrase.

It’s the moments like this – the storytelling and character beats – that don’t get discussed enough in films like Jurassic Park. Even without the conversation between Hammond and Sattler, there's the sheer amount of time and effort that’s gone into preparing the scene – the pillars in the restaurant are carved with fossil designs, there are shelves upon shelves of merchandise waiting to be sold. But through it all, there is Richard Attenborough, with a twinkle in his eye as his face lights up, reminiscing on how the children thought they could really see the fleas in his circus. In the end, he’s an old man, trying to bring some happiness into the world, and that is an aim not devoid of merit.

Richard Attenborough, R.I.P.

Favorite Scene Friday! Jurassic Park: Special Delivery

This week's FSF! was written by Jay from Life vs Film!

Mondo

When Robert asked if I'd be interested in writing another Favorite Scene Friday, and during the month French Toast Sunday is celebrating the work of Steven Spielberg no less, there was only one possible film I'd be talking about. Jurassic Park is hands down my favourite movie of all time, and I talk about it as often as possible, so here I am talking about it again. I'm aware that Robert has highlighted a scene from Jurassic Park before - when Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler first clap eyes upon some dinosaurs - but that isn't my favourite scene. I could quite happily do a whole series of posts on this movie, with my top 5, 10 or maybe even 15 scenes in the film (20, if you include the rest of the franchise), but I'm going to stick just with one, the opening.



After the Universal logo, and over the opening credits, we get the start of John Williams' awesome score, but here it isn't in rousing mode, it's ominous. There's something coming, something deadly, something the crowd of hard-hat-wearing workmen are equally anticipating and dreading. I love how the trees rustle, and everyone is looking up in expectation, and we're supposed to think a T-Rex is going to come crashing through the trees. No, that's later. For now, we get a fork lift truck carrying a crate, big enough for a large horse, or a six-foot turkey, if you will. The most we see of what's in that crate is a couple of shots of its terrifying eyes through the slats in the side, yet with the use of some great sound design, terrific reactions from the men unloading the cage, and some animatronic flailing from the crate, we completely believe there's a dinosaur in that cage.

Of course, it helps when said dinosaur actually kills someone, which is what happens, less than four minutes into this film. Bearing in mind this is a movie entirely based around dinosaurs as being a theme park attraction, the concept of them killing and eating the customers or staff at said theme park may not have been forefront in the minds of the movie's audience upon that first viewing. It's understandable that the workmen in the film are apprehensive of this large, unknown creature before them, but do any of them think their lives are really at risk? Probably not, other than Muldoon, the only guy who can make tight khaki shorts look badass, even at night, but maybe these workers should have been a bit more wary, especially the gatekeeper, whose job it is to climb on top of the cage containing a live velociraptor and pull up the rather heavy-looking door, releasing it into its enclosure. I'll say that again. He gingerly mounts a cage, holding a LIVE VELOCIRAPTOR. It's not sedated (why the hell isn't it sedated? WHY?), it's not unconscious, it's a giant, carnivorous, eating machine, surrounded by a walking buffet. Of course, it all goes a little awry and we're left with Muldoon desperately trying to hold on to the man being dragged into the cage, the doomed man's arm gradually slipping through Muldoon's grasp as he bellows "Shoot her! Shoot her!" whilst the beast shrieks and screams in a blood-lusting frenzy.

If you didn't know dinosaurs were dangerous before this point, you bloody well do now.

What's your favourite scene from Jurassic Park?

Favourite (Animated) Scene Friday! Wall-E: The Space Dance

Hey, look, Jay Cluitt from Live vs. Film dropped by to kick off our month of animated Favorite Scene Fridays! Not only does Jay run LvF, you can hear him every week as the host of the LAMBcast, the podcast for the Large Association of Movie Blogs. He's also a regular contributor over at our sister site, French Toast Sunday - check out his "Jay's USA Roadtrip!" series. He's from the UK, you see. You can follow Jay on Twitter at @LifeVsFilm. Without further ado, here's Jay's scene from a Pixar classic!

Life Vs Film

Wall-E, Pixar's environmental parable starring a couple of initially Earth-bound robots, could well be my favorite animated film, and is certainly my favorite Pixar piece. It receives a great deal of praise for the first reel of dialogue-free insight into the everyday life of Wall-E, the last remaining trash-compacting 'bot charged with cleaning up the human mess on a now deserted Earth. But whilst I do love that period of the film, it is another, similarly silent (dialogue-wise, at least) scene that I love, occurring significantly later in the film once Wall-E and EVE, the droid sent to Earth to find signs of vegetation, have made it into space and to the Axiom, a giant space cruise-ship within which the last of humanity have been living for centuries.



Having narrowly escaped the detonating escape shuttle Wall-E had become trapped in, he and EVE meet in space when she rushes out to save him. EVE propels herself with her futuristic glowing blue in-built jetstream, whereas Wall-E goes typically old-school with a fire extinguisher he picked up from the shuttle. It would only be better if he had been riding atop an office chair during the flight. When they meet, after some playful fire-extinguisher-in-the-face shenanigans, Wall-E - who fell pretty hard for EVE when he first set binoculars on her - goes for the traditional wooing approach by giving EVE a flower. Or, more specifically, the plant-in-a-boot she has been searching for, and which holds the key to her not being de-programmed. She's justifiably elated at his gift, and gives him the spark-kiss he's been longing for all this time.

Wall-E's look of pure ecstasy/short circuiting the kiss causes is both hilarious and heartwarming, causing the little metal dude to drift off aimlessly before he and EVE begin a breathtakingly beautiful dance around the ship, weaving between the thrusters and elegantly gliding around. Thomas Newman's score perfectly encapsulates and accompanies the moment, and I love every second of it.

Just these two dancing around would have been more than enough, but we're also treated to their show causing Jane (Kathy Najimy) and John (John Ratzenberger), the two humans Wall-E has met so far on his journey, to discover one another - and the world around them away from their face-screens - forming what is potentially the first face-to-face human relationship seen on the Axiom in decades. Add to this the Captain (Jeff Garlin) and his boundless quest to discover the wonders of human life - seeds that grow pizza! - and you have one of the most joyous sequences this film has to offer.

Eventually, of course, Wall-E's fire extinguisher must run dry, and EVE gently catches him and takes him back to the ship; their brief moment of shared joy is now complete, and it's time to get back to the mission at hand, in much the same way that this scene has provided us with a breather from the film's message, and instead treats us to a scene of sheer joy.