With the release of the extended edition of Battle of the Five Armies, Peter Jackson’s six-film Middle Earth saga has come to a completion. The end result, as a Tolkien die-hard, is a monument to the body of work the visionary fantasy writer created and some of the best films made in the last 25 years. The Lord of the RIngs is really an 11 hour film broken into three parts, but all three are grouped fairly closely on the Top 250, so we’ll get to examine them all starting with the capper: The Return of the King. Continue reading Top 5: Scenes from Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King (IMDB Top 250 #9)→
Every month we take a look at a movie on the Internet Movie Database’s List of the the TOP 250 FILMS OF ALL-TIME. These are movies that transcend a simple “My Favorite Scene” column. These are movies that are hard to just pry five gems from, but we do and examine the film overall. We’re on our eighth installment in this series. Click on the links for The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction , Schindler’s List, and 12 Angry Men to check out previous installments.
It’s the film the term “Spaghetti Western” is most associated with and one of, if not the, most famous Western ever made. It’s the final film in the “Dollars Trilogy” that Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leonne made, and Clint Eastwood’s iconic character “The Man With No Name” was named by Empire Magazine as one of the 50 Best Characters in Film History. For all that, and as much as I respect it as a film, this isn’t one of my favorite movies. The reason for that is that I’m a words person. If Aaron Sorkin writes something where people are spewing paragraphs like they have guns to their heads and walking quickly through an office….I’m a happy guy. In the first half-hour of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, there may be a paragraph’s worth of words…..maybe. It’s simply a style preference and you can’t deny it’s impact on the genre and the awesomeness of The Man with No Name as we’re a year shy of its 50th anniversary of release. And Ennio Moriconne’s classic score IS the music for the Western genre and some of the most famous notes in film history. Here are my favorite moments.
1. The Showdown
It’s the ultimate gunfight: simple as that. This is possibly the scene that makes Clint Eastwood the icon he always will be; the biggest Western star of all-time (sorry John Wayne, but it’s true).
2. Rescuing Tuco
I love the scam that Blondie and Tuco have going where he’s continually turning Tuco (and can we just pause to acknowledge one of the best supporting characters ever?) authorities to be hanged, then saving him at the last minute by shooting off the noose.
3. Our Partnership is Untied
No one is really “good” in this film, it’s just that Blondie comes the closest. Figuring that they’ve capped out on Tuco’s usefulness as a hanging dummy, Blondie drops him in the desert and we’re treated to a beautiful stream of Eli Wallach outraged insults.
4. Blue or Gray?
The setting for the film is shortly after the Civil War and this particular miscalculation in estimating sides is probably the funniest moment in the film. Stupid dust.
5. Tucco’s Final Insult
Here’s an occasion where Leonne’s style does work. At the end of the film, balanced on a cross surrounded by gold, strung up once again, Tuco’s not sure if he’s going to be saved this time and the acting Wallach does in conveying the tension is just beautiful.
Every month we take a look at a movie on the Internet Movie Database’s List of the the TOP 250 FILMS OF ALL-TIME. These are movies that transcend a simple “My Favorite Scene” column. These are movies that are hard to just pry five gems from, but we do and examine the film overall. We’re on our seventh installment in this series. Click on the links for The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction and Schindler’s List to check out previous installments.
Nearly 60 years after its initial theatrical release, 12 Angry Men remains one of the most powerful, wisest and brilliantly composed motion pictures of all-time. Sydney Lumet’s adaptation of the stage play has 99% of the film in one room. It’s 12 guys just yapping at each other for 90 minutes, but yet it flies by as fast as any thriller ever made.
Character development for each of these 12 jurors, stuck with deciding the fate of a young man charged with murder evolves naturally over the course of arguing back and forth the merits and flaws in the prosecution’s case. Henry Fonda begins as the lone hold out, but then he begins to poke hole after hole in the case and the tide of the jury swings his way. Most people would pick the last juror to be won over, and that’s obviously an iconic scene we’ll get to soon. Continue reading Top 5: Scenes from 12 Angry Men (#7 on the IMDB Top 250 Movies)→
Nearly 60 years after its initial theatrical release, 12 Angry Men remains one of the most powerful, wisest and brilliantly composed motion pictures of all-time. Sydney Lumet’s adaptation of the stage play has 99% of the film in one room. It’s 12 guys just yapping at each other for 90 minutes, but yet it flies by as fast as any thriller ever made. Continue reading My Favorite Scene: 12 Angry Men (1957) “Turn Your Back”→
I have to eat crow on this. I thought Quicksilver was shoehorned into this movie just to beat Disney in using him in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I thought his look was stupid. I flat out didn’t even want him in the movie. Mmmmmmm. Crow.
Evan Peters stole this movie. His two scenes: both his introduction at his house and this scene were a combination of comic book cool and gleeful fun. This scene, where he saves the day during the X-Men’s jailbreak of Magneto is probably my favorite scene in any film I’ve seen in 2014. It’s brilliant.
There will be an extended cut of X-Men DOFP coming out sometime in 2015 and I will be very interested to see that version, because my main problem with the theatrical release was that it felt rushed. I can only hope Peters will be back in X-Men: Apocalypse, but until then I’ll gladly watch this over and over again.
Every month we take a look at a movie on the Internet Movie Database’s List of the TOP 250 FILMS OF ALL-TIME. These are movies that transcend a simple “My Favorite Scene” column. These are movies that are hard to just pry five gems from, but we do and examine the film overall. We’re on our ninth installment in this series. Click on the links for The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction , Schindler’s List, 12 Angry Men, and The Good The Bad and The Ugly to check out previous installments.
