h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The scene in Garden State where Sam, Largeman and the other guy whose name I've forgotten scream into 'the infinite abyss'.

In the first Indiana Jones film where Indy grabs the idol, smiles for a second, and then the giant rock ball starts chasing him.

That scene in Garden State is one of my favourite kiss scenes ever.

Christopher Walken: "The...one...shot..." from The Deer hunter.

RF

The last scene from Fight Club, where they hold hands and watch the skyscrapers collapsing.

One of mine is at the end of Pulp Fiction (which has loads of great scenes*) where Samuel L Jackson goes through the Ezekiel 25:17 thingy with Tim Roth's character. There's such a sense of certainty it's incredible, he's just *so* in control at that point ("Yolanda! Point the gun at me!"). One thing that I love is how absolutely steady his hand is when he's pointing the gun. I think he must've had his arm on a hidden rest.






*Christopher Walken telling young Butch about his dad - "I wore that watch up my ass for five years"

Entrapment. Catherine Zeta Jones working her way through the web that guards the artwork. Damn, she's flexible

From 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'.

When McMurphy is refused permission to watch the baseball(?), then draws in the majority of his fellow inmates to 'watch' it on a blank TV whilst providing the commentary.

Oh yes

Clockwork Orange. Opening shot when the camera pulls back from Alex's face to reveal a tableau of droogs spaced out on 'moloko plus', to strains of Wendy Carlos (still Walter in those days).

While we're Kubricking, the opening scene of The Shining.

Well of course.

My favourite scene from 2001 wasn't the docking scene. Orv even the bone-turns-into-spaceship. Or the vacuum re-entry. It was just before the intermission when HAL was lipreading Bowman and Poole.

Great sound design in that part of the movie, too. Most of the soundtrack was the gentle buzz of the air conditioning.

Lots of the really wierd Ligeti music, though!!!



'g'

Not in that segment. (wasn't there some Handel onboard Discovery?) The Ligeti was on the moon. And through the Stargate. ('My God! It's full of stars!')

Great film, though. I must've seen it more often than any other film - with the possible exception of 'Gregory's Girl'. I have to say, though - Clockwork Orange is his masterpiece. It's so *funny*!



Favourite 'Gregory's Girl' scenes? I'm glad you asked!...

- Gregory making breakfast (dog biscuit, Primula cheese in a tube and pineapple) and the electric toothbrush.
- When Gregory comes out his front door into Toddler Land.
- The window cleaner telling the schoolboys the ways of the world. ('I've seen it all through the windaes - tits, fanny, the lot.')
- Gregory weaving across the playground in an attempt not to be seen.
- The penguin ('Room sixteen')
- Chic Murray playing the piano ('On you go, you small boys!')
- Dorothy, the gym teacher and the gluteus maximus trap ('Jesu bambino! that's really nifty!)
- The ginger beer and lime ('The best bit is just before you taste it)
- The two lads chatting up girls ('Did you know - when you sneeze it comes out your nose at two hundred miles an hour?'
- When Gregory and girlfriend No 2 walk down The Street of a Thousand Lawnmowers
- 'Are you goantae take her to the country park?'
- 'Don't stop dancing or you might fall off.'
- 'Goodnight, Mr Spaceman'
- 'That's no even how you spell Caracas.'

...and many more.

Don't remember any Handel, Ed!!

There was Strauss, both J.S. and Richard....

I'll see if I can get back to you on that one......




'g'

Handel?!! I was way out. Aram Khachaturian's Gayaneh ballet suite.

'g'

The bar scene in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies where Cynthia realises she is Hortense's mother. Wiki says it was filmed as one single uninterrupted 8 minute take.

I just rewatched Amelie (which may well be my favourite film, it's just so wonderful) and that is full of cracking scenes.

I think the best is one a neighbour convinces a young Amelie that every time she takes a photograph, she causes an accident. She watches the news that night and is racked with guilt over causing two derailments and a plane crash. A few days later, she realises it was a trick so she climbs up on his roof with a radio while he's watching an important football match. Listening to the commentary on the radio, she casually disconnects his satellite signal every time it sounds like someone might score, before reconnecting it too late to catch what happened. The guy goes nuts in his house but has no idea what's really happening.

Oh yeh, that's great!

The sparring program in "The Matrix".

Only works the first time you see it in 1999. Up until then all movie punch-ups using Western actors had been shot in tight closeup with very, very choppy editing to conceal the fact that most Western actors couldn't punch their way out of a paper bag and were invariably fighting stuntmen in case they accidentally clocked each other, or if a star was doing their own fighting they were usually a former martial artist and what they were doing the rest of the time could only loosely be called "acting".

Then, suddenly, Lawrence and Keanu waved their hands around in the air and actually started HITTING each other, properly, in a wide shot that went on and on and on, lasting well over a second, which in terms of a fight scene is practically forever, and it was clearly THEM, not stuntmen. That first shot in the dojo was, in its way, far more revolutionary than any of the slo-mo, bullet-time or wire-fu stuff the movie is better known for. Simply training actual Hollywood stars intensively for MONTHS achieved something never really seen before. And then the Propellerheads kicks in, and the fight scene kicks up a gear, and even a decade later that scene is practically perfect.

Also, consider the genius of a script where a FIGHT scene is so quotable:
"This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the same basic rules, rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others... can be broken. Understand?"
...
"Then hit me... if you can."

"Good! Adaptation, improvisation. But your weakness... is not your technique."

"Do you believe that my being stronger, or faster, has anything to do with my muscles, in this place? You think that's air you're breathing now?"

"You're faster than this. Don't THINK you are. KNOW you are."

"Come on, stop trying to hit me and HIT ME!"

"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."

Reminds me of the staggering choreography and cinematography together in the giant bamboo scenes in House of Flying Daggers.