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Our Forty Favorite
Movie Scenes
Watch out for high levels
of VAN DAMMAGE on this list!
written by progressive boink- november 25th - 2003
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B.
10) Bloodsport (1988)
"Now I show you some trick or two!"
Scene:
To save a nosy reporter who he doesn't know from being gang-raped
by a bunch of brown guys, Jean-Claude Van Damme's Frank Dux
enters into a chilling game of chance involving coins and
hilarious broken English.
Significance: Okay, so Van Damme says that
he's going to put a coin in Osama Bin Karate-Fightin's hand and
if he can snatch the coin back before the hand closes, he gets to
take the girl to safety. If he doesn't, the girl gets to be the
camel and Hossien (the guy's actual name, think A-Train in Iraq)
gets to be the Jingoistic New Yorker Cartoon. It's hard to pick
one scene in Bloodsport to love the most, but this (money)
exchange is PRICELESS!
Van Damme: TAEK IT (hands Hossein the coin)
Ogre: Aw jeez Frankie, I hope you know what
you're doin!
Van Damme: WEADY? (peers at Hossein)
Hossein: (glares)
Van Damme: (remembers catching fish in a pond)
Hossein: Go!
(swipe)
Hossein: HA!
YOU LOSE AMERICAN
ASSHOLE
Van Damme: (points to Hossein's hand)
Van Damme: LOOK LIKESHEES MIEN
Relevance: The scene also involves the
best line delivery in the history of cinema, delivered like a
SAND and SCUD MISSILE pizza by an Arabic guy in a Cosby sweater.
HE IS THE AMERICAN
SHITHEAD WHO MAKES TRICKS WITH BRICKS
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: Robert Deniro
and Christopher Walken playing Russian Roulette scene in
"The Deer Hunter." If Robert Deniro falls, then surely
Country Bear Hall will follow!
9) Lean on Me (1989)
Scene: Morgan Freeman and Robert Guillaume
verbally duke it out to decide who is the Head Nigger in Charge.
Significance: Robert Guillaume is an
American bad ass, and we should all respect him. The man is a
living legend. He's made guest appearances on Sanford and Son,
The Jeffersons, AND Good Times. He was the best part of "The
Lion King" and the best part of Sportsnight, and will
probably be the best part of Tim Burton's new movie, "Big
Fish." In this scene in "Lean on Me" he does the
impossible, portraying a heated argument between two people who
don't hate each other but aren't pussies about it. He and Freeman
scream and curse each other, and when the damage is done they go
out for lunch. One of my favorite scenes in all of movies, by one
of my favorite people.
Relevance: Freeman's nemesis in the movie
is the late Lynne Thigpen. So that pretty much means that Robert
Guillaume is the Head Nigger in Charge, but Morgan Freeman did a
great job, and won't be going home empty handed: He's got a
Gumshoe jacket and a Carmen Sandiego watch!
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: The scene in
"Zapped!" where Scott Baio and Willie Aames verbally
duke it out to decide who is the Head Charles in Charge.
8) Ghost World (2000)
Scene: Tired of her best friend Rebecca
always being preferred by boys, Enid (Thora Birch) makes a futile
attempt to bash in her classmates head with a pineapple. business
administration and minoring in communications
Significance: One of the funniest subtle
jokes I've ever seen. God I love subtlety. Whether it be Tiger
Mask selling an injury or Norah Jones wearing a shirt, being
subtle often goes a lot farther than, to compare, Madonna
sticking her cow tongue down Christina Aguilera's throat or The
Rock doing six backflips after catching a Stone Cold Stunner. The
scene, and the act, are just so out of place that they go from
bad to being good, without going back around to bad. Besides, the
guy says he wants to major in business administration and minor
in communications. I want to bash his head in with a large spiked
fruit as well.
Relevance: Thora Birch and Scarlett
Johannson being in the same place at the same time gives me sexy
girl overload. it makes me want to hit myself in the crotch with
a pineapple no
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: The little kid
hacking Jason's head in in "Friday the 13th: The Final
Chapter." Now that we've gotten Freddy vs. Jason and the
upcoming Aliens vs. Predator, can I suggest Cujo vs. Billy
Elliot?
7) Only Yesterday (1991)
Scene: Taeko and her Japanese family share
a pineapple. She is excited to try something new and bugs her
father to bring one home, at a high cost. Her family has no idea
how to eat it, but they make an event out of it. When nobody
enjoys the taste, Taeko is so ashamed and let down that she eats
everyone else's.
Significance: Just the other day, Justin
called me an elitist for "worshipping obscure Japanese films
for children." I'll have to learn to live with the label,
because I can find no filmmakers with more consistency in the
quality of their scenes than Studio Ghibli. The scene says so
much without exposition. It shows Taeko's respect for her family
but her own selfishness as well; it shows her childlike
excitement shadowed by the hardened soul she'll have to one day
grow into. It shows a different culture in a moment of reality,
it shows a daughter and a person and a child and a heart. It
shows a mind and a soul. All from an animated Japanese girl
eating a pineapple with a frown on her face.
Relevance: Hayao Miyazaki gets all of the
credit for Studio Ghibli, and I love the man like I love
breathing, but the Goth in me worships the fucking Earth that
Isao Takahata walks on.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: The Fat Boys eating
greens because they make you better at sex in
"Disorderlies."
6) Kill Bill vol.
1 (2003)
Scene: The Showdown at the House of Blue
Leaves. Uma Thurman basically kills 88 people, de-arms one, and
spanks one all with the same yellow jumpsuit and sword.
Significance: I'm so tired of action
movies. I don't want to see the Rock slow-mo punch somebody. I
don't want to see GOVNAH AHNOLD GET TO THE CHOPAA and shoot a
bazooka at anybody anymore. I don't want to see Stallone or
Angelina Jolie drive something fast, and I don't want to see
Harrison Ford making any last minute decisions. What I want to
see is someone having a sword stuck into them, and then I want to
see a giant spray of high pressure blood when it is removed. I
want to see a Japanese schoolgirl get a board with nails stuck in
her head. I want to see a room full of Yakuza without an arm or
leg or both screaming in a big pool of blood. Quentin Tarantino
gave this to me, and for that I give him my eternal respect and
my apology for not liking any of his other movies. My only fear
for Kill Bill volume 2 is the fear that nobody can top a half an
hour of high octane fucking bad assedness like the House of Blue
Leaves.
Relevance: I've got a new way to live. The
price you pay for leaving me a dollar on a sixty dollar ticket
is: I collect your fucking head.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: The Ninja
Turtles beating up a crowd of Foot Clan losers and guys in giant
animal suits as Vanilla Ice rocks out in the background in
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the
Ooze."
5) The Goonies (1985)
Scene: The Goonies face a last temptation
to turn back on their quest to find One-Eyed Willie's rich stuff.
They stumble into a wishing well, and suddenly the films writers
develop a third eye and craft the dialogue that defines my
childhood.
Significance: The Ultimate Corey Feldman
Sequence
[The Goonies are collecting coins from a wishing well]
Stef: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
stop, stop! You can't do this.
Data: Why?
Mikey: Why?
Stef: Because these are somebody else's wishes.
They're somebody else's dreams.
Mouth: Yeah,
but you know what? This one, this one right here.
This was my dream, my wish.
And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back.
I'm taking them
all back.
I had the pleasure of seeing this in the theater recently, and my
heart grew three sizes that day. Best scene ever. I was seriously
tempted to put this at number one. All the way from Mikey's
"WOOOOOW" to Troy screaming "ANDYYYYYY YOU
GOONIEEEEE"
Relevance: Don't you realize? The next
time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you
take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they
want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do
what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up
there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. That's
all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: The people
outside the Goonies showing I went to, who were one half emo and
one half emo, screaming HEEEEEY YOOOOU GUUUUUUUYS at the top of
their lungs and then laughing on average of six times per minute.
4) Grave of the
Fireflies (1988)
Scene: After a night of playing with
fireflies under a mosquito net in a bomb shelter, a little girl
who has lost her mother digs a hole in the dirt and begins
burying the dead firefly bodies, questioning why they have to die
so soon.
Significance: I can't even write about
this scene without crying. The weight of mortality is only
matched by the weight of this scene on my heart.
Relevance: Grave of the Fireflies is
unquestionably my favorite film of all-time, animated or not, and
is undeniably the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. It is
what made me hold Isao Takahata at such a high level of respect.
I hope one day to create something even ten percent as beautiful
and moving as this.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: Master P
contemplating life and death in one of the four-hundred and
sixty-thousand movies he and his friends made so they could smoke
pot in them and not get arrested.
3) Shaolin Soccer (2001)
Scene: With their starting goal keeper
down to injury and the Evil Team ready to take the championship
trophy, the music swells as Tin steps in as reserve goaltender to
face down a penalty shot shot by the ENTIRE Evil Team. He takes a
moment before the shot, standing in goal, to make a phone call.
"Chun!"
"Tin?"
"Yes. I've kept a secret in my mind for many years, but I
really want to tell you at this moment. Chun, I love you."
Significance: The pinnacle of parody and a
magnificent display of melodrama, Shoalin Soccer never lets the
view take him or herself too seriously but lets you in enough to
cheer as a goaltender faces off against ten guys kicking a
flaming soccer ball at him.
Relevance: Do yourself a favor, if you've
never seen Shaolin Soccer, make a point to. Stephen Chow is a God
amongst men, and Shaolin Soccer is his masterpiece. Easily the
most unconventional and accidentally brilliant movie I've ever
seen, and obviously the best movie about Chinese people doing
kung fu during soccer games that could possibly ever be made.
Again, it's hard to pick just one scene. It was this, or the
patched-up Sanrio sneakers.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: That scene in
Lord of the Rings where they won't let Sam play for Notre Dame
because he's three feet tall and hairy. At Notre Dame, it's their
time. It's THEIR TIME at Notre Dame. But in the Shire it's our
time. It's OUR TIME in the Shire.
And I'm spent.
2) Roman Holiday (1953)
Scene: The Ending. God, the ending.
Significance: Roman Holiday is a romantic
comedy. Romantic comedies always suck. ALWAYS. There is no
exception to this rule. People fall in love for no reason in some
wonderful place because of some wonderful circumstance, and it's
all happy and fun and gay. In Roman Holiday Gregory Peck plays a
reporter who accidentally takes in a runaway, the Princess of
some unnamed country (that isn't important) who is tired of never
getting to live a happy, carefree life. Peck wants an exclusive
story, so he leads her around and lets her do what she wants. He
spends these special moments with her under the pretense of lies,
but she is so different and so special that he can't help falling
in love with her. He gives her a new way to see life, and she
loves him for it. They love each other, and there's a REASON for
it. The only time I've ever seen it done right, really. They
EXPLAIN it, and it isn't two people fucking each other in the
back of a car on a giant boat of destiny. The ending is what
really matters: Peck's character knows from the first moment he
sees her that he can never be with her. He's always known it, and
so has she. The last scene is Peck, as a reporter, attending the
farewell ceremony for the Princess's visit to Rome. They share a
moment without any moments. They share no goodbye speeches. But
they look at each other...the way they look at each other, it's
just so harsh and real and lost, and wrapped in pain. They both
wish they could change the world and be together, but they know
they can't, and that they shouldn't. It's fucking painful.
Devastating. And all he can do is walk away. The last shot of the
movie is Gregory Peck, the greatest actor who has ever lived,
walking out of the palace as the screen follows him from beneath,
staring up at the background and ceiling. And all you can hear
are his footsteps. That's all that is left.
Relevance: My favorite actor and actress
in a movie that reaffirms my belief in love without
melodramatically trying to convince me that it solves my
problems.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: Every other romantic
comedy ever made.
1) To Kill a
Mockingbird
(1962)
Scene: Atticus Finch sits on his front
porch listening to his children talk about their late mother as
they go to sleep.
Significance: Heart wrenching, poignant,
and telling: without Atticus moving or saying a word. You can see
the desperation in his face. You know how he feels by his body
language. You can see his heart breaking into a thousand pieces
on his front porch swing, because he is the hero that fights for
lost causes -- and his wife is lost. He can never bring her back.
He can't give his children a mother, and it kills him. It just
rips him apart. He fights for those who can't fight for
themselves, because he wants to show his children life, love,
honesty, respect, and dignity without looking down at them or
bringing them pain. He wants to set them free and protect them at
the same time. He wants to open up to them but never will. He
says so much without saying a word. The greatest example ever
recorded of showing something without telling it. Beautiful,
absolutely beautiful. It will never be topped.
Relevance: The book makes me want to write
for the rest of my life, and the movie makes me want to see my
creations come to life and affect people: but the scene makes me
want to be a better person.
Comparable Bad Movie Scene: Renee
Zellweger expositioning for 24 minutes without breathing to Ewan
McGregor in this century's worst movie, "Down With
Love."
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