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December 16th, 2007
04:56 am - Perfect Movie Moments...
In my eyes, there are certain scenes, or moments of movies where everything is just so right, so beautifully crafted, that they stand out as perfect moments.
One such moment, and it literally is just a minute or so, occurs near the end of the original Die Hard. The FBI has ordered a shutdown of power for the Nakatomi Plaza, and there it is. The power goes, the lights flick off and...
Klaxons sound. The security vault locks disengage, the door opens, and Alan Rickman is framed against the light, as triumphant music plays. (Ode to Joy?) And between the alarms, the jaunty music, the use of light and shadow, the way Rickman composes himself, and the gleeful, yet reverent, "Merry Christmas" of Theo, the evil tech genius...
Perfect. Just a moment I want to frame.
So, what are your Perfect Movie Moments?
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It's actually a TV moment, but for me it really emphasized how perfect I thought some of the writing for Firefly was.
Big build up scene, someone's sneaking something onto the shop in a big crate. We're all thinking drugs, weapons, some super-techno device. Captain Tightpants opens the crate revealing - a naked Summer Glau.
Long pause.
And where other writers might have taken time to post a monologue we get:
"huh."
For me, it was a perfect example of how understatement can say more than cleverly drafted paragraphs. One of the coolest things in that movie was the use of music. They found some way to make christmasesque (ACK! FAKE WORDS! FAKE WORDS!) music a theme of the movie. Some of them were downright ingenious, like when they used a variation of "Walking In A Winter Wonderland" as the dark bass for one particular scene. Really well done!
Is it okay to agree with everything everyone said here?
When people ask my favorite Christmas movie, I generally say 'Die Hard'. DH does use all those Christmasy element so beautifully. The 'Ode to Joy' scene is about as perfect as you can get. Makes me smile every time.
I also dig the scene where the one terrorist is rewiring the phone system and his brother comes in with a chainsaw and starts cutting the lines before it's time. Such a simple scene, but it illustrates those characters in a wonderful way.
That particular scene in Firefly is wonderful. I agree that many writers would have overdone it, when the simple 'Huh' did it all.
I have so many favorite movies its hard to pin down a scene.
Recently, I've been hearing negative comments about M. Night Shyamalan again, they seemed to have died off for awhile. I rarely hear much said about 'Unbreakable'. It's got a number of great scenes in it. The hospital scene where he walks out - perfectly fine and has to walk that gauntlet of people whose family members didn't survive is a memorable one.
The whole opening scene of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in the the temple is nearly as perfect as it gets, all the way up to him jumping in the plane only to discover the snake onboard.
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