SceneItAll Tournament: Round 1, Heat 68

[Rain Man]

The rules:

In Round 1, I'm going to put up three randomly selected scenes from the nomination thread.

You'll vote for your ONE favorite scene among the three. The key here is FAVORITE. We're not talking about the 'best' or 'most powerful' or 'most meaningful'. We're talking about the scene that you most enjoy watching, however you define that.

The winners will move on. I'll also take the 10 highest-scoring second-place scenes and they'll advance as wild cards.

Some of our nominations did not include clips. This will be noted. If you find a clip, please post it and let me know so I can update it if it moves on.

Post by Moooooooovies loooooooovers.

[DJJasonp]

I disagree with others....think this is a very strong heat with Man on Fire and Primal Fear being pretty memorable scenes (especially Primal Fear's reveal).

Tough to choose between those two. Creasy was a bad ass.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

There are violent scenes that I like, but the more I think about it, there are a couple of patterns to it. I've never thought about it before.

1. Scenes where there's some humor involved, particularly in a surprise sense. The best examples of this are in Pulp Fiction, with the "Oh man, I shot Marvin in the face" scene or the "My wallet is the one that says 'Bad M*****f****r on it." I love those scenes.

2. War movies are acceptable. The scene where Jackson is in the bell tower in Saving Private Ryan is a great example. I love that scene. The scene in Platoon where they leave behind Willem Dafoe is great. If I may psychoanalyze myself, it may be because these scenes aren't people being mean to each other on a personal basis. They're doing what they're obligated to do, and it's not about hate.

The violent scenes that I don't like in particular are:

A. Unrealistic fight/shoot 'em up scenes where 'normal people' (e.g. cops) do unrealistic things. 10-minute fistfights where people take a dozen bullets and continue to do ultra-black-belt martial arts make me want to go out to the lobby and get popcorn. They don't bother me, but they bore me to tears. Kill Bill is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, because it was basically nothing but this stuff and gore.

B. Mean violence. Vindictive stuff where people are being cruel to another person turn me off. I've mentioned this before, but I want to feel better coming out of a movie than I did going in, and these scenes don't do that. Stuff like those Saw and Hostel movies, and pretty much anything gangster related (other than Pulp Fiction) are mean violence and I simply don't enjoy watching them. The world is harsh enough in real life without that stuff.


There are occasional exceptions if a scene is really well done. Silence of the Lambs is a great example of that. Hannibal's escape scene is really, really good and I'm a big fan. But again, when I think about it, the violence isn't because he's being mean. It's a necessary action to meet his goals and the scene really isn't about the violence. It's about him escaping, and hey, he has to do some creative violence to achieve that. But he's not doing it out of personal animosity to the guards.

I see the merit in every bit of this, well thought out but in easy to understand terms... I'm not a SAW, Hostel type fan whatsoever, just gore to add to gore... there has to be a tangible, life/good grace saving angle to it all.

"End of the world/dystopia" features get my pardon as well... sometimes evil must suffer to understand the "badness of goodness" before they get the picture that their ways just aren't worth it... anyway, you're a highminded guy and well worthy to inherit the GAZ throne, he's not really gone though, Gaz, just still exists somewhat in the ether.