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.

[Rain Man]

The third clip is only on Facebook so the link is a little wonky. Just click it.

My votes:

#1 - Iron Giant. I guess I like this one the best. It's kind of touching, albeit a little bit trite.

#2 - Primal Fear. This might be #1. It's close. This one may be more powerful, but it really requires the rest of the movie. As a standalone scene it loses its punch.

#3 - Man on Fire. I don't enjoy dismemberment scenes.

[Mama Hip Rockets]

Does Cookie Monster do the voice of the giant?

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by thurman merman

Does Cookie Monster do the voice of the giant?

Vin diesel

[Rain Man]

Iron Giant rises up to win a low-scoring battle.

[BlackHelicopters]

Weak heat

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

The third clip is only on Facebook so the link is a little wonky. Just click it.

My votes:

#1 - Iron Giant. I guess I like this one the best. It's kind of touching, albeit a little bit trite.

#2 - Primal Fear. This might be #1. It's close. This one may be more powerful, but it really requires the rest of the movie. As a standalone scene it loses its punch.

#3 - Man on Fire. I don't enjoy dismemberment scenes.

I view Iron Giant kind of like Shel Silverstein or Dr. Suess, they've been improved on and improved on, and adopted and adapted, but THEY SET THE MODEL.

Criticizing it for triteness in 2014 is a little like criticizing the 1963 Corvette Stingray for not having anti-lock brakes.

MoF, The Dark Knight Rises owes it's conclusion to Iron Giant in that very clip. I wouldn't be surprised if the script didn't refer to the conclusion as 'the Iron Giant switcheroo.'

[Rain Man]

I disagree with part of your statement, baby less. You can't improve upon Dr. Seuss.

[Easy 6]

/yaaawn, shoves your pestering arm away.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I disagree with part of your statement, baby less. You can't improve upon Dr. Seuss.

Was there ever a Mr. Rogers, Dr. Suess divide, because as a kid I was considerably more stoked about Mr. Rogers than I was Dr. Suess.

A real adult talking to me as a friend, and then he'd go to bottling plants or on delivery routes and show how adults got things done, then he'd ask me if I enjoyed what I was watching?

Give me that any day over rhyming about rotten food.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Was there ever a Mr. Rogers, Dr. Suess divide, because as a kid I was considerably more stoked about Mr. Rogers than I was Dr. Suess.

A real adult talking to me as a friend, and then he'd go to bottling plants or on delivery routes and show how adults got things done, then he'd ask me if I enjoyed what I was watching?

Give me that any day over rhyming about rotten food.

I was never a Mr. Rogers kind of guy myself. It seemed like he was talking down to me for some reason. Dr. Seuss just went on a wild surrealistic ride and I got to hang on, so I was a big Dr. Seuss fan. The things that he saw on Mulberry Street changed my entire outlook on life.

And back to the original topic, I never saw Iron Giant. What about it was groundbreaking?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by scott free

/yaaawn, shoves your pestering arm away.

[Poke, poke.] Wake up. A Christmas Story is on in Heat 70.

[Easy 6]

Honest question RainMan... what is your favorite violent scene in a movie, I know you don't have many, but which one is acceptable to you, which one makes you go "HELL YEAH GET THAT MFER!"...

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by scott free

Honest question RainMan... what is your favorite violent scene in a movie, I know you don't have many, but which one is acceptable to you, which one makes you go "HELL YEAH GET THAT MFER!"...

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.

[Rain Man]

I guess I would also add that I hate arguing scenes the worst of all. Why anybody would want to see a movie about people arguing is beyond my comprehension. I hate scenes with people arguing. I hate cameos with people arguing. I hate comic books with people arguing. I hate those 19th-century silhouette pictures of people arguing. If there's a disagreement, just pull our your Samurai sword and slice the other person in two, but don't stand there and yell at each other.

I think the first movie I ever saw with my wife was War of the Roses. It was basically two hours of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner yelling at each other. Aside from being a terrible first-date movie, it just made me miserable to watch. I don't like arguments in real life, so why should I pay $20 to watch people argue? I don't understand how that's entertaining at all.