[octothorp]

What are some of your favorite movie scenes, and why do you like them? Give youtube clips when possible.

I'm a sucker for Sergio Leone's set pieces in his westerns. Of course, one of the most famous movie scenes in history, the titular trio's showdown at the end of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The Morricone music is pretty much a fourth character here. And in the middle, it moves to all these shots from a long distance off, with the graveyard crosses in the foreground. And then the increasingly quick cuts between faces and guns.



But as great as this scene is, it's actually only my second-favorite Sergio Leone showdown. My favorite is the opening in Once Upon a Time in the West. Unfortunately I can't find one that starts from the very beginning, but these three villains are waiting at a train station in an almost dialogue free sequence that lasts about ten minutes. This clip shows the last couple minutes. As good as Charles Bronson is, the thing that makes this scene is character actor Jack Elam as the chief baddie.



I'm also a sucker for long single-shot sequences, and one of the best-constructed is the opening of the border-town film noir, Touch of Evil. Great sense of anticipation.



Unfortunately, the cut to the explosion at the end isn't well done (cars don't go up in the air and fall down when the explode), and I wish it had been like the opening of children of men, where the explosion is within that first shot. And I can't find a clip of that, but there's another brilliant long shot toward the end of Children of Men, running for about six minutes.



Changing up the pace 180 degrees but still looking at long shots, the most recent incarnation of Pride and Prejudice used the effect fantastically in a ball scene at the beginning of this clip here. The way the camera swoops through the rooms and picks up various characters to follow their story is brilliantly done.



I could go on about long shots for a while, there's a great one in Atonement. In contrast to those, here's a favorite scene from Rushmore that develops a whole lot of story very quickly, in one great music sequence:




Anyway, favorite acting scenes. This one from Apocalypse Now. I love how the whole movie is leading up to Kurtz, and then when we finally get to him, Coppola leaves him in the shadows as long as possible. Brando's voice and face are incredible here.