Film/Video Discussion Thread - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

Saving Private Ryan

Paul the sparky

Paul the sparky wrote:

Blade Runner 2049, great scene taken from Ridley Scott's pitch to the writer or producers of the original film.

This is a big one for me actually, me, my dad and my brother all nudging each other as the penny dropped on what we were watching and knowing the film was in very safe hands. My mate, uncle and cousin were there too but obviously hadn't seen Dangerous Days, the fucking noobs

Diluted Dante

nick_md wrote:

The greatest opening scene in film?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QML28YQBvyc

Raiziel

bad_hair_day wrote:

Alien. Titles, score, sound effects and camera set the mood perfectly.

Excellent shout. Watched it just the other night. Understated score, slow pan across the planet in shadow, and that haunting, plaintive alien sound. Perfect. Sometimes less is more.

davyK

b0r1s wrote:

Saving Private Ryan

Aye. Had that one in mind. Though strictly speaking the opening scene is the old soldier in the cemetery but that opening battle sequence is hard to top.

Kow

Rewatching Close Encounters for the first time in years. It's odd how now it seems to play to a deep state conspiracy audience, false flag threats and generally show the lunatic fringe in a good light. Obviously, not what Spielberg intended.

davyK

Goodfellas grabs you . What an opener that is.

Kow

I also don't understand the reasoning behind having a French character who needs a translator for everything he says.

g.man

It would be good if he spoke English, but with a thick Allo Allo French accent... but still had a translator.

cockbeard

The policeman, plose buu the peelicemon

Diluted Dante

g.man wrote:

It would be good if he spoke English, but with a thick Allo Allo French accent... but still had a translator.

I was pissing by the door, when I heard two shats. You are holding in your hand a smoking goon; you are clearly the guilty potty

g.man

Looooooong time since I've seen CE3K. I'd be curious now to see the original (and somewhat dull) theatrical cut, which I probably haven't seen since the original cinema release forty-three years ago. It's a hell of a film for different cuts though. There must be far more different versions than say Bladerunner.

g.man

...in fact. the last time I saw it was probably the special edition, which had the shots inside the mothership at the end, but apparently it's been re-edited since then and had those shots taken back out again.
Dreyfuss is probably called Roy McClunky in the latest version.

Kow

I'm just at the end so I'm waiting to see if he goes inside in this version.

Kow

No shots inside. Decent film but a lot of it doesn't make much sense.

g.man

I do remember it being a bit of a hot mess outside of the spectical scenes. The original cut is positively turgid in places.

davyK

Original cut was confusing as hell. There's a director's cut that has come exposition that helps it along.The final cut dropped the ill advised mothership internals (I don't think I ever saw that version) I really like it - more to do with nostalgia than anything else though. The silent mothership reveal in the cinema caused a gasp from the audience.

However I found it jolting that the main character abandoned his family.

Some say that's a Spielberg thing as his father absconded.

hylian_elf

Kow wrote:

Has Ron Perlman actually had a big part in any decent film apart from Hellboy?

Probably doesn’t count as a big part, but he was the antagonist in Drive. (The one with Ryan Gosling, not the Mark Damascos martial arts film.)

nick_md

A lot of good shouts here for opening scenes, none really beat OUATITW though. A vid I watched on YouTube recently described it as like the middle of a film, you're just launched into this scene where every character could have a film's worth of backstory. The tension and build up is unrivalled, imo.

Goodfellas is a close contender (I love that film, as you know), jumps you straight into the mid section without explaining anything, because it doesn't need to.

Star Wars is an obvious suggestion but it doesn't float for me, it draws on the epic-ness of a text scrawl and exposition. OUATITW doesn't need that, it drips (slow drip) in atmosphere without any dialogue. It's the greatest.

I_R

Haven't we don this before?

I'm sure I said The Searchers. Ethan has had an affair with his brother's wife and might be the father of the eldest child, but there's no dialogue about it in the whole film.

Raiziel

I’m not arguing with Once Upon a Time in the West. An amazing opening to one of the greatest films ever made.

Paul the sparky

We've done everything before, numerous times. Tilt into the senility and comfortable repetition and revel in it.

Raiziel

Paul the sparky wrote:

We've done everything before, numerous times. Tilt into the senility and comfortable repetition and revel in it.

And you are?

The Daddy

That's Pete, used to be a plumber I think.

Opening scene: I love the opening scene of Watchmen, Comedian getting a kicking to the backdrop of Unforgettable. Great scene.

Re: Once upon a time, I've got time on Monday for a proper film, I've narrowed it down to OUATITW or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I'm leaning towards the latter.

hylian_elf

Raiziel wrote:

I’m not arguing with Once Upon a Time in the West. An amazing opening to one of the greatest films ever made.

Cos

It's an amazing opening for sure but there's 30 mins or so that could easily be cut from the first half of the film which takes it out of the all time greats conversation for me.

nick_md

Cosby wrote:

It's an amazing opening for sure but there's 30 mins or so that could easily be cut from the first half of the film which takes it out of the all time greats conversation for me.

I'd have to watch it again, and I'm not doubting you there. But, the original post was about opening scenes, and I'd stand by it in that regard.

Cos

I watched The Predator this morning and hoo boy, that's a mess. There's some great lines in there which was the only real saving grace but even that was tainted with the odd terrible throwback ('get to the choppers' when pointing at a load of motorbikes).

The rest was dumb but not even in a fun way, even the gore is just too OTT. Don't know what Shane's working on next but can't turn out worse than this.

Cos

@nick Yeah, should've made that clearer. Opening scene is an all timer but the film overall is a rung below the best of the best.

Raiziel

I love every languorous frame of Once Upon a Time in the West. I wouldn’t change a bit of it.

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