I like the opening of The Shining but it’s always ruined for me by the one opening shot where you can see the shadow of the camera helicopter.
Better for me, and much more understated but trememdously silly if you know what it means is the opening of Dr. Strangelove. First of all, I LOVE the typography. One of the subtle themes of the movie is the sexual nature of the bomb and of the people who attempt to control it and more generally of the military in general. So we have the Bombers being refueled as an obviously phallic and penetrative act while the background music plays “Try a Little Tenderness.”
Going back (WAY back to the time of my birth, actually):
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Love that circus style music of Ernest Gold!
The Pink Panther (pretty much any of them), and A Shot in the Dark. Anyone notice a trend here? I like animated openings.
HELP! - the Beatles second film. I love the way the bad guys are throwing darts at the screen showing the film of the Beatles playing a concert. I’d imagine that freaked out a few people when it came out (kind of like the roaches on the TV screen ads that Orkin shows).
Patton - just for the music.
Question about the Superman opening - was the bit with the kid and the comic book always there, because I don’t remember it.
Actually, the beginning of Touch of Evil is my favorite movie opening. It’s like watching one huge piece of black and white taffy being pulled thinner and thinner, and looped over and under itself, but not breaking.
You know, when my little girl is 4 or 6 or so, I’m going to put on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and just watch her eyes light up at the opening number, Belle.
I can’t think of my all-time favorite opening right now (these Sam Adams Lights are surprisingly good), but I’m surprised that no one has mentioned The Godfather’s “I believe in America” speech, and the wedding party sequence in general, which I’ve always rather liked (dig Luca rehearsing his lines, and then flubbing them).
That opening sequence is unreal.
I also agree with Vertigo. great opening. Also that visual in opening of Star Wars, but that is just good due to sentimentalities.
Another set of votes for Contact and Monty Python & the Holy Grail… I think the switch from the mööse to the llamas is what gets me. cue funky organ music
No one’s mentioned A Few Good Men yet, either! The absolute perfection of the Marines’ drill gets me every time, just watching the whole thing flow up and down the line of soldiers… and the only thing you hear is the clicking and clacking of the gun hardware and the smack of the gloved hands against the rifles. WOW.
I liked the opening comic book credits for Chasing Amy.
Another big vote for Star Wars, Superman, Terminator 2, and Se7en. Kickass openings, all.
Also, I have a special fondness for the very start of Aliens 3, where the 20th Century Fox logo music morphs into a mournful choir singing in a minor key. Brilliant. Shame the move was so dissapointing.
Alien 3 The rest of the movie is blah, but I love the way the movie hangs on the last note of the 21[sup]st[/sup] Century Fox theme before slowly fading to a shot of space. Then your treated to a haunting musical score intermixed with quick shots of the facehugger causing mischief to the cryotubes. Way cool.
Beetlejuice. Flying over the small town of Winter River, Conneticut and then it morphs into Adam’s model of the town and settles on the little model house and the huge spider crawling over it. Plus, the title music is awesome.
