Worst: any one of those shitty romantic comedy dressing room clothes-changing montages, usually set to the tune of “Brown-Eyed Girl” or some other treacly song.
It goes like this:
Girl undergoing a makeover tries on an outfit that’s not quite right. Person with her shakes their head. Girl goes back inside. Curtain closes. Curtain opens and this time Girl is wearing something even more wacky! Another head shake. Curtain closes. Curtain open again and this time Girl is wearing the Wackiest Outfit in the History of the Goddamn Universe! BIG head shake. Curtain closes. Curtain opens again and Girl is wearing something sensible and flattering. End montage. There, you’ve just watched four minutes of worthless filler. :rolleyes:
Oh yeah, that one was good. I think Star Trek does montages very poorly; there was one in Deep Space Nine (the “kids fly a Defiant-clone” episode) in which characters are just doing generic tasks, set to very bland music. For good, I’d nominate the end of Shakespeare in Love, which ambiguously superimposes Bill’s writing of “Twelfth Night” over Viola’s voyage to America.
I find it offensive that a single Rocky training montage has not been mentioned. The best one being the Rocky IV training montage with Rocky’s winderness training in Siberia juxtiposed over Dragos high-tech steroid enhanced program.
Let me also add that Southpark also had a wonderful montage with the gang powering up their World of Warcraft characters to Ace Freely’s “Live to Win”.
There’s a montage in the shopping mall in the remake of Dawn of the Dead set to Richard Cheese’s remake of “Down with the Sickness.” A man and woman watch Animal House, another rides a bike, others have sex, and so on. It’s a great bit of fun in a movie that is, well, sort of fun but also quite gruesome.
You’re right, but don’t insult that song - it’s a classic.
The montage of all the guys that got killed being found in Goodfellas, with the piano part of Layla in the background - that’s the one I remember most.
The one that sticks in my head is the “Head Over Heels” scene from Donnie Darko, right when the kids get off the bus to go to school. You see almost all of the major characters, some completely absurd stuff happening, and a whole lot of ominous foreshadowing. Something about that movie’s portrayal of the 1980s is just really creepy, and that scene was incredible for me.
And Johnny Hildo–you must have (perhaps subliminally) been exposed to Julia Roberts’ Sleeping with the Enemy because you described the scene with her (including the song, IIRC) almost perfectly.
One that I remember fondly (though it’s been ages since I’ve seen it) is the opening minutes of the TV mini-series The Stand with “Don’t Fear the Reaper” playing.
ArchiveGuy, thanks for the link. That song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, but at least I’ll be giggling.
One of my favorites is the last version of “Let Me Entertain You” from Gypsy. I’ve seen it on stage and in two versions of the movie. It shows Louise transforming from a nervous wreck to a self-possessed burlesque queen, the caliber of venues going up all the while. It effectively and entertainingly sums up several years’ worth of showbiz career in a few minutes.
The ending of s2 Sopranos, to the Stones’ ‘Through and Through’ in “Funhouse”. It juxtaposes the happy mobsters enjoying Meadow’s graduation party (?), eating, drinking, snapping pix, etc., with the misery caused by their actions in the street–the Orthodox guy with his motel overrun by junkies, the guy selling overpriced calling cards to poor immigrants, the shut-down fake stock boiler room, Davey Scatino the gambling addict leaving his wife and kids, and so on.
The last image is Tony looking thoughtful while his mind moves to the ocean moving eternally over the recently dumped remains of Big Pussy. <shudder>
The opening of the season, showing the course of a year to the Chairman singing “It Was a Very Good Year”, was pretty cool too.
The “Rent” movie made a lot of mistakes but I thought the sequence of Mimi spiralling down back into drugs and Angel dying during “Without You” was fantastic.
I agree with this review of the Rocky movies, which in the following quote discusses the montage that opens Rocky III:
I couldn’t have said it better. It’s just what a montage should be: a time-compressed way to tell a lot of story. Rocky’s garish top-of-the-heap lifestyle is contrasted with Clubber’s solitary drive to the championship. Rocky has grown lazy, and Clubber is hungry. I especially love the bit where Clubber pounds a broken heavy bag covered in duct tape mercilessly, while on the left side of the screen a series of magazine advertisements for luxury products like Rolex watches and Maseratis featuring Rocky flash by, each one-two punch flashing a new ad. It’s just beautiful.