# Brilliant moments/sequences in otherwise God-awful movies
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 27, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884 "2006-01-27T19:27:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/1 "2006-01-27T19:27:10Z")
Well, the classic has to be Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul in Phantom Menace.
That one is so striking it wakes me up(has to) every time I see that movie.
The final scene on the stairs oustide the opera in Godfather III is good too. I really believed Michael was getting it, then when it was his daughter it really worked. The silence, the scream…just perfect. Otherwise, that movie sucked.
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/2 "2006-01-27T19:39:01Z")
The opening sequence to **Enemy At The Gates** , charting the conscripts’ arrival at Stalingrad, is the best bit of that entire film.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/3 "2006-01-27T19:42:06Z")
That bit in Moderator IV: where Arnold moves the thread from IMHO to CS? That was wonderful!
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### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/4 "2006-01-27T19:53:22Z")
> [@Crusoe](#):
>
> The opening sequence to **Enemy At The Gates** , charting the conscripts’ arrival at Stalingrad, is the best bit of that entire film.
Similarily, while not god awful, everything in Saving Private Ryan after the excellent Normandy invasion bit in the beginning was kinda ho-hum.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/5 "2006-01-27T20:05:19Z")
The scene in the airplane in **The Day of the Triffids**.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/6 "2006-01-27T20:06:39Z")
The fight scene in the park in Billy Jack. The rest of the movie helps define the word terrible.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/7 "2006-01-27T20:08:44Z")
The scene in _Zoolander_ where the models are having a “water” fight at the gas station.
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/8 "2006-01-27T20:28:16Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> The scene in _Zoolander_ where the models are having a “water” fight at the gas station.
I concur… except the Mugatu brainwashing sequnce I think tops it by just a bit.
Cloris Leechman’s scene in the horrible chick flick “Hanging Up”.
She’s the estranged mother of the three sisters and Meg Ryan goes to see her. Leechman’s line about motherhood and how it just didn’t “take” is the best and most honest moment in the film. The rest of the movie I shit on.
Most people agree that “Daredevil” was utter garbage… I actually kind of liked a lot of it… but there is one scene that anyone should be able to agree is the best example of super heroics put in a real world context. After a night of battling bad guys Daredevil comes home… takes a shower where we see that after only being a super hero for a few months that his body is horribly scarred, he removes a loose tooth in the shower, he goes to the medicine cabinet and takes out a handful of painkillers and then as he gets into his isolation chamber bed he can hear all the sirens and screams and gunshots of the city… and he just has to let it go and get some sleep. It’s a fricking wonderfully done scene.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/9 "2006-01-27T20:48:21Z")
“Angels don’t make love: angels _are_ love”.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/10 "2006-01-27T22:21:56Z")
Dennis Hopper. Christopher Walken. _True Romance_.
Though maybe not God-awful, the rest of the movie was spotty at best.
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### Author:  [@Just1Lurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just1Lurk)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/11 "2006-01-27T22:29:25Z")
\*\*Fantastic Four \*\* was a throughly mediocre movie (_sigh_), but the montage where Johnny Storm fills the sleeping Thing’s hand with shaving cream and then tricks him into swatting away a fly made me laugh out loud.
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### Author:  [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/12 "2006-01-27T22:51:19Z")
Natalie Portman’s scene in _Cold Mountain_. After putting up with the rest of that bland and moderately misandrist pile of garbage, I felt about even on my time & money spent.
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/13 "2006-01-28T00:17:11Z")
The teaser sequence in **Moonraker** , in which James Bond is pushed out of an airplane without a parachute. He angles his body to free-fall to catch up to the pilot, who had bailed with one, and wrestles the 'chute off of that guy and straps it on, just before Jaws catches up to him…
Okay, the centrifugal force test chamber scene is also pretty cool.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/14 "2006-01-28T00:41:13Z")
The opening sequence of ‘The Way of the Gun’ was great. The rest of the movie was unwatchable.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/15 "2006-01-28T00:55:04Z")
The opening sequences of **Joe Versus The Volcano** with Tom Hanks in his soul-sucking work environment. “I know he can get the job, but can he _do_ the job.” bzzzt…bzzzzzzzt
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### Author:  [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/16 "2006-01-28T02:18:18Z")
I don’t consider the movie God-awful, more flawed-but-watchable:
In _Empire of the Sun_ there is sequence near the beginning that takes place during WWII, with the Japanese army marching into Shanghai, and the protagonist (a young boy) gets separated from his parents, then later tries several times to surrender to the Japanese but is essentially ignored. The sequence is alternately terrifying and surreally funny. The rest of the movie is OK but IMHO doesn’t quite live up to this.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/17 "2006-01-28T02:49:54Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> That bit in Moderator IV: where Arnold moves the thread from IMHO to CS? That was wonderful!
I can’t believe I did that!
:smack:
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/18 "2006-01-28T04:30:11Z")
**Teen Wolf** was abysmal in practically every one of its frames, except for two things:
1. The scene where Michael J. Fox tries to hide his transformation from his father, only to discover his father is a werewolf, too.
2. Every single line of dialog by Jay Tarses. I’m certain that Tarses (a writer for “The Bob Newhart Show,” and later creator of “Buffalo Bill” and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd”) wrote all his own dialog. It’s too funny and is clearly not the utter dreck that the rest of the movie is.
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### Author:  [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/19 "2006-01-28T05:32:20Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> The opening sequences of **Joe Versus The Volcano** with Tom Hanks in his soul-sucking work environment. “I know he can get the job, but can he _do_ the job.” bzzzt…bzzzzzzzt
“Who said that? Well, if I said that I was wrong…I’m not _arguing_ that with you!”
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brilliant-moments-sequences-in-otherwise-god-awful-movies/341884/20 "2006-01-28T05:35:15Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> Well, the classic has to be Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul in Phantom Menace.
>
> That one is so striking it wakes me up(has to) every time I see that movie.
>
> The final scene on the stairs oustide the opera in Godfather III is good too. I really believed Michael was getting it, then when it was his daughter it really worked. The silence, the scream…just perfect. Otherwise, that movie sucked.
I’m tempted to say Pippin’s rendition of Bilbo’s walkign song in “Return of the King.” However, I cannot, as I am not prepared to admit that I ever wasted my time on that movie. In fact I’m not prepared to admit the movie exists to have wasted time on;I prefer to think that Peter Jackson died in in inexplicable meteor-related accident moments after delivering the theatrical cut of _The Two Towers_ to New Line, and that all the film that had been shot for the third movie was destroyed with him.
[/denial river]
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