# Worst scenes in good movies/best scenes in bad movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 31, 2005, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059 "2005-03-31T07:59:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/21 "2005-04-02T13:31:23Z")
Heh, the psycho scene was actually one of the ones nominated by the onion. Personally, I liked that scene but I burst out laughing at the obviously bad special effects when norman pushed that guy down the stares. Personally, I nominate Johnny Mneomic staring an excretable performance by Keanu Reeves. But there is a scene where he has to plug into a VR interface to access the internet-of-the-future and it was probably one of the most inspired depictions of how the internet would really work in the future. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/22 "2005-04-02T14:03:35Z")
I love “Almost Famous” but I hate the scene where William has his “I love her!” moment with Russell. It could have been so much more poignant but IMO, Patrick Fugit just didn’t have the acting chops to pull it off. I almost wished that Billy Crudup could have stepped in and done the scene, as William, because I know he would have nailed it. “I’m a golden god!” ---
**Author:** ![Albert\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/23 "2005-04-04T01:30:59Z")
“I’ve come to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And I’m all out of bubblegum.” That’s Rowdy Roddy Piper’s great line from [They Live](http://www.sciflicks.com/they_live/review.html), a pretty non-good John Carpenter movie. His delivery ain’t the best, but it’s funny nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/24 "2005-04-04T01:35:01Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > Great scene from a bad movie: **Exorcist III** - the infamous night-time hallway scene is definitely one of the scariest things I ever saw in a movie, too bad it was an otherwise sh\*\*\*y movie. What is it about that scene that’s so freaking scary? I’m not disagreeing. I had nightmares about that scene, but I can’t put my finger on why it’s so scary. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/25 "2005-04-04T02:54:55Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > What is it about that scene that’s so freaking scary? I’m not disagreeing. I had nightmares about that scene, but I can’t put my finger on why it’s so scary. Three reasons, I think: 1. It’s perfectly timed. She walks out of the room, takes a couple of steps, enters the other doorway, and just as your brain unclenches a little (because frankly, you KNOW something’s coming), BAM! 2. That caterwaul of a sound effect 3. The character him/itself. Straight up, fast gait. Covered in a flowing sheet. And the part that really nails it: the arms are already extended. If the character had made any other motion than walking, it probably would have taken a lot away from the scene. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/26 "2005-04-04T05:09:44Z")
**Surf Ninjas.** Incredibly stupid movie, but I always get a kick out of the “Money can’t buy knives” joke. It’s been years since I’ve seen that movie and it’s the only part I can be bothered to remember. ---
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/27 "2005-04-04T12:54:16Z")
I mentioned this in a [similar thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=286668&highlight=wonka) some time ago, but there is a scene in _Willy Wonka_ where the children are taken on a “Tunnel of Love” type ride where all sorts of horrifying images flicker on the walls around them. These include teeming maggots and a chicken being decapitated. I know the film is meant to be dark but the chicken beheading is a very odd choice for a kids’ film. ---
**Author:** ![HeadNinja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b4bc9f/32.png) [@HeadNinja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeadNinja)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/28 "2005-04-04T13:37:27Z")
Larger Than Life was an OK movie about Bill Murray taking an elephant across country. But it had a brilliant bit. Bill Murray is a at a truck stop, looking for a trucker to haul the elephant Trucker: Is it afraid of mice? Murray: Why? Are you hauling mice? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/29 "2005-04-04T14:02:14Z")
**Angry Red Planet** is a low-budget 1950s science fiction flick produced by Norman Maurer (in-law to The Three Stooges, who drew them in 1950s comic books and later produced their post-shorts movies). It’s a not-very-impressive matinee-fare flick that shows the problems faced by the first explorers to Mars. They end up being chased off the planet by a giant Martian Amoeba, which eats one crew member and “infects” another, who comes back to earth with what is basically a baby space amoeba comping on his arm. At this point the movie transcends its low-budget lowbrow roots and becomes true asci-fi gold. In a much lesser movie the lil’ blob would end up eating said astronaut (as with the Homeless Guy in both versions of **The Blob** ). In a Star Trek-like TV show they’d whip up a batch of Unobtainium salve that would magically kill the beastie off. But for this film, they actually came up with a scientific solution that _would have worked_. It’s true extrapolative science fiction, the kind of things we SF fans _live_ for. Problem-solving with rational thought, instead of cheap horror or cheaper maghical double-talk. I gwet the feeling one of the writers read about something similar in _Science Digest_ or some other source and decided to incorporate it into the flick. Too bad it’s the last 5 minutes of an otherwise undistinguished film. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/30 "2005-04-04T15:30:56Z")
and that solution was? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/31 "2005-04-04T15:32:50Z")
> [@zuma](#): > > “Psycho” is a great movie, nearly flawless from beginning to end. But the very last scene is dreadful. If I remember it correctly (it’s also rather unmemorable), Norman has been arrested and a psychiatrist acts as a narrator, rambling on and on, explaining why Norman did what he did. And then he rambles some more. It’s like a scene from a bad tv show. > > That scene just seems so out of place and unnecessary. I’ve often wondered what the story behind including that it is. It was essential. Hitchcock put it there for one specific reason: so the people who need to have everything tied up in a neat little package could have their “realistic” explanation. Considering the many posts on this board by people who need to have some “logical” explanation laid out for anything in a story, Hitch was right including it. Note that Hitchcock’s intention was that the “explanation” was meaningless – you could believe it if you wanted, but it did nothing to explain Norman’s actions, and the final look at Norman in the end was intended to discredit the psychologist’s words. Norman’s behavior was supposed to be somewhat inexplicable. As for Martin Balsam’s killing, the shot was done deliberately as an artistic choice to avoid realism. It is supposed to give the impression that he is falling down the stairs with his feet just brushing against each step as he fell. It’s subjective and dreamlike, not realistic. Questioning it is exactly the type of dependence on “realism” that I noted when discussing the psychologist’s explanation. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/32 "2005-04-04T20:10:04Z")
> [@](#): > > But for this film, they actually came up with a scientific solution that would have worked. It’s true extrapolative science fiction, the kind of things we SF fans live for. Problem-solving with rational thought, instead of cheap horror or cheaper maghical double-talk. Did they cut his arm off? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fromage_A_Trois)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/33 "2005-04-04T20:32:28Z")
The Avengers - atrocious film. I liked the old TV series, and of course Uma Thurman in a catsuit is no bad thing, however the filmed sucked. But, almost worth watching through the multi-coloured teddy bears, there’s the bit where Uma Thurman is battling with Eddie Izzard on some huge weather-tower, or something. He’s on a tightrope, battling with her for a bit, and we see that he loses his safety rope for some reason. Uma Thurman makes it to one end of the wire, and unties it - Eddie Izzard is swung by the now loose rope _smack_ into the tower it’s still attached to. In the cartoon-like second before he plummets to his doom, he utters “Oh f\*ck”. The delivery is exceptional. Doesn’t work written down though, I can see that. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/34 "2005-04-04T20:50:43Z")
**The Lion In Winter**. In a rather harmless scene where Peter O’Toole is speaking to his mistress Alais, I was kind-of paying attention, and he said (paraphrasing here) “I’ve had courtesans, whores, queens, even little boys. But you’re the only one I’ve ever loved.” I sit up: “Did he just say he’s had little boys?” \ “Yep - that’s what he said. Wow.” There’s some other jarring lines in there as well. One where Kathraine Hepburn comments that they all have knives because they’re barbarians and it’s the year 1033 - completely unrealistic and destroys the mood. Then there’s another one from Peter O’Toole where he says “I know that you know that I know that they know…” which is pretty hard to get past. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/35 "2005-04-05T16:45:50Z")
HNO[sup]3[/sup] Actually I have no idea, but that would probably work. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Zap\_Rowsdower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3da27b/32.png) [@Zap\_Rowsdower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zap_Rowsdower)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/36 "2005-04-05T21:23:50Z")
**Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town** This movie does have on really effective scene that the makers should have spent more time exploring. It deals with the mad doctor/scientist and his little person assistant. When the assistant wants to work a normal job like everyone else, the scientist humiliates him by having him repeat “if god wanted me to have a normal job, he would have made me look normal”. The performances were very good and you could see the pain in the assistant as he spoke. Very well done, but unfortunately it was not really dealt with further. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/37 "2005-04-05T21:41:53Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > I agree and yet disagree. While she was certainly capable of figuring it out herself, I think it was also an aside to the viewer, since it’s sometimes hard to follow a person’s thoughts if you can’t read them. > > Put another way, that scene was like Robin: There essentially to explain the plot to the “slower” fans. Interestingly, I totally understood the plot but I never got the point of that scene until I read this thread just now. To me it just seemed like some totally out of place thing that didn’t belong there. But then I also believed the words at the beginning that said “The following is a true story”. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/38 "2005-04-05T22:11:27Z")
This isn’t so much a scene but a line that stood out from the general crapitude of the rest of the movie. **Con Air** is the most aggressively stupid major movie that I ever wasted a couple hours of my life on. I swear you can feel your brain melt and ooze out your ears the longer you watch this one. Yet, somehow, in the middle of the idiotic plot and dialogue, a wasted John Cusack, a “they drove a dump truck of money up to my house” performance by John Malkovich, and Nicholas Cage doing a very-bad impersonation of Steven Seagal, you have Steve Buscemi, as the prisoners dance to “Sweet Home Alabama,” suddenly utter: [QUOTE] \*Define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.[/\*QUOTE] Although it truly might be the case, I refuse to believe that line was in the original script to this turd. It just _had_ to have been an ad-lib by Buscemi that was worked into the film or the remnant of an earlier draft of the screenplay that was written by somebody smarter (i.e., somebody with an IQ more than 75). ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/39 "2005-04-05T22:11:26Z")
This isn’t so much a scene but a line that stood out from the general crapitude of the rest of the movie. **Con Air** is the most aggressively stupid major movie that I ever wasted a couple hours of my life on. I swear you can feel your brain melt and ooze out your ears the longer you watch this one. Yet, somehow, in the middle of the idiotic plot and dialogue, a wasted John Cusack, a “they drove a dump truck of money up to my house” performance by John Malkovich, and Nicholas Cage doing a very-bad impersonation of Steven Seagal, you have Steve Buscemi, as the prisoners dance to “Sweet Home Alabama,” suddenly utter: [QUOTE] \*Define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.[/\*QUOTE] Although it truly might be the case, I refuse to believe that line was in the original script to this turd. It just _had_ to have been an ad-lib by Buscemi that was worked into the film or the remnant of an earlier draft of the screenplay that was written by somebody smarter (i.e., somebody with an IQ more than 75). ---
**Author:** ![shadowfax33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@shadowfax33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shadowfax33)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/40 "2005-04-06T02:26:10Z")
I’d like to second the “flaming Denethor” scene from ROTK, and add another. I loved the movie, but _hated, hated, HATED_ the scene of Frodo’s awakening after the destruction of the Ring. You remember–he and Gandalf have an inexplicable giggle-fit, and then Frodo is jumped by Merry and Pippin–all in slomo and soft focus. :rolleyes: The look between Frodo and Sam at the end of the scene is okay, but not enough to redeem it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059.md?page=3)