# 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:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**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 6, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/41 "2005-04-06T21:49:43Z")
> [@](#): > > and that solution was? > [@](#): > > Did they cut his arm off? > [@](#): > > HNO3 > > Actually I have no idea, but that would probably work. (At least, I _hope_ that last one is in response to my entry, and not, say, **The Lion in Winter** ) The solution is that they placed another piece of living tissue near the arm, then they attached electrodes to the arm and started giving it mild jolts. The idea was to make the arm inhospitable, and to make the other piece of tissue look more attractive, so the amoeba gradually moved over to the tissue, leaving the arm compltely. Very clever, and I’ve heard similar solutions used in ral-life ases. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/42 "2005-04-06T22:22:27Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > At least, I hope that last one is in response to my entry, and not, say, **The Lion in Winter** Yes, actually it was intended to quote **Shalmanese** but I’m not as good with the quick reply box as I think I am and forgot to check the “Quote message in reply?” box. My nominees for best scene in a bad movie, pretty much any scene in the bad movies of “_When Harry Met Sally_” or “_Fried Green Tomatoes_”. Both of these movies have some brilliant acting by some very talented performers, in a sequence of great individual scenes. But the overall story arc is so weak in comparison that it is hard to remember the plot at all versus the individual scenes, which stick with you. It’s almost like a collection of skits with similar characters versus the same characters going through a progression of a coherent plot. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/43 "2005-04-06T23:04:59Z")
I loved the movie _Contact_, but I though the scene of young Ellie trying to contact her dead parents on radio was just cheesy and completely unbelievable. I really liked the comedy _Trading Places_ but thought that the Franken/Davis gorilla suit sideplot was too corny and contrived to be funny. _Porky’s 2_ is a very bad film even by “horny kids low budget comedy” standards, but the scene in which the Reverend Bubba Flavel and Coach Baubricker read from _Taming of the Shrew_ to demonstrate the sinfulness of Shakespeare is something I can watch on a loop. The actor who plays Flavel’s voice, pronunciations and emoting is up there with the best of film comedy. I may get flack for this one, but I thought the “I could have done more” sequence in _Schindler’s List_ (which did not happen in real life- Schindler basically hit the road running, understandably so) detracted from the whole and was untrue to his character. It may even have worked better if he had done the piece in the back of his limousine with his wife and mistress away from the Jewish workers. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/44 "2005-04-06T23:57:40Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Porky’s 2_ is a very bad film even by “horny kids low budget comedy” standards, but the scene in which the Reverend Bubba Flavel and Coach Baubricker read from _Taming of the Shrew_ to demonstrate the sinfulness of Shakespeare is something I can watch on a loop. The actor who plays Flavel’s voice, pronunciations and emoting is up there with the best of film comedy. Jeeze, I remember this scene quite fondly, but I had completely forgotten what movie it was from. Thanks for nothin’! Yeah, Peter O’Toole’s line in **Lion in Winter** (which by the way has an excellent score!) is pretty skeevy, and by all accounts isn’t historically accurate. Now his son Richard, on the other hand… **Lion in Winter** also has one of my favorite lines of all time: Henry II: “I have blundered onto peace.” Elinor of Aquitaine: “On Christmas Eve? How poetic.” Henry: “Since Louis died I’ve had no wars to fight. I’ve had the time to pass a law, to make a tax more fair, to sit in judgement on which peasant gets a cow. **I tell you, Elinor, there is nothing more important in the world**.” “And now Phillip is grown and I am sick of war.” O’Toole’s delivery of the bolded line is just perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/45 "2005-04-07T00:05:44Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > 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. Well, she didn’t say the year 1033. I think she said 1183. And Peter O’Toole didn’t say the last line. Geoffery did. “We’re a very knowledgeable family.” ---
**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 7, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/46 "2005-04-07T00:16:54Z")
> [@Agrippina](#): > > Well, she didn’t say the year 1033. I think she said 1183. And Peter O’Toole didn’t say the last line. Geoffery did. “We’re a very knowledgeable family.” What does that have to do with how bad those scenes are? 1183 makes the line less jarring? Geoffrey saying that line instead of Peter O’Toole makes it flow more easily? Really, why pick those nits when they do nothing to lessen the point of the post? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/47 "2005-04-07T00:26:43Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > O’Toole’s delivery of the bolded line is just perfect. Patrick Stewart’s delivery of the same in the [remake](http://imdb.com/title/tt0319754/) was far more throwaway, and they omitted the “little boys” from the opening list of conquests. While Stewart’s a great actor, this was O’Toole’s finest hour as an actor and just can’t be touched (and Glenn Close “ain’t the beginnin’s of a pimple on the late great” Katharine Hepburn’s “hang you from the nipples”. I think the “It’s 1183 and we’re all savages” isn’t meant to be ironic except to the audience; while to us the middle ages was a barbaric time to those who lived then they were, like us, living on the last page of history and in the most enlightened time the world had known for some while. I think this was a(n admittedly botched) attempt to remind the audience of that. I was very disappointed in the film version of _Evita_, but the _Waltz for Eva and Che_ was, I thought, perfectly realized. I loved the first two _Godfather_ movies (GF3 never happened, of course) but I thought that the scene in the whorehouse in part 2 was unrealistic and inexplicable. While I didn’t like part 3, I thought the office scene with Michael, Zasa and his nephew (I never did understand why he was a bastard when Sonny had legitimate sons as well) was worthy of the first two, and the scene in which Michael kidnaps Kay in Sicily was amazingly touching (perhaps because Pacino & Keaton were ending their own off-again on-again long term relationship at the time). I have wildly mixed views of the film _Hannibal_- it’s such a totally different feel from _Silence of the Lambs_ as to be only incidentally related- but I loved Lecter’s lecture on the deaths of traitors in the Palazzo Vecchio (though how exactly Pazzi was betraying him I’m not sure- he was betraying the Italian police [wasn’t it odd they spoke English among themselves?] but I can’t imagine this would p.o. the good doctor). ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/48 "2005-04-07T00:40:13Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **The Day of the Triffids** is a terrible film (of a novel that’s practically a blueprint of a good SF/horror film), but there’s a short scene in an airplane that’s just plain terrific. Yes, that scene in the aeroplane is absolutely the best, most memorable one in an otherwise dreadful film. A close second would the scene as the train “arrives” at the railway station. I nominate **Elizabeth** , a film which I thought was excellent except for the final transformation scene, accompanied by Mozart’s Requiem. This musical _faux pas_ completely ruined it for me. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/49 "2005-04-07T03:42:47Z")
**Seconds** , a John Frankenheimer film from (I think) 1966, is great but for that one freak-out scene where Rock Hudson goes into the woods with the hippies and everybody gets nekkid. It goes forever and is incredibly boring, not to mention completely irrelevant to the plot as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/50 "2005-04-07T03:46:02Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > 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: Don’t feel bad; I had to see Roger Ebert explain it on TV before I got it. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/51 "2005-04-07T16:40:22Z")
The _Highlander 2_ thread reminded me of this one, probably the only good scene in the entire movie: Ramirez rising up from the stage during a “Shakespeare in the Park” sort of thing. While I’m here, I’ll mention the best part of _Battlefield Earth_: the end! Not because it just because it was the end but also the secene itself. Terl (Travolta) had been after gold during the entire movie and ends up stranded inside Fort Knox. He finally got his gold but couldn’t do a thing with it! ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/52 "2005-04-07T16:53:00Z")
I think that _The Messenger: The Joan of Arc Story_ was one of the most pathetic, miserable movies ever made. But the scene where Dustin Hoffman “debunks” the sword is absolutely brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/53 "2005-04-08T13:01:27Z")
In a bad-to-mediocre hentai called “Fragile Hearts” there’s a scene that’s curiously touching. It’s about a wistful young android with a hot bod who’s designed as a sex droid. She goes on various assignments and is eventually captured by bad guys who turn her into a sexy female fighting robot. The weird thing is, throughout this pretty much unthinking male sex fantasy, there are weird intimations of mortality. She walks down the street and sees a box of replacement android heads that look like hers. She walks out on a plaza after being gang-raped in a subway into a beautiful sunset and pauses to drink it in. Then, in the very last scene, the camera pans across a stack of discarded robot bodies, and we realize that the sex droid is in what is likely to be her final resting place. A touching, almost poetic scene. Then the camera pans across the robot bodiies, we see her bent over a crate, being raped. One last use before she’s discarded … also strangely poetic. Then we see that her molestor is a gorilla. Not a guy in a gorilla suit, a gorilla. What the hell is a gorilla doing in a warehouse for discarded androids? It has not appeared in any previous scenes, neither has anything like it. It’s like they said, “Too touching and poetic with the warehouse for androids. Throw in a sex scene. Wait a minute, that could be touching and poetic, too. Make it a gorilla she’s having sex with.” God, hentai are weird. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/54 "2005-04-10T05:30:43Z")
Speaking of anime, there was a cheesy little OVA series I saw a couple of years ago, _Amazing Nurse Nanako._ [Spoilers to follow] Basically softcore T&A and somewhat interesting Mad Science, but a little too heavy on the former at the expense of the latter. (It did have the Catholic church trying to ressurect Jesus with the help of alien DNA) Anyway, in the last episode, there’s a brief dream sequence where the hero talks to the “ghost” of a dead friend. It was really one of the most wistful, honestly _touching_ scenes I’ve ever seen on screen. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059/55 "2005-04-10T12:02:50Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > In that scene Billy Bob Thornton (!) plays a mercenary guarding an oil rig in Alaska, which Seagal is about to attack in all his environmental righteousness. He has a HILARIOUS conversation with a fellow mercenary about whether he should leave the folding shoulder stock on his submachine gun folded or extended since it “looks mean” folded but he is more accurate with it extended. That scene was great. Billy Bob’s motivation for the whole stock extended/stock folded discussion is that “When I kill this son of a bitch, I want to feel good about myself.” I love that line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-scenes-in-good-movies-best-scenes-in-bad-movies/297059.md?page=2)