Garden State

One of my favorite scenes from the movie.

Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (13 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Nice shot, part 2

Goodfellas
This is the shot that has been copied in a million different films by a million different directors. A great, long Steadicam shot that follows our main characters from the outside of a club to the inside of it.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (12 MB, Windows Media Player required)


Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson borrowed the shot 7 years later for Boogie Nights.
(A huge part of PTA's visual style is from Scorsese, as evidenced by the next two shots below and how they relate...)
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (11 MB, Windows Media Player required)



And, while we're at it:
Scorsese and PTA: Goodfellas/Boogie Nights
An additional example of Scorsese's influence on Anderson.

Click on the pictures below to watch the scenes. (700 KB and 300 KB, Windows Media Player required)
Scorsese used a quick dolly-in on the character snorting coke in Goodfellas.


PTA used this idea - with a slight variation - for the coke-snorting in Boogie Nights.

Nice shot

There's a million beautiful shots from films out there, but I just thought I'd highlight a couple of cool ones that I've had on my mind recently (and from DVDs I have sitting next to me).

Elephant
This is an amazing shot. And a really hard one to pull off... you have a long Steadicam shot (it's about 2 minutes - the clip is only part of it), the actors have to hit their marks, the camera operator has to hit his, and to top it off you have an in-camera speed change at the end, which, while it looks beautiful in the shot, is insanely hard to pull off right; plus, when the speed change happens, the camera operator is walking backwards(!). Anyway, I just always thought this shot was really beautiful, and it was actually this shot, which I had seen in the trailer, that really made me want to see the movie in the first place.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (3 MB, Windows Media Player required)



The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
I always liked this shot, near the end of Return of the King... It's a great moment where Gollum has finally stolen the ring from Frodo, and in this moment hope has drowned out of everything, and the camera pulls up from Gollum's face, up out of the ring, and cranes high above everything, while the music becomes a sad, somber nothing. Boy am I glad Peter Jackson finally got Best Director for this.
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (1 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Stolen Kisses

I always liked the scene in Stolen Kisses where Antoine Doinel is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, saying the names of the two women he is torn between, to himself, over and over and over again. He says their names over and over and then throws his own name into the mix, and these names, and these people, become nothing and everything all at the same time. It's one of my favorite scenes of all time. I don't think anyone less than Truffaut could have made this work.

Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (6 MB, Windows Media Player required)

Favorite Freaks and Geeks moments

Here's a couple of my favorite moments from Freaks and Geeks:

Both of these are from the episode Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers, which also happens to be my favorite episode.
(The episode is also entirely set to music from The Who...and only The Who.)

(1) I always liked the part in the beginning of the episode that was set to the song "I'm One" by The Who. Basically the scene goes like this: Bill's parents are divorced, and his mother is a single mother who works a lot to support them. Bill comes home from school one day, while his mother is at work, eats some grill-cheese sandwiches and cake (the only food left in the house) and sits down and watches TV, and even though he's all by himself...he has the time of his life. This was based on the writer/director Judd Apatow's experiences as a kid, and I identify with the scene a lot. (And it's a great example of how the use of music in this show is amazing).
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (6 MB, Windows Media Player required)


(2) This next one is a clear example of music perfectly matching a scene. Bill is now faced with his mom getting seriously involved with a man he doesn't like at all. It's probably my favorite use of music in the whole show. It totally captures Bill's sinking feeling that he has as he sees his mom's boyfriend stay overnight for the first time. The Who's "Love, Reign O'er Me" plays over this scene. (I love the camera push-in onto his face as the song cries out...)
Click on the picture below to watch the scene. (4 MB, Windows Media Player required)

My list of movies (of this year) that I really want to see, in order of what I really want to see first:

Tarnation
Sideways
The Life Aquatic
Maria Full of Grace
I Heart Huckabees
Bad Education
Vera Drake
Spanglish
Soldiers Pay
A Very Long Engagement
Finding Neverland
I Am David
Beyond the Sea
The Aviator
The Brown Bunny
Super Size Me
The Yes Men
Control Room
Shaun of the Dead
Born Into Brothels
The Corporation
Undertow
Napolean Dynamite
The Manchurian Candidate
P.S.
Kinsey
Criminal
The Machinist
Friday Night Lights