Shots that make you go "Goddamn!" - Page 2

I happen to think that that many of the shots during the "Kaneda" sequence in SUNSHINE qualify for this, like when the sun finally reflects off the edge of the shield and the solar wind blows over while the light does a weird triple stutter thing

Or the shot of the Americas appearing out of the mist in 1492:COP


And many many shots in FFC's BS's D (such as Dracula's eyes in the clouds during hte opening train sequence, or heck, any shot in the film. Coppola created some indelible images for that movie)

Many shots, such as the ones during the Deer Hunt sequence in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992) are exquisitely beautiful IMHO -- especially when it cuts to the wide shot through the canopy of the trees as Lewis runs along the ridge. The way the music swells at that point is just incredible

The mirage sequence, or the taking of Aquaba in LAWRENCE

The eagle flying over Gaugamela in ALEXANDER

Frankly, many of the shots in 2012 are fairly awe inspiring on a shot by shot basis, but I'm of the opinion that the action scenes themselves waste alot of their potential in being fairly generic and by keeping hte characters always in close up instead of having them be a part of the scene

The robot rex shots in JP, specifally the rex looking in through the window and it's eyeball adjusting to the flashlight, or blowing the hat off grant, or cruising the jeep into the mud. I will give credit to Mr Spielberg for that masterful sequence

Tony Jaa running on elephants, for realz in OB2

Dances With Wolves buffalo hunt sequence, especially as Costner and Kicking Bird sneak up with the looking glass to spy on the herd

EDIT: And plenty of shots from the show ROME, IMHO. Like the first time we see the Forum when Timen leads the white horse in, or the Triumph

The first time i saw the PI shoot holes on the wall in Blood Simple i literally said "Goddamn!"

Donner's Superman: That single, unbroken shot at Lois Lane's apartment where the camera tracks from Superman's flight into the night to Clark at Lois' door. Pure class.

The final shot of Django. I want that blown up on the wall of my living room.

The OldBoy hallway fight is obvious at this point, I guess.

I loved the Matrix when it came out and immediately tracked down Bound. The shot of the mob boss falling in slow motion as the camera moved with him gave it an amazing, weird weightless quality. Probably my favorite shot in a movie full of cool shots. The sex scene is amazing too, for the camera work as well as the obvious. The one that I really love in There Will be Blood, and for all I know it was done previously, is the perfectly lined-up shot of the railroad tracks when Plainview comes to town. From years of westerns our brains are wired to expect a train rolling up, but it doesn't happen. Then the shot slllowly pans over to a car driving into town. I've never been a big fan of the Blood Simple one because it calls a bit too much attention to itself('tis a cool shot regardless). I did really enjoy Sonnenfeld's work with the Coens though, especially on Arizona and the way he(and the Coens) totally switched gears for Miller's Crossing.

That shot in Rope.

Speed Racer.

There's nothing sexy about that stunt... except everything about it. If you know what I mean. It's done just so matter-of-factly.

It's all in the mustache.

2001-era Stanley Kubrick would have shat himself.

*edit- I really did almost feel that bit was the modern version of the stargate sequence from 2001 when I was walking out of the theater. High speed visual overload. I thought I might have been on the verge of an aneurysm(in a good way).

Theres a scene in Taxi Driver where Travis is calling Betsy on a pay phone in some building, and while he's leaving this painful message asking for forgiveness and a second chance, Scorcese moves the camera like 5 feet to the right to this empty hallway, like its just too brutal to watch, cuz you know theres no way in hell shes coming back to him. Just fantastic

I watch that shot and wonder so how they do that with making the car accident look real. Since then I have this basic car accident done in a few movies and tv show but nothing come close to looking as realistic as this shot.

At a time where everyone has gone CGI this is my one of my favorite "FX" shots ever.

What's even more awesome about these (especially the horse and car ones) is that they're cribbed from 'Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.' Except in Bill & Ted it goes from right side up to upside down as the van passes under the camera (iirc).

Rebecca Romijn plunging into the river (now crystal clear) near the end of Femme Fatale. Also, when D'Onofrio descends down from his throne (with the hooks on his back causing the giant silk drapes to cascade down the stairs with him) in The Cell. Actually, pretty much any shot from The Cell (or The Fall) could make this thread.

Sure, lots of other people had done the "long take" shots before*, but the opening shot of Boogie Nights is amazing. So much timing that could have gone wrong, and as I recall there's synchronized dancing as well. PTA established half of the cast in that one shot, to the point where you already kind of knew where they stood. As I recall there are no hidden cuts either, but I may be wrong.

Isn't there a cut in the Hard Boiled shootout? In the elevator? Or is it just missing frames on the shitty print that made it to VHS/DVD? Still totally amazing though. Good call. One of my favorites.
I really need to see the Fall. The Cell is really (visually speaking)a bit of a masterpiece. Too bad it's not all that great otherwise. But then again, who doesn't love seeing a guy suspended from hooks jacking off on a woman's corpse?

Yeah, me either.

*Surprised no one mentioned the Player, even though it's not as "show-offy".

Yeah, D'Onofrio's orgasm face is sadly burnt into my memory... the horror...

That spinning shot in Azumi blew my mind when I saw it- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6vjBb9KeQ

The camera rig they created for it was pretty impressive.

Wow, Alex, I hadn't even heard of that film before, but that shot was fantastic. Okay, one more example of a cool shot from me: the "axe to the head" snorricam death in Wrong Turn 2.

On a similarly related note, the opening of Lethal Weapon where the camera floats through the city until finally closing in on the apartment building and the girl balancing on the ledge, the fact that the camera manages to get as close as it does just impresses the hell out of me.

Oh God, I'd never seen anything like that when I first saw Taxi Driver. Again, I was about 14, I guess.

James Foley does a very similar thing in Glengarry Glen Ross. When Levine is regaling Roma with his last story before he gets busted, we slowly start to pull away from him in disgust. There's a director who never got anywhere near that good again.

So many great moments have already been covered in this thread, but I wanted to add a couple from Dario Argento's Opera. The first is obviously a great kill that pops up about half way through the film, and if you've seen it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. The first time I saw it, I was simply stunned, because it's a brutal kill shot in the most beautiful and exhilarating way imaginable. The other one isn't as incredible, but it still makes me go "God damn!" every single time I see it; the rigged up a camera on this crane arm that spins in a circle as it descends so they could simulate a POV shot of a crow flying around the opera house. It's really simple, but even knowing how they did it, the sequence still blows my mind.

'Revenge of the Giant Face'. The ghostly image in the smoke is not only beautiful and scary, but also works to encapsulate some of the themes of the movie, which put it a notch above a lot of 'it looks cool' shots.

There's a shot from the beginning of Gladiator, during the actual battle, that is a side view of Maximus leading a charge down a hill. The way the fire is exploding in the background, the speed it's shot at, and the sound effects make it look like Gods descending on earth. It still gives me chills.

The Flying Eyeball in Evil Dead II. Every single time, I laugh and gasp in amazement, "How on God's Earth did they do that?"

I don't think you can truly understand the power of that shot unless you've experienced it on the Big Screen. Grace Kelly descends from above you, a radiant love goddess sent from heaven.

The shot of Burr seeing Stewart is also incredible.

I think rather they're both cribbed from the riot scene in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Just rewatched The Warriors for the first time in a long time.

It's the simplest shot, but Swan throwing that Punk into the mens room stall... camera in darkness, the body going through the door lets the light in, Punk lands in the toilet, Michael Beck visible in the background evidently satisfied at having just fucked this guy up... so very badass.

The Fall is a long series of these moments, but the stand out for me was when the camera cuts from the priests face to the desert leaving the image of the face on the desert floor. I was watching it with a friend of mine who works in Hollywood and his single comment was "Now THAT'S some production value!"

Sunshine, the ending when Capa is face to face with the sun and the time freezes (everything becomes unquantifiable). That shot blew me away.

Excalibur - The Wedding, the bell chimes as Lancelot blinks. Uther hacks a guys leg (or arm, perhaps) off and it squirts while pieces of meat hang off. Arthur and Mordred's face off. Etc etc.

No Country For Old Men, when Chigurh is operating on himself. That shit is cringe inducing.

Last of the Mohicans - The canoe goes over the waterfall. Hawkeye jumps off the waterfall. The courier runs while Hawkeye provides covering fire. Chingachgook's face off with Magua at the end; the look on his face of anger and anguish as he kills the man who killed his son, that shit was badass.

Anyway, those were a few off the top of my head.

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Two from a great film that is kind of reviled (I think) around here:

The infamous crane shot of all the wounded confederate soldiers with the tattered rebel flag in the foreground in Gone With the Wind.

The silhouettes of Scarlett and Melanie projected onto the wall of the church as they administer to a wounded soldier in the same film.

Similarly, seeing that moment on the big screen still gets gasps and screams out of people. Proves what a master Hitch was at roping in an audience, fifty years later the crowd still gets played like a fiddle.

Ebert gushes over this shot in his Scorsese book.

The artificial gravity jogging scene in 2001 was mentioned earlier, and it's amazing for its technical mastery, but the shots that always hammer me are the opening tracking shots of an Earth where Man has yet to expand his reach. It's some very beautiful scenery, but the context instills such a sense of loneliness and desolation.

NERDFACT="ON"

The dawn of man -sequence in 2001 was shot entirely in studio using a technique called front projection. The landscape-shots and backgrounds are still photographs taken in Africa by a production assistent.

Sunshine:
-Capa flings himself out of the ship toward the payload.
-The crew sits in silhouette and silence, watching Mercury orbit around the sun.

Up
-Karl walks off in the red sunrise(set?), the house floating behind him

Inception
-Cobb and Ariadne walk into the ruined city as chunks of building fall into the sea
-Cobb looks up as water cascades into the dreamspace after he is dunked one level up (one of the trailer moneyshots)
-Ariadne falling off the building in limbo
-Arthur tying all the dreamers together in a bundle for easier zero g transportation

Just a few off the top of my head:
The truck flip - The Dark Knight (also the first time seeing it in IMAX was breathtaking)
The Lord of the Rings: umm too many to list, but they only seemed to work in the theater.
Point of view flying into the Death Star - Star Wars. The first time I saw it, on a huge screen, I really liked that roller coaster feeling of being there. Minor props to the opening of Episode III. Really got to feel the scope of the ships.
The Matrix - umm during the first watching, I was pretty much floored, but when Morpheus jumped in the training program, Neo was right.
Ninja Turtles - well I was a kid, and had no idea that the turtles were going to be live action. I just came off seeing Roger Rabbit, so I assumed thats what they were going to do. The second Leo jumped out, and looked real I went insane. Then I suddenly realized that Splinter was going to be real, and then Shredder!
Inception - Limbo at the end and the 0g hallway. I actually walked out the film in dead silence, and a few minutes later I said "god damn that was amazing"
Silence of the Lambs - Lecter's escape.

Oooh, that reminds me... the first IMAX shot in TDK. It's not particularly amazing for any other reason than the fact that such vertigo-inducing clarity just suddenly appeared before my eyes.

EDIT: I have made it my goal in life to steal Eyeball Kid's thunder!!! Apologies!

Eyeball's on a bit of filament and the bit where it pops into her mouth was originally shot it in reverse.


In the original '33 KING KONG, there' s shot of Kong in his cave with Anne while Driscoll is trying to rescue her. Not only is the shot utilizing difficult stop-motion, but there's rear-projection AND front-projection. All in camera. FX pioneering in 1933. I know how it's done, but that level of sophistication that early in cinematic history inspires awe in me.

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Dale Cooper frozen in time on the security monitor as David Fucking Bowie appears in a gust of wind from an elevator and strolls purposefully down the hall. (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me)

Not one that's easily viewable, but seeing it the other night made me go "Goddamn!": the unnamed evil in THE KEEP, not yet able to take physical solid form, seen as a pillar of smoke carrying a girl down a coridoor. The amazing part is the walking pillar of smoke is a practical effect, and also seems to be playing in reverse, as the smoke seems to be getting pulled inwards.

Yes, and you can clearly see the fishing line on at least every dvd version of it. Cool gag all the same, so it doesn't bother me.

My submission: Michele Yeoh, a motorcycle, and a train.

The opening shot in Millennium Mambo is one of my favourites. Such a beautiful, elegant, simple and graceful shot that really puts you in the head space the movie wants you to inhabit.
Immediately I was happy to follow the movie, and the girl, anywhere after it.
More a softly muttered "Goddamn" than a fist pumping one, but I heart it all the same.

The shot of Harry and Snape face-to-face but at a good distance on the lawn of Hogwarts in Half-Blood Prince, right after Snape disarms Harry and slowly begins to approach him as the Death Eaters flee the scene.

The whole movie is jammed with gorgeous shots (the Death Eaters zooming into London, the attack on the Weasleys, the Dark Mark appearing over Hogwarts), but that's the best. It's so beautifully lit, so menacing, but lush and elegant.

Also, the opening of The Letter. A loooong tracking shot at night through the dense tropical vegetation and laborer's huts that slowly leads to the steps at the foot of the plantation mansion...then BANG! BANG! BANG! A man staggers down the stairs with Betty Davis following, coolly emptying her gun into the poor bastards back. Awesome.

Maybe it's just because I wasn't expecting it, but 48 Hours has a great unbroken cut in the police station that lasts about 3 minutes.

And on a similar note, the long single shot in All the President's Men of Redford on the phone is amazing. Not only Redford, but all the background action in the newsroom as well.

Olson got the ball rolling, but seriously, if we're bringing up the work of my beloved Kurosawa and in particular Ran, you could almost just have a thread of screenshots dedicated to it, the whole thing simply leaves me breathless.

So many incredible shots of characters lost in an epic landscape, as if the gods are simply playing with their tiny chess pieces in a tale of tragedy for their amusement. Any single shot could be framed and happily placed on a wall.

Then tho, Kurosawa being Kurosawa, there's still the odd moment to satisfy my adolescent reptile brain for good measure.

If I had to cite shots that stayed with me tho, its pretty hard to go past the iconic moment of the Ichimonji clans civil war and Hidetoris mental decay in the face of it. Immediately following the incredible shot Chris mentioned there is of course this leading into this and this.

Jesus wept, if there are any of you on this board - any at all - that have not seen this film, seriously watch it immediately. Watching Ran for the first time when I was a young film theory student of 18 was akin to a cinematic religious experience.

Big 'yes' on both of these. Too many times long, uninterrupted shots are flashy and draw attention to themselves, even going as far as taking you out of the film (it can be argued the second you say "cool shot" you're out of the story's flow). Both the above shots are very subtle, and slowly, slowly suck you deeper into the story. Especially in the case of the "President's Men" shot.

I always "wow" at a couple of shots from the Fifth Element - Leeloo's dive from the ledge, and the Chinese junk pulling away from Dallas' window, also..
- When we see Bruce from Jaws swim under the boat the first time from above
- Kevin Spacey at the end of Usual Suspects
- Most of Blade Runner and 2001
- Brad Pitt meets car in Meet Joe Black
- Bellowing Balrog
- Carpet bombing bugs in Starship Troopers
- The Titanic snapping in half
- the birth of Kane's "son" in Alien
- the asteroid shot in The Black Hole
- the final shot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Sutherland

The shot in...no bullshit...Waterworld, where they zoom in on the old dude in the hull of gasoline, right as he's about to get blown-up. The way they reflect the oncoming ball of fire in his giant goggles, and the way the camera zooms in on him as he says "Oh, thank god!", just blows me away.

Also, I know this makes me an asshole, but as far as "Shots" that literally made me go goddamn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5mcc47xD8

Yeah, sorry.