Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Ricochet Movie Fight Club: Question 23
Last week we had dozens of fantastic death scenes to sort through before settling down on a top four. A two-vote lead was all that mattered in the end as we saw a baby xenomorph burst forth, killing its host and securing Repmodad victory, and the right to ask: What is the greatest action scene in movie history?
The Rules:
- Post your answer as a comment. Make it clear that this is your official answer, one per member.
- Defend your answer in the comments and fight it out with other Ricochet member answers for the rest of the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by Friday night wins the fight.
- The winner gets the honor of posting the next question on Saturday.
- In the case of a tie, the member who posted the question will decide the winner.
Notes:
- Only movies will qualify (no TV shows) however films that air on television (BBC films, a stand-alone mini-series) will qualify.
- Your answer can be as off-the-wall or controversial as you’d like. It will be up to you to defend it and win people to your side.
- Fight it out.
Movie Fight Club Questions by Week:
- What is the best film portrayal of a book character? Winner: Charlotte with 18 likes for Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies.
- What is the best motion picture comedy of the 21st century? Winner: split decision. In an exemplary display of genuine sportsmanship, Randy Webster conceded the fight to Marjorie Reynolds’ pick Team America: World Police.
- What film provides the most evocative use of location? Winner: Taras with 21 likes for Lawrence of Arabia. Wasn’t even close.
- What is the best film that utilizes or is inspired by a work of William Shakespeare? Winner: Dr. Bastiat with five likes for The Lion King, a film inspired by Hamlet.
- Which movie has the best surprise ending, or unexpected plot twist? Winner: Repmodad with 18 likes for The Sixth Sense.
- What pre-1970s black-and-white movie would be most enjoyed by a modern 18- to 25-year-old audience? Winner: E J Hill with 9 likes for a Casablanca. (He didn’t exactly designate it his official answer, and most of the likes may have been for the modern Casablanca trailer rather than for it as an answer to the question, but nobody seemed to dispute it on those grounds, so that’s how the cookie crumbles.)
- What movie did you go to based on the trailer, only to have felt cheated? (i.e., the trailer was 10x better than the movie?) Winner: Back to back wins by E J Hill with 9 likes for Something to Talk About.
- Name the worst movie portrayal of your profession (where applicable.) Winner: LC with 8 likes for Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough.
- What is the worst movie that claims to be based or inspired by a true story? Winner: Tex929rr with 16 likes for the, “…terrible acting, and countless deviations from history,” in Pearl Harbor.
- What is your favorite little known movie? Winner: A last-minute rally for Tremors made the difference as Songwriter took the week 10 win!
- What is the best movie that you never want to watch again? Winner:
HitlerCharlotte with 15 likes for Schindler’s List. Sorry, Richard Oshea but Jesus won the real fight.
Week 11.5 Exhibition Match (as a make-up of sorts, since Songwriter didn’t get the week 11 question submitted in time) Name the best movie theme song ever? No winner declared but I’m pretty sure it was I.M. Fine with “Moon River.” - Name the best animated feature-length movie of all time. Winner: I.M. Fine with 10 likes for Pinocchio, and justice for I.M. Fine prevailed.
- What is the worst acting performance in an otherwise good film? Winner: In one of the most brutal fights we’ve seen yet Repmodad fended off a furious 12th-round onslaught by Gary McVey to give Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves the win with 20 likes.
- What is the quintessential American movie? Winner: Miffed White Male pulled off the comeback with 20 likes for The Right Stuff. There was a two-way tie at 19 for second place as well.
- What’s the most entertaining movie set during WWII? Winner: Arahant clearly won with Casablanca’s walloping 30 likes despite the withering onslaught by Sisyphus on the final day.
- What is the best movie love story? Winner: Songwriter with 20 likes for The Princess Bride with 20 likes. Up managed to make a strong showing and Dr. Bastiat is still conducting recounts trying to “find” some uncounted votes.
- What’s the best’ buddy’ movie? Winner: Brian Watt wins with 12 likes for The Man Who Would be King.
- What is the worst movie (not a made-for-TV movie) ever made? Brian Watt joins E.J. Hill as the only other back-to-back winner with 16 likes for Barbarella. Brian will get another crack at it by choosing the week 19 question. Can he make it three?
- What is the most frightening non-bloody film you’ve ever seen? The winner: J D Fitzpatrick with Wait Until Dark, starring the lovely Audrey Hepburn getting terrorized over a doll, sort of.
- Which movie has the best duel? Winner: Split decision between Philo for The Princess Bride and Songwriter for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The winner as decided by week 19 champion, JD Fitzpatrick, was The Princess Bride.
- Which movie based on a true story is the most accurate depiction of those events? Winner: I M Fine with a runaway victory for Apollo 13 with 27 likes.
- What is the most memorable death scene in a film? Winner: Repmodad with the dual birth/death scene from Alien.
Same. I saw it in the theatre when I was 10 and for the rest of the year me and my brothers were gearing up to fight Russians. Now my kids watch me going to the gun shop a few times a week asking if the 9mm is back in stock because a) Russians are always testing Alaskan early warning defense systems and b) I grew up watching Red Dawn.
Dang!
At about the same time, the chase scene in The French Connection.
Final answer.
Official answer: The running fight from Aliens.
Runner-up: The final fight between Li Mu Bai and Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The 7-Ups has a chase scene that certainly rivals the best – French Connection, Bullitt, and Ronin.
I liked Red Dawn, but no one in the world has the logistical capacity to pull something like that off.
You are correct. The sight of that car going full-tilt into the back of the tractor trailer was a more than a ittle disconcerting. One of my favorite Roy Scheider movies.
A lot of folks aren’t aware that a guy named Bill Hickman was behind the car chase scenes in Bullitt, French Connection and The 7-Ups.
The Band of Brothers (I think it qualifies) is full of action scenes that could be #1.
This is the first action car chase in the movie “Ronin”. There are two but this is my personal favorite. I am a sucker for a great car chase and Frankenheimer is still great in 98. Note the German vs the French autos, the sounds, the realism, De Niro, Reno, Skarsgård, and McElhone.
I got an “A” in Film History from a very snooty professor by writing about exactly that sequence.
To be fair, they probably staged the invasion out of Seattle and Portland.
Hard Boiled. The entire movie is one great action scene.
True, but these were made before CGI.
Also good, but at the time, the semi breaking through the parapet was something new in action. This was more of a standard shootout with a twist.
How long can the “scene” be?
My final answer is the end of The Matrix, from the helicopter rescue of Morpheus through Neo’s resurrection and victory over Agent Smith. Final answer.
This is a single action sequence, I think, with sub-scenes:
1. Rescue of Morpheus (by helicopter)
2. Rescue of Trinity from the helicopter crash
3. Escape of Morpheus and Trinity in the subway station
4. Subway station fight between Neo and Smith
5. Agents chase Neo to apartment, where he is shot and killed by Smith
6. Trinity declares her love for Neo and her faith that he cannot be dead
7. Neo rises and beats Smith, easily, because he has become the One
I always love how they never run out of ammo.
I almost chose the club fight from Rumble in the Bronx, but I decided the dialogue was a little too corny.
I hate to contradict you, but the Jackie scene was just silly.
The scene that Repmodad loaded sums up the tactical situation and may have been fairly plausible given the time frame. I think the movie makes the point that were the Soviets to nuke a few cities (Omaha, Cheyenne, Kansas City) they could establish a foothold on the plains. In the movie the east and west coasts were held, and the invaders found themselves in the heartland, fending off the largest army on earth: the American gun owners. Seems legit, all except the way they rolled over Alaska.
This ragtag band of sinners didn’t have proper weapons or chariots or armor or magic hammers or lassoes or humvees or giant robots or zats or automatic weapons or even one cell phone, and yet they prevailed against the mightiest army of their day. Look on ye mighty, and despair.
Official answer.
Aw, now, that’s not playing fair. It’s pretty tough to compete with “the hand of God!”
The problem with the Alaska assertion is that they used it as a staging point for three army groups to then cut through Canada.
Miller’s Crossing, the unsuccessful attack on the Irish mob boss’s house.
No way. Have you any idea of the immense effort America went to to be able to support the invasions she did in WWII?
While I like the John Woo entry, “Hard Boiled”, and must say that the damn green Volkswagen ruins “Bullitt” for me, I nominate the beach assault from “Apocalypse Now”.
The scene predates digital effects and uses helos that would have been actually used in Vietnam. Real actors riding real choppers. (Watch for favorite Gunny R. Lee Ermey at 1:17 and 5:30 in the clip, his second movie appearance.) The scene’s geography is clear to the viewer. Combined with the Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, the cinematography couldn’t be better. And I can’t think of any other action scene that has not one but two unforgettable phrases that entered the popular culture, “Smells like victory” and “Charlie don’t surf”.
Atomic Blonde – Stairwell fight scene. Official answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XarGS1AeEcE
my real answers have already been taken, so I’ll say the final gunfight scene from “the cowboys”.
An action scene can be so many things. A car chase. Martial Arts. Gunfire and explosions. The anticipation of gunfire and explosions. Battalions of Soldiers on a beach or one man pursued in a tunnel. Im inclined to give an answer for every sub category definable.
I saw several citations for various scenes from Terminator 2 or Aliens. They both do great things very differently, but there’s only one that really has it all. Good guys vs bad guys. Old cars with generous suspension careening through streets, small structures, and each other. Blows exchanged by axels transition to blows exchanged by fist. Wide city streets give way to narrow residential gardens and narrower hallways. Gratuitous amounts of gunfire and broken glass to frame Reagan with a flamethrower. Suspense builds even while the pace never relents–one wouldn’t think that possible. And no fancy effects to carry it. You can hardly blame James Cameron for not wanting to share his home with one he’d never top. The chase from Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break:
Final answer.
The crop duster in the cornfield scene in ‘North By Northwest’. Final answer.
Seeing Cary Grant running in his nicely tailored suit while being shot at and then having toxic chemicals dumped on him is spellbinding. The crash of the plane into the tanker truck, a satisfying resolution to the scene and a great relief of tension. The comic relief of CG stealing the farmer’s pickup to end the scene, another nice Hitchcock touch.
The sound in the scene is a big part of its magic. Cary Grant gets off the bus and all is eerily quiet until the distant sound of the plane grows menacingly. Each pass the plane goes off into the distance until the sound is barely audible then it turns and the threat (the sound) grows again. The approach and windblown passing of the first car that roars past as CG tries to flag it down and then the screech of the tanker truck stopping with Grant flopping down onto the pavement just under the front bumper and so on.
One of Hitchcock’s best scenes in his best movie.
Haven’t seen it in a while:
Yep. It works as a fantasy, but the whole thing falls apart when you know anything about geography, economics, military capability, etc