Scene, sequence, saying — what made you know you’d love it from the very start?
5. Fame (1980): The auditions for the New York High School of the Performing Arts. Lots of hope in the midst of the dreams & ignorance of youth: good, bad, and ugly. And there’s Isaac Mizrahi, before he was famous, wearing a jester’s cap, reading one of Touchstone’s monologues.
4. The Letter (1940): The slow drip from a rubber tree, the slumbering plantation workers…then a shot shatters the calm. A door bursts open, a man staggers down the steps, and Bette Davis follows with a gun, pumping bullets into him: bang!bang!bang! Daaayyyyuuuummmmm! You’ve got my attention.
3. The Wild Bunch (1969): A bank; a little money; some rangy outlaws. And William Holden’s Pike Bishop (best character name ever!) squinting through the smoke. He’s a man of few words, all deadly: “If they move: kill ‘em!“
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998): D-day, and you felt as if you were living it. Utterly unforgettable and practically life-changing. If only the movie had stopped there, you’d have had a war film like no other. As it was, it was a war film’s opening sequence, like no other.
1. All That Jazz (1979): The adult version of #5. Roy Scheider’s Joe Gideon, playing Bob Fosse under Fosse’s direction, holds the cattle-call audition for his new musical, while George Benson’s On Broadway narrates. I was never a dancer, but when I first saw this as a young actress, I recognized it for the horrible, awful, fabulous, compelling truth. When Joe walks up to one hopeful and gives him the “Not this time” regretful headshake, I die inside. Every time.
Print
Digg
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Facebook
Yahoo! Buzz
Twitter
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MSN Reporter
MySpace
Orkut
Ping.fm
Reddit
RSS
Slashdot
Technorati
Tumblr
Webnews.de
Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first twenty minutes of that movie had me stuck to my seat when I saw it in the theater for the first time.
Patton, that speech set the tone for the rest of the movie.
Didn’t necessarially love the rest of the film, but the opening of The Watchmen, is killer.
Conversely, when I first saw 2001 A Space Odyssey, I actually thought I was in the wrong theater (I was 10).
The Shining – Mozart’s Requiem Dies Irae set the tone for this psychological horror flick.
Von Ryan’s Express – Great opening with Sinatra surrounded by Germans downing a bottle of wine.
Thunder Road – Cool close-up of Mitchum on the back roads running illegal hooch.
Jaws – The girl, the shark, the music.
Hard-Boiled – One of the greatest choreographed bullet ballets ever, and you get it in less than five minutes.
UHF — Raiders is my all-time fave, but since Outlaw already took that, guess it’s only appropriate I should go with “Weird Al’s” homage to it.
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure — Tim Burton has a knack for great opening sequences (Batman another fave) and along with Mr. Herman’s creative assistance, announced it quite well.
Glengarry Glen Ross — Though Alec Baldwin’s part technically wasn’t the true opening of the movie, if David Mamet’s gonna think enough of him to write the part into the movie version of his play, and put it close enough to the beginning, I’m not gonna argue (see also, The Untouchables).
The Player — Best 8 minutes of Hollywood BS (and Altman).
Strange Brew — Don’t care if they did this mouse in a bottle bit on their album. They most definitely didn’t have mutants roaming the Earth. “Pssst, act.”
“Put that coffee DOWN!”
Sadly, I think Pacino took Baldwin’s elevation of volume too much to heart as “acting.” The world’s seen one too many “hoo-rah” performances from him ever since (getting the Oscar for Scent instead of supporting for Glengarry didn’t help that cause either).
5. The Public Enemy (1931) – the opening scene wonderfully takes the viewer into the world of Chicago 1909. We see tenement apartments with laundry drying on the balconies, kids playing, a marching band, busy streets complete with a brewery and horse drawn wagons to deliver the kegs.
4. Double Indemnity (1944) – opens with Fred MacMurry as Walter Neff, wounded and on his way to confess his crimes.
3. Rear Window (1954) – what a great opening that highlights the little world of Jimmy Stewart as L.B. Jeffries. A great shot of what was then the largest movie set with a snappy jazz soundtrack.
2. Casablanca (1942) – that voice-over describing the plight of people trying to get out of Europe by way of Lisbon to Casablanca gets me every time: “…But the others wait in Casablanca, and wait and wait and wait.”
1. The Searchers (1956) – the genius of John Ford. The opening song:
“What makes a man to wander?
What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
And turn his back on home?
Ride away, ride away, ride away.”
Then the cabin door opens to reveal Monument Valley. A of a woman in silhouette moves into the daylight to greet John Wayne as Ethan. This is essentially the way the movie ends too. Gives me chills and for reasons I can’t explain makes me get misty eyed…every time.
Great picks. I’ll have to throw in Rope … Who can shut the movie off after seeing someone strangled?
Oh, yeah! Forgot about that!
“Jaws” was a great choice. Another movie that pulls me in and won’t let me go until the shark is kaput.
“Ever since I could remember I always wanted to be a gangster.”:”Goodfellas”.
1. Elmer Gantry… Burt Lancaster in a bar at Christmas preaching to and then bedding the woman… then stumbles into that Black Church and sings… clearly knowledgeable of both worlds.
2. Touch of Evil… over 3 minute tracking shot and he sets up most of the film in that one shot. Orson Welles was a genius.
3. The Incredibles… highlights the history and legal troubles of superheroes… funny and sadly realistic.
4. Up… the meeting and marriage Carl and Ellie — some of best stuff on film — ever. and barely a word spoken. A tour de force
5. My Man Godfrey… the beautiful opening credits into the City Dump… Godfrey pushing the icy Cornelia into the ashpile and Carole Lombard’s goofy Irene winning over William Powell’s Godfrey right after… from then on you Godfrey is profound, Irene is ditzy and spoiled but sweet… and her life is going to change.
“Godfrey” is a great choice. As soon as you mentioned that I could see it all in my mind. *Sigh* William Powell had such cute dimples.
I was going to mention Touch of Evil as well. The setup is so brilliant that it even works in the original version, where the opening credits play over the tracking shot.
So many great movies from all thus far.
We have such great taste, don’t we?
We sure ’nuff do, TCW. These are all great choices.
No love for the opening of Star Wars? The Johnny Williams orchestral score, then the rolling script, and then the spaceship chase with that imperial battle cruiser passing by overhead, and then the firefight in the rebel’s ship, and then threepio and artoo cross the hall and manage not to get hit by any of the lasers. I remember the movie house I was in like it was yesterday, and we couldn’t decide to laugh or cheer or applaud or what at the audacity of having those droids roll across the aisle.
So many choices!!! Almost any Bond movie you could walk out after the opening and feel well-rewarded (in a few cases, more than if you stayed.) Here, a few off the top of my head:
Die Hard – the opening sets up almost every element for the film by the time Alan Rickman makes his entrance. A masterpiece of concise story telling.
Rio Bravo – Hawks, in one long dailogue-free shot, establishes the main story and sets out characterizations for Martin & Wayne.
The Great Escape – the opening montage of the prisoners arriving and probing the new camp sets up all the main characters and lays out the fundamental problem to be addressed. All accompanied by a wonderful Elmer Bernstein score.
The Magnificent Seven – Another magnificent Bernstein score; Brenner & McQueen driving the hearse up to Boot Hill could have been a whole movie in itself, here it is merely the opening.
Le Comperes – watching Anny Duperey persuade her two ex-lovers that each is the sire of her runaway teenage son, sending Gérard Depardieu & Pierre Richard off on a hilarious journey is a treat.
There’s five, but I could so easily pull twenty more, from Capra’s Meet John Doe and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town to Huston’s noir classic The Maltese Falcon or Mitchum’s Philip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely or the inspired slapstick of a pair of 1973 films, Richard Lester’s (screenplay by George MacDonald “Flashman” Fraser) The Three Musketeers and Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles — which I saw as a double bill when they first came out!
Busy today..will come back later and join in! Hugs…
LION KING: The Circle of Life proved Disney could go above and beyond in the world of animation.
FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: The prologe detailing the history of the ring glued me into a film that I had previously known nothing about.
1 Raiders of the Lost Ark
2 Gladiator…the scene right before the battle…dang…
3 LA Confidential…I can’t explain why but the way that movie opens is such a bow to old LA…
4 The Hangover….brilliant set up!
5 Saving Private Ryan (The Dark Knight, 300)
Opening to Jaws…ok some of these were taken but these are ones I remember.
5. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. The music sets the mood very nicely, and the first ten minutes is a brilliant buildup of tension as Martin Balsam and his accomplices enter the train at the stations.
4. Touch of Evil. Already mentioned here.
3. Yojimbo. Again, the music tells you everything you need to know about the character.
2. The Usual Suspects. gives you enough of a hook to be curious about what the hell’s going on.
1. A Clockwork Orange. Say what you want about Kubrick, when it comes to establishing character and atmosphere he doesn’t f__k around.
[...] got to a start with what else? a Wankette Top 5. This week was Wank’s Top 5 Movie Openings. Oddly enough no one voted for Sharon Stone. In other movie news we had Darth Vader — whiny bitch, and there were Vikings and “one [...]