2009 Calvin Awards: Best Scene
February 10, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I am not kidding here. We have never had a movie dominate the voting in Best Scene the way that the biggest movie of 2008 has done. The first and second most popular scenes of the year were selected from this movie and two others were but a single vote away from the top ten. In total, six different scenes from The Dark Knight received nomination with five of them finishing among the top 18 in vote getters. Our staff was captivated by the visually stimulating and simultaneously thought-provoking movie moments created by Christopher Nolan. In the end, the strongest support was narrowed from four wonderful moments to a pair that we felt worthy of naming as the two best of the year.
The Best Scene of 2009 as voted by the BOP staff may be summarized with but five simple words: "How about a magic trick?" In this period of only a few seconds, Heath Ledger suddenly owns the role that had always seemed destined to be remembered as Jack Nicholson's. He enters a room full of mob bosses and recklessly mocks them with fake laughter. As a thug is sent his way, he makes the offer of sleight of hand by placing a pencil on the table. An instant later, a man has been impaled and The Joker has been defined as one of the scariest movie villains of all time. It's a remarkable bit of storytelling and just plain cool to boot. Of course, Nolan himself would probably point to our second favorite scene of the year as the one he likes better. The bank heist is so meticulously planned and masterfully shot that the IMAX advertising campaign for The Dark Knight featured nothing else but this segment. It's a sublime bit of filmmaking that I maintain would win an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short if submitted in the category. This is a standalone sequence with a beginning, a middle and an end and it is truly breathtaking from start to finish. This six minute sequence went a long way in guaranteeing that The Dark Knight would become the biggest box office opening weekend of all time.
Our favorite scene of the year that in no way involved The Joker still featured an equally villainous character. There Richard Nixon was. It was late at night and he'd had a few drinks. His fingers nervously tapped as he considered how best to proceed. Was David Frost awake, too? If so, was he thinking of Nixon the way that Nixon was thinking of him? We've all been there and we all know what happens next. First, there is the jittery grabbing of the phone. Then, there is the awkward conversation. Finally, there is an aftermath of regret. Such is the danger of drunk dialing and there is something comforting in the knowledge that a former leader of the free world is just as susceptible to it as I was those 52 regrettable instances. Almost every girl in this area got caller ID specifically because of me. But I digress. The point is that Richard Nixon's phone call to taunt, bond with, and eventually incite David Frost is the finest moment of a brilliant film. Not only is it our third favorite film sequence of the year but it actually tied the pencil trick for total number of first place votes, an impressive feat for a political drama competing against a comic book movie.
The rest of our top five is comprised of two scenes that are each heartbreaking but in entirely different ways. The first involves Eve's frantic attempt to restore WALL-E's memory. Having rescued humanity by holding an eco-detector open while the starship Axiom lists to and fro, WALL-E gets crushed and his memory chip irreparably damaged. Eve remembers that his home on Earth includes various replacement parts for the adorable, titular recycling unit. When she installs a new motherboard, his brain reboots but he has lost the entirety of the self-consciousness that made him so special. Crestfallen, Eve kisses the manbot she loves good-bye, thereby providing just the spark of electricity needed to trigger his memory circuits back to full functionality. If that scene doesn't move you, it's time to get a heart transplant. Meanwhile, Doubt is equally painful but for different reasons. Our selected scene in this movie sees Viola Davis' character confess to the nun portrayed by Meryl Streep that her son has always been "funny". And since he was born that way already, does it really matter if a priest takes advantage of his "funny" desires? It's a chilling take on the way parents reconcile molestation, and the controversial character behavior in this scene has created its fair share of arguments among our staff. The way she cedes her gay son to a presumed pedophile is almost as monstrous as the act itself, even if the existence of said act is still up for debate. The fact that anyone could be fine with their child being repeatedly raped proves to be the core ethical debate in a movie chock full of convoluted and difficult themes.
Various forms of attack by weapons of mass destruction are our choices for the sixth and seventh best scenes of the year. Iron Man sees Tony Stark humiliated and his life fundamentally altered in a cave in Afghanistan. This sets up a key moment later in the film where our fallen hero returns to wreak havoc on those who irreparably damaged his heart and mind. The entire sequence kills but the two highlights involve Stark using a very small yet impressively powerful projectile to return fire on a tank and Stark leaving an oppressive terrorist to his fate among a sea of angry villagers. Iron Man is a cinematic masterpiece and this scene contains its finest moments. Of course, for sheer destruction, no film in recent memory can match the unleashing of the Cloverfield Monster on a heavily populated city full of innocents. The eccentricity of Cloverfield is the idea that the Godzilla Scenario sets up a series of untold stories among the fleeing and oftentimes doomed civilians. Cloverfield gives these people a voice and a series of shaky cameras to remember their various tales of woe. This scene demonstrates that the unseen is oftentimes more scary than what is visible. Fear of the unknown is a gnawing type of panic that overwhelms. Perhaps no moment in the first half 2008 is more memorable than the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty bouncing in front of a group of friends who come to understand the seriousness of their predicament.
Our last three selections for best scenes of the year come from The Wrestler, In Bruges, and another sequence from WALL-E. Our favorite portion of The Wrestler is a largely ad-libbed scene wherein Mickey Rourke's character mans a deli counter with the same flair he has demonstrated in the squared circle. The moment drives home the need for the man to always be the center of attention and makes the viewer painfully aware that his return to the ring is inevitable. Our favorite segment in the wonderful surprise that is In Bruges is the final confrontation wherein three bad men battle one another as well as their own conflicted emotions. Rare is the movie that offers constant surprises in the end, but In Bruges manages to do just this at several times. Without spoiling exact instances, the hotel negotiation in particular is truly inspired. Finally, our other favorite scene in WALL-E is the magical period where our hero uses a fire extinguisher to float in space and Eve uses her natural propulsion to fly alongside him. Their robotic space dance redefines romance in a way no science fiction movie ever had before.
Just missing selection in our top ten are The Joker's interrogation by Batman, The Joker's manipulation of events to escape his prison cell (dear Gotham police force: never let that man make a phone call), Jamal's million dollar question in Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler's final match, the swimming pool scene in the year's best vampire flick, Let the Right One In (sorry, Twilight fans, but it's true), the final confrontation in Doubt, the vampire puppet scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the drummer jam session in The Visitor. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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