2012 Calvin Awards: Best Scene
February 14, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Like everyone else in the free world, BOP’s staff anxiously anticipated the conclusion of the Harry Potter franchise. The most popular film series in movie history reached its inevitable ending, the one we all dreaded since it meant the last moments of J.K. Rowling’s masterpiece. We savored all of it and while there was some debate regarding which scene is the best, we reached a firm decision in the end. The Best Scene of the year is the hallmark moment from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the Battle of Hogwarts.
The brilliance of the Potterverse is that it has a depth of engaging characters, all of whose fates were in flux during the fight. I am not speaking only of Harry, Ron and Hermione, either. Neville Longbottom had grown from being the Ralph Wiggum of Gryffindor into a brave pureblood wizard and natural leader. The Weasley twins never stopped being comic relief yet they found a way to commercialize mischief. The Malfoys were placed in a position where they had to pick sides once and for all. And that total nutter Bellatrix Lestrange was surely going to get hers from someone. The only question was who…and that moment in and of itself is a wonderful surprise.
As was the case with Children of Men’s reckoning, the only real mystery with the Battle of Hogwarts is how to determine where it begins and ends. The entire climax of the movie is comprised of this battle with impeccable highlights such as Neville vs. Nagini, Weasley vs. Lestrange and Potter vs. Voldemort in the wizardry equivalent of Wrestlemania III. The Battle of Hogwarts is an unprecedented string of satisfying resolutions and a fitting swan song for the most recognized new literature of our lifetime. It is a heart wrenching, gut punching, tear inducing, laugh evoking celebration of all things Potter. We treasure all of it even if it is bittersweet to know that this is the end of the journey for Harry Potter et al.
The Burj Dubai is 2,723 feet tall. Someone involved with the production of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol had the insane idea to create an action sequence involving a trek up the face of the building. The end result is one of the most gripping action scenes ever filmed, our second favorite of the year. Sabine Moreau is an assassin whose fee must be paid in diamonds. When she comes in possession of nuclear missile launch codes by assassinating an IMF agent, Moreau draws the attention of persistent do-gooder agent Ethan Hunt, psychotic Russian nuclear scientist Kurt Hendricks and the leader/lover of the dead IMF agent, Jane Carter. What follows is a nerve-racking face-off between all of the parties that requires Hunt to mount a building in a dust storm, Hendricks to procure a transaction that endangers humanity and Carter and Moreau to fight to the literal death. One of them is dropkicked out of a window over a thousand feet above the ground. BOP fave Brad Bird has always been among the best in the world at envisioning landmark sequences and bringing them to life. In making a live action film, he somehow exceeds even our lofty expectations with this iconic mise-en-scène.
Don’t you hate it when you go to a baseball game where your team is winning 11-0 and the instant you show up the other team starts a comeback to tie the game at 11? If you can answer yes to this question, you must be Billy Beane. The Oakland A’s GM was marginally fictionalized for Moneyball the movie, but the story itself is true. Beane never attends his team’s games. A former player himself, he is unable to watch impotently as his acquisitions compete. Our third place finisher for Best Scene recounts the climactic 20th game of an unprecedented (for baseball) 20 game winning streak. Knowing that his team is way ahead and that this win is a piece of baseball history, Beane turns his car around and heads to the stadium. The team immediately falls apart, which causes Tim Hudson, a pitcher who had never lost a game in which he had a five run lead up until that point, to blow it. Beane helplessly witnesses the meltdown as the movie makes the unusual but powerful decision to drown out all audio to enhance the weight of the visual. It is a brilliant piece of filmmaking made all the better because it is based in real life events. And Brad Pitt may never have a better moment as an actor than he does in this scene.
The Artist shows up in just about every category of The Calvins this year (I don’t think it’s in Best Videogame but I could see that happening). Its fourth place selection for Best Scene is the moment in which all of the heartbreak and suffering from earlier in the movie is cast aside. All that is left is for two people who clearly love one another to dance the night away. As we learn early in the movie, George Valentin is quite the hoofer, a mimic capable of repeating any step he sees. While the adjustment from silent movies to talkies may have left him behind for a time, the idea for a new kind of feature, a musical, proves to be his salvation. He confidently takes the hand of the woman with whom he has been smitten since their first encounter and together they revolutionize their industry. The Artist is a movie that brims with optimism at the start, takes a darker turn and then finishes in the sunniest manner possible in the end. It is this final celebration that left BOP staff members with a smile on our faces as we exited the theater. The dance scene is pure Hollywood in the best way possible, an apt resolution for a love letter to the glory days of the industry.
A pair of scenes from the raucous comedy Bridesmaids split the vote enough that they only wind up in fifth and sixth position. Our staff evenly split on which is the funnier moment between a series of improvised attempts to earn forgiveness from a crush and a fair amount of gastric distress that strikes at the least appropriate time in a bride’s early preparations. If there had been a consensus for either scene, that segment would have challenged for victory in the category. Instead, Bridesmaids earns two nominations in the top six. In our defense, it is all but impossible to choose between a desperate woman’s attempts to attain the attention of the man she has wronged and a few moments wherein cheap Brazilian food leads to bowel moves that erupt “like lava." Bridesmaids is arguably the funniest film of the year and these are the two centerpiece segments from it.
The other split vote this year comes from the same film that wins the category, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. While more members of our staff favor the final showdown, there was a schism as others championed the flashback sequence that reveals the life and fate of the inscrutable Severus Snape. For a series of eight movies, viewers have been left in the dark about whether he is truly redeemed or in fact a sick twist who enjoys humiliating impressionable children. The reveal of the causality for his actions is a painfully beautiful exploration of what happens when love at first sight is also love unrequited. We relish the emotional resonance of this moment and name it the seventh best scene of the year.
Only two scenes this year earned multiple first place selections from our staff. This places Best Scene for 2012 among the most varied ballots in the history of The Calvins. The Battle for Hogwarts leveraged its top of the ballot popularity into a win in the category. The best scene from Rise of the Planet of the Apes is less fortunate in that it does not have the overall support needed to finish higher than eighth place. The scene in question is the one where Caesar finds his voice for the first time and thereby becomes the first of the apes to speak. The genetically enhanced monkey builds an army of simian loyalists, establishing dominance over each one. When Dodge (played by Tom Felton aka Draco Malfoy, making him unofficial king of the Best Scene category this year) intercedes once more in terrorizing the caged animals held captive under his draconian “caretaking," Caesar utters a single syllable. In the process, he evolves an entire species along the evolutionary scale. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of the best movies of the year and its best scene is a jaw dropping moment in storytelling.
The last two nominees this year feature a screwball climax that would make Robert Altman proud and a profound examination of life that would make Carl Sagan proud. Crazy, Stupid, Love is a character driven tale of a man struggling to recapture his wife’s devotion. Along the way, he befriends a lothario and bewitches a babysitter. These unrelated events tie together in a slapstick moment wherein several revelations occur simultaneously about who the lothario is dating, who the man’s son loves and who the babysitter should or should not be mailing scandalous photographs. All of this happens while confused bystanders in the family watch helplessly. BOP is always a sucker for intersecting story arcs and this is among the best of the 2000s.
Conversely, The Tree of Life is an obfuscating, almost impenetrable story about…oh, I am not going to pretend as if I know what is about. What I can say for certain is that there is a moment in the movie where legendary director Terrence Malick offers his perspective on the history of the universe. An argument could be made that a character questions the meaning of our existence and the universe answers her by telling its backstory. It is one thing to describe Severus Snape’s life to date; it is an altogether different and exponentially more ambitious process to inform the viewer on the various steps we have taken from the Big Bang to now. Included is a moment wherein an injured dinosaur is curiously studied by a healthy one, with the latter choosing not to kill/eat it. Is this the moment where living creatures developed a conscience? The first time concern was shown for another of a species? An action between dinosaur brothers that mirrors something that happens in the same spot millions of years later between human brothers? The ambiguity of the scene is total and that is what makes it so enticing to some members of our staff.
Narrowly missing nomination in a tightly contested battle this year are scenes from X-Men: First Class, The Muppets, The Help, The Adventures of Tintin, Super 8 and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The X-Men scene is the invasion of Cuba while The Muppets musical examination of self, Man Or Muppet, is our choice from it. The Help features a special pie, while The Adventures of Tintin’s inclusion is the harrowing chase through the streets of Bagghar. We liked several pieces from Super 8 (three finished in the top 20 of our voting) but our favorite was the train crash itself. Finally, the iconic Man with the Pig Tattoo scene is our favorite from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With only another vote here or there, any of these could have earned nomination in this year’s top 10. The voting was that close from number ten to number 30.
The Calvins: An Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture