Favorite Movie Scenes

I never saw that. Great Escape was great for me, then. I would likely cringe to have to sit through it now.

Even on the clip I linked, his hair is too glossy for such a troubled soul..

I watched again, sometime last year, from a nostalgic view it was still good.
I can't believe you haven't seen the getaway, it's a bit dry, in an odd sort of way, but really quite excellent, maybe a bit bleak.
I like the way Mcqueen can portray so desperate without losing his cool, not many actors can do that.

The Getaway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOCDBAM-Big&feature=player_detailpage

don't reckon you're gonna shoot me are ya

Hmmm.

The Great Escape has wedged itself into the British psyche. It's almost always shown at Christmas, and the music is the soundtrack for every England international, especially when we play Germany. Another popular tune at matches is Jonnny Cash's Ring Of Fire.

Let's not forget India's contribution. Sorry about the picture quality.

That's interesting, a surprise to me. I just went back and looked at it again and read the comments.

It's from the 1990s. The 1990 was when British Asians (by that we tend to mean immigrants from the Indian subcontinent) came into their own. They were second generation, born over here, as opposed to immigrants from another country. The comedy series Goodness Gracious me was a consequence of that. In the 1970s and even the 1980s Indian characters were often played by British actors like Peter Sellers. That's not true anymore.

At the movies when the Blob comes in through the air conditioning... everyone turned around to see if it was their theatre... priceless !

I remember The Blob; I think it was 1958.





David

Excellent choice!

It doesn't stand up to modern action movies on the basis of special effects, but it was a fabulous movie in every way a movie can be fabulous: plot, character, action, sub-text, etc etc etc.

You are so very wrong.

Watch it tomorrow and you will not cringe at all unless you feel that you were fooled by the original about realism.

Clearly great movies need not be hyper-realistic.

It's not about whether or not the Cooler King could ever have existed in a German POW Camp (and since fact is often stranger than fiction he likely could have), it's about your emotional and intellectual response to the Cooler King within the context of this 2 hour story told by cinema.

Clearly it worked for you, like millions of others, and this movie is such a classic it still works today.

Good Lord it had so many other great scenes.

I saw it as a kid at the Saturday matinee .... canvas seats ! Out in a country theatre in the hot west . It was in the late 60's and you even got WWII Movie Tone newsreels and an ice cream all for 20 cents !

I worked in a building with the special effects folks. Not that we ever talked, except for one guy, the key editor for some years, or maybe it was the main place for part of that time, what do I know - who became a close friend. Cameron was there at the time. Just another person in the hall to me and me to him.

Snort, our leased place of business as a landarch firm went over to the Super Mario people, who were rude when I tried to bring them mail to them from my own mailbox, this when I had my own small place. Talk about being treated like dirt.


This, of course, sounds petty.
It is.

Do I sound like I hate the movie?

No, I loved it and still do - and if I tried to fix it, it would be a fuckup. But now I see stuff I didn't then.

That is so true, especially as we grow older.
I judge the quality of every movie I see by the response the characters, and the dynamics of their relationships, produce intellectually and emotionally.
For this reason, "Blood Diamond" is one of my favorite movies.

That is very interesting.

Clearly, there was a strong British influence in the characterization, but let's consider the movie's top characters, if you will.

The Cooler King - Steve McQueen. Arguably the main character and without question intended to be classically American.

The Scrounger - James Garner. American all the way.

The Tunnel King - Charles Bronson, playing a Polish character (My personal favorite)

The Manufacturer - James Colburn playing an Australian

The Mole - Angus Lennie (another of my favorites). A Scotsman

Big X - Richard Attenborough. A Brit and a highly sympathetic character, but top of the list? I don't think so.

The Forger - Donald Pleasence. Another Brit and another great character, but hardly a protagonist.

Gordon Jackson and David McCallum had two featured roles and while I liked them both, they were clearly second tier.

This has nothing to do with any cultural comparison between the US and the UK.

I am an unabashed anglophile and would have no problem with a movie that featured Brits over Yanks, but I am astounded that The Great Escape is apparently a bigger cinematic event in the UK than the US.

Presumably, the movie is based on a true event and given that the camp in question seemed to have been "run" by British POWs, it's more than likely that the main credit for The Great Escape belongs to the British captives. I certainly can understand why such a triumph is treasured by the British people.

However, the movie was made by Hollywood and whether accurate or not Americans and men of other nationalities comprised the film's main characters.

I, of course, have no problem with Brits favoring this movies (I love it myself), but I am fascinated that it has become such an annual classic in the UK.

Very interesting!

Hey, take the chip off your shoulder Osso.

You opined that you would cringe if you saw the movie today.

Your words, not mine.

Another excellent film, and DiCapario's best performance since "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."