2006 Calvin Awards: Best Scene

February 22, 2006

Did you just put a smiley-face in my chest hair?!!

Out of the categories we do for The Calvins each year, the most distinct is Best Scene. Many moviemakers scoff at the idea of lifting a single sequence out and placing it in the crucible of scrutiny. To the casual moviegoer, though, this is exactly the sort of discussion that distinguishes products from one another. A memorable scene in a movie is oftentimes the difference between liking it and loving it. Every product needs that hook that separates it from the pack. BOP relishes the opportunity to line up all the contenders to determine which one offers the best scene of the year.

Our runaway winner is the manscaping sequence from The 40 Year-Old Virgin. This is the rare comedic situation where the line between fiction and reality is blurred. The film's star, Steve Carell, is ostensibly an actor playing the role of a naive young man suddenly made self-aware of his weak hygiene. In actuality, he is a comedian allowing himself to be tortured by a dragon lady of a body waxer. She is an employee who appears to relish her work all too much, celebrating in the suffering her hair removal causes Carell. The sequence could have just as easily been one of Carell's bits on The Daily Show rather than star-making work in his fledgling film career. Whatever the medium, the outcome would have been the same.

BOP defies any ordinary human being to not laugh while they watch Carell receive a chest waxing. It's an impossibility, and this is proven by co-stars Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen. They are allegedly there to offer emotional support but they come across as rubberneckers. The duo laughs until they cry, eventually causing Rudd to flee the scene since he can't control his uproarious laughter. We at BOP are right there with him in this regard. Steve Carell's wax job is not only the single funniest moment of 2005 cinema but also easily the Best Scene of the year.

Finishing in a distant second place is the Whoop That Trick sequence from Hustle and Flow. This is a magical exploration of the creative process a musician experiences. Local Memphis pimp DJay (Terrence Howard) has little in common with childhood friend Clyde (Anthony Anderson) other than music. When DJay determines he has the skill to become a successful rapper, he decides to take a chance and reach out to his old buddy. For his part, Clyde aka Key has nothing to be gained from trying to make music with DJay. It's much different work from his usual church productions, and his wife rails at the idea of her man hanging out with a pimp and his hoes. And nobody is completely sure why DJ Qualls is there. He might not have even been a member of the cast at that point. All of the dissimilarities between the three men are thrust aside once they figure out the beat and the lyrics, though. At that point, they become a band working on something much larger than themselves, something which takes on a life of its own. It's awe-striking to behold and serves as a metaphor for the creation of the movie itself. Little was expected of Craig Brewer's first major motion picture, but it evolved into one of the finest films of 2005.

Serenity is the most delicious of movie treats, but even the finest of desserts needs that extra sweetener to push the flavor beyond the boundaries of normal human taste. With regards to Serenity, we found two segments worthy of such praise. The higher of them is our third place entry, River's one-woman bar fight.

The whole sequence starts so innocently, as an underage girl watches an animated cartoon. Unfortunately, she is in a populated eating establishment when this occurs and even worse, the voice on her television tells her to kill things. In a way, it harkens back to Joss Whedon's television series, Angel, particularly the puppet episode where the children are enslaved by children's programming. When it happens to River, she turns into a deadly acrobat, brutalizing both allies and strangers. The incongruity of the smallest person in the bar being the deadliest is straight out of the Whedon Handbook. The effectiveness of its implementation is sublime.

With a subject matter dealing with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse, Mysterious Skin is a difficult and sometimes brutal movie. But it is a brief respite of aching beauty that provides the standout scene in the movie, earning fourth place in our vote. Teenage hustler Neil and his best friend/platonic soulmate Wendy are alone in a desolate drive in, briefly escaping the reality of their lives while listening for God in the drive-in speakers. For a moment there is a sense of freedom, and even if you know it's only temporary, that moment builds to a climax and just then the snow begins to fall. It is the perfect mixture of acting, cinematography and emotion.

My Summer of Love, our fifth place nominee, is a tense film about the nature of relationships and love and hides an almost-thriller in its creamy middle. The two centerpiece characters are Mona (Nathalie Press) and Tamsin (Emily Blunt), who both live in the English countryside but have very separate existences. Mona lives with her brother, a former convict who has recently discovered religion, in a pub that was owned by their late parents. Tamsin, on the other hand, is the daughter of a wealthy family who inhabits a glamorous estate. Since Tamsin has been suspended from her boarding school and finds herself bored, she discovers a diversion in her relationship with Mona. She woos her youthful counterpart with elegant clothes and the advantages of her enormous home, and eventually the seduction becomes much more specific. Tamsin and Mona's relationship reaches its zenith as they dance together to the music of Edith Piaf, the famous French singer of La Vie en Rose and a chanteuse of whom Mona has no previous knowledge. It's an overwhelmingly romantic scene and the highlight of a movie that is full of terrific performances.

The thrust of this category is that even the best films have a single moment of definition. Nowhere on the list is this more readily apparent than with our sixth place selection, Brokeback Mountain. I am relatively certain that people who are even casually familiar with the movie have already deduced the moment. And no, you perverts, it's not the first love scene. It's the harrowing, bittersweet moment where Jack Twist looks straight into the eyes of Ennis Del Mar, the love of his life, and utters the movie's de facto catchphrase. "I wish I knew how to quit you." A single sentence punctuates the impossibility of their relationship, and the melancholy emotions stirred by this knowledge. Long after Brokeback Mountain has grown cloudy in our memories, the heart-wrenching finality of that statement will live on.

As was referenced above, Serenity earned not one but two spots on our list. Seventh place is where the lower one is slotted. Our choice is the climactic sequence wherein Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds is overmatched in hand-to-hand combat with The Operative while several poor, innocent Reavers feel the same way about their encounter with River Tam. It is no secret by now that there is a death in the Firefly family in Serenity. The brilliance of its implementation is that once the viewer realizes one of them has fallen, the mind must allow for the possibility that any or even all of them could be next. Rare is the movie that convinces casual viewers that they could have front row seats to a snuff film. During its denouement, Serenity achieves exactly this, making its climax an obvious selection for Best Scene.

Eighth place is the domain of the gruff-voiced crooner Johnny Cash and his biopic, Walk the Line. Joaquin Phoenix offers an inspired performance as the fledgling musician. At no time is this better demonstrated than his first audition for a record contract. Cash and his band mates show up for their scheduled appointment and proceed to play exactly what they expect the producer wants to hear - a gospel piece. After only one song, they get cut off and Cash is informed that he doesn't seem to believe what he is singing. It's a gripping insight into the soldier and what he lost during his time abroad. But he remains unbowed and resolute. Johnny Cash was not meant to have his story end there, so he sang a different song. His song. A great song. Fifteen hours later, an entire album had been recorded and the rest was history. Seeing how close he came to being a musical washout makes both the movie and the legacy of his career all the more engaging.

Our ninth and tenth selections come from Good Night, and Good Luck and Elizabethtown. Our choice in George Clooney's film is an obvious one. It's the actual broadcast of the Milo Radulovich Story. Clooney deftly integrates real footage with David Strathairn's masterful performance as Edward R. Murrow. The Elizabethtown scene of choice for tenth place is not the Freebird climax as you might expect. Instead, it's the heartfelt romance of their cell phone call which ends with the lovers meeting one another halfway. Literally.

This category always includes a number of near misses just outside the top ten. It was no different this year as six different titles were a single vote short of nomination. They include the Three Dinosaurs scene from King Kong, Akira and his sister's walk in Nobody Knows, Gromit's stalking in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the climax of Star Wars Episode III, and the Burn Baby Burn scene from Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. (David Mumpower/BOP)

Dan Krovich also contributed to this section.


Top 10
Position Scene Film Total Points
1 Andy gets his chest waxed The 40-Year-Old Virgin 50
2 Snowing at the drive in Mysterious Skin 21
3 Dancing to Edith Piaf My Summer of Love 20
4 "I wish I knew how to quit you." Brokeback Mountain 19
5(tie) Johnny's first audition Walk the Line 18
5(tie) "Whoop that Trick" Hustle & Flow 18
7 Broadcasting the Milo Radulovich story Good Night, And Good Luck 16
8(tie) Mal vs The Operative while the Serenity crew holds back the Reavers Serenity 15
8(tie) River has one-woman bar fight Serenity 15
8(tie) Cell phone conversation Elizabethtown 15




     


 
 

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