Best opening scene in a movie...

EricTheWeary

Can't he do resits? IIRC if you get below C in English it is now a compulsory resit. 

I went with my youngest to enroll and the first thing they did was look at his grades. Thankfully no one questioned him on why he wants to do computer science, I'm fairly sure 'I like watching Mr Robot' wouldn't have been the right answer. 

Axe_meister

I love the beginning of Fifth Element.

RobDavies

therose789 said:

Thats absolutely balls the way they have treated him like! 

EricTheWeary said:

Can't he do resits? IIRC if you get below C in English it is now a compulsory resit. 

I went with my youngest to enroll and the first thing they did was look at his grades. Thankfully no one questioned him on why he wants to do computer science, I'm fairly sure 'I like watching Mr Robot' wouldn't have been the right answer. 

@therose789 - yeah, not ideal but I think we as parents were more bothered than he was.

@EricTheWeary - yeah, he can do resists... just not at the college that does the film & photography courses that he wanted to do.  English was one of the few C's he got.... he's always gonna struggle with maths though.  I wonder how many times you're allowed to resit?   I'm trying to push my lad towards ICT qualifications, too.   He's got dreams of being the next Ross Halfin but I'm thinking that there's more chance of earning some money fiddling about with computers than cameras....

EricTheWeary

Our friend's son did photography at college, very interested in sports photography. He got a job on a cruise ship taking photos of holiday makers. Earns bugger all but seems to have a lovely life travelling around the Med and dating dancers. 
My son's struggle was English but we paid for a tutor ( my band's singer's partner is an English teacher) and he got two Bs which was a great outcome. Once she knew what board he was going to be sitting she knew what he had to do to pass and four one hour sessions with her took him from failing to B grade. My take on it is that it isn't so much his ability but the ability of the teacher to communicate what was required and some work one to one helped a lot with that. £25 a session but worth it. 

Zoolooter

Garthy

Bygone_Tones said:

Jaws opening scene is a classic.

It's odd how the story behind that scene has changed so much since the 70s. I read 'the making of Jaws' in the late 80s in what was then an already old book. In it it explains that two loops of ropes went around her waist each to men on the beach either side of her, and they would pull her from side to side. When 'action' was called both teams pulled at the same time instead of alternating, breaking her ribs and her being shocked by the ropes but not moving for a second until eventually the two teams start alternating. The book goes on to say that her screams and pleading for her life was genuine unscripted panic while struggling to keep her head above water. Obviously this was the one and only take.

That's been completely re-written now on web pages, either the original author on the set misunderstood this scene or bits and pieces have been changed so people don't think they are watching a stunt go wrong, either are quite plausible.

viz

@Bellycaster said:

The Shining

See @west vid, the music is utterly chilling too.

Yes it's Dies Irae; it manages to convey that feeling of uncompromising finality and power even without the words. Awesome. 

jonnyburgo

Once upon a time In the West.

boogieman

Garthy said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Jaws opening scene is a classic.

It's odd how the story behind that scene has changed so much since the 70s. I read 'the making of Jaws' in the late 80s in what was then an already old book. In it it explains that two loops of ropes went around her waist each to men on the beach either side of her, and they would pull her from side to side. When 'action' was called both teams pulled at the same time instead of alternating, breaking her ribs and her being shocked by the ropes but not moving for a second until eventually the two teams start alternating. The book goes on to say that her screams and pleading for her life was genuine unscripted panic while struggling to keep her head above water. Obviously this was the one and only take.

That's been completely re-written now on web pages, either the original author on the set misunderstood this scene or bits and pieces have been changed so people don't think they are watching a stunt go wrong, either are quite plausible.

I love stories like this. Horrible for the actress obviously but makes for great authenticity in the scene. There's a couple of similar ones:

The chestburster scene from Alien where Ridley Scott didn't tell the actors in the scene what was going to happen to John Hurt. Their reaction is real disgust. 

When they were making Grand Prix the director wasn't getting the right crowd reaction to one of the cars crashing and bursting into flames. So when they were heading toward a break in filming he had the tea wagon blown up and filmed the reaction to that. 

fields5069

I'd go with The Usual Suspects, but then I haven't seen that many fillums.

Also Europa.

Col_Decker

Blade

So much gore, kung fu vampires, and big guns. What's not to like? 

ennspek

Bond.
Star Wars.

Emp_Fab

I love the huge zoom-out at the start of one of the Star Trek films where it starts off as a close-up of Picard's iris then zooms out to show the Borg cube and on into space.  Another long zoom I love (I like long zooms) is in Contact where they are illustrating the reach of historical radio transmissions, going further back in time as the distance from Earth increases, even though it's technically wrong with the speed of radio waves etc.  They've got Dean Martin singing Volare (1958) as you pass Saturn.  In reality you would hear whatever was broadcast just over one hour previously.  To get as far back as 1958, you'd have to carry on zooming out quite a bit longer - or significantly faster - neither of which would have then worked well as a film intro.

This is a cool site that does the same thing:  www.lightyear.fm

Edit:  Found it...

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Sambostar

mellowsun

Surprised no one has mentioned Betty Blue.

Surely the best opening scene in cinema?

if the OPs son had discussed this he'd have got an A grade surely