Never Mind Pop Film

Stuck in space, millions of miles away from help. The only assistance Dave has is HAL and HAL isn't cooperating. His life has become secondary to the mission and no one else is left. He is a man abandoned. Worse yet, the machine knows that Dave is a liar. We fear that HAL's programming is faulty, rather it works too well.

Frank comes downstairs after a very heated argument and - much to his surprise - April has breakfast waiting for him. She has forgiven him. Or so he thinks.
Sam Mendes' tale of domestic drama entails many betrayals. The most important being trust. April (Kate Winslet) believes Frank to have betrayed her trust. In fact she knows it. His promises of leaving their quaint and cozy existence on Revolutionary Road have all turned out to be lies.
 What she is really about to do will rock his existence. Winslet's performance during this scene alone should have warranted her Best Actress Oscar. The way her eyes embody the solemness of the scene is beyond words. We know something is wrong, but we have no idea how bad.

Desperation. Anger. Revenge. All loaded conveniently into Teardrop's hands. The glare says it all really. The message he is sending with his eyes is absolute and is not up for interpretation. He knows his brother is dead. He knows who got him that way. And he's willing to die to right that.

This man has accepted his fate. All the drugs, the drinking, the battles of his trade, they all have taken their toll. We can see it in his face as well as the scars that mark his body.
What allows The Wrestler to leave such a lasting impact is that we can all recognize the face Randy wears at the end of the film. Acceptance. He does not care if he dies in the ring because the ring is the only place that really allows him to exist. Life has chewed him up and spat him out but here, among the cheers of his legion, he is King.

This shot comes from David Fincher's Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Critics were split down the middle of this film, but it cannot be argued that this was one of the more beautifully shot films of recent memory.
An intimate portrayal of life, death and love presented a very common dilemna for a very unique man. We all die, it is how we live that truly defines us.

Jude Law's Harlen Maguire just exudes pure evil. When seeing this film in 2002 I remember being so infuriated at his character taking snapshots at the expense of the men he killed that it turned me off the movie completely. Eight years later I see the scene for what it really is: a father protecting his child from things that this world can't explain. Pure unadulterated evil.

David Fincher's works are never short on splendor captured on celluloid, but Zodiac, easily one of the best shot films of the decade, really takes the cake with its masterful cinematography by Harris Savides.
Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in the basement of a man who he believes can lead him to the Zodiac, little does he know that the man whose basement he's in could be the Zodiac himself. Fear hasn't translated this easily to an audience since Lila Crane was trapped in the home of Norman Bates, with his mother barreling down on her in a corridor she can't run out of.

This is just one of several moments that hold you in a vice-like grip. Perhaps Fight Club should look over its shoulder as the best of Fincher's filmmography.

None of these men are hiding behind governments, an army brigade, they are not protecting freedom. They simply want the otherside dead. Bill the Butcher (another excellent portrayal by Daniel Day-Lewis) would rather see his life ended than a world where Irishmen, African-Americans and "Natives" share a country.

We enter the warehouse panning slowly from an expansive room closer to the desk of Barry Egan (Adam Sandler). He is pushed up against the corner speaking timidly to a line operator regarding airline miles--the currency of the future. Sandler scans the newspaper ad as if he were Indiana Jones in the proverbial Lost Ark. The isolation of the warehouse is soon to be contrasted by dreams of Hawaii. Escape is near and he'll be damned if it gets away from him this time.

Joe Wright's Atonement did many things - one of which was remove the romantic aura from World War II - something a great deal of period films never do.
Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is a man falsely accused of rape forced into joining the army or rotting in prison. Four years have come and gone from his life and he is still no closer to reuniting with his love, Cecilia (Keira Knightley). He is suffering from considerable exhaustion and this scene captures the loss he's experiencing in the most haunting fashion.

Yet another case where there are too many favorite scenes to pick, so forgive me.
 This scene has particular relevence because it's when Joel resigns himself to the memory-erasing procedure and recognizes this will probably be the last flashback he has of Clementine. Heart-breaking and thought-provoking at the same time. We all have had romances end badly and wished that they would be erased forever, but would we still be human without those experiences?

In this pivotal scene of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight we are finally introduced to how the Joker sees this world and Batman's role in it.
 In starting the scene with the Joker upside down and flipping the camera around to his point of view Wally Pfister (frequent Nolan collaborator and TDK cinematographer) lets the audience in on the master plan. While seemingly defeated and in Batman's clutches, the Joker wins. Gotham, as they know it, will never be the same.

Today's post will be the first in a series Shots of the Day. The first coming from the instant classic No Country for Old Men from the Coen Brothers.
The end of the film was a disappointment of sorts for some, but for me there could not have been a better ending. The dream says so much about the film that a shootout between Sheriff Bell and Anton Chigurh never could. A man who never fully invested himself into this world recognizes that evil has always been around. That Chigurh is no new phenomenon. His father was willing to go toe-to-toe for this world, something Ed Tom realizes that he could not do.