The first one I chose is from Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. While a lot of made of the movie’s interracial/romance main story or the “drugs are the scourge of our community” subplot, one thing that always struck me as sad about Jungle Fever was the disintegration of the father/child relationships in the movie. The scene where Frank Vincent finds out Annabella Sciorra had slept with Wesley Snipes was brutal, but Samuel L. Jackson’s final scene in the movie is one I find so sad that even after all these years it can still bring a tear to my eye. I can only imagine the stories behind what went wrong in the lives of the family to bring everyone to this.

When I first saw this, I couldn’t understand how Ossie Davis Jr would be so cold hearted, but as I watch it again, I can see a man who feels as though he has absolutely nowhere else to go. Even as he sits there reciting scripture, you can see he is a man defeated. Ruby Dee’s crying at the end of this scene rips my heart each time. I also regard this as one of the best scenes Samuel L. Jackson has ever performed in. He was sad, creepy, scary and even funny in the span of five minutes. Like a lot of my friends, this was the movie that put him on the map for us and most of it is because of this scene.

If you don’t own this movie on DVD, here is an Amazon link to buy it (buying through this link will help the site):

]]> http://www.movienoise.com/2010/05/27/the-saddest-scenes-jungle-fever-1991/feed/ 0 http://www.movienoise.com/2008/05/18/another-bomb-at-the-box-office/ http://www.movienoise.com/2008/05/18/another-bomb-at-the-box-office/#comments Sun, 18 May 2008 17:39:00 +0000 Derek http://movienoise.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/another-bomb-at-the-box-office/ The Hollywood Reporter is saying that for the second week in a row, a major Hollywood film has fallen short of expectations at the box office. The first was Speed Racer, which cost an estimated 160 million but only brought in 18.6 in its opening weekend. The second appears to be Prince Caspian, which did slightly better at 56.6 million over its first three days, while costing ‘only’ 100 million.

The reason for this “wobbly start for the lucrative summer moviegoing season in North America” is being placed on the fact that Prince Caspian is getting less than stellar reviews (although they made sure to point out that the title character is being played by a newcomer).

To me, the reason is a little simpler than bad (or not glowing) reviews. It’s one of simple economics. Ticket prices are high, concession prices are high, gas prices to get to the theaters are high and quite frankly, I think that if people are going to spend their hard earned money on a trip to the movie theater, they are going to spend it on known properties like Indiana Jones (out next week) or which had really cool trailers like Iron Man (which has made over 200 million dollars and is in line for not one but two sequels).

I was saving my money for Iron Man, Indiana Jones, The Dark Knight and The Hulk. Anything else would just be lost in the shuffle, relegated to ‘Get on DVD‘ status. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one and when the final tally is done after Labor Day, those four films will be at the top of the list for box office gross for the summer.

]]> http://www.movienoise.com/2008/05/18/another-bomb-at-the-box-office/feed/ 0