>> Speaker 1: Everything looks better in slow motion.
And we're not sure why it works, but
we know that directors have been slowing time down for years to awesome effect.
These are the top ten slow-mo moments of all time.
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>> Speaker 2: Dodge this.
>> Speaker 1: Starting us off at number ten, let's just get it out of the way.
It wouldn't be a list about slow motion if we didn't mention bullet time.
And while Wanted had a cool spin on it,
Bad Boys abused it to cheesy Michael Bay effect, and Kill and Kill Again gave us
the hilarious 1980s version, our pick goes to the one and only, Matrix.
When the Wachowskis set out to make time and space their bitch,
they initially try to stick to traditional approaches.
They wanted to move a single camera around an actor as fast as possible.
So they tried dollies, gimbals, and
even joked about strapping their cinematographer to a rocket.
But when none of that worked, and with quite a few broken dollies,
they used the oldest trick in the book, literally.
The very first moving image ever filmed was photographed by Eadweard Muybridge in
order to settle a bet as to how many legs left the ground when a horse galloped.
Muybridge set up 16 still-cameras along a track and triggered them in succession,
which gave us this.
For the Matrix bullet time, the Wachowskis did just about the same thing,
only they placed dozens and dozens of still cameras around the actors on a green
screen with computer generated precision and laser target aim.
Often imitated but never duplicated, the result changed action movies for good.
>> Speaker 3: They said if I did slo-mo,
that I would see the world in a different way.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 1: Sometimes,
the best excuse to slow things down is to get a character really, really high.
And while Wolf of Wall Street's quaalude opera and Old School's tranquilizer
meltdown are hilarious examples of the effect, what better choice of drug for
our number nine than the perfectly nicknamed slo-mo from Dredd.
There are a number of 1% speed, hyper reel, drug induced sequences in the film,
and while the brutal shootout deserves an honorable mention,
there's nothing quite like Lena Headey's skyscraper free fall.
The filmmakers set out to create a sequence that was beautiful but
disorienting.
And with its over-saturated prismatic colors, haunting ethereal soundtrack and
close up final impact, we think that's exactly what they did.
Gorgeous, but lethal.
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[SOUND]
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>> Speaker 1: Now if there's a filmmaker who's known for using and
sometimes abusing slow motion, it's gotta be Zack Snyder.
>From his awesome speed ramps in 300 to smooth action set pieces in Sucker Punch,
to the most melodramatic owls ever in Legend of the Guardians,
the Owls of Ga'Hoole, the only film that's escaped Snyder's
slow-mo treatment was Man of Steel, but for
our number eight, we've gotta give it to the gorgeous title sequence of Watchmen.
What better way to get through decades worth of exposition and
ease viewers from comic book stills to light action film than with the series of
gorgeously staged moving photographs.
Based on the comic book panels themselves, each shot is an intricate tableau
chock-full of pertinent information, extra details, Easter eggs and in-jokes.
Like the cops staring down Silk Spectre's shirt, or
the fact that the couple Nite Owl saves were Batman's parents.
Of course ,the best part is how it reappropriates iconic cultural imagery,
from Elvis meeting the President, to the Kennedy assassination tapes,
to Da Vinci's last supper, all the while setting up the characters and
conflict that drive the rest of the story.
While the movie might have been hard to follow for those who hadn't read the book,
this sequence truly is a massive piece of visual storytelling.
>> Speaker 4: [SOUND] Fasten your seatbelts,
it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
>> Speaker 1: Now if we're talking about slow motion openings,
there are a couple more worth mentioning.
The commanding napalm flashbacks from Apocalypse Now,
the uplifting beach run from Chariots of Fire,
and our number seven, the slow motion zombie waltz from Zombieland.
It's no secret that slow motion makes everything seem epic,
even really boring shit looks bad ass at one-tenth speed.
But, filmmakers over the years have found that the one thing that looks coolest
of all is destruction.
And this opening has it in spades.
The snail speed montage of a world gone mad from a zombie virus perfectly marries
comedy and horror with the beauty of slow-mo chaos.
The sequence is extraordinary in just how excessive it really is.
>From copious amounts of blood, to car explosions, to raining money,
to shattering glass, to the hypnotic gyrations of a stripper zombie's nipple
tassels, the Zombieland opening credits are an exercise in going way,
way, way over the top.
But, it's hard to argue with it when it ends up being this [BLEEP] epic.
>> Speaker 5: That was the Partridge Family's Doesn't Somebody Want to
Be Wanted.
>> Speaker 1: Now, speaking of bad ass, there's a hardly a more popular bad ass
trope than the group of characters walks towards the camera in slow motion shot.
It's been done everywhere.
>From Armageddon, to Pain & Gain, to Starsky & Hutch, to Bridesmaids,
to Monsters, Inc, characters look pretty damn cool when they walk slow.
But, none of these are quite as classic as another opening title sequence,
this time from Reservoir Dogs.
Now for those of you who don't know,
slow motion is usually accomplished by doing something called overcranking.
Film, which is normally shot and projected at 24 frames per second,
is instead run through the camera faster while shooting.
To cut the speed in half, film makers expose 48 frames in one second.
Then, when they project those 48 frames back at the normal 24 frames per
second rate, that one second of action takes two seconds to play back.
And then, you have slow motion.
It's called overcranking because early cameras were cranked by hand instead of
turned by motor.
Unfortunately, not all cameras can accomplish this,
and rumor has it that Tarantino couldn't afford one of the ones that could.
So the slow motion in Reservoir Dogs is actually just accomplished by repeating
every frame.
Sure, it doesn't have the silky smooth glidey feel of other entries on this list,
but there's something scrappy and cool about how Tarantino
uses it that makes this slow-mo sequence one for the history books.
>> [MUSIC]
[SOUND] [SOUND] >> Speaker 1: If there's one thing slow-mo
is practically made for, it's capturing the chaos and
destruction that is a shootout.
Gun battles are fast, and in the action is often hard to follow,
which is why directors often turn to slow motion to make it comprehensible.
The Wild Bunch and Bonnie and Clyde both used interment slow motion to control
the pace of their final gun battles, and Brian De Palma used it in
The Untouchables, not only for it's badass factor, but to build palpable suspense.
However, our number five goes to a different stairway shootout,
the one from Hard Boiled.
Capitalizing on the destruction of an entire tea house, Hard Boiled is perhaps
the best known Hong Kong from director John Wu, who is not only known for
creating the martial arts-esque gunplay action style known as gun fu, but also for
putting flying doves in everything.
Hard Boiled is a cops versus triad story about a saxophone-playing
officer named Tequila.
And the very first scene sees him taking on an entire roomful of bad guys,
elegantly mixing slow motion with regular speed footage.
And the sequence culminates in an epic slide down a stairway banister, bobbing in
and out of real time, dual wielding pistols like a boss the entire way.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 6: Hello, Danny.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 6: Come and play with us.
>> Speaker 1: When people think of directors that favor overcranking,
they might first mention Zack Snyder, Tarantino, Wes Anderson, or
even Michael Bay.
But they probably won't have Stanley Kubrick on that list, which is funny,
because Kubrick has created quite a few of the most iconic slow motion
shots of all time.
>From the bone tool in 2001,
to the Droogs fight in A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick is a slow motion virtuoso.
But, he outdoes himself with our number four,
the eternally creepy elevator full of blood from The Shining.
So far, we've seen slow-mo used for exposition, tension, action, humor, and
a whole lot of bad-assery, but it's rare to find it used for terror.
But when it works, it's incredible.
Kubrick's tidal wave of blood is pure nightmare fuel,
and his speed only amplifies the dread.
Kubrick used almost 300 gallons of fake blood over three different takes,
all of which took nine whole days to prepare in order to execute this shot, and
we're glad he kept insisting it look more and more realistic.
We won't join the legion of fans in speculating on what it means, but we have
no problem claiming it as one of the creepiest slow motion moments ever shot.
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>> Speaker 1: Next up, we wanna take a moment to honor some of the early classic
slow motion before the new-fangled glossy action of the 21st century.
Kurosawa used sparing slow motion to chilling effect in Seventh Samurai, and
Vertov may have invented slow motion sports photography in Man With
a Movie Camera, but our number three goes to the woman who perfected it
with Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia.
Riefenstahl may be better known for her Triumph of the Will, which if you're not
familiar, is both a masterpiece of film-making and Nazi propaganda, but
her lesser-known Olympia is no less beautiful or controversial.
The entire movie dips in an out of slow motion in order to capture
the elegance and beauty of athletes at work and play, but
nowhere is it better than in her diving sequence.
Riefenstahl basically invented the sports documentary with this film,
but she hardly concerned herself with winners or losers.
She focused on the form of the human body and the movements it creates.
Sure, it sucks that she pretty much only photographed white athletes,
but we can still admire art while condemning its artist.
And Olympia definitely belongs on our list.
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>> Speaker 1: [SOUND] Of course, when it comes
to morally-charged uses of slow motion, the biggest one is always violence.
No one can deny that filmmakers the world over have used slow motion to take violent
acts and render them beautiful on-screen by abstracting them in time and space.
>From Raging Bull, to Sherlock Holmes, to Django Unchained, and
beyond, graceful violence is everywhere.
Whether it's glorifying or just artistic isn't our place to say, but luckily for
our number two, that doesn't really matter,
because it does the exact opposite.
We're talking about the elevator scene from Drive.
Book-ending an absolutely brutal, but regular speed, face-stomping scene,
Drive takes a turn for the ethereal when it extends two fleeting moments
until their length matches their weight.
But it also colors the violence in the starkest of contrast,
perfectly highlighting the dissonance that comes with the driver's capacity for
both passionate love and utter destruction.
His kiss is tender and beautiful, while his violence is ugly and cruel, and
the final slow motion shot of his looking back towards Irene
is all the more heart-breaking for it.
>> Speaker 7: [SOUND] Nice and hot in here.
[SOUND] Yeah, laying on the charge.
Nice and sweet.
I'm coming back.
>> Speaker 1: And finally, rounding out our list at number one,
what's more perfect for slow motion than an explosion?
And while we didn't pick some of the other examples that just missed our top ten,
from Inception, Tropic Thunder,
or Swordfish, we did pick the opening sequence from The Hurt Locker.
There's no sense of glory in this violence, just terror, pain and
heartbreak.
The sequence works because it feels so real.
There's no cheesy CGI or overwrought melodrama,
just a man losing his life in the briefest of instants.
And it's a vital scene to the movie,
brutally establishing the stakes of every moment that these men risk in the field.
By making us feel the consequences,
we spend the rest of the movie grappling with our own fear.
It's gut-wrenching and raw,
which is why we think this is the best slow-mo moment of all time.
So, what do you think?
Do you disagree with one of our choices?
Did we forget some at one of your slow motion scenes of all time?
Let us know the comments below,
and be sure to subscribe for
more Cinefix movie lists.
>> [MUSIC]