X-Men: Days of Future Past – The Quicksilver Scene
The now-famous Quicksilver scene in X-Men: Days of Future Past is simply one of the greatest sequences we’ve ever seen in a comic book movie, and is perhaps even more impressive when you consider the incredible amount of backlash and negativity surrounding the character before the film’s release. Poorly-Photoshopped images and what looked like a lame costume design colored our impression of the speedster before we ever gave him a chance, but Bryan Singer proved us all wrong by giving Quicksilver the best scene in the entire film.
Things don’t go quite as planned when Charles Xavier, Beast, Wolverine, and Quicksilver attempt to break Magneto out of his high-security prison cell below the Pentagon, resulting in the need for…. well… a quick getaway. When the fivesome are cornered by guards in a kitchen, Quicksilver dons his headphones, turns on Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle,” and zips around the room at breakneck speed, finding clever ways to either disarm or re-direct the opponents and save the day.
It’s all handled quite effectively by Singer, using impressive effects and tons of humor, and just goes to show that perhaps we shouldn’t judge these superhero films so harshly before we actually see them realized on the big screen.
– James Garcia
Birdman – A Stroll Through Times Square
Birdman is 2014’s most inventive head trip, a film that delves deeply into one man’s madness and misery as he tries to revive his collapsed film career with a Broadway show. The backstage drama, with sparks of sharp comedy, feels both intimate and overwhelming due to the film’s main stylistic trick: the illusion that Emmanuel Lubezki’s camera rolls uninterrupted, a la Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. While this cinematographic genius makes excellent use of New York’s St. James Theater, it means the viewer does not often tread outside the building’s hallowed walls.
Regardless, we do move outside the famed theater a few times. In the film’s most audacious sequence, Michael Keaton’s Riggan Thomson takes a smoke break between his scenes at the stage door. When the door accidentally shuts on his costume, leaving him stranded outside and forced to disrobe to his tighty whities, Riggan realizes the only way to get back on the stage is to traverse the packed city streets. That detour includes Times Square, leaving the actor exposed as he tries to race back to the theater’s front doors.
The sequence works due to a variety of factors. Keaton is a gifted comic talent and his registered panic and embarrassment as he tries to evade tourists is great schadenfreude. Meanwhile, his exposure out in the city’s most recognizable juncture adds layers to the film’s exploration of celebrity. On another day, Riggan would savor the attention. In this predicament, however, he knows the only good that will come is some viral popularity. Meanwhile, Lubezki orchestrates the mania brilliantly, weaving in and out of the crowded section with gusto. In a film filled with crazy, exuberant moments, this street scene was as zany and creative as they came.
– Jordan Adler