Movie Clip Wednesday: Best Movie Set in Winter or Snow
My admiration for the movie "The Shining" is well known by longtime K9 readers and I believe I have written about it before for MCW for the "best horror" week, but it is the best movie that takes place in snow. Like space horror, snow horror is interesting because of the hardship the environment presents. And in the horror category, snow makes a lovely contrasting canvas for blood spillage.
Thinking about blood and snow naturally led me to think of Fargo, eh, but Boxer already snagged that one so that was out. Next I thought about Dr. Zhivago, but Aunty chose that one. I would have focused on other aspects of the movie, not the tragic love affair between Lara and Zhivago, but the very instructive glimpse of the Bolshevik Revolution. Dr. Z is at first enthusiastic about the revolution but surprise! I never works out they way they say. A scene that stands out is Dr. Zhivago senior coming back to his own home to find that several other families had been moved in and he was now relegated to one room. And if he didnt like that, he could be shot instead. So the younger Z and his bride flee to the country house to try and escape the oppressive super-state. The scene where they arrive by sleigh at the house which is completely iced over inside and out is a truly gorgeous piece of celluloid. It's too long though and I would have only chosen it because of the snow.
Let's see...Ice Station Zebra? The Thing? already taken. what to do what to do?
K9. Trust the force.
Thirty years ago, there was a rare Hollywood occurrence. A sequel as good as, and possibly better than, the original. That movie was "The Empire Strikes Back" which features one of the best snow battles ever. Filmed at Härdangerjøkulen Glacier in Finse Norway, the winter and snow backdrop allows for some innovative scenes: Luke being kept from freezing to death by being inserted into the warm guts of a fileted Tauntaun and of course, the incredible battle with the Imperial Walkers:
Thank God some fanboy "maked a speeded up battle just for fun" because the battle of Hoth is actually10 minutes long. Enjoy, and Happy Movie Clip Wednesday.
posted by sparringK9 at 2:59 PM
12 Comments:
great choice and i would have never thought of it!
i'm a scarry movie wuss. i've never watched the shining .....
Happy MCW! Unexpected. Hope your 2011 is going well, mine is underwater (figuratively), so sorry to be late stopping by.l
Good evening K9,
Another clip were the characters sound like their breathing heliox.
You do realize those aren't real Imperial Walkers, they are Alliance Walkers made to look like the real thing for the movie. All the real ones were blown up in the actual battle and they had to use Alliance Walkers for the movie. Oh wait, sorry, that's Tiger Tanks and Battle of the Bulge, never mind.
Happy clip day!
I had a feeling you'd choose The Shining (one of the few truly great Kubrick movies), but color me super surprised that you're a Star Wars fan. Although, Empire Strikes Back is a great piece of film making, no matter who you are. Loved the speeded upness. Happy MCW!
A space movie never occured to me and that's the coldest place you can go to. And the Shining snow drift slide from the bathroom to the winter wonderland hedge maze is classic. Good choices.
Happy MCW!
Karl - Were you taking a swipe at my choice of film today? Bwahahaha
Dang, I could have used The Shining. I loved the book, loved the movie.
This is a good pick. No blog jinx and and very wintery.
Bless those Fanboys for their ability and desire to edit. Sometimes I find crap, but this is well done. Buzz is right; classic. The scene when Luke is put inside the Tuantuan? That stayed with me for years.
Happy MCW!
foam: you know, the shining isnt like a SAW type movie. there isnt that much violence. what it does is paces the movie perfectly to ramp up anxiety. and the Overlook itself is a very scary character. I highly recommend it. see it -you'll be glad.
pam: really? that bad! im sorry. terrible weather youve had. i was later than you!
karl: grherhahahaha! you should have seen all the remakes of TESB using star wars lego toys. impressive!
moi: of course i would have. but i have written about the shining at least twice before so....and i am a bit of a star wars geek. the first two only. i really hate that guy that plays anakin. and the ewoks and jar jar binks. oh boy they should have left it alone.
buzz: you know, star trek the wrath of Khan is kind of snowy (Seti Alpha 6) and Khan , played by ricardo montoblan says that to kirk - how cold it is in space.
and of course, revenge is a dish best served cold
boxer: like last post -instead of a tedious actual clip from the english patient, i used a reference to the english patient. I should have tried to find that thing where all those rabbits do a movie in 30 seconds. have you ever seen that? the one for the shining is great. redrum! REDRUM! grrrrrehahahaha
Happy MCW everyone!
Wonderful choice K9. The tuantuan scene is one of hunting legend and reminds me of the Jack London short story "To Build a Fire". Happy MCW.
Agree--the revolution is never how ya think it is gonna be. It took two generations for the thang to implode (if it really has) an for those two gens, life was a joyless horror, then you died.
Yep--what MRM said--Luke in tauntaun is rip of London's To Build a Fire, but London's version is sorta scarier, 'cause the dog KNOWS.
Brrrr, space may be the last frontier, an' thar's a good reason fer that.
Good movie. Are you, or your poultry alter-ego going to host on Monday?
The Shining. Very good choice. Kubric did an awesome job of revealing to us that the weather can be a major character in a plot and then makes us forget that it's even there at all until it shows up again in the final scenes.
Now I'm not so sure that it's a good idea for us to spend the winter isolated in a mountain getaway.
So let's go with our mutual appreciation of canines and "The Empire Strikes Back" instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVYOCMpJRY
(Hopefully the link works ... I'm a bit rusty ...)
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