Under the old-school aegis of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise (turning 64 in July) will be costarring with Glen Powell in Top Gun 3 — another totally square, flash-bang, hot-shit, sirloin steak, right down the middle, stiff-saluting, high-velocity, bull’s-eye popcorn pleasure machine…only this time, I’m hearing, with a focus on advanced aerial combat vs. AI and drones.
You know that Cruise or Powell will prove at the end that AI jets are finally no match against live hot-dog pilots.
Only this time, Maverick must die at the end. Preferably William Holden-in-The Bridges of Toko Ri-style…shot by the enemy while trying to defend himself in a muddy ditch. Mud and blood. Cruise and Powell should actually buy the farm together. It could be one of the saddest, greatest death scenes in Hollywood history.
Top Gun: Maverick didn’t have the balls to end this way, but now Cruise has a chance to rectify himself and go out with a big surge of emotional ’80s nostalgia. Respect the heroic potential and stop whoring yourself out for the money, Tom. Pull the plug and go down with the ship.
What are some of the other great all-time death scenes? Gee, I think I sorta kinda explored this topic on 11.29.23….no?
The top five are (a) James Caan getting machine-gunned to death at the toll booth in The Godfather, (b) Warren Oates’ death scream in The Wild Bunch, (c) Brad Pitt’s strangulation death in The Counselor…horrifying but great, (d) Joe Pesci‘s lineoleum-tile head-splat death in Goodfellas and (e) Marlon Brando‘s hacking cough death in Act Three of The Godfather.
Tens of millions of serious movie fans swear by No Country For Old Men (’07), and I’ll bet there are less than 25 humans in the entire cinematic universe who approve of Joel and Ethan Coen’s non-depiction of the death of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).
Yes, this is how Moss’s shooting death was handled in Cormac McCarthy’s novel — the Coen’s were simply being loyal to McCarthy’s dramatic choice. The difference, of course, was that McCarthy could easily convey what happened to the reader but in the film it isn’t clear that it’s Brolin lying on that motel-carpet rug. No matter how you slice it, it’s a huge cheat….a WTF! for the ages.
“Uhm, Mr. Deakins? You really are a god among cinematographers, but I gotta tell ya, that pivotal shot in No Country coulda been composed a little better, no offense or anything.”
1. Christopher Walken shooting himself in the head in The Deer Hunter (’78) was full-stop moronic. I hated Michael Cimino‘s idiotic Russian roulette gimmick from the get-go, and have always refused to read anything into it. No lead character in a serious film has ever died for a dumber reason than Walken did in The Deer Hunter. Which I haven’t seen, by the way, since ’78 or thereabouts.”
2. John Hurt chest-burst death in Alien (’79). Except people weren’t reacting to Hurt’s death as much as the realistic physical effects that made the chest-fever scene seem so vivid and traumatic.
3. Rutger Hauer‘s wings-of-a-dove death scene in Blade Runner (’82). One of the saddest, gentlest and most beautiful death scenes in movie history.
4. James Cagney‘s blown-to-kingdom-come death in Raoul Walsh‘s White Heat (’49). HE comment: “Better to go out with a big glorious bang than whimpering and anesthetized inside some padded cell.”
5. A lovesick, house-sized ape plummets 86 stories to his death in King Kong (’33). HE comment: “20 or 30 seconds before he lets go and falls there’s an expression on Kong’s face as he looks up at the planes. The look says “you fucking assholes…I’m in love and all you want to do is kill me…you’re such pricks, all of you…why didn’t you just leave me alone with Faye Wray back on the island? I would’ve taken care of her.”
6. Each and every electric-chair death in The Green Mile elicits HE contempt. As God is my witness I’ll never see that godawful film again.
7. William Holden‘s pointless and easily avoidable death in Sunset Boulevard. Joe Gillis knows that Norma Desmond tends to react over-dramatically about everything, and he knows that she’s obsessively in love with him, and that the odds of her doing something rash if he announces he’s leaving her are high. If Gillis was smart he’d play it cool, leave her a sensible note, take the nice wardrobe and escape while she’s sleeping. And then go to the cops and say, “There’s an eccentric wealthy woman who may do something violent.”
8. Cagney’s dead-drop-flop at the end of William Wellman‘s Public Enemy (’31). HE comment: No comment required.
9. “Son of Brando Death Bubbles” was posted on 5.23.18.
Many years ago I posted a video capture of Marlon Brando‘s air-bubble death scene in Edward Dmytryk‘s The Young Lions. For over a decade I’ve been calling this the most ingenious use of water and oxygen to convey the dying of the light, bar none. No other screen actor had gone there before or has gone there since, at least to my knowledge.
The sane and reasonable Barack Obama was president during the initial posting. At the time only a small community of rightwing loons were taking the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump as a half-serious proposition. Why am I mentioning this? Because Trump announced his candidacy on the same day that I posted “Bluray Brando Bubbles.”
“Brando’s Christian Diestl is in a forest not far from a recently liberated concentration camp, sick of war and madly bashing his rifle against a tree. Then he runs down a hillside and right into the path of Dean Martin‘s Michael Whiteacre and Montgomery Clift‘s Noah Ackerman. Ignoring the fact that Diestl is unarmed, Whiteacre fires several bullets and Diestl tumbles down the hill. He lands near a shallow stream and then splashes into it, face down.
“The camera goes in tight, showing that Brando’s mouth and nose are submerged. A series of rapidly-popping air bubbles begin hitting the surface — pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup-pup — and then slower, slower and slower still. And then — this is the mad genius of Brando — two or three seconds after they’ve stopped altogether, a final tiny bubble pops through. There’s something about this that devastates all to hell.”