Yesterday marked the 100th day of the Obama presidency, which means I’m cautiously starting to believe that Bush is maybe really, actually gone and won’t suddenly pop up again for one last attack like Freddy Krueger at the end of Nightmare On Elm Street.

Cheney and Rove and the rest of the neo-conservative gang are still with us, of course, and the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world certainly didn’t need the full 100 days to determine they were right all along about Obama’s anarchist-fascist-abstract-impressionist agenda.

Most of the rest of America (and the world), meanwhile, thinks the new administration is actually off to a pretty good start -- and while great beginnings don’t always lead to happy endings, they at least give us some...what’s that word again? Oh yeah, HOPE...

...much like the opening sequences in the following movies, which hooked us right from the get-go and made us completely forget about sneaking out of the theater to see what was playing on the next screen over and/or changing channels.

Of course, your pals here at the Screengrab fully appreciate the irony of running this list in light of recent events here in our little corner of the cyber-verse...but, considering that every ending brings with it the possibility of a new beginning, what better time, really, to salute OUR FAVORITE OPENING SCENES OF ALL TIME!!!!!

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)



The mother of all tracking shots opens with a bomb being set -- telling us right away that it will explode in three minutes -- and hidden in the trunk of a ludicrously long and garish vehicle. Then begins the long dance through the streets of Tijuana. The camera pulling ahead of the car, but the car always catching up or passing, always staying in frame. The sound (on the reconstructed version, at least) is disorienting, as passing through the streets of a busy nightlife district can be, with different noises blaring for attention. As soon as they appear, the camera is focused on Janet Leigh and Charlton Heston, paced by the car with the bomb, crossing the numerous obstacles in their path. As they arrive at the border crossing, the film reveals that they are just married, and he is a Mexican policeman (yes, yes, ha ha) known for taking down a drug ring. He laughs it off and, just as the car passes them, moves in to kiss his wife. BOOM!  In the next couple of minutes, we'll meet Hank Quinlan, as much a power-mad racist as The Searchers' Ethan Edwards, but far more monstrous and strangely vulnerable. But the rest of the movie belongs to him. Here, at the beginning, the movie belongs to that single unbroken shot that defied the millions of things that could go wrong and introduced most of the major themes, all without breaking a sweat. Astonishing, even now. (HC)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)



Three killers are waiting for a train. One of them, his craggy, weather-beaten face a dead ringer for the desert landscape that surrounds them, is distracted by an annoying fly. Water drips onto the hat of another, until enough has accumulated for him to tip the hat to his lips and take a cool drink. The buzzing of the fly and the dripping of the water and the creaky whine of a windmill are the only sounds we hear, until that whine fades into the whistle of the approaching train. Their intended victim has arrived. He plays a harmonica and looks like Charles Bronson. Extreme close-ups give way to the widest of widescreen vistas, the whole of the wild west in one deep focus shot of impending violence. This is how you build suspense, Sergio Leone style. (SVD)

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)



Even exposition can be thrilling when the Coen Brothers are operating at the peak of their powers. Accompanied by the spirited whistling and banjo-plucking of Carter Burwell, Nicolas Cage’s sleepy drawl narrates the tale of an unusual courtship. Recidivist H.I. McDunnough is such a regular at the mug shot station, he becomes smitten with the photographer, a spunky officer named Ed. (Short for Edwina.) Hilarious bite-size vignettes of small-time crime (“I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn’t easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House”), prison life (“When there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand”), parole hearings (“These doors gonna swing wide”) and pitching woo (“I’m walkin’ in here on my knees, Ed”) sketch the unfolding romance, which gives way to trailer park life, the daily grind and the yearning for a critter as the banjo plunges joyfully into Beethoven’s Ninth. Endlessly quotable, relentlessly rewatchable, kinetic as a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this opening sets the stage for one of the zippiest romps in the Coen catalogue. (SVD)

THE PLAYER (1992)



Robert Altman’s cutting Hollywood critique self-consciously strives for Wellesian grandeur in its impressive 8-minute single take opening shot, which makes its homage upfront by having a character overtly reference the Touch of Evil sequence (as well as Bernardo Bertolucci’s sustained tracking shot in The Sheltering Sky) upon which it’s based. Altman uses this bravura scene to firmly establish his major studio milieu and the various, cretinous industry clowns who populate it, mocking the agents, pitch-men and execs who manufacture the country’s celluloid dreams. The shot’s inquisitive, labyrinthine movements subtly suggest the probing survey to come. And Altman’s opening proves a hilariously caustic encapsulation of his story’s modus operandi – to scathingly ridicule the Hollywood machine via the type of dazzling, daring filmmaking that, as evidenced by comments made by the scene’s various dunderheaded players, has little place in a studio system where market-focused creativity-by-committee is the rule. (NS)

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager