Nope, it's the rifling of a gun barrel, and before the assassin can fire, Bond turns and shoots him first.

For the embed-challenged:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SgjF1YdKCdg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Me too. I never put much thought into it beyond that. It wasn't until I bought my first handgun a few years ago and noticed the spiraling of the barrel while cleaning it one day.

I feel silly for not realizing it sooner.

Wow....I am surprised people still didn't know this. It's pretty clear I think, hence the turning, shooting and blood. The spiral just makes it even more obvious. Always liked the setup.

C'mon guys, it's well known that Bond hates paparazzi.

I thought it was the POV eye of the shooter, until a few years ago, when I read a detailed entry about it on Wikipedia. One of the editors of the fanzine The Comic Reader (Mike Tiefenbacher?) called it "the blood-on-the-iris" opening. An episode of American Dad had Stan Smith in a parody of the Bond opening. Stan got shot in the shoulder and said, "Oww! What the hell?!!? Wait! You're a gun?!!? I always thought you were like an eyeball or something!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_barrel_sequence

the problem with it is the blood. The setup doesn't make sense unless you know it's a gun barrel. Especially if you don't know what the barrel looks like inside. Then the blood doesn't make sense at all. Why would the barrel have blood going down the viewpoint of inside? It doesn't make sense in literal logic... but it's a damn fine visual.

I honestly didn't know it was the gun barrel we were looking from till like like 6 years ago when I bought a gun and dismantled it. I always thought it was something else gun related for us to have a viewpoint but not the barrel.

Just for the record, the "through-the-gun-barrel" shot originated in Sam Fuller's FORTY GUNS (1957), when Gene Barry looks at his future bride, Eve Brent, through a rifle barrel.



And then Godard duplicated it by having Jean Seberg look at Belmondo through a newspaper in BREATHLESS (1960).

Was the Barry character looking through a literal barrel in the film or was that just a visual thing?

It's a cool shot. I'll have to find that one.

In the To Live and Die in LA car chase, the lanes of traffic are reversed, so actually William Peterson and pursuers are the only ones going the right way.

I just finished watching Reservoir Dogs again and after seeing the movie at least a dozen times I never realized the implication when Mr. Blonde shows up in the warehouse after the robbery. I always noticed he was drinking from a fast food cup but never thought much more beyond that. After watching it tonight I realized that immediately following a bloodbath shootout, when all hell was breaking loose, and with a cop locked in his trunk, Mr. Blonde actually stopped to go through a fast food drive thru.

That just makes his psychopath character all the more crazy.

The Empire Strikes Back. Towards the end Darth Vader says he’s Luke Skywalker’s father. Never realized it but after a lifetime of seeing it dozens of times but Vader is actually revealing to Luke that Obi-Wan was lying to him about Vader killing his father and that Vader himself biologically made sex to Luke’s mom and, as such, is Luke’s dad and not the guy who killed Luke’s dad.

It’s subtle little touches like this that reward the fans.

Funny how this thread has popped up again and i noticed something new this week in a movie. I re-watched the classic Paul Newman movie The Verdict and in his final courtroom speech at the end of the movie you can see two people sat next to each other behind him are none other than Bruce Willis and Tobin Bell.

And heres the proof

Since I've been doing a weekly Marvel marathon (Leading up to Infinity War) I never noticed Yensin's appearance at the beginning of Iron Man 3.

Yay to a thread bump!

Another one I just recently noticed - I've seen Airplane a hundred times and never noticed that when they talk to the Mayo Clinic, there are jars of mayonnaise on the wall in the background



It's even in the trailer and I never saw it.

Wait...what, seriously...you never noticed before now, that is such a wonderful visual gag in the film.

I remember when Tron was remastered to play at the El Capitan Theater for a limited run quite a few years back (the first time it aired at the El Capitan, so pre 2010 when it showed up again) and seeing it remastered on the big screen allowed you to see some things that you either straight up cannot see or very easily will miss when watching it on home video such as a great Pac Man visual gag that had the theater chuckling.

Tron was amazing to see on the big screen so many years after watching it on VHS. My brother almost had to talk me into seeing TRON at the El Capitan so thank goodness I gave in and enjoyed the show.

What an incredibly boring way to shoot that scene.

I think I thought they were just pill bottles or something and dismissed it. Never looked closely at all and I've seen that movie well over 100 times, easily.

HUSH,,,HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE

I'd seen the movie 5 or 6 times but not in a great while. I knew Joan Crawford was supposed to have been in it, but did not know that a major chunk of the film had been made with Crawford, then reshot.

Crawford always had it in her contract that Pepsi products would be featured in her films.
There is a scene with a Pepsi truck driving through the center of the small town where the movie is set. Probably shot before Crawford dropped out and left in.
Never noticed it before because unaware that Crawford had actually been involved in the principal production.

I wish a had a classier example to contribute, but I watched Earth Girls Are Easy the other night, and noticed for the first time during the overhead shot of Genna Davis lying by the pool, you can see through her bathing suit, and she has one of the biggest bushes I've ever seen going on under there.

Awesome example...do you think you only noticed due to the HD image quality (or were you watching a standard def format of this film)?

I know it’s old, but I wanted to address this. Marty arrives at 1955 Twin Pine/Lone Pine Farm/Mall at sunrise. He drives an undetermined distance to Lyon Estates. He runs out of gas and walks to town. He arrives in town and it’s still early enough that school hasn’t started yet. It’s possible the farm/mall is closer to downtown Hill Valley than Lyon Estates.

I watched it at a friend's house, pretty sure it was DVD and not Blu-Ray. I think the main factor was watching it on a modern huge screen TV, instead of my shitty 25-inch during the VHS era.

I never noticed until recently that Robin Williams dad is Jumanji is also the hunter