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Great tips, Bass.

One thing that is important to core event works is:

1 - Long beats of pain (action/reaction): the more you keep the core event on, the more it seems to be that the hero will loose.

Coring in The Dark Knight keeps one minute or two above the Batman and it seems to be that the Batman really will loose.

In The Matrix, Smith get Neo and throw him in front of the train. Beat after beat, he in the floor, Smith walking, the train coming. It seems to be that he will loose.

2 - Ticking clock effect: the core event is powerfull when there is a ticking clock effect. So in The Matrix, the scene becomes more powerfull because the train is coming and Neo is hurt. The train will son destroying him.

Others core events of this type: the knife reaching the eye, the chain destroying the neck of the hero, a explosion in the place they are in that the hero must to run off the building.

This works also in others genres. In The Silence of the Lambs in beat after beat the hero is in mercy of the villian. She can't see and the villian has a gun aim to her head.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark is so unsatisfying because the hero at the mercy of the villain beat happens at the start of the film. at climax god bails him out. to add insult to injury Indy closes his eyes at climax in complete surrender.