| Author |
 Topic  |
|
ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
 Posted - 01/18/2007 : 06:03:16
|
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
Yes yes, blah blah blah, but Sally, you have seen CITIZEN KANE. Right?
Right?
If not, he can come over to my house - I have the DVD.
(Randall's right - that should be the FIRST film anyone watches.)
|
 |
|
|
Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 07:47:06
|
Citizen Kane is an interesting one. I can totally see the relevance of it, and it's groundbreaking and controversial originality, but couldn't imagine watching it more than once. I just wasn't interested enough. Same with Birth of a Nation which I watched for the first time a few months ago, I very much doubt I'll be watching it again.
But yep, both are essential viewing... but for me, once only. 
Casablanca is a different story altogether, only seen it once, but will surely see it again. Perhaps it's the dialogue... or Ingrid...  |
|
|
|
ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 08:03:10
|
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
Casablanca is a different story altogether, only seen it once, but will surely see it again. Perhaps it's the dialogue... or Ingrid...
Oh, I can watch Citizen Kane over and over again. But I do have Casablanca on my DVD wish list so I agree with you there. As for a film I could watch over and over again, I just bought the special 4 DVD disk set of Gone with the Wind. I'll probably never get around to seeing all the extras, but it was such a good deal, I had to buy it. Back in the day, the first video I ever bought was Holiday Inn which I totally adore. Now I want it on DVD but since the video machine still works... The first DVDs I bought were The Wizard of Oz, Philadelphia Story and Amadeus. |
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 08:58:06
|
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
Yes yes, blah blah blah, but Sally, you have seen CITIZEN KANE. Right?
Right?
Nope. |
|
|
|
randall 
"I like to watch."
|
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 18:21:41
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
Yes yes, blah blah blah, but Sally, you have seen CITIZEN KANE. Right?
Right?
Nope.
Then that would be a very fine place to start. |
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 09:11:11
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Apocalypse Now (which version?)
Sorry if I have missed any responses to this. If anyone thinks one or other is better, please let me know. |
|
|
|
Ali
"Those aren't pillows."
|
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 09:47:05
|
Watch the original. The restored scenes in the Redux are mostly superfluous (and you will only appreciate the alternate takes of the existing scenes once you have seen the original).
|
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 10:23:41
|
| O.K., thanks. |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 11:03:47
|
I'd go straight for the redux. It's not the kind of movie you'd want to watch too often, so you might as well watch the whole thing.
Having said that, the scenes added to redux don't change the overall effect of the movie. But with a movie this good, more is better. |
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 11:07:10
|
| Dilemmas, dilemmas. I think I have already got that version, so maybe I'll go for that then. |
|
|
|
Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
|
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 00:35:32
|
And I can happily say that I have managed to avoid all of the IMDB bottom 100. Yes, even Police Academy: Mission to Moscow.  |
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 09:01:17
|
quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
And I can happily say that I have managed to avoid all of the IMDB bottom 100. Yes, even Police Academy: Mission to Moscow.
I've only seen Unaccompanied Minors (released as Grounded here; weak but no more so than many, many films), Son of the Mask (appalling) and Hercules in New York (funny). |
|
|
|
Ali
"Those aren't pillows."
|
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 09:17:39
|
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
I'd go straight for the redux. It's not the kind of movie you'd want to watch too often, so you might as well watch the whole thing.
Really? I appreciate the metaphorical travel-through-time aspect of the river journey that the French plantation scenes amplify (not a spoiler, Salopian, don't worry), but that scene gets bogged down all too quickly in its navel-gazing pretentiousness.
"Communiste! Socialiste!" Oh, piss off!
Besides, I've always been an advocate of "less is more (and not only because I have a mangina)." I like the caveat William Goldman quotes in Which Lie Did I Tell? that, "if you can't tell a story in less than two hours, you better be David Lean."
|
Edited by - Ali on 02/09/2007 09:18:34 |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 09:49:10
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ali
I like the caveat William Goldman quotes in Which Lie Did I Tell? that, "if you can't tell a story in less than two hours, you better be David Lean."
I fully agree that the original Apocalypse is as effective as the Redux, and that the plantation scene isn't "necessary". But, the way I see it, with an excellent book / movie / music / food or whatever, some is good and more is better.
One of the reasons some books don't translate well into movies is precisely because they have been cut so heavily, i.e, they aren't anywhere near long enough. A good 300-400 page novel probably needs a 3-4 hour movie to do it justice. In fact as a rule of thumb I use 100 pages of novel equates to one hour of movie; if it's condensed much more than that then it will have had important material left out. (LOTR is 1100 pages, and it needed the 11.5 hour Extended Cut to do it justice, the 9.5 hour cinema version was a butchered version of the real thing. The Cider House Rules needed an extra hour at least. Etc.)
Either version of Apocalypse is fine, but I think I always prefer director's cuts for excellent movies, as more is better than less. Director's cuts are unlikely to have had garbage thrown in, as what director wants to wreck a good movie by adding stuff that doesn't work? |
|
|
|
Ali
"Those aren't pillows."
|
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 10:13:26
|
I don't know. Directors tend to get lost in their own vision of a movie, and sometimes they need a good editor to trim the film down to its artistic essentials (aside: I was at the Redux premiere in London, where Walter Murch gave a wonderful speech defending it - I wasn't convinced, but it was an interesting position, nonetheless). Most directors (and Coppola is not one of them) are very hesitant to "kill their darlings," as the saying goes. I am not saying that economising is the best way to go all the time; just that with certain movies, like Apocalypse, Now, the directors' cuts seem, to me, at least, clumsy.
I am not a great fan of LotR (neither the books, nor the films) so I would have preferred a shorter - more whimsical - version (I might be the only film geek in existence to think this way, but there we go). In fact, I once wrote a huge review of the first film somewhere where I argued that the film should have ended after the huge cave scene with the trolls, and the orcs, and that flaming thing.
I agree with you regarding The Cider House Rules, though there are other reasons, besides the running time, why that film lags.
On an only-slightly related note, I am so glad that Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola decided, while adapting the screenplay to The Godfather, to discard that bizarre subplot in the book regarding Lucy Mancini and her oversized vagina.
|
Edited by - Ali on 02/09/2007 10:39:25 |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
Big films
