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Author Topic: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time  (Read 50800 times)

Junior

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #230 on: May 19, 2020, 04:56:27 PM »
I've only seen Rear Window once, but it was a glorious film projection in a movie theater and I think the film really gains something when you see it larger than life. At that scale, the set becomes even more impressive and everything feels more heightened. Even if you didn't love it this time around, don't hesitate to see it again if it is ever playing in a theater near you.
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Bondo

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #231 on: May 19, 2020, 06:21:34 PM »
I broke your enjoyment of movies and it is starting to affect movies I love. Somewhere a monkey paw has one less finger raised.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #232 on: May 19, 2020, 06:30:38 PM »
I broke your enjoyment of movies and it is starting to affect movies I love. Somewhere a monkey paw has one less finger raised.

LMAO, I sent you a PM on this, ya jerk.  ;D  Very strange timing. I actually did love Gremlins, which I saw a couple of nights ago. Here, I have North by Northwest next. Will it make the difference?
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #233 on: May 19, 2020, 07:01:39 PM »
This thread should be re-titled "ET Disses the Cannon."  :D

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #234 on: May 19, 2020, 07:12:23 PM »
Even if you didn't love it this time around, don't hesitate to see it again if it is ever playing in a theater near you.

When I first saw Rear Window I had a similar 3 STARS OUT OF 5 reaction. Now I regard it as one of Hitchcock's best. There's a lot going on in that empty space, things you don't associate with "thrills". I didn't see it at first either, but now I care least about what the neighbor might've done to his wife.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #235 on: May 20, 2020, 12:35:59 AM »
This thread should be re-titled "ET Disses the Cannon."  :D

LMAO...noooooooo. I've found so many movies I like and love here! I still like Rear Window, just not so excited about it anymore.


When I first saw Rear Window I had a similar 3 STARS OUT OF 5 reaction. Now I regard it as one of Hitchcock's best. There's a lot going on in that empty space, things you don't associate with "thrills". I didn't see it at first either, but now I care least about what the neighbor might've done to his wife.

When I first saw it, I had it at like 4 or 4.5, so I've kind of gone down. I think a big problem for me are the moments we're not looking out the rear window, especially in the beginning.
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #236 on: May 20, 2020, 09:03:55 PM »
North by Northwest
ALFRED HITCHCOCK, 1959
2 STARS OUT OF 5

A case of mistaken identity turns a free life into a confusing prison. North by Northwest is a thriller, and it seems to be nothing more than that if you ask its creators. If Rear Window was a full meal, this plays like desert, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but the lead with all the snappy lines and a twisty plot with a focus on thrills doesn’t get me high.

I rolled my eyes more than a prissy 13 year old during the course of this film. Grant, as the businessman Richard Thornhill, is a walking one-line machine. Some got a giggle out of me, but more often than not, it left me frustrated. Then, there’s the romance with Eve Kendall, who is also caught in the hell of a double identity, though for her it’s all in the job. The Thornhill-Kendall affair is complicated, but also contains so many cringey romantic lines and moments, I felt like a little kid believing in cooties again.

The Scene of the Film is, of course, the crop duster assault on Grant when he’s followed directions to the middle of Indiana to meet the real spy, George Kaplan. Here, Grant doesn’t get to talk, and the action is edge-of-your-seat stuff. Too bad this wasn’t the final scene, which takes place in a neat location, Mt. Rushmore(!), but is a lengthy mess. Runner up for best scene: The auction scene, where Thornhill has to get creative to keep himself from falling in the hands of the baddies, which is genuinely funny and doesn’t rely on witticisms to delight the audience.

I admit I was intrigued when we started learning more about the mess Thornhill is involved in, as he discovers who is really who in this story. I don’t necessarily think the pacing or rate of reveals is all that great, but I cared about what was happening because there is a lager spy/espionage story beyond just the plot. Unfortunately, there is a large focus on snappy dialogue and cheesy romance with yet another blonde, all getting in the way of the story. When I get to the bigger question stuff, What does this all amount to? I come away blank; North by Northwest is a film I ultimately can’t find a reason to care about.

I’m going with the theory that I’m in a it’s-not-me-it’s-you stretch of films in the Sight and Sound 100. Maybe I’m worse off for not being crazy about the two Hitchcocks, disliking the Welles, feeling a bit underwhelmed by Lang’s talkie breakthrough, not being onboard with Visconti’s lavish story of reluctant social change, but I think this is a series of films that don’t really jibe with why I love the movies. I’m finding that unsympathetic leads, especially the traditionally masculine unsympathetic male leads, definitely hold me back. This applies to the last six in the series minus Rear Window, which has a great lead in James’ Stewart’s Jeff, but too much filler for me, and M, whose only real lead would be the villain, who is unsympathetic by default, and stars in a feature without any real people. 

La Jetee, Ugetsu, and City Lights are up next. I’m much more hopeful of these. Then, Histoire(s) du cinema. Am I ready for that?
« Last Edit: May 20, 2020, 10:56:28 PM by etdoesgood »
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Bondo

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #237 on: May 20, 2020, 10:13:39 PM »
Yeah, I'm pretty cool on North by Northwest as well. Feel like with Hitchcock I either really like it or don't. There's not a lot of middling Hitchcock. Really of all these in the latest run Rear Window is the only I hold in any special regard.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #238 on: May 20, 2020, 10:33:18 PM »
La Jetee, Ugetsu, and City Lights are up next. I’m much more hopeful of these.

I'd give my predictions but I don't want to skew your reactions either way.

Then, Histoire(s) du cinema. Am I ready for that?

My main concern for you is that it's going to spoil other movies. I can't recall how specific it gets in regards to plots.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #239 on: May 21, 2020, 09:33:30 PM »
La Jetee
CHRIS MARKER, 1962
5 STARS OUT OF 5

I have to watch this again. What’d I just watch? Through still images Chris Marker tells one of the most compelling time travel stories that I’ve experienced, regardless of form. A big question for me when it comes to still images in film, such as in the silent Greed, are, Why in the world do I want to watch still images when you can put them in motion? But Marker’s photo narrative gives good reason, as the impact of the succession of stills functions as the best and worst memories do. As I attempt to hack my own memories, which is a weird sensation when you do it consciously and only for the sake of it, so many faces and places are in fact still. The emotion may indeed be stronger than the image, which is important since the image is probably false anyway, an approximation of what was experienced, or possibly even an outright lie I tell to myself to avoid painful and maddening cognitive dissonance. (Of course, they may be still because I’m expecting or hoping for them to be still, I surely am not master of my own mind.) Point is, even with a plot as far out as that of La Jetee, its form rings true.

I’m ignoring the ties of La Jetee to Vertigo for now, just because I feel like La Jetee is very much its own beast that is ever the more compelling than the Hitchcock classic/#1 film on this list. Marker’s later experimental travelogue, Sans Soleil, also includes a film-within-a-film analysis on Vertigo, and his obsession over the film is well-noted. Criterion has a video essay on the ties between this and Vertigo, worth seeking out if ultimately unsatisfying. But to me, La Jetee has enough fascinating imagery and a romance more worth remembering than in Vertigo. There is something that is built, destroyed, and worth mourning here. And what is life if we have nothing to mourn? The world-building in this short film is also super well done, if not exactly Vertigo and all its iconic San Francisco locations, especially the bunker in post-apocalyptic Paris, where the nameless protagonist undergoes scientific experiments that eventually induce (that’s probably the best word, maybe not THE word) time travel, in hopes to save humankind. This is where memory and reality are fused together and the man becomes the protagonist in his own film of sorts, where his memory of a beautiful woman on an airport observation deck becomes a lovely romance. And since this is all narration and still images, we don’t have to suffer the melodrama and corny come-ons! An added bonus.

I’m a big fan of science fiction, in books, comics, TV, cinema, even music. La Jetee is a brilliant distillation of what makes sci-fi so essential to our thought and entertainment. It takes on big ideas like the direction of humankind, its progress and pitfalls, as well as the fleeting nature of memory and love. It intrigues and confounds, especially in its scientific experiments and time travel. But it also gives a path to the suspension of reality and opens up a dream world that is not so unlike our own, but also alien enough. I didn’t quite know the effect this was having on me until it was over, but it’s one of those that just make you say, “Damn...damn.” Big for me is how the commentary on memory and being, which like Sans Soleil, parallel many of my own reflections and contemplations. At a mere 28 minutes, this is a huge work.
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