Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[Strangler Lewis]

I put Shawshank in the oddities bucket with Michael Clayton. Good performances and something that resembled good writing, but with a huge bullsh*t factor that I just could not overcome.

[Gemini Cricket]

I know I'm supposed to love Vertigo and I've tried. But after watching it again today, I think I'm in the category of 'don't like' now. I don't know. It's hard to describe but although there are some interesting shots in it, the movie drags. I don't find Stewart or Novak to be likable.

SL ~ I don't know. I love The Shawshank Redemption. I think it's well made.

[Alex]

I'm mostly with you on Vertigo. I like the first 40 minutes or so but then it just starts to bore me. But I try to avoid saying that out loud.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I appreciate Vertigo, but don't love it.

I really really like Shawshank, but am utterly baffled as to how it remains the #1 rated movie on imdb. I mean, it's just not THAT remarkable to me.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I had read Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption several times before seeing the movie so I could not believe Tim Robbins as the small, mousy character in the story. And who reads a Stephen King story and thinks, we need to make this more sappy?

[Tref]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm mostly with you on Vertigo. I like the first 40 minutes or so but then it just starts to bore me. But I try to avoid saying that out loud.

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I know I'm supposed to love Vertigo and I've tried. But after watching it again today, I think I'm in the category of 'don't like' now.

Wow, I could not disagree more. For me, Vertigo is not only Hitchcock's most accomplished movie, but one of the truly great, great films ever produced. Like, The Big Lebowski, Vertigo is best given a second, third or even a fourth viewing. Vertigo is as complex a movie as I have seen; multi-layered, menacing, dark, unearthly and a bit twisted. (Its closest cousin would be Lynch's Mulholland Dr., which shares many of its dream-like scenes) In fact, San Francisco could very well be a stand in for the Serling's Twilight Zone for all its absurdities, hypnotizing colors, weird art and dream-like parks, rooming houses, florists and the like. I admit, it took me, at least, three viewings before the film really hit me hard. I had my doubts about the film at first, but something always brought me back to the movie, again and again. And each time I saw the movie, more was revealed to me. You begin putting all the little pieces together, things you may have disregarded the second or third go-around. And the final scene still haunts me -- Stewart alone on the balcony. He conquered his fears and solved the puzzle but it cost him --- everything. Devastating and brilliant. But hey, that is just my opinion. Whatcanyoudo?

[flippyshark]

I found Vertigo slow going on first watch, but the ending hit me hard and drove me to watch it again. It really does reward repeat viewing, as Tref asserts above.

Back in the early 80s, I worked as a projectionist, and Universal did a theatrical re-release of Rear Window, Rope, Vertigo and The Trouble With Harry. We showed all four, and I fell in love with all of them over the course of the month or so we had them. Vertigo was indeed the toughest sell, and Harry was the surprise that no one had heard of and everybody loved.

We were also provided with a long trailer promoting all four films, narrated by Jimmy Stewart. I kept that trailer for years, adding it to an eclectic reel of odds and ends that I would show to friends after hours. Among other things, it included old snack bar ads, promos for Dallas Community Colleges, a ten minute chunk of The Big Doll House, the Star Spangled Banner, trailers for horrible children's films from Mexico, and more. We called it the Midnight Matinee. I assume it got destroyed along with the theater in about 98 or so.

Which reminds me - if you want to see the best trailer compilation ever, check out 42nd Street Forever 5: Alamo Drafthouse Forever. It made me want to move to Austin.

[Alex]

Some movies I disparage those who disagree with me, the correct opinion is just so obvious.

But Vertigo isn't one of them. I'm fine with people loving it, but it just doesn't connect with me, and it isn't for lack of viewing. Over the years I've seen it at least a half-dozen times and I'm pretty sure I get what there is to get, I'm just not interested by it.

[mousepod]

Saw The Hurt Locker last night. A good movie, but I'm not sure why all the "best movie" buzz. While I felt that Bigelow did a very good job of bringing the "reality of war" (I put it in quotes because, having never been to war, I can only imagine) to the screen, but there was still something clichéd about the characterizations to me, no matter how well acted they might have been. Also, I found the plot surprisingly predictable, even taking into account the nature of the built-in suspense inherent in a story about soldiers who dispose of unexploded bombs for a living.

Spoiler:

I was sadly correct in my instant prediction that two interesting minor characters were introduced as bomb fodder.

Not a bad movie at all, and very watchable (though Heather did get sick from the shaky-cam effect - be warned, GD), but at the end I was seriously considering a near-future screening of the old British TV series "Danger:UXB".

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Alex

Some movies I disparage those who disagree with me, the correct opinion is just so obvious.

But Vertigo isn't one of them. I'm fine with people loving it, but it just doesn't connect with me, and it isn't for lack of viewing. Over the years I've seen it at least a half-dozen times and I'm pretty sure I get what there is to get, I'm just not interested by it.

Same here.

I have watched it repeatedly and... nada. When I was living in the Central Coast and had visited San Francisco a number of times, I got a kick watching it for the locations. But other than that...



I have yet to see The Hurt Locker. But recently as mousepod had said all these best of 2009 nods has me curious about it.