'Shells'
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Erika, I'll give you The Graduate. I can see how the youth of the '60s took it to heart. But I think you need to see it at a certain time of your life to appreciate it. And I saw it a lot later. (Edit: And Raquel said it in 4 words....)
And I saw Godfather on basic cable. So it may have been edited for content. (And the novel has special meaning for me as a sex ed class, but that's another story....)
Have you read Story by Robert McKee? He works a lot on the screenplays of Casablanca and Chinatown and if you agree with his criteria for what's a good screenplay, he'll convince you.
I haven't. files name away in brain for future reference
But hey, any movie where the director gets to slit the lead actor's nose is a winner, right?
Hmm, depends on which channel... And maybe I do watch movies like a renegade member of Woodstock Nation. And it's not every mom and daughter that have a tender moment because "Luca Brassi sleeps with the fishes."
The Graduate (though I probably should have seen it at 21 instead of 41)
I did see it at 21. I didn't like it at all, and thought the main character was pretentious and whiny. Also, by the time we got to yet another underwater shot, I was just rolling my eyes and saying, "OK, we get the point, can we move on now?"
Might have been TBS. I was at a friend's when it came on -- and it's his favorite, too. It may be that gangster movies tend not to be my cuppa.
Well, I liked Little Caesar, but I have an enormous crush on Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
They probably cut the crap out of it...dang, so elegant, me. A regular Grace Kelly. The Graduate does hang on Ben. If you don't like him, you'll hate the movie. But I think he's a woobie.
an enormous crush on Douglas Fairbanks, Jr
And once again, Fred proves his excellent taste.
I just read/skimmed the chapter on Touch of Evil in John Truby's The Great Movies: Why They Work, and it's fully convinced me I should give it another go, with an unscratched DVD and my full attention. I don't think it'll vault into my top five or anything, but I might take back the meh.
I haven't puzzled out what makes this one of the best screenplays ever
But...but...okay, trying to come up with a sentence more substantial than "Because it's so good!!" here, and obviously not doing very well. But it is anyway.
I like about half of The Graduate. The ending and most of the second half of the film leading up to it makes me roll my eyes.
I love Chinatown but I'm just not up to launching a defense of it, either.
Fred, you should really see The Godfather uncut. It's too good for network TV.
And I can't stand The Graduate, with all its phoney-baloney "realism" and pseudo-conflicts. Maybe it connected with some people from the late 60s, but I suspect it was the same crowd who liked Love Story.