It’s good to see someone who saw it at home and liked it. That puts a crack into my theory. And it isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, that’s true, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. It’s a poem in a genre dominated by novels, so it can be a bit jarring even if you do like that kind of thing. Barry Lyndon falls in that category for me too. Not for everyone, but I have always suspected that it is an easier transition to make if you are in a theater rather than at home. (I know I was never able to sit through Barry Lyndon until I was talked into seeing it at a theater).
There is something about being locked into a movie when you go to a theater to see it that, I find, doesn’t translate to home movie watching. Movies that require the viewer to lock into the films rhythms and become immersed in the experience seem to have a harder time working in home theater in my experience.
It is the amazingly rare character study film in which some shit actually does blow up real good.
West Texas produced two masterpieces that year. I loved it when I saw it, and am still trying to figure out why I don’t own it yet. P. T. Anderson is probably my favorite living director.
Because it’s true. name me a movie that can’t be improved by adding a pack of human-devouring highly intelligent velociraptors. The only one I can think of is Jurassic Park, and only because it already has one.
I saw the film on a flight from Atlanta to Mumbai, so maybe it helped not to care so much how long the story takes to tell. Honestly though, it didn’t feel that long to me and it didn’t seem like a large effort to get into the rythm of the movie. It’s certainly not the most fun movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s one of the best of its type. It’s been a few years, so I’d like to see it again.
(Interestingly, I saw No Country For Old Men on an airplane at about the same time period; it may have been the return flight.)
To become immersed in a film I need to be in the right mood for it, and to have no distractions. I don’t find a cinema sized screen to be essential personally.
Interesting that people are talking about Barry Lyndon, I haven’t seen that yet.
No, any movie you dislike can be improved by adding velociraptors. I’d be very upset if they made an apperance in The Madness of King George, Amadeus or Fargo. I think I’d stop posting the occasional rant about the Battleships movie or Independence Day, and start murdering Hollywood executives.
Watched it on DVD a few months ago. I didn’t dislike the movie, but I didn’t like it very much either. The “I drink your milkshake” scene is by far the best part of it. One thing that confused the hell out of me was having Paul and Eli played by the same actor. For most of the movie, I couldn’t figure out if it was one guy pretending to be two people, one person with split personality, or identical twins. It was only toward the end that I figured it out. The original plan was to have the characters played by two different actors. That would have saved me a lot distraction that hampered my enjoyment of the story.
I blame stunt-twists for this whole phenomena of awaiting a big reveal. Movies are often insistent upon having a big twist at the end. It regained big popularity with the Sixth Sense (where it was done masterfully, of course) but it has always been a thing and it has gotten to the point where it seemed like every movie I tried to enjoy, I found myself silently dreading the ‘reveal’ that I was anticipating.
Watching Johnny Depp in Secret Window, I’m thinking, “It’s him all along isn’t it”
Or The Fight Club, “It’s him all along, isn’t it”
Hide and Seek “It’s him all along isn’t”
The Number 23 "It’s him all along, isn’t it?
I don’t knock those twists when they are well done, (again, see Sixth Sense) but when they aren’t well done, but overdone, they create a movie culture where a movie must have a twist to satisfy some.
Some movies just take their sweet time being awesome without attempting to razzle dazzle you with tricks and twists. Just good old fashioned acting.
To watch Plainview’s character unfold before me is worth the price of admission straight away.
To realize that he really did use that boy as a sweet face to gain favor makes you recoil, but you are haunted to realize that he really does love the boy. It’s not said, but it is slowly revealed…in beautiful shots of him cradling the boy after the deafening accident, taking the boys beating when he picks him up after abandoning him, or that intense scene where he is forced to scream that he has abandoned his boy at the top of his lungs. You can feel the moment when he realizes that Eli chose this particular mantra to coerce him with because he recognized the boy as Plainview’s only weakness. And once you realize that the boy is his weakness, you can’t watch the ‘bastard in a basket’ scene without feeling a tiny droplet of sympathy for the monster yelling the offending phrase.
I could go on and on, obviously, but I will wrap it up by saying that the movie is slow. That’s all the better to savor the music, the nuances, the absolute delicious huge scope of it all. Let the characters really develop and blossom while the camera never wavers. Terrific stuff.
I think the comparison to **Barry Lyndon **is very apt - TWBB is the most Kubrickian film ever made that was not actually directed by Stanley Kubrick. In many ways, it was even more similar to 2001, which, as you may recall, was an even slower film.
I loved it, BTW. Best use of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, ever.
Was it the scene where he tells his son he was a “bastard in a basket”?
It’s become such a common trope that they aren’t twists anymore. I mean does anyone not realize that when you are out investigating the haunted insane asylum on the creepy island full of weirdos and reality starts to get all fucked up, YOU are most likely going to turn out to be the crazy one!
Yes, that’s what makes it a tragedy. Plainview is pretty monstrous, but not completely so. Ultimately, he turns away from humanity.
Haven’t seen them, so they can remain velociraptor free for the time being. I’d dearly love to introduce Forrest Gump to a carnivorous dinosaur, possibly after drenching him in gravy and tying his shoe-laces together.
