I’ve never seen Saving Private Ryan. Scared to, I’ve heard so much about the Normandy scene. I’ve heard(no cite) that veterans who were there said it was the most realistic depiction of D-Day they’d seen, that it was hard to watch “again”.
I’ve only seen The Passion of the Christ once. Maybe someday I’ll watch it again. But nothing will ever happen to top the moment when the main crowd left the theater. Unknown to us a heavy thunderstorm broke over the theater while we watched the movie. It moved rapidly to the east. The theater doors are on the east of the building. Those of us at that showing left the theater and could see the black, black clouds in the east. And also there was the absolutely most vivid rainbow I’ve ever seen, with another arc almost as bright as a normal rainbow. Arguably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in the sky, and incredibly uplifting.
I’d watch Saving Private Ryan again even though the scene with Joey and Chandler’s creepy roommate confronting the Nazi with the other guy frozen right outside the room. . . I’d walk out for that one.
All Quiet on the Western Front. All the horror of war of a Saving Private Ryan, but, since it’s WWI instead of “The Good War,” there’s no point to any of it. When I watched it, I cried until I ran out of tears and wound up giving myself a headache.
I may watch it again some day, because what it says is still true and because tears can be cathartic. But it’s hard to imagine what kind of mood will have me pulling it down off the shelf.
There’s only one for me. Schindler’s List. I’ll watch Saving Private Ryan again, grim as it is. But I’ll never watch SL again. It was that good - and devastating.
Now, how I ended up choosing that film for a first date, is a rant for another day.
I agree with you about Rosewood. It’s over 10 years since I watched it in a movie theater, but I still remember walking out of the theater after it ended feeling absolutely furious about how badly people can behave.
My sister gave me Schindler’s List when it first came out on video and I’ve never even unwrapped it. I had read the book years ago and that was enough.
I saw Manhunter, with William Peterson, and it has stuck in my mind. One day I saw a bit of Red Dragon - just about 5 minutes of it, and I can’t forget that, either. Horrible. Why are such movies made? One would have been enough, surely.
Hello stranger, I brought a first date to The Accused :smack:
It will be a long time before I’ll let United 93 break my heart again but I’ll see it again someday. Shoah on the other hand is an experience that was very valuable but unrepeatable. I think I was numb for a few days.
The Dark Knight Great movie, but it was just exhausting for me to watch, the way they had the tension torqued up for seemingly the entire movie.
V: For Vendetta Very well made movie, but I don’t like how so many people walk away from it with the impression that:
V was anything but a villain. Sure, he was fighting against another villain, but that didn’t make him a good guy given everything else he did in the movie..
That said, I do love the scene where the TV studio exec is trying to defuse the bomb.
“Do you have any idea how much this facility costs?”
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
I Am Legend: Setting aside how they screwed up the ending in the theatres (the DVD includes the original ending as a special feature), this movie is just so bleakly depressing. It captures just how incredibly alone the guy is. When he’s racing around in the car in the beginning, I was just thinking “Oh god oh god don’t crash nobody will help you!”
He was not fighting against a villain in the usual sense , he was fighting a system that had been manipulated. That said, there were two separate threads in the movie, with him first and foremost striking a blow against a facist govt, and rousing the citizenery to make a stand one year in the future by striking at a symbol of govt.
The second thread was about him
hunting down and killing everyone who had a hand in his personal tradgedy, which included the prime minister and elements of his govt.
But in the end , the character Vee would have probably agreed with you.
He decided that he had to die, in order that the newer blood of the revolution would decide the future. Even if he never said anything to the effect , his mano et mano scene at the end pretty much garanteed that while he was protected by the armor to a degree, he was going to get shot
To be quite honest, I rarely see films more than once…I guess I just see too many and continue to go to films once a week in theaters, watch a few films every week on premium channels and well, other than a few classics, seldom want to see a film I have already seen.
I think an easier question for me would be what films DO you want to see again?
Short list:
Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, LOTR…will watch all of them at the drop of a hat.
Some other films if I am in the mood, but otherwise…seen it, been there, done.
Wrap your mind around this then: that first 20 or so minutes, from the landing craft to the rangers taking the cliffs and opening the way off the beach? IRL it took over 4 hours. Damn.
For me it’s Titanic. They did too good a job filming the ship sinking. I almost feel like I witnessed the actual sinking, and I have no desire to see that again. The quick scene of the mother below decks, tucking her kids into bed and comforting them to sleep as the water surges in? I had nightmares for weeks.
Agreed. Though the director had done such a great job of creating the character Tsotsi as completely lacking empathy that I never bought the idea that he would have ever saved the baby.
Rabbitproof Fence. Brilliant film. Saw it at a screening with the director.
Yeah, haven’t seen that one again since I saw it in the theater. “The Feel-bad Movie of the Year!”
If you didn’t cry at The Iron Giant, you’re probably a Replicant.
I don’t think Dogville or Funny Games are particularly good movies, though both are competently directed and I never want to see them ever again. Hell, I would have kicked both directors in the nuts if they had been standing outside the theater asking me what I thought of their films.
