Ever not see a great movie for a long time? For some reason I never saw “No Country For Old Men” - I just don’t have a lot of time these days and somehow it just slipped by - but I watched it last night.
Jesus.
Why did I wait this long? The Coens at the height of their powers, but in a different way. This was nothing at all like their other films. It was simply a perfect movie, absolutely mesmerizing from the first frame to the last. Flawlessly executed. Tense at every moment. One brilliant shot after another. The cast? Perfect, great, great actors at the height of their powers. I had no goddamned idea it was THIS brilliant.
If we’re doing movies we still haven’t seen, I’ve never seen Schindler’s List. When it first came out my parents thought I was too young for it. Now that I’m an adult, whenever I’m picking a movie to watch I’m never in the mood for such a serious film. I mean, I know it’s a great film, and I feel like I should watch it some day, but so far I never have.
The one thing that hit me the most about this film is that it had the scariest villain I’ve ever seen.
Not a guy with super powers, or an invincible alien, or some demonic being that can kill you in your dreams. Just a regular person, who therefore could actually exist, but just absolutely DRIPS with menace from every word he creaks out to every heavy-lidded stare. I’d probably shit my pants with terror if he walked into my proximity and tried to start an innocuous conversation. He was basically death personified as a human being.
The beautiful vistas, tension, mystery, character studies, all that is great too. It’s also a fantastic period piece for its time. But more than anything, that villain is what makes this movie supreme in my mind.
“Magic” (1978) with Anthony Hopkins. I avoided reading anything about it so that nothing would be spoiled. A horror movie of sorts, but not supernatural horror. Without spoiling too much, with any tv/movie that has a ventriloquist’s dummy as part of the plot, things are probably going to turn out bad for somebody.
“Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting” (1969): Not sure if it’s ever been released on any media, but TCM aired it in the past year. I knew nothing about the film, other that somehow abortion was part of the plot. I remember the previews/trailers on TV when it was out. Suzanne Somers supposedly was a stand-in/stunt person for the main actress.
“Ordinary People” (1980): My first impression is that it was a family that was depressed because of a suicide, but many years later, I caught it on TV. Oh, yes, much more depth than I had assumed.
I. . . “enjoyed” all these movies, to the extent you can say you enjoy a movie about psychos and weird family dynamics.
Sadly, I’m afraid that m DVR is giving up the ghost, which is where I had my copy of “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting” saved, so it’s probably lost to history for me.
I’m another who hasn’t seen Schindler’s List. I don’t go to movies at theaters often, so I didn’t see it when it was out, and like you, I don’t really want to watch a downer.
I resisted the whole Harry Potter movie phenomena while they were being churned out, and when my kids were of that age to be into that. I had seen bits and pieces of the movies in passing, but had not sat down to see one complete movie, never mind the series. I just didn’t “get” the whole thing. Over several wintry weeks a couple years ago I finally made a project of it with my wife, who loves the movies, to sit thru them from start to finish. I finally “got” it, and enjoyed the movies for what they are, especially some of the special effects.
LOL, they even sell it on VHS for $15, look at that.
I also see it available for a $4 rental to stream it on a bunch of places. Just look up “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting Streaming” in your search engine of choice.
I’m in the minority. I didn’t see No Country (rewatched it relatively recently) as a great - or even particularly good - movie. Was a long time fan of McCarthy, but didn’t care for the book either.
I think I started a thread recently after watching Ghost for the first time after intentionally avoiding it. Just a dated time waster bit of fluff, but I had no idea it was as funny and suspenseful as it was.
I’d like to watch that again. I remember REALLY liking it. Maybe follow up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer S1 Ep9, The Puppet Show!
That’s my one that really upsets filmophiles. A friend, who had also never seen it, and I watched all three in a month sometime in the early 00s, and we were really underwhelmed, but probably due to overexposure. All I could think about in every scene was how The Simpsons had parodied it, and almost every line was like someone doing their best Godfather impression of someone saying the line.
Same friend and I watched Titanic probably 10 years after it was released. By then the cycle of praise and then crushing reevaluation had taken hold and the cool kids’ opinion seemed to be it was really bad for being a good movie. We were both surprised at how much we liked it. Not 15 Oscars or whatever good, but plenty good fun on popcorn Thursday.
We both had the same thought though, for as much as we had fun, we would never watch it again, because once was enough. I’ve never watched it again.
Man, that movie. I loved it when I saw it in the theater. My wife held off, because she figured it would be bloody, but I didn’t think it was that bloody and we watched it together when it came out on DVD. At the scene in Eagle Pass where Moss is hiding in the hotel room and Chigurh is coming up the steps, she looked at me and said “Ok, I can’t take this. Let’s stop.” It was just too tense for her, she mentioned the lack of music was not comforting.
The next day, she came up to me and asked “He doesn’t get away with it, does he?”, meaning Chigurh. I just said that I can’t explain it well, and she’d have to watch the rest of the movie. I’m not sure doing that really satisfied her, but it’s got to be better than not knowing.
“Look at that fucking bone”
The movie I didn’t see for a long time was Akira. I’ve known about it since 1990 or so, but had never seen it. I watched it today.
Wow, that’s a GORGEOUS movie for that period. Even without a super strong story, it sells itself really hard visually. I’d consumed just about everything that was influenced by it over the last few decades, but wasn’t really prepared for how well the psychedelic sequences were done. I can easily see why it was an influence on pretty much any animation that came after it.
Earlier in the film Chigurh says “If the rule you followed led you to this, what good was the rule?” As he’s driving away from (presumably) killing Carla Jean, he clearly has a green light at the intersection where his car is broadsided and causing that injury. Perfect irony.
I know the ending scene with Ed Tom caused a lot of discussion and interpretation.
