I’d be one to say that. I love that movie, and it holds up. I saw it several times on first release, and saw it again recently, in the theater, and it was just as enthralling.
It’s a good question, and the answer is that hope springs eternal, I always assumed I would watch them.
In 2001-2002 I started building up our DVD library to replace our hundreds of VHS movies. We could never have afforded all new DVDs, so I got them from ebay, Columbia House discounts, bargain/used DVD bins at stores, pre-owned copies at video stores and anywhere else I could find a bargain. Most of them were movies I/we’d seen and wanted them in our library. Many times I’d come across films I hadn’t seen but wanted to see, and so I’d buy them. The point was to build a library of movies I like/might like. I bought a lot of classic/acclaimed movies.
But, the thing is, even with a home theater system, I prefer watching movies, especially classics, for the first time on a big screen, in a real theater. Retrospectives are wonderful things, and over the years I’ve been able to see movies like Citizen Kane, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon and Lawrence of Arabia in the theater, on the big screen, the way they were intended to be seen. It makes such a huge difference.
So I hemmed and hawed and procrastinated and didn’t see those ones starred. I watched others that were on the IMDB 250 list at home, or the list would be a lot longer. I’m glad I procrastinated for the ones I mentioned, like Seven Samurai.
I just saw 8 big name Kurosawa films at the Siskel recently, it’s what got me to get a membership, but those had already played by the time I found out about the retrospective. I just bought 2 Kurosawa box sets, so now I have them on DVD, I just haven’t watched them yet. I have no way of getting hooked up with a discussion group, but I can see how they would be interesting.
