"Classic" Movies That You Just Don't Get

French Connection was a really good shout. I'll add Serpico and Boogie Nights (And I actually love PTA, just couldn't get into BN).
I looked into it. I don't know the Simpsons at all!
How is that possible? Please tell me The Simpsons is popular in France?!!!
 
I'm curious what do you see in the French Connection? I see a good cops and robbers movie with a great chase scenes that may have been a good movie for it's time but no where near being a great movie. It's a good genre movie at best but hardly one that has retained it's relevance. There are no fleshed out characters we can see (Popeye comes closest) and even the plot is hardly Chinatown or LA Confidential.
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I just love the whole thing. It's so evocative of a time and place, and you have an unsympathetic and uncompromising leading man, a real sense of gloom/atmosphere which actually ties it in with Chinatown, with both having very bleak endings. It's just a brilliantly shot police procedure movie.... you can feel the authenticity dripping from the screen. It's so stark and hard as nails.... no back story rubbish, and it's in your face ballsy too.

The chase scene is quite rightly remembered, but I also love so many others, like the cat and mouse chase down to the subway and the brilliant jazz club scene. God, have to watch it again! Actually, The French Connection II is very underrated.
 
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The ping pong for one.
Call it ping-pong to our Waldner's face, I dare you. :p
Saskjoe said:
“My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know when you're going to need to shut the feck up talking shit about an awesome film.'" (Gump, F. 1981).
I'm still all ears. Name one thing, one scene that's not horribly patronising in Forrest Gump.
 
I'm still all ears. Name one thing, one scene that's not horribly patronising in Forrest Gump.

I hope that you were just asking him that because I had planned on having a kip tonight.
 
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Apocalypse Now bored the shit out of me. Discuss.
a) Did you watch Redux or the original (aka was there a stupid scene with a load of French guys)?
b) What other films from the 70s have you liked?

Apocalypse Now is as good as The Godfather IMO, potentially better.
 
a) Did you watch Redux or the original (aka was there a stupid scene with a load of French guys)?
b) What other films from the 70s have you liked?

Apocalypse Now is as good as The Godfather IMO, potentially better.

It's been ages since I seen it so couldn't remember if the french guys were in it, but just checked and it was the original. Is that the better version?

Only really seen the more commonly known 70s films like The Godfather 1/2 (which I liked despite not being a huge fan of mafia-type films), One Flew Over..., A Clockwork Orange, Rocky, The Shining, Raging Bull etc. Maybe I just expected too much when I watched Apocalypse Now.
 
Yeah, the other version's a lot longer but adds next to nothing.

Apocalypse is a crazy, uneven film but that's the point, I prefer it to all of that list. Speaking of which, Raging Bull's one that's very overrated. Obviously brilliantly directed and acted but there's not much of a story, and LaMotta's a horrible uninteresting character.
 
Inception - This will probably be unpopular. It was ok, but, here's some cool things my dreams often include that don't appear in this film: sex, flying, pirates, big massive lava explosions, robot spiders, general absolute mental surrealness, etc.
Here's some things I never dream about that were in this film a lot: rooms with nothing happening in them, people walking about in suits, walking, people unecessarily explaining things, sitting around, entirely normal looking buildings, meetings, etc.
Also the spinning top bit at the end was the most predictable ending to any film ever.

Don't get me wrong, there are many things wrong with Inception but the point you have raised about the dreams being unremarkable in comparison to your natural dreams is completely missing the point.

The entire reason why the dreams in Inception are normal in comparison to natural dreams is so that the subject (the person who's subconscious they are entering) does not know and is not supposed to know that they are asleep. This is explained very clearly in the sequence where Cobb is first showing Ariadne the dream world and explains to her why she shouldn't be trying to fold the pavement over itself (or something like this, basically not to do anything that in real life would be impossible). Anything out of sequence with real life or surreal would be noticed by the dreamer who's subconscious would then react in a very aggressive way to rid it of the presence of the intruding/foreign parties. This would of course then defeat the purpose of trying to steal into somebody's subconscious in the first place as you are looking to gain secrets that are of a sensitive nature.

It is a heist/espionage movie set in the subconscious (albeit an occasionally simplistic one), it isn't really a movie about dreams as we know/experiance them.
 
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I have a hard time enjoying Wes Anderson's films, though I haven't seen The Grand Budapest Hotel which seems highly rated. Then again the others are as well.
 
You have not lived until you've seen the Youtube comments for Amadeus clips --

'A bit over done with the fireworks... otherwise mediocre. I prefer some of his more uninspired pieces (non-masonic at best) otherwise not a bad composer overall.'
 
Reservoir Dogs. Just didn't find it that good.

Just came in to write this, can really not see the hype of this movie.

It shits on Pulp Fiction, to be fair.

The last 10 minutes of Pulp Fiction alone could eradicate the existence of Reservoir Dogs, and the 5 minutes would make it wish it was never created.

Ironic that really, considering they were directed by the same bloke...
 
Gone With The Wind
When Harry Met Sally
Absolutely everything Ridley Scott's done in his entire career with the exception of Blade Runner. The man's almost a hack.
 
Pulp Fiction - Tarrantino somehow manages to both crave attention and be smug at the same time.

12 Years a slave - It never consistently achieved the right tone for me and it never flowed as a story properly, which may have been a result of the number of years it has to encompass but it felt like snippets without the adequate depth. And the Jesus Brad Pitt in shining armour thing was ridiculous.

Shawshank Redemption - Cheesy mediocrity

Oldboy - There are good bits but overall it left me cold and uninterested.

Anchorman - Some of the dialogue is quite witty but the delivery is so forced it takes away from any humour it could achieve. I've actually seen it a few times with friends and I always feel like people laugh at it because they know they're supposed to.
 
Pulp Fiction - Tarrantino somehow manages to both crave attention and be smug at the same time.

I admire Pulp Fiction but yeah, I see where you're coming from and it makes me believe that he's always been that way, but he's gotten progressively worse really. Don't get me started on Django. Or any of the rest after Jackie Brown.
 
Shawshank Redemption and The Shining are two I don't get the acclaim for.
 
The Shining will always scare me witless, no matter how many times I watch it.
The only thing that is remotely creepy is the girl in the bath that decomposes. I just didn't find it that creepy to be honest.
 
The only thing that is remotely creepy is the girl in the bath that decomposes. I just didn't find it that creepy to be honest.
It's probably down to personal preferences regarding what scares you -- I hate big buildings when they're empty, corridors, isolation, and volatile drunk fathers that can explode at any minute. So The Shining will always scare me.
 
It's been a long while since I saw The French Connection so I'll have to come back to you...As for Malick, the impressionistic, disjointed style irritates me, despite the beautifully framed shots. It gets worse with every film as he seems beyond any editorial control.
I've heard he edits the shit out of his movies. Anyway I have Badlands, recommend I watch it?

I have a way of watching a movie, I decide that I do the same thing when I read a book. You have to buy into the author/director's vision, so complaints like 'it was too long/too weird" don't cut it. If I watch Wes Anderson stuff I have to accept the kind of movie I am going to get and judge how well he puts the message across. Similarly if I read Hemingway I have to buy into his vision and style for the length of the book. I usually find that this method is far more effective at helping me appreciate different kinds of directors and movies.

Michael Bay is still crap.
 
I've heard he edits the shit out of his movies. Anyway I have Badlands, recommend I watch it?

I have a way of watching a movie, I decide that I do the same thing when I read a book. You have to buy into the author/director's vision, so complaints like 'it was too long/too weird" don't cut it. If I watch Wes Anderson stuff I have to accept the kind of movie I am going to get and judge how well he puts the message across. Similarly if I read Hemingway I have to buy into his vision and style for the length of the book. I usually find that this method is far more effective at helping me appreciate different kinds of directors and movies.

Michael Bay is still crap.

He edits yes (down from 12 hours to 3.5....) but no one else seems to have input into that process. For me, it lapses into self-indulgence. He could learn from Hemingway, a master of succinctness! As for Wes Anderson, I now avoid his films, although I acknowledge many people like his whimsical style.

But Badlands is worth watching, yes.
 
I've only seen them once but Usual Suspects and particularly Taxi Driver weren't up to all that much.
 
Avatar? Inception? The new Bond flicks? Jeez guys, way to turn a thread about classic films into a thread about films you don't like in general.
 
“My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know when you're going to need to shut the feck up talking shit about an awesome film.'" (Gump, F. 1981).
Life was like a box of chocolate until I was spoonfed with so much saccharine tinted propaganda that I couldn't possibly eat any more chocolate.