The subject of rewatching (and rereading) is a big one, I realized as I started to respond to MadisonMan in the thread. I got this far:
I always had to rewatch an episode of "The Sopranos" to understand it. There was too much going on to get it the first time and too much artful ellipsis.And then I decided this needed to be on the front page. When do you say, I am not rewatching/rereading that — they had one chance to reach me and I'm not putting my time into unraveling what they failed to make clear? And when do you say, I'm going back in to open up the mysteries that passed me by the first time?
But I'd also have to watch last night's episode of "Survivor" again to understand it, and I know that isn't worth doing.
One reason I'm glad not to be a law professor anymore (and glad to be able to follow the precepts of a fine religion) is that I was forced and had to force others to read Supreme Court opinions, and we were required to understand them, and that meant a lot of rereading of aesthetically displeasing and intellectually unrewarding verbiage.
I was bound by the power of the Court to spend twice as much time (at least) trying to read something that they could have spent more time making readably clear. I suspected that the Court deliberately inflated its own power by imposing burdensome reading. Heh, that will keep them busy, and they'll never get to the point where they can criticize us in writing that anyone else will have the endurance to read to the point of understanding.
But I was the Court's taskmaster, insisting to students — over and over — that no matter how incomprehensible you think this is, you can understand if you reread. Read it a second time, and if you still don't understand, read it a third time and a fourth. Empower yourself by discovering the meaning that only rereading will reveal.
I don't do that anymore.
I want to read and watch things that are rereadable/rewatchable. I truly believe that the best movies and writing are better the second time (or third or fourth time). But you can't get to the second time without going through the first, and when do you say, after the first, there will be no second time? Maybe the secret is to walk out of movies and throw aside books when you realize you're just trying to get through this and would never want to see/read it again?
Maybe, with all your first times, if you're not thinking this is going to be better the second time around, you should bail out of the first time. Is this a one-night-stand? If yes, then don't "Cat Person" it, get out.
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222 comments:
1 – 200 of 222 Newer› Newest»I've seen Hamlet on stage four times. Each time I get much more out of it. Is it bad theater because I didn't grasp so much the first few go rounds?
That said, I turned off the Big Lebowski DVD about 1/3 the way through it. And I love the Coen's work, generally.
Is there a "Cat Person" university?
Save the Youngs / A conference on drugs and bonsai
"A conference will take place in the Central Campus of Batman University about drugs and bonsai on 30th of December at 14:00."
My enjoyment of The Big Lebowski has increased w/ each of my ~40 viewings.
I've rewatched Get Smart (2008) many times.
It's patched together from stuff in a way that shows they didn't know what they were making, from comic situations that actually made a story they didn't notice.
Guys are interested in guy work and where women fake it.
They get together.
Great music ALWAYS rewards a second listen. I've lost track of how many times I heard a song/album and thought "meh"-- but then was blown away on the second listen.
Movies and books don't always have the same dynamic. Sure there are works that you maybe aren't "ready" for, but if there isn't something in it from the beginning to make you want to return, it's best to not bother.
And the "Big Lebowski?" I saw it in the theater 20 years ago and thought "???" I just didn't get what they were trying to do. But the thing is, 20 years later, I REMEMBER a lot of it, which is surely a sign that something is going on in that movie.
Seeing too many times has the bad effect that you can't see it again, since you know all the lines and the right order of them.
A movie has to be entertaining to me so that I can make it through all the way the first time.
After that, I *might* re-watch it under certain circumstances.
The last movie that I watched that once it was over made me say "I have to see that again!" was Atomic Blonde.
I rarely re-read or re-watch anything unless it's technical or practical.
I really enjoy The Big Lebowski as a movie I've never seen. The memes, the video clips, it's a comic zeitgeist that's a lot of fun.
The very ending of Get Smart is wrong. 99 should not go domestic. Max likes her as a spy.
I realized on my first viewing that the plot of The Big Lebowski wasn't the point. Every time I see it something else sticks out to me as hilarious, which is why I watch it probably once a year. I've had the same experience with Confederacy of Dunces...Despite reading it multiple times I could only give the barest outline of the novel's plot.
Not following this. Anything I do seriously takes work and re-re-work. Entertainment is supposed to be entertaining.
Listen to Gould's interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations and try not to listen again.
Is this a one-night-stand? If yes, then don't "Cat Person" it, get out.
I prefer to think of this as Malcolm McDowell's advice to Natasha Kinski's one-night-stand John Heard. The meme still works.
I usually can't even make it all the way through something I'm bored or annoyed by. That's actually been a problem for me in a few specific instances where I missed out on what turned out to be a great movie.
The main example of this for me is the Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven. I first saw that movie in theaters when I was a teenager with a friend of mine. I made to just after the part where Gene Hackman's character, Little Bill, mercilessly beats the everloving daylights out of Clint Eastwood's character. Being an impatient teenager who was hoping for a cool Clint Eastwood Western and instead seeing the protagonist getting humiliated, I basically walked out then and there.
Flash forward a few years later, I kept hearing from people who's opinions I respected what a fantastic movie Unforgiven was, over and over again. Finally I decided to give it another chance. Now it's probably in my personal top 15 or 20 movies favorite movies of all time.
Edge of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat) can be just enjoyed again, and perhaps to figure out the time travel logic.
It's good for its implied sequel, which probably can't be made.
Blunt, in the sequel, would like Cruise but it would take a great narrative to show her that without ruining the character.
One of the ways I can tell if a movie is really good is if after watching it the first time, I can enjoy watching it again over the years.
"I suspected that the Court deliberately inflated its own power by imposing burdensome reading." That's one of the ways, one kind of judicial tyranny. Which, I hope, you made clear to your students.
I bail out on more than half the DVDs I get.
It has been said that one should watch "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" three times in one's life: first as a child, then as an adolescent and finally, as an adult -- to "get" all the humor written into it.
I'm not a fan of the movie, but I got it, even quote it on occasion.
I think you're confusing "life in retired privilege" with dudeism. A dudeist would have jumped the law prof ship years ago in the state of financial insecurity, come what may. I spent about six years abiding before getting back into the world. I confused a lot of people, lost friends, but abide I did. When I could least afford it, I abided.
Why not a fan? My aesthetic choices for books and movies are less about comprehension and more about whether I want to spend time hanging out with those people for a couple hours or more. I figure I have about a 66% appreciation for Coen movies because of that.
Of course, now I'm tempted to watch the movie again. Rewatching or rereading in succession can sometimes help with comprehension, but often more revealing is rewatching or rereading in different stages of life, where we bring new interpretive experiences to the experience. I was late-stage abiding when I first watched it, so it neither prompted me, nor encouraged me, but rather frustrated me as being insufficiently abideable.
Perhaps a second viewing wouldn't be necessary if viewers weren't checking Twitter while watching. Dana Stevens movie reviews on Slate are so filled with errors and missed moments I can only assume she watches films with her laptop open and only listens to the film's sounds.
There are movies I watch over and over. It is not that I got more understanding from repeated viewing. It is just pleasure.
I can watch Elina Garanca sing Carmen every day.
My favorite abiding movie is Rivers and Tides. Andy Goldsworthy is a guy who seriously abides.
Also abiding is Into Great Silence, though that one's not as inspiring to me.
Seeing a complex or difficult movie more than once to “get it” is analogous to needing to see a work of art multiple times to “get it”. 2001, Fight Club, Inception, even The Matrix are a few examples.
Easy to understand is not necessarily the hallmark of good of great art in any medium, though contrived incomprehensibilty is almost always bad art.
I agree with you Althouse. "Groundhog Day" is always worth a second look.
Hat/tip to Paddy O. Rivers and Tides is wonderful.
I've never watched all of "The Big Lebowski." The one chance I had I fell asleep maybe a 1/3 of the way in. To be fair I had walked 18 holes on a high 90's sunny and humid day on a very hilly course in the Twin Cities with my son.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I have seen clips of course.
I also haven't seen all of any of the Star Wars movies. And have no desire to.
There has to be enough payoff the first time. Whether Easter eggs, subordinate plots, etc are fully understood and appreciated is different. A good story / movie that has a number of layers that can be appreciated with casual to intense reading / viewing is really hard. If they miss the casual, then they'll lose a lot of people who don't apply intense effort the first time. I gather that is what MadisonMan means when he said they had one chance.
I read Catch 22 in college, thought it was mildly amusing. Then I read it while I was in the Navy, and it came alive. Robertson Davies said that a work is best read when you're at least the age the author was when he wrote it.
"It's unwatchable to me...."
"That's a bummer, man."
"Mind if I do a J?"
Me, I reread absolutely everything, many times. That's because reading is just what I do. I don 't drive, so I walk everywhere, and never without a book. As a result, I can't really buy many new books; there's no place to put them. All my shelves are already double-stacked. (OK, this has really changed with the Kindle, though not everything is available for the Kindle.)
"I want to read and watch things that are rereadable/rewatchable." Yes, a good yardstick.
"But you can't get to the second time without going through the first," Sure you can, depending on what "the first" means. New chapter for Pierre Bayard: how to reread books/rewatch movies you haven't read/watched before.
"if you're not thinking this is going to be better the second time around, you should bail out of the first time" But sometimes it is good not to think, actually to go with the flow. Which means that it is pointless to have a strict bail-out rule.
I hadn't heard of Rivers and Tides, but I love Andy Goldsworthy. I'll keep a look out for it.
I find modern action sci fi unwatchable. I cannot follow the plot, the twists and turns in battle, and I suspect they don't make sense anyway. I felt that way about Independence Day and have been off that genre ever since.
It's all fire and explosions signifying nothing.
So in the law, obscurantism isn't a bug, it's a feature. Right?
The Big Lebowski is a farce. Farces aren't deep. But they should be fun, and I liked this one.
"I think you're confusing "life in retired privilege" with dudeism. A dudeist would have jumped the law prof ship years ago in the state of financial insecurity, come what may. I spent about six years abiding before getting back into the world. I confused a lot of people, lost friends, but abide I did. When I could least afford it, I abided."
Well, you don't know my whole life story or aren't taking it into account. I went to art school (as college) and I proceeded from there for 5 years before going to law school. I went to law school because I wanted to have children, and I had my first child when I was in my last year of law school and my second child 2 years later. Providing for the children was a foremost duty, and it restricted what I could do for a long time, but the lawprof life worked for me, and I did it in a way that met needs that I had. I'm certainly happy to be retired with a pension, but I avoided doing things that would have increased my pension, and I think now that I should have retired much earlier. I nearly retired in 2009 when I met Meade, and I probably should have.
I saw The Big Liebowski. I thought that it was an entertaining movie and worth the price admission. I caught it again many years later after I had forgotten most of it. It was worth seeing again. It's an entertaining movie. What more do you want?......
People seem to like old hippies. At least when they're basically good looking like Bridges.
The short bald, stringy pony tail types you see in the real world, not so much.
I re-watch movies in a seasonal way or holiday- or anniversary-themed way that some of my friends find obsessive. Every late January it's the Branagh Hamlet; the first significant snowfall it's SNOW DAY, which I like better the more I see it; Valentine's Day it's STEALING BEAUTY; February 23rd to March 6th, Alamo movies; March 17th (of course) THE QUIET MAN; early April MANHATTAN; late April and the anniversary of the Easter Rebellion, MICHAEL COLLINS; Easter/Passover THE ROBE and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS; and so on and so forth until December, when there is a whole bunch of holiday movies to watch. Some of these anniversaries are simply personal to me; but I actually enjoy these movies.
I have seen "Lebowski," and recall mildly enjoying it, and I may one day view it again; but I don't for see it ever being on my Annual Viewing list.
"New chapter for Pierre Bayard: how to reread books/rewatch movies you haven't read/watched before."
Ha ha.
Like most things in life, this is not a subject that lends itself to absolutes or hard-and-fast rules. Some things are worth going back to and others aren't. What those things are will vary, one size not fitting all in this context as in most others.
I like going back to MOMA to see favorite paintings, for example. Seen them dozens of times over the years, but still get pleasure from repeat visits. And any opera fan has favorite pieces that they've seen over and over again. Whenever Boheme or Traviata or Butterfly is on our subscription at the Met, my first reaction is 'not again.' But I go, and am swept away by the sensuous music all over again. Same with some movies, plays, books, poems, songs, you name it.
And sometimes, when you go back to something you hated the first time around (Milton often comes up as an example), you discover that it was much better than you thought. Partly, it's a function of getting older and the changes in perspective that come with having lived more. Of course, sometimes the original judgment is confirmed, and you jut put it aside never to return.
One of the best courses I ever took was Constitutional Law. We were given a collection of the Supreme's cases, from Marbury to Roe. He gave us a list of 33 opinions which we had to read and summarize in outline form.
I've made a life out of abiding, but for some reason I knuckled down on that course and did the work. Maybe it was the structure, and the fact we'd go into class and discuss the law and logic of the cases. The teacher had clerked under one of the justices -- it might have been Felix Frankfurter -- so he gave informed judgments (but no gossip, alas).
It certainly drove home how badly the Roe decision was written. It had to be, because the court essentially said, "Because we said so."
Although I never became a lawyer nor worked in government, that course still informs my opinions today. And I still have the textbook and notebook in my archives.
When you get as old as I am you begin to find that re-reading a book is like the first time because you have forgotten the thing entirely. That's pretty disturbing.
One reason to rewatch a movie is that after you see it and think about it, you have some theories and ideas that didn't occur to you at the time, and you go back to see whether your template fits.
Sometimes it's something like the filmmakers attitude toward a particular character. Something like: I think the director really hated Character X and we were supposed to hate her, but it was very subtle. Or: The love story was basically ridiculous but it all makes sense if you see Character A as representing X and Character B as representing Y.
It's best if you have someone who's seen the movie with you and had a movie-fueled conversation and you go back together with the idea of looking for things and then you can have another conversation.
At Meadhouse, we tend to watch a recording that we can pause, so we have the conversations during the movie. Some of the second times are miniature rewatchings where we rewind just a minute or 2, like it's sports and we're doing instant replay.
Maybe a work of art can be judged as a work of art if you wish repeat the experience of enjoying it more than once. Most movies and novels are disposable. They serve the function of killing time in an entertaining way. They do nothing more, but that's quite a lot.......There are some movies that are so entertaining that you wish to see them again simply for the fun of being entertained. Northwest Passage doesn't tell you a lot about the human condition, but there are worst ways to kill a few hours.l.....There are other movies that are so intricate and haunting that you want to watch them again to understand what happened. Some Bergman movies like Persona or Wild Strawberries present meaningful hallucinations. You feel that if you watch them a few more times the meaning will be clear. They resemble life. The meaning is elusive, and we're always just on the verge of understanding it. One more viewing.
Here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
It has been said that one should watch "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" three times in one's life: first as a child, then as an adolescent and finally, as an adult -- to "get" all the humor written into it.
That trick never works..
The Great Gatsby has to be the most re-read novel of all time. I'm not so sure about the most re-watched movie. Probably GWTW, Star Wars, or the first two Godfathers.......Tme loop movies like Groundhog Day, Looper, and Edge of Tomorrow are fun to re-watch. There's an onomatopoeia quality to watching them again, kind of lke listening to the lyrics of Fascinating Rhythm.
I'm not judging. I totally understand (and agree with!) your choices. I just quibble with your current identification with dudeism.
The Dude abided because the Dude was single and without obligations. I abided in the same way, during a similar season. Now I work, when I want to abide, because I have a family. I'm in much the same situation as you were (20+ years behind).
Basically, I'm suggesting there's a fundamental difference between being retired--when a lifestyle is fully funded, risk free, and possessing substantive resources, having fulfilled their professional self--and abiding, when a person chooses a life in their most productive age of possibilities, when resources are themselves insecure.
But maybe I'm a donatist in Dudeism, more rigorous in definition. There's clearly a more evangelical Dudeism that invites a broader participation. Either way, I think you've found a nice balance and perspective in life.
Maybe I'm just jealous. A mortal sin in Dudeism if their ever was one. That and taking it so seriously. That's very unabiding! I need to find my way back.
PaddyO abates.
My younger two kids and I have been rewatching the entire run of Nickelodeon's The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. One pleasure of watching these long multi-season series over again is watching character and plot development when you know where things are going. There are times when you feel that the writers have bailed on an early conception of a character, plot device, or visual motif and morphed it into something different. This is especially true in The Last Airbender which is looser and goofier than Korra. In Korra, the entire 4-part story was scripted ahead of time across all 4 seasons. That results in a more novelistic level of foreshadowing and dramatic arc.
2001: A Space Odyssey improves with each watching. MadisonMan must hate that.
Here's why it's better the second time you watch it: it has a classic misdirection in the opening. The first time you watch it (with fresh eyes and no spoilers) you're sucked in to the carpet. Who peed on it and why? In the end, the carpet is just a plot device to get where the movie is going.
I can watch Garanca sing anything anytime.
The downside to repeated viewings of Northwest Passage is that you come to realize how stupid it is to try to assasinate someone with a crop duster plane, One of the most striking moments in all of cinema doesn't make sense, but maybe that is the ultimate appeal of the scene.
"2001: A Space Odyssey improves with each watching. "
The first of the high tech sci fi movies was "Silent Running" and it was terrific for the time. The first three Star Wars were better but I would like to watch "Silent Running " again to compare.
"I can watch Garanca sing anything anytime."
Yes, the problem is that she is a normal woman with a fantastic voice.
She keeps taking time off to have kids.
Maria Callas was not normal and had a continuous career until her voice went.
Maybe the rewatchability quotient is an important factor in determining a work of art's quality or even if it is a work of art. Poems are infinitely re-readable. Cosi Fan Tutti is not going to be dropped from the repertory anytime soon. Music and poetry you definitely want to experience over and over again, and it takes quite a lot of repitions to reach satiety. Movies not so much. Stand up comedy has the least durability. Sorry Jimmy, you're not an artist.
Whether or not I give something a second chance has more to do with what people say they got out of it than merely whether or not there is more to get it of it. I didn't understand the usual suspects until the second watching. I couldn't even get through groundhogs day the first time. Both were worth a second viewing.
I'm trying to think of an example of something you wouldn't get the first time and yet not worth a second view. Nothing comes to mind, though I'm sure they exist. Just too forgettable, I guess.
I'm thinking of how many times I began and put down James Joyce's Ulysses before finally reading it through. Same with Tristram Shandy. Only the 2d time through The Big Lebowski I began to get how profoundly funny it is. Wit, for me, is a reward worth the effort.
On the other hand, as a lawyer forced to deal with SCOTUS opinions in the First Amendment Establishment Clause arena from the mid 70s, I can only second Ann's irritation with their turgid prose. Don't get me started on Sandra Day O'Connor and her endlessly multiplying X-Prong tests (many of which would magically disappear from her next opinions on the subject).
There are a lot of films that I’ve rewatched multiple times and gotten something new out of them that I didn’t catch the first, second or third time around. Sometimes it’s a Scorsesi film which had so many characters and subplots going on that it took me another viewing to really appreciate the layers of how everything worked together because I was focused on the main plotline. Or it might be a larger theme Coppola wove through a story that you have to watch again to fully appreciate.
But other than their remake of True Grit, I can’t think of any Coen Brothers’ film that I’ve watched more than once. I liked Fargo, Miller’s Crossing, No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski but the style and the pacing made it a slog to get through once and I’ve never felt motivated enough to go back for a repeat viewing. It’s not that they’re not good films, it’s just that I didn’t enjoy my first viewing enough to want to go back and repeat the experience to see if get something new out of it.
One thing about old age and forgetting is that when you watch an old movie that is good, it's like seeing it for the first time again. Even a little forgetting helps in that regard. Same with books. I was just re-reading a passage I knew in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse about the pleasures of gardening for example (one that Meade might enjoy) and got carried away: https://goo.gl/cNe6rF
2001: A Space Odyssey improves with each watching. MadisonMan must hate that.
Did you understand it the first time? I didn't say that I don't rewatch movies. (I've seen the last 2 LOTR movies multiple multiple times, mostly with the son, and I really like to watch Gosford Park and Groundhog Day). I don't rewatch movies for the sole purpose of understanding them. A Director shouldn't be making you do that: Life is Short.
(I also reread books, and if a particular way of phrasing something makes me laugh the first time, it will on all subsequent readings; I love that! But it shows you: I quickly forget what I've read! Reading textbooks in College was a real chore because I retained very little.)
One other thing that turns me off: People telling me I have to see a movie. Black Panther falls in that category. It seems to me -- here in Madison -- that it's the current I'm white but I support Blacks requirement for liberals.
"I can watch Garanca sing anything anytime."
Lighter side of Garanca
Same with Tristram Shandy.
Thomas Mann and Eighteenth Century Comic Fiction
Wayne Booth
On relating one's phd topic to absolutely everything.
I'll watch a movie a second time if it has "earned" a second viewing. Same with a book. But if it is just empty, schlocky fun, there's plenty of other empty fun waiting to be consumed.
You must rewatch Groundhog Day. There is no escaping it.
The ending of the "Big Lebowski" turned me off when I saw it in the theater the first time. I was expecting some sort of resolution and looking forward to the final bowling match with Jesus. The film has gotten much better with repeated viewings now that I can enjoy all the great scenes without thinking about how they fit together.
I never tire of watching the classic Humphrey Bogart films, or any of the well made classics. If you can listen to a symphony repeated times, why can't you re-watch a great film?
Some works can be seen or read on different levels. The Lord of the Rings is an example of such a work. Generally, a movie or book has to be accessible on the 1st level -- as a good story for example -- before the viewer or reader can be expected reread and catch the details and, perhaps, additional meanings that were missed the first time around. An actor might make a comment early in the film that foreshadows what's coming later. You won't fully appreciate that comment except on the second viewing. Or, as with the Lord of The Rings, with multiple readings you can see the story as an allegory to Christianity.
Many of today's movies include details that have nothing to do with the story. For example, in a crowd scene an extra might have a spider crawling up her bare leg. Neither the spider, nor the extra, have any role in the story, but there they are in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen drawing attention away from the story. The Big Lebowski is full of these kind of extraneous details. They don't add additional insight to the story nor new meanings. They're merely trivia -- which is fine if that's all you're after.
A Director shouldn’t be making you do that: Life is Short.
Too many notes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU
And the medium as changed. Realistically, how many times were you going to be able to re-watch The Creature from the Black Lagoon when it came out? Now re-watching is assumed, and making a movie that rewards re-watching is solid bank.
The great art form now is the TV series on Cable/Netflix. Some of them take a few episodes to get into and are worth the effort. It took me two tries to get into "Breaking Bad" and some time to get use to the language in the "Wire".
When I first watched "Idiocracy" I thought it was kind of okay, kind of funny. But the next day scene after scene, line after line, came back to me and made me laugh much harder than I did the first time.
This is my strategy for judging movies: if they linger in my thoughts a day later, they're good ... and worthy of re-watch.
I think Garanca is doing mostly concerts now because her kids are little.
I binge read LOTR after reading The Hobbit, still my favorite, in the’70s. I don’t get the movies at all whatsoever. I can’t bring myself to even attempt to watch them again. I haven’t been able to get through even one to the end. So I guess I can see where people are coming from, but re-watching per-se is great. I rewatched Die Hard until it became a spoof of itself, and the black cop seems like he should have been played by OJ, and McCain by Leslie Neilson. I can’t watch it any more though.
I am a book re-reader.
I don't have to totally understand a movie to enjoy it...but if it don't enjoy it, I am not going back to that well to drink again.
Enter 'The Adventures of buckaroo banzai'
What a waste of cellulose.
Enter David Lynch. Saw one (1) Twin Peaks movie. What is the French word for 'overrated'?
My tolerance for post modernistic symbolic dick waving has withered over the years. I will leave it to the Beret Brigade in Academia and the Academy to gush over the willfully obtuse.
Niven's Law: if you have something important to say, say it as clearly as possible. If you have nothing to say, say it any way you want.
Netflix series are what great commercial novels used to be, except the novelist had an incentive to finish.
I binge read LOTR after reading The Hobbit, still my favorite, in the’70s. I don’t get the movies at all whatsoever.
I have not read the books (in contrast to my son, who re-reads them all the time -- or has in the past). The people in my High School who read them were somewhat weird. I liked them (the people) and all, but they were weird. So I didn't read the books, so I could *cough* claim that I wasn't weird.
Nevertheless, Mad Man, the Dude abides.
"I always had to rewatch an episode of "The Sopranos" to understand it. There was too much going on to get it the first time and too much artful ellipsis.
Really dude? You're taking it way too seriously.
Niven's Law: if you have something important to say, say it as clearly as possible. If you have nothing to say, say it any way you want.
What bullshit. What Niven was really saying was that if you want to reach a wide audience, keep it simple. That was his goal. It is also easy to misunderstand “as clearly as possible” It’s like Einstien’s “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” There is a lot of room for complexity there, and maybe some writers want to say complicated things, for whatever reason, to express ideas that are impossible to express simply. Maybe some people enjoy complexity!
It’s like representative art, what was the point after photography? What is the point of a novel that can be translated directly into film? Is it nothing but a script pitch, or is there a reason to write novels for their own sake? Should every novel be reducible to a PowerPoint? “Adaptation” is a movie about trying to adapt the novel, “The Orchid Thief” to the screen, and guess what? It was impossible, so Hollywood cliches were dragooned into service to make it watchable, which the movie made clear.
The lamest defense of any movie is to say "You have to watch it twice to like it"
I dunno about these people who dislike a movie the 1st time but love it the 2nd time.
I have found the LOTR movies -- especially The Fellowship of the Ring -- to be quite unexpectedly rewatchable.
The Pirates of the Caribbean movies -- especially the first three of the series -- are also easy to rewatch. Eye candy, scenery chewing, things blow up.
I'm talking about a rewatch in short period of time.
Its perfectly natural to like/dislike a movie when young, and like/dislike it when you get older. You get more sophisticated and hopefully smarter.
LOTR movies suck compared to the books.
I don't know about Niven's law, but in practice the results seem to be a preemption of Readers Digest. For you, dear reader, I've written without drama, character, complexity, or passion. Enjoy!
Occasionally a great movie shouldn’t be rewatched or it loses its mystique. I made that mistake with the Chris Nolan movie Memento.
LOTR movies suck compared to the books
Same goes for Moby Dick.
I have recently taken to watching a particular documentary film over and over. I feel a bit insane. You know when a 2 year old wants to watch their Little Dinosaur movie daily and endlessly? Yeah well that's me. All I'm missing is the bowl of grapes and pack of cheese strings.
I am currently reading Crime and Punishment. I just started Part 2, post “crime,” or maybe initial crime, IDK, and there is a book that might read better as a Reader’s Digest condensed book. It seems like it is more about ideas than writing, and I find Dostoyevsky to be sort of ham-handed and a bit of a point hammerer. But there are passages of great writing there, no doubt. There are different kinds of novels, that’s for sure, and the style needs to be matched to the real subject of the piece which may not be the implied subject in the blurb on the cover.
Why has no one mentioned 8 1/2? Like Joyce's Ulysses it demands to be experienced more than one time if it is going to be fully enjoyed.
Then there was Last Year at Marienbad, in which a woman leaves her husband for a life of love and adventure with another man. (That's just a joke. I didn't enjoy Marienbad in the least. It was just trying to be difficult.)
I can’t rewatch violent movies. I thought No Country for Old Men was great, but I felt like I got the point of the anti-hero and the hero in the first watching. I can’t bring myself to watch Fargo again, even though I thought it was great. I will never watch Scarface again, even though it was great.
I horrified a first date by suggesting we see No Country for Old Men on my enthusiastic recommendation. He looked at me after and said "You wanted to see that twice?". Ha ha!
Although I consider myself a libertarian with some financial and geo-political conservative tendencies,my taste in comedy runs towards edgy and politically incorrect. The Big Lebowski, like another favorite of mine, The Firesign Theatre, is better with repeated views. A cursory look at a well constructed work is enough for most audiences, however, the better the material, the greater the pleasure in discovering deeper references.
I saw the Big Lebowski many years ago on television. I found it amusing with a few laugh out loud moments.
Fast forward to 2016. The Big L was showing on a local theater. Took our, then 25 year old son ( a movie buff, but he'd never seen this one) and his girl friend.
I enjoyed the movie more than the first time. I really enjoyed hearing their take on the flick.
I feel embarrassed, because I got the Big Lebowski the first time through.
My fiance and I both agreed that the Big Lebowski had to be the most overrated film we'd ever seen. I laughed exactly once, near the beginning ("he said I could take any carpet I want"), and just winced or rolled my eyes for the rest of it. Unwatchable is an apt description. This despite my being positively disposed to it going in due to years of memes from it.
Captain Ron was just on, I watch it every time it comes on. Captain Ron was a “Dudeist” too.
This despite my being positively disposed to it going in due to years of memes from it.
If I want somebody to watch and enjoy a movie, I am extremely careful to avoid overpraising it. Expectations are everything. It’s like that movie Australia, first time I watched it I thought it sucked, but then, when you take it on its own terms, which is more like a Michner novel, like Chesapeake or Centennial, dial back the expectations, it can become enjoyable.
I think it must be easier for a guy to be a “Dudeist” when he is preternaturally good looking, like Jeff Bridges, or Kurt Russel.
Holy crap! Captain Ron is at 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. I guess that means it’s cult movie, and I am a member of a cult.
Some well-known person (a writer, perhaps) asserted that you never really know a book until you've read it twice. The same could be true for movies, though 9 times out of 10 after seeing a movie once I decide that it's not worth seeing a second time. But the best movies reward multiple viewings, as do the best books.
I want to read and watch things that are rereadable/rewatchable. I truly believe that the best movies and writing are better the second time (or third or fourth time).
Me, too. My favorite movies are usually better the second, third or fourth time and I reread favorite books, as well. Usually the reread will reveal something new or I see it from a new perspective. With great movies, one can never grasp all the greatness in one viewing. There are movies from which I know every single line, even, with Tora! Tora! Tora!, the Japanese dialog.
Nevertheless, Mad Man, the Dude abides.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Two meaningless bilge-y sentences.
I thought No Country for Old Men was great, but I felt like I got the point of the anti-hero and the hero in the first watching
Tim, my third viewing was the best. Didn't appreciate it so much the first time. It happens to be a film that must be viewed more than once, IMO.
" So I didn't read the books, so I could *cough* claim that I wasn't weird."
I picked up the first in 1972 in an operating room that was left by a nurse reading it. I read them all and read them to my children.
I have reread them all since but it was a few years ago.
Michael K-
Anna Caterina Antonacci adds some spice and raunch to the Habanera scene in Carmen. I go to this every so often because it amusing and pleasing to watch. I also have an old man’s crush on Anna Caterina Antonacci.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qIIUvyK3PU
It seems pretty obvious that if you want to see a movie more than once, it was because you liked it so much you want to repeat the experience. If on the second watching you see or get more of the meaning, then you made the right call.
Anything by Kubrick, Goodfellas, Laurence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago, TBL, Millers Crossing, Blood Simple, Fight Club, As Good As It Gets, Apocalypse Now! (short version), The Conversation, Pulp Fiction, The Third Man, Touch of Evil, Citizen Kane, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Downfall, The American Friend, Das Boot, The treasure of the Sierra Madre,
The mark of a good movie is that I will watch it all the way through, unlike Atomic Blonde, as the most recent example.
The mark of a great movie is that I want to own it and watch it again and again, like The Big Lebowski, or better yet, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
I recently re-watched an episode of a British cop show, which had a very intricate plot, full of Red Herrings and Switcheroos. The second viewing revealed huge plot holes that were not visible at first. The writers did a good job of pulling the wool over my eyes, but the plot did not withstand review. Well, I enjoyed it the first time, which is one more time than I've enjoyed some other things.
rcocean said...
LOTR movies suck compared to the books.
3/8/18, 11:14 AM
Tolkien's The Children of Hurin (a LOTR prequel) is as good as LOTR, and could conceivably be made into a more faithful screen adaptation than LOTR. There are many more important female characters in The Children of Hurinthan there are in LOTR.
But I've heard that Christopher Tolkien so disliked Jackson's LOTR that he will never again sell the film rights to any of his father's works.
Tim, my third viewing was the best. Didn’t appreciate it so much the first time.
I thought it was great. I just can’t take the violence. It’s too real, even if the guy is sort of a mythic figure, and it’s a kind of allegory. For some reason though, The Terminator , as violent as it is, it’s all cartoon violence, and there is the release at the end of crushing the robot in the machine, (sorry, that was a spoiler) No such catharsis in NCfOM. Maybe that’s the real reason I can’t watch it again, who wants to be dragged into the pit of despair one more time, with no hand up at the end?
I am currently reading Crime and Punishment.
I hope it is the Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky translation. Some translations aren't worth reading.
Never seen the movie. May, some day.
"Maybe, with all your first times, if you're not thinking this is going to be better the second time around, you should bail out of the first time."
That might be more thinking than an overwhelming aesthetic experience can bear the first time through. But recently when watching "The Leopard" for the first time I found myself thinking that every shot was so beautiful and every action, word, and silence so significant that it became three hours of almost unbearable stimulation. I had read the book years before (also great, perhaps especially if you're a man arriving at middle age) so it wasn't the unfolding plot that kept me intrigued, it was the magnificence of the film itself. Afterwards when I read more about it and realized in hindsight that indeed the ballroom scene is every bit as masterful as they say, I knew I would have to watch it again. Ordinarily I wouldn't commit to something so long and intense a second time.
Plenty of "entertainment" movies I've watched more than once, but the iPad is a constant companion during the many lulls of interest that result.
Re-watched David Lynch's "The Straight Story" and found it just as watchable as the first time in the theatre. Sloooow pacing but a good story.
I thought the second session of "True Detective" fell short of the first season but on the second time through I caught the thread TBA held the story together and liked it much more.
'that,' not TBA. Blogger's text covered up the second paragraph.
LOTR movies suck compared to the books
Same goes for Moby Dick.
True for most novels. I think that's true for at least two reasons: First, the scope of a novel can be and should be far larger than what can be depicted in a 2 hour movie. Second, as great as the visuals of a movie are, they're not nearly as good as can be conjured up in our minds by a fine novel.
Moby Dick should be near the top of the list of novels that get better the more it is read. Once you get used to the archaic language, it's not a difficult read. It's a gripping tale, full of details and layers of meanings you'll miss on your first, second, or third times through.
Hmm. Is there any movie that I loathed the first time but liked the second time? Normally, that is not something I would do because why waste time on something that I will not enjoy. The only example I can provide is the movie Starship Troopers. The first time, I was basically begging for it to end as it was such a chore. I have seen it again since and now my opinion is that is still a bad but not abysmal movie filled equally with terrible characters, a mediocre plot, Hollywood tactics, an obvious anti-American bias, and excellent special effects. So on the 1 to 10 scale it moved from a 1 to a 3. That's probably not a useful example.
The problem with reviewers is they have to see every movie as part of the job description. I'm sure that causes biases. I typically do not search out movies I do not want to see.
One media where this does happen to me is music. There are songs that I thought were mediocre or even bad that I like now. Sometimes the brain does not "get it" the first time around and then it grows on me. This sort of change is easier when the media in question is roughly 4 minutes long and is on regular rotation on the radio.
The whole topic of whether one should reread or rewatch something that one didn't enjoy the first time around reminds me of the comment of an unknown critic on Wagner's music: "It's much better than it sounds." Sometimes, oddly enough, that can be true.
The Detective mystery genre frequently needs re-watching. The author/ screen writer tries to hide clues in plain sight that will turn the story at the end. Miss a word and miss the thread.
But good writing has many levels to absorb, and that is all the challenge that we can deal with. But truth in the plot rises to the top in time. (See, Trump,D. j.)
DKWalser wrote: Moby Dick should be near the top of the list of novels that get better the more it is read. Once you get used to the archaic language, it's not a difficult read. It's a gripping tale, full of details and layers of meanings you'll miss on your first, second, or third times through.
100% agreed.
It is important to judge a movie or novel based on what it portends to be. When I was a new English major, I commented to one of my professors that I wouldn't be reading some then popular novel because it wasn't 'literature'. He smiled at my naivete and then taught me an important lesson: He said great literature often make demands of its readers that after a day of work he was unwilling to fulfill. So, his evening reading was usually some escapist thriller that made no pretense of being great literature and made no demands on him as a reader. It simply helped him relax and recharge his batteries for another deep dive into some serious work the following day.
So, there's an important place for movies and novels that do not pretend to be anything but entertainment. Indeed, we could use more of them -- whether they can stand up to a second viewing or not. We have a surfeit of movies that preach rather than entertain. Few find pedantry watchable -- even if they agree with the point being made. If a work can be entertaining while at the same time give some meaningful insight into the human condition, that's rare. So rare that we call it great literature.
Tim in Vermont wrote:
"For some reason though, The Terminator , as violent as it is, it’s all cartoon violence . . ."
James Cameron directed Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2(1991). Both these films are essentially fascist. Everything that is good is accomplished through the use of violence. In T2, when the heroes discover the identity of the man who will (unwittingly) bring Skynet to life, the response of the heroes is to attempt to kill him, not to reason with him. The people who fail in Aliens fail because they did not bring sufficient violence to the problem at hand.
There are some movies that must be watched more than once in order to come to the conclusion that no matter how many times you watch them you will always be left with nagging doubts. 12 monkeys, memento, Brazil. Are on my list. I would happily watched any one of them again given the time and opportunity. Other movies are simply so good that they demand to be watched multiple times, and I believe gain meaning with each viewing. The Shootist, In the heat of the night, and Dr Strangelove fit in that group for me.
One thing a movie can do that a book does not, is music. Check out LOTR Aniron:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMyo8I8AKmY
Written in Sandiran: one of the many Elvish languages Tolkien created. It's sends chills over my body to listen to this hauntingly beautiful music. An experience I want to have many times over, and I defy any to get from the books, except perhaps Enya and lyric writer Roma Ryan.
While more critically acclaimed, "May it be," which has some Quenya (another Tolkien elvish language, according to trusty Wikipedia) gives an amazing feeling if you will let it.
Love the books, having read them many times, but the movies do add to the books, and in more ways than music. The Hobbit movies were trash, of course.
I want to watch Phantom Thread again but I don't want to pay for the second viewing.
I saw Hidden Figures and liked it well enough that I decided to read the book. Books are better than the movies...as a rule. Not Hidden Figures. The book is chockful of interesting history but the author followed too many tangents. When I lost my place in the book and couldn't find it again (did I read this page already? I can't tell because they all are alike), I let it go. The movie wasn't THAT good, anyway. It had Kevin Costner in it.
Rereading and rewatching are a fabulous way to spend time.
I didn't get Les Miz the first time, partly because the sound was coming from above (speakers in the 2nd tier of the KC Opera House. Then I found myself humming a tune some years later and got my sister's cassette.
Saki is well worth rereading, except The Unbearable Bassington, which was unbearable the first time.
Lewis Wetzel said...
Tim in Vermont wrote:
"For some reason though, The Terminator , as violent as it is, it’s all cartoon violence . . ."
James Cameron directed Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2(1991). Both these films are essentially fascist. Everything that is good is accomplished through the use of violence. In T2, when the heroes discover the identity of the man who will (unwittingly) bring Skynet to life, the response of the heroes is to attempt to kill him, not to reason with him. The people who fail in Aliens fail because they did not bring sufficient violence to the problem at hand.
3/8/18, 12:53 PM
I desperately need you to explain why this (a healthy regard and respect for violence as a method of problem-solving) equals fascism. Asimov was wrong! Or rather, the reason that force is the last resort of the incompetent is that only the incompetent waits until the last resort to use force.
I didn't get Les Miz the first time
Read Les Miserables while home sick in my early teens. I found it so absorbing [I should reread it] that I cannot imagine seeing a movie of it. How can one make a movie from a five-volume novel?!
TBL is raved about so much because there is sos little there.
I had to read and re-read Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury before I got it, the first section especially. That was many years ago.
One of the reasons I've never tried to read Joyce's Ulysses or Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is because I perceive (possibly wrongly) that they are difficult to read. Same with Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Perhaps I'm missing out on great works of literature.
They're just not on my bucket list.
LOTR movies suck compared to the books
Same goes for Moby Dick.
True for most novels.
I liked LOTR and The Hobbit and liked the movies, as well. Moby Dick was not a good movie.
The recent movie of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" was good and the TV series, which was much much longer was also very good.
I could see how the writers cut a lot of the Tinker, Tailor story but still did a good movie.
"Smiley's People" and "Lonesome Dove" both showed that a good novel needs more time than a movie can do.
Miniseries, like "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" are excellent productions of long novels. One of my medical students' father was the producer.
I haven't re-read The Sound and The Fury yet, but I did give in to necessity while reading it the first time and found an online study guide. I've started "Absalom, Absalom" twice, making it at least a quarter of the way in both times, but just couldn't finish. But I will! Same thing with Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain." It took several attempts before finally getting it.
Then the question, Althouse's, is when do you know it's worth it to do more than just finish the difficult book, but actually read it again? I don't know that I would try to re-read a book that deliberately makes itself obtuse. That is, if the obtuseness seems to be the point.
"...the reason that force is the last resort of the incompetent is that only the incompetent waits until the last resort to use force."
I think you have confused the meanings of "incompetent" and "prudent." (You probably also probably confuse the meanings of "forceful" and "depraved.")
Look at the ongoing clusterfuck of mass murder and the squandering of trillions of dollars, all set in motion by Bush/Cheney and their precipitous and illegal use of force, and which has served to inflame widespread fear and hatred of the USA in the middle east, creating most of the Islamic terrorists who have appeared post-Iraq.
"One of the reasons I've never tried to read Joyce's Ulysses or Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is because I perceive (possibly wrongly) that they are difficult to read."
Actually, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is very fast, compelling reading.
Faulkner and Pynchon are two I've tried and cannot get through. Joyce I've never tried or wanted to try reading.
"Hmm. Is there any movie that I loathed the first time but liked the second time? Normally, that is not something I would do because why waste time on something that I will not enjoy. The only example I can provide is the movie Starship Troopers. The first time, I was basically begging for it to end as it was such a chore. I have seen it again since and now my opinion is that is still a bad but not abysmal movie filled equally with terrible characters, a mediocre plot, Hollywood tactics, an obvious anti-American bias, and excellent special effects. So on the 1 to 10 scale it moved from a 1 to a 3. That's probably not a useful example."
STARSHIP TROOPERS is a great movie, much better than the book!
Why "anti-American bias?" Did it touch a nerve? It wasn't set in America and the war was fought by "the Federation," presumably a federation of allied planets. Why be so provincial?
It was anti-imperialistic violence, which is certainly an American sin, but it is hardly unique to America.
"Actually, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is very fast, compelling reading."
I might be confusing Kundera with Marcel Proust. Speaking of Proust, it reminds me of the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" which can be watched many times but not because it's necessary to do so to try and understand it. It would be because it is a fun and funny movie. Steve Carell, the number one Proust scholar in the U.S.A.
Robert Cook wrote: "all set in motion by Bush/Cheney and their precipitous and illegal use of force . . ."
If it was illegal, Robert Cook, why aren't they in jail?
Bad Lieutenant wrote:
"I desperately need you to explain why this (a healthy regard and respect for violence as a method of problem-solving) equals fascism."
In both films the violence was instinctual. It was the only way that the heroes (T2 & Sarah Connor, Ripley & Hicks) considered when faced with problems. They weren't forced into using violence as a last means.
There are many definitions of fascism. I used the term "fascism" in my comment as a description of a political system where might is right. In practice communist governments rely on state sanctioned violence, but in theory they are slaves to the dialectic action of history. In fascist governments, violence is self-justifying. The stronger nation wins.
Communists justified their conquest of other nations on the grounds that it was really good for the people of the other nations. The fascists explicitly conquered other nations to put their resources (including people) to work for the betterment of the conqueror.
My first time with Big Lebowski was in the theater, and I left amused but somewhat disappointed. It didn’t seem to have any truly gut-busting moments. But when I caught it on TV years later (uncensored cable showing, a must,) I was hooked immediately. Its humor is conceptual more than performance related, though the performances have to be quite sharp to get the lines right.
It got better with every subsequent viewing. The dialogue is brilliant, when you think about it. The story has “a lot of ins and outs, a lot of what-have-yous.” The Coens don’t always hit home runs but they are indisputable masters of movie comedy. -willie
The movie Starship Troopers was a horrible cartoon shallow freshman poli sci wet dream. The book contained a decent outline of a socially responsible Libertarian philosophy... definitely anti-chickenhawk pro sexual liberation and equality and anti-racist. I concede that Heinlein's blatant unashamed Terra-Centric Speciesism can be a bit uncomfortable for some.
The thing is, this "finding something new" has been picked up by mobs of idiots, who breathlessly tell you how they re-read Harry Potter, say, or Mockingbird, and keep finding something new in it. All the critical tropes and touchstones are subject to this process of dissipation. when i was in college (40-some years ago) I met a guy who said the "test of time" had proved Mickey Spillane was a great artist.
You can find something new in the wallpaper if you stare at it long enough.
Heinlein's blatant unashamed Terra-Centric Speciesism can be a bit uncomfortable for some
Yeah, speaking as a native of Alpha-Centauri I was offended. There was also an unfortunate bipedal bias.
I reread and rewatch plenty. The second to n-th time doesn't have the same feeling, magic if you will, as the first, because it is not new, but there are some stories that I just enjoy on repeat. Do you only listen to a song or musical selection once? Why is rereading and rewatching considered such a strange thing to do.
And, yes, I've watched Big Lebowski several times, I watch Groundhog Day every year on Groundhog Day, I've watched Blade Runner innumerable times. I've read the Lord of The Rings several times, as well as The Illustrated Man, and many of Asimov's stories.
-sw
Althouse says: "One reason to rewatch a movie is that after you see it and think about it, you have some theories and ideas that didn't occur to you at the time, and you go back to see whether your template fits."
Exactly. A few recent examples: "Sicario" and "Hell or High Water", both written by Taylor Sheridan. Second viewing was well rewarded, especially "Sicario". I saw the recent western "Hostiles" twice in a week, partly because it's a great western, but I wanted to focus on the dialogue, not wondering where the plot was going.
"The Long Goodbye" is a 1970s Robert Altman film that bears similarities to the "The BL", in that it's a shaggy dog mystery. Elliot Gould is very dudish in it. Very rewatchable. I've lost count of the number of times I've watched it - sucks me in from the opening scene every time.
They weren't forced into using violence as a last means.
Ripley should have traded the aliens Czechoslovakia for something.
There are, of course, several movies that are better than the books. The original Bond movies (starting with Sean Connery) are an example. But then, that's probably because I found Ian Fleming's Bond novels to be pretty poor examples of the genre. James Bond was/is an interesting character, but Fleming's writing is tedious and he makes it hard to believe what's happening in the stories. Give me one of Alistair MacLean's books instead -- please!
The Bond films were never meant to be taken seriously as a spy thriller (whereas, I believe the books were). They're pure escapism. On that level, they're a lot of fun. (The movies based on MacLean's novels are also better spy thrillers than the bond movies, but they're generally not as much fun. Nor are the movies as good as the books.)
T2 is a different story, but it's worth remembering that Sarah Connor is not portrayed as sympathetic in the assassination attempt. She's portrayed as crazy. It is John Connor that is the sane one.
My first reading of Phillip Schaff's 6 volume history of the Christian Church was enough for me. But I did read Shelby Foote's three volume History of the Civil War three times before giving it to my son. Each time was thoroughly enjoyable.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Read it. It’s a good book and not a difficult read at all, and has a completely different point than the movie.
I finally watched Lebowski this past year. I loved it, especially the john Goodman character, he does rage well, whether as a comedic vehicle or dead serious.
As to re-watching movies I assume everyone watched "The Sixth Sense" a second time to pick up all the clues
(or was that just me?)
Lewis Wetzel said...
Bad Lieutenant wrote:
"I desperately need you to explain why this (a healthy regard and respect for violence as a method of problem-solving) equals fascism."
In both films the violence was instinctual. It was the only way that the heroes (T2 & Sarah Connor, Ripley & Hicks) considered when faced with problems. They weren't forced into using violence as a last means.
Granting the premises of the films, it was the correct instinct, the right way, there were no other means.
--The cyborgs and aliens weren't fighting so that the humans would give them something. You couldn't, lol, give the aliens the Sudetenland.
--You couldn't satisfy the T-1000 by smacking Edward Furlong (John Connor) around a little or cutting off his hand, and I'm not sure you could have got anywhere with Joe Morton (Miles Bennett Dyson) by making an appointment with his assistant's assistant.
--Even if T2 had proved himself in his inimitable fashion, Dyson would have either thought it a trick or otherwise rationalized it away or even tried to seize T2 for research or secret-keeping.
There are many definitions of fascism.
Oh.
I used the term "fascism" in my comment as a description of a political system where might is right.
Oh.
The law of the jungle is the natural state of man. The edifice of civilization that raises us above this level is much to be admired, but not taken for granted.
In practice communist governments rely on state sanctioned violence, but in theory they are slaves to the dialectic action of history. In fascist governments, violence is self-justifying. The stronger nation wins.
Oh, like in WWII. If violence, meanwhile, had been applied in 1936 during the Ruhr crisis, Hitler would have died of syphilis in an asylum.
Communists justified their conquest of other nations on the grounds that it was really good for the people of the other nations. The fascists explicitly conquered other nations to put their resources (including people) to work for the betterment of the conqueror.
Well, the Weyland-Yutani Corp wished to capture aliens for research and development, and Dyson the same with the magically found arm and CPU of T1. So Ripley and the Connors were in this sense anti-fascist.
3/8/18, 2:36 PM
Henry said...
T2 is a different story, but it's worth remembering that Sarah Connor is not portrayed as sympathetic in the assassination attempt. She's portrayed as crazy. It is John Connor that is the sane one.
3/8/18, 3:10 PM
In T2, she's portrayed as crazy, because nobody believes in cyborgs. Since cyborgs do, however, exist, everybody needs to reconceptualize. Just like before/after every flipping discovery ever.
Phil 3:14: As to re-watching movies I assume everyone watched "The Sixth Sense" a second time to pick up all the clues
(or was that just me?)
You're not the only one. :) I wouldn't say you "have" to watch it a second time to understand it, but - really - it's a different movie the second time you watch it.
More specifically, it's a different movie if you already know the ending than it is if you don't already know.
@MadisonMan, your clarification in the comments is appreciated. The problem I’m having with thIs discussion lies with the word “understand”. It assumes too much from a work of art. I’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey at least 5 times since 1991, when I was 20 years old and really getting into film history. I’m still not sure I totally “understand” the film - what the heck is the Star Child at the end anyway? But I know I have always loved it start to finish despite all the moments of whosiwhatsis. It’s a work of genius, it points at something mysterious and out of reach. I get a similar feeling when I read James Joyce, though the type of understanding seems more inwardly directed. Joyce seems to understand people in a compelling way that is still just out of reach for me. -willie
Lewis Wetzel said...
Bad Lieutenant wrote:
"I desperately need you to explain why this (a healthy regard and respect for violence as a method of problem-solving) equals fascism."
In both films the violence was instinctual. It was the only way that the heroes (T2 & Sarah Connor, Ripley & Hicks) considered when faced with problems. They weren't forced into using violence as a last means.
You might as well say the CA penal system was fascist for not letting Sarah Connor out, even using force to restrain her, when she really, really needed to get out of the asylum for a most excellent reason.
@Bad Lieutenant -- I think the movie clearly portrays her as the most extreme member of the Sarah-John-Terminator trio and not the model for human behavior.
Communists justified their conquest of other nations on the grounds that it was really good for the people of the other nations. The fascists explicitly conquered other nations to put their resources (including people) to work for the betterment of the conqueror.
Also, this just makes honest fascists look better than hypocritical communists.
Henry said...
@Bad Lieutenant -- I think the movie clearly portrays her as the most extreme member of the Sarah-John-Terminator trio and not the model for human behavior.
3/8/18, 3:40 PM
I'm not saying she wasn't a little strung out, but consider what she had been through. Who was the hero, the whiny kid? I wouldn't concede any of the three supremacy.
Remember, in the first one they thought Michael Biehn was cuckoo too.
I’m not saying she wasn't a little strung out, but consider what she had been through.
The story, as concieved, ended with the end of the first movie. The rest could have been just as easily called T2, The Quest for Cash, and T3, Keep on Milkin’ So discussing the characters in sequels in Hollywood, is probably pointless.
I don't know, I thought "Primer" was a whale of a movie, despite the enormous complexity of the time "loops" and how they interact.
Tim in Vermont said...
I’m not saying she wasn't a little strung out, but consider what she had been through.
The story, as concieved, ended with the end of the first movie. The rest could have been just as easily called T2, The Quest for Cash, and T3, Keep on Milkin’ So discussing the characters in sequels in Hollywood, is probably pointless.
3/8/18, 3:46 PM
Oh, well if you're just a hater...The sequel was clearly set up with them finding the scraps. She made no sign that the crisis was averted, merely went off to Mexico to have her savior-baby and train him up for the big blow-off. Killing T1 didn't stop Skynet or Judgment Day, just enabled the continuation of the seed of their eventual defeat.
Maybe the last Terminator film will have Skynet decide to behave because it figures out it will always be defeated.
AS to the Terminator series (which I liked) my big beef and a problem for many time travel movies (except "Back to the future") is that once the future world doesn't immediately change when you send the Terminator back in time you know it didn't work. and so you would send another one back.
Instead it plays from the time perspective of the past (people age, they get put in an asylum etc.) The future world robots were relentless (as was the Terminator). Logically they would have immediately sent another (and another and another...) one back, (without or without "liquid metal" composition).
Tim, my third viewing was the best. Didn't appreciate it so much the first time. It happens to be a film that must be viewed more than once, IMO.
My wife simply cannot watch No Country for Old Men whereas I stop to watch it every time I happen to be flipping channels.
I seem to pick up a new tidbit each time that I hadn't really noticed before. By 2026, I should have it all figured out.
Maybe the last Terminator film will have Skynet decide to behave because it figures out it will always be defeated.
Didn't Matthew Broderick already do that in War Games?
Look at the ongoing clusterfuck of mass murder and the squandering of trillions of dollars, all set in motion by Bush/Cheney and their precipitous and illegal use of force, and which has served to inflame widespread fear and hatred of the USA in the middle east, creating most of the Islamic terrorists who have appeared post-Iraq.
As opposed to the Islamic terrorists who appeared after 1948 and 1979 and all those other times.
Cookie, you are a riot.
Re-read great works of literature?? Re-watch movies?? I am too busy re-reading old blog posts.
Logically they would have immediately sent another (and another and another...) one back, (without or without "liquid metal" composition).
Didn't Matthew Broderick already do that in War Games?
Skynet kept trying to commit suicide and the Connors kept stopping it.
I have read "Atlas Shrugged" twice and listened to it three times on CD over the last 35 years. It's long and exhausting (50 cds), but well worth the effort. I pick up nuances that seem evermore prescient. It brings me more joy each time.
I will be driving down to the Tucson area in June. Guess what I will be listening to?
BTW, Thanks to Michael K. and crosse for the Elina Garanaca links. I had never heard of her before. Now I am enamored.
Comrade Cookie's posts may be confusing some of you because it would seem from what he's posted above that he's against the use of force. I doubt this very much. He's no doubt all for the use of force when it comes from enlightened people such as himself ("the Anointed," to use Thomas Sowell's terminology, and if it's for own good and the good of society.
You know, like the estimated 150,000,000 to 350,000,000 slaughtered by his beloved, Der Staat, in the 20th Century alone. (Not counting war casualties.) I'm sure each and every man, woman and child in that body count were "enemies of the People" or some such.
**Once Upon a Time in the West - classic, epic
**The Big Sleep - classic
**The Godfather - classic (in fact, it was not until about the 50th viewing that I started noticing all of the oranges and the color orange and its significance)
The all time greatest re-watch is "The Wizard of Oz" All boomer kids watched this one each year, it was a community event. When four it is scary, when 10 it is a joke, when 13 you watch the cinematography and speculate about how they displayed auntie M in a crystal ball. With a few cues I could recite 40% of the dialog from memory. Learned more about framing and camera dynamics than I would have as a "Film" undergrad.
The reason to rewatch TBL is for the jokes. The are very hard to get in the first viewing because you are just trying to figure out what is happening but they are very clever, hilarious and enlightening in a very Dudeist way. I’ve watched it numerous times and I always see something new. I got my husband to finally watch it after raving about its marvels and he hated it. Haven’t yet convinced him that HE is the problem and not the movie. ASerious Man is another Coen movie that rewards multiple views
Thanks to Michael K. and crosse for the Elina Garanaca links. I had never heard of her before. Now I am enamored.
There is a fantastic DVD of Carmen with her doing it with black hair. It's terrific but not while driving.
She also did the aria from Barber of Seville, which we saw last Saturday in Tucson.
Blogger dustbunny said...
ASerious Man is another Coen movie that rewards multiple views.
As Gopnik goes up the hierarchy of rabbis to find someone who can help him with his problems, he finds the rabbis more Jewish & less comprehensible. That is hilarious in a peculiarly Jewish way.
Blogger Bad Lieutenant said...
. . .
Also, this just makes honest fascists look better than hypocritical communists.
I agree. The Nazis were very clear about killing you because you were in their way & they could do it. They didn't expect you to see the sense of it. when you read the wartime letters of committed nazis, they thought that it was either you or them.
The commies killed people for the good of humanity. There is an absolutism in communism that there is not in fascism. I suppose that is part of its appeal.
I hear people complain about simple-minded and dumb "Leave it to Beaver" is.
Of course, it's those things. It's written from the POV of a 7-year-old boy. That's why the parents are hardly ever wrong.
A lot of people didn't understand that.
Ok. I think we can safely dispense with losing this milquetoast "MadisonMan" guy and take the 85%+ viewers and critics who love the movie instead.
It's hilarious. So many ideas, so languidly interwoven into each other. A classic masterpiece for anyone who doesn't hate American pop culture - like Coen films in general.
My Personal Coen Bros. Ranking System. Your results may vary.
1. Raising Arizona
2. Fargo
3. The Big Lebowski
4. The Hudsucker Proxy
5. Intolerable Cruelty
6. Blood Simple
7. Burn After Reading
8. O Brother Where Art Thou?
9. Barton Fink
10. No Country for Old Men
11. True Grit
12. A Serious Man
13. Miller's Crossing
14. The Man Who Wasn't There
15. The Ladykillers
16. Hail, Caesar!
I have not seen Inside Llewyn Davis yet.
Ward Cleaver is almost always wrong. But that doesn't stop him from hollering at Beaver and Wally.
I rarely find I'd need to "re-watch" a movie. But with Big Lebowski as an example, that flick just coats you in ingenious depictions of pop culture tropes. The angry Sobczak dude with the buzz cut and gun and the Vietnam-oriented eulogies of a surfer-bowler. It draws you in and melts like butter into the unfilled cracks of misunderstanding of Americana. It's so smooth that, as with any good movie, you don't need to watch it again - but it's easy to do so. You might just walk by a tv playing it during any particular scene, and you're drawn back in to how cool that scene was. It can be any scene, and in all likelihood you like so many of them so much that before you know it you've stayed to watch the next scene, and then the next. And before you know it you just saw the whole latter 2/3rds of the film all over again.
The last one, genesis, atleast embraces Hugh Everett multiverse, in the vpoivr of skynet possessed John Connor (Jason Clarke) otherwise its a sudden mess. The younger version of Sarah (emilia Clarke) doesn't work either.
Eddie Haskell is one of the great characters in TV history.
I'm far from a Coen fanatic but True Grit was a really good one, too. (And less intentionally humorous). I think that movie marked the transition of Jeff Bridges into his present, slow-talking, hyper salivating wiry older dude state.
It was a variation on the big sleep, the elements Howard hawks couldn't accommodate in the Hayes code environment. The blackmail e
Cement certainly.
In True Grit Bridges becomes a heroic version of the Sam Elliot character from Lebowski.
I was expecting someone to paraphrase The Big Lebowski and state
"SHUT THE F**K UP TTR"
I suspect I might like the "Big Lebowski" if I could avoid falling asleep while watching it. (Tried twice, snoozing both times halfway through.)
In TBL, you are told in the beginning that Sobchak is some kind of crazy militant Jew, but partway through the film it is revealed that Sobchak is a Jewish convert from Catholicism, and that he seems to holding onto his Jewishness because he has an unhealthy attachment to his Jewish ex-wife.
When you see the movie the second time, you know this from the beginning, so your assessment of the Sobchak character is different.
If I want somebody to watch and enjoy a movie, I am extremely careful to avoid overpraising it.
Nothing is more painful or uncomfortable than to show a movie you love to friends and realize 20 minutes into the film that they hate it and will continue to hate it and there is nothing you can do but suffer knowing that you have ruined their evening.
One of the delights of teaching literature for a living was rereading classic works of literature each time I taught them. With the best works, I discovered more with each reading. My list is endless, I taught "Walden," Hawthorne's novels and short stories, Hemingway's novels, Dickinson's poetry, Melville's novels, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, Willa Cather's novels, Twain's novels, "Beowulf," "The Canterury Tales," "The Icelandic Sagas" Arthurian romances, and many others. Most of these works deserved multiple readings. In most cases, each reading yielded more insights and deeper levels of understanding. It is hard to reread The Canterbury Tales," for instance, without moving deeper into the complexities of
Chaucer's late fourteenth-century world. Its even more enriching to read it in the original Middle English to immerse oneself in the history of English.
There are two movies that come to mind as examples of movies that I didn't like 95% of the way through and then in the last 5 minutes something happens that totally changes my view of the movie and my view of what I had seen for the previous two hours.
One is "Grand Illusion" and the other is "Godsford Park", in which the murderer is revealed and then when you rewatch it, you wonder how you missed all of the clues.
Blogger Josephbleau said...
The all time greatest re-watch is "The Wizard of Oz" All boomer kids watched this one each year, it was a community event. When four it is scary, when 10 it is a joke, when 13 you watch the cinematography and speculate about how they displayed auntie M in a crystal ball.
And then the shock comes when you're adult and you realize that Glinda was the real truly evil character in the movie and that all of Dorthy's adventures were part of Glinda's elaborate plot to seize power in Oz by getting rid of the Witch of the West and the Wizard.
Blogger PackerBronco said...
And then the shock comes when you're adult and you realize that Glinda was the real truly evil character in the movie and that all of Dorthy's adventures were part of Glinda's elaborate plot to seize power in Oz by getting rid of the Witch of the West and the Wizard.
I'd heard that in Indiana Jones:Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy changes nothing -- the action of the movie (Nazi's get ark & then die) would have been the same if Indy had never left his college campus.
I rewatched it. It's true.
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