Perhaps the more precise words would have been "sucking up", which is what was being done by the makers of The Graduate to their target demographic.

Or, the makers of that film could have honestly felt they had a point. Ad hominem sub rosa of this sort doesn't ever get to the real esthetic issue. You might even say, it's just a way of holding that issue off at arm's lenght. Of never coming to terms with it. The real question is what is the movie's appeal, and is that appeal legitimate--does it connect to reality, to the human condition, in some way that tells us something about that.

You have Charlize Theron, who is not only a great, Oscar-winning actress, she is one of the most beautiful women in the world. Totally wasted. A team of space adventurers terrorized by...black dripping goo. OK. It did feature one of the most shocking, visceral movie scenes I have ever seen, but left my cold.

I liked how the two weenies of the team, who had thus far been solely characterized by their cowardice suddenly turn into trusting, oblivious morons when presented with an actual, dangerous-looking alien.

It is funny how movie threads always turn into parallel conversations which have very little point of contact. A fun project would be, everyone who listed their favourite movies of 2012 should watch the top 3 movies from Andy or Morty's Sturges' lists, and anyone listing Sturges movies should watch the top 3 from one of the 2012 lists. I realize there's a not-insignificant number of people who will be familiar with both groups of movies, but it would be a fun exercise in bringing together the two conversations.

I've only really watched pre-60s movies piece-meal (and sparsely). It's such a wide ocean that I'm ignorant of that I end up dipping my toe in random places and being met with irregular results. In the past couple years I've watched His Girl Friday , Kid Galahad with Bogart and Edward G Robinson, Notorious, Kind Hearts and Coronets, It's a Wonderful Life (though that one is an annual thing since I was a kid). I like some, and seem to really miss others, and don't feel like I've developed any ability to select ones I'll enjoy.

I imagine it's a similar feeling when presented with contemporary movies...there's good and there's bad and wading into it and separating the two through trial and error is daunting.

Tarantino's pop culture references in his films--all of them.

It's not my term. I didn't first use the term "pander", but if you do, you're stuck with it, unless you retract it, or explain it away. I don't know where you're getting that defintion of "pandering", but it's not the conventional one, #196.

I'll never win a dictionary duel with anyone on BTF. I distinguish between trying to "pander" to a target demographic (or to multiple demographics) by "giving the people what they like", and sucking up to a particular demographic's high opinion of itself. The former phenomenon is nearly universal in movies, the latter blessedly not nearly so much, but it came to perhaps its fullest flowerhood in The Graduate.

Or, the makers of that film could have honestly felt they had a point.

It's entirely possible that they swallowed their own Kool-Aid. Artists often do.

The real question is what is the movie's appeal

If you can't figure out that The Graduate's appeal was to the generational vanity of its target demographic, then I think we were watching different movies.

and is that appeal legitimate

Sure, if that sort of simplistic messagemongering, amplified by a cloying soundtrack, appeals to you, but I say it's spinach and the hell with it. Clearly we're operating from two different premises regarding the merits of this movie, and I doubt if there's anything more to it than the good old YMMV. I'm certainly not trying to claim any "objective" viewpoint about The Graduate; I simply found it quite subjectively to be a steaming pile of pretension.

I've only really watched pre-60s movies piece-meal (and sparsely). It's such a wide ocean that I'm ignorant of that I end up dipping my toe in random places and being met with irregular results.

You're probably aware of them, but 12 Angry Men and Double Indemnity are both in my top 10. I love Hitchcock movies. I saw a Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein double feature in theaters a couple of months back, that was fun.

I'm picturing this same debate happening in 2040 with The Graduate being replaced with Superbad.

Or was I the only one who felt that movie perfectly captured the essence of my generation?

You're probably aware of them, but 12 Angry Men and Double Indemnity are both in my top 10.

12 Angry Men is definitely on my rental list. I should add Double Indemnity.

One of my most painful film experiences was seeing the glorious Jessica Lange age. I caught her for some reason in 2007's Sybil after not seeing her in anything since Tootsie and Frances. The change in her looks was literally horrifying. Same kind of thing with Faye Dunaway, whose plastic surgery left her unrecognizable.

She still looked damn good in that Titus (Andronicus) adaptation from 1999. So whatever happened, must've happened after that.
King Kong-era JL, well... nobody could stay looking that good, could they?

It is funny how movie threads always turn into parallel conversations which have very little point of contact. A fun project would be, everyone who listed their favourite movies of 2012 should watch the top 3 movies from Andy or Morty's Sturges' lists, and anyone listing Sturges movies should watch the top 3 from one of the 2012 lists. I realize there's a not-insignificant number of people who will be familiar with both groups of movies, but it would be a fun exercise in bringing together the two conversations.

I agree completely with your idea. I used to go to new movies much more often when my shop was half a block away from the best "art" multiplex in the DC area, but that was when I had a guaranteed parking space in my building. There actually are a fair number of recent movies I'd like to see and almost certainly will when they get released to Netflix.

I've only really watched pre-60s movies piece-meal (and sparsely). It's such a wide ocean that I'm ignorant of that I end up dipping my toe in random places and being met with irregular results. In the past couple years I've watched His Girl Friday , Kid Galahad with Bogart and Edward G Robinson, Notorious, Kind Hearts and Coronets, It's a Wonderful Life (though that one is an annual thing since I was a kid). I like some, and seem to really miss others, and don't feel like I've developed any ability to select ones I'll enjoy.

A one year sub to TCM's program guide costs $12.95, and it will make your picking and choosing a thousand times easier, since each monthly issue lists the plot summaries and main stars of every movie being shown. I mentioned it earlier, but TCM is like a YouTube channel that has many thousands of full game baseball videos going back to the Dead Ball era. Before long you get away from the movies you've heard of, and that's when you really begin to understand TCM's appeal. There's nothing like it anywhere else on TV, and there's not a single commercial interruption of any film.

Or was I the only one who felt that movie perfectly captured the essence of my generation?

Thinking about Jonah Hill kicking that soccer ball still makes me smile all these years later. Good luck to your generation and its green foamy beer.

If you can't figure out that The Graduate's appeal was to the generational vanity of its target demographic, then I think we were watching different movies.

Okay, I'll bite: what is that vanity, and why is that so wrong to do? Why is it so pretentious?

Is it different, and more reprehensible than, say, Andy Hardy? Dobie Gillis? June Allyson/Peter Lawford college musicals? Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "I know what--let's put on a show"? The Our Gang shorts? What does it get you to argue aesthetics in terms of pandering to a select group, generational or otherwise?

Another project idea!

A couple years ago I organized a "Great Movie Tournament" among friends. 64 movies selected partly by critics lists, imdb.com rating, and personal favourites from participants. Every week we'd watch two and vote on a winner to advance. The project had some flaws in that in order to get enough people to join in we had to let in some rather dubious "personal favourites". I'm not saying I'm any great evaluator of film...but I feel pretty comfortable in saying Patch Adams is not one of the best 64 movies of all time.

I don't think it's a feasible plan in this community, but with the wide range of thoughtful takes on various movies in this thread, I think I'd love to read a long-running round-table of comparative reviews here.

A one year sub to TCM's program guide costs $12.95, and it will make your picking and choosing a thousand times easier, since each monthly issue lists the plot summaries and main stars of every movie being shown. I mentioned it earlier, but TCM is like a YouTube channel that has many thousands of full game baseball videos going back to the Dead Ball era. Before long you get away from the movies you've heard of, and that's when you really begin to understand TCM's appeal. There's nothing like it anywhere else on TV, and there's not a single commercial interruption of any film.

My mom actually has TCM (which is where I see most of my movies from that era). I don't actually have a TV at home, so I do most of my movie watching online. The advantage of older movies is also that they are so much more cheaper, and easy, to access.

It is funny how movie threads always turn into parallel conversations which have very little point of contact. A fun project would be, everyone who listed their favourite movies of 2012 should watch the top 3 movies from Andy or Morty's Sturges' lists, and anyone listing Sturges movies should watch the top 3 from one of the 2012 lists. I realize there's a not-insignificant number of people who will be familiar with both groups of movies, but it would be a fun exercise in bringing together the two conversations.

That would be interesting, providing there would, and could, be a dialogue afterwards. The problem with discussions of movies, and other pop culture, is that the main criteris of excellence is YMMV or to each his own or we'll just have to agree to disagree. It's not just creationists who spend all their grownup life trying to forget, or not use, anyway (because it's too hard), what they supposedly learn in 16 plus years of education.

If you can't figure out that The Graduate's appeal was to the generational vanity of its target demographic, then I think we were watching different movies.


Okay, I'll bite: what is that vanity, and why is that so wrong to do? Why is it so pretentious?

Let's just say that different people have different reactions to the same movie, and leave it at that. This is one of those cases where the only honest reply is "If you have to ask, you'll never know."

Is it different, and more reprehensible than, say, Andy Hardy? Dobie Gillis? June Allyson/Peter Lawford college musicals? Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "I know what--let's put on a show"?

I doubt it, since there's no cartoon generational villain used as a foil in those films. Although if you want to take every last one of them and start a bonfire, I'll be glad to provide a blowtorch.

The Our Gang shorts?

See above, although in this case I love them.

What does it get you to argue aesthetics in terms of pandering to a select group, generational or otherwise?

Morty, all I'm really doing is expressing my honest opinion about a movie I loathed in an admittedly subjective and possibly offensive way, at least if you identify with The Graduate. I'll let you claim all the victories you want when it comes to trying to pin me in a corner beyond that.

The advantage of older movies is also that they are so much more cheaper, and easy, to access.

Yes, and let me also admit that nowadays I mostly see my movies online, mostly on youtube.

The good thing about getting into watching old movies is that you can more objectively judge them since you are not seeing them in the midst of the cultural clutter from which they emanated. Time and the winnowing process that establishes a classic has done a lot of the critical heavy lifting for you. On the other hand, there is that divorce from the culture you are in, which is why it's probablly taken up by old farts like me--although I have interject here that I had always loved old movies, even when I was a kid in the mid and late '50s, early '60s, watching late '30s and '40s and, yes, some '50s, movies at the Big 2 Feature in Eunice, LA, on Saturday afternoons. I much preferred, say, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (stetson across heart) westerns than the Gunsmoke, Trackdown, Wanted-Dead or Alive, yes, even Have Gun--Will Travel (not the Garner Mavericks, though) that was on TV at the time.

Morty, all I'm really doing is expressing my honest opinion about a movie I loathed in an admittedly subjective and possibly offensive way, at least if you identify with The Graduate. I'll let you claim all the victories you want when it comes to trying to pin me in a corner beyond that.

I genuinely don't want to give you a hard time for a hard time's sake--you're my cohort here when it comes to old movies, so I'll drop it. "Why" with me is like boot to a dog. I never can leave it alone. And I don't care for The Graduate that much.

That would be interesting, providing there would, and could, be a dialogue afterwards. The problem with discussions of movies, and other pop culture, is that the main criteris of excellence is YMMV or to each his own or we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Unfortunately, beyond a certain point, when you don't "agree to disagree" about movies, you wind up just talking past each other. The only way I could likely explain my particular taste in movies is by providing my entire life story, and perhaps my parents' life stories as well. What our life experience brings to our taste in movies (as in politics) is infinitely more important than what we ever read in some dog-eared Pauline Kael or Andrew Sarris anthology. I am not a film critic and have no real interest in being one, but I am interested in watching tons of movies, reacting to them, and thinking about how they were seen within the context of the time they were released and (in many cases) re-released. But that's a political thought, not an aesthetic one.

I'm more interested in what lives and why it lives.

The only way I could likely explain my particular taste in movies is by providing my entire life story, and perhaps my parents' life stories as well. What our life experience brings to our taste in movies (as in politics) is infinitely more important than what we ever read in some dog-eared Pauline Kael or Andrew Sarris anthology. I am not a film critic and have no real interest in being one, but I am interested in watching tons of movies, reacting to them, and thinking about how they were seen within the context of the time they were released and (in many cases) re-released. But that's a political thought, not an aesthetic one.

Although I imagine we are watching different movies, this very closely mirrors my attitude towards movies.

I genuinely don't want to give you a hard time for a hard time's sake--you're my cohort here when it comes to old movies, so I'll drop it. "Why" with me is like boot to a dog. I never can leave it alone.

Okay, and in that spirit I'll give you the down and dirty.

1. I hate Simon and Garfunkel. Way too girly-girly a sound for my taste.

2. I don't like Dustin Hoffman types, at least the type he played in that film. "Compact little men" was what we used to call them.

3. I don't like the social milieu of the movie.

4. And I don't like movies that suck up to their target demographic, as this one did in spades.

It may be a great turning point in the history of the "cinema", according to the critics I pay no attention to. It may "define a generation", though IMO that's a slander. It may be the film that made Dustin Hoffman's career. It may have made its makers many millions. And it did have Anne Bancroft, whom I've since learned to appreciate in more than a few other films such as Don't Bother to Knock and A Life in the Balance. But it's still a steaming pile of ####.

Although I imagine we are watching different movies, this very closely mirrors my attitude towards movies.

I don't see how it can't, at least for someone who's not a professional critic, and even there I've got to believe there's often a political factor (in the broad sense of the term) at work.

BTW the movie beginning now on TCM, Life Begins, is a gem, starring Loretta Young. I also like it as a side note because it takes place in the NYC hospital where I was born.

The advantage of older movies is also that they are so much more cheaper, and easy, to access.

I'd tell you how much I paid to see movies last year, but I don't want to bring the wrath of DMN upon me.

A one year sub to TCM's program guide costs $12.95, and it will make your picking and choosing a thousand times easier, since each monthly issue lists the plot summaries and main stars of every movie being shown. I mentioned it earlier, but TCM is like a YouTube channel that has many thousands of full game baseball videos going back to the Dead Ball era. Before long you get away from the movies you've heard of, and that's when you really begin to understand TCM's appeal. There's nothing like it anywhere else on TV, and there's not a single commercial interruption of any film.

I just look through the descriptions on TiVo when I get a chance, and record things with interesting titles or plots. Other times it will be ones that I've heard of but never seen. There was an odd one, Slim, starring Henry Fonda that was all about lineman work, as in Wichita Lineman. There certainly used to be a greater variety of stories out there, not all of this nerd fanservice crap.

I tend to get easily annoyed by movie characters who don't realize how good they have it.

Guy from 1850 - "You have movies? Moving pictures?"

BTW the movie beginning now on TCM, Life Begins, is a gem, starring Loretta Young. I also like it as a side note because it takes place in the NYC hospital where I was born.

Interesting film, given Loretta's own maternity situation a few years later (although here her character is married, albeit a convicted murderer). And Glenda Farrell was her usual wonderful self, as an unmarried showgirl expecting twins. (Warners pre-Codes always benefited from the presence of Farrell or good friend Joan Blondell, delightful actresses with sex appeal who could bridge the gap between star and supporting player. BTW, TCM is showing the Torchy Blane series of movies -- murder mysteries involving a reporter, usually played by Farrell -- at noon Saturdays ET over the next few weeks.)

No one involved with that movie was a baby boomer. It's funny how the generation, or sub-generation, between the "greateest" generation and the boomer generation never gets credit (or blame) as a whole generation (like the Boomers and the GG do) for their indispensable efforts in commencing the revolutionary '60s. The boomers were the receivers, the consumers, of what that in-between generation of Lennon/Dylan/Coppola/Scorsese/Hoffman etc. wrought and purveyed.

But that's almost always true of art, and sports for that matter. The core audience for any musician is usually a few years younger than the musician, not the musician's peer group. The musician's peer group has already latched onto other, older, artists by the time the musician makes the big time.

In the past couple years I've watched His Girl Friday , Kid Galahad with Bogart and Edward G Robinson, Notorious, Kind Hearts and Coronets, It's a Wonderful Life (though that one is an annual thing since I was a kid).

Kind Hearts & Coronets belongs in my earlier fave-films-ever round-up. As does, mentioned elsewhere, Frances. (About 10 years ago, when the crew for Big Fish -- filmed locally, & including a cameo by my back yard in a ballgame scene shot at the junior high field I live right next to -- was headquartered right across the street from a restaurant a friend & I were eating at, I noticed Sam Shepherd dining a few tables away & took the occasion to tell him how much I loved him in that movie. Of course, I later regretted having cost myself a chance to accrue hipster points by invoking something like Cowboy Mouth instead.)

Does anyone else find the central relationships in The Graduate kind of creepy

I think that's kind of the point of the movie :)

I can see why The Graduate is a perfect storm for Andy-hatred (as itemized in #221), and well, fair enough. And we probably all have movies from the canon that we just can't stand for one reason or another. For me (getting ready to duck and run here) watching Godfather II is like watching paint dry in slow motion. Much of the dialogue is mumbled, in Sicilian, or both. The protagonist, interesting in the original Godfather because he's caught between two worlds, inexorably loses my sympathy as the second film drags on. Diane Keaton : me :: Anne Bancroft : Andy. And so forth … but one still sees why these films are canonical, IOW why a bunch of other people like them, even if one can't sign on.

Diane Keaton : me :: Anne Bancroft : Andy.

*gasp* You are dead to me. Diane Keaton in the various Woody Allen movies & Reds=pretty much my perfect woman. Wife No. 2 sort of resembled her, even.

(As is Andy. Anne Bancroft gets points she might not otherwise receive because she was the mother of Max Brooks, author of World War Z, & also shares [minus a few decades] my birthday, as does Roddy McDowall.)

Diane Keaton : me :: Anne Bancroft : Andy. And so forth … but one still sees why these films are canonical, IOW why a bunch of other people like them, even if one can't sign on.

Wait, I hope you're not thinking I hate Anne Bancroft. Maybe I should put it another way.

Anne Bancroft: The Graduate = Steve Carlton: 1972 Phillies.

Diane Keaton in the various Woody Allen movies & Reds=pretty much my perfect woman.

I recently saw "Annie Hall" for the first time. It really is amazing how influential that movie apparently is for the romantic comedy genre. And a little bit the Magic Pixie Dream Girl thing. Speaking of which, did anyone see Ruby Sparks? I thought it could have been a really good movie along those lines if it embraced its dark side a little more.

228:

Of course.

It nevertheless needs to be pointed out; otherwise some act and talk as if each generation creates itself ex nihilo, had no mothers/fathers, older brothers/sisters.

A whole bunch of different types, coming from different places (literally and emotionally), goes into creating an era. Until the late '70s, the creative/production side of the culture of the radical '60s that extended well into the '70s is represented by people born mostly in the late '30s, early '40s. Those going to Vietnam, or avoiding going to Vietnam, those concerned about race, those dropping out and tuning in, man (until the late '70s--early '80s when they got out of awareness and into money), were not, for the most part, the high-profile cultural creators but were the on-the-ground market (and as we know they great consumer matrixes are not simply passive recipients of what’s offered, but create demand) that the creators (cultural capitalists in a sense) respond to. Or else.

But there's more of continuous unbroken linkage than many would have you think. The Beats than the hippies, Brando then Dean, Elvis then the Beatles. Dylan has come to be seen as a signature counter-culture figure, maybe the most significant one, but he is also a transition figure--the last Beat, the first Hippie, however reluctant and maverick he essentially always has been when it comes to becoming mainstream acceptable, being part of any organizational consensus (what does Baez say his response was usually when she wanted him to attend some protest--nah, I got something else I want to do).

Andy is no longer dead to me. On life-support, maybe (mainly for making me regret giving up cable 9 years ago by his constant extolling of the virtues of TCM, which of course I partook of frequently back in the day) ...

Actually, IIRC, back when I first had cable starting in '85 (dropped it in '90, got it back in early '02, dropped it for good -- so far -- as noted 3 years later), AMC featured vintage movies without ads for about half a day, with the other half of that place on the dial devoted to infomercials or such. Might've been a totally local setup in that regard, though.

Not that I have any idea of whether AMC even still exists.

Speaking of which, did anyone see Ruby Sparks? I thought it could have been a really good movie along those lines if it embraced its dark side a little more.

I saw it a month ago on a plane. I really enjoyed it - to some degree, it's an intellectual exercise. What if we wrote a movie that seemed like a quirky romantic comedy and then you discovered gradually that it was actually a horror movie told from the point of view of the monster? I thought the level of darkness was actually exactly right. It's not supposed to be obviously dark for a while.

Except for the ending. WTF was that? Did the movie not realize it had turned into a horror movie? (I've read that Zoe Kazan - the writer and star - had a different ending and this one got forced on her by the studio. I can imagine someone at the studio not wanting to accept the movie they'd made, perhaps.)

Also, I just saw Django Unchained last night. Highly recommended.

AMC is now a channel that produces television shows. Mad Men, Breaking Bad and at least one other popular one. When they do show movies, it's not good ones. Last night I saw an ad promoting them showing Bring It On this weekend.

Ah, my bad, Andy, I misread the Anne Bancroft sentiment.

And I don't totally dislike Diane Keaton. She's funny in Love & Death. And I do like both Annie Hall and Manhattan, though I think the point of both films for me is that love strikes unpredictably and that most relationships are bad—or if not 100% bad (did Allen once say that sex, like pizza, is pretty good at its worst?), then fraught with the constant realization that being in love is a matter of a mutual inability to figure out what either person sees in the other. Keaton's character is so annoying in both films that it works fairly well along those lines for me. Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan is even more annoying. (And don't get me started on Mia Farrow.) I'd like to think that's Woody Allen's philosophical point: one is destined to fall in love with annoying people :)

Not that I have any idea of whether AMC even still exists.

Mad Men. Breaking Bad.

Actually, IIRC, back when I first had cable starting in '85 (dropped it in '90, got it back in early '02, dropped it for good -- so far -- as noted 3 years later), AMC featured vintage movies without ads for about half a day, with the other half of that place on the dial devoted to infomercials or such. Might've been a totally local setup in that regard, though.

Not that I have any idea of whether AMC even still exists.

AMC now exists as a purely commercial channel, one more mediocrity in a sea of them, forced to depend on shows like Mad Men to survive. But up until TCM began showing up on non-premium cable and stole its thunder, AMC was only a somewhat lesser version of what TCM is today, with strictly "old" movies and no commercials. I think they started running commercials about 8 or 10 years ago, but once we started getting TCM, IMO it was all over for AMC anyway.

EDIT: cokes all around

Except for the ending. WTF was that? Did the movie not realize it had turned into a horror movie? (I've read that Zoe Kazan - the writer and star - had a different ending and this one got forced on her by the studio. I can imagine someone at the studio not wanting to accept the movie they'd made, perhaps.)

The ending was exactly what I was referring to. I think the movie as a whole was good, then at the end they seemed to cop out of the darkness.

EDIT: I too watched it on a plane about a month ago!

Well, I mean, they tried to. After the "puppet" scene, the darkness can't be disavowed, and the movie as a whole built very clearly and cleverly up to the puppet scene. I could sort of buy the successful book thing, and the cynical "he still sort of wins" ending (with a touch of "perhaps he's learned something"), but having him meet up with Ruby again as he did was unacceptable. It was shot almost like a dream, which I think was Kazan's and the directors' way of trying to offer a possible interpretation that this didn't really happen.

Ah, my bad, Andy, I misread the Anne Bancroft sentiment.

No problem, I often run on like the proverbial six pack of gonorrhea and can sometimes be less than precise in my wording. But Anne Bancroft is one of my favorite actresses whom I've never seen in more than a handful of films.

And I don't totally dislike Diane Keaton. She's funny in Love & Death. And I do like both Annie Hall and Manhattan,

Diane Keaton was so perfect in Annie Hall that I can't help but thinking that from there it had to be all downhill, though I admit I haven't seen her in too many movies after that.** But then to me once you've seen one of those pre-Annie Hall Woody Allen comedies you've seen them all. It took me a while to figure that out, but eventually the little light bulb went on inside when I started watching them for a second time.

**Though don't get me started on Reds, but then I promise not to.

I, too, was captivated by Diane Keaton. This captivation happened when I saw her in Play It Again, Sam (if I saw her first in The Godfather, she didn't make much of an impression there), but it was short-lived, gone by Annie Hall. That self-conscious improvisational style wears thin fast with me. Too, she, even Woody Allen, as well as Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, suffered in comparison the more classic comedies I saw.

But, it isn't just comedy, or Woody and Mel, or Keaton and Dunaway, it's the whole movie culture revolution of the late '60s and '70s came to seem overrated. Bloated, ponderous, and pretentious Most of it was just repackaging and re-labeling, I came to see. I thought Bonnie & Clyde and Peckinpah and then Scorsese and Coppola were onto something. That something, I came to view as terribly overrated. I went from really being into the movie happening when I was young to quickly not caring at all.

Movies I liked this year in no particular order:

The Avengers
Dark Knight Rises
Looper
Lincoln
Arbitage
Argo
Wreck it Ralph
Killing Them softly
The Hobbit
Lawless
The Amazing Spider Man
Django

Movies I hated:

the Savages
Silent Hill 3D
The Raven
Wrath of the Titans
The Hunger Games

Hmmm. I don't think I've ever even heard of Ruby Sparks. Sounds potentially promising.

**Though don't get me started on Reds, but then I promise not to.

That's probably best, sounds like. It's my favorite movie ever, & I gather that you'd not only be dead to me, but buried. Or cremated.

the whole movie culture revolution of the late '60s and '70s came to seem overrated

A lot of filmmakers certainly thought that their pictures were important at the time, and unduly so, in retrospect. I remember seeing Carnal Knowledge as a teenager and thinking it was profound (ditto Little Murders, another Jules Feiffer script). I have the funny feeling that they might seem vapid if I saw them again. And they were typical of the era, lots of portentousness, a big rush that came with being able to say and show things on film that one hadn't been able to do in the earlier censorship dispensation.

More and more, the very best films of the 1970s seem to me not the ones that seemed "important" at the time, but those that made an aesthetic out of low-key location shooting, washed-out color, an end-of-the-rope Bicentennial ennui: particularly the 70s version of noir, films like Charley Varrick and Night Moves. They look terrible; everybody in them is venal and having a miserable time, but they have their own kind of wit and a certain you're-on-your-own philosophy. They've been very influential.

Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan is even more annoying.

Well, she's playing a 17-year-old girl, and 17-year-old girls tend to be annoying.

Manhattan is fascinating to me mostly for what it says about Woody Allen. He had this idea that it would be interesting to see what would happen if his customary 40-year-old schlub fell in love with a teenage girl, without ever once considering what it would mean to the teenage girl. For one thing, she's involved with him to the point of sleeping over at his apartment, and her parents are entirely out of the picture. (I think they're literally mentioned once.) I know New York City parents of that era are supposed to be famously louche, but don't we care at all what they think about their teenage daughter shtupping a 40-year-old? Woody seems to be oblivious to the other side of the equation.

Then there's the subplot where Allen's college professor friend has enough money to go out and buy a hugely expensive sports car on a whim. Allen once again has zero grasp of what real people's financial lives are like.

But that's not to say that Manhattan is a bad movie. In a lot of ways, it's kinda great. Meryl Streep is marvelously ######, the B&W cinematography is delicious, and the city has never looked better. I could watch those opening shots all day long.

FYI I hated "Superbad". I thought Jonah Hill made Benjamin Braddock look sympathetic with all of his whining.

Speaking of directors that have had an interesting career, even though William Friedkin dropped off the face of the Earth after he had those bombs in "Crusing" and "Sorcerer" ,I still enjoy "To Live and Die in LA" and "Bug".