Films you admire rather than actually enjoy.

M

Mel M

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Sometimes you come across movies that are either critically lauded, showered with oscars, or recieve great word-of-mouth recommendations...and you watch them and think ok, I can appreciate the movie, I can admire various aspects of it, you can hardly call it a bad movie - but gut feeling simply says you don't actually enjoy it.

Essentially, you admire it, but you don't really like it. The acid test for me in this regard is would you ever consider watching it again?

A couple of examples for me -

Schindlers List. No denying it's a very well made and powerful movie. I can appreciate it and admire it, but it was not an enjoyable viewing experience. Yes, I know it was not supposed to be, but when a movie has an impact you normally at some point want to watch it again, and I could never imagine doing it with that movie. Perhaps that was the point, maybe it was too well made, maybe it made you feel so uncomfortable that the prospect of sitting through it again is not an appealing one. Part of me can admire that achievement, I guess.

Lord Of The Rings trilogy - I enjoyed all three movies first time round, I really did. Great movies, fantastic realisation of the books, great effects, wonderful acting. But they are 3 hour plus movies, and I just could not consider going back and watching them again.

However, one curious exception is the Godfather trilogy (well, the first two anyway). Despite being old fashioned, long, relatively uneventful, dialogue driven epics I still find myself able to watch them every few years.

I guess it's a difficult one to explain - what makes us want to watch some movies a second, third etc time, and others we know may be equally as deserving of our attention we just have no compunction to see them again?
 
ReRAB was a worthy attempt at an intelligent Hollywood film about stuff that happened in Russia a long time previously.

But, God it was dull.
 
I never saw ReRAB when it was first released, and I finally got to see it about a year ago for the first time.

Though you could admire the epic nature of the film, and Warren Beatty's vision, I have to agree...dull as ditchwater.
 
2001: A Space Odyssey

Making it so painfully slow was a risky move on Stanley Kubrick's part but he did it because it suited the story, and that's admirable. It's got a great theme and an eerie atmosphere but it's tedious to actually sit down and watch it.
 
Blade Runner.

I think everybody admires the creativity,excellent set designs and ambiguity.Nobody doubts it's influence either.

However,I find the script too muddled and the story perhaps too ambiguous.Not really a truly memorable or likeable character around either,which is surprising because the performances are very good.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Funny,disturbing,relentless and highly influential.However,the plot is too basic and the lowbudget feel makes it's inaccessible,after the first viewing (which I absolutely loved).Perhaps too draining to watch more than once.
 
Baraka.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/

I'm not the kind of film fan who only likes explosions, boobies and Jason Statham, but this series of impressive images and scenes, after about 10 minues, left me rather bored.

Which is odd, as broadcasts like The Blue Planet, etc, leave me breathless. I think it's as it has no context.

Also, I was expecting a film about my favourite Mortal Kombat character, and was frankly disappointed.
 
Citizen Kane

It's almost impossible to see it mentioned without the ubiquitous "one of the greatest movies of all time" quote - and it's not for want of trying, I've sat through it three times....but no, I just don't get it. At all.
 
Blade Runner is a good choice.

Visually wonderful and dares to try something unusual. There's nothing to engage me though. I've watched it twice, which is honestly quite enough.
 
Irreversible

It's a good film, but the subject matter and the graphic depictions of violence and rape mean that i'll never watch it again. The 10 minute rape scene is probably one of the nastiest things to watch ever in a film.
 
I watched the first half hour of 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days until I realised where it was going. I did not get round to watching the DVD in full for a few months. It is fairly dour and low key as well as containing some uneasy suspense. Not an enjoyable watch due to the subject matter and the setting, but obviously well made.

It is the sort of movie I would only watch once. But after reading up on it at various websites after it made the top ten, last week, in the Guardian films of the decade, I am intrigued and intend to re-visit it.
 
Requiem For a Dream
Irreversible
Dead Mans Shoes
Anti-Christ
Hunger

all superb films,excellent stories etc etc but none of them an enjoyable viewing experience
 
The Great Dictator

I think the broad slapstick simply doesn't work with the scenes of Jews being beaten up. However it's almost impossible to criticize given the circumstances of it's production.

Oh and Irreversible is a god awful piece of shit that gave me a headache.
 
I'm sure I read that on the consumer advice line of a film poster:

"Contains moderate explosions, boobies and Jason Statham"

On serious note, I admired Nil by Mouth as piece of film-making but I don't think I could sit through it again.
 
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