God this one still gets me steamed.
All the pieces to a great movie there***, every tool is at Cooper’s disposal and this potentially classic crime story is just… blegh.
If they just said “fuck it, we’re going for a Scorsese feel” instead of this melodramatic oscar bait, I have a hard time believing anyone would have been mad about it.
***super weird casting choices non-withstanding.
I would have liked a quick scene of Karen explaining her interior design choices with that second house. Really wild stuff.
Billy Crystal’s direction is admirable, and you can feel his passion bursting through the screen, but the way the story is told mostly in prose rather than poetry, which is needed when you tell a baseball story. The script’s also a little rough and moves too fast.
Aaron Judge is my home run king.
Took my time with this one to give it a chance to really stick the emotional landing.
It did!
You bow to no one.
Good stuff. Can’t even imagine the kind of sobbing that happened in the theater back in ‘03.
Extended Edition
The sexual undertones between Frodo and Sam graduate to overtones in this one.
Such an incredible opening sequence, though the big G's return doesn't make much sense tbh. I tried reading a wiki page to try and understand the subject, but alas, I am too dumb.
Helm's Deep stressed me out as well. And I loved Gollum's little fish song! How they could make me care about that little ghoul is a feat in and of itself.
Extended Edition
I decided to address my disconnect with The Lord of the Rings once and for all by watching the definitive versions of the story in the only way my smooth brain can process: by watching it like a miniseries.
Over the course of the week, I watched this in 1:15ish increments, and I can confirm that helped me understand what was going on and who everyone was.
My memories of the theatrical cut are hazy to say the…
This dips a little when it gets into plot stuff and moves away from bathouse hijinks, but still what a goddamn picture.
A truly great film, especially in the “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore" genre.
It does feel like the filmmakers made an error for not including Soarsie Ronan in this sprawling cast, a note that this shares with every other film ever made without her involvement.
Still, this is one of the great Dudes Rock movies of all time.
Has some fleeting fun & coolness until it stops down for what felt like two hours to tell us a bunch of stuff about the Lestrange's for the sole reason that R*wling needed to set up the Aurelius Dumbledore bit.
Maybe it comes into play later on, but if it doesn't it'll be the dumbest and most pointless thing in all of these stories.
It’s funny that once upon a time, a performance as unapolegetically fun and low stakes as Marisa Tomei’s could win an Academy Award.
We need to go back!