3 big questions for movie critics

[gh]

SF Chronicle writer went to 10 current/former movie critics from the paper and posed them these 3 questions:

1. What movie have you watched more than any other in your adult life?

2. What movie would you consider the most painful to have to watch again?

3. What review would you change if you could?

The answers:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 014&sc=418

[Marlow]

Good article!

I'd have to say:
1. Apocalypse Now, but that's cheating because I watch it 4 times a year with my multiple sections of classes (but I still love it every time in a Rocky Horror Picture Show, recite every line kinda way)
2. Borat 'nuff said.
3. I woefully misperceived Citizen Kane the first time around in college. It takes some explanation to 'get' what's going on.

[marknhj]

Re: 3 big questions for movie critics

1. Godfather and Saving Private Ryan (due to TV). Sticking a DVD in: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch. Soon to be: Across the Universe.

2. Titantic and the last Die Hard

3. Fargo (didn't get it first time, but forced myself to watch again as I was in such a small minority. Concluded it's an excellent film)

[SQUACKEE]

1.Jaws
2. Jaws
3. Jaws, I missed the fact that it is indeed a great comedy.

[Mighty Favog]

1. Undoubtedly Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We've even made up shirts with the Black Knight on them for races. "None Shall Pass" on the back, the bloody stump saying "All right, we'll call it a draw" on the front. I even had someone pull up next to me in a race and say "You are very brave, good sir knight..."

2. That's a tough one. Some films are, in the words of Leonard Pinth-Garnell, "exquisitely awful"--so bad they're entertaining. Plan 9 From Outer Space and Can't Stop The Music fall into this category. What you're talking about has to be really bad, but boring and predictable too.

I had to watch Thirteen for an adolescent psychology class, and I think my in-class diatribe about how awful and unrealistic it was lost me a letter grade. Recently my wife convinced me to go to Nights in Rodanthe, and as we left she said it was two hours of her life she'll never get back again and that she owed me big-time. But we both agree Smoke was the worst movie we ever saw in its entirety.

3. Out with some buddies in high school, I wanted to see Dangerous Liasons and they wanted to see Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. (Yes, even back then I took myself far too seriously.) They won and I sat and sulked through the whole thing...but two days later I could not stop laughing.

[AthleticsInBritain]

1. Undoubtedly Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We've even made up shirts with the Black Knight on them for races. "None Shall Pass" on the back, the bloody stump saying "All right, we'll call it a draw" on the front. I even had someone pull up next to me in a race and say "You are very brave, good sir knight..."

Funnily enough I just bought a Life of Brian fan two t-shirts: one saying "Judean People's Front" and the other saying "People's Front of Judea". I knew he'd get the joke. Sadly I couldn't afford the one that said "Romanes ite domum".

Anyway ...

1. Star Wars. Waaay too many times.

2. 3 different films for 3 different reasons. The first would be Resident Evil, two hours of my life i'll never get back. It was for a date that went nowhere as well! Then there's Calendar Girls, which is good, but came out at a time when a few people I knew were dying. Then the last is Salo which, unfortunately I've not been able to bleach from my brain.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean. I was expecting it to be awful and I was going through an anti-Disney phase, but instead I really liked it.

[bad hammy]

1. It's a tie: Pulp Fiction and Hard Day's Night. Tied for second: Dirty Harry, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Major League.

2. I'll cheat and list a movie I will never see: Titanic

3. Cheating again: a movie I did not like after the first ten minutes and loved ten minutes later and still do, seeing it multiple times now: Across the Universe. It just took a while to accept that the Beatles were not singing the songs. Whoever did did a great job.

[Marlow]

Across the Universe. It just took a while to accept that the Beatles were not singing the songs.

Me too. I held off seeing it, KNOWING that they would ruin the Beatles canon. I finally went and sat there with a very bad attitude, and for the first 30 minutes kept rolling my eyes at how they were butchering MY songs. But then Joe Cocker came on doing Come Together and I couldn't help myself - loved it!

The movie Once was like that too. Thought I'd hate it - loved it!

[SQUACKEE]

Across the Universe. It just took a while to accept that the Beatles were not singing the songs.

Me too. I held off seeing it, KNOWING that they would ruin the Beatles canon. I finally went and sat there with a very bad attitude, and for the first 30 minutes kept rolling my eyes at how they were butchering MY songs. But then Joe Cocker came on doing Come Together and I couldn't help myself - loved it!

The movie Once was like that too. Thought I'd hate it - loved it!

I am a Beatle fanatic and i hated this film for 5 min.s and then fell in love with it and your right Marlow, Cocker fires the first big salvo. Magic

[mojo]

!. The Breakfast Club- it seems to always be on. I still love it after 20 plus viewings. (I also had teenage girls which explains some of the repeated viewings) and The Birdcage (again on TV all the time)

2. Without a doubt "Beloved". There are no words for how much I hate that movie.

3. I only review movies in my head so I can change them according to which of my multiple personsalities is dominating that day. Hormone fluctuations may change how I feel about a movie as well. I can cry during "The Bridges of Madison County" or I can throw a pillow at the screen. ops:

LOVE "Across the Universe". One of my top ten fav movies.....I think.

[Marlow]

LOVE "Across the Universe". One of my top ten fav movies.....I think.

Yes, but how do you feel about it NOW? :twisted:

[jhc68]

1. Hard to differentiate the one I've seen the most... I watch some movies everytime I come across them - dozens of times each by now:
The Music Box (Laurel and Hardy moving the piano up all those stairs)
MP & the Holy Grail
The Maltese Falcon
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Michael Rennie version)
The Hustler
Office Space
and any of the Bourne movies.

2. American Pie II is the least amusing comedy ever made. Horrible. Oh, and 88 Minutes is the worst of its genre.

3. Jaws. I liked it at the time. Seems absolutely ridiculous now. The Exorcist is in the same category.

[Halfmiler2]

1. The original Star Wars is the only film I ever saw in a theater more than twice. As for recent cable, I saw The Two Towers (middle of the Lord Of the Rings trilogy) a lot of times a few years ago. And I try to see A Christmas Story every December.

2. I remember almost walking out of the theater when I saw The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie three decades ago. I've never tried to watch it again since.

3. I first saw The Blues Brothers as escapism just after breaking up with someone and just was in an awful mood. When I saw it again later, it seemed much funnier.

[CoachTief]

1. Wedding Crashers
2. War of the Roses
3. Shark Tales - I like it much more now after the 100th time my kids have watched it strangely.