Every time I watch something from my non-functional youth I of course get more out of it. Besides knowing more now that I did then, i think part of it the nature of films. An hour and a half/two hour movie can provide clues but if everything was more than flagged, well, then, you get inflated, unwieldy beasts. Or god help me, look at Gone With the Wind for one: Stuffed story, yet pretty damn superficial. So there's a lot of filling in for the audience member to do if able and willing. And if not, the movie can still work. (or, of course, not.)
Meanwhile, on the superficial level, there's my first three viewings of the OG Star Wars when it frst came out. First viewing bored: It seemed awfully plodding. Loved it some weeks later on second viewing. Third time was after work so I dozed off.
But that reference to Dede Allen and Bruce Surtees of course begs questions that tend to be ignored outside movie-making school: How much heavy lifting does or can an editor do? Ralph Rosenblum famously took credit for making Annie Hall and The Night They Raided Minsky's much, much better than what he was given -- as in he's the one who deserves credit. (There's a chuk of that with Marcia Lucas and OG Star Wars.) And as for Surtees, I don't know that when a movie works visually, it's not the cinematographer's framing and lighting that make it art as opposed to, you know, directing. Then again, Citizen Kane's look was in large part dictated by neither director nor cinematographer but it's restrictive budget... Too, I'm getting on that third rail of the eternal question of just how much. director contributes to a final production.
"if everything was more than flagged, well, then, you get inflated, unwieldy beasts"
2 marks. I hate that shit. My re-watching of EEAAO for the film club made me almost turn it off after the early scenes that do what you so artfully describe.
My extended muckabout in the EEAAO multiverse educated me on the editing craft. Paul Rogers is nominated for an AA, so there are lots of interviews to plumb. He describes the software he uses in some detail, but what stuck with me was his claim about how much he drove the film's story arc by the act of cutting and keeping, day by day, convincing the directors of his choices. Might be chest-puffing (reads that way a bit) but also might be revelatory about the relationship between the directors' vision and the editor's story arc vision and hard artistic decisions.
A large scale problem is the idea of director as superhuman. Not at all sure about Rosenblum’s claims but the point is that he definitely can be correct. IIRC, similar, but collaboratively so Scorsese and his longtime editor.
Your question made me think about when I might have started differentiating movies as entertainment and films as art. Perhaps it was A Clockwork Orange in college, which would be an answer to your question as well. It’s a lot harder to see much humor in little Alex’s worldview these days as it was back then.
"Citizen Kane's look was in large part dictated by neither director nor cinematographer but it's restrictive budget..." there are a lot of cheap pictures that don't look like Citizen Kane.
“Night Moves” had great snappy dialog as I remember it and you sampled. One that stuck with me was, Harry: “I saw an Erich Roemer movie once. It was like watching paint dry.” Haven’t been able to watch Roemer since. I will say, regarding rewatching a movie, that after the tenth viewing of “Master of Disguise” with the boys I realized that absolutely nothing in it is funny.
Not a movie, but the HBO series Rome. Mrs. Derelict and I watched it when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. Watched it again last fall, and we were blown away by how good it really is. Second viewing allowed us to luxuriate in some of the tiny but vital details that went completely unnoticed the first time, but would have made the whole thing much more bland and conventional were they not there. A prime example: When Vorenus and Pulo return to Rome after having walked all the way from Gaul, they're dirty, as you would expect--but the makeup artists put the "dirt" into the natural folds and crevices of the actors' skins, exactly how it would be in real life. You wouldn't notice it on first viewing, but you would miss it if it weren't there.
Ditto on Rome. I was in Bath a few years back and saw the ancient Roman curse-objects in the museum there, and flashed back to the ferally intense Lindsay Graham drawing down deadly imprecations upon her enemy.
Huh. Tangential: I read "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague DeCamp after I was 40, and boy, I found his Ancient Rome a little oppressive and chaotic and fascistic (as did he, I believe). I also am not sure that I would have felt that, had I read it at 13. When (basically) the cops smash down the protagonist's door because he's printing bad things about caesar in his newsletter, I bet I would have thought, Pff, that's just in there to juice the plot! That's not how Rome WAS. Rome was America! Just with togas.
The original "Karate Kid" from 1984. When I watched it in the theater at 19 I was enchanted. When I watched it years later, "Daniel-san" came off as an instigating dick. 😀
Thanks for this. Too many things on my plate today/tomorrow/next week, but for right now:
– that screen shot completely flipped for me when you stated where the film supposedly takes place. That is, first I saw a cabin in the Sierras, with just the right California sunlight comin' thru, and the stairs maybe a little ragged (so be careful sittin' 'cause splinters)...but as soon as you mentioned Florida suddenly I saw the rot under the painted wall, and how the stairs were part/parcel with the elevated shack, a push-back against the encroaching tide. And then I thought I'm being unfair to Florida, that wood rot is common enough in the oldish cabins and cottages in California, and then I thought 'Yeah, but Florida, man...'
And your bit about the working life of detectives reminded me of the fine article "Nobody gives a shit" by Radley Balco, an interview with Andrew Sowards, a retired detective, and his description of what it is actually like working in an office full of detectives. Definitely worth a read.
Night Moves is a great film. What a great Hackman performance!- I believe it's on Tubi or one of the other apps for free.
Penn doesn't get thought of much as an action director - I guess he's seen perhaps as more serious than that. Which is crazy.- Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man are great action films.
I didn't like Altman's Long Goodbye for the longest time. I was crazy about Altman and crazy about Chandler and found the film disappointing. Turns out, like happened so many times in so many different circumstances, I was full of shit.
I think it"s a matter of patience..I was
just too antsy to appreciate some things.
I talked earlier this week about sneaking off to see "The Rules of Game" I didn't mention how underwhelmed I was by the film. Often cited as one of the greatest film of all time, I didn't get it. Boy was I young and stupid about that! I watch it regularly and see more in it everytime.
I was late to the Miyazaki party. I ignored Spirited Away for years - anime characters had weird big eyes like some kitschy velvet painting you see at all the swap meets around here. Turns out when I finally got around watching I literally cried at it's power and beauty.
The Leopard by Visconti is another. I started it three different times and gave up 2/3 of the way through each time. I didn't realize.- through the reviews were always very explicit - most of the final third is taken up with a party scene that is one of the best written best acted.
best filmed sequences ever. It explains and justifies everything that went before.
I looked all the later, European Welles films as tragic near masterpieces, never
truly finish because of a lack of money and really a lack of will on Welles part.
Once again, way full of shit. In the last 10 years I realize Welles was giving a master class in guerilla filmmaking. Everything he made in his later years is brilliant and as complete as it needs to be. Chimes at Midnight is the greatest filmed Shakespeare ever, just behead of the Welles Othello and the Welles Macbeth.
This is a broad topic! And a great one. I look forward to the comments.
Good choice; I’m getting to revisit the 1970s, thanks be to Criterion, with flicks like this (which I didn’t see at the time) and THE LONG GOODBYE (ditto). Lots of little things I never noticed b/c I was living in the milieu, I guess
I really appreciate your observation about the grittiness and tough appearance of working class lives portrayed in 1970s movies and how that shocks a modern viewer used to that being romanticized or made to look shiny.
That jaded realism really drives home the power of a movie like Saturday Night Fever, which you know has a nostalgic reputation as a silly disco movie, but given the desperation of Tony's life you could see why that fake, syrupy, neon, velvety world was so mesmerizing to him & to us... A club-going lady early in the movie squeals "Oh I've kissed Al Pacino" afte demanding a kiss from him, and you can see how for a minute it actually could be true for him, or that he really wishes it were...
OK, Breathless. Perfect illustration of how time wears off the sheen.
I saw it a few years after it came out, and got the edgy, frenchy vibe. Viewed it again last year for the film club and was let down hard. Not because it didn't have all the artsy fartsy stuff it was renowned for, but because all those things are now so old hat they don't stand out as they once did. What may have been boundary-shattering is now same old same old.
That's tricky though. As I watched French Connection circa 1999, I thought "What's the big deal, this looks like every other cop movie and any episode of a cop TV show." Then halfway through, it clicked: They all look like this movie *because* of this movie.
Related: My teen nephew recently dismissed The Matrix as "just like every other movie."
Agreed. Everybody loves Breathless and The Matrix and even if they don't they are stumbling over them all the time and some of it sticks to their shoes when they get into the screenwriting room or behind the camera...
I loved the French Connection more than the Matrix, mostly because of Hackman and Scheider, but also because of Marcel Bozzuffi, who was so brilliant in "Z" that I was thrilled to see him again.
This is likely true for everyone and I know there are *SO* many movies where a rewatching has revealed to me an entirely different film than the one I saw as a teenager. Right now I can only think of two recent rewatches and my new impressions were relatively superficial compared to Roy’s.
I recently rewatched Lawrence of Arabia, and as a youngster I completely missed that Lawrence was raped in prison or the significance of that, and I also simply didn’t get the depth of flat-out *weirdness* of who the character had been as a man, a weirdness that I don’t think can be fully explained by the time period or by his class. Just a very strange guy, LOL. And of course I missed all the subtleties of British colonialism, the complex relationships between the desert tribes, and the technical virtuosities.
I also rewatched The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, and I remember originally viewing it as a very simple heist movie. I had also grown up in and was still living in NYC at that time, so I didn’t appreciate how VERY old-school New York the movie was as it all just seemed normal to me – a fish isn’t aware of the water, etc. I believe they made a remake with John Travolta which I haven’t seen, but another thing that struck me on my rewatch was the vague motives of the Robert Shaw villain. I thought if they made the film today, they’d feel the need for more character complexity and would try to show a whole origin narrative for why he was doing what he was doing. But of course it wasn’t needed, most of what made him so terrifying was his opaqueness.
"For several years after the film was released, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23"
"other things you couldn’t get at home, like swears and tits."
That's a funny line!
Peripheral - I know when it was I smoked the best pot I ever smoked in my whole life.
10 years ago or so my oldest daughter and me were talking and we both noticed we hadn't gone to a theater to see a movie in quite some time. That very night we decided to go see " Van Helsing" with Hugh Jackman directed by the guy who did the reboot of The Mummy. As I am want to do -
I hit several jumbo size bowls like my life depended on it way to the show. We had a great time and I told everybody that I knew they should go see it.
Okay- Van Helsing sucked. Hard. Overwrought. Underwritten. Bad CGI. Just stupid.
One of the guys I recommended it to wanted his money back from me because I recommended it. People laughed and asked what was wrong with me. My only excuse is that must have been some hella weed.
I saw Heathers when it first came out and loved it, but when I re-watched it last year something airless had creeped into it; I had remembered it as far more snappy and fast-paced than it was. Enough classic Hollywood screwball comedies will do that to you...
Heathers though... it is like nothing in the 40 years before it, and for 20 years after it Hollywood couldn't even guess how to imitate it. It stands very alone on a floe in the sea. An Eskimo.
Kinda the opposite of what you're asking for, but: after a weeks-long slog studying Aristotle's "Poetics," I watched "Reservoir Dogs," and quite suddenly felt like I was really "seeing" a movie/dramatic presentation for the first time; like, really understanding the dramatic mechanisms (and that particular movie is fucking loaded with examples--the "ear-cutting" scene, damn)
I get some ribbing from friends ("here comes Mr Aristotle" etc), but it all misses the point. I'm happy that I "wasted" my money studying Classics for several years. I may be broke, but I know shit from shinola.
Straight Time. I watched it as a teenager and thought there was a good movie somewhere in there but the seediness ruined it. I watched it 20 years later and realized what an excellent movie it always was.
Every time I watch something from my non-functional youth I of course get more out of it. Besides knowing more now that I did then, i think part of it the nature of films. An hour and a half/two hour movie can provide clues but if everything was more than flagged, well, then, you get inflated, unwieldy beasts. Or god help me, look at Gone With the Wind for one: Stuffed story, yet pretty damn superficial. So there's a lot of filling in for the audience member to do if able and willing. And if not, the movie can still work. (or, of course, not.)
Meanwhile, on the superficial level, there's my first three viewings of the OG Star Wars when it frst came out. First viewing bored: It seemed awfully plodding. Loved it some weeks later on second viewing. Third time was after work so I dozed off.
But that reference to Dede Allen and Bruce Surtees of course begs questions that tend to be ignored outside movie-making school: How much heavy lifting does or can an editor do? Ralph Rosenblum famously took credit for making Annie Hall and The Night They Raided Minsky's much, much better than what he was given -- as in he's the one who deserves credit. (There's a chuk of that with Marcia Lucas and OG Star Wars.) And as for Surtees, I don't know that when a movie works visually, it's not the cinematographer's framing and lighting that make it art as opposed to, you know, directing. Then again, Citizen Kane's look was in large part dictated by neither director nor cinematographer but it's restrictive budget... Too, I'm getting on that third rail of the eternal question of just how much. director contributes to a final production.
And I'm sure I went way off point...
"if everything was more than flagged, well, then, you get inflated, unwieldy beasts"
2 marks. I hate that shit. My re-watching of EEAAO for the film club made me almost turn it off after the early scenes that do what you so artfully describe.
My extended muckabout in the EEAAO multiverse educated me on the editing craft. Paul Rogers is nominated for an AA, so there are lots of interviews to plumb. He describes the software he uses in some detail, but what stuck with me was his claim about how much he drove the film's story arc by the act of cutting and keeping, day by day, convincing the directors of his choices. Might be chest-puffing (reads that way a bit) but also might be revelatory about the relationship between the directors' vision and the editor's story arc vision and hard artistic decisions.
A large scale problem is the idea of director as superhuman. Not at all sure about Rosenblum’s claims but the point is that he definitely can be correct. IIRC, similar, but collaboratively so Scorsese and his longtime editor.
Your question made me think about when I might have started differentiating movies as entertainment and films as art. Perhaps it was A Clockwork Orange in college, which would be an answer to your question as well. It’s a lot harder to see much humor in little Alex’s worldview these days as it was back then.
I imagine the opposite about Alex – if I watched it again I bet I'd laugh at him lots!
"Citizen Kane's look was in large part dictated by neither director nor cinematographer but it's restrictive budget..." there are a lot of cheap pictures that don't look like Citizen Kane.
“Night Moves” had great snappy dialog as I remember it and you sampled. One that stuck with me was, Harry: “I saw an Erich Roemer movie once. It was like watching paint dry.” Haven’t been able to watch Roemer since. I will say, regarding rewatching a movie, that after the tenth viewing of “Master of Disguise” with the boys I realized that absolutely nothing in it is funny.
"Night Moves: The Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Story"
Not a movie, but the HBO series Rome. Mrs. Derelict and I watched it when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. Watched it again last fall, and we were blown away by how good it really is. Second viewing allowed us to luxuriate in some of the tiny but vital details that went completely unnoticed the first time, but would have made the whole thing much more bland and conventional were they not there. A prime example: When Vorenus and Pulo return to Rome after having walked all the way from Gaul, they're dirty, as you would expect--but the makeup artists put the "dirt" into the natural folds and crevices of the actors' skins, exactly how it would be in real life. You wouldn't notice it on first viewing, but you would miss it if it weren't there.
Ditto on Rome. I was in Bath a few years back and saw the ancient Roman curse-objects in the museum there, and flashed back to the ferally intense Lindsay Graham drawing down deadly imprecations upon her enemy.
Also, you gotta love the herald/town crier.
The newsreader was great!
True Roman bread for true Romans.
Huh. Tangential: I read "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague DeCamp after I was 40, and boy, I found his Ancient Rome a little oppressive and chaotic and fascistic (as did he, I believe). I also am not sure that I would have felt that, had I read it at 13. When (basically) the cops smash down the protagonist's door because he's printing bad things about caesar in his newsletter, I bet I would have thought, Pff, that's just in there to juice the plot! That's not how Rome WAS. Rome was America! Just with togas.
How do we carve our Fore Fathers? "With togas!"
How do we dress First Dude Washington in those paintings? "With togas!"
How did we costume First Rabble-Rouser Warren? "With togas!"
Go ahead – guess how Trump will be arrayed in the centennial illustrations of his 5th Inauguration...
The original "Karate Kid" from 1984. When I watched it in the theater at 19 I was enchanted. When I watched it years later, "Daniel-san" came off as an instigating dick. 😀
Thanks for this. Too many things on my plate today/tomorrow/next week, but for right now:
– that screen shot completely flipped for me when you stated where the film supposedly takes place. That is, first I saw a cabin in the Sierras, with just the right California sunlight comin' thru, and the stairs maybe a little ragged (so be careful sittin' 'cause splinters)...but as soon as you mentioned Florida suddenly I saw the rot under the painted wall, and how the stairs were part/parcel with the elevated shack, a push-back against the encroaching tide. And then I thought I'm being unfair to Florida, that wood rot is common enough in the oldish cabins and cottages in California, and then I thought 'Yeah, but Florida, man...'
And your bit about the working life of detectives reminded me of the fine article "Nobody gives a shit" by Radley Balco, an interview with Andrew Sowards, a retired detective, and his description of what it is actually like working in an office full of detectives. Definitely worth a read.
Night Moves is a great film. What a great Hackman performance!- I believe it's on Tubi or one of the other apps for free.
Penn doesn't get thought of much as an action director - I guess he's seen perhaps as more serious than that. Which is crazy.- Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man are great action films.
I didn't like Altman's Long Goodbye for the longest time. I was crazy about Altman and crazy about Chandler and found the film disappointing. Turns out, like happened so many times in so many different circumstances, I was full of shit.
I think it"s a matter of patience..I was
just too antsy to appreciate some things.
I talked earlier this week about sneaking off to see "The Rules of Game" I didn't mention how underwhelmed I was by the film. Often cited as one of the greatest film of all time, I didn't get it. Boy was I young and stupid about that! I watch it regularly and see more in it everytime.
I was late to the Miyazaki party. I ignored Spirited Away for years - anime characters had weird big eyes like some kitschy velvet painting you see at all the swap meets around here. Turns out when I finally got around watching I literally cried at it's power and beauty.
The Leopard by Visconti is another. I started it three different times and gave up 2/3 of the way through each time. I didn't realize.- through the reviews were always very explicit - most of the final third is taken up with a party scene that is one of the best written best acted.
best filmed sequences ever. It explains and justifies everything that went before.
I looked all the later, European Welles films as tragic near masterpieces, never
truly finish because of a lack of money and really a lack of will on Welles part.
Once again, way full of shit. In the last 10 years I realize Welles was giving a master class in guerilla filmmaking. Everything he made in his later years is brilliant and as complete as it needs to be. Chimes at Midnight is the greatest filmed Shakespeare ever, just behead of the Welles Othello and the Welles Macbeth.
This is a broad topic! And a great one. I look forward to the comments.
"just behead of the Welles Othello and the Welles Macbeth"
is the slip of the week! 2 marks!
If I had seen THE LONG GOODBYE the year it came out, it would have been utterly incomprehensible to me
Good choice; I’m getting to revisit the 1970s, thanks be to Criterion, with flicks like this (which I didn’t see at the time) and THE LONG GOODBYE (ditto). Lots of little things I never noticed b/c I was living in the milieu, I guess
I really appreciate your observation about the grittiness and tough appearance of working class lives portrayed in 1970s movies and how that shocks a modern viewer used to that being romanticized or made to look shiny.
That jaded realism really drives home the power of a movie like Saturday Night Fever, which you know has a nostalgic reputation as a silly disco movie, but given the desperation of Tony's life you could see why that fake, syrupy, neon, velvety world was so mesmerizing to him & to us... A club-going lady early in the movie squeals "Oh I've kissed Al Pacino" afte demanding a kiss from him, and you can see how for a minute it actually could be true for him, or that he really wishes it were...
Hearted for SNF – I got that same vibe from my first watch, and it stuck with me. I've had an elevated regard for it ever since.
That, and every time I think that someday I might have to perform CPR, I hear "Stayin' Alive."
Good comment!
OK, Breathless. Perfect illustration of how time wears off the sheen.
I saw it a few years after it came out, and got the edgy, frenchy vibe. Viewed it again last year for the film club and was let down hard. Not because it didn't have all the artsy fartsy stuff it was renowned for, but because all those things are now so old hat they don't stand out as they once did. What may have been boundary-shattering is now same old same old.
That's tricky though. As I watched French Connection circa 1999, I thought "What's the big deal, this looks like every other cop movie and any episode of a cop TV show." Then halfway through, it clicked: They all look like this movie *because* of this movie.
Related: My teen nephew recently dismissed The Matrix as "just like every other movie."
Agreed. Everybody loves Breathless and The Matrix and even if they don't they are stumbling over them all the time and some of it sticks to their shoes when they get into the screenwriting room or behind the camera...
I loved the French Connection more than the Matrix, mostly because of Hackman and Scheider, but also because of Marcel Bozzuffi, who was so brilliant in "Z" that I was thrilled to see him again.
I am home sick, thumb typing this shit on a phone. It's difficult.
Fair enough. If 'bethumbed' leads directly to 'beheaded' then I'm all for it.
This is likely true for everyone and I know there are *SO* many movies where a rewatching has revealed to me an entirely different film than the one I saw as a teenager. Right now I can only think of two recent rewatches and my new impressions were relatively superficial compared to Roy’s.
I recently rewatched Lawrence of Arabia, and as a youngster I completely missed that Lawrence was raped in prison or the significance of that, and I also simply didn’t get the depth of flat-out *weirdness* of who the character had been as a man, a weirdness that I don’t think can be fully explained by the time period or by his class. Just a very strange guy, LOL. And of course I missed all the subtleties of British colonialism, the complex relationships between the desert tribes, and the technical virtuosities.
I also rewatched The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, and I remember originally viewing it as a very simple heist movie. I had also grown up in and was still living in NYC at that time, so I didn’t appreciate how VERY old-school New York the movie was as it all just seemed normal to me – a fish isn’t aware of the water, etc. I believe they made a remake with John Travolta which I haven’t seen, but another thing that struck me on my rewatch was the vague motives of the Robert Shaw villain. I thought if they made the film today, they’d feel the need for more character complexity and would try to show a whole origin narrative for why he was doing what he was doing. But of course it wasn’t needed, most of what made him so terrifying was his opaqueness.
Walter Matthau. Sooo good. Busting Martin Balsam in that last scene...
a recent first time watch for me. what a delight!
Here's a tidbit from the wiki:
"For several years after the film was released, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23"
"other things you couldn’t get at home, like swears and tits."
That's a funny line!
Peripheral - I know when it was I smoked the best pot I ever smoked in my whole life.
10 years ago or so my oldest daughter and me were talking and we both noticed we hadn't gone to a theater to see a movie in quite some time. That very night we decided to go see " Van Helsing" with Hugh Jackman directed by the guy who did the reboot of The Mummy. As I am want to do -
I hit several jumbo size bowls like my life depended on it way to the show. We had a great time and I told everybody that I knew they should go see it.
Okay- Van Helsing sucked. Hard. Overwrought. Underwritten. Bad CGI. Just stupid.
One of the guys I recommended it to wanted his money back from me because I recommended it. People laughed and asked what was wrong with me. My only excuse is that must have been some hella weed.
"One of the guys I recommended it to wanted his money back from me" Ok that's funny!
Drunk History, meet High Movie Reviews.
THe funny thing is, I tend to become more critical when I watch movies high. I start really noticing flaws and continuity problems.
I saw Heathers when it first came out and loved it, but when I re-watched it last year something airless had creeped into it; I had remembered it as far more snappy and fast-paced than it was. Enough classic Hollywood screwball comedies will do that to you...
Heathers though... it is like nothing in the 40 years before it, and for 20 years after it Hollywood couldn't even guess how to imitate it. It stands very alone on a floe in the sea. An Eskimo.
Of course.
Detour: so cheap that when they wanted to show a car driving westbound they flipped already shot stock to save on shooting anymore film.
In Kane’s case, yes, the lo-budget was the mother of the invention.
On the other hand, weasels ripped my flesh...
Sorry to hear that. Is that a literal weasel, student, or colleague?
RZZZZZZZ!!!
Kinda the opposite of what you're asking for, but: after a weeks-long slog studying Aristotle's "Poetics," I watched "Reservoir Dogs," and quite suddenly felt like I was really "seeing" a movie/dramatic presentation for the first time; like, really understanding the dramatic mechanisms (and that particular movie is fucking loaded with examples--the "ear-cutting" scene, damn)
"As I was saying to Aristotle, the one-eared poet, just the other day..."
I get some ribbing from friends ("here comes Mr Aristotle" etc), but it all misses the point. I'm happy that I "wasted" my money studying Classics for several years. I may be broke, but I know shit from shinola.
Straight Time. I watched it as a teenager and thought there was a good movie somewhere in there but the seediness ruined it. I watched it 20 years later and realized what an excellent movie it always was.
I had the same experience!
I'm glad you reminded me of Straight Time! I need to see this film, I remember coming attractions for it as a kid.