You Tube

The Phantom Menace will do that ...

I’m a little behind, so ... I had actually convinced my wife to go see Phantom Menace with me. She didn’t care two licks and gave some pretty funny versions of what she thought Star Wars was about.

I cried ... twice. Once when the crash of the John Williams score landed and the words “STAR WARS” hit the screen. I had been waiting my whole life for this. The second time was when it ended and I realized just how bad it really was. As we were walking out, my wife said “Not to rub this in, but what the hell was that?”

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan was great.

Your glowing praise made me go out and rent it from the library last night. I only previously saw it once in 1999. I remember not liking the relationship melodrama involving John Leguizamo’s character. Seeing it twenty years later I stand by that, and can elaborate more. The film’s problem is that the focus of the story is on JL and his relationship with his wife and, additionally, his good friend who has gone punk rock. None of these personal melodramas has anything to do with Son of Sam. The same script could have been shot without the murders and would have changed nothing.

I also disagree about Spike’s cameo. Frequently in film, heck almost always, they hire real news people to play reporters. They do this because reporters have a unique cadance from years of doing the news. It can’t be imitated. Spike does not feel authentic.

I don't think that's the problem, that's the strength. The movie is not about the Son of Sam killer, it's about those three characters and their reaction to all the various things going on that summer, not just the killings, but the blackout, and the nightclub life, and the punk music scene, and Reggie Jackson... Of course if you took the murders out it would devastate the movie. You'd have to write a new reason for Vinnie to make his failed attempt to be true to his wife, you'd need a new excuse for the mob to attack Richie at the end, you'd need to write a new reason for everyone to be so paranoid.

True, the movie is not without it's flaws. I could do with 20% less characters screaming at each other. The talking dog scene is poorly done and got a bad laugh from the audience each of the three times I saw the movie in theatre.

Yeah the dog is laughable. I’m curious about a longer cut. Was it you that mentioned that? I think the film could actually be helped by being longer. Especially if it means spending more time with other characters. There’s just too much time spent on the JL part of the story.

I didn’t realize there was massive hatred for the movie, I always got the sense that it was just a bunch of “tough guys” who wanted the world to know they weren’t scared by the BWP.

I think over over the years a lot of the backlash has come from 1. It being the first and most notable “found footage” film when, over the years, that sub-genre was pounded into the ground, dug up, and pounded into the ground again. And 2. Repeat viewings just don’t hold up as much as the initial viewing. The sense of dread and fear and terror that a lot of people felt while watching it for the first time just couldn’t be replicated on repeat viewings because people realized that “nothing happened” in the movie. The first time you watch it, you didn’t know what terror was waiting for them and fears they could be snatched from the woods at any moment. Those feelings from the viewer are greatly diminished on subsequent viewings.

When you talk to people about the BWP, it’s always “The first time I saw it I was terrified/unnerved/creeped out...” etc. no one ever says how freaked out they were the second time they saw it.

I fall in that group. I was quite unnerved the first time I saw it (I’ve always said it does for camping what Jaws did for going to the beach) I think it’s a incredibly effective movie but have no interest in seeing it for a third time.

I also thought Heather Donahue was a very attractive actress and was disappointed that she never quite succeeded past the BWP.