Piggy Feet
This portion of a paragraph from a two-day-old Patrick Goldstein column made me blink: “When they weren’t dancing, Brett Ratner and Michael Jackson would watch movies together. [Ratner] says they must’ve watched the original version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 50 times over the years.” Ratner is exaggerating, of course, but still. Speaking as someone who’s watched some great films as many as 25 or 30 times (like North by Northwest, say), the idea of anyone eagerly watching that 1971 film more than four or five times seems awfully strange. It’s good but not that good.
Why hasn’t Warner Home Video come out with at least a seasonal release date for the North by Northwest Bluray? George Feltenstein told High-Def Digest last February that they were preparing one.
I couldn’t get through the original Wonka once.
People watch musicals more because they can sing along to them. Women fucking love Grease and Mamma Mia. Even Dirty Dancing gets women to watch it time and time again because they sing along and dance to it.
Repeat viewings aren’t necessarily about how great the film it, but how easy it is to sit through it again. I mean, I love There Will Be Blood but I’m not going to slap it on the DVD player every week. Whereas I’ve probably seen Anchorman about ten times now. It’s the kind of film you can put on when you have friends around and all kind of semi-watch in the background.
Very true BBWD. “What’s Up Doc” cracks me the fuck up – I’ve seen it at least ten times, and, oddly enough, DePalma’s Blow Out is one I’ve watched at least that many times if not more.
I didnt know that Michael Jackson was Brett Ratner’s type
No one is talking about Mark Lester, the star of OLIVER! and MELODY, being interviewed on the Today show. He’s the godfather to Michael’s three kids.
Come on, Stringer. Fucked up, delusional, questionable male sexuality… that’s Ratner’s MO to a fucking T.
I watched the original Willy Wonka all the time as a kid. I certainly can’t blame them.
[Thanks -- fixed -- JW]
I was an extra in Blow Out when I was home from college during Christmas break in 1980. I love that movie, and it was a kick that DePalma came to Philly so often during his heyday,
Wells to Raygo: What does that have to do with obsessive re-viewings?
It’s surprising that Michael Jackson would enjoy repeated viewings of a movie about an eccentric genius who spends a day escorting children around his property.
I read somewhere that WB is breaking relatively new ground with the Blu-rays for “North x Northwest” and “A Star is Born” — scanning at 6K. Both projects are probably taking longer than usual because of that.
I think raygo was commenting that I’ve watched Blow Out a lot – more than ten times, Jeff. Which was the subject of this thread, I believe.
Check your email, btw.
Why so grumpy, Wells? Attacking posters for your erronously belief that they’ve strayed off-topic? Movie critic hemmorhoids flaring up or something?
North By Northwest was confirmed as a 2009 release on the 18th of June.
I don’t know that watching Willie Wonka over and over is any stranger than Ice Station Zebra (Howard Hughes’ fave).
No kidding, I just watched North by Northwest for the very first time this morning. Methinks I might break Jeffrey’s viewing record over the next few weeks . . . Amazing!
“. . . awfully strange.”
Michael Jackson?
Nah.
I don’t think that I have ever seen North by Northwest. I have sorta obsessively viewed 2001: A Space Odyssey well over twenty times (it used to play at the Science Centre in Toronto the first Friday of every month when I was in my teens).
A blu-ray of North by Northwest would be just what the doctor ordered. My favorite Hitch.
I hope Ulysses gets around to seeing North By Northwest. My father took me to see it during a visit to Detroit in what must have been the initial release in the summer of 1959. I have the DVD with writer Ernest Lehman’s commentary and have given it as a gift to others. I’ve seen it many times. But yesterday when it came on TCM-Canada, I couldn’t resist having another look. From Eva Marie Saint to Bernard Herrmann`s music to Cary Grant`s way with lines, there is something very special about the film. Gee, glancing around my desk, I find I also have a 1972 vintage paperbound copy of the actual screenplay from the MGM Library of Film Scripts series.
I could rewatch There Will Be Blood 10 times just for the music. The score is amazing.
My “Ice Station Zebra” film is “The Hunt For Red October”. There are hundreds of films I like better yet for some reason I can watch that damn thing on a loop.
I’ve seen Robocop like 15 times. I’ve seen The Nightmare Before Christmas over 100 times. I’ve seen Rocky Horror 30+ times in theaters. Hedwig and the Angry Inch like 15 times. Josie and the Pussycats (Fuck you, it’s AMAZINGLY FUN) 20+ times. Running Scared at least 7 times. Eternal Sunshine probably 10. Casablanca 10+, His Girl Friday 10+. Of course, a lot of this is just showing the movie to friends to see their reactions…
I really treat movies I like as texts. When I find one that works for me, I like to break it down and figure out all of its parts.
I can say that I’ve seen “There WIll Be Blood” and “Zodiac” over 10 times each.
And I wore the shit out of my VHS copy of Willy Wonka back in the day — that’s one of my few memorable movies that I used to watch as a kid, although I used to ALWAYS fast-forward through the song, “Cheer Up, Charlie” — couldn’t stand it.
I watched Jurassic Park pretty much every week when I was a kid. And I once saw Toy Story twice in a day.
The Royal Tenenbaums is very rewatchable.
Re erniesouchak
Last year I saw Baraka projected in ___8K___ at the Telluride film festival. The bluray was release was dumbed down from the 8k scan because it was too much data for the disc to hold.
The 8k projection is 12 times the quality of the original 70mm print. It’s not only as good as film, it makes film look like a shitty VHS.
Even the picturesque town of Telluride and the million stars out at night were not enough to match the film. It made real life seem low-res.
I’ve also lost count of how many times I’ve seen El Topo and The Holy Mountain
hunterd, good call on Running Scared – that is quite rewatchable
Yeah, “Cheer Up, Charlie” is a drag, the only part of that film I get antsy during.
Everything in my DVD collection falls under this category, otherwise, what’s the point? Also BROKEN ARROW. bum bum bum bum doon doon doon doon
When I was a kid in the early Seventies, one summer my high school audio-video teacher loaned me its newly acquired video tape (reel to reel!) recorder and I taped a network showing of “Goldfinger”. I swear to god I must have watched it every day that summer — probably 40-50 times, I reckon. Now that I have it on DVD, I still pop it in from time to time. And I never tire of it.
Sick, huh?
Re: Film as texts– I’d watch Raiders over and over again in a 24-hour period if I had to. I’ll never get bored of the truck sequence, a masterpiece of action filmmaking. I like film as background also. If I had the money, I’d have a dozen flat screen TVs looping clips from Coen, Soderbergh, Stone, Spielberg, and Welles films, among others. Re: MJ and C&CF: explains why Johnny Depp played it that way in the remake.
I’m somewhat surprised no one’s mentioned Shawshank Redemption, There’s a reason it’s on TNT pretty much daily, and not because it’s constantly being rediscovered by a new audience. I’ve only seen it start to finish twice, but adding up all the pieces I think it’s been a good ten times.
The films I’ve rewatched obsessively aren’t films that I consider the best films ever made (let alone what others would consider best). I’ve seen Die Hard, Casablanca, and Midnight Run at least a dozen times each. I think that for a movie to be something you can watch over and over, beyond the joy of the film or the lines burned in your brain there must be some part of the movie (some character or even characters) that you identify with very strongly; either you see yourself in that character or it’s a vision of yourself as you’d like to be. I know the comment above about Michael Jackson and Willy Wonka was probably meant as a joke, but I suspect it’s actually pretty close to the truth.
I agree that movies with strong musical elements are the primary suspects for re-watching.
I love Gilbert and Sullivan and I love Mike Leigh, so I’ve honestly probably watched “Topsy-Turvy”, or many parts of it, at least 30 times.
When I was younger, PRINCESS BRIDE was played/replayed with my brother until it was scored into our sibling brains and we would moviequote as we duelled with cardboard christmas wrapping paper rolls. that was before i grew to hate the practice of moviequoting, or worse, simpsonsquoting–any quoting as a form of comedy, as though the quote itself remembered is somehow laughworthy. lazy comedy.
PRINCESS BRIDE doesn’t hold me as much anymore as I shade 40. Though, paradox be damned, ‘throw me the rope’ may still be the finest way to tell someone ‘you can trust me’.
JAWS on the other hand is always shall always be pure pleasure to rewatch. Spielberg’s best in my books.
Jaws, Raiders, and The Empire Strikes Back are boring, obvious choices but because I was born in the 70s and owned VHS copies of each as a kid, I’m sure I’ve seen them all 100 times easy. My friends and I put them on in rotation 15 times each a summer I’m sure. Then, the mid/late 90s Star Wars revival, and my kids wanting to watch everything Spielberg, started it all over again.
But I’m sure I’ve seen both Willy Wonka and North by Northwest 20 times each also. Psycho, Vertigo, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, To Catch a Thief – I’ve probably watched them nearly 10 times each I’d guess. Rear Window and North by Northwest are the two Hitchcock films I could view on a loop though. I should probably spend more time in the real world, but I’m addicted. Now my friends think of me as “The Movie Friend” and so I end up seeing things like Twilight in a theater 3 times because I am dragged along to every big release (“big” in terms of curiosity factor but not always in terms of quality) by different unrelated groups.
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