Saturday, November 10, 2007

Old Movies Revisited

Donnie Darko



OK, Donnie Darko is not that old, but I’ve never seen it on the big screen. This was the perfect example of being able to see a film in a completely new light because of the viewing circumstances. I’ve seen this movie countless times – the first time was memorable because I was in the hospital, and watched a VHS copy by myself late at night on the tiny crappy TV in my room. Needless to say, watching it on the big screen at the Music Box was a much better situation, even though the seats there are ungodly uncomfortable.
Obviously I realized that seeing movies on the big screen is more ideal than seeing them on DVD before this viewing, especially if the cinematography is artful in any way. This is one of the first times that I saw a movie I really love in the cinema after only seeing it on DVD, which was really striking. The movie screen is really like a window into a completely different world. Sorry if that sounds gay, but it’s true.
My question is, are there any movies you guys have not had a chance to see on the big screen yet but would love to? It’s difficult because so many older films pop up in odd places in Chicago – at midnight screenings (like this one), at the cinemas that show art films, or in re-releases (see Blade Runner next!) One movie that comes to mind immediately for me is American Psycho – a movie I’ve probably seen 50 times, but never in the theater. And I would really love the chance to see Solaris on the big screen again (the Clooney/Soderbergh one), even though I did see it in the theater once.
All this aside, the version of Donnie Darko we saw was the director’s cut, and I didn’t like it as much as the original theatrical version. Sure, I’m prejudiced because I’ve seen the first version so many times. But I thought the scenes and overlays the director added later really just cluttered the storyline, which was already sufficiently convoluted.

BLADE RUNNER



I saw this movie on VHS back when I was in college, and must have been completely wasted because I remembered approximately 5 minutes of it. This is the final and ultimate director’s cut (no voiceover, no miscommunications, no Hollywood misconceptions). I loved it. Sometimes the old-school special effects are impressively amazing – this movie is from 1982, when I was 6 years old, and somehow they used their crude technology of the times to create a cityscape that vividly conjures up an imaginary place and time better than any recent movies seem to manage. I really believe that CGI has its place in moviemaking, and people are overusing it. No, I’m not super-excited to see Beowulf, which looks like a video game to me. The sets of Blade Runner have an immediacy which most directors can only achieve in their wildest dreams. Plus, how creepy and macabre is Sebastian’s apartment, full of rejected and mutated genetic experiments gone wrong? I didn’t remember that part of the movie at all, which reinforces my suspicion that I must have been really quite altered at the time of my first viewing.

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