Citizen Kane

Just got done watching it, you can head over to the Movie Tab if you want to hear my thoughts about it.

When I mentioned Star Wars, I was referring to Episode One.

As for The Matrix, I never said it was original, only influential to the films we see today. You claim it rips off so many films, yet every film does that. You can't go into a film today and see something 'completely' original because everyone at some point has been inspired by something/someone else.

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Yes, true. But Star Wars used visual effects into violence which resulted in a massive success. 2001 is one of my favourite movies, because of it's amazing visual effects but Star Wars didn't just redefine Science Fiction, it had villains, animals, special effects and fighting all together. For 2001, it was just a chain of Special effects without humans having a real impact.

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I think somebody means Ep. 4, aka Star Wars. 2001 was a chain?

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I couldn't get through Kane the first time I tried to watch it. The second viewing was for film class, and because I had to look at various things, I was engaged and enjoyed it immensely. The next couple of times to watch it was just for the plot, and I liked it even more. It's a great movie, and I think knowing its background makes it better.

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If you're talking about a DVD version that includes something on the making of the movie or commentary versions where someone who knows movies and knows Kane talks about the scene you're view, then yes, by all means, watch them! The only question is when? If you watch a commenary with someone talking over the film first then you're going to miss a lot of the magic of just seeing the film as a film for the first time. Its a great movie and the first time you see it without knowing what's coming next can be really memorable. But as seen in this thread, a lot of people just couldn't get into the film on their first viewing. I think that in some ways, the viewer has to sort of work the film to get full value. It's not something you can kinda half-a** watch while talking on the phone, cutting your nails, or popping corn. And some people simply don't want to put any effort into a movie. Just flop in a seat, shut down their minds, and let Jim Carrey entertain them.

If I were you, what I'd do is put the original film on first and watch it for 20 minutes. If it hasn't hooked you by then, if you can't see it's something special, then shut off the movie and switch over to the making of the film or (lacking that) to a film commetary that walks you through the film and tells you scene by scene the unusual things you're seeing. You'll know the ending, which answers the mystery that the people in the film have been trying to crack all along and which finally helps you understand Kane the character. But when you then view the film as it was originally intended to be shown, at least you can appreciate a lot of things that are going on in each scene.

Good luck. And for better or worse, I'd be interested in hearing later what you think.

All right, rufnek. Sounds good. Some time in the relatively near future I'll give Kane another go, and if I find myself struggling through it, either due to disinterest or non-understanding, I'll shut it off and pop in the special features to see if they shed light on what I'm watching in the film.

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But when you get past the rubber faces and the computer-generated glitz of Star Wars, what you're really watching is Rio Bravo and any one of a dozen old westerns set in space. An outlaw band kidnaps the pretty schoolmarm and tries to force her to sign over the deed the ranch, and a couple of jaded-but-honest gunfighters (John Wayne as Han, Dean Martin as the Wookie) assisted by a young-but-eager goodhearted kid (Rick Nelson as Skywalker) and a comedy side-kick (Walter Brennan playing R2-D2), rescue the girl in a big shoot-out and save the ranch. Today's science fiction is basically yesterday's Western movie--good guys fighting bad guys out on the frontier where a man carries the law on his hip. Instead of Yakima Canutt dropping under a speeding stagecoach, catching the back axel and climbing up to fight the bad guys, Sci-fi just manipulates images on a computer screen.

Battleship Potemkim should make your list for obvious reasons.

It had one groundbreaking scene that employed montage to induce emotion. I'd say the scene itself and not the film, in my opinion.