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Citizen Kane
Drama / English / 1941
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Never seen it.
Also it is widely held by movie critics to be the greatest movie ever made in the history of movies, so automatically I have to like it too, right?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Various animals that almost entirely appear only in the first 5 minutes.
Right off the bat, I have to admit I had the ending to this movie spoiled for me by Family Guy, so just bear that mind.
That being said, having now seen the whole movie and imagining what my reaction would be having not known the "twist" up to then, I have to imagine I'd be pretty underwhelmed, which was my overall experience of this movie.
The basic premise is an ungodly rich man dies and his former newspaper business eagerly tries to poach readership off of his dying word, "Rosebud" (it's his sled), and off one reporter goes to interview some of the closest people in his life to try and figure out what the great mystery was, learning about the character that was Charles Foster Kane.
It honestly could have been an interesting premise to a story, but I don't think they did very well with it at all.
The first 10 minutes of this movie are continuous annoying half-hearted radio presenter speak of the fictional newspaper article announcing Kane's death, and as though the summary of his life wasn't exciting enough, there's another 180 minutes serving to essentially repeat whatever this movie thought were the highlights of that story.
The most confusing thing about this whole movie is how Kane even comes into his fortune in the first place. It's either entirely omitted or terribly explained, but essentially some random bank BUYS Kane from his Mom and Dad and gifts him something in the way of 60 million dollars when he becomes an adult.
Why?
There's so much timeskipping around in this movie that shortly after he receives these funds, his "caretakers" die and we never see any return on whatever this investment was supposed to be.
Initially, Kane presents himself as some sort of virtuous character who decides to buy up a newspaper to inform the public about the shady deals of the marketmen he lives around, he even eventually runs for Governor under that pretense, but countless other character can see, and even the audience sees, that his "campaigns" to help the underprivileged, whatever they might have been, were more or less bullshit. He's just cares about himself, and what other people think about him.
And whatever principles he claims to have regarding "truth" go right out the window when he does a hostile takeover of his newspaper rival and converts their whole operation into a tabloid.
Even interpersonally, he's just a shitty person. He doesn't give his wife the time of day, then eventually cheats on her for another girl who he ends up controlling the life of. He builds her an opera house, and forces her to sing until she leaves him, and then he makes himself out to be a victim and throws a temper tantrum in the middle of his MegaMillions McMansion...
There are some moments where I guess we're supposed to sympathize with him, like when one of his longtime editors decides to write a scathing criticism of his wife's performance in the newspaper and he decides to finish it himself because that would be "honest"... but then he fires that editor anyway. What's supposed to be our takeaway from that scene?
When he's blackmailed over his infidelity during his election campaign he refuses to drop out, but still runs a story falsely alleging voter fraud when he loses...? Like, our main character here is not a good person.
Am I supposed to like him? Am I supposed to hate him? I can't sympathize with him because he's a cartoon character, literally raised by a bank to be a selfish rich ****. What am I supposed to be getting out of this movie?
Ah, but of course, the missing ingredient; the surprise ending... with his dying breath he cast his mind back to, of all things... a random ****ing sled we see him playing on for barely a minute of screentime at the beginning of the movie.
Oh, how sad, poor Kane, wasted millions of dollars ruining journalism, failed to run for office with his own "Hillary for prison" arc, built an opera house nobody likes, got twice divorced, BUT IN HIS HEART HE WAS STILL A YOUNG BOY WHO MISSED HIS SLED.
...a sled which he apparently still owned and was so important to him he just never pulled it out again and buried it in all the random shit he bought.
With all the whinging about the "working class" and him being a "liberal", is this supposed to be some half-assed commentary about the decadence of the elite and materialism? Cause that's what it feels like.
I think Ink does a much better job at that.
I'm hazarding to guess what it is that people see in this movie that they think is so special... I'm sure at the time this was a pretty expensive production, the age makeup across multiple characters is decent, Orson Welles acts fine in it. There's a whole thing at the end where they emphasize that most of the cast were inexperienced, so the fact that they weren't all completely awful must mean the casting was exceptional in some way?
It definitely wasn't the music, because those big raucus orchestral strings are at complete odds with the tone of the movie.
Oh, and how could I forget to mention the completely random and unexplained cockatoo jumpscare? What actual **** was that?
I really don't know. This really wasn't a special movie to me, and like another 40s "classic", Casablanca, I'm sure I'm going to forget most of it very very quickly.
At least I now recognize the context for two more pop culture memes.
Final Verdict: [Weak]
Citizen Kane
Drama / English / 1941
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Never seen it.
Also it is widely held by movie critics to be the greatest movie ever made in the history of movies, so automatically I have to like it too, right?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Various animals that almost entirely appear only in the first 5 minutes.
Right off the bat, I have to admit I had the ending to this movie spoiled for me by Family Guy, so just bear that mind.
That being said, having now seen the whole movie and imagining what my reaction would be having not known the "twist" up to then, I have to imagine I'd be pretty underwhelmed, which was my overall experience of this movie.
The basic premise is an ungodly rich man dies and his former newspaper business eagerly tries to poach readership off of his dying word, "Rosebud" (it's his sled), and off one reporter goes to interview some of the closest people in his life to try and figure out what the great mystery was, learning about the character that was Charles Foster Kane.
It honestly could have been an interesting premise to a story, but I don't think they did very well with it at all.
The first 10 minutes of this movie are continuous annoying half-hearted radio presenter speak of the fictional newspaper article announcing Kane's death, and as though the summary of his life wasn't exciting enough, there's another 180 minutes serving to essentially repeat whatever this movie thought were the highlights of that story.
The most confusing thing about this whole movie is how Kane even comes into his fortune in the first place. It's either entirely omitted or terribly explained, but essentially some random bank BUYS Kane from his Mom and Dad and gifts him something in the way of 60 million dollars when he becomes an adult.
Why?
There's so much timeskipping around in this movie that shortly after he receives these funds, his "caretakers" die and we never see any return on whatever this investment was supposed to be.
Initially, Kane presents himself as some sort of virtuous character who decides to buy up a newspaper to inform the public about the shady deals of the marketmen he lives around, he even eventually runs for Governor under that pretense, but countless other character can see, and even the audience sees, that his "campaigns" to help the underprivileged, whatever they might have been, were more or less bullshit. He's just cares about himself, and what other people think about him.
And whatever principles he claims to have regarding "truth" go right out the window when he does a hostile takeover of his newspaper rival and converts their whole operation into a tabloid.
Even interpersonally, he's just a shitty person. He doesn't give his wife the time of day, then eventually cheats on her for another girl who he ends up controlling the life of. He builds her an opera house, and forces her to sing until she leaves him, and then he makes himself out to be a victim and throws a temper tantrum in the middle of his MegaMillions McMansion...
There are some moments where I guess we're supposed to sympathize with him, like when one of his longtime editors decides to write a scathing criticism of his wife's performance in the newspaper and he decides to finish it himself because that would be "honest"... but then he fires that editor anyway. What's supposed to be our takeaway from that scene?
When he's blackmailed over his infidelity during his election campaign he refuses to drop out, but still runs a story falsely alleging voter fraud when he loses...? Like, our main character here is not a good person.
Am I supposed to like him? Am I supposed to hate him? I can't sympathize with him because he's a cartoon character, literally raised by a bank to be a selfish rich ****. What am I supposed to be getting out of this movie?
Ah, but of course, the missing ingredient; the surprise ending... with his dying breath he cast his mind back to, of all things... a random ****ing sled we see him playing on for barely a minute of screentime at the beginning of the movie.
Oh, how sad, poor Kane, wasted millions of dollars ruining journalism, failed to run for office with his own "Hillary for prison" arc, built an opera house nobody likes, got twice divorced, BUT IN HIS HEART HE WAS STILL A YOUNG BOY WHO MISSED HIS SLED.
...a sled which he apparently still owned and was so important to him he just never pulled it out again and buried it in all the random shit he bought.
With all the whinging about the "working class" and him being a "liberal", is this supposed to be some half-assed commentary about the decadence of the elite and materialism? Cause that's what it feels like.
I think Ink does a much better job at that.
I'm hazarding to guess what it is that people see in this movie that they think is so special... I'm sure at the time this was a pretty expensive production, the age makeup across multiple characters is decent, Orson Welles acts fine in it. There's a whole thing at the end where they emphasize that most of the cast were inexperienced, so the fact that they weren't all completely awful must mean the casting was exceptional in some way?
It definitely wasn't the music, because those big raucus orchestral strings are at complete odds with the tone of the movie.
Oh, and how could I forget to mention the completely random and unexplained cockatoo jumpscare? What actual **** was that?
I really don't know. This really wasn't a special movie to me, and like another 40s "classic", Casablanca, I'm sure I'm going to forget most of it very very quickly.
At least I now recognize the context for two more pop culture memes.
Final Verdict: [Weak]