I really do not enjoy the original but the new one is kickass
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This is me as well, but to be fair to EB (assuming based on timing it wasnt seen in theaters) is that this is a movie that I would have hated in any setting other than the theater.
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Just watched When Harry Met Sally.
Takeaways:
- Itâs aged much much much better than Youâve Got Mail. And Iâm being conservative on the much-s.
- Is this the first modern rom-com? I didnât want to google because google ruins everything.
- Fake orgasm scene iconic. I am so freaking hungry for Katzâs deli right now.
- Is this the first movie that made NYC not an Escape From NY hellscape? If so, itâs hard to imagine how much impact this image upgrade did for people moving to NYC and wanting to live in NYC. Like the same people doing the exact same stuff in Cincinnati would just be boring. Just live in NYC and your life suddenly has meaning. (see: Seinfeld, Friends)
- Billy Crystal much less annoying than I anticipated.
- 3 or 4 legit belly laughs. The wagon wheel table scene was hilarious.
- Unlike Weird Science (1985) where the supposedly cool 80s fashions just looked beyond ludicrous, this (1989) had classic fashions that barely look out of date. Meg Ryan had shoulder pads in one scene but thatâs about it.
- Like so many 80s and 90s movies, cel phones and text messages would literally kill over half the plot of this movie. Life was more interesting when we couldnât instantly communicate with every person we know.
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Next weekend Iâll watch Sleepless in Seattle to complete the trilogy.
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preferable tbh
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Iâve been watching old movies all my life so Iâm not sure how much my recommendations would help someone whoâs not that into them, but for fun here are a few which have not been already mentioned.
(and fwiw I also find 2001 and Kurosawa boring)
Sorcerer (Friedkin 77). Somewhere in South America, a few men take on the dangerous mission of transporting a shipment of nitroglycerine on a dirty road. (This is a remake of a French 50s movie âthe wages of fearâ which I havenât seen).
Told in 2 parts, where the first half presents each of the characters individually and explains why they had to flee civilisation to find themselves in such a hellhole, and the second part is the convoy itself.
This was a huge flop at the time, probably because 70s audiences were getting tired of âdark&grittyâ movies (this got crushed by Star Wars), but watching it now this really feels like a perfect adventure movie. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Very old but very fun : Screwball comedies from the lates 1930s, starring Cary Grant, where typically a pair of adults behave goofily for the whole movie while exchanging fast witty banter.
The awful truth (McCarey 1937) was my favorite when I watched a bunch of those during 2020 lockdown. Mostly because of Grantâs co-star, Irene Dunne (who was apparently famous at the time but Iâd never heard of), who is absolutely hilarious.
His girl Friday, Bringin up baby are also great.
Sansho the bailiff (Mizoguchi 1954). A pair of children get kidnapped into slavery in medieval Japan, the film shows their lives as they try to escape and find their lost mother.
I wouldnât say this is my favorite movie but this would get my vote as âbest movie of all timeâ. Obviously the rhythm is very different to a modern movie, but in its kind it seems to achieve formal perfection in every frame.
Ultimately technical perfection is useless if you donât connect emotionally (and like I said, some of Japanese cinema, like Kurosawa, fails there for me), but this also very much works on this level, making you feel the sadness of these individual tragedies.
(Mizoguchiâs other movies from the same period are also great. Ugetsu monogatari is another masterpiece, and has a shorter runtime than Sansho so might be a better entry point).
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I never saw this one but feel like I did thanks to this deep cut from the Filmcast in an episode recorded way back in 2014 when the movie was given a digital release (and the boys were still making the podcast for /Film).
You should check out Annie Hall (if you can deal with the artist being a big time creep/criminal IRL)
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I havenât seen YGM in like 10 years but the one thing itâs got going for it is that of movies where computers play a central plot point, it has by far the most accurate depiction of how they operate and are used
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and yes, Billy Crystalâs wardrobe in WHMS is pretty legendary among âtradâ #menswear weirdos
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Not at all in the same league as Woody but in the vein of ugh now I feel uncomfortable, thatâs my feelings with Youâve Got Mail and former standup comedian Dave Chappelle turned proud TERF. His scenes in YGM make me cackle with laughter.
âYou donât feel bad about sending her ass back to the projects with food stamps as a poor ass white lady??â
âA piazza⌠Goddamn.â
âIf you donât like Kathleen Kelly, thereâs no way youâll like this girlâŚâ
I donât get this. How are they that significantly different from each other?
In both films, itâs just a bunch of douchebag pilotbros doing douchebag pilotbro shit (both in and out of the planes).
Correct that I watched it at home. I almost guarantee that would not have saved the movie for me, though I am more of a character/screenplay movie watcher rather than anything that would be greatly improved by seeing it at the theater.
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thereâs a lot of movies where listening to a podcast is enough and you donât need to watch it but trust me this is not one of those 
(btw neither is Top Gun Maverick, which I just rewatched and can confirm that it is still a 5 baggerâŚalthough in the last third they get a bit too serious and itâs less fun when you already know how the mission is going to play outâŚI laughed at every single Jon Hamm shot, heâs perfect for the part)
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Hells yeah, Criterion is bringing it in March. Itâs kind of bullshit that this lineup doesnât include Yes. Maâam, but still I am hyped.
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There is not a single part of this description that I didnât like.
I saw it on a plane (fitting?) on a shitty little screen on the back of a seat. Both the picture and audio quality were shit and I still loved every minute of it.
I enjoyed the first one as I was (and still am) a bit of a plane/military tech geek. I think the second one was actually a better and more emotional story.
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Surely you can see the flaw in this.
You think youâd have the same experience if the Top Gun: Maverick had those same specific elements but had been directed by James Cameron? Or if Tony Scott had still been here to make the sequel?
It would have been a totally different experience. Top Gun 1 is not a fun experience for me outside of a few specific moments or scenes.
I gotta say too that the flight sequences in Maverick alone are a visceral pleasure enough that the script doesnât need to do more than feed my anticipation for the next ride.
A nomination for Best Picture is ridiculous, but I think itâs easy to be meh about TG1 and hell yeah about TG2.
For me? Basically yes, assuming the character work and plot would have been mostly the same.
I can understand why you think so thought, just from this comment:
I know Iâm not into these âvisceral pleasuresâ and nostalgia as much as most. I just didnât think I was that much of a minority in this regard.
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