I was 14 in 2015, meaning Fury Road in a theater was just out of reach for me despite really wanting to see it, so for nine years now I held out saying “I want to watch this in the right context.” it had such power over so many people that I didn’t just want to throw it on any old day or watch it on a laptop. Turns out the right context was Monday night, the day before I saw Furiosa on Tuesday. Hopes for a theatrical re-release futile, I watched it on my busted old tiny TV, but I did so with a friend who I have watched all the MM movies over the past week. Wept through the whole thing, naturally.
I don't understand why there wasn't some kind of theatrical Fury Road re-release. Surely there's been enough praise (and Oscars!) to slap on a poster and get people's attention.
Screens too crowded with screenings of IF, maybe... plus Apes... Challengers... I wonder if there just wasn't enough room? But yes, seems insane... and better than most of what's out there right now!
I saw Furiosa twice when it came out in theaters that summer, but every subsequent viewing has been at home, even on some pretty small TVs, including one, like, March of 2020 type of viewing where everything in the world felt totally destabilizing and crazy and that might been the most striking viewing of it out of all of them. I've found for most of these that it's great to get the big screen experience but a work of quality is a work of quality - it'll hit no matter what.
I used to be a lot more precious about this stuff, but circumstances of my life and my increasing voraciousness for movies has kind of put a stop to it. For example, Lawrence of Arabia was a big "I'll wait for a rep screening" movie for me, and then they put it on Criterion Channel some weekend when I was trying to chase away the Sunday scaries on a too-open afternoon. I've got a TV that is good, not great. And I have to say, I really don't regret watching it at home. I will see it again in theaters some day, and I look forward to that day! But the thing about it is, it still felt immense to me.
That said, I think a lot of slow cinema is the kind of thing I know I'll fall asleep to at home, but when I'm in the theater I'll have an easier time appreciating Tsai Ming-Liang, or Weerasethakul, or Tarkovsky. I've never seen any Bresson and I might wait until I can catch a screening of Pickpocket or something.
That's a great point re: slow cinema - I feel the exact same way. I certainly waver in and out of preciousness about this kind of thing; during the height of the pandemic, I started watching a lot of films I'd otherwise put off (like Apocalypse Now).
Generally once or twice a year I will pick a classic band that everyone I know listened to in high school and dive deep. A few years ago I approached David Bowie for the first time, having previously only known the big hits that find their way into movies and tv and commercials. Wow! What an artist! The best part about doing this, is that you get to listen to David Bowie for the first time at age 26, and appreciate his genius without any of the baggage that comes with someone being a formative artist in your youth. Other great bands I did this with include The Velvet Underground and CAN, both of whom I consider to be top five best bands to ever record an albums, and I’m glad I don’t have to share either one with my teenage self.
I think this year is the year I get into the album Spiderland by Slint, which seems universally beloved by both cool guys (people who like The Fall) and losers (people who say converge is a good band). I’ve also never given Meat Loaf very much time, but as I get older my fondness for showtuney rock ballads grows, so he’s also on the list for 2024.
I held out on CASABLANCA for so long, not wanting to see "the best movie of all time" for fear that it would be just "pretty good". I watched it last summer, with a cocktail or three, and I just let it be what it was, and I loved it, so deeply. Let things be whatever they are!
The next one on that list: GONE WITH THE WIND, which I am similarly suspicious of. Time to let go!
I just saw Gone with the Wind in the theatre yesterday (I had seen it a few times before, but never in theatres and not for about a decade). Would definitely recommend not going into it with a "best movie of all time" mindset (though the technical elements/performances are excellent). It's a very entertaining movie with a lot of gossip and backstabbing and insults, and while it is fascinating as a historical document (mostly in that a lot of it comes across as a critique of the "Old South" mindset even as it romanticizes that setting) I think it's most satisfying if approached as a blockbuster first and foremost! A lot of what makes it "great" is just the sheer scale of the story and production, not so much the depth of the story itself.
A man during my screening actually told me mid-screening to eat my popcorn more quietly (lol) and afterwards told me that it is he is European and it is "his culture" to not eat popcorn during "arthouse movies," which is the complete wrong approach to take to literally the most popular Hollywood blockbuster ever made and also a crazy thing to say to someone!
omg lol... it's their culture to eat HARIBO SNACKS!!! I am a little more conservative on meals during movies (Alamo Drafthouse mentality) but popcorn is undeniable. You should be able to eat that during anything - especially a blockbuster. Who GAF!!!!! (Europeans, is the answer)
I saw Casablanca in bits and pieces on TV in high school but that barely counts. I keep missing its winter run at IFC here but I should make time for it this winter... I feel similarly suspicious of GWTW, which I don't think I'll enjoy much, but I do want to see those costumes.
I've got lots of these, which I've taken to referring to as "little candies at the bottom of my purse" (can't remember if I coined or stole this). Movies I'm putting off until I can see them "the right way" (I.e. in a theater, preferably on film), or saving for that moment when I'll just know, it's time. It's mostly big canonical shit: LAWRENCE is for sure one, much of the Powell & Pressburger stuff, JEANNE DIELMAN, which I could have seen theatrically a few times now, have missed, and wait still. I own the 4K disc of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, but am still waiting for a rep screening to see that for the first time. There's no real through line, just mostly what I haven't gotten around to yet. A well-timed screening of something new to me can be the push I need to dig into a filmmaker I've been largely unfamiliar with, or the impetus to finally knock out the rest of someone's filmography. Conversely, and having done so twice now, I think SATANTANGO might be a movie I *only* ever see on the big screen, which is a separate list entirely.
I love "little candies at the bottom of my purse"!!!! I've only seen In the Mood for Love at home but I would love to hear its score/sound design coming out of big speakers. It's been interesting that the entries here swing both towards the epic (scope) and very quiet/slow cinema.
They need to start doing Bleak Week in Chicago... I think there are a lot of movies on that list that are classic "only on the big screen" type of entries.
I'm also guilty of being a "must see big/classic movies in the best possible format" person mainly due to the constant online discourse about movie theaters and projection and cameras and sound systems and whatever but also somewhat due to personal anxiety about wanting my first experience with something to be the absolute best. It's not really "real" insofar as anything can make an impression on you no matter how you see it, but I do think it's real that some movies feel like more of an Experience when they're big. I saw Lawrence of Arabia at MOMI 70mm a few summers ago for the first time and it really did feel special. I've been waiting for them to screen Ran and Apocalypse Now for ages, and have kept myself from watching them because I want that feeling again.
Death Proof I saw at a sleepover on HBO or Starz or whatever at like 2am and we had no idea what we were watching but it became "our thing" for the rest of high school. We all bought each other the DVD at some point. Kind of seems like a movie that would play well in a home environment--has that "dad's basement VHS collection" quality.
I forgot about MOMI... GREAT place to see something on the big screen for the first time. You might literally go nuts for Apocalypse Now btw...
I remember being obsessed with the idea of going to see Grindhouse but also too scared upon release and none of my friends were the type to be brave about that kind of thing. Our gnarliest sleepover watch was Hot Fuzz, which is pretty yucky but definitely lighter fare!!!
I’ve been holding out on both Sorcerer and Bringing Out the Dead. Both have played at the Music Box in 35mm within the last six months, I believe, but the timing didn’t work for me for either screening. I’m fine with eventually watching them at home—we have a very nice setup and a large TV—but I think I’ve been hesitant because I feel like I need to be in the right headspace for each, which is dumb because I haven’t seen either movie and don’t actually know what the ideal headspace is.
Lawrence of Arabia was good on my 20” computer screen the first time I watched it, for what it’s worth, but the big-screen experience is pretty incredible. (I did see it on 70mm, which I do recommend, but the night I saw it the A/C was out, so it was an appropriately uncomfortably warm screening.)
I like both Sorcerer and Bringing Out the Dead - both of which I saw at home - but Sorcerer on the big screen seems... truly unreal! I think I am missing it during Bleak Week here but I would love to see on the big screen sooner or later.
I missed that Music Box Sorcerer screening too - it's one of my favorite flicks, I'm sure it will rock on the big screen, so I hope they bring it back for a Friedkin retrospective sometime soon.
Watch Death Proof in the Adirondack mountains! #FranWatchDeathProof
I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at the Seattle Cinerama several years ago and after it was done I told my friend "there's no way in hell I would ever watch this at home." It's probably my least fav of the Leans I've seen but it is definitely a theater experience.
Maybe I should just watch all these movies on my laptop on VLC player in the Adirondacks. I forgot to mention that the reason I don't want to watch stuff is that I am afraid laptop screen will attract bugs at night :(
I'm coming at this a week late but I've been holding out on the one remaining Juzo Itami film I have yet to see. I watched all of them in college during the FilmStruck days and fell deeply in love with his and Nobuko Miyamoto's style. They are the collaborative couple that I want to be with my wife. So I still have yet to see A Quiet Life ('95). I will one day, but I don't want to know that I can't explore or find the new thing any more.
I live in Melbourne, Australia, and we're very lucky to have multiple cinemas who do rep screenings, but especially the Astor, my spiritual home. I saw 'Jaws' there for the first time (you guys heard about this?), and 'Citizen Kane' (I feel asleep), and 'Taxi Driver' (you guys heard about THIS) and 'Lawrence' (it really is worth it!). I'm still waiting for a 'Casablanca' screening that works (I keep missing them!), and like, 'Magnolia'.
Taxi Driver is one of those I watched on my laptop in bed but I do think a big screen viewing would be totally electric.... I miss Casablanca every year in NYC because I travel for the holidays but one day....
Magnolia my least fav PTA by a wide margin but - maybe a big screen would change that too!
Okay this is going to seem like a shitpost but I really want to watch John Travolta in Gotti (2018) because one night I went down a letterboxd rabbit hole of reviews and I don’t think I’ve laughed harder before or since. But I keep putting it off because I want to watch it with the right people! Watching a so-bad-it’s-funny movie alone is certainly a fine thing to do, but I keep imagining this scenario: throwing on Gotti with my besties, drinking too much red wine, and having an instantly quotable Rolodex of inside jokes. The problem is nobody in my friend groups seem to be as into Italian Americana and bad overacting as me. One day! 🤌🏻
I'm really lol - this is often a great way to see something on the big screen! Friend of mag Tessa once talked about a screening of De Palma's Domino where everyone in the audience was really on the same page about how to watch that movie, and I think it'd be so much more fun with a crowd than just watching at home for some vague De Palma completionist project
i often feel like i SHOULD wait to see certain movies theatrically for the first time but ultimately i am too impulsive for that. there have been a couple where i did wait and i was like. now why didn't i watch that 15 years ago and it could have been part of my life this whole time? sometimes i find the most rewarding experience is to see something for the second time theatrically because then you're getting to know it in a deeper way at the cinemas (this happened with cluny brown and barry lyndon for me)
I'm lucky enough to live in Austin (very hot) and the Austin Film Society theater (owned by Linklater I guess) has truly wonderful programming. The only Malick I've ever seen is The New World lol, so seeing Days of Heaven there this weekend. They also did a Wong Kar-wai thing last year, and I finally saw In the Mood for Love. I would LOOOOVE to see Singing in the Rain in a theater.
omg i hope you love Days of Heaven - I watched on Criterion Channel for the first time a few years ago but I caught the 4k rerelease either earlier this year or late last and it was just astounding!
i did catch lawrence of arabia at the paris and it was a very special experience, although honestly i think the best part of seeing it live was not the fact that it looked incredible (although it did) but the fact that watching it at home with all the cultural weight of capital-I Importance attached to it, i’m honestly not sure i would have picked up on what was very clear watching it with an audience, which is that it’s also very funny.
for similar reasons, meaning more crowd-related than anything although yes the big screen is nice, i’m so glad a friend of mine mann-pilled me a while back and the first time i saw heat was at a sold-out showing… i’ve since seen the insider, blackhat, & thief on the big screen (and kinda wish i’d waited on collateral, although i did not have any trouble loving it at home) and IME mann people really bring a distinct palpable love to mann movies that is incredibly fun to be around.
when i was a preteen i never really read physical books and i used to justify it to myself by saying that if the book was good enough it would hit even without the warmth and tactility of an ideal reading experience to draw me in. i guess i've retained this conviction even into adulthood because yesterday i watched fury road for the first time on my laptop ;-; it was great but i've probably spoiled a bunch of great movies for myself that way.
i am still holding out for memoria obviously although i doubt it will ever come my way. a wim wenders would be really nice...end of eva a couple months ago was definitely worth the bus ride
(also good luck on your residency! that's so sick the adirondacks seem heavenly)
I really spent like a good decade of my life watching things on laptop and have no knock against, to be sure! For years movies were either out of reach (geographically, economically) and I had to make due with what I could get either on a p*rating website or via someone else's google drive. Hugely formative!! I do hope you get to see Memoria though because that's a special one.
I was 14 in 2015, meaning Fury Road in a theater was just out of reach for me despite really wanting to see it, so for nine years now I held out saying “I want to watch this in the right context.” it had such power over so many people that I didn’t just want to throw it on any old day or watch it on a laptop. Turns out the right context was Monday night, the day before I saw Furiosa on Tuesday. Hopes for a theatrical re-release futile, I watched it on my busted old tiny TV, but I did so with a friend who I have watched all the MM movies over the past week. Wept through the whole thing, naturally.
I don't understand why there wasn't some kind of theatrical Fury Road re-release. Surely there's been enough praise (and Oscars!) to slap on a poster and get people's attention.
Screens too crowded with screenings of IF, maybe... plus Apes... Challengers... I wonder if there just wasn't enough room? But yes, seems insane... and better than most of what's out there right now!
I saw Furiosa twice when it came out in theaters that summer, but every subsequent viewing has been at home, even on some pretty small TVs, including one, like, March of 2020 type of viewing where everything in the world felt totally destabilizing and crazy and that might been the most striking viewing of it out of all of them. I've found for most of these that it's great to get the big screen experience but a work of quality is a work of quality - it'll hit no matter what.
I used to be a lot more precious about this stuff, but circumstances of my life and my increasing voraciousness for movies has kind of put a stop to it. For example, Lawrence of Arabia was a big "I'll wait for a rep screening" movie for me, and then they put it on Criterion Channel some weekend when I was trying to chase away the Sunday scaries on a too-open afternoon. I've got a TV that is good, not great. And I have to say, I really don't regret watching it at home. I will see it again in theaters some day, and I look forward to that day! But the thing about it is, it still felt immense to me.
That said, I think a lot of slow cinema is the kind of thing I know I'll fall asleep to at home, but when I'm in the theater I'll have an easier time appreciating Tsai Ming-Liang, or Weerasethakul, or Tarkovsky. I've never seen any Bresson and I might wait until I can catch a screening of Pickpocket or something.
That's a great point re: slow cinema - I feel the exact same way. I certainly waver in and out of preciousness about this kind of thing; during the height of the pandemic, I started watching a lot of films I'd otherwise put off (like Apocalypse Now).
Generally once or twice a year I will pick a classic band that everyone I know listened to in high school and dive deep. A few years ago I approached David Bowie for the first time, having previously only known the big hits that find their way into movies and tv and commercials. Wow! What an artist! The best part about doing this, is that you get to listen to David Bowie for the first time at age 26, and appreciate his genius without any of the baggage that comes with someone being a formative artist in your youth. Other great bands I did this with include The Velvet Underground and CAN, both of whom I consider to be top five best bands to ever record an albums, and I’m glad I don’t have to share either one with my teenage self.
I think this year is the year I get into the album Spiderland by Slint, which seems universally beloved by both cool guys (people who like The Fall) and losers (people who say converge is a good band). I’ve also never given Meat Loaf very much time, but as I get older my fondness for showtuney rock ballads grows, so he’s also on the list for 2024.
Meat Loaf is so musicals... maybe after you get into him we can watch Les Mis (2012) :D
I need to do this with the Rolling Stones...
omg I wanna talk when your Meat Loaf era hits…
I held out on CASABLANCA for so long, not wanting to see "the best movie of all time" for fear that it would be just "pretty good". I watched it last summer, with a cocktail or three, and I just let it be what it was, and I loved it, so deeply. Let things be whatever they are!
The next one on that list: GONE WITH THE WIND, which I am similarly suspicious of. Time to let go!
I just saw Gone with the Wind in the theatre yesterday (I had seen it a few times before, but never in theatres and not for about a decade). Would definitely recommend not going into it with a "best movie of all time" mindset (though the technical elements/performances are excellent). It's a very entertaining movie with a lot of gossip and backstabbing and insults, and while it is fascinating as a historical document (mostly in that a lot of it comes across as a critique of the "Old South" mindset even as it romanticizes that setting) I think it's most satisfying if approached as a blockbuster first and foremost! A lot of what makes it "great" is just the sheer scale of the story and production, not so much the depth of the story itself.
A man during my screening actually told me mid-screening to eat my popcorn more quietly (lol) and afterwards told me that it is he is European and it is "his culture" to not eat popcorn during "arthouse movies," which is the complete wrong approach to take to literally the most popular Hollywood blockbuster ever made and also a crazy thing to say to someone!
omg lol... it's their culture to eat HARIBO SNACKS!!! I am a little more conservative on meals during movies (Alamo Drafthouse mentality) but popcorn is undeniable. You should be able to eat that during anything - especially a blockbuster. Who GAF!!!!! (Europeans, is the answer)
I saw Casablanca in bits and pieces on TV in high school but that barely counts. I keep missing its winter run at IFC here but I should make time for it this winter... I feel similarly suspicious of GWTW, which I don't think I'll enjoy much, but I do want to see those costumes.
I've got lots of these, which I've taken to referring to as "little candies at the bottom of my purse" (can't remember if I coined or stole this). Movies I'm putting off until I can see them "the right way" (I.e. in a theater, preferably on film), or saving for that moment when I'll just know, it's time. It's mostly big canonical shit: LAWRENCE is for sure one, much of the Powell & Pressburger stuff, JEANNE DIELMAN, which I could have seen theatrically a few times now, have missed, and wait still. I own the 4K disc of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, but am still waiting for a rep screening to see that for the first time. There's no real through line, just mostly what I haven't gotten around to yet. A well-timed screening of something new to me can be the push I need to dig into a filmmaker I've been largely unfamiliar with, or the impetus to finally knock out the rest of someone's filmography. Conversely, and having done so twice now, I think SATANTANGO might be a movie I *only* ever see on the big screen, which is a separate list entirely.
I love "little candies at the bottom of my purse"!!!! I've only seen In the Mood for Love at home but I would love to hear its score/sound design coming out of big speakers. It's been interesting that the entries here swing both towards the epic (scope) and very quiet/slow cinema.
They need to start doing Bleak Week in Chicago... I think there are a lot of movies on that list that are classic "only on the big screen" type of entries.
I'm also guilty of being a "must see big/classic movies in the best possible format" person mainly due to the constant online discourse about movie theaters and projection and cameras and sound systems and whatever but also somewhat due to personal anxiety about wanting my first experience with something to be the absolute best. It's not really "real" insofar as anything can make an impression on you no matter how you see it, but I do think it's real that some movies feel like more of an Experience when they're big. I saw Lawrence of Arabia at MOMI 70mm a few summers ago for the first time and it really did feel special. I've been waiting for them to screen Ran and Apocalypse Now for ages, and have kept myself from watching them because I want that feeling again.
Death Proof I saw at a sleepover on HBO or Starz or whatever at like 2am and we had no idea what we were watching but it became "our thing" for the rest of high school. We all bought each other the DVD at some point. Kind of seems like a movie that would play well in a home environment--has that "dad's basement VHS collection" quality.
I forgot about MOMI... GREAT place to see something on the big screen for the first time. You might literally go nuts for Apocalypse Now btw...
I remember being obsessed with the idea of going to see Grindhouse but also too scared upon release and none of my friends were the type to be brave about that kind of thing. Our gnarliest sleepover watch was Hot Fuzz, which is pretty yucky but definitely lighter fare!!!
I’ve been holding out on both Sorcerer and Bringing Out the Dead. Both have played at the Music Box in 35mm within the last six months, I believe, but the timing didn’t work for me for either screening. I’m fine with eventually watching them at home—we have a very nice setup and a large TV—but I think I’ve been hesitant because I feel like I need to be in the right headspace for each, which is dumb because I haven’t seen either movie and don’t actually know what the ideal headspace is.
Lawrence of Arabia was good on my 20” computer screen the first time I watched it, for what it’s worth, but the big-screen experience is pretty incredible. (I did see it on 70mm, which I do recommend, but the night I saw it the A/C was out, so it was an appropriately uncomfortably warm screening.)
I like both Sorcerer and Bringing Out the Dead - both of which I saw at home - but Sorcerer on the big screen seems... truly unreal! I think I am missing it during Bleak Week here but I would love to see on the big screen sooner or later.
I missed that Music Box Sorcerer screening too - it's one of my favorite flicks, I'm sure it will rock on the big screen, so I hope they bring it back for a Friedkin retrospective sometime soon.
Watch Death Proof in the Adirondack mountains! #FranWatchDeathProof
I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at the Seattle Cinerama several years ago and after it was done I told my friend "there's no way in hell I would ever watch this at home." It's probably my least fav of the Leans I've seen but it is definitely a theater experience.
Maybe I should just watch all these movies on my laptop on VLC player in the Adirondacks. I forgot to mention that the reason I don't want to watch stuff is that I am afraid laptop screen will attract bugs at night :(
I'm coming at this a week late but I've been holding out on the one remaining Juzo Itami film I have yet to see. I watched all of them in college during the FilmStruck days and fell deeply in love with his and Nobuko Miyamoto's style. They are the collaborative couple that I want to be with my wife. So I still have yet to see A Quiet Life ('95). I will one day, but I don't want to know that I can't explore or find the new thing any more.
Criterion is obviously great but I do find myself frequently nostalgic for Filmstruck :(
I have a free year subscription card somewhere that I won during the nascent Ion Pack days (i no longer follow along with them)
I live in Melbourne, Australia, and we're very lucky to have multiple cinemas who do rep screenings, but especially the Astor, my spiritual home. I saw 'Jaws' there for the first time (you guys heard about this?), and 'Citizen Kane' (I feel asleep), and 'Taxi Driver' (you guys heard about THIS) and 'Lawrence' (it really is worth it!). I'm still waiting for a 'Casablanca' screening that works (I keep missing them!), and like, 'Magnolia'.
oh and 'In the Mood for Love'!
Taxi Driver is one of those I watched on my laptop in bed but I do think a big screen viewing would be totally electric.... I miss Casablanca every year in NYC because I travel for the holidays but one day....
Magnolia my least fav PTA by a wide margin but - maybe a big screen would change that too!
Okay this is going to seem like a shitpost but I really want to watch John Travolta in Gotti (2018) because one night I went down a letterboxd rabbit hole of reviews and I don’t think I’ve laughed harder before or since. But I keep putting it off because I want to watch it with the right people! Watching a so-bad-it’s-funny movie alone is certainly a fine thing to do, but I keep imagining this scenario: throwing on Gotti with my besties, drinking too much red wine, and having an instantly quotable Rolodex of inside jokes. The problem is nobody in my friend groups seem to be as into Italian Americana and bad overacting as me. One day! 🤌🏻
I'm really lol - this is often a great way to see something on the big screen! Friend of mag Tessa once talked about a screening of De Palma's Domino where everyone in the audience was really on the same page about how to watch that movie, and I think it'd be so much more fun with a crowd than just watching at home for some vague De Palma completionist project
i often feel like i SHOULD wait to see certain movies theatrically for the first time but ultimately i am too impulsive for that. there have been a couple where i did wait and i was like. now why didn't i watch that 15 years ago and it could have been part of my life this whole time? sometimes i find the most rewarding experience is to see something for the second time theatrically because then you're getting to know it in a deeper way at the cinemas (this happened with cluny brown and barry lyndon for me)
I watched BL on laptop and thought "okay... good" but I do think big screen will really crack it wide open for me on second watch one of these days.
I'm lucky enough to live in Austin (very hot) and the Austin Film Society theater (owned by Linklater I guess) has truly wonderful programming. The only Malick I've ever seen is The New World lol, so seeing Days of Heaven there this weekend. They also did a Wong Kar-wai thing last year, and I finally saw In the Mood for Love. I would LOOOOVE to see Singing in the Rain in a theater.
omg i hope you love Days of Heaven - I watched on Criterion Channel for the first time a few years ago but I caught the 4k rerelease either earlier this year or late last and it was just astounding!
Update: it was incredible.
i did catch lawrence of arabia at the paris and it was a very special experience, although honestly i think the best part of seeing it live was not the fact that it looked incredible (although it did) but the fact that watching it at home with all the cultural weight of capital-I Importance attached to it, i’m honestly not sure i would have picked up on what was very clear watching it with an audience, which is that it’s also very funny.
for similar reasons, meaning more crowd-related than anything although yes the big screen is nice, i’m so glad a friend of mine mann-pilled me a while back and the first time i saw heat was at a sold-out showing… i’ve since seen the insider, blackhat, & thief on the big screen (and kinda wish i’d waited on collateral, although i did not have any trouble loving it at home) and IME mann people really bring a distinct palpable love to mann movies that is incredibly fun to be around.
Blackhat on the big screen actually made that movie finally click for me! I love a Mann crowd too...
'The Romance of American Communism' is so good, super highly recommend!!!
I am simply obsessed with Vivian Gornick... loved everything of hers that I've read!
i read the romance of american communism just a couple months ago and i agree. and it's a breezy read!
when i was a preteen i never really read physical books and i used to justify it to myself by saying that if the book was good enough it would hit even without the warmth and tactility of an ideal reading experience to draw me in. i guess i've retained this conviction even into adulthood because yesterday i watched fury road for the first time on my laptop ;-; it was great but i've probably spoiled a bunch of great movies for myself that way.
i am still holding out for memoria obviously although i doubt it will ever come my way. a wim wenders would be really nice...end of eva a couple months ago was definitely worth the bus ride
(also good luck on your residency! that's so sick the adirondacks seem heavenly)
I really spent like a good decade of my life watching things on laptop and have no knock against, to be sure! For years movies were either out of reach (geographically, economically) and I had to make due with what I could get either on a p*rating website or via someone else's google drive. Hugely formative!! I do hope you get to see Memoria though because that's a special one.