Seems like I took the summer off blogging. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Don’t worry, I’ve had ideas for pieces—I just haven’t written them. Our schedule has been busy—mostly in good ways, but tiring nonetheless. So I’ll ease back into the habit with a low-key topic: movies that I didn’t (really) like on first viewing but that I learned to love on rewatch.
I’m a late bloomer cinephile; I wasn’t checking out 8½ from the local library as a teenager or anything like that. The most challenging movies I watched before I graduated college were probably Pulp Fiction and Casablanca (a high school friend who loved old-timey shit made our cross country friend group watch it.) All this beautiful and useful knowledge I have is a product of the last six years. Don’t give up on your dreams!!!
The movies listed below and in future installments probably won’t surprise anyone. They’re widely regarded as canonical masterworks, but fall on the side of weirder and more subversive. Rear Window is easier to understand than Vertigo, you know?
But I have to start somewhere, so here’s some writing on famous movies, including half of David Lynch’s filmography. I’ll break this up into multiple installments and juice it for all it’s worth.
Steve Jobs (2015)
First viewing: January 3, 2018 – ★★½
Second viewing: March 26, 2020 – ★★★★
Third viewing: March 19, 2023 – ★★★★½
Ahh, January 3, 2018—three days into my cinephile journey (I started keeping a log with the new year). Watched this with my family expecting a cookie cutter cradle-to-death biopic; back then if I was gonna watch a movie, I expected to learn something. Steve Jobs is very much not an adaptation of the Walter Isaacson tome, but rather an exercise in compacting years into sentences. It’s the last grasp of Aaron Sorkin, Talented Screenwriter, before he decided the world couldn’t go any longer without his eye behind the camera. Once you accept the film as symbolic—no, not every important person in Jobs’ life confronts him before every product launch—and if you appreciate Sorkin’s wit and tics, there’s a lot to love here. It’s got a last act problem, but Steve Jobs has turned into an ultimate comfort food movie for me (it was my birthday pick last year!)
Vertigo (1958)
First viewing: October 15, 2018 – ★★★
Second viewing: October 14, 2023 – ★★★★★
[Albert Brooks in Broadcast News voice] “You really blew the lid off of Vertigo.” That’s what was running through my mind as I sat in awe of one of the most famous movies ever, five years after it left me cold. The once-perennial Sight and Sound #1 is an understandable entry point for those looking to explore older movies—why not start with the best?—but I’d argue it’s probably smart to wait a few years to better understand how radically bizarre Vertigo feels in the landscape of the ‘50s. I’d recommend North by Northwest and Rear Window for Hitchcock 101.
Gone Girl (2014)
First viewing: December 30, 2018 – ★★½
Second viewing: September 12, 2023 – ★★★★½
Not getting a Fincher thriller on first go-round is surprising to me, but I had just read (and loved) the book so I was probably playing the comparison game with my internal vision and noticing scene transitions that have room to breathe on the page can come across as choppy on screen. I also remember the Affleck performance not striking me as obviously great; he’s that type of actor sometimes, where playing an apathetic guy comes off as apathetic acting. But on rewatch I was fully locked in and I knew within 30 minutes that it was an all-timer.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
First viewing: February 10, 2018 – ★★★
Second viewing: May 29, 2023 – ★★★★★
Even more so than Vertigo, 2001 is a massively famous masterpiece, and given the way I operate with art, I need to tackle the biggest critical darlings first. So, Month Two of Being a Movie Guy and it’s time to fire up 2001 on the DVD player. Didn’t hit! I latched onto the central HAL storyline but couldn’t appreciate the inherent beauty and power of Kubrick’s filmmaking, of the movie as an object and not just a story. Thankfully, the Hollywood Theatre here in Portland is committed to 70mm screenings and I got to enjoy the ideal circumstances for my rewatch.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
First viewing: 2017 – Hated it
Second viewing: March 24, 2022 – ★★★★
Here’s a bit of my cinephile lore: in 2016, I actively disliked watching movies. I was all in on music and sitting down for two hours to watch a movie felt like a waste of time. I liked the idea of watching a show but rarely found something I’d stick with for more than a few episodes before going back to 30. In retrospect, I was mostly trying buzzy Netflix shows that ultimately left no cultural footprint.
I finally found something I loved with Twin Peaks, which satisfied my main criterion of a TV show: creating a cozy world I wanted to visit over and over. And equally important, there was the mystery hook. And that music! So like a lot of people, I loved 1.5 seasons of the show and slogged through the infamous post-reveal slump. Despite ending on a low note with Season 2—I wasn’t even on board with the return to pure Lynch in the finale; I’m rewatching the series now so we’ll see how I feel as a more sophisticated viewer—the obvious next step was Fire Walk With Me…and I hated it. I was watching like five movies a year and just wanted comfort and quirky characters, not the feel bad reality of a town on the brink of moral collapse. Five years later at a late 35mm screening at BAM, I understood Lynch’s goals and tone much more clearly. It’s a brutal vision, but when you zoom out and think about the show you were watching, it’s not a far walk to the dark side of the Laura Palmer story.
I also had very mixed feelings on The Return so that reevaluation is also pending.
Curious for next issue to see what you include from Nolan! In my experience that’s been one of the few directors who I’ve felt gotten much more simplistic (to a discredit) the more I’ve watched more movies.