I caught The Great Escape at the Carolina tonight. Watching war movies on Memorial Day is a pretty weak way to celebrate (I suppose "observe" is a more appropriate verb here) but it beats the hell out of crowding in at the beach or buying furniture.
I find that I am liking old movies more and more the older I get. Not just in proportion with my own increasing age...I'm starting to really like movies that predate me. Some of this is probably that I'm just now getting around to watching so many of them. But even still, I sometimes catch myself getting nostalgic for an era I didn't even live in. (RW...are you reading this...is it contagious?)
Anyway...the print looked amazing (certainly not 45 years old) and I can honestly say that I didn't look at my watch once during the three-hour epic. Also, it's great to see something like this and notice all the things that have been referring to it in more recent pop culture. (The firing squad scene on New Caprica in the thrid season of BSG, for example, is lifted right out of The Great Escape. As soon as the prisoners were invited to "stretch their legs" I knew what was coming. Never trust Cylons or Nazis to be concerned for your comfort.)
Tomorrow night: The Pink Panther. I'll be there.
And I defy you to name one actor currently making movies that is half as funny as Peter Sellers.
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I hate to say something that sounds so much like a cliche, but They Just Don't Make Movies Like That Any More. Even movies as late as The Conversation seem to belong to another era. Maybe Jaws or Star Wars was the break point, or maybe not. I'm not enough of a cinephile to say. But it seems obvious that something is different, and not necessarily for the good.
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