Topic: "How Well Does It Hold Up?"

[Johnny Slick]

Actually, I think that the Hitchcock film that holds up the best is Rope, in large part because it's the one that people don't watch as much. It's also a bit of a gimmick movie in that it's made to look as though the whole thing was done in one shot. It couldn't have been because technology at the time limited film reels to around 18 minutes and as such it's fun to figure out exactly where Hitch made his cuts (there is IIRC only one really obvious jump cut). Plus you've got Jimmy Stewart being Jimmy Stewart and the Leopold and Loeb case. Goodstuffs.

[Neon Genesis]

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it, but the style and product of it are very jarring to the modern viewer in a way that a lot of 80's cinema wasn't.

I love the cheesy movie trailer for it, especially when they tell you how you're supposed to feel about the movie.  I miss that style of movie trailers.

[khendar]

There's something I find odd about movies from the 70's or earlier. I watched Silent Running recently (I was on Douglas Trumbull kick), and aside from the outrageous hairdos and terrible (by todays standards) special effects, the thing I noticed the most was the sound and pacing. It seems like shots were often overly long, and accompanied by almost complete silence. I know there were a smattering of movies in that period trying to emulate Kubrick's style in 2001, and a few more recent examples (Moon (brilliant film), Solaris (not so brilliant)) but I've noticed the same pacing anomalies in older films as well. I don't know what happened in the 80s which resulted in the quick-cut, fast pacing that we tend to see most of the time these days, but there's definitely a divide there.

I almost wish I had paid more attention in my film classes at University, maybe then I would know these things.