tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3939909775405220345.post2566014820098281573..comments2024-03-01T10:16:11.283-08:00Comments on AmericanStudies: February 17, 2015: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Sinatra and ElvisAmericanStudierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06483077716534996778noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3939909775405220345.post-17968541070630510942015-02-21T17:17:51.588-08:002015-02-21T17:17:51.588-08:00I have never found the magic of Orson Welles' ...I have never found the magic of Orson Welles' _Citizen Kane_, but I sure as hell faked it! While the cinematography, lighting and set construction are honestly very ground-breaking and in some scene profound, the acting is grandious or monotonous, and story arch is highly predictable. And why is it such a big fracking deal that he mutters "rosebud"? Okay, yup, he's acknowledging the fact that his simple roots of the earth childhood was thrown out the window and he was surrendered body and soul to be raised by a bank (okay, that's just a dumb idea), and at the end of his life his great wealth (which BTW was supposed to have disappeared if anyone was actually paying attention to that one scene but for some reason he kept on being ridiculously rich... like giraffe owning rich!) is of no real emotional value as he was abandoned to a world that reduced him to a simple extension of the collection he surrounded (and buried himself in) with. Welles is an okay actor, but to be honest, I can see how Futurama reduces him to Calculon, because, yeah! The other actors are trying to do a good job but the heavy-handed direction of the "boy genius" has truly great actors looking like they are all dead behind the eyes. The script runs the gamut of a to b! Boy gets it all, boy loses it all, boy drops dead. The only reason we all sit around wetting ourselves over how good this movie was is because Hurst (Kane) created an enormous stink over the release and got it thrown out of theaters immediately. I will say he was sexy as hell as the Shadow though. Yes please. :)<br />Meanwhile if I had said any of this during my film program I think I would have been beaten to death. It's like Lost in Translation. I get it, Scarlet Johanssen is amazing to look at, and a really good actress, but that movie was fracking horrible.englishteacherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04295473633173919203noreply@blogger.com