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I’ve found I love the morality plays that you often find in Westerns. One of my favorite genres.

Two for the Road – This is the first mainstream American film I can think of to have a nonlinear plot. Fascinating in that regard. Mancini’s score is wonderful, and I found myself listening to it before I actually saw the film, and immediately after. Listening to it now, actually. Very well written film, exploring marriage over a long period of time. You could analyze these characters for awhile, and I would, but I’m not very much in the mood…

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Handman said:

Which one haven’t you seen?

How to Steal a Million, though I’ve come close to watching it a couple times recently (likely will soon).

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Handman said:

Two for the Road – This is the first mainstream American film I can think of to have a nonlinear plot. Fascinating in that regard.

What about Citizen Kane (1941)? Also, isn’t that a British film?

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Handman said:

Oh, man. I love that movie. Very close to Charade for me. And here’s a Star Wars connection: John Williams did the score for that film.

Yeah I know, only makes me more itching to check it out.

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DominicCobb said:

Handman said:

Two for the Road – This is the first mainstream American film I can think of to have a nonlinear plot. Fascinating in that regard.

What about Citizen Kane (1941)? Also, isn’t that a British film?

It’s directed by Stanley Donen and came through the studio system (Fox), so if it’s not American, it’s still Hollywood. And Citizen Kane was kind of linear, really, just going from flashback to flashback from person to person. Not to deny that film its due. Two for the Road is more avant garde in regards to structure, the timeline for the movie goes back and forth with little actual reason, with different periods merging together seemingly. I’d compare it to Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, in that it feels like you’re exploring this couple’s memories.

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Handman said:

DominicCobb said:

Handman said:

Two for the Road – This is the first mainstream American film I can think of to have a nonlinear plot. Fascinating in that regard.

What about Citizen Kane (1941)? Also, isn’t that a British film?

It’s directed by Stanley Donen and came through the studio system (Fox), so if it’s not American, it’s still Hollywood. And Citizen Kane was kind of linear, really, just going from flashback to flashback from person to person. Not to deny that film its due. Two for the Road is more avant garde in regards to structure, the timeline for the movie goes back and forth with little actual reason, with different periods merging together seemingly. I’d compare it to Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, in that it feels like you’re exploring this couple’s memories.

I’m just going off Wikipedia and IMDB, which both say it’s from the UK. I’ve never seen it. I get what you mean about Kane, in that it’s technically framed as flashbacks (and newsreels and such), but I think it’s inaccurate to call that linear.

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I agree, I was not sure how to phrase it. But there is no framing device in this film. I had thought you did see it, when I asked which of her films you hadn’t seen. Sorry for the confusion!

Side note: I can’t get over its opening titles. It really sets up a melancholy mood that suits the film. Titles are kind of a lost art these days.

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Handman said:

I agree, I was not sure how to phrase it. But there is no framing device in this film. I had thought you did see it, when I asked which of her films you hadn’t seen. Sorry for the confusion!

Oh there’s a bunch I haven’t seen, I just meant of the ones you mentioned in your post.

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Rewatched Two for the Road. Caught a few things I didn’t before. And that score…

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Close Encounters was good. I found Dreyfuss’s character really unlikable, though. Not just because he abandoned his family, either, he just wasn’t interesting or compelling at all to me and I would’ve much preferred his character not even be in the movie.

EDIT: This is a perspective that I don’t normally take, but I think that the Roy character was just a pointless attempt to put a relatable, everyman male lead into the movie. I think it would’ve been way more interesting if the single-mom was the one civilian that the film followed as she researched UFOs and tried to cope with her weird kid’s disappearance and then she finds out there are more people fascinated with the Wyoming mountain than just her when she sees all the people in the helicopter at the military outpost. It would’ve been way more compelling but I doubt that the studios would’ve wanted that kind of female lead in a movie like this and Spielberg probably didn’t want that either. Idk, that’s just my take. I thought she was a million times more interesting than the boring, suburban electrician.

The Person in Question

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I believe the it’s the intention that Roy is very much a blank slate kind of character. Focusing on the Melinda Dillon character would’ve made for a very different kind of movie.

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It would’ve been different, but I think it would’ve been a lot more interesting. She was an artist, seemed to live in the middle of nowhere, had to take care of a weird, scary kid. Her perspective is much more compelling in my opinion. I’m not the biggest fan of blank-slate characters usually, so I tend to gravitate towards the more interesting ones.

The Person in Question

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I think the idea was for him to be a blank slate so any viewer could “follow” him through his descent into possible insanity. If he was a more distinct character, you’d lose that (theoretically) universal relatability.

Personally, I always thought he was kind of a dick from the get-go, but that might be something that’s more apparent in the SE/DC.

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I haven’t seen the SE or DC yet. I think if he was more of a dick from the get-go then I’d like the character more, ironically. Not because I like mean characters, but that would at least give me something to work with. The main reason I was uncomfortable with him abandoning the family and showing absolutely no remorse whatsoever wasn’t because it happened––I’ve seen a lot of movies where dickish characters do bad things to other people and they are still acceptable as a character––it was that the film seemed to expect me as a viewer to not find that totally off-putting and an indictment on his character. It’s even kind of implied that the wife is to blame rather than him, and then she’s totally gone from the film afterward. If there had been some tangible consequence then I could’ve lived with it. For example, in Rudy you can tell that he feels genuine sorrow for needing (at least in his mind) to walk away from his lover to pursue his football dreams. Beyond that, I also found the lead rather uninteresting. I think that Melinda Dillon would’ve been much more relatable as a struggling loner, at least to me, than the heartless electrician that has no interesting qualities. Just my take on it. Other than him, I thought the film was beautiful, but it’s really hard to get past what you consider to be a bad protagonist.

The Person in Question

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moviefreakedmind said:

It would’ve been different, but I think it would’ve been a lot more interesting. She was an artist, seemed to live in the middle of nowhere, had to take care of a weird, scary kid. Her perspective is much more compelling in my opinion. I’m not the biggest fan of blank-slate characters usually, so I tend to gravitate towards the more interesting ones.

I think blank-slate characters can be hit or miss, but I find it pretty important for this film, personally.

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You definitely need a very relatable character for this, but I don’t see how Melinda Dillon couldn’t have served as a blank slate. She has some characteristics that make her unique but not enough to make her unrelatable. I definitely related to her and didn’t at all to the lead. Maybe that’s just me but I don’t see how her character would exclude anybody from projecting themselves onto her.

The Person in Question

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moviefreakedmind said:

You definitely need a very relatable character for this, but I don’t see how Melinda Dillon couldn’t have served as a blank slate. She has some characteristics that make her unique but not enough to make her unrelatable. I definitely related to her and didn’t at all to the lead. Maybe that’s just me but I don’t see how her character would exclude anybody from projecting themselves onto her.

The issue isn’t Dreyfuss vs. Dillon, it’s that if the film is all about finding her son, it’s suddenly a very different film altogether.

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The Awful Truth (1937) – Comfort viewing. I love the screwball genre and haven’t seen a bad one yet.

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I’d rather that then the film be about the character abandoning his kids. To me the Roy character was just another selfish asshole that the human race would be much better without (so I guess it did have a happy ending, lol). Anyway, he’s not something I can or want to relate to. And it wouldn’t have had to have been about her finding her son. The obsession could’ve consumed her and then her son’s disappearance could’ve prompted her to go searching. It would take some changes to the script, but it could’ve worked more or less the same.

The Person in Question

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Did we see the same movie? Roy’s wife bailed on him and took the kids with her when he went crazy. They weren’t exactly standing by him. And the kids came off as dullard brats who fancied goofy golf over a seeing a Disney film. Odds are the wife was going to want a divorce. Stay on Earth and pay alimony and child support for the next 15 years, or go with the aliens and possibly be declared legally dead? Tough choice! 😛

Contrast with Elliott, who has plenty of reasons to stay and not go with E.T. Although the feds probably followed him and his family’s every move for decades just in case E.T. ever came back.

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FYI Wook, I think most of the stuff you’re referencing isn’t in the theatrical cut of the film, which is what MFM watched. I know there’s definitely one new scene in the SE/DC that shows him having a much more negative effect on his family beyond what’s shown in the theatrical. Plus all the golf vs. Pinocchio stuff.

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SilverWook said:

Did we see the same movie? Roy’s wife bailed on him and took the kids with her when he went crazy. They weren’t exactly standing by him. And the kids came off as dullard brats who fancied goofy golf over a seeing a Disney film. Odds are the wife was going to want a divorce. Stay on Earth and pay alimony and child support for the next 15 years, or go with the aliens and possibly be declared legally dead? Tough choice! 😛

I don’t know. His character is like one of the millions of boring, shitty people that I wish would die but don’t. Just not my type of lead character.

The Person in Question

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moviefreakedmind said:

SilverWook said:

Did we see the same movie? Roy’s wife bailed on him and took the kids with her when he went crazy. They weren’t exactly standing by him. And the kids came off as dullard brats who fancied goofy golf over a seeing a Disney film. Odds are the wife was going to want a divorce. Stay on Earth and pay alimony and child support for the next 15 years, or go with the aliens and possibly be declared legally dead? Tough choice! 😛

I don’t know. His character is like one of the millions of boring, shitty people that I wish would die but don’t. Just not my type of lead character.

You’re looking at it entirely the wrong way, though I guess I’m not surprised.

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There are so many versions of CE3k now I can’t keep track of which scenes are present or not. Spielberg probably has a room in his mansion where he’s still re-cutting it. 😉

Seems to me the aliens wanted ordinary boring possibly shitty people. In one version it’s clear they don’t take any of the red jumpsuited scientist people.

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