Finally watched Rebel Without A Cause

Jbird

Jbird

Kick Henry Jackassowski
It was on TMC earlier tonight. I had never watched it before.

:ack:

I thought it was a bad movie. Horrible script, bad acting. What is all the fuss about over it? Is it just because James Dean died later?


Still have yet to see Citizen Kane. I'm sure I will be underwhelmed with that one, too.
 
Jbird said:
Still have yet to see Citizen Kane. I'm sure I will be underwhelmed with that one, too.
Click to expand...

Citizen Kane is a lot like the Beatles music. I can appreciate how groundbreaking a it was at the time. But today it’s fucking boring and I’d rather watch what other people did with the ideas later.
 
Jbird said:
It was on TMC earlier tonight. I had never watched it before.

:ack:

I thought it was a bad movie. Horrible script, bad acting. What is all the fuss about over it? Is it just because James Dean died later?


Still have yet to see Citizen Kane. I'm sure I will be underwhelmed with that one, too.
Click to expand...

"I thought it was a bad movie. Horrible script, bad acting. What is all the fuss about over it? Is it just because James Dean died later?"

I think the big draw was he was so hungry and so lean. That he bought it sight unseen had a big impact too.
Also, also, he was dreamy.

I will always treasure Citizen Kane. It was a great movie but, I identify with his childhood and that's probably why I love it so much.
 
I’ve seen it, but the last time I saw it, I was a teenager.

I suspect that Dean’s ‘cultural icon’ look in that movie certainly goes a long way. Probably one of the first teenage movies ever as well. And, if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s well-made as well, with Nicholas Ray’s filmmaking. I remember it as being very visually pretty.

But 50s teenage rebellion just seems extremely mild and timid these days in a world of the drug wars, massive shootings, #MeToo, etc. The kids in Rebel Without a Cause mostly all seem like decent enough kids, not kids who are on the road to a life of crime and violence. See also: Westside Story.

So I get the frustration with it. Especially if you just don’t dig teenage drama films. I find it a little puzzling, though, because the musical equivalent of that is heavy metal. :shrug:

Citizen Kane is another story. It 100% deserves all of its status, and people who say otherwise basically have “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about” tattoos on their foreheads.
 
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I saw it maybe 16 years ago, don’t remember a whole lot of it but yeah Dean was dreamy as Bob said above. Never saw Citizen but I did watch Giant and I liked that mainly for the scope f it, the Wide open country but really all those movies are like almost 70 years old now and they don’t really hold up. Silent film stuff almost holds up better and b movie creature feature stuff definitely holds up better.
 
Rebel Without a Cause is a great movie, although as Flamencology points out, part of the problem with it for modern audiences is that the theme of looking for the causes of juvenile delinquency is old hat now. Dean's performance is, of course, brilliant.

And like Citizen Kane, which also follows the investigation of a burning question, the answer we're given simultaneously explains everything and nothing. Is it because of bickering parents? Lenient cops? Peer pressure? Mismatched socks? Dad wearing an apron? It's none of those things, yet the language of the visual images lets us feel an answer we intuitively know but cannot articulate.
 
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