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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   664 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I think lots of modern viewers have trouble with how non-optimized older movies are, and it's not necessarily an attention span thing. Almost every scene or bit of dialog in modern movies is Doing Something or Establishing Something. There's very little fat. Many older movies have stretches that are doing nothing but hanging out with a character or doing some non-essential worldbuilding or spending time on a sideplot that ultimately goes nowhere. This was taken to extreme lengths at times (like The Deer Hunter or Heaven's Gate) but many 60s-70s films have stuff like this. This is probably not applicable to you if you enjoy films like Psycho or The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

I'd be curious what you thought of any Robert Altman movies you've seen. His audio mixing is atrocious and his pacing is all over the place, but it's usually intentional. His framing, presentation, and scenes can all be top-notch.

I've always found The Sting to be stuffy and airless. It's a big studio crowd-pleaser that sanded off too many rough edges to hit the mass-market middle ground (and box office receipts show they nailed it). Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid had amazing scenery, great cinematography, a script by William Goldman, and the ridiculous chemistry of Newman and Redford, whereas The Sting was trying to get by on the latter. I agree with the 70s stink on that one.

There are a number of cop movies from the 60s-70s that suffer from "one-hour police procedural stretched into 2 hours." Bullitt is the prime example. I don't think I'd say French Connection is like that, but maybe it feels that way when the first half-hour of a 1:44 movie is a bunch of stuff establishing what kind of person and cop Hackman's character is.

I've always found The Sting to be stuffy and airless. It's a big studio crowd-pleaser that sanded off too many rough edges to hit the mass-market middle ground (and box office receipts show they nailed it).

Maybe I am the mass market moddle ground, but I loved it. It's probably got some of my favorite twists, and the con scenes are pulled off very well.

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