Fight Club is Rambo for smarter-than-average liberals. That's my new tag-line summation of it.
Hitchcock -- my basic feeling on Hitchcock (although I like more of his movies than you do, I think), is that he was directing during times when directors were more prolific than now, when they could not really afford to be Tarantino or Scorsese and put out a movie only every few years. Like Altman does now, for different reasons, he wound up making more movies -- I think -- than he would if left entirely to his own devices. Normally, we'd forget the less-than-genius ones, but canonize the director, canonize the movies, so a lot of mediocre stuff is treated as masterpiece. (I think Rear Window and Rope are fantastic just visually, even if the stories were crap; I like Vertigo, but don't think it's his best work.)
I'm convinced Raging Bull gets canonized because of the weight DeNiro put on for the role (all things related to the "Method" get respect disproportionate to the result) and because, well, it's DeNiro before he started doing strange "did you really need to make that movie, Bob?" movies. I don't -hate- it, but I can't even seem to appreciate it in a "this isn't my thing, but I get why it works for people" way.
I don't get how anyone can not like Chaplin. But that's okay.
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random thoughts
Hitchcock -- my basic feeling on Hitchcock (although I like more of his movies than you do, I think), is that he was directing during times when directors were more prolific than now, when they could not really afford to be Tarantino or Scorsese and put out a movie only every few years. Like Altman does now, for different reasons, he wound up making more movies -- I think -- than he would if left entirely to his own devices. Normally, we'd forget the less-than-genius ones, but canonize the director, canonize the movies, so a lot of mediocre stuff is treated as masterpiece. (I think Rear Window and Rope are fantastic just visually, even if the stories were crap; I like Vertigo, but don't think it's his best work.)
I'm convinced Raging Bull gets canonized because of the weight DeNiro put on for the role (all things related to the "Method" get respect disproportionate to the result) and because, well, it's DeNiro before he started doing strange "did you really need to make that movie, Bob?" movies. I don't -hate- it, but I can't even seem to appreciate it in a "this isn't my thing, but I get why it works for people" way.
I don't get how anyone can not like Chaplin. But that's okay.