New Year's Resolutions: Citizen Kane

Second month of trying to watch more classic movies... I was almost in BIG trouble this month, though. I told my husband that I wanted to watch a classic movie during our Valentine's Day date, so he headed off to Blockbuster to pick up the flick, just in time to find out that our Blockbuster was going out of business. Ironically, it was only days after I read Suburban Turmoil's blog on the exact topic. The death of video stores is happening before our very eyes; we are, in fact, killing them with our love of Red Box and instant streaming of films via Netflix. And now that the video rental place is dead, we don't even get a choice in where we get our movies from. It's a sad day.

So, my Valentine decided to buy me Netflix. And I am loving it. I've already seen Chicago and Citizen Kane this week (Don't judge my excessive movie watching - what's a nursing mom supposed to do? Sit on the couch bored out of her mind? I think not.).

A few thoughts on Citizen Kane (I'm too tired to write about Chicago tonight - maybe later)...

Top 10 reasons I loved Citizen Kane:
1) I love antique political buttons. Do you see it on Jed's jacket?

2) I love the images of a slower pace of life - Kane sitting and listening to Suzan sing and play the piano, Kane eating breakfast each morning with his first wife, Emily, and even Suzan sitting by the fire doing jigsaw puzzles. Something about this life before technology intrigues me, and I often crave moments like this.

3) Great cinematography. The flashbacks are brilliant.

4) The scene of extreme boredom during Suzan's opening night at the Chicago Opera House is genius and hyper-realistic. It reminds me of my childhood. I'll never forget my own father falling asleep at the opera while trying to pretend he was reading the newspaper.

5) I love movies based on true stories.

6) I am completely intrigued by William Randolph Hearst.

7) Anything about Hearst makes me think about Newsies a.k.a. The Best Musical Ever. "Pulitzer and Hearst, they think they got us. Do they got us? NO!!!!!!!!"

8) The image of what greed and selfishness can do to a man. Can't you feel his loneliness mounting? Poor man.

9) "I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle."  These lines are fantastic, aren't they? To think of each word, each memory, each person as a part of the jigsaw puzzle of our lives? 

10) The ending. In a film of flashbacks, the directors force YOU, the viewer, to create your own flasback of Kane's childhood in order to discover the symbolic meaning of "Rosebud." And of course, the smoke. Life is like a vapor, and the film ends forcing the viewer to reflect on Kane's life and what it means now that it is over. Now the viewer must reflect on his or her own life and what they want it to mean before it ends, like Kane. He had it all, yet he had nothing.

Singin' in the Rain and Bonnie and Clyde are the next 2 films in my Netflix Queue. What's in yours???