The Wild Bunch

[maggie2]

I've started a project of watching all of the films on the AFI top 100 list, because I'm the weird sort of person who loves ticking off items on a list.  Sometimes it's labor.  Sometimes it's a lot of fun.  My last effort -- The Wild Bunch, a violent western by Sam Peckinpah -- was mostly labor.  Until the last half hour when it was smashingly brilliant and made the whole thing worthwhile.   I once dated a very brilliant guy whose policy is to decide within the first ten minutes if it's worth staying for a movie, and leaving if the answer is no.   There are many times when that's the right policy. Maybe even most of the time.   But you do miss some spectacular stuff doing things that way, and I guess for me it's worth paying the price of sitting through some unredeemable schlock to not miss those pieces.that only come together in a mad audacious rush at the end.  

Comments

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Ex doesn't walk out due to lack of patience. Ex walks out due to his certainty that he can judge the whole by what he sees in the first ten minutes. That frequently works, but it means he systematically misses movies that unfold unexpectedly.

For me the theory definitely goes for whole seasons. If I hadn't had a friend whose opinion I respected, I never would have made it to Passion, which was the first episode where I decided BtVS really was all that. I think it's exactly because Joss rewarded my patience before that I'm willing to let him have his spiel here.

Season 8 doesn't add up -- but it's thick. There's an image that I have always loved, and that's what happens in science where you supersaturate a liquid -- dump in particles in a way that keeps them suspended in water without clumping together the way they naturally would. When it's sufficiently supersaturated, you tap it, and a crystal will form instantaneously. That's how the last half hour of The Wild Bunch worked for me. That's my hope for season 8.

I'm looking forward to whatever debates we might have in January -- but right now, I think it's too early! So we'll see. Maybe I'll wish I'd walked out earlier. But I'd rather risk wasting my time on a bad comic, than risk missing out on that moment where Joss goes 'tap'.