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The Joys of Repeat Viewings

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I was watching Toy Story 3 again the other day and noticed the line "FAO my Schwartz!" for the first time. Nice to pick up new jokes on repeat viewings.

 

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Obviously lots of examples of this so share, share my pretties uglies.

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Arrested Development.

 

You'll never have appreciated it fully on one viewing. It's not possible. I've run through the whole series 4 times and was still picking up things last viewing.

 

Most TV shows benefit from repeat viewings, and films that were hard to grasp first time round I suppose.

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I think it is near-impossible to be able to fully-appreciate something first time around. Sometimes, as i've discovered with sit-coms, you don't fully under-stand the jokes until you are older.

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Watching Inception for the second time certainly cleared up a lot of things that had been bothering me after my first viewing. It's one of those films where you easily miss some of the details since so much is explained in short scenes and not everything is fully elaborated on. Everything does make sense, though, if you listen closely to all that's being said and use the little grey cells to work the rest out.

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revolver.jpg?0.5568436993237498

 

Amazing movie. Probably my all time favourite. After the first view I actually watched it again immediately. There is so much to think about. Every time I watch the movie again it reveals something new to me.

 

And of course:

Inception. Obvious choice is obvious.

Edit: Thank you Danny :p

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I think it is near-impossible to be able to fully-appreciate something first time around. Sometimes, as i've discovered with sit-coms, you don't fully under-stand the jokes until you are older.

That last hyphen was a joke, right?

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Watching Inception for the second time certainly cleared up a lot of things that had been bothering me after my first viewing. It's one of those films where you easily miss some of the details since so much is explained in short scenes and not everything is fully elaborated on. Everything does make sense, though, if you listen closely to all that's being said and use the little grey cells to work the rest out.

 

I found Inception gave too much away through dialogue. It would have been far more stunning as a movie if things just happened without explanation, rather than having to have Ellen Page guess everything going on all the time, and somehow always being spot on.

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When the gang stages an intervention over Marshall's hat on How I Met Your Mother. While the hat did remind me of The Cat in the Hat, I had never actually read any of Dr. Seuss' books, so when Robin started rhyming, I found it quirky but didn't get the reference.

 

Quite some time later, I somehow ended up reading parts of Green Eggs and Ham on Wikipedia or something out of boredom. A few days later, I catch the episode on television, and suddenly the scene was much funnier. I have since watched it with two other people, and have had to explain why it's so funny both times.

 

 

But yeah, Arrested Development is the king of repeat viewings, though I'm sure everyone already knows that. I also quite like watching old episodes of The Simpsons, as I often find myself getting jokes that I missed when I was younger or catching subtler jokes.

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Back to the Future. There's just so much detail in those films, including the tiniest prop and tiniest line. Last time I watched the series (on Blu-Ray via my Step Dad's expensive projector) I noticed that at the very start the letter from the Doc is drying by the fireplace. It's not a particularly important thing for them to put in the film, but they did it anyway.

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Can we mention video games? 'Cause I went back to Mario Galaxy after an extended hiatus and I couldn't believe that I had ever stopped. I've never read, played or watched anything that was simultaneously so ingenious and infectiously joyous in the entirety of my existence. I remember it being good, but playing it again it seemed so much more brilliant then even what I recalled.

 

Also, old episodes of The Simpsons. You can't understand how much of a disappointment the more recent episodes are until you go back and watch some of the earlier "classic" episodes. They're not just breath-takingly funny and inventively plotted, they're also genuinely affecting with sympathetic characters and a genuine sense of emotional consequence. They're easily the best things ever committed to television, and that includes modern greats like The Wire and Mad Men.

Edited by gaggle64

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I have to agree with the Simpsons. Watching old episodes I used to watch as a kid, now have hilarious jokes I didn't even realise were jokes before.

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I found Inception gave too much away through dialogue. It would have been far more stunning as a movie if things just happened without explanation, rather than having to have Ellen Page guess everything going on all the time, and somehow always being spot on.

 

Without any offence intended, that's because Nolan didn't aim the film at you (and people with your mindset). Inception is obviously a blockbuster, so with the plot he had, he needed to treat the general audience just right. If he used less exposition that he did, he would have lost a good deal of the audience.

 

Even as it is, I've seen plenty of people get facts wrong that were actually explained in the film. You can imagine the coherence of the theories they propose about the unexplained parts of film. If even more things were left unexplained, too many people simply wouldn't have understood the film.

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That last hyphen was a joke, right?

 

Could have been (yeah, twas a joke)

 

I have to agree with the Simpsons. Watching old episodes I used to watch as a kid, now have hilarious jokes I didn't even realise were jokes before.

 

I'm not alone then.

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Yeah, in Inception's case, I thought the exposition was done fairly well. Ellen Page seemed remarkably capable/unquestioning of the the concepts behind everything, but then I just assumed that was because it was set in some near future where that kind of technology isn't so "!!!". So that lack of explanation right there is an example of what Chair wanted more of. Letting the audience work stuff out.

 

And frankly, I think without explanation, it would come off very badly. People would just be like "Why is Limbo there? Why can't they go into more dreams? Why can't they dream up dragons and monsters and stuff?".

 

The explanations were done fine.

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Watching Inception for the second time certainly cleared up a lot of things that had been bothering me after my first viewing. It's one of those films where you easily miss some of the details since so much is explained in short scenes and not everything is fully elaborated on. Everything does make sense, though, if you listen closely to all that's being said and use the little grey cells to work the rest out.

 

Disagree, for the most part. If it wasn't clear for you the first go 'round (and I watched it 3 times) it probably just means you either got distracted or are dumb. It's such an obvious plot. People just make it out to be more "hard to understand" than it is because it's layered. It's great, but I never really got (not even remotely) all the "it's hard to get it completely the first time around" frame of mind.

 

___

 

I think it's only appropriate that the first reply was regarding Arrested Development, because repeated viewings are what reveal it's true potential, as it really does get better with each viewing, and I'm up to the fifth, as of yet. It keeps surprising me.

 

 

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Amazing movie. Probably my all time favourite. After the first view I actually watched it again immediately. There is so much to think about. Every time I watch the movie again it reveals something new to me.

 

This is one of those cases where I've always strongly disagreed with the majority of viewers/critics... because I think Revolver is a very good movie, despite the fact that it's considered one of the worst movies ever made.

It's designed to leave you wondering, and you only really "get" the plot the second time around, yet somehow the fact that the name David Lynch wasn't attached to the project, the whole idea behind it suddenly become the archetype for what should be considered contrived/pretentious. To this day, I still believe this one to be one of the most gaping mistakes of the film evaluating community, because while it isn't a masterpiece, it's usually branded as terrible, which I believe is a mistake, since this is quite a good take on human greed (not There Will Be Blood good, but good enough nonetheless).

 

 

They're easily the best things ever committed to television, and that includes modern greats like The Wire and Mad Men.

 

I agree with the rest of your post, but I had to stop you here, gaggle. Mainly for equating Mad Men with The Wire.

 

And also because Simpsons at it's best still isn't good enough to reach The Wire, nor does it benefit from repeat viewings, unless you watched it as a kid.

 

___

 

My (fairly obvious) contributions:

 

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Andrei+Tarkovsky.jpg

Both in general.

 

_

 

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2001_a_space_odyssey.jpeg

 

And I can't remembe anything else right now...

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Personally I found Inception alright the first time round, but the second time I was literally so bored that I went to sleep.

 

If books count here, then David Mitchell's Ghostwritten has to top my list, which I had to read three times to fully understand the meta-story.

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I found Juno had a few little one liners in it that I missed the first time round. Do enjoy that film.

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Disagree, for the most part. If it wasn't clear for you the first go 'round (and I watched it 3 times) it probably just means you either got distracted or are dumb.

 

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Blank-Facepalm-thumb-387x259-155318.jpg

 

I watched it 3 tmes because it was good, and I really thought it was worthy of rewatching it in a theater, while it was available in said format (and the third one was over christmas, I got my cousin the Blu-Ray as present and everyone wanted to watch it, so I just went along for the ride)... not because I didn't get it.

I literally got nothing new from it the second/third times. Thus why I used that to make my point before.

 

In short, repeated viewings do not make it any better (or worse, for that matter) unless you were either distracted or are just a bit dumb in general.

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In short, repeated viewings do not make it any better (or worse, for that matter) unless you were either distracted or are just a bit dumb in general.

Is that just for Inception or is everyone dumb/distracted if they don't spot every little detail in one viewing?

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All of Spaced. There's so many jokes and references packed so tightly together that I can't see anyone fully appreciating the episodes first time through.

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I watched it 3 tmes because it was good, and I really thought it was worthy of rewatching it in a theater, while it was available in said format (and the third one was over christmas, I got my cousin the Blu-Ray as present and everyone wanted to watch it, so I just went along for the ride)... not because I didn't get it.

I literally got nothing new from it the second/third times. Thus why I used that to make my point before.

 

In short, repeated viewings do not make it any better (or worse, for that matter) unless you were either distracted or are just a bit dumb in general.

 

The funny thing is you completely and utterly missed my point.

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The funny thing is you completely and utterly missed my point.

When all you have is a picture expressing disagreement or disappointment, that's an easy thing to do.

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When all you have is a picture expressing disagreement or disappointment, that's an easy thing to do.

 

Given the context, I assumed it was fairly obvious. But I'll gladly explain: My point was simply that Oxigen_Waste is once again being arrogant and condescending, pretty much insulting everyone who's not him.

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This is one of those cases where I've always strongly disagreed with the majority of viewers/critics... because I think Revolver is a very good movie, despite the fact that it's considered one of the worst movies ever made.

 

I agree with you there. Revolver really is a great movie.

 

And I also think it shows that Jason Statham can act (elevator scene springs to mind).

 

Thanks for reminding me of Fight Club. Only watched it once, but gonna do it again soon.

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