Rating: Summary: Boring beyond belief Review: What a waste of money! No widescreen, Dolby 5.1 Surround, and it's in black and white. In the scene in which Kane goes after political boss Jim W. Geddes, he just stops on the stair landing -- it would have been a lot cooler if he pushed him down the stairs.There's very little action in this movie, just a lot of talk, talk, talk about Kane. There's sort of a plot, which is about finding out what "Rosebud" means. Then, at the end of the movie, you only find out it's his sled. Huh? I watched two hours of this tedious and pretentious nonsense to find out he misses his sled? Save your hard-earned money, and watch "The Matrix: Reloaded" instead!
Rating: Summary: Movies can't get much worse than this. Review: Saying Citizen Kane is the best film is absolutely an insult to other great films. This film got one of the worst actings I have ever seen. The story painfully[bad]. This is kind of a film that prople will walk out if they watch it in a theater. I'm upset that many people are misled by critics' propaganda. The way AFI ranks the films is not different from the way 'People' magazine ranks the most beautiful people of the year. It's pretty absurd.
Rating: Summary: Boring? Hardly! Review: First and formost, this is an entertaining movie. (...) Citizen Kane is on my top three list, not because is "supposed to be", but because I honestly enjoyed watching it. And that's the number one priority...is it enjoyable. The script was outstanding. I thought the flashbacks of different people's perspectives of various points in Kane's life was a great idea. Excellent acting, excellent music, excellent cinematography... The fact that Welles never directed a movie before is amazing! If he had done an average movie about Hearst, he still would have had the same reaction and noteriety at the time, but it would have been mostly forgotten today. If he had shown up and produced just a really good movie, it would have been noted in film history as an acheivement, but the film would be little viewed. But no, he showed up, produced a masterpiece (can't call it the greatest ever, too subjective). Forget Rosebud. That's not the point of the movie. It's just an excuse to explore the man's life. Watch the movie with no preconcieved notions about it being the greatest movie ever. Just watch it. You'll enjoy it.
Rating: Summary: Great Film... GREAT DVD! Review: This film has been at or near the top of just about every reviewer's list of the "Greatest Films of All Time" for a long time, so I'm not going to add anything by just talking about how great the film is. Everyone knows it's a great film, so I'll leave it at that. However, the DVD itself is something worth talking about. It's packaged as a Special Edition, and it contains a ton of extra materials, which I found to be just as interesting as the film itself. Specifically, the extra information including "The Battle over Citizen Kane" are worth the price of the DVD alone. There are so many interesting stories behind the scenes about the film itself that you will never see the film the same way again.
Rating: Summary: I expected a lot more than this from the greatest film ever. Review: This film is nothing but pure hype. If the film is not good enough to claim the title of the greatest film ever made, it should not be claimed that title. It's ridiculous to choose this film over many other great films to hold the title of the best American film. Citizen Kane is not for those who truly love great movies. It's very disappointing.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful! Review: I had heard about this film all of my life, but it wasn't until my Senior year in college that I actually watched it for the first time in a film class. I was literally blown away. Not only is the story extremely interesting, but the film techniques used will delight your eyes! I've always been a lover of film and how their made and put together, and "Citizen Kane" is the epitome of what a good movie is. Orson Welles' direction of this film is immaculate, especially for someone who was so young when he directed it! You will immediately be drawn into all of the characters in this film. I would highly suggest "Citizen Kane" to any and everyone!!! If you want to watch a captivating and cinematically beautiful piece of filmmaking, watch this film!!!
Rating: Summary: Best Movie Ever Review: If you are a film buff you need to watch this. One of the first movies to ever use deep focud lenses which clear the picture dramatically. This movie is praised as employing every filmic qualitie that is used today.
Rating: Summary: Disc 1 - Five stars, Disc 2 - Three stars Review: What more can I say that hasn't already been said, Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made in entire history of cinema. As for the DVD, the movie looks great, the commentaries are excellent, the extras are great....then there's disc 2. For the novice Orson Welles fan, like I was when I bought this DVD I liked the Battle Over Citizen Kane. But having immersed myself in his career, I would now say that the doc is good-vg at best. It gets at the bare bones of Welles, Hearst, and Citizen Kane. But I guess the major problem I have with this doc is that it was made on the foundation of the old-but-incorrect belief that this movie finished Welles. He was more than Kane, both before and after, and there are other docs that could have been used instead. Overall, the DVD set was great. The only thing missing was the War of the Worlds broadcast which early reports said would be included. But that's not a big loss.
Rating: Summary: An explanation why CK is the greatest film ever made Review: Greatest film made so far by the human mind. Contains every other film ever made within it, be it an art, commercial, documentary, experimental, information or propoganda film. If you only ever watch one film it would be this one - it contains the entire vocabulary of film-making and the filmic experience encoded within itself. Its components (narrative structure, cinematography, set design, sound, thematic content, etc.)interact and cross-refer to each other and to components within the viewing human mind in a way that creates an ever changing kaleidescope of forms and images inside the viewer's mind. This deliberate dynamism within and between its components are not so much built into the structure of the film, rather they are the structure of the film ! This gives the film a magical quality - it constantly seems to shift shape, yet also seems to remain the same. It is difficult to say exactly what the film is about. One can point out individual scenes and moments, but that seems to miss the point. But then one is hard pressed to say exactly what the point is. But then again, one cannot deny that one has seen something. But what exactly has one seen ? For this reason it has been called a 'labryinth without a centre'. It is also why the film defies easy analysis. It is why people find it so hard to provide a clear explanation of what exactly it is that makes the film great. It is then, this deliberate and tremendously well-executed dynamism between its structural components that stands this film head and shoulders above the great films made by the likes of Ray, Ozu, Renoir, Dreyer et al. If these other films are Taj Mahals, then Citizen Kane is a Taj Mahal that sings and dances ! It deliberately shows you how and why it is great, and then defies you to explain how that is possible. It really is quite an extraordinary achievement. For parallels in human endeavour one might point to Pele in football, or Shakepeare in English literature or Plato in Western Philosophy - in each case, all possible creative possibilities in the specified field were fully realised, explored and exemplified by one single, shining example. Citizen Kane achieves this mighty accolade in the arena of making films. The quality described above is not necessarily overt for every viewer - it is a hidden treasure - one needs eyes to see and ears to hear in order to fully grasp the immensity of the accomplishment. To some extent one needs some exposure to the techniques of film-making and also an imaginative understanding of what it is possible to do with films. It as though Welles took the available materials of film-making and then made the most dazzling item that could possibly be made out of those materials - not in the visual or thrill-generating sense of the word (as with say a Star Wars or a Godfather), but in the technical sense. In that sense, this is an inside job - only the high priests can fully appreciate what has been achieved - but this in no sense diminishes the staggering nature of what has been achieved. So far in the 62 years since its release, it has not been bettered. Which is not to say that it could not, but it would need something equally extraordinary to do it. It is the sense in which a Jimi Hendrix or a Muhammad Ali might be bettered - possible, but highly unlikely ! We must therefore allow the possibility that with Citizen Kane, humanity closed the book on film-making once and for all, in 1941 itself. I suspect that this is indeed the case.
Rating: Summary: Grossly overrated Review: I guess the high accolades for this film relate to it's innovation at the time it was released. To modern viewers, it strikes me as a good story about the rise and fall of a self-destructive genius. Yes, it's well acted and told along with being a good story, but I can't see this film as being anything more than an average good film.
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