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The Poseidon Adventure – 1972 Neame
- One of the most famous and accomplished disaster films of the 1970’s- a popular subgenre of drama/thriller that included The Towering Inferno, Airport, Earthquake
- The talented and star-studded ensemble – Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine— creating a sort of microcosm of society playing a cop, a preacher, a bachelor, etc—not far off from Grand Hotel or Stagecoach
- In the wake of The Naked Gun in 1988 it’s tough to watch Leslie Nielsen straight here as the ship’s captain
- The writing handicaps the story and performances in parts of the film- often the characters just tell others characteristics about themselves for no reason
- Ronald Neame is no auteur but using the tilting camera to simulate the ship rocking mostly works
- The “Morning After” song is nice, as is John Williams score though he hadn’t quite find his footing yet either in 1972
- Hackman is a natural leader—and Borgnine a good sparring partner with him to keep from betting blown off the screen
- Immensely watchable despite the flaws – often cited as guilty pleasure on such lists and I understand why
- Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1972
Drake2020-06-17T19:35:00+00:00
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What makes a film “immensely watchable” for you? Isn’t Citizen Kane, The Apartment, The Searchers and a lot of other movies also “immensely watchable”?(all the films I mentioned are much less flawed than Poseidon adventure.)
The searchers is a movie quite easy to see in my opinion, it is very beautiful, it is also accessible The apartment, Citizen Kane I agree is not very accessible
I was trying to ask Drake about what makes a film “immensly watchable”
@Aldo Is Citizen Kane as watchable as Poseidon Adventure? Why or why not?. Surely Kane should be even more watchable since it is much better technically
Because Citizen Kane is more technical bravado, I have always heard of Kane’s greatness, if I had seen it when I had less knowledge of the cinema, I would not have been able to appreciate it.
Arguably because people like “adventure, action and violence”
True- I agree. People would endlessly watch Joe Pesci acting like a violent maniac(in Goodfellas) and find it entertaining but a complex portrayal of a man (like Citizen Kane) would be seen as not-so-entertaining.
I found Kane absolutely fascinating when I saw it at 15. I loved how Kane had everything(money wise) but was still not completely satisfied with life. He longed for his childhood. The technicalities are insane(editing, cinematography etc).
However, even I’ll admit, there’s some primal thrill in watching stylised violence (Goodfellas or Mean Streets or Reservoir Dogs). I think it’s built in human beings(especially males) that we prefer violent and dangerous things as opposed to normal, regular things.
Do you agree?
However, I disagree with you calling The Apartment non-accessible. It’s brilliantly acted and told, and has been a Christmas classic for movie-goers for decades. Along with violent gangster movies, romance is also a genre that audiences greatly enjoy.
I’m pretty sure I said that the apartment “is accessible”
I agree but there are people who do not like it, but for some reason the box office is dominated by movies like this
Ah I misunderstood. I thought you said Apartment wasn’t accessible.
You’re right. Most top grossing movies are like The apartment, goodfellas etc. Faster paced movies. Certain times movies like 2001 (slower paced) are the highest grossing movies of their respective years though this is rare.