I actually sat on the couch Saturday night and watched Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" which followed his groundbreaking "Citizen Kane." Ambersons is one of those movies that you're supposed to watch if you give a shit about movies, or films for those who are smarter than their teachers. It's essentially a story about a prominent Midwestern family that declines and falls, due to bad bidness decisions and an absolute rotten shit of a son who generally fucks up a lot. Critics like it because of the signature Welles camera shots, angles, triangles, etc. and apparently, the overall dramatic effort which they say was pulled off despite the evil studio types forcing Welles to cut an hour or so of footage that no doubt featured Joseph Cotten dressed as a sad clown descending a staircase with the shadows of a crackling fire in the background along with a carnival barker ordering dessert or something, all shown as flashbacks along with a homage to the victims of Guernica and a brief interview with Clara Bow on USC football recruiting. I'll praise it while at the same time publicly declaring my ignorance by saying that I think it's overrated. Praise in terms that the movie moves and is directed more astutely than most anything that you'll see coming out of Hollywood, with professional actors like Cotten and Agnes Morehead, who as an aside, I couldn't help but think was really hot looking. Overrated in that it's not that compelling of a story and Tim Holt seemed way in over his head in the central role as the jackass son. Just not that good (IMHO), so fire away if you feel differently--I'm open to being educated.
High marks for the closing credits--unique and I've never seen them done better. Yes, Welles degenerated quickly into a fat, drunken has been but there was no doubt that he had significant talent.
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