Another epic round. Keep it up! Another tight race, but it was Your Accomplice in the Wood Chipper who ended up taking the win by just a vote or two and will be moving on to the next round. Congrats! For this next round, R.L. Logan had to drop due to health reasons, so Dr. Richard Thornton will automatically move on to the next round and review Far and Away. But for now, here is his review of Citizen Kane. As usual, an auto-pass round will only last a day, so the next actual battle will start on Saturday. Until then, read and comment with your thoughts! The updated bracket is below. Click to make it bigger.
EDITOR’S NOTE (Please Read First): The following review took a different-than-usual approach. Citizen Kane is the type of movie that’s been talked about to death, usually in a quite serious manner; this review takes a more comical stance. It is not meant to be taken as a serious, thought-provoking critique, so please do not hurl insults at the author in the comments for making jokes at or having fun with this film. Remember, this is for entertainment purposes only, and everybody has different styles of writing.
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Citizen Kane Review
By Dr. Richard Thornton
Ah, Citizen Kane. It’s the movie people nowadays use to compare how good it is to another movie. “The Dark Knight Rises is the Citizen Kane of comic book movies.” “The Room is the Citizen Kane of bad movies.” “Salo is the Citizen Kane of child rape movies.” But don’t you wonder what they used prior to 1941, the year of the film’s release?
“Wow, Citizen Kane is the Triumph of the Will of movies!”
“NO! Citizen Kane is the Electrocuting An Elephant of movies!”
I guess we’ll never know cause anybody that would’ve been around in 1941 is certainly dead.
Here’s the part where I talk about the movie itself and tell you what it’s about, but let’s be honest for a moment here: who DOESN’T know what the bleep this movie is about? Hell, I don’t watch these kinds of movies and I know what it’s about. But I guess we have to pretend for a moment that someone who’s never seen a movie before will come to a website called “Large Association of Movie Blogs” and just start reading crap randomly so here goes.
I had a hard time taking this movie seriously anytime they said “Xanadu” in this film cause I just kept thinking of the Olivia Newton-John film and kept singing “XANNNNNNADUU!!!” over and over again. I think I need to have an Eternal Sunshine done to me so I can forget both films and rewatch Citizen Kane again to get a better opinion about it.
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| I’d love to live inside that! |
Alas, such a thing doesn’t exist.
Anyway, we’re introduced to Charles Foster “Citizen” Kane, as played by Orson Welles. And SPOILER ALERT FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE he dies, with his last word being “rosebud.” Crack reporter Jerry decides to figure out what “rosebud” means. Interesting thing about Jerry, we never see his face. Either his back is turned to us or he’s in the darkest part of the room. Since we only see the back of his head at times, this also made me think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. OH PLEASE TELL ME SOMEBODY GETS THAT!! Jerry talks to numerous people and we get glimpses of Kane’s life. We find out his life sucked until he was forced to live with an old guy, who died and Kane got his money. He then decided to marry the President’s niece (I think) and run for Governor, but like all rich assholes, they cheat on their wives. I guess Kane is a Republican? BOOM!
So his campaign is ruined, along with his marriage, and he marries his mistress and makes her be an opera singer. I’m not even making that shit up. I have no idea why. I’m guessing because I’m not a rich asshole from the 1930’s. Oh, did I just spoil my identity? You can eliminate any LAMB members who are rich assholes from the 1930’s. Eventually, Kane forms a disco dance club where you can roller skate to your heart’s desire and spends the rest of his life there, boogieing down with Gene Kelly, until he dies. Jerry, being the crappy reporter he is, doesn’t figure out what “rosebud” is and gives up. I’d love to read that news article.
“So I went out on a mission to find out what ‘rosebud’ was. After putting on some skates and jumping through a giant mural painted on the side of a building, I came up empty. So let’s say rosebud is, I dunno, a sled that reminds Charles Foster Kane of the only time he was truly happy. Now, tomorrow’s lottery numbers are-“
Oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT for a movie EVERYBODY HAS SEEN! I mean, really. I got bitched at last time for telling you about the whole movie but this is FUCKING CITIZEN KANE. EVERYBODY knows what happens, so what’s the point?
Now is the part where I tell you some history. Orson Welles was this big dude (literally) who trolled everybody by simulating an alien attack over the radio. This got people interested in this dude so they threw a billion dollars at him to make whatever movie he wanted to make, so he made Citizen Kane. They loved it so much they threw more money and him and he decided to troll people by casting Charleston Heston as a Mexican in a movie. That’s about all you need to know.
This was my first time watching this movie and I guess I’m glad I seen it but I won’t watch it again. I got everything I need to get out of it out of the first viewing. Personally, I thought Rosebud was the name of the snowglobe. I mean if the sled meant that much to you, why weren’t you holding that on your deathbed? Huh? So anyway, in conclusion Citizen Kane is the Citizen Kane of Citizen Kane movies.