OKAY GUYS I WATCHED THE STING

[dira]

I don't actually know what to say about it, even aside from not wanting to spoil anyone who's left on the internet unspoiled for a movie from 1973, because everything I've posted about watching Robert Redford movies so far has gotten the unanimous reply WHY HAVEN'T YOU WATCHED THE STING YET???

So, there you go, now I watched it.

(I mean, I liked it a lot and Robert Redford is gorgeous and Paul Newman's eyes are SO BLUE and I feel like I need to watch it about five more times to study all the looks they exchange. But mostly I feel like, OKAY, OKAY, I HAVE NOW SEEN THE STING.)

Comments

[minim_calibre]

Hee!

SO, SO BLUE! MARY SUE BLUE!

That one guy was played by James Earl Jones's dad, BTW.

[dira]

Oh! I thought he looked kind of familiar, but maybe it was family resemblance.

Also, SO UNVBELIEVABLY BLUE.

[minim_calibre]

Sinatra only WISHES his were levels of blue!

Man, they were such beautiful men, back in the day.

[dira]

Sooooo pretty :D

[petra]

"Seriously, did they do that in post-production?" blue.

[dira]

RIGHT? And like in most shots he's not looking directly at the camera and he just looks like a reasonably attractive dude with nondescript light-colored eyes and then you get one of those BLUE EYES AHOY shots and WHOA.

[minim_calibre]

"Hey, I saw this effect in David Lynch's Dune!" blue.

[liviapenn]

And now we begin the countdown to "Three Days of the Condor!"

[dira]

Yes! I'm doing that and All the President's Men this weekend! SO EXCITE. :D :D :D

[watersword]

I love that movie so much.

[dira]

It is pretty great. :D

[gwyn]

Ha. Your reaction is kind of like my friend's last week--she's been doing a Con Movie Wednesday live-tweeting thing to promote her just released romance novel, which features a con artist, and she was more like WELL NOW I'VE SEEN IT than anything else. But I finally got her to figure out why and for her it was that it was so plot heavy and the plot has been re-used millions of times, so it didn't have the freshness that it probably had for a lot of people who've seen it earlier, and she is more relationships among characters focused. And I think that was it for me, too--I saw Butch Cassidy at a very young age, when it just came out, and so that was the Paul/Bob ship movie for me, forever and ever amen. I love Sting, but it's not the huge deal it is for a lot of people (and there's an AMAZING story by Dorinda from YT a few years ago should you wish to check out fanfic).

If I had to pick a Redford movie, solo, it would definitely be Three Days of the Condor. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched it, and even written meta about the…unusual love scene. My friend and I have private 3DofC *jokes*, for crying out loud.

[dira]

Yeah, I think that's it--like, the plot wasn't mindblowing because I've seen Ocean's 11 and I knew that the movie wouldn't have the reputation it does, especially with slashers, if the betrayal was what it seemed to be. So it was more of an "oooh, how exactly does this play out?" than real suspense, and mostly I just wanted more of Hooker and Gondorff being onscreen together and there was NOT ENOUGH.

(I did feel a bit like The Sting was the happy ending fixit con man AU fanfic of Butch & Sundance, but clearly it needed more makeouts to be 100% successful in that department, which is why I look forward to Dorinda's fic!)

And ahahaha I HAVE HEARD ABOUT THAT SEX SCENE. FROM OVER HERE IN THE DUMPSTER. WE TALK ABOUT THAT ONE. So I am v v curious to see Three Days of the Condor--it's on tap for this weekend along with All the President's Men! :D

[sperrywink]

YAY!!! I loved The Sting and I was on of the people who hoped you would enjoy it. :-)

[dira]

And I did! :)

[mmegaera]

Butch and Sundance fan here. I saw The Sting in the theater as a teenager, and haven't seen it since in fear of the Suck Fairy. Butch and Sundance have never met the Suck Fairy, though.

[dira]

Not familiar with the Suck Fairy personally, but I think The Sting holds up pretty well. :)

[mmegaera]

The Suck Fairy is who messes with books, movies, etc., you really liked when you were younger, but that upon rereading, rewatching, etc., turn out to be not nearly as good as you remember.

Glad to hear The Sting held up.

[sholio]

Heh, the plot .... I watched The Sting when I was a young teenager and absolutely loved it. I thought it was twisty and mindblowing and amazing. My husband's never seen it, and I haven't seen it since I was a kid, so we recently decided to get it from Netflix and watch it. It was a little disconcerting to find that, after 25 additional years of reading/watching heist stuff, all the plot twists were terribly obvious (and my husband could see them coming a mile away). Because of course every plot quirk in it has been used multiple times in heist movies since then. Not that I didn't still have fun, but it was a little startling to realize how different the experience of watching it fresh and unjaded had been.

[dira]

Yeahhhhh. I mean, I didn't predict quite HOW they were going to do the last twist, because I am terrible at working these things out in advance while watching, but I knew there had to BE a last twist, so I wasn't in any suspense, just curious to see what they were doing.