Badmovies.org Forum

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA on TCM Friday, November 16, 8pm EST. 

One of my favorite movies of all time and one of the greatest ever filmed....pure excellence! :wink:

I cannot disagree.  At some point, this long film entered the singular realm of "endlessly watchable" for me.  I instantly liked this film, and I was quite young when it came on the TV as an event (probably not its first time).  But this is a rare film for me that gets better each time I look at it.  Which I will be doing again.  

If you have not seen this film, take a chance, I think anyone without a chip on their shoulder would like this film.  It's long, and at times "motionless," but it's riveting.  As Tracy put it "...one of the greatest ever filmed....pure excellence!"

I,too,love it! Its in the top 20 of my Favorite Films of All Time.
And the music is FANTASTIC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFwhhH2x7I

Ah,the music....probably my favorite movie theme. :wink:

I'm pretty damn excited that it's finally out on bluray.

bought a copy today have never seen it before. Hear the blu ray looks fantastic so I'm excited to check it out this week. 

Seeing it for the first time....lucky you! :wink:

Perhaps... though I could see where someone would not appreciate LAWRENCE OF ARABIA right away.  It is a long movie.  I do think it's about as good as movies get.  I do like DAVID LEAN's movies (watched much of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO last night, another long one I love, directed by LEAN).  My favorite LEAN movie would have to be GREAT EXPECTATIONS which is more jaw-dropping perfection, and not as long as the other two I mention. 

I guess I'm odd....I don't care how lengthy film is as long as it is interesting.  :wink:

Uhm, you've never encountered someone who complained that any particular movie was "too long"?  I've even encountered people who won't watch a movie because it's black and white! 

Finally got around to watching this one. Firstly as I've said before the Blu Ray restoration is truly astounding and the best I have ever seen. Many films I have on blu ray from the past 20 years pale in comparison to the utter clarity and perfection of this image. You can see clips of the restored dvd on the behind the scenes material and they are worlds apart.

Ok enough gushing about the blu ray, what about the movie itself. Well on first viewing I greatly enjoyed the whole experience. I see that much has been written about the greatness of this film so I feel I have little to add. In fact writing about this movie at all seems futile the greatness is clearly there on the screen. The music, the complexity of Peter O Toole's performance and obviously the scope of the whole production were immediately impressive, but I feel rewatches and further exploration of Leans movies will further my appreciation in the future.

Well, I have to admit I found the whole experience a bit overrated.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the movie, but I didn't find it a work of epic genius. It's certainly epic in scope (and length), but I just didn't find a handle that really tied me to the movie. Maybe my expectations were too high.

I kind of felt the same way about The Bridge on the River Kwai. A really good movie, but really long does not necessarily mean "epic."

Maybe I'm spoiled, because I approached David Lean through his earlier, smaller movies. Allhallowsday, mentioned his adaptation of Great Expectations, which is fantastic. I also really like Brief Encounter. I can see the importance of his later "epic" work, but for me, they really do not compare to his earlier stuff.

But this is me judging his work several decades later. You should watch these movies, I'm not arguing that. They just didn't hit me as "the best movies of all time."

I have indeed! I've known people that complained after 90 minutes....please! I guess some have too short an attention span for that. Also,my daughter used to refuse to watch anything in B&W.....but she really started appreciating them after seeing some old Hammer film classics. She's now a huge fan of Lugosi,Karloff,Lee and Cushing. Yea!