Seen for the tenth time in July 2013.
I often times cite this as my favorite movie. It's easily in the top ten. I'm surprised by how much I still laugh out loud while watching it. I'm not sure wittier dialogue has ever been filmed. Richard Burton is amazing. Elizabeth Taylor is perfect. And it turns out that's the guy from "Just Shoot Me?" Whoa. I noticed Mike Nichols's camera work this time around, which truly resonates and is good. This is not just a filmed adaption of a great play. Nichols puts thought and effort into how to portray it on the screen, but also has the good sense not to get in the way of the play's vicious wit.
It's a cliche for people to say that every time they watch a movie they get something new out of it. I don't. This movie doesn't need to improve on second viewing. It's just jaw-droppingly good and worth watching and re-watching. It's also a long movie. In the past, I've sometimes found it emotionally exhausting to watch toward the end, but this time through, I enjoyed the crisp entertainment from beginning to end.
I don't know that any other movie has so well succeeded at being at the same time so funny and so mean and so sad and so overwrought and just really really crazy. Pale imitations have come in it's wake, but there are no predecessors. This is sui generis. It's crazy wit will never be matched and it's unflinching cruelty is rarely even attempted. And it does what it does while still managing to be emotionally powerful, in a way, the viewer will at times find exhausting. It's a remarkable achievement. Grade A.
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