Stalker (1979)

Ha, damnit...100 minutes into this movie, this is what I wrote and prepared to send:

"And MY GOD, what a staggering, stunning experience that was... While Andrei Rublev was overlong, and as much as I loved The Mirror, sometimes it would get too insular and opaque for its own good, THIS...this...was something else. This never struck a false note, never hit a wrong key, no shot held too long, or cut too quickly, no line fell flat or sounded wrong...This is one of the closest examples of cinematic perfection I've ever seen... This film is easily spirited itself into my top 20 [Only the second film in the past YEAR to do that], and it may even be the first film to make it into my top 10 since the winter of 2004...these 10 films have sat where they are since I was 16...and now, this may just knock Bogie out of my top 10 of all time... And although I'm not analyst (most of the time, I don't get the depth of many complex films until after at least mild research), and although I'm certainly no writer, I think I got the general idea from it: Ya gotta have faith, baby. Hey, I may even watch this again...and I rewatch NOTHING."

See how I wrote that it wasn't "overlong" like Rublev? Well, that was before we got to the overlong part! The entire last hour has killed the momentum, and the message has gotten a bit muddled, I think, and it will barely make the top 100, sadly enough...this last hour has SLAUGHTERED the staggering momentum it had...just standing around and arguing about the same thing over and over, and then random speeches, that I'm not even interested that this girl is moving this jar with her mind...BOO! Damn you Tarkovsky...damn you...just as happened with Happy Feet (not an apt cinematic comparison, but the feeling is the same), the last quarter of the film totally, totally spoiled everything that came before it, and ruined the amazing feeling I had, and it became laborious, and a chore to sit through...ugh...how horrendously disappointing...

Still one of the best movies I've ever seen, but among the HUNDRED as opposed to the TEN

And this PAINS me that it became so drawn out and boring, because I SO loved it. and if I rewatch it, I'll rewatch the captivating first 100 minutes, and skip the rest...but I won't, because it'll piss me off that there's still the "Need to be cut" section after it...