There's a difference between someone's personal experience/capabilities and making observations about the broader cultural appeal of a thing.

I can still put in the personal effort to read Charlotte Bronte or watch North By Northwest and take on the appropriate context required to understand that these are landmark works for their era, while simultaneously understanding that they have limited appeal to a general modern audience.

I object to your tone, and I don't understand why you're taking it with me, or wrongly assuming that I didn't see 'The Deer Hunter'; I did see it. I had heard rave reviews about 'The Deer Hunter' but as things happen, I only got around to seeing it ~15yrs after it was released. It was decent, De Niro and Cazale are standouts, but not as great as the accolades it had been showered with. I like most De Niro (Scorsese, Cimino, or other director), but for a slow-boiler character study of a man's descent into insanity, 'Taxi Driver' (or the little-known but superb Danish film trilogy 'Pusher' (1996-2004-2005)) are IMO far superior. Or maybe even Takeshi Kitano. As far as TDH goes, I think the last chapter suffers a break in coherence, and it doesn't advance the narrative to see De Niro unravel in slow-motion at the end. As far as anti-Vietnam war films go, Bogdanovich's 'Saint Jack' made the point more deftly; we don't necessarily need to see people literally blowing their brains out to get the point that they've been systematically dehumanized. Perhaps it's the Oscar hype machine rather than Cimino's directing that's responsible for the perpetual hype around 'The Deer Hunter', and the lack of hype around Nicolas Winding Refn. In any fair universe, foreign directors like Refn would have won an Oscar for his early work, regardless that it was in Danish; which is a Hollywood attitude that persisted until 'Parasite' (2019).

Be assured I've "watched old films" aplenty. (I referenced 'Alphaville' above, earlier; and the David Lynch 'Dune'. I was even gong to reference Tarkovsky). My comment wondering if Godard was ever considered to direct 'Dune' is obviously praise for his work.

Have you seen Pusher Trilogy? or Bogdanovich's 'Saint Jack'? How do you think they compare?

(Also, 'The Deer Hunter' running time is 3h3m, so the "you can't spend an hour just watching someone else's creation" misassumption is offbase for multiple reasons. Ask questions, rather than make wrong assumptions.)

I'm sorry I wasn't directing it at you. It was more just a response to the gestalt of the thread.

I'm sorry I put it under your comment... I wish it was just sort of like taking turns in a conversation with a group of people... But with text and threads, I don't really know where to throw this in...i don't think there was any one comment that I could sort of respond to, it wasn't just one thread, it was vibe from multiple thread.

I guess if we'd been having a conversation and we're next to other people who were talking and I'd said that I probably would have expected you to take it in the sense that I was responding to something that someone else said but it was something that you could appreciate.

I like film, but I'm not a film nut. Thank you for the recommendations

Ask questions, rather than make wrong assumptions

I totally agree with that, and see this all the time. Again I wasn't responding to you, I think there are some people in the thread who what I said could totally apply to though. I guess I just expected you were someone who could appreciate that :) ;p xx :p

Apology accepted! Please take care in threaded discussions who remarks appear to be directed to, also I tend to not make assumptions, rather to ask questions. You could have preambled "This remark isn't directed at you, but the thread audience in general seems to be unfamiliar with..." Use @name to reference people's comments by name.