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Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Demands a director's cut!
This movie is good in its released version. However, there's known to be about 20 minutes cut out of the last quarter or so of the film which would have put it above and beyond. They were cut partly because they were too "intense" for audiences at the time. Low quality versions of some of these scenes are out there. Individually, they would probably disrupt the pacing or message of the film. But as a whole, they add rhythm and poignancy to a lot of the last act of the film. The last half hour or so works fine in the released version, but loses some sense of the thematic purpose of some characters: namely, Michael and Jezzie. This isn't to mention they add some good scares in what, in the released version, is a fairly scareless stretch. It's rare for me to want to see deleted scenes restored, but I think what was removed adds enough such that this film deserves a new version.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Stylish and well made fable
If anything takes away from this film, it takes itself so damn seriously. It LOOKS great for a science fiction a film from an era that we've come to associate with low-budget schlock. And it is, at its core, a fairly eloquently statement of what were likely to be the strong liberal convictions of the average science-fiction fan in this era. No one could convict this movie of being unintelligent.
But as most of the drama is something of a candy coating to help the delivery of its rather dry message, it runs rather thin. Having experienced this movie once, one could perhaps engage with what it's trying to do more constructively by picking up a book in international relations, rather than subject this film to further scrutiny. It is certainly a compliment that it can serve as the jumping off point for further discussion in a way too much science fiction simply cannot. But as it is laser-focused on the delivery of its message, this movie doesn't do a lot to continue to hold interest after the message it intends to deliver has been absorbed.