Citizen Kane

When explaining how it is that I have decided to define myself as a movie snob there are several things I can point to. One is my hatred of Michael "BOOM BOOM" Bay and the shallow offensive work that has defined his career. Another might be my willingness to see a film based on who the director is. For example, I will make an attempt to go to the theaters any time Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, or Charlie Kaufman direct a film. For that matter, I will go see a film even if Kaufman is only credited as the writer. I'm sure there are more examples out there such as my ability to pass judgement on films I have never seen, but the final reason I will go into today is my ownership of the film Citizen Kane.
Of course this is my film. I purchased it almost ten years ago because it was listed at #1 in the American Film Institutes's list of the greatest films of all time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years%E2%80%A6100_Movies). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film it is intended to be a biopic of newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst. Of course, Hearst did not authorize the film and even spent his final years fighting to prevent the film from being released. The film itself is written, directed and produced by Orsen Welles who also stars in the lead role of Charles Forster Kane.
The film opens with Kane on his death bed uttering the word "Rosebud." Following weeks of coverage for Kane's death, a reporter decides to pursue an answer to the question of who or what is Rosebud. He meets with all the principal people who knew Kane and listens to their stories regarding Kane's most infamous moments, but no one has any answers regarding Rosebud.
I mentioned before about this film being one reason I am a movie snob because I purchased it nearly ten years ago because it was ranked number 1 on AFI's 100 films list. I had never seen it before when I purchased it and I despite a few prior attempts to do so I finally watched it from start to finish for the first time about a year ago. Watching it recently was only the second time I had watched it from start to finish.
I enjoy the film and seeing it a second time helped me to better understand the love critics seem to have for it. I recently went through a phase in which I attempted to watch several classic films that I had never seen before in order to receive my masters in movie snobbery. I made it through Maltese Falcon, Network, The Sting Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 12 Angry Men, but I shut off Casablanca about 40 minutes in because I simply didn't care for it. My experience with older films is that they have their appropriate place but that there is something lost generations later when you consider that the filmmakers of our generation are building on what these films started.
On a side note, one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of watching this film is realize how often it has been parodied in The Simpsons. In fact, one of the episode commentaries for the Simpsons has a producer speculating the Citizen Kane has been the most often parodied film in Simpsons history and that you could likely remake the film scene by scene using Simpsons parodies. It seems like someone with a youtube account and entirely too much time on their hands could put something like that together.