Movies You Changed Your Mind About (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

I would think really good films will generally rise above whatever dated aspects (to varying degrees) they come with.

Sure, there's a great degree of subjectivity in all that, and even something like Tommy Wiseau's The Room can garner a cult following that sees a kind of beauty in it that even Wiseau himself probably never intended. For the record, I've never actually seen more than a few clips of The Room outside of what's shown in the end credits for The Disaster Artist...

Still...

Yeah, Highlander isn't a particular good film, but it certainly has its own cult following... and I still enjoy it now and then, particularly Connery's bits in it. Even something like Short Circuit, which I mentioned earlier, has enough fun (enough) moments for me to share a silly, good time w/ the family -- and we just finally did again (nostalgically w/ commercial breaks and all on the Roku Channel) the other day after avoiding it (and commercial breaks) for many hears, haha...



_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is definitely another I found waaay too slow and completely boring and pointless when I first saw it in my late teens in college I think. I'm still kinda warming to it a bit like Mahler's and Bartok's music, but I'm getting there and has certainly reached the point of admiring it even if not necessarily head-over-heels in love w/ it or like, especially now that I can readily enjoy it in my far greater, 4K/HDR FP and quality surround setup (that will be upgraded further still) instead of just the old 20" 4x3 CRT w/ anemic audio back then...

Seeing it in 4K laser IMAX at Lincoln Sq during the somewhat recent restoration revival run was definitely a great treat and renewed my interest -- and I subsequently snapped up the 4K disc release asap, which partially catalyzed all my upgrades toward 4K and soon Atmos.

_Man_

 

[TravisR]

I've always been of the opinion that what dates a film, at least for me, is how much it focuses on cultural issues of the time in which it is released. Films that deal with universal concepts such as relationships, from the '80s will still have appeal in my estimation. Thinking about Pretty In Pink even though the location is never disclosed and presumably it is in America, (it was shot in Los Angeles) it feels so British due to the clothing and some of the language and accents.

Even though they are essentially '80s films I still enjoy a lot of the teen comedies from that era, notably Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Some Kind of Wonderful to name some that readily come to mind.

- Walter.

I really like most of the John Hughes stuff too (though I'm probably the only Hughes fan that doesn't like Ferris Bueller) but I'm sure part of that is based on having been a kid watching them when they were new. I think anyone that sees them as a young person- then or now- can probably relate to and enjoy them but I can imagine that alot of adults seeing them in the 80's probably didn't care too much for them.

Amusingly, those movies made me very worried about going to high school because I thought I'd be getting routinely beaten up by jocks.

 

[jayembee]

Teen comedies of the 1980s are obviously doomed to be dated.

Except for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris is Forever!

The only thing I find dated about 80s films (teen comedies or not) is the Eighties Hair. Funny thing is that though I'm a child of the 60s, I find late 60s movies the most dated. (Oh, God! Did I really wear a Nehru jacket back then?)

 

[Ejanss]

Amusingly, those movies made me very worried about going to high school because I thought I'd be getting routinely beaten up by jocks.

I remember one standup comic who joked that he grew up wanting to be in a John Hughes teen comedy, not as the main character or the rich jerk jock, but as the rich jerk jock's even jerkier best-buddy--
Who only had two lines in every film: 1) "Yeah, like he said, we don't like Townies around here!", and 2) (lifting weights in gym) "...Forget her, man, she's Townie!"

I guess you've figured out by now that I've been immune to John Hughes for most of my life, teen years included (Breakfast Club only got one loud, massive facepalm at a movie clearly written by someone in his 40's), which was mostly caused by lingering traumas over his other comedies like "Weird Science" and "National Lampoon's European Vacation".
I wasn't fooled for a second, no matter how many 80's-soundtrack choruses of "Don't You Forget About Me" the movies would throw at me.

Except for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris is Forever!

And even then, I found myself gravitating to those fan pop-nostalgia articles about Why Ferris Bueller Is a Textbook Sociopath.
("1: Uses charm to manipulate friends and acquaintances into gratifying his own personal needs...")

 

[Robert Crawford]

I've always been of the opinion that what dates a film, at least for me, is how much it focuses on cultural issues of the time in which it is released. Films that deal with universal concepts such as relationships, from the '80s will still have appeal in my estimation. Thinking about Pretty In Pink even though the location is never disclosed and presumably it is in America, (it was shot in Los Angeles) it feels so British due to the clothing and some of the language and accents.

Even though they are essentially '80s films I still enjoy a lot of the teen comedies from that era, notably Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Some Kind of Wonderful to name some that readily come to mind.

- Walter.

Same here Walter. I wasn't a young adult when most of those movies came out, but I still enjoyed them and I feel the same way today even though I'm collecting SS and Medicare.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I was most definitely out of my teen years when those films I listed in my prior post were playing theatrically. So it wasn't identification with similarly aged characters and high school issues that drove my enjoyment of the films I previously listed.


- Walter.

 

[Robin9]

When I was in my teens I thought Gilda was a fabulous movie and very sophisticated. I still enjoy the film enormously but only because of Rita Hayworth and the triangular relationship. I now think the film could have been much better. I'd like to see it remade but this time with the casino being used for money laundering, the mysterious menace being gangsters who believed they were being cheated and with Gilda rejecting Johnny Farrell at the end.

I used to see Tender Is The Night decades ago on television in pan-and-scan distortion. I didn't think the film was any good at all. Since acquiring the French Blu-ray disc, I've changed my mind completely. Certainly Jennifer Jones at 40 was the wrong age but she acts well. I used to think the source novel was excellent but I don't any longer.

 

[Thomas T]

Except for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris is Forever!

I must confess I've never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, something I don't see remedying in the near future.

 

[Thomas T]

When I was in my teens I thought Gilda was a fabulous movie and very sophisticated. I still enjoy the film enormously but only because of Rita Hayworth and the triangular relationship. I now think the film could have been much better. I'd like to see it remade but this time with the casino being used for money laundering, the mysterious menace being gangsters who believed they were being cheated and with Gilda rejecting Johnny Farrell at the end.

I used to see Tender Is The Night decades ago on television in pan-and-scan distortion. I didn't think the film was any good at all. Since acquiring the French Blu-ray disc, I've changed my mind completely. Certainly Jennifer Jones at 40 was the wrong age but she acts well. I used to think the source novel was excellent but I don't any longer.

Gilda is pretty near perfect as it is I think. I agree with you on the film version of Tender Is The Night but not on the source material.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I don't want people to think when I say something is dated that means it is bad, I only mean the filmmakers indulged in things that were meant specifically to be relevant to the period in which they were making the film. I have no problem with films being dated and I like and love a lot of films that are dated...like Easy Rider, Blow Up, The Graduate, etc...1980s teen comedies were not really my thing but I still enjoy some of them and the fact that they are dated, for me anyway, is part of their charm.

 

[TJPC]

I was obsessed with Citizen Kane in the 1970s. In those pre VCR days, I would scan through the TV guide for its appearance and set an alarm to get up ar 3 a.m. or whatever when it was on. I bought records of the entire soundtrack and dubbed them to audio cassette to play constantly in the car. It was one of the first movies I recorded with my beta machine and bought on VHS, DVD, and Blu.

Today, I still love it, but really don't need to see it again, because I can just about recited the entire thing, and hum all the music.

 

[Thomas T]

I was obsessed with Citizen Kane in the 1970s. In those pre VCR days, I would scan through the TV guide for its appearance and set an alarm to get up ar 3 a.m. or whatever when it was on. I bought records of the entire soundtrack and dubbed them to audio cassette to play constantly in the car. It was one of the first movies I recorded with my beta machine and bought on VHS, DVD, and Blu.

Today, I still love it, but really don't need to see it again, because I can just about recited the entire thing, and hum all the music.

I know the feeling! Some of my all time favorite movies like Singin' In The Rain or All About Eve, I've seen so many times and know the dialogue by heart and every scene that sadly, watching them seems superfluous. I could play them in my head I know them so well.

 

[jayembee]

I know the feeling! Some of my all time favorite movies like Singin' In The Rain or All About Eve, I've seen so many times and know the dialogue by heart and every scene that sadly, watching them seems superfluous. I could play them in my head I know them so well.

I can completely understand that feeling. However, I still find it easy to re-watch such movies because it's like eating comfort food.

 

[Jeffrey D]

My biggest two are Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, and The Big Lebowski. I saw both during their original theatrical runs and came away unimpressed. I thought Powers was simply stupid, and Lebowski a rather boring follow-up to the Coen's excellent Fargo. HOWEVER, I got both when they were released on home video and grew to love them. I now consider Austin Powers to be a tour-de-force of outrageous humor, with a heart, and The Big Lebowski is simply perfect and my favorite Coen brothers film. It just gets better every time I watch it.

I was trying to think of my film that I had the biggest change of opinion from my first to second viewing- I agree with your selection of The Big Lebowski. I didn’t like it at all on my first viewing, then really got a kick out of it when I gave it another try years later.

 

[TravisR]

I know the feeling! Some of my all time favorite movies like Singin' In The Rain or All About Eve, I've seen so many times and know the dialogue by heart and every scene that sadly, watching them seems superfluous. I could play them in my head I know them so well.

Me and a friend always say how great it would be to be able to erase a movie you love from your brain so you could watch it for the 'first' time again.

Before anyone asks, you'd just leave a note to tell yourself to watch it.

 

[Ejanss]

I must confess I've never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, something I don't see remedying in the near future.

As Hughes-loather, I would say that if you were forced at gunpoint to pick two or three, Ferris is probably John Hughes' second-most watchable comedy for civilians/newbies, just for Matthew Broderick's "War Games"-era 80's charm. (Even if his character does come off a little unintentionally creepy on second view, and you start sympathizing with Jeffrey Jones' Wile E. Authority character.)

First? Oh, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, obviously, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Me and a friend always say how great it would be to be able to erase a movie you love from your brain so you could watch it for the 'first' time again.
Before anyone asks, you'd just leave a note to tell yourself to watch it.

I've gotten hooked on the new YouTubers' craze for young YT-follower-struck twentysomethings showing off "I've never seen Jaws/Airplane/Blazing Saddles!...Watch my first reaction!"

It's not only great vicariously watching a new generation discover movies everyone's "supposed" to have memorized by heart, but also for studying just how Millennials/Gen-Z's process "their parents'" movies before, during and after watching. For all their hipster snark, they're surprisingly illiterate when it comes to comedy, and need some explanation at first figuring out Mel Brooks, but the action and horror grabs them every time.
There are already a dozen first-reactions to Hitchcock's Psycho, and FWIW, none of them saw the twists coming.

 

[Thomas T]

As Hughes-loather, I would say that if you were forced at gunpoint to pick two or three, Ferris is probably John Hughes' second-most watchable comedy for civilians/newbies, just for Matthew Broderick's "War Games"-era 80's charm. (Even if his character does come off a little unintentionally creepy on second view, and you start sympathizing with Jeffrey Jones' Wile E. Authority character.) First? Oh, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, obviously, just in time for Thanksgiving.

I don't dislike Hughes based on those films of his I've seen. In fact, I quite like Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink (I'll match Molly Ringwald's 80s era charm against Matthew Broderick's any day ). The one Hughes film that doesn't quite hold up for me is The Breakfast Club. There's just something glib and smarmy about it that leaves a bad aftertaste.

 

[TravisR]

I've gotten hooked on the new YouTubers' craze for young YT-follower-struck twentysomethings showing off "I've never seen Jaws/Airplane/Blazing Saddles!...Watch my first reaction!"

It's not only great vicariously watching a new generation discover movies everyone's "supposed" to have memorized by heart, but also for studying just how Millennials/Gen-Z's process "their parents'" movies before, during and after watching. For all their hipster snark, they're surprisingly illiterate when it comes to comedy, and need some explanation at first figuring out Mel Brooks, but the action and horror grabs them every time.
There are already a dozen first-reactions to Hitchcock's Psycho, and FWIW, none of them saw the twists coming.

It had to be more than 20 years ago now but I remember watching The Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last" and my sister was in the room and she started watching it too. When it got to the twist at the end of the show, her jaw basically hit the floor. I just laughed because I thought everybody knew the end of the episode but it was great to see that The Twilight Zone still had the power to shock and entertain people after so many years.

 

[jayembee]

Makes you wonder if there any young'ns who would be surprised by the ending of "To Serve Man".