Movies You Changed Your Mind About (1 Viewer)

[Thomas T]

In its original review of 2001, the New York Times said it was "somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring." I think that's a pretty fair assessment, and I love the film.

That would have been Renata Adler I believe. Terrible critic. Fortunately her tenure only lasted a year. Not that I necessarily disagree with her take on 2001 A Space Odyssey but her writing seemed to go around in circles and by the end of her reviews I still wasn't sure whether she liked the damn film or not.

Pauline Kael said, "There was a pre title sequence in You Only Live Twice with an astronaut out in space that was in a looser, more free style than 2001 - a daring little moment that I thought was more fun than all of 2001".

 

[Matt Hough]

Renata Adler was infamous for resigning from the New York Film Critics Circle when it chose The Lion in Winter as the best film of 1968. Seems like she wanted Petulia, but I could be remembering that last bit incorrectly. Maybe it was Shame she wanted.

 

[Thomas T]

Renata Adler was infamous for resigning from the New York Film Critics Circle when it chose The Lion in Winter as the best film of 1968. Seems like she wanted Petulia, but I could be remembering that last bit incorrectly. Maybe it was Shame she wanted.

I can't blame her as both Shame and Petulia are superior to The Lion In Winter which only has the great acting to recommend it. Still, it does seem a bit adolescent to take one's marbles and leave because the voting didn't go her way.

 

[jayembee]

Another film I've changed my mind about is The Naked City. I still think it's a good movie but I now feel that Mark Hellinger's commentary adds nothing of value. I find it irritating and wish I could watch the film without it!

I love The Naked City, but I must admit that I get annoyed about people holding it up as a great noir film. At best, it knocked elbows with noir on its way to being a well-made police procedural.

 

[jayembee]

I didn't see 2001 until about 25 years ago, and I found it downright tedious. The effects are good for the movie's time, but they detract from the story. I think the section with HAL would have made an excellent short film despite its story hole*, but on the whole, I can think of better things to do with 2.5 hours.

*The story hole is the notion that the Bowman and Poole wouldn't have considered HAL's ability to read their lips while they sat perfectly still behind a window HAL's direct line of sight.

I don't know if I'd call that a story hole. While they undoubtedly spent a fair amount of time with HAL both before and during the mission, I don't know that it would ever occur to them that HAL could read lips. I doubt that in any sort of social gathering anyone considers whether someone else in the room can read lips when they try to whisper something to another person.

Now, a real story hole is the entire premise of Citizen Kane. The structure of the movie is based on the idea that its reasonably common knowledge that Kane's last utterance was "Rosebud". Except that, as we saw in the first scene, Kane was alone in a room with the door closed when he whispered that, dropped the globe, and died. The nurse opened the door to check on him afterward. Unless she had (to paraphrase a God of Thunder) the greatest hearing in the history of hearing, there's no way anyone could know what Kane's last word had been.

 

[Bryan^H]

Not that Nelson's character doesn't have his bad points but I think he's one of the least hypocritical of the characters. As they say in the movie, he wouldn't care what his friends had to say if they saw him hanging out with Anthony Michael Hall's character while Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez's characters definitely would. He also 'sacrifices' himself when they're running around the school so the rest of the kids don't get caught.

The PC police caught up to this film a couple years ago, and Molly Ringwald went on record how John Hugh's writing was "inappropriate". and that John Bender sexually harasses the Claire character throughout the film. She then goes on to talk about Sixteen Candles and the permission to rape scene.

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.

www.newyorker.com

I hate seeing articles like this. It spoils a big part of the allure of the films of my youth.
Not that I can't recognize right, and wrong (Yes John Bender was a jerk...I got that the first time I saw the film when I was twelve), but they are movies. Make believe. It almost sounds that if John Hughes were alive today he would have been put on trial for something he wrote 35 years ago.

Even though she still obviously enjoyed making the films for
John Hughes, she also is certainly not OK with them now.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The PC police caught up to this film a couple years ago, and Molly Ringwald went on record how John Hugh's writing was "inappropriate". and that John Bender sexually harasses the Claire character throughout the film. She then goes on to talk about Sixteen Candles and the permission to rape scene.

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.

www.newyorker.com

I hate seeing articles like this. It spoils a big part of the allure of the films of my youth.
Not that I can't recognize right, and wrong (Yes John Bender was a jerk...I got that the first time I saw the film when I was twelve), but they are movies. Make believe. It almost sounds that if John Hughes were alive today he would have been put on trial for something he wrote 35 years ago.

Even though she still obviously enjoyed making the films for
John Hughes, she also is certainly not OK with them now.

I did not find that article to be that bad and I thought it was better hearing it from Molly as those pictures were what made her career. Yes, I believe you could do and say things in the past that people would frown on if you did or said them now. I don't think films from the past should be judged by what is acceptable now.

 

[Thomas T]

The PC police caught up to this film a couple years ago, and Molly Ringwald went on record how John Hugh's writing was "inappropriate". and that John Bender sexually harasses the Claire character throughout the film. She then goes on to talk about Sixteen Candles and the permission to rape scene.

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.

www.newyorker.com

I hate seeing articles like this. It spoils a big part of the allure of the films of my youth.
Not that I can't recognize right, and wrong (Yes John Bender was a jerk...I got that the first time I saw the film when I was twelve), but they are movies. Make believe. It almost sounds that if John Hughes were alive today he would have been put on trial for something he wrote 35 years ago.

Even though she still obviously enjoyed making the films for
John Hughes, she also is certainly not OK with them now.

As society progresses and our attitudes change, it's only natural that films from different eras will be PC challenged. I love classic Hollywood films but they are often filled with racial stereotypes, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, etc. They are of their time. Totally unacceptable if done by today's standards but they are reflective of how things were and we can't change that in the context of those films.

 

[David_B_K]

Hmmm... wonder if my warming up to 2001 parallels my warning up to Mahler (as I said in the hirez music thread), haha...

BTW, thanks much for your Mahlerian insights and recommendations (over there)! Quite a bit to digest...



_Man_

Mahler is an acquired taste, or at least he was for me. One of my roommates in college (mid-70's) was into Mahler. I had only been listening to classical music for about a year. I already had Bruno Walter's LP of Mahler's 9th, which I liked. It was an accessible, tragic work about impending death. The roommate was collecting Haitink's Mahler cycle. I did not like anything I was hearing in those works and declared that Mahler was a bullshit artist. I thought the "frere Jacques" tune in the first symphony was ridiculous. The first movement of the third symphony was so long it took two LP sides to hold it which I also found ridiculous.

In time, something clicked, and I began to really love the first symphony. I then moved to the very accessible fifth symphony, then the fourth and then my favorite, the powerful second (the second is basically Mahler's version of Beethoven's 9th). One day while driving back to college after a break, I heard Bernstein's NY Phil version of the third on the radio and I actually began to like that one. I still think the first movement is too long, but there is a lot of great stuff in that symphony.

I had a hard time getting into the seventh, but one day I heard the Kubelik recording with the BSRO and that one clicked. I'm not a fan of Kubelik's Mahler in general. His faster tempo in that symphony somehow made it easier for my mind to absorb it. I usually prefer slower recordings of it now, but Kubelik really brought it alive to me for the first time.

 

[Bryan^H]

Manhattan Project. One of my favorite movies as a kid.
I bought the BD a while back, and it was awful. I'm not sure why I thought it was so great in the first place, as I saw nothing in it that was remotely charming. Weird how taste can change so drastically with age.

 

[Mark B]

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

Neither have I, nor will I. High five.

 

[Ejanss]

Manhattan Project. One of my favorite movies as a kid.
I bought the BD a while back, and it was awful. I'm not sure why I thought it was so great in the first place, as I saw nothing in it that was remotely charming. Weird how taste can change so drastically with age.

I thought the script was clever, and recommended it to a friend who hated it because he thought the kid was an insufferably hostile and stuck-up snot.
I watched it again, and now I can't UN-see it.

 

[Thomas T]

Manhattan Project. One of my favorite movies as a kid. I bought the BD a while back, and it was awful. I'm not sure why I thought it was so great in the first place, as I saw nothing in it that was remotely charming. Weird how taste can change so drastically with age.

It's odd how some films that you liked as a kid, you're turned off by now. Yet again, there are those films you liked as a kid that while you now see their flaws, it just takes you back and you're a kid again.

 

[Bryan^H]

I thought the script was clever, and recommended it to a friend who hated it because he thought the kid was an insufferably hostile and stuck-up snot.
I watched it again, and now I can't UN-see it.

"insufferable" was a good word for him. Looking back, MacGuyver was my favorite show back around the time I saw that movie (1987). And I guess that was part of the appeal of the film, that a kid was more ingenious, crafty, and a genius at the same time.
It just aged really, really poorly for me.

 

[ChrisOC]

I don't know if I'd call that a story hole. While they undoubtedly spent a fair amount of time with HAL both before and during the mission, I don't know that it would ever occur to them that HAL could read lips. I doubt that in any sort of social gathering anyone considers whether someone else in the room can read lips when they try to whisper something to another person.

Maybe it was the way it was handled, making sure in no uncertain terms that we, the viewers, would see what was happening. But HAL's intelligence, despite being artificial, seems to have been a giveaway. The astronauts were just too perfectly positioned to be seen through that window.

Now, a real story hole is the entire premise of Citizen Kane. The structure of the movie is based on the idea that its reasonably common knowledge that Kane's last utterance was "Rosebud". Except that, as we saw in the first scene, Kane was alone in a room with the door closed when he whispered that, dropped the globe, and died. The nurse opened the door to check on him afterward. Unless she had (to paraphrase a God of Thunder) the greatest hearing in the history of hearing, there's no way anyone could know what Kane's last word had been.

That has occurred to me as well, i.e., that the story's Big Secret shouldn't have been known by anyone. But as long as it was, and it seems that everyone and his brother knew, why didn't it occur to anyone who handled the sled? Clearly it had been through two or three sets of hands before it got to the incinerator, and given Kane's fame (or infamy), even the guy who tossed it into the fire should be expected to get the clue.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Re: 2001, that’s part of the story, not a plot hole.

The point is that the astronauts until the point the trouble crops up have become almost machine-like in their day to day roles, falling into a routine through the isolation of space that has their humanity slipping away without them even being aware of it. Meanwhile, the computer that they think has been just programmed to sound human is actually becoming sentient and is acting more human than the humans. No 9000 series computer had ever done something unexpected before so the astronauts can’t comprehend what they’re up against. HAL nearly gets away with the whole thing precisely because the astronauts have become so mechanical that they don’t recognize what’s happening until it’s too late: the machine is evolving past it’s original programming faster than the astronauts are evolving past their own.

Which is what makes Bowman’s success against HAL so meaningful; Bowman looks beyond his programming and uses his experience, intelligence and humanity to make choices that HAL doesn’t believe Bowman would make. It is the hubris of the astronauts (and mission control) that gets them into trouble, and Bowman’s humanity which saves him.

 

[AshJW]

I changed my mind about Starship Troopers.
After seeing it in the theatre I thought it was a stinker. But after watching it on several occasions kind of grew on it.

 

[David Deeb]

Roger Altman's MASH. The TV series simply overwhelmed the source material at least to me, and I enjoy that series so much more. I find the movie boring, over-rated and extremely dated.

I also "liked" or thought I did, some of the Austin Powers movies. After seeing parts of it again, it saddened me to think our comedies have literally been reduced to urine and poop "jokes".

 

[Jeffrey D]

Roger Altman's MASH. The TV series simply overwhelmed the source material at least to me, and I enjoy that series so much more. I find the movie boring, over-rated and extremely dated.

I also "liked" or thought I did, some of the Austin Powers movies. After seeing parts of it again, it saddened me to think our comedies have literally been reduced to urine and poop "jokes".

Yes I agree with your take on M*A*S*H the film- There are good scenes in it, but I liked the TV actors playing the roles more than the film actors.

 

[DavidJ]

I changed my mind about Starship Troopers.
After seeing it in the theatre I thought it was a stinker. But after watching it on several occasions kind of grew on it.

I was unsure about it when I saw it in the theater, but over the years, I’ve come to really appreciate it.