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Originally posted by Japher
Many horror movies have a hard time continuing to be scary.
The Exorsist, was good then, sucks now
Dude, that is still a hella scary movie! Especially that first scene in Iraq with the archaelogical dig, where Max Von Sydow is sitting in that bare room looking at the statuette and the clock, barely perceptible in the background, stops.
Creepy sh*t.
Edit: That's also one the scarier books written as well.
"Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us." --MLK Jr.
Labyrinth - I thought that this was so much better when I was 12.
Legend - I thought that this was so much better when I was 12.
Ladyhawke - I thought that this was so much better when I was 12.
I liked the sinking part. They could have spared all the bull**** until then.
My mother and father both watched the movie together. Both cried in the sinking part. Mom because of the story dramah, dad, because of the courage of the captain who went down with the ship ( dad's a captain, too )
The Dictator by Charlie Chaplin.
I doubt that anyone would make a comedy about Hitler these days, with Bush in office an all. Except maybe the Farrely Brothers.
I like both In The Heat of the Night and The Dictator.
My most dated film is 2001: A Space Oddysey hands down. Ignore the blatant and unpleasant christian propaganda and what's left? Bad monkey suits. Fifteen minutes of 60s effect-****ery set to some of the most overanthologised classical music you can buy. Twenty minutes of meaningless babble on a moon colony, most of which is centered around how wonderful this future technology we're using is eh eh. A decent sequence involving a killer computer. And then the remaining half an hour is left to a really drawn-out and unpleasant trip sequence. *shudder*
It's not nicely filmed, it's not intelligent, the sci-fi is immensely clichéd and the effects/technology predictions the whole thing rest on are really, really dated.
Really, when it came out it was viewed as a real land mark. Now, it is just cheesy.
“It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Gotta say, John, I disagree with all your choices; I think all those films are watchable today, though some may not be thought as great as they once were.
I agree. Though I've never seen ET (and have no plans to do so), West Side Story is still interesting to me because of the dancing and the music. The plot wasn't even all that interesting in 1962 in all likelihood (though the subject matter was a good deal more germain to the audience in large cities because of the large amount of street gang violence in the 1950s). But the music and dancing are still pretty cool.
Bridge over the River Kwai is a film that I haven't seen in a long time, but it seems to me that a great performance or three isn't going to be completely lost on me only 30 or so years after the fact. Sure people might have a different idea of the Japanese these days, but the fact of the matter is that the Japanese of WW2 and the idea of the Japanese some of us might have today are very different creatures. I think a lot of people are either blind or sophisticated enough to see this film without having it ruined by the lens of the early 1960s.
I think movies that fail to stand the test of time are movies that are very much of their time, but are considered "universal" when they are made. Some examples:
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly The Best Years of Our Lives - in 1946, this was a much-lauded multiple-Oscar winner, a seering drama about the problems of soldiers readjusting to civilian life after WWII. Today it's ponderously dull, and more melodrama than drama.
I saw this film recently myself, and while disappointing I still thought that there were parts of it that were strong. In particular the "actor" with no hands was still extraordinarily compelling. The love stories varied considerably, but I have no connection to about half of the love stories in other films of this age either. Things are simply that different, I can't read all the clues that an audience in 1946 could about a character, much less have the same reaction to them.
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - mid-century liberalism was a great idea for politics, but a terrible idea for movies. This is the Magnum Opus of it's chief filmic perpetrator, Stanley Kramer; and while none of Kramer's films have aged particularly well (Inherit the Wind being another fine example), this one was considered his best. Preachy, trite, and racist in spite of itself.
This film was outdated in the 1970s when I saw it. Part of the problem is the moving target of race relations and ideas about race. Another part of the problem is that IMO discussing race (or race consciousness more accurately) is tantamount to perpetuating racism. It's the idea that someone's "race" is more important than say their build or hair color that is the foundation of all the other crap. So I don't blame the film for this. It's interesting to watch from an historical standpoint, but it has no universality to protect it from the passage of time, other than perhaps the fact that Tracy and Hepburn and Poitier are pretty interesting actors.
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly Kramer vs. Kramer - Today you'd expect this script to be sent straight to the Lifetime Network. But in 1979, it actually won the Best Picture Oscar over Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz, to say nothing of such unnominated gems as Manhattan, Being There, The Black Stallion and even Alien. As for it's "important message" about the divorce, child custody, and fathers, it's only barely less tedious than a blackice thread.
Another puke-fest that I have never seen. It looked about as compelling as Tootsie at the time, and I couldn't afford to waste my money on it because I was too busy seeing Apocolypse Now, All that Jazz, Manhattan, and Being There. All of these films IMO are better than the Best Picture in most years, and as you point out they all came out in a flurry. A best picture Oscar is still a more predictable measure of quality than a Grammy, but the two awards are converging quickly in terms of their usefullness to me.
He's got the Midas touch.
But he touched it too much!
Hey Goldmember, Hey Goldmember!
Originally posted by Japher
Many horror movies have a hard time continuing to be scary.
The Exorsist, was good then, sucks now
It was so bad in the 70s that we couldn't quit laughing at it and almost got thrown out of the theatre. Yes, they had people that actually worked at the theatre while you were there then.
Perhaps I was a bit jaded because I read William PeePee Bladder's book when I was 12, and it did scare me.
He's got the Midas touch.
But he touched it too much!
Hey Goldmember, Hey Goldmember!
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