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Good movies that haven't held up.


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9 hours ago, 686 said:

I nominate Roman Holiday. Its a nice little flick, but 10 Oscar nominations and 3 wins? WTF?  It's a Wonderful Life is a timeless classic from several years before that only garnered 5 nominations / no wins.

 

Additionally:    Donna Reed >> Audrey Hepburn 

I've never watched either one in their entirety.

My nomination: Forbidden Planet (1955) - a wowza scifi for the day, but the storyline is too corny today.

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12 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I've never watched either one in their entirety.

My nomination: Forbidden Planet (1955) - a wowza scifi for the day, but the storyline is too corny today.

Holy crap you’ve never watched all of It’s a Wonderful Life? And where are you on Donna Reed v. Audrey Hepburn?

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18 hours ago, honolulu horn said:

Agreed on the Ferris Bueller post. That's the first thing that came to my mind. But I assume it's more a function of me aging poorly than the movie aging poorly. I just want someone to knock that smug smirk off of his face from beginning to end.

Ferris holds up.  Watched it on Saturday with my 13 yo and 15 yo daughters (no pics).  They laughed all the way through it.  13 yo really enjoyed Stand By Me, which we watched a month or so ago.

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23 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Also, I did not care for The Godfather.  It insists upon itself.  The Money Pit is far superior.  

Dude, seriously, you might want to edit this while you can. 

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1 hour ago, 686 said:

Holy crap you’ve never watched all of It’s a Wonderful Life? And where are you on Donna Reed v. Audrey Hepburn?

Would have done either one of them. Reed was like the girl next door, Hepburn more "elegant". 

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Ferris Bueller still holds up pretty well and yeah Ferris is a mild form of a sociopath, but that was pretty typical for the time. Not anything to get worked up about.

The thing that strikes me is that even as improbable as it was back then that he would pull off what he did, (after all it was just a movie) that nowadays it would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. 

Not only would the school have sent a text message, a voice mail, an email and whatever else they could think of to let the parents know that he skipped, but there would have been a YouTube video of him up on the stage singing in the parade that would have been shared by everyone in the school.  The host at the fancy restaurant would have googled who the fuck Abe Froman actually was. Cameron’s dad would have had a video monitor watching his car from work along with a tracking device and would have instantly known the second it left the garage. I could go on and on.

That’s the real lesson from rewatching Ferris Bueller.  

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6 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

And for a serious sacred cow, I actually don’t find Animal House as funny anymore as I do a lot of the other famous comedies from that era.  Trading Places, Caddyshack, Vacation, Blazing Saddles, etc. all held up way better, IMO anyway.  Parts of Animal House just kind of drag and it doesn’t seem so subversive, even though I’m sure it was in its era.

It spawned a lot of toga parties and drunken sex. 2 thumbs up, Joe Bob says check it out.

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On 4/30/2018 at 10:59 PM, DoobieWah said:

For me, it has to be Arthur. It came out when I was at UT and I saw it at the Union Theater.

It was hilarious at the time, but now it's just sad.

 

As a work of art and acting, Arthur holds up very well, but it was marketed at the time as Dudley Moore being a hilarious drunk, sort of a young Foster Brooks.  It views now as a pretty dark meditation on alcoholism, loss, and social class. 

 

And I will also agree that while I really enjoy Tombstone, it's mostly for individual performance's more than the movie itself.  Val Kilmer, Powers Booth, Michael Biehn, and Stephen Lang all shine, and Kurt Russell definitely has his moments, but the film is weird and disjointed. The changing in pacing after the "Hell is coming with me" scene at the train station is super jarring. You can practically feel the firing of the first director and Kurt Russell shadow directing.  He's talked about the process to some degree in podcast interviews, but I always wanted a definitive book written on how a big budget Hollywood blockbuster gets made, falls apart, then becomes a huge cult classic.

Edited by Bateshorn
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I’m a James Bond fan, and I liked Pierce Brosnan in the role at first, but by Die Another Day, I couldn’t stand the franchise anymore, it had become so campy while still taking itself seriously, and I think his string of Bond films is aging badly. The Daniel Craig films were much better but overcorrected and got a little too noir, especially Quantum of Solace.

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1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

As a work of art and acting, Arthur holds up very well, but it was marketed at the time as Dudley Moore being a hilarious drunk, sort of a young Foster Brooks.  It views now as a pretty dark meditation on alcoholism, loss, and social class. 

 

And I will also agree that while I really enjoy Tombstone, it's mostly for individual performance's more than the movie itself.  Val Kilmer, Powers Booth, Michael Biehn, and Stephen Lang all shine, and Kurt Russell definitely has his moments, but the film is weird and disjointed. The changing in pacing after the "Hell is coming with me" scene at the train station is super jarring. You can practically feel the firing of the first director and Kurt Russell shadow directing.  He's talked about the process to some degree in podcast interviews, but I always wanted a definitive book written on how a big budget Hollywood blockbuster gets made, falls apart, then becomes a huge cult classic.

I don't have any idea regarding the background of the production of Tombstone.

 

Personally the films change at "Hell is coming with me" worked because I viewed it as definitive moment where W. Earp was, "OK motherfuckers! its on."

 

Not that it is in the same class of movie as Tombstone, but I did read years ago about the production of Last Action Hero and that it went through several directional changes from Action to Action/Comedy to Slapstick.  Which upon a subsequent viewing made that movie make alot more sense.

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24 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I don't have any idea regarding the background of the production of Tombstone.

 

Personally the films change at "Hell is coming with me" worked because I viewed it as definitive moment where W. Earp was, "OK motherfuckers! its on."

 

Not that it is in the same class of movie as Tombstone, but I did read years ago about the production of Last Action Hero and that it went through several directional changes from Action to Action/Comedy to Slapstick.  Which upon a subsequent viewing made that movie make alot more sense.

The original writer/director (Kevin Jarre) was fired about a month into production. The guy was close to Russell and just lost control of the production. The new director was a veteran hand, but Russell has more or less admitted over the last few years, after refusing to discuss it, that he was shadow directing.  They'd shoot all day, then he'd sit down with the director, go over the dailies, and set up how he wanted the next day's shoots to go. Russell was basically financing the film himself, and the actors got along well, so you get the odd film where some of the scenes are just brilliant, others are very flat, and others feel very stylistically different.  It's just a really unique movie in the way it plays.  It's sorta of aged brilliantly and badly at the same time.

 There was a lot of weird studio power politics because of Costner's Wyatt Earp biopic as well, since Costner was at the top of his game at the time.

Edited by Bateshorn
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18 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

I’ve read other reviews saying this when I got finished with the rewatch and immediately Googled, “WTF?  Ferris Bueller is a sociopath” in my distraught midlife crisis state.  I can see the argument that it’s about Cameron and his sister to an extent, since they actually have feelings and an arc, but I still don’t get all the way there.  Cameron’s big “triumph” is not deciding to kill himself after the Ferrari wrecks and then muttering something about how his dad will have to talk to him now.   That wasn’t really a resolution at all, but fuck it, it was the 80s.  If anything, I think the other characters get shorted on their supposed breakthrough moments and act more like plot devices for the next Ferris adventure scene.

that last sentence is a fair point. i dunno, for me, the whole thing is about cameron's lack of self-worth and self-esteem. he's home sick because he's depressed, and ferris skips to try and cheer up his depressed friend and pull him out of his shell. ferris is a device, and yes, the shit is over the top and there's no way they could have done all that stuff in a day, but, as you rightly point out, fuck it, it was the 80s. 

the scene with the car going out the window i always felt was over the top. i always thought it would be more realistic for him to have to fess up to the mileage, not to the death of the car. that, the father could deal with, i think. but the car being destroyed? meh. 

however, the whole point of the movie was for cameron to grow up and to come out from under the covers in his bedroom.

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1 hour ago, 686 said:

I’m a James Bond fan, and I liked Pierce Brosnan in the role at first, but by Die Another Day, I couldn’t stand the franchise anymore, it had become so campy while still taking itself seriously, and I think his string of Bond films is aging badly. The Daniel Craig films were much better but overcorrected and got a little too noir, especially Quantum of Solace.

I like a darker Bond..... Is that racist ??

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1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

I like a darker Bond..... Is that racist ??

It’s just not as fun to watch at the holidays as Roger Moore or Sean Connery cracking one liners, slaying the ladies, and getting the job done.

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21 minutes ago, 686 said:

It’s just not as fun to watch at the holidays as Roger Moore or Sean Connery cracking one liners, slaying the ladies, and getting the job done.

Oh Sean will always be the Bond of my 60's youth.  Rodger Moore was my 70-'s youth,  he was good, but it got too campy towards the end.  I  go back and actually appreciate George Lazenby a bit more now.

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Tombstone - I think most have hit it on the head. It won't hold up as a classic Western, but many of the individual performances hold up very well. I would argue it is Kilmer's best performance - the lines and they way they are delivered still stand out. Powers Boothe and Michael Biehn are great as Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo. Agree that the last 3rd of the movie is a complete changeup in pacing from the first part of the movie....almost seems like they were running out of money and needed to finish quickly. I think had you lost the Dana Delany pieces of the movie, not sure anyone would have noticed. 

Bond Films - Agree that the Pierce Brosnan movies have not held up well, other than perhaps GoldenEye. I love Bond as a character, but find that you have exclude most of the Bond movies post mid 70's until Casino Royale with Daniel Craig if you are looking at quality. I'll admit that I've for the most part enjoyed the Daniel Craig versions. Really liked Casino Royale and Skyfall. Quantum was meh and not sure how I feel about Spectre (though Lea Seydoux is all kinds of hot). I was underwhelmed by Christoph Waltz's Blofeld - perhaps I was expecting more from the character given Waltz's past roles. 

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Movies about social moods are bigger stretches than technological pioneers, IMHO

Red Dawn, not that it was great acting to begin with, but I have often had trouble conveying to younger people what the Cold War was like.

Philadelphia, similarly, it is difficult to convey the mindest of a nation and world who were simultaneously shocked, scared, and mortified while others were apathetic or worse, filled with hate in the face of HIV and AIDS.

Breakfast Club.  Maybe it's just me, but the environment in schools is a lot different now... and there's virtually no way the multiple scearios would be possible today which landed our beloved cast in detention on a Saturday( GASP!)

 

+1 on Seka and porn bushes.

Edited by slorch
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1 hour ago, slorch said:

Movies about social moods are bigger stretches than technological pioneers, IMHO

Saturday Night Fever, which has gotten a lot more social references than it should over the years. I can’t even imagine the “WTF?” expressions on kids faces if they saw it today.

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5 minutes ago, XYZ said:

Roger Moore Bond movies are so bad.

If you appreciate the British humor mixed in the campy-ness isn’t so grating.

For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy are  great Bond flicks. His next tier would be The Spy Who Loved Me, The Man With The Golden Gun, and Live and Let Die. Moonraker and A View to a Kill have probably aged the worst.

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