What are some of your Cafe Society favorites that you couldn’t stand at first?
I usually don’t give movies I don’t like a second chance. I don’t usually reread books.
For TV, I initially didn’t like Spartacus or Dollhouse. I stuck through the first few bad episodes of Spartacus and was eventually repaid. I gave Dollhouse more than it’s fair share because I am a Joss Whedon fan boy and it eventually turned out okay. I stopped watching both series, but came back while still in season one.
I hated sushi the first few times I tried it. Now I love it.
I started reading George RR Martin’s Game of Throne series about 5 times before I could get past the first chapter. Now it’s one of my all-time-favorite series.
Same here with sushi. I used to gag on it. Now I can’t get enough.
When I was nine or ten I first discovered Madonna (this was around the time of her Music album, 2000 or so) and wore out my mothers old copy of her hits album, The Immaculate Collection. For ages I used to listen to it obsessively, but I always skipped over ‘Live To Tell’ as it was, to my young ears, very slow and boring and not nearly as exciting as the upbeat songs that surrounded it.
A little while later the Australian music program Rage did a whole night of Madonna videos, every single one of them in order. This forced me to sit through ‘Live To Tell’ and I realised it was actually amazing. These days I count it as one of my favourite songs of all time. How odd that there was a time when I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it all the way through!
Big Lebowski. I loved Coen Brothers movies when I first saw it in the theaters, and I absolutely hated it. Didn’t find it funny at all. A few years later, I saw it again. Uproariously hilarious. I have no idea why I didn’t like it the first time around.
There’s also a whole mess of music I feel that way about. Hated the Smashing Pumpkins (mostly because of Billy’s voice), now everything up to and including Adore is among my favorite music of the era. Was completely flummoxed by My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and thought something was wrong with the copy I got. Now it’s tied with Pet Sounds as my all-time favorite record. Joy Division was unlistenable for me for the longest time, now ranks among my favorite bands.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Curse of Chalion. Really rather disliked it on first reading. Thing is, there’s a very well-defined made-up religion that is very different from any known human religion or the pan-Goddess crap you usually get in fantasy, and I wasn’t used to that. Now it’s one of my favorite books, not least because of the well-thought-out religion.
I never exactly hated it, but when I was a kid, A Horse and his Boy was my least favorite of the Narnia books. When I reread it as an adult, though, I realized that there was a lot of depth in it that just went over my head as a kid, and now it’s my favorite.
The first time I tried to read The Silmarillion, I got bogged down in the Valaquenta and Ainulindule, not realizing that it could be skipped. Now, though, I have a lot greater appreciation for that section.
And in a completely different medium: Back when I was in band in high school and college, there were some songs we played that I just couldn’t stand. Nowadays, though, when I hear one of them on the radio or whatever, my reaction is “Hey, that was one of our band songs!”, and enjoy it because of all the positive associations.
My Antonia. I hated it when forced to read it (or pretend to do so) back in the school days, mostly because I really hated Nebraska back then. Now, I’ve come to terms with my identity somewhat, and it’s a favorite of mine. It’s a maturity thing, I guess.
When I watched the pilot of Psych I found them to be smart-arse idiots who were going to lie for the entirety of the series. Hated it.
A year later I saw it was still a really popular show so I gave it a second chance, and I must have been in a better mood, because I suddenly and instantly found it hilarious, and now it’s one of my favourite shows.
The X-Files, which is now one of my all time favorite shows. I saw a couple of early episodes, didn’t connect with the characters, and was kind of grossed out. The show was in its 8th season before I caught a season 2 rerun I really liked, and decided to give it another try. Four months later, I was almost entirely caught up I still hate the episode that turned me off in the first place, by the way.
Then there’s The Dresden Files. I read Storm Front five years ago, and I thought it was terribly slow. People told me it got better, but I hadn’t had the patience for more than a dozen pages at a time, so I didn’t read the other books. Until last year, when I read 2-12.
Seconding Dollhouse. It helped that I watched the first season all in three nights. I doubt I would’ve stuck through those first six episodes if I had to watch them week by week.
Parks and Recreation. The first season was a lame copy of The Office, but the very last episode had hints that it could be really funny.
Pretty much every Wes Anderson movie. I don’t necessarily hate them at first, but the more I watch each one my opinion slowly goes from “Meh” to “OMG Best Movie Evar.”
I didn’t like Firefly when it first aired and a long time ago made a second attempt and still didn’t like it. This past summer I tried again and loved it…not sure why it felt different this time.
I will also second Parks & Rec. Watched the first two episodes and gave up, then last year so many critics put it on their favorites of 2009 list that I gave it a second shot, liked it alot and eventually went back and watched everything from the beginning. It is now one of my favorite shows.
I didn’t really appreciate Crank as a truly artful and unique, if not, seminal film, until I saw Crank 2: High Voltage.
In the same vein, I played the Hitman series of computer games and fully appreciated it as a groundbreaking game… as a movie it left much to be desired. I think Tim Olyphant is much better “Justified” as a Hitman in Kentucky. (I went to school with a Melissa Olyphant… wonder if she’s relkated?)
A Christmas Story. I saw it when it first came out and it didn’t impress me (I disliked Jean Shepherd from his TV show). My bosses at work loved it, though, and put it on during the office Christmas story. I decided it was pretty good once you got to the “tongue on the flagpole” scene. Then I discovered that scene was near the very beginning of the film, and it grew to be my favorites Christmas movie.
I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but if I may be allowed a brief hijack re: Parks and Recreation, I watched the first episode and was underwhelmed. Haven’t gone back to it. When does it get good, and can I just pick up there or will I be missing important things?
