Episodes III had lots of faults, but a sudden turn to the dark side wasn’t one of them. Anakin had been letting his pride and anger control him all through episode II, and even slaughtered an entire village, including children, in rage.
I agree. EpIII is that rare sequel, that–flawed as it was–served to retrospectively deepen the films that came before it. It’s the best of the six, fyask me.
I’m going to put quotes around “jaded” the same way lissener did, because I don’t think it’s the right word. “Fatigue” might be better, as in “formula fatigue” or some other variation. When I start watching a movie, and I get the immediate sense that the movie will hold no surprises, I get really tired all of a sudden, and the movie becomes an endurance test. (Recent example: my girlfriend made me watch 50 First Dates. Ugh.)
On the other hand, lissener hits on something important regarding, for lack of a better description, the joy of schlock. Basically, I’ve found that the key lens through which to view a film, the key question to ask when approaching it, is “why.” That is, why did the filmmaker(s) make this movie, and why did he/she/they think anybody should watch it. More than anything else, the answer to these questions will determine my enjoyment of the film; and in a weird way, the total lack of ambition (and perhaps more importantly inhibition) of the modern inheritors of the grindhouse crown makes those movies more tolerable to sit through than a mainstream formula picture. If, within the first few minutes, you know that the filmmaker(s) have made the movie simply to blow up stuff, or to get some girls naked, or whatever, and you know they’re having a great time doing that, while the rest of the movie is an arbitrary framework on which to hang the desired elements, you can choose to enjoy their enthusiasm, or not, as you like. But it’s a lot easier to enjoy an enthusiastic movie, unambitious though it might be, than it is to enjoy a movie, even a competently made one, that lacks enthusiasm.
But that still hinges on the basic question: Why did the filmmaker(s) make this film? And that question is absolutely, centrally relevant, regardless of whether it’s a B-movie or a Z-movie or prestige-type studio award bait. There was a great quote from a Los Angeles reviewer about the Jonathan Demme picture Beloved a few years ago; paraphrased, he said that while this may not be the kind of movie that wins awards, it is certainly the kind of movie that is made to win awards. The observation is on point: you can feel a weird sort of grasping pretention in every frame of that movie, and it’s seriously off-putting, even if you can’t identify exactly what’s wrong with it. In a lot of ways, it’s actually a pretty well made movie, with great photography, several excellent performances, and an interesting take on the source material. But behind the curtain, you can smell the filmmakers’ intent, and that more than anything is what makes the movie bad.
To address more directly your original inquiry, though, about whether or not being “jaded” reduces the rewatchability of movies I liked: It depends entirely on the movie. Typically, if I thought a movie was great, I will watch it again, sometimes sooner rather than later. (I saw No Country for Old Men twice on the big screen last year, and bought the DVD the day it was released.) I do this not so I can re-experience the joy of that first enjoyable viewing, but to see if I was right.
And the thing is, sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m not. American Beauty is probably the best example; I walked out of that with a serious buzz, but on rewatch, the movie’s stock has fallen considerably. It seemed thoughtful and original, and (shudder) significant. But when I revisit the film, it becomes obvious that it’s constructed as anti-formula: that it has little on its mind beyond a rather simple-minded reversal of conventional ideas. It starts with all the standard cliches, and then one after the next, turns each into its mirror image, going down the list and ticking off each one. If you don’t recognize what it’s doing (as I failed to do on first viewing), it seems thrilling, bold, visionary; but once the method is clear, it’s actually fairly timid, inventing nothing for itself and relying on ordinary tropes just as much as any formula studio film. And to bring this back to my main point, this is where the “why” question proves its usefulness; looking at American Beauty, we can answer the “why” with the simplistic “to turn everything on its head,” and then the movie’s frustrating lack of depth is laid bare.
(To counterpoint American Beauty, I would suggest The Safety of Objects as a much, much more interesting dissection of suburban malaise. It’s not as “well made,” and it doesn’t “work” as smoothly, i.e. “entertainingly” — but when you ask the “why” question, you get much more interesting answers, and that, to me, makes the movie a more valuable viewing experience.)
But while sometimes I’m wrong in my initial assessment, I find that I can also be right. As “jaded” as I might be, there are some movies I can watch over and over without lessened appreciation. Some are acknowledged classics, like Seven Samurai and Dr Strangelove. Some are a little off center, still classics but not as well known in the mainstream, like The Conversation and Network. Some are definitely obscure, like 3-Iron and Devils on the Doorstep. And some, certainly, are big crowd-pleasing popcorn movies, like The Music Man and Aliens. Yes, they may have depth, they may reward (or even require) multiple viewings to untangle their complexities, and to understand fully; or, they may not.
But what they all have in common is the quality I noted above: enthusiasm. However the filmmaker(s) may be answering the “why” question, you can tell from the resulting film that the people behind the movie burned to put that answer on screen. And that, again, over and above anything else, is what separates these movies from the rest.
So to restate my original answer in somewhat different terms: a movie is bad when it simply goes through the motions, either all of it as a whole or significant parts. If the people behind the movie — director, writer, editor, composer (James Horner, I’m looking at you), major actor, individually or all together — don’t care about what they’re doing, why should I?
P.S. Thanks, lissener, for the Cannibal Holocaust callout. I’m as surprised as anybody to appreciate that movie as much as I do, so I’m happy to know I’m not alone.
Well, let’s put it a cruder way.
Suppose you have two movies whose main point is to showcase the lead actress’s enormous tits. One movie is made by a guy who loves enormous tits, so much that he thought it would be a great idea to make a movie about enormous tits. The other movie is made by a guy who figures that since enormous tits sell tickets, he should make a movie about enormous tits.
Which movie would you rather see? The first movie might not be any good, but at least you could understand the point of making it. And even if you didn’t enjoy enormous tits yourself, you could still at least vicariously appreciate the auteur’s enjoyment. That first guy makes movies about enormous tits because he likes watching movies about enormous tits, and there aren’t enough of them, so he has to make more. Even if the movie is a failure in every other way, it will at least have a reason for existance. Even if the movie is terrible, at least the auteur was trying to create something that he himself would enjoy, even if no one else would.
But what would be the purpose for the existance of the second movie? Imagine watching a movie, and then wondering if the people who made that movie would enjoy watching their own movie, if it wasn’t their movie. This isn’t to say that someone who doesn’t care about tits couldn’t make a good movie about tits. But if tits are the only thing the movie has, and the auteur doesn’t even care about tits, then that’s a pretty poor excuse for a movie.
The first movie would be a Russ Meyer film, the second one would be a Verhoven/Eszerthaus/Uwe Boll production. 
This hypothetical is a bit weak because there is absolutely no shortage of films featuring big tits out there, both on and off the porn circuit.
I have seen 3 movies by Shyamalan. They are all not bad.
Shyamalan’s studio films “The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “The Village”.
I do not think the twists are obvious. The problem I have is that the whole movie depends upon the twist.
'Fight Club’s twist was not obvious to me. But the whole movie does not depend upon it. After seeing the movie once I watched it 5 more times and read the book twice.
This actually serves as a great example of what Cervaise said in his excellent post.
“Die Hard” was at the time an action movie of considerable skill and aplomb. It started an entire wave of “Good guy faces bad guy in some sort of unusually close quarters” movies; “Passenger 57” was described as “Die Hard on a plane,” “Under Seige” was “Die Hard on a boat.”
And the sheer joy and originality of the movie comes out in every scene. Yes, the action is cartoony, but it’s pulled off with great pacing and an obvious love of action. The actors play it absolutely to the hilt; they’re in a transparently absurd movie but you never once get the sense they aren’t taking it deadly seriously. One of the reasons people loved the characters of John McClane and Hans Gruber is that seriousness; the jokes and set peices aside, you never lose the sense McClane is a tough but scared guy trying to stay alive and save his wife, and you never lose the sense Gruber is a remorseless bastard who’ll kill you to get rich. And all around them shit blows up, and it blows up really good. It’s a movie made by people who love action movies, made FOR people who love action movies, and was clearly embarked upon with the thought, “Let’s make a fuckin’ amazing action movie.”
Die Hard 4, by comparison, was clearly made in order to make more money from the Die Hard series. Some of the technical elements are good - good effects, some good set peices. But there’s something about it, something you can feel, that makes you think “This is purely a corporate product.” I could point to specific drawbacks - the villian isn’t one-fiftieth as compelling as Hans Gruber - but it’s more an overall sense that there isn’t any joy-of-action-movies in it.
Or look at the two Blues Brothers films. The first one was remarkably stupid, but it was terrific. The second one was remarkably stupid, and it licked rat balls. Maybe it’s the music - it’s hard to top Ray and Aretha - but I suspect a lot of it is just joy. The first movie had the sense of having been made by people who loved music and loved jokes and thought, “Let’s make a funny movie with lots of great blues music. Who doesn’t like blues and jokes?” The second movie had the sense of being made by people who loved taking my money.