Has anyone ever noticed some movies that one thought were excellent when premired weren’t really all that great but were hyped?
Philidelphia: The only thing good about it is looking for the stock actors that Demme always has in his movies.
Dances With Wolves: What were they thinking? So many problems with the movie.
American Beauty: can’t understand the draw there in the first place.
Any more thoughts?
I agree that Philidelphia was over-hyped. The thing driving it was a controversial (for the time) subject matter. I remember one woman telling me: “I believe all men should be forced to watch Philidelphia at least once.” ??? Why? What a load of crap.
Never saw Dances with wolves, but since Costner can’t act, I suspect it sucked.
Big Fat Greek Wedding comes to mind.
Good. I’m not the only one. Hey, Spacey, I want my two hours back.
Most Hitchcock movies are so slow-paced that I can barely stand to watch one. Heresy, I know.
THose Chevy CHase National Lampoon movies.
I remember them being sooooooo funny.
I watch them now and I see the jokes coming from a mile away.
Does the OP mean movies who’s initial popularity turned out to be mostly PR and hype? Or movies that you personally liked once but now your taste has improved?
I can think of a third category: movies that were acclaimed when they were first made but later were victims of changing public opinion. I can think of two notorious examples: Birth of a Nation, which was regarded (by whites) as a historical docudrama when it first came out but is now considered the vilest of racist lies; and The North Star, made during WWII and portraying our heroic Russian allies’ resistance to the Nazi invaders- only to become anathema during the McCarthy era.
How about the one where Rambo teams up with the heroic Afghani freedom fighters that later… wait, we were talking about good movies.
How do we feel about Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, he asks rhetorically. Does the idea of the everpresent threat of terrorism exploited, exaggerated and perhaps even manufactured by an oppressive government seem politically naive or more timely than ever? Does the destruction of a towering office building showering paperwork on city streets hit a little too close to home these days?
The big one for me is E.T. I loved this movie when I was a child, and cried along with everybody else at all the right moments, but now it just represents just about everything I hate about movies. And it’s not just a case of my getting older, either. I can watch all of the other movies I loved when I was around that age and at least appreciate them as “heartwarming” or “pleasant,” but E.T. just seems vile and manipulative and dirty.
I didn’t keep track of how the re-release a couple years ago did in the box office, but that just made it worse. I got the sense that Paramount or Dreamworks or whoever were expecting it to have the same success that the Star Wars re-releases did, and they were stunned to see that America had completely outgrown the movie.
And I hate to sound pompous, but I never understood the appeal of American Beauty. Granted, I saw it a couple months after it had come out (but still in a theater) and had been hyped all to hell, but I left thinking, “What was that all about?”
Actually, I think it wasn’t so much that America had “outgrown” E.T., so much as that those of us who were adults at the time are STILL sick of the damn thing. I couldn’t leave my house for what seemed like a coupla YEARS without seeing ET glasses, toys, tie-ins, T-shirts, or horrible Neil Diamond songs, it seems like…
Fast Times At Ridgemont High seem dated and corny nowadays. I remember when it was considered The Godfather of teen movies.
I second E.T. as a movie that has lost its appeal with time. Almost without exception I still love the movies I loved as a kid, though perhaps for different reasons. I can’t stand E.T., not only is it shallow and emotionally manipulative, but it’s boring as f***. I realized this upon rewatching it for the first time since seeing it in the theater after the video release about a decade ago. I was 13 or 14 at the time. I don’t need to see it again to know I’ll probably hate it even more now.
Star Wars comes off badly after the treat of LOTR. Of course I could be saying the same thing about LOTR in a few years…
The Full Monty.
Cute. Had some funny moments. But it certainly wasn’t deserving of the hype it got, much less the 1998 Best Picture nomination.
I think the US was overly enchanted and amused by lighthearted British comedies at the time.
If Star Wars comes off as bad, it’s only due to Lucas’ “improvements”.
There’s nothing wrong with the originals and despite the primitive alien costumes and special effects, I think it stands up to the test of time fairly well.
I thought the only part of Full Monty that was really amusing was the bit where they’re waiting in that line and start dancing while Hot Stuff plays on the soundtrack. That’s not a case of a movie losing appeal with time though as it not being that good to begin with. It also annoyed me that every British comedy released in America for the next few years was referred to as, “This year’s Full Monty!”
[E]enerms, you’re going to have to be more specific. What do you consider to be the “many problems” with it? I haven’t seen it in years but I really enjoyed it when it first came out, even though I’ll admit it was a bit lengthy. I remember walking out of the theatre thinking “I may have some problems, but at least I am living all by myself in ‘hostile’ Indian territory out in the old west.” I certainly wouldn’t say the movie was out-dated or outmoded, or that Costner’s acting sucked in it. You seem firm in your opinion though and you are certainly entitled to that, but you’ve got to do more to convince us then simply state your conclusion that there were “many problems” with it.
One of these days I’ll remember to preview. Substitute " at least I am not living in the old west" for “I am living in the old west.”
No kidding. Tell a roomfull of kids that they have to see E.T. and the whole place will clear out (unless the doors are unlocked). Their twenty-something year old keepers will be mildly entertained. The 16 and 17 year olds helping the keepers will fall asleep during the movie.
This was the scene at the camp I helped out with last summer. I remember having a very nice long nap.
I meant “unless the doors are LOCKED”. Whoops.
Lost Horizon – the original Ronald Coleman/Frank Capra film, not the Ross Hunter abomination of a musical.
Although people thought it, at worst, “corny” when t came out, IIRC it was generally liked. When I watch it, though, I can’t help but notice that the whites are enjoying all the benefits and the orientals are doing all the work. Paradise on Earth indeed!
And why the hell didn’t Chang become the High Lama’s successor, instead of Coleman?