Third. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that both films, when put together, make probably the best “romantic” movie in the history of the medium.
*The Lion in Winter. *There are few things that bore me more than British history (or in this case, quasi-history). Boy, was I wrong! I should have known it wouldn’t be boring, what with riveting performances by Hepburn, O’Toole and Hopkins, and some equally-riveting dialog. Definitely one of the all-time great movies, with an all-time great cast.
Rocky Balboa had a stupid premise: 50-year-old comes out of retirement to beat the champ in his prime. But it was a “what the heck” rental.
Easily the best Rocky movie since the original. You could almost ignore the ones with Mr. T and Tommy Gunn.
I told a friend of mine something similar, she watched it, and was utterly bored. I wonder if there even IS a romantic movie whose greatness most people can agree on.
It’s been awhile since I watched it, but IIRC, Helena Bonham-Carter says in the commentary during that scene that it is not her.
Can I get an** AMEN** to this? I disliked Shakespeare because all we did in high school was read, we never saw tha plays. Boring! My eight grade English class read(ugh) Romeo and Juliet the year the Zefferelli film came out and we planned to see it, but then some parents objected because they’d heard there was a nude scene.
Fast forward to many years later when I was house sitting for my grandmother. I watched a BBC production of *Measure for Measure * on PBS. It was great, a comedy with a lot of low humor. That’s what they should show first to teens. Hook 'em in with sex jokes, fornication, and cross dressing, then later introduce them to the more serious plays. Heck, even R&J had sex jokes, but we missed them because we were so bored by then, and the bland instructor.
This reminded me of my own entry: High Fidelity. I was staying in a hotel on a weeknight on a business trip with nothing to do, so I was going to buy something that I could eat with my fingers and eat it in my room while watching Hollow Man. To waste some time before popping out, I put on the movie channel and got a close-up of John Cusack saying “What came first, the music or the misery?”.
I had no idea what movie this was. I’m a fan of Cusack, but hadn’t heard of it, and had no clue how much I had missed. I was glued to the screen. Couldn’t stop watching. Time kept passing, but there was no way I was leaving this movie. I saw it through until the end, bought it as soon as I could and popped it in to see what I missed. Of course, all I had missed was the credits; the above line is the first one of the movie. Lovely film, and one I might never have seen but for the above accident.
For me, another one was Saw. I assumed it would be stupid, just like Hostel, nothing but torture porn. Then one day, a friend of mine brought it up and seemed surprised when I hadn’t seen it (I do enjoy horror/suspense). When I told him my reservations, he said that it was nothing like Hostel, that it had a real plot, that it was an enjoyable film. And thank God, I actually saw it after that–I loved it.
About six months before Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, I bought a fedora and started wearing it. I was in HS at the time. I was taunted for this of course. Later the taunts changed to me just trying to be like that Raiders guy.
So I didn’t go see.
Untill about a year later I finally saw it at a ‘dollar’ theatre. The print was terrible and several key bits were missing but I was still blown away.
What, did you run out of six-year-olds that you could tell there’s no Santa?
I had to watch Fargo for a film class once and I was totally not excited about it, but now it’s one of my favorite movies!
Maybe this doesn’t count, because I did put them in the queue, but I’ve been seeing all sorts of movies through Netflix that I’d never have seen otherwise. Latest one was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, made in England in 1943. Man, that was an amazing film! It follows the military career of an officer, from his youth in pre-war Europe, through his service in The Great War, to his struggles with obsolesence during WWII. I was blown away at how they got three different actors who could hit the exact same character notes in each era of the protagnoist’s life. Then I watched the credits, and was even more blown away to realize it was the same actor in each role!
Agreed. I had no desire to watch a movie about redemption. Trite, overdone story line. Wow. Way bad decision.
Similarly, I pretty much despise most Acadamy Award winning movies any more, so I never went to see Crash. Really stupid decision. Saw it for a class at BGSU on diversity in education, and have been quite a fan since.
Now a more silly one, but still the same sort of situation. I was no way going to watch Pirates of the Caribbean when it came out, figuring it for some sort of Disney marketing ploy, which I also despise. Well, it’s a marketing ploy, but OMG, what a fun, great movie! Got hooked watching the sword fight in the smith’s shop when I stopped in Best Buy to see a portable DVD player playing it.
Rushmore for me. The previews made it look like some moronic sex-romp a’la Porkys or something. My roomate at the time was/is obsessed with Bill Murray so he made me watch it and god bless him for it.
Speaking of previews:
Cormac262. Do you remember the previews for Pan’s? They made it seem like a kids movie. When my wife and i went to see it there were a couple of kids in the audience that im sure were scared by the experience.
After the AFI Top 100 list first came out, **Rhiannon8404 **and I decided to catch up on some of the top movies that one or both of us hadn’t seen. Two that I had always avoided were:
Gone With the Wind (Southern Belles complaining about how much life sucks after the War)
Singin’ in the Rain (a musical about…people singing in the rain?)
I was absolutely floored by both films. I was completely wrong in almost every respect (though there *is *the scene where Gene Kelley does, in fact, sing in the rain…)
The Terminator. Went into this expecting another grade-Z dreck movie (my roomie and I had been seeing a lot of crap at that time), and it completely blew me away.
And I’d been dodging The Sound of Music for years when my sister finally persuaded me to go see it. It wasn’t just sugar-sweet Disney crap, but a well-developed plot about a woman finding her calling in life, with humor, drama, Nazis, and wonderful wonderful songs. I was utterly astonished at how much I liked it…
Blimp is wonderful.
The movie starts out with the Colonel looking like a blustering old fool, and then shows you everything that made him what he is, and suddenly he’s tremendously sympathetic and admirable and you find yourself crying at the end or as you type a summary of it for the SDMB (sniffle).
A Man for All Seasons: I took a pass on this one for years. Then one time I was watching The Lion in Winter for the umpteenth time, and decided I still had enough craving for British costume dramas that I’d give it a shot. That is one fine movie.
From Here to Eternity: I actively avoided this one. I didn’t want to see any more WWII movies, and this one starred some of my least favorite actors. I was very pleasantly surprised.
A Streetcar Named Desire: Unlike most people, I’m not generally fond of Brando. I thought he sucked in “The Wild Ones,” and was boring in “On the Waterfront,” and was an embarrassment in “Teahouse of the August Moon.” On top of which, “The Glass Menagerie” made me never want to get near Tennessee Williams again. But one night I was desperate for something to watch…
Eternity is really more a movie about the rot inside the peacetime Army. (But then WWII started and everything got better and the Army was transformed into the band of heroes we remember so well. 
)
Had to do Henry V for O level but wasn’t into Shakespeare,saw Laurence Oliviers version on film but still wasn’t converted.
By accident saw a B&W version of Hamlet in Russian (I kid you Not)with subtitles and that totally stunned me,after that I was a Shakespeare convert .
But without meaning to be offensive I saw Branaghs version of Henry V recently and couldn’t take it seriously ,he kept mugging and overacting throughout the film and it drove me to distraction.
Try seeing Oliviers version and dated though it is I suspect you’ll find it pretty incredible.