It amazes me how certain movies that may have been made 10 or more years ago feel as if they were made last year or two years ago at the oldest. This same sort of thing applies to how long some stars have been dead. I’m usually surprised by at least a few in the “In Memoriam” tributes at the Academy Awards show.
How long before something like this falls into the “old” category from the “recent” and/or “current” designation?
Is it a matter of the actual date involved or is it more a matter of treatment?
Do you sometimes look at a movie from 20 years ago and think “Is this that old?”
Something has to leap out at you that shouts “This isn’t happening today!” After Hours was dated as soon as it was released; a major plot twist involved Griffin Dunne’s inability to get cash because it was in the middle of the night in Manhattan. This was around 1985, when ATM’s were becoming commonplace. And how many times have you watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and wondered “Why don’t they get that poor girl a cell phone?”
The humor on The Mary Tyler Moore Show has stayed pretty edgy, since they had so few timely references (I think there were a few jokes about Betty Ford, Sonny Bono and Eric Sevareid, but that was it). The fashions, however, peg it as the tacky 70s. Murphy Brown is just the opposite; the clothes could pass for current, but the jokes peg every episode to a specific year and month.
The Wizard of Oz could credibly take place at any point in the past hundred years. I can’t imagine it benefiting from a remake.
Didn’t he get mugged or otherwise lose his wallet? He’d be without his ATM card. Easy enough to update it either by having him get mugged if he wasn’t, or have his card get eaten by the ATM.
I agree, though, that cell phones and other portable instant communications are often sticking points for me. I’ve lost count of how many times in a show where I’ve been like, there is no way that guy wouldn’t have a cell phone with him.
IIRC, here’s what happened: He hailed a cab. No mugging yet. While he was riding in it, he took a $10 bill out of his wallet–the only cash he had on him–and set it on an ashtray in the cab. An open window, a gust of wind, the $10 bill flew out the window. He stiffed the cabbie.
Later in the movie, he has somehow acquired a $100 bill. Again, it’s the only cash he has on him. He happened upon the same cabbie. He wanted to settle with the cabbie and get some change back. The cabbie grabbed the C-note and drove off. “See how you like it!”
When the movie was made, circa 1983, ATMs were not yet developed or commonplace. By 1985, when it was released, ATMs were fairly commonplace, esp. in Manhattan. It was definitely “Geez, he could’ve avoided all that stuff and had sex with Linda Fiorentino and Rosanna Arquette if he’d just stopped at a damned cash machine!”
I was just watching Big with Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins. The whole movie could’ve taken place yesterday–except for the creaky 1987 computers and computer games.
What’s often worse is if they have a cell phone, but it’s one of the huge black ones that were most common when cell phones first started becoming popular. Nothing says “1998” like a cell phone the size of the speaker’s head.
This also applies to any recently-outdated technology, including CRT monitors (the most obvious one to me), telephones with cords, Walkmen (and nowadays, CD players as well), and old video game systems.
It was a $20 that he put in the ashtray. At some point he pulled a $20 off of Fiorentino’s papier mache statue, and I think that’s the one the cabbie took.
Now I’m gonna have to unearth my old videotape and watch the movie again, just to double-check all this.
I think the OP was referring to something more than props and technology when he asked about dated movies. To me, what dates movies is the actual filmcraft - the script, direction, acting, soundtrack, etc.
Let’s take 1980’s action movies as an example. Most of them (like Beverly Hills Cop) are showing their age, but there are a few that don’t. The Indiana Jones films, for instance, as well as Aliens and Die Hard, haven’t aged a day.
You’re right in the main objective of the OP, Alessan, and I suppose I was not taking those gadgets into account when I did the post. However, the technology and related issues do tend to date movies set in “the present” whenever that is done. The ages of the actors also tend to date things.
I suppose the OP should have gone more along the lines of how frequently I, and I was assuming others, may be fooled into thinking a movie is “recent” when it turns out to be 10 or more years old. For instance, when I’m checking movies on TV and notice one I haven’t seen and then see it was made in 1998 (as an example) I’m puzzled why it has slipped by me. These days, many of the movies available on standard cable are in that age range and it just struck me that I can see them as if they are “new” unless there are revealing aspects of them that convince me otherwise.
Maybe the idea is vague enough not to affect others all that much.