A lower-20-something coworker told me the other day that she doesn’t watch old movies. My sister says she doesn’t watch B&W movies.
No skin off of my nose. People can watch what they want, and their movie-watching habits don’t efffect what I like to watch. Still, it’s a little sad to think of all of the wonderful films that have been made over the years that people will reject simply because they’re ‘too old’ or because they were shot in B&W.
SiL got her whole movie education from my family.
We were watching some John Houston western, about a month before the wedding (october '99) and she said that such and such and such details were “lame” because they’re so overdone. Once the air in the room got back to its normal temperature and our brains started functioning again, we asked a bit and found out she’d never watched any of the classics. Then we informed her that John Houston probably did it first - and then everybody else copied it.
She’d seen documentaries about the Marx Brothers and never watched a single one of their movies :smack:
My wife was like that. She just “wasn’t interested in watching old movies.” This includes practically any movie made before the 70’s not just black and white! Anyway, I’ve been slowing changing her mind by showing her great “old movies” like Casablanca, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Anatomy of a Murder, and others I can’t recall at the moment. She’s loved every one of them. Well, all except The Adventures of Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn). She didn’t like that at all which I can’t figure out. It’s one of my favorites.
So yeah, it’s too bad some people feel that way about “old movies” but I’ve found that if they will just sit down to watch them they will come to love them too.
That happened to me when I saw Casablanca for the first time in college. All the lines sound so cliched. :smack:
But yes, I do have to take the stylized nature of older movies with a grain of salt, but I like them fine.
I was like that as a lad, also I think also due to Casalanca being my first old film, and I was underwhelmed. But then I saw Kane, and many film noirs, and realized that it was new movies I should be biased against, not old ones.
She’s 20. I said the same thing at 20. Now I love old flicks. Give her time to grow out of it.
Of course there is a chance she never will, but just wait and see.
I, of course, spend much of my leisure time watching old (preferably pre-1940) movies. On the other hand, I try hard not to be a new-movie dismissive: some of them are good, too.
A number of old movies just are terribly dated when you see them today, and it takes a particular one not to come across that way.
The movies that were highly stylized can get away with it. . .a lot of the noir, and some westerns.
I find that a lot of the Wilder movies age well. The Apartment is still watchable, as is Double Indemnity. It’s some of the classics that can be real torture to watch. . .Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is terrible. A lot of thrillers seem slow and boring, because we’ve really become much slicker in those areas. I’m thinking about stuff like The Thomas Crown Affair or Topkapi.
I caught a Dean Martin movie on cable a couple weeks ago where he played a James Bond type guy. Utterly atrocious movie.
I’m very careful when choosing to watch an old movie, and if you’re not a real movie lover, interested in styles, and changes, and old acting and directing, and lighting, there’s not a lot there for you.
I’ve seen too many old movies that just bore the shit out of me to criticize too harshly.
I love the kitschiness of some of Dino’s old films. “Bells Are Ringing” is a classic.
I love old movies, and watched tons as a kid/teen (anyone remember Family Classics with Frazier Thomas?), and I watched the 10:30pm movie on channel 9 here for years (before cable, darlings-I’m old). Black and white is gorgeous and curse Ted Turner (obligatory reference to colorizing).
I suppose they’re like anything else, really. You have to do some of the work. Unlike today’s films, which seem to either tell you every last bit of plot so that there is no mistaking it or just blowing something up or killing someone to advance the plot, old movies relied on dialogue and acting. Some of them are poorly scripted and badly acted or any combo of that, but still, they relied more on the viewer’s intelligence than movies of today. Most movies today, the entire plot is given away in the trailers!
This is dumbing down in not true for all modern movies, but it is certainly more common. Then again, the #1 movie is currently “Jackass”, so perhaps I’ll rest my case right there.
The one thing that bugs me re old movies is the schmaltzy music in most of them. Not the comedies, but the film noir and dramas–how many violins do you need? But again, that is a reflection of culture at the time. We have our own style now, and future generations will comment upon it as we do the older films.
I’d wager that many of these “old movie haters” still watch It’s A Wonderful Life once a year. If they don’t, it would be a decent introduction.
If they like that type of movie.
First, plenty of older movies sucked. Some have not held up well through time. And then, some may not be the kind of movie that a particular person might enjoy. Even old movies have genres, and no matter how good Double Indemnity is, it isn’t for everyone. A lot of people’s intro to old movies is “here, watch _____________ it’s a classic” without any regard to whether it’s the type of movie they’re going to like.
Says she whose TiVo is currently taping Tammy & The Bachelor.
Sounds like one of the Matt Helm movies.
I’ve forced my wife to watch a few of the old movies that I like, and she usually doesn’t enjoy them-- but she can articulate reasons: generally slower pace, stylized performances, intrusive music, whatever. I can live with that. What I hate is when people won’t even give an older film a try because they “just know” it’ll be boring.
And they were utterly atrocious then, too.
I just caught up on a lot of the old B&Ws. I saw some great movies, some mediocre movies and some bad ones. But I’m glad I did it. I think there are still some I’d like to try, but after a while it was a little too much. Maybe I’ll go back to it in a few months.
I rented a lot of the older movies on the AFI list of 100 greatest movies, simply to enjoy movies that many people think are great. I was sorely disappointed, particularly in most of the older, b/w movies. I got the sense that many of the situations that were supposed to be moving or funny were moving or funny at that time, but tastes in general have become more sophisticated over the years that they just fell flat.
Take It Happened One Night- my wife and I forced ourselves to sit through it only because I felt it was something we should see, not because either of us enjoyed it in any way. And another- and this will be an unpopular opinion, I know- Some Like It Hot. Mildly humorous, at best. I understand that movies like this have become the stepping stones for people to go on and do bigger and better things, but that’s the problem- I’ve seen the newer and funnier things already, so these staples now seem so bland. People seem to think that the last line of SLiH- “Well, nobody’s perfect!” is so uproarously funny, but I just don’t get it. I mean, I get the joke, but I don’t understand why it’s supposed to be so funny.
So I occasionally watch older movies because I think it’s important to see where we’ve come from, but I don’t particularly enjoy them. But then I could watch Citizen Kane every day and enjoy it every time.
I was very much like the person referenced in the OP until I got married. My wife and her family have slowly but surely convinced me that these movies are well worth my time (in the same way they’ve convinced me that I’ll appreciate steaks a lot more if I don’t get them cooked well-done – a painful but valuable lesson).
One of the first “older” movies my wife talked me into watching was Dr. Strangelove, which I now consider to be one of my all-time favorites. She also got me to watch Young Frankenstein. We slowly edged towards older classics after that. She introduced me to Vertigo and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and North by Northwest. About two years ago, I finally saw Citizen Kane for the first time. In the last two months, I’ve had my first viewings of Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon.
For some reason, I remain resistant to Gone With the Wind, but I know I’ll give in eventually. I’ve yet to be steered wrong.
sigh
There are good, bad, and ugly movies of all eras.
I don’t like “new” or “old” movies… I like good movies, and I really don’t understand anyone who feels otherwise.
Granted, there are stylistic differences across genres and eras, which may or may not be a person’s cup of tea, but dismissing a movie sight-unseen, just because it was made in a year you don’t like is lame.
And, judging all movies from a period based on ten minutes from the middle of a random movie that you happened to catch on PBS while flipping through stations at 11 at night is generally not the best way to do things.
I don’t buy the “we are more sophisticated these days…” Argument.
It is just our self absorbed egotism that makes us believe that slick production values make us more sophisticated as film makers and by default an audience.
People have been bombarded with high paced quick cuts and explosions every few seconds we expect everything to move that fast. Like a bunch of squirming kids in the backseat of a car on a long trip. Patience and focus are sophisticated not a short attention span.
Also Some of the best dialogue written in film comes from the older films. Sure it is stylized but really how far in the future will lines like “That was totally bogus dude” last… oop! See not that long.
I see many films that may be slick but are utter crap. I mean when I can take todays Crappy Poseidon and say it isn’t as good as Yesteryears Crappy Posiedon Adventure there is something wrong here.
Hell most mainstream films are far from Sophisticated. All the dots are connected, the characters are given so much exposition dialogue that a retarded baboon won’t miss plot points, and everything is quick cut so that the audience doesn’t notice difficiencies in the action sequences*.
Now The best of the Best today are great but how many do you think will actually become classics?
*Oddly enough the best Sword fight sequence I saw was in a semi recent film I didn’t much care for (Count of Monte Cristo). The director had the balls to pull the camera back and let the two swords men do their thing.
Agreed. I can’t believe they made three of them. They weren’t bargain-basement James Bond – they were bargain-basement Derek Flint.
(Derek Flint, played by James Coburn, was the bargain-basement James Bond)