I had horribly low expectations for The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but it’s a funny and remarkably sweet movie.
Have you seen The Ugly Dachshund? It’s a Disney movie with Suzanne Pleshette and Dean Jones. My son loved it when he was little. He watched it in the late 80s so it was already 20 years old. It’s really cute.
Of course! We’ll watch just about anything dachshund related. Although that story has a Great Dane as the hero, and the doxies are the sorta-kinda villains.
Wayne’s World We thought it was going to be cringeingly awful. And it isn’t.
I would go so far as to say it was entertaining. Whimsical, and yet relevant. With an underlying revisionist conceit that belied the film’s emotional attachment to the subject matter.
+1 on Wayne’s World
I’ll add Clerks. When I heard some say it’s lame and low-budget-ey, it piqued my interest, though I had low expectations. After seeing it, it became one of my all-time favorites. Love the dialog: I welcome other’s pearl clutching.
TV, going back 16 years. Our friends loved The Red Green Show. I’d glimpsed it at their house and made a very negative snap judgement, thought it was moronic. When I eventually got around to watching an entire episode, I “got it” and have loved it ever since. Patrick McKenna is paticularly impressive. I even have a Possum Lodge pin.
Yeah, a friend said he laughed his ass off, and I was not predisposed to want to see it.
I want one! Oh, and keep your stick on the ice.
If the ladies can’t find you handsome, at least they can find you handy.
Here you go. (We’re all in this together)
I’ve mentioned this before in an older, similar thread - the movie Topsy-Turvy. It remains my number one favorite surprise because I just do not like musical theatre at all. AT ALL. And the movie is basically about the conception and creation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.
But I did and do like the director Mike Leigh and the film was a delightful surprise.
I’ll add Clerks II. A sequel to a low budget indie film? Dubious. The movie poster was not encouraging and the title should have been “Still Clerks” (which they were). But I loved it; Rosario Dawson was fantastic and I even liked the music video in the middle.
100% agree. But my favorite Mike Leigh is still Secrets and Lies.
I agree, and I should have mentioned it as well. I thought it would be dubious simply because it was a sequel. Turned out I really liked it and I laughed just as heartily as I did during the original one.
YES! A terrific little film, with improvised dialogue (!) and an incredible performance by Brenda Blevin. 10/10 sez me.
Gah, she breaks my heart in that movie. That scene in caf’ when she first meets Mariane Jean-Batiste (sp?).
Everybody is terrific in that movie. Even the kid who plays Rosanne’s boyfriend. We always talk about how perfectly he reacts as a noobie in a family breakdown scene.
*Blethyn
Aargh! Yes. Thank you. I’ve admired her since Secrets and Lies came out, have watched every episode of Vera twice, and must have seen her name in print at least a metric hundred times, and yet somehow garbled it to “Blevin” god knows how long ago. I shall commit Seppuku at once.
No, it’s all good. Just trying to help.
Same for me, and I’d add Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo to that list. You think both of them are going for the cheap mocking humor - Ha ha, that guy’s a 40-year-old virgin! Ha ha, that chick has Tourette’s! But no, the heroes in the movies are the ones who aren’t mocking others, but are being kind and respectful.