My DVD copy is nice and clean.
So, a movie that is set in the future (of when it’s made) doesn’t stand the test of time when that future turns out to not come true? Wow, pretty stiff criteria. (And by the way, you don’t even have to get as convoluted as saying that “the New York that contained the WTC didn’t get turned into a huge prison”; the movie clearly says that it’s set in 1997, when the WTC in the real world was still standing, and New York was still a city.)
By that logic, Citizen Kane started right out as a bad movie, because we know for a fact that no such person as Charles Foster Kane ever lived. I’m not really trying to be snarky but, jeez, they call it “fiction” for a reason. What’s the difference between a movie that’s set in a future that doesn’t turn out to come true, and a movie that portrays characters that never lived?
And in closing, does that mean that if Escape from New York is re-released with an opening crawl that proclaims it to take place in an alternate universe where the crime levels in the US did skyrocket in the early 90’s, it would go back to being a good movie?
“An intellectual carrot?? The mind boggles!” I prefer the original to the John Carpenter version; it’s got some funny lines, and I like cheesy B&W sci-fi/horror flicks.
For the thread, I’d like to nominate “Valley Girls”. I was an adult when I saw this for the first time just a couple of years ago, and I hated it. Hated the viciousness of the girls, the herd mentality of the “cool kids”, Nicholas Cage’s hair. Hated it. And it seems to me that teenagers today are taught to be more individualistic than we were in the 80s (when conformity was important and it wasn’t cool to be a nerd, or different in any way) so I don’t think they’d react well to the main valley girl dumping Cage because her friends thought he was weird. At least my kids wouldn’t. Maybe I’ll try this movie out on my daughter in a couple of years and see what she thinks.
I’m probably going to commit the cardinal sin by dissing Kubrick, but although I initially was scared shitless by The Shining, a recent repeat watch only had me rolling my eyes in exasperation. There was so many better ways of showing him losing it (and attaining monster-like status), so many other instances in the novel that were terrifying that didn’t make it into the movie well and a more realistic take on Duvall’s character that clearly doesn’t brand her as a product of the era.
I typically love any movie from the 70s (and this one counts, being only right around '80), but even dealing with their continually slow pace, this one drug enough that I could’ve read War and Peace during the huge amounts of down times. Just overall ugh.
Hell yeah. I was in High School and college during the 80’s. I thought I’d be living in a Mad Max type of world by 2000. (ok, I was being really paranoid, but…)
I still remember drills in freaking elementary school where we had to hide under our desks in case of nuclear attack. No joke.
Sorry, dude, but you’re way off the mark. The cold war was hot stuff then. I suspect that, when the wall fell, you were hardly coherent in re: Communism v. Democracy, and or socio-political considerations. Let’s be real-at 8 or 9 years old, politics-wise, in essence, you weren’t there.
The dorky movies were an illustration of the times (the Russians were ahead of us in nukes, IIRC, and it was accepted that they may very well be able to beat us in a strategic war, and guerilla warfare may be the only way to keep our accepted way of life) and stuff for suspended disbelief. Rocky wasn’t about Rocky crushing Communism, but it was a symbol-The USSR may be big and powerful, and the wave of the future, but the good ol’ US was still going to come out ahead, goldurn it! Their cheesiness wasn’t because the CW was old hat, it was because they were cheesy!
And don’t forget, they weren’t a bunch of teenagers-they were Wolverines!
btw, they didn’t remake Fail Safe because there were very few movies of that quality, with the themes that were so quirky, and anything else along those lines would be shot down quickly. Back then, to blatantly ripoff something that obviously was a no-no. Also, Rock Hudson was in WW3 movie. Others, too, but I’m too tired to even think of them right now.
Not sure if anyone’s mentioned it yet, but I came to say Peter’s Friends. When it came out AIDS was still a spectre that no one knew anything about (HIV wasn’t a term the layman new), so when Peter busts out his revelation at the end that he’s ‘got the virus that causes AIDS’, it was him saying, in essence, ‘so I probably don’t have all that long to live.’ At the time, it was an amazingly scary message. Now, I watch it with my friends, and when Peter gives the big reveal, there’s the sound of crickets. “Oh, he’s got HIV?” Yeah. Not as ‘impressive’ now. Other than that, however, great movie throughout.
The old one is full of laughable cliches, and the dialogue is one running cliche. The monster is only kind of scary-if everybody got together, they could have beaten it, and there was no suspense buildup. Carpenter’s version was ten jillion times better.
Amerika, with Kris Kristofferson. I’m going to sleep now.
Of course, WW3 did rip off the ending to Fail Safe, but it did suck otherwise. More idiotic than red dawn. stopimgoingtosleepand stopthinkingofthisbutwaitAmerikawasprettynastytoononogoingtosleep!
First thing that crossed my mind reading the OP was Flashdance. Though I am a child of the 80s, I didn’t see it when it first came out (I was a bit too young). Seeing it as an adult a year or two ago, I was stunned at the craptacularness of it.
It was more successful than well-regarded, though. When it comes to movies that are Big Deals:
Rebel Without a Cause left hubby and I scratching our heads. James Dean, not that rebellious. Not that dramatic. Not that interesting. Just…weird and a touch melodramatic.
I saw The Graduate 10 years ago and thought it was a peculiar, and not particularly a good, movie. The editing seemed forced and awkward, and the storyline unremarkable and uninteresting. And the incessant playing of Simon and Garfunkle’s “The Sounds of Silence” got really, really old. What an odd flick.
And just FTR, I love Real Genius, The Breakfast Club, Jaws, The Princess Bride, American Beauty, and Clueless.
How is that not the case for every film?
I’ve noticed a lot of references to War Games, which for me does hold up well. I don’t think it’s fair to say a movie hasn’t held up because of the technology that appears in the movie. Let’s face it, Lightman had a great bedroom for the early 80’s, and the technology was state of the art.
I’m wondering if anyone is old enough to remember the release of Easy Rider? I remember sitting down with a friend to watch the movie in the early 90’s, as this was THE movie that defined the 60’s. I just didn’t get it at all. It was slow, boring, and I didn’t care about the characters at all. Not that I wanted them to get killed, but it did end the movie, which was a relief.
SFP
Sorry, naked Debbie Harry means this movie will stand the test of time.
LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!
As for my entry: The Day After. This movie was so traumatizing that it had support phone lines for people to call in for counseling. Watching it on Sci Fi channel, it’s a typical made for tv movie with lots of melodrama and actors that should be doing better work (I’m looking at you Jason Robards).
All of you make me weep, but this one hurts the most. Suspicion required some suspension of disbelief, but it was not, at least to me, huge. The movie suffered from Grant’s presence (because they had to change the ending from the one in the book), but if I pretend the ending was Hitchcock’s original one, it would have been perfect.
And to say his other films do not hold up? I suppose if you look at them occurring in today’s world, but I’d say, with the exception of the distractingly bad special effects of The Birds, they have done very well. The Lady Vanishes is an outstanding mystery, soiled only by an attempt to remake the film with Eliot Gould, Angela Lansbury, and Candice Bergen decades later. Notorious is one of my favorite films by him, and other than the drunk driving scene which would not fly at all today, is a nail biter that has stood up well.
Rope, not a great film, although a tehnical showpiece, still ages well, as does Strangers on a Train. Lifeboat, Jamaica Inn, Sabotage, The 39 Steps, when fortunate enough to catch them on TCM, I find it impossible to turn away from. I imagine you will not like North by Northwest, the infamous plane scene may ring hollow to you how it concludes, or the incident at Mt Rushmore too hokey, but it is still classic suspense, much like Rear Window.
Not every film has a fan base keeping it alive.
Ghostbusters.
Gremlins.
Flashdance. Sigh.
I saw all three of these at theaters. I couldn’t stand to watch even 15 minutes of any of these today.
I saw that movie in a theatre when it first came out – because even then, my Hugh Laurie lust was in full bloom. Peter’s announcement, though tragic, was so incredibly anticlimactic even then – because it was so completely obvious from the very beginning. What else was he going to say? “I’ve called you all here to tell you I’ve started to collect Faberge eggs?” I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was only one shoe, and it was there the whole time.
After a string of successes, showing my kids and their friends movies made before they were old enough to appreciate them, I foolishly showed the Peter Sellers movie The Party. Although I remembered it as being both funny and clever it was neither. Luckily there was something on TV to distract us and none of them remember my mistake.
Funny you should mention **The Day Aftr Tomorrow ** which practically caused a diplomatic break with the Soviet Union when it was first broadcast on TV. I saw it a few weeks ago for the first time since it was first broadcast and I thought it held up very well. The scene where the missiles are leaving the silos still has excruciating impact because you now know there is no going back
Eh, the thing that always got to me about that movie was the constant envying-the-dead. I mean, jeez—'kay, fine, you didn’t want a nuclear war, but it happened, and you got the shit end of the stick. Now if you don’t want to actually try and cowboy up and do something with your lot in life, at least stop whining about it, lay down and die in a ditch somewhere, and let someone else with an inkling of a basic biological survival drive take a stab at it!
I’m…really not the kind of person these movies are targeted towards, I think.