I’ve never been a huge fan of Tarantino. I can see why people think he’s fantastic, but I found his stuff to be trying too hard to be deep and gratuitously bloody in a way I didn’t enjoy.
But I watched Inglorious Basterds anyway and had way, way more fun than I expected. I couldn’t exactly tell you why his other movies didn’t work for me and this one did, but there it is.
I liked *To Be or Not To Be *but were you aware that it was a remake of a 1942 film starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard? It’s worth seeking it out for comparison.
These didn’t take me by surprise ( I saw To Be or Not to Be when it first came out, and – sacrilege, I know – I prefer Brooks’ version to the Lubitsch original. I saw *The Twelve Chairs[/] a few years after it came out, and loved it. But I wholeheartedly endorse the last two lines above.
What’s amazing is that these films rarely get played on TV, or promoted. I get Robin Hood – Men in Tights on cable all the time, but I’ve never seen The Twelve Chairs broadcast at all.
And awesome soundtrack!
From the commercials, I expected X-Men First Class to be a steaming pile. Instead I actually quite enjoyed it.
I thought Not Another Teen Movie would be really bad, instead it turned into a guilty pleasure favorite of mine. Loads better than many of the other tons of parody dreck from the same timeframe.
I was not aware, but it would be interesting to see. Thx.
Agree with Time After Time, Tremors, Enchanted.
I am kind of embarrassed to admit this but…American Pie (the original). I expected it to be stupid, raunchy, offensive and funny in a lowest-common-demoninator way. It was…but not all of it. The storyline about the couple sadly breaking up and going their separate ways was surprisingly sensitive and affecting.
The Robert Downey version of Sherlock Holmes.
From the previews I expected a half-ass modernization of Holmes with Downey putting on an English accent, give him some witty one-liners, add some modern f/x, and you got a throwaway summer flick.
But between the immersive musical score and Guy Richie’s styling it became something really cool and edgy. I’m very much looking forward to the sequel.
Rango
Expected yet another animated movie that my kids watched while I napped in the theatre.
What I got was a funny parody of Chinatown mixed with spaghetti westerns.
Apocalypto
Wasn’t sure what to expect. Was surprised to to see a great movie with a lot of suspense, action and also a very visually beautiful movie.
Great movie!
Kick-Ass.
Expected another fun super hero movie.
Received the face-rocking of my life. The last time I had that much fun with gratuitous violence was Kill Bill.
Oh, and while we’re at it, Kill Bill. I expected a standard action film. I did not expect a masterpiece.
I did not read this thread because I dont want to get spoilered, but SPEED RACER!
I love this movie. I thought it would be garbage and it took a little while to grip me, but it is now one of my favorite movies.
Wanted to add that I felt the same way about **Kick-Ass **and Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. While all three are very different movies, I kind of group them together in my head as just plain balls to the wall fun, original movies.
I had my choice to see one of two movies in the theater during the same weekend about thirteen years ago. Both of them came out around the same time and were playing at the local movie theater. The choice I had was between Batman and Robin or (the first) Austin Powers. I chose Batman and Robin because Austin Powers looked absolutely retarded. It looked like no movie that I’d ever want to see.
I saw it not long after that weekend. I really enjoyed it and have watched it and all of the sequels many times. Batman and Robin, however, sucked.
24 Hour Party People. Surprisingly decent!
Iron Man and Thor
My thought on seeing that these characters were getting movies was : “Well Marvel Comics is scraping the bottom of the barrel now.”
These were decidedly second-tier comic heroes, but with each of the movies I was surprised by just how entertaining they were. With Iron Man, I think it was casting. Robert Downey, Jr. knows how to squeeze every bit of fun out of a role.
With Thor it came down to direction. Kenneth Branagh knows how to tell a story.
Yep. Harlan Ellison tells quite a story, doesn’t he?
This, too. I figured it would be hammed up and it wasn’t. And I love his line:
Hot Tub Time Machine - maybe wasn’t a lot better than I expected but I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. So un-PC, some of it really offensive in concept but brilliant in execution (eg. 9 year old ‘wife’ getting verbally reamed for cheating on her husband 20 years in the future).
The Fast & the Furious (original) - I’m not into cars at all but there was a well done, even if formulic, emotional story.
Galaxy Quest - wasn’t even on my radar when it came out in theaters but one of the most consistently funny movies that plugged into the culture of a whole lot of people.
Much as I love Harlan Ellison, he didn’t write The Terminator. Cameron took some ideas from Ellison’s two Outer Limits episodes Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand, but that’s a helluva long way from saying that Cameron stole the whole thing from Ellison. Ellison didn’t write the script, or the story, or set up the characters, or plot the thing. He gets zero credit for the movie.
It’s not as if the idea of time travelers altering the past hadn’t been used before, or humaniform killer robots (as has been pointed out, that whole “flashback to the future” segment owes more to Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety:” than to Ellison’s Outer Limit Scripts).
Ellison has been ripped off and misused by the industry, and reading his rants about this is a great treat, but I think he didn’t deserve more than an acknowledgement for Terminator – which is what he got.