# Movies too dated to be enjoyable **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 30, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793 "2013-01-30T07:09:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/141 "2013-02-10T00:48:42Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > One of my favorite things about the movie is how the tools of an ad man’s trade - monogrammed matchbooks, handkerchiefs, an expensive suit, lots of pocket money, tolerance for alcohol, a classy accent, and being a good liar - allow him to function as a spy on the run. Yes, this was kind of cool. I’ll have to give it a try myself sometime. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jack\_tardiff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jack\_tardiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jack_tardiff)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/142 "2013-02-10T00:55:13Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > What kind of plane were they going to use—a B-36? 😕 James Mason. Martin Landau. That is all. They were the Transformer-bots of their day, powered by raw “masculine” energy. Or whatever they were doing there. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/143 "2013-02-10T00:55:52Z")
> [@bup](#): > > No. > > And I know that still now courtroom drama is nothing like real life. But _ **Law and Order** _ and the like have raised the bar for writing. > > I just don’t find _ **The Verdict** _ gripping. I can’t suspend my disbelief. The case hinges on a document that the defendants get thrown out as evidence (for a bullshit reason, but the evidence does get eliminated). So there’s no case left. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve watched _The Verdict_ with lawyers, and they had some things to say about the implausibility of some of the legal stuff. They also had some things to say about the realism of some of the the courtroom stuff. Frank Galvin (Newman’s character) at one point says to the judge, “your Honor, if you’re going to try my case for me, at least don’t lose it” (paraphrased from memory), and that line got a couple of rueful chuckles from the lawyers watching with me. That said, the courtroom stuff isn’t the point of the movie. The point is the redemption of Frank Galvin, a broke-down, alcoholic lawyer on his last legs, and Newman turns in, IMHO, the best performance of his career (yes, better than his performance in _The Hustler_, or _Cool Hand Luke_). And that kind of story _never_ gets dated. It’s timeless and universal. Who among us hasn’t wished for a second chance? It’s _Lord Jim_, or even _My Name Is Earl_. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/144 "2013-02-10T00:58:33Z")
> [@jack\_tardiff](#): > > James Mason. Martin Landau. That is all. They were the Transformer-bots of their day, powered by raw “masculine” energy. Or whatever they were doing there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/145 "2013-02-10T01:57:09Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Are we understanding “dated” now to just mean _reflecting the time in which they are set_? Because the above sounds like a good thing to me. You might as well say it takes you right out of the movie when 19th-century characters get in a horse-drawn carriage. 😕 Really! I can understand being unable to enjoy a film because of stagy acting styles, unconscious racism & stuff like that. But the past was different; styles change. I can even enjoy some of the non-masterpieces TCM shows late at night. Perhaps because of extra-swanky deco interiors & slinky gowns designed to distract folks from the Depression. Or extra-noirish films from later years–where the only sunlight comes slanting through through the venetian blinds… Somebody 'way up thread mentioned _Easy Rider_. I, too, ran out to see it with my hip pals because it was hip. But, even back then, I can’t remember loving it. Never bothered seeing it again. _Don’t Look Back_ isn’t easy to watch but still worth it when I’m in the mood. And _A Hard Day’s Night_ is still fun. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/146 "2013-02-10T04:06:47Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Because I love stirring up controversy…the original **Star Wars** trilogy. > > This, in itself, isn’t a bad thing, to me it becomes bad when people who grew up with it can’t believe it doesn’t resonate the same way with kids today. I was 12 when **The Phantom Menace** came out. A little older than the target audience, but I still feel closer to the second trilogy than the first. It isn’t that I don’t like the original trilogy, but the dated visuals definitely signaled a ‘this is for old people!’ thinking. > > Plus, since Star Wars was one of the first of its kind, I had already been exposed to a lot of sci-fi and there wasn’t that magical first time feel to it. Actually, I think you’re spot on. I am old enough to have seen the original _Star Wars_ trilogy in the theater, and it blew me away. Because it was something new and amazing - we just hadn’t seen anything like it before. (Can’t remember when Kubrick made _2001_, but it wasn’t the blockbuster that SW was, at least among me and my fellow twelve year-olds.) Movies such as the original _Star Wars_ can fall victim to their own success. When I saw _The Maltese Falcon_, I thought it was an unoriginal mishmash of every hardboiled _noir_ film cliche ever made. Only later did it occur to me that that was because it _created_ those cliches - it wasn’t hackneyed at the time. I’ve never seen it, but I imagine that’s true of the Bela Lugosi _Dracula_, too; I know most of the traditional visual vampire tropes - the evening dress, the “I van to suck your blud” accent, the curling tendrils of mist - come from the film, rather than the Stoker novel. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/147 "2013-02-10T04:25:43Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > One thing that took me out of it too, that I think/hope would be less common today, was the casting. The average age of the Club was 23 or something; at least three of the five are clearly not high-school age. How hard can it be to find people that are teenagers or at least look like them? > > ETA: not too far off - it was [21 years and a few months](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv0). I doubt it. The current incarnation of “90210” seems to have a bunch of early and mid 20s playing teenagers. There may be labor laws involved in using people under 18. [http://www.homorazzi.com/article/90210-actors-oldest-characters-ages-michael-steger-navid-teddy-montgomery-trevor-donovan-oldest/](http://www.homorazzi.com/article/90210-actors-oldest-characters-ages-michael-steger-navid-teddy-montgomery-trevor-donovan-oldest/) [/QUOTE] Wasn’t one of the actresses from the first 90210 in her early thirties? I think it was the one that played the nerdy brunette with the crush on Brannon. That said, I do think one of the changes over the decades has been that the teenagers in movies increasingly look like real teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/148 "2013-02-10T18:07:31Z")
I don’t think this has anything to do with the book being written in 1992. I remember 1992, and I think this plot would have seemed pretty stupid to me then too. It sounds like a romance novel thing rather than an early '90s thing. There are romance novels targeted at conservative religious readers that don’t depict premarital sex, and some of these feature rather silly plot devices that force the characters to get married before they really know each other so the actual romancing begins only after they’re married. [/QUOTE] No, I’ve read current romances. The evolution in this case is not how times have changed since 1992, but how the romance genre has. Back in 1992, romance novels were still following the conventions set for earlier decades, in which a woman’s life centered around finding “the one” and preserving herself for marriage. Current romances have stronger, more respectable heroines, who, while still seeking “the one”, have fulfilling careers and friends, and an adult woman’s virginity, or lack of it, is not an all consuming obsession like it seemed to be twenty or thirty years ago. It’s a bit scary how popular this type of storyline was popular in the 1980s and '90s: 1. Guy and girl meet. 2. Guy doesn’t trust girl because she’s rumored to be promiscuous and he’s been burned before. 3. Girl is in fact a virgin (she invariably is unless she’s a widow and even then she might still be because her late husband was some kind of “weirdo” who never wanted to sleep with her). 4. Guy finds out she’s been telling the truth about being a virgin. He’s contrite. He falls in love with her because she’s so good and virtuous and they live happily ever after. The forced marriage trope still exists, mostly in historical romances because those were the times the characters lived in, but while there may be some animosity between them, they have a measure of deference and respect for each other. The main problem is that the story takes for granted that the two main characters will end up together, no matter how badly they treat each other, because love will win out. I just don’t see today’s readers sympathizing with this particular story, who seem so caught up in this exercise of tunnel vision and outdated attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/149 "2013-02-10T18:14:20Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Movies such as the original _Star Wars_ can fall victim to their own success. When I saw _The Maltese Falcon_, I thought it was an unoriginal mishmash of every hardboiled _noir_ film cliche ever made. Only later did it occur to me that that was because it _created_ those cliches - it wasn’t hackneyed at the time. That was my sister-in-law’s response to Stagecoach and my father’s spluttered response: “this is the movie which _invented_ those clichés!” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/150 "2013-02-10T19:43:41Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > That was my sister-in-law’s response to Stagecoach and my father’s spluttered response: “this is the movie which _invented_ those clichés!” I happened to see _Saturday Night Fever_ on cable a couple of years ago, and my immediate reaction to the dancing was “This is the most cliched disco dancing I’ve ever seen.” Then I realized this was because nearly every disco dancing scene I’d ever seen was a rip-off/parody/homage of _Saturday Night Fever_. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/151 "2013-02-11T04:05:23Z")
I’ll third or fourth _The Graduate_ and _Midnight Cowboy_. For the later… 30 minutes of Simon and Garfunkel is too much for anyone to tolerate, especially in one sitting. (Well it seemed like 30 minutes). Two of my favorite movies from the Eighties: _Terms of Endearment_ and _An Officer and a Gentleman_. I want to watch these again but I have a feeling that these haven’t held up well. Any opinions on those two? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/152 "2013-02-11T04:05:41Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Actually, I think you’re spot on. I am old enough to have seen the original _Star Wars_ trilogy in the theater, and it blew me away. Because it was something new and amazing - we just hadn’t seen anything like it before. (Can’t remember when Kubrick made _2001_, but it wasn’t the blockbuster that SW was, at least among me and my fellow twelve year-olds.) Amen to that! Between 1977 and 1983, I was about the biggest _Star Wars_ fan you’d ever see (I was 22 when I saw the first movie). After Lucas started dicking around with it unnecessarily, I lost interest REAL fast. One of the greatest disappointments of my life. As for _2001_, I think it came out in 1969, and even then the vast majority of people thought it was overlong and incredibly boring. (Read the satire of it in MAD Magazine sometime. It’s still hilarious.) What really set it apart at the time was the amazing you-are-there photography. I enjoy good science fiction, but I never did see _2001_ until I was a freshman in college. While I was by that time better able to appreciate both the photography and the SF aspects, watching the film was still a tedious experience. Despite turning out movies like _Spartacus_, _Paths of Glory_, and _A Clockwork Orange_, Kubrick is also on my list of overrated directors. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/153 "2013-02-11T04:29:56Z")
I watched so many down and out themed movies before Midnight Cowboy (I watched it during its 25-year anniversary) and I thought MC was one of the best movies ever made. Voight’s and Hoffman’s acting were singular. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/154 "2013-02-11T05:32:35Z")
> [@gravitycrash](#): > > I’ll third or fourth _The Graduate_ and _Midnight Cowboy_. For the later … 30 minutes of Simon and Garfunkel is too much for anyone to tolerate, especially in one sitting. (Well it seemed like 30 minutes). It was the _former_, not the _latter_. And I disagree, with respect to both the movies and the music. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/155 "2013-02-12T14:44:12Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > Where did I get the idea that _The Eiger Sanction_ was worth watching again? Not only dated, but just plain [MST3K-worthy] terrible. Yeah, I particularly enjoyed the “love” scene where Clint Eastwood told the gal that he was going to rape her. Yeesh! ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/156 "2013-04-05T23:05:35Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > I know people are going to hate/pity me for saying this, but at least to an audience used to more and more efficient encapsulation of information in movies, the pacing of \*\*2001: A Space Odyssey \*\*makes it hard to watch. I’m not even that young, but I’ve gotten used to quick pacing in newer movies and find myself saying, “OK, OK, I \*got \*it, move on” for movies made as recently as the 80s. > > I also personally can’t get past the affected style of acting in a lot of old movies. I’m too annoyed and pushed out of suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. With regard to _2001_ many people felt the same since the day it was released, so it’s not just because it’s an old film. I don’t get the whole attitude though. In any era, most movies are undoubtedly crap and always have been, but if the film in question has redeeming historical or artistic value I can recalibrate my ideas on how actors should act just fine. The same is true if the movie has content or setting I’m particularly interested in. I love _Desk Set_, a second rate romcom from the 1950s, because I’m fascinated by the huge clunky computers of the era–and their portrayal in popular media. Likewise I’ve always enjoyed _The Man With The Golden Arm_ because of its pre-1960s treatment of drug addiction. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/157 "2013-04-06T00:01:20Z")
My parents made me watch **Wargames** with them this weekend, which I haven’t seen since it came out when I was six. So I’m going to nominate **Wargames**. I couldn’t get past the basic premise, that somehow a program only supposed to run simulations had the unnoticed power to also direct actual attacks because only one man was smart enough to understand the program he designed. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/158 "2013-04-06T00:32:07Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > My parents made me watch **Wargames** with them this weekend, which I haven’t seen since it came out when I was six. So I’m going to nominate **Wargames**. I couldn’t get past the basic premise, that somehow a program only supposed to run simulations had the unnoticed power to also direct actual attacks because only one man was smart enough to understand the program he designed. Oh, yeah? What language was WOPR programed in? ---
**Author:** ![Vashbul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Vashbul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vashbul)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/159 "2013-04-06T02:58:31Z")
**Wait Until Dark** was the first movie to do that thing where you think the bad guy is dead, and just when you’re going “phew, I can relax now” he jumps out of the shadows for _one last attack_. I was 15 and it was like 400 volts of electricity shot through my body. That trick has been copied so many times that everyone expects it now, and people crab about how dated Wait Until Dark is. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793/160 "2013-04-06T05:37:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Nothing gets old faster than our notions of what’s cool. And that makes a lot of the Rat Pack films (like \*\*\*Robin and the Seven Hoods \*\*\*or the original _ **Ocean’s Eleven** _) painful to watch. > > Frankie and Dino and Sammy and Friends think they’re a fun-loving, cool, happening, ring a ding ding bunch of hip cats, which only makes them seem pathetic! So…the point of movies is to always be cool, like your favorite contemporary pop music? When did film become a _genre_, in which any offering from an earlier cultural era is automatically mocked and despised? The Rat Pack guys aren’t cool in terms of today’s cultural tastes, but they were very cool in the context of those movies and that time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-too-dated-to-be-enjoyable/648793.md?page=9)