Yes, this was kind of cool. I’ll have to give it a try myself sometime. 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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:
- Guy and girl meet.
- Guy doesn’t trust girl because she’s rumored to be promiscuous and he’s been burned before.
- 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).
- 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
It was the former, not the latter. And I disagree, with respect to both the movies and the music.
Yeah, I particularly enjoyed the “love” scene where Clint Eastwood told the gal that he was going to rape her. Yeesh!
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.
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?
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.
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.