Assume that you have always rated movies with the **** system, including 1/2 stars, and that you have seen the same movie at least twice and that the last time you saw it was at least 10 years after you saw it the first time.
Provide as thorough a list as you can of the movies that either gained or lost at least one *'s worth in your own rating system after a minimum of ten years.
The motivation for this thread is that I have observed IMDB’s user ratings for movies (as well as Netflix’s) heavily favoring new movies. All but the total schlock will get at least 7/10 (which I translate into 2 1/2 to 3 out of 4) if they’re within a year old, but will drop in rating as time goes on. The reverse is true for older movies in that they tend to creep up a star or two over the decades.
There have been any number of threads already where the issue is pretty much the same as this one, but I don’t remember one that came at it from this angle. In any case, it’s something to do.
It’s okay to use IMDB’s list of Top 250 or Bottom 100 as a refresher if you can’t remember specific movies, but try to avoid using the ratings there if you didn’t see the movie at least twice and with at least ten years passing between your most recent viewing and the one before that.
I’ll list some of mine after a few posts have come in, but I don’t want to salt the mine.
Okay. One example of each. Just to demonstrate what the OP was trying for.
Gained a star: The Outlaw Josey Wales – when I saw this first I would have rated it maybe a 2 1/2 to 3, but after seeing some of Clint’s other efforts and noticing his depth, when I saw it again later (I’m guessing at least ten years here for the sake of the example) it showed even more expertise in the way it was put together.
Lost a star: The Getaway (the McQueen version) – I would have given this at least a 3 when it came out. Vintage Peckinpah, stellar McQueen. But it fades over time, not because the remake (Baldwin-Basinger) had anything new to say but just because the whole Peckinpah thing has been overdone by others by now. The effects made up a lot of what I loved about it, but they don’t age well.
In response to your observation about
I can agree in spirit, but I suggest that back when the ones you hold dear today were new that maybe they weren’t quite as highly rated for you then as they are now – which is basically what you said. On the flip side, though, some that you thought were great back then may have soured some by now. Just guessing.
Just for giggles, did you rate Citizen Kane above a 2 when you saw it first? (Assuming you ever did?)
No Holds Barred was the best picture I had ever seen, easily 5 stars… ten years later when I saw it again at the age of 19…Ehhhh, didn’t hold up so much.
Many of the star reductions in this thread may come down to (1) age at first viewing; and/or (2) special effects.
For example, I loved the sci-fi movies Flash Gordon (1980) and The Black Hole (1979) when they first came out, but I was only 10 years old! I’m sure they wouldn’t hold up if I saw them again today.
I went through today’s version of the IMDB Top 250 list and couldn’t spot all that many where my opinion changed over time. Most of those that I have seen I rated pretty highly on first viewing and later on about the same. I surely wouldn’t move as much as a star on any but these:
North by Northwest – down – In its day (late 50’s) it was among the best Hitchcocks going (my all time favorite was and is Vertigo) and Cary Grant was big, too. Nowadays it’s just too cheesy in its effects to suit me and the plot is rinky-dink, too.
The Great Escape – down – The “big star” appeal is gone. In its release year it made bigger statements than Stalag 17 (which I now rate as a better movie) and being in color with the great McQueen motorcycle scenes made it a big deal. Now it just seems dated and nowhere near as tough a movie.
The Exorcist – up – Maybe it’s because I read the book first and was scared shitless by it, and maybe the lack of faithful following to the book was a downer at the time, or maybe just the casting or something made me come away with a ho-hum 2-3 star feeling. I saw it again within the past year and having forgotten the problems with not following the book I now move that one up to at least a 3-star and maybe close to a 4. Now I can see how much the horror genre hasn’t really improved on the basic ideas in that movie. Bloodier, yes. Scarier, no.
Yes, as far as the plot goes - North by Northwest can’t hold up to many other modern suspense/thrillers. I can’t offer a perspective of seeing it back when it first came out or anything as I just saw it recently and my parents were still little kids back then. I did enjoy it very much, but still had the same impression after seeing it as I did with Rear Window - that was a great movie, but is that it? Is that what all the fuss was about? I am able to appreciate these movies for their cultural significance and the influence they had on so many movies to come, but if you take away those aspects you merely have nothing but a solid movie with nothing special.
On a side note, I was considerably bummed out to discover that The Goonies was not as great a movie as I remember it being when I was a kid.
When I was a teen I went to the theater to see Billy Jack. I was greatly entertained. Not too long ago, I tried to watch it on tape. It was an unwatchably bad movie. My tastes have changed, but the times have too.
People seem to be liking The Blair Witch Project less and less as time goes by. When it was playing in theaters I seem to remember it having a user rating of 7.5 or so on the IMDB. These days it’s at a 6.0.
You see a lot less people calling it the scariest movie ever made and a lot more people saying, “Wow, that was a giant pile of nothing.”
One noteworthy aspect of that movie is that Tuesday Weld was no longer the gal she had been in the 50’s and 60’s and Jennifer Connelly was yet to become the gal she would be in the 80’s and 90’s.
In Junior High and High School (late 1970s/early 1980s) The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of the best movies ever made. I watched it on video in the 1990s, and realized it really isn’t that good of a movie. I still love the soundtrack, and the event surrounding the film is fun, but the movie itself is kind of weak.
American Graffiti hasn’t aged well at all. I’d drop it down to a 2 or 2 1/2.
Someday I’ll revisit my junior high years to see how wellSaturday Night Fever and Grease have aged. I suspect not very well.
Saw it a year or two ago, and was surprised – it’s a completely different movie now, but it’s still pretty good. Extremely evocative of a place and time.
Fifteen years ago or so, I would’ve subtracted an automatic two stars from any movie made before Spielberg. Especially the ones “lacking color.” Since then I’ve given myself such a full-immersion education in the [reverb]“Century of Cinema,”[/reverb] that when faced with watching two movies I know nothing about, I’ll choose the black and white one every time. And any movie made in the 1930s automatically gets TiVoed, no matter how many stars the cable guide deigns to give it.
Other than that, I hated Showgirls–like everyone else–when I saw it the first time in 1995. Since then, after noticing the themes that arise again and again in Verhoeven’s movies, and realizing that those same themes existed, only in hilariously subversive garb, in Showgirls–and after learning that critics I respected saw something of value in the movie, I revisited it and found it a brilliant sledgehammer of nasty satire. So, I’d say it’s gained about four stars.
Not even 3 years old and I’d say Fahrenheit 911 has lost at least one star. It was truly unique at the time during the super hyped 2004 election as well as a “liberal event movie” similar to the Christian Right’s “Passion of the Christ.”
Now, it seems a bit overblown. However, at that time, very few reporters dared to question anything about the Bush administration. How times have changed!
Aw dude, *Red Dawn * went from a horrible experience, when I first saw it, to one of the greatest camp classics of all time, when I saw it again a couple year ago. It’s better than Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Valley of Gwangi or Reefer Madness!
2 recent movies I watched gained stars, Crimson Tide and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
Crimson Tide was just another of the many submarine movies released in the 90’s and when I did see it, it was the second movie at a drive in and I dozed off and on throughout it. A few weeks ago a clip was used as part of some required ethics training at work so I decided to rent it. From an ethics standpoint I found the movie to be very good but found the ending a bit of a disappointment.
I saw OFOTCN back when it was originally released, I picked up a VHS copy at a garage sale for a $1. I forgot what a cold place a mental institution can be. It also brought back some memories of the time I worked at a mental hospital for a very short time about 25 years ago.
Travolta’s Trinity of Schlock,Saturday Night Fever , Urban Cowboy, and Staying Alive, are treasure troves of unintentional humor.I tried at first to see each as a serious film and none worked for me. Now they rank right up ther with the works of Ed Wood as films so bad they’re good.
In addition,Debra Winger’s routine on the mechanical bull in Cowboy will never has and never will rank lower than 4 stars for me.
I’ve never warmed to Battlefield Earth Battlefield Earth. The trailers promised an epic cheese fest ala the Trinity , but for me the movie is, was, and always will be a stinker.