# What movie has changed the most as you've aged and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891 "2019-04-22T14:38:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/124 "2019-05-03T12:49:13Z")
> [@Dr.Conrad\_Shadowdale](#): > > The first 4 times I watched “The Man Who Would be King” (all within a month) on the big screen, my 12 year old self loved it. > > It has a sparkling cast — Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Christopher Plummer — and gifted director, John Huston, plus it was faithfully based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was epic and full of exotic adventure. What’s not to love? > > Fast forward 49 years and my children gave it to me for Christmas. I excitedly forced them to share this treasured gem with me. > > It was, charitably, not as I remembered. Hackneyed, plodding, small in scope. I recalled crowds of thousands painted across the vast terrain. In fact, the non-CGI crowds were perhaps in the low-hundreds. > > Connery and Caine had a chemistry but the movie’s pacing was glacially slow, with looooooong tracking shots. The movie took forever and, in fact, does not compare favorably with today’s movies. > > TMWWBKB remains near the top of my all-time favorites but that is because of my memories, not the film itself. > > The movie was nominated by the Academy and the stars were near the top of their games. IT DID NOT AGE WELL. I watched it again recently myself. I have to disagree about a lot of what you say. I wasn’t disappointed in the crowd scenes, but maybe because, being older when I first saw it, I didn’t misremember the sizes. I’m probably more tolerant of the slower pace of older movies (having grown up with them). No, the thing that I found made me uneasy was the whole “colonialist” attitude. I do suspect that a couple of devoted con men could end up in control on a country (look at certain recent events, if you doubt this), but the _expectation_ that they would easily do so seems to suggest a paternalistic attitude toward the non-European folk. And that their deeply-held religious belief turns out to be an over-reverence for and misunderstanding of a Western brotherhood organization is… condescending. I know that Huston was taking as his model films like George Stevens’ _Gunga Din_ (also based on a couple of Kipling works), but that 1939 film was made near the end of that British colonial period, and is steeped in the same assumptions. ( [Gunga Din (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunga_Din_(film)) ) So, yeah, it didn’t age well. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/125 "2019-05-03T12:56:45Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > … > Comedies like **Animal House** and **Blazing Saddles** however, are just as funny to me now. I find it easy to suspend judgement based on today’s criteria of what is offensive. Not that Blazing Saddles is offensive at all - at least to me as a white person. It’s clearly lampooning the racists and portraying them as the fools they were and are. The fact that it uses the n-word iis not bothersome to me, as it would be in other contexts. However, the right people to be the true arbiters of that would be African-Americans… My wife and I have raised an African-American friend’s daughter since she was a child (in a “living with aunt and uncle” way), so I get glimpses into racial issues that I wouldn’t otherwise have. She’s in her late 20s now. A few months ago I suggested we watch **Blazing Saddles** together, without having thought things through very well, and as soon as the first N-word came, I looked in horror at her face to see her reaction. She loved the movie, though she told me that until she got the whole “it’s portraying the racists as the fools they are” aspect (basically 2 minutes into the movie) the word poked at a very tender raw nerve. > [@GESancMan](#): > > Agreed, and I’ll add **The Blues Brothers.** > > I thought these movies were hysterical when I was a kid. When I watched them again as an adult, I found myself scratching my head trying to figure out why I’d thought they were so funny. **The Blues Brothers** has changed for me from my favorite comedy to an awesome musical focused around old-school R&B. This was the movie that introduced me to Sam and Dave, to Donald Duck Dunn’s bass lines, to Stax Records, and so on. It is so awesome to see Ray Charles jamming out on the Fender Rhodes while random Chicago residents dance in the street. It’s great to hear Aretha Franklin belting out “Think!” The fact that the actors were all serious musicians is what makes the movie so cool. But in the 1980s it was cool because it was a funny comedy with the most over-the-top chase scene of its time (Who can’t laugh at John Candy as a cop?) ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/126 "2019-05-03T14:00:31Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > My wife and I have raised an African-American friend’s daughter since she was a child (in a “living with aunt and uncle” way), so I get glimpses into racial issues that I wouldn’t otherwise have. She’s in her late 20s now. > A few months ago I suggested we watch **Blazing Saddles** together, without having thought things through very well, and as soon as the first N-word came, I looked in horror at her face to see her reaction. > > She loved the movie, though she told me that until she got the whole “it’s portraying the racists as the fools they are” aspect (basically 2 minutes into the movie) the word poked at a very tender raw nerve.) Very interesting! I guess next we’ll have to try Blazing Saddles out on a bunch of “Kansas City f!@@#ts” and see if they’re OK with it… :eek: Seriously though, my guess is that the only people who really should be offended by BZ are racist assholes. At least, I hope they are! ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/127 "2019-05-03T16:43:42Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > "I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or\*\* repair anything sold, bought, or processed\*\*. " > > Making something like furniture or cars is “processing”. Being an electrician is either processing or repairing processed things, depending on the job. Home repair is repairing sold and processed things. And selling your homemade furniture is selling. > > He can be an artist (I think we can forgive selling art, but only by the loosest interpretation. Most artists can make that allowance, or they starve.) He can be a musician, singer, other artist that doesn’t have a tangible product. He could be a theoretical physicist or mathematician. No applied sciences, though. I didn’t remember the repair part, but your declaration that making things is processing is your definition, not necessarily his (or the writers’) and definitely not mine. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/128 "2019-05-04T22:47:50Z")
Mid 80s through early 90s Schwarzenegger and Stallone films. To a lesser Van Damme, Seagal, etc etc. Those movies must have been skillfully tapping into some kind of Cold War anxiety because any of them could have us on a high for WEEKS after viewing. Me and just about every other male I knew would endlessly relive the scenes afterward (even on minor offerings like “Tango & Cash”) and usually bolt off to a gym to pump some iron as well. I now can’t fathom how excited we all got. I can’t watch 5 minutes of any of them now - they’re not even “bad”, just empty dead zones akin to beer commercials. (though I might say the same thing about today’s superhero movies) ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891/129 "2019-05-06T20:14:17Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I love how the giant James Arness walks in right after the monster flees. “What? I missed him again? Weird how we’re never in the same shot.” 😕 Arness is only listed in the credits as the monster. Is he doing a double role as the tall scientist as well? He doesn’t show in imdb as doing that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-has-changed-the-most-as-youve-aged-and-why/832891.md?page=6)