The Breakfast Club obviously affects me differently than it did when I first saw it as a teenager. I don’t see how it couldn’t. The teacher, while not exactly a good guy, does appear more sympathetic in context to me now as an adult.
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.
I agree that Ferris Bueller comes off as much more of an asshole now.
Double Indemnity is one of my favorites, and I think it suffers not a bit from being made 75 years ago. There are scenes where the characters use old recording devices, which I somehow don’t find distracting in the way I do in movies where I see old computers. Not sure if that’s because I am familiar with tech of that vintage, or because DI is such a great movie that one doesn’t care.
Up In Smoke. At 12 years old and being the second R-rated movie I’d ever seen (at the house of a friend who had that new-fangled cable hooked up to the family TV), it was hilarious.
Watching the 40th anniversary edition last year, not so much. For me, drug humor in general hasn’t aged well, going from cool and edgy and rebellious to point-and-laugh-at-the-dumbass-burnout.
It was immediately apparent why Cheech had the more successful solo career, as he was by far the better actor of the two. Chong’s range wasn’t much beyond saying “Oh wow man” and falling over a lot - really, 3 extended pratfall sequences in one movie was 2 too many.
Plus the INS gags were a little uncomfortable in this age. (Cheech’s family calls la migre on themselves so they can be deported in order to get a free bus ride to a cousin’s wedding in Tijuana - although the sight gag of agents rounding up people in suits carrying presents was still amusing)
Literally, this is the answer. It’s not even possible to purchase the original versions of the original trilogy, and whenever original film reels surface, Lucasfilm purportedly shows up like the Men in Black and confiscates them.
I had exactly the same reaction. I saw it in high school and practically fell off my chair laughing; I saw it again a few months ago and didn’t find it nearly as funny (although it had its moments).
From much the same impulse, he edited E.T. for re-release by replacing the government agents’ guns with walkie-talkies.
I remember reading that Matthew Broderick refused to do a sequel because he recognized that the character was unlikeable.
And other John Hughes films don’t age well. Sixteen Candles, for instance, with the racist portrayal of Long Duk Dong, and that Jake let Farmer Ted take Jake’s very drunk girlfriend home, and it’s implied, take advantage of her. (Plus Jake’s parents’ house is absolutely trashed, with what looks like thousands in damage.)
I tried watching Porky’s again and all I wanted to do is punch the “teenagers” in the face. I say “teenagers” because it’s obvious in hindsight that most of the actors are much older than their teens. The movie has not aged well, IMHO.
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.
Another movie I loved when I was a kid, and watched over and over, was Weird Science. I have not watched it as an adult, and I don’t intend to. Because I’m sure I’ll find it dull and offensive, and I’d rather not ruin the memory.
While I realize it’s a really strange contest, Revenge of the Nerds was a far better film than Porky’s.
Neither has aged especially well, though Nerds had its funny moments, while I think Porky’s was merely juvenile / raunchy without being very funny at all. The Ogre character still makes me laugh, and John Goodman was amusing in one of his earliest roles (“S@*t, we forgot to practice…”).
The Nerds’ sexual behavior is indefensible, yet they were not entirely unsympathetic characters. But I agree with wanting to punch the people in Porky’s.
I thought so too, but in the morning he’s just as fuzzy as she is. Headgear notwithstanding.
However, the implication when Jake & Ted are discussing taking her home is that, since she’s completely wasted, shenanigans may occur in Ted’s favor. Hilarious in 1984, but now it’s … icky.
Gorgeously shot in black and white, exceptional score. For fans at the time it was peak Woody Allen. For me as a college-aged viewer when it came out, the older man/teen girl relationship didn’t stick out so much because I had known a few girls in high school in similar relationships.
But viewed today? Now that I am well into adulthood? Even setting aside the allegations against Woody - hoo boy.
I was so all about The Crow when it came out. I saw the movie a couple times in the theater, and played the soundtrack every day for a long time. When I went to Seattle many years later, I went and found Brandon Lee’s grave.
I bought the BD version a few years ago when it came out. Holy cow, what a bad movie. I thought it would at least evoke the same feelings it did 20 years ago. Nope. It’s very over-done and silly.
I still like all the other movies I liked as a kid. I guess The Crow just needed me to be a certain age in a certain place.
I recently rewatched The Thing From Another World (1951), which was one of my favorite scary sci-fi movies when I was a kid. Now that the fact that they burn up the alien ship because they are in too much of a hurry to wait for others to get there, and then not only kill the alien but burn up the body and all traces of it just makes me wince at the loss of knowledge. The scientist who protests against all this is portrayed as being naive rather than being right. (Of course, the premise of the Alien franchise is that some critters are too dangerous to live, but tissues from The Thing could have just been kept on ice.)
The “dead n***er storage” scene from Pulp Fiction is unwatchable now. I remember thinking it was kinda odd back then, as it didn’t really add anything, (not like it was period appropriate for the character), but now? Yikes. Plus, I feel like Sam Jackson’s character would’ve at best called him out immediately upon hearing it, regardless of the nature of their relationship.
Yeah, I had always assumed that Ted was drunk, too (if not as blackout-drunk as Caroline had been). In the morning-after scene, he doesn’t seem to remember where he is, or what he’d done with her.
In a college film class I first saw The 400 Blows. I was all about sympathy for the kid, he had it rough!
Years later, I had a teenager who was taking French, and I thought he might like this movie, so we rented it. Ah, suddenly I saw the kid for the brat he was, a complete troublemaker* who got off way easier than he might have. His poor parents!
As a person of much higher than average melanin, I must say that this scene was funny 15 years ago and is still funny now. Please note that I cannot account for the subsequent White Man’s Burden Complex or Very Black’s Super Hypersensitivity Mode.
