I’ve only skimmed the thread, but my vote is for Office Space. Office jobs are still annoying, but I’m at a stage in my life where work is so miserable I don’t even want to laugh about.
Some movies are very much an age thing, so one about teenage angst might hit the spot but when you are a teenager but embarrassing to various degrees as you get older. Others are very much tie to when they were made; many from the sixties were of a style that was great at the time but has not always aged well.
My feeling is that the earlier Bond movies were great and will remain so, and I say that, having then most of the over the years. The newer ones with Pierce Brosnan and Danial Craig less so, they don’t have the same endearing corniness. And one that bombed immediately was the first version of Casino Royale. It took a long time before I finally get to see it, when it was shown on TV, and it was immediately clear why it ever gets shown. It’s sixties and campy, but just bad beyond words. Best described as one long cringe. Maybe Michael Myers will inspire the same reaction? If he does not already.
More from the sixties that has not aged well? Just about anything psychedelic, or purportedly so. And two comes to mind straight away as politically loaded. When I finally saw Exodus in the nineties, all I could think was; “Shit, nothing changes, but now it’s the Arabs who are the underdogs, and what they show here was on the news today.” And then there is Lawrence of Arabia. The real guy was a controversial figure in a very controversial situation. Peter O’Toole gave a stunning performance, but the slant thrown on the actual events is unavoidable, whichever way it had been made. It has been described as a film that could never be made again because the PC crowd would maul it to death. It too comes up against the issue of the depiction of past events that are greatly affect the situation today in the Middle East, and it is impossible to present a neutral view
Some classics can disappoint in partsI saw Ben Hur on the big screen not long after it came out. When it turned up on TV many years later, I noticed the tacky backdrops in some interior scenes. And the tacky blackface makeup for the token Arabs.
Dean Wormer seems a lot smarter and wise now. Drunk, fat, and stupid really is no way to live.
I loved Smokey and The Bandit as a kid (didn’t grow up in the 70s- it just aired on cable constantly in the early 90s). About 10 years ago, I put it on because I remembered how hilarious it was…and found out it was extremely stupid. It didn’t affect how much I like the song East Bound And Down, though. That song is awesome.
He’s also got that whole over the top grand gesture thing that some people claim is “romantic” but most of the same people would think is very pathetic, cringy, creepy in real life. I probably know a dozen 40something women who loved that moved and character but would brutally reject that guy in real life.
This thread has vindicated me. As a teenager, I was the only one in my posse of Immature Suburban Yahoos who wasn’t laughing at Porky’s or 1941.
At first, I thought I was humor-impaired, but now I realize that my cinematic tastes had matured early. NOT necessarily a good thing: I had less company as I started seeing films with subtitles, and skipping “THE Gross-Out Comedy of the Year!” (did I miss anything not seeing the American Pie movies?)
And I loved a lot of the films in this thread, but always WITH the later-viewing attitudes mentioned here. Loved Ferris Bueller, but realized he was a selfish jerk (he was just the selfish jerk I sometimes wish I could be). Was more intrigued by Cameron’s growth. Loved Animal House and Manhattan, even though I was creeped out by the sexual implications.
Now that I’m in my 60s, maybe I can shelve my critical faculties and watch some old comedies. Naah, then I’d have to try Buckaroo Banzai again. I really want to like it, and I keep trying, but I’ve never gotten more than twenty minutes into it before I realize what a waste of time it is.
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By the way, I’m surprised by what movies hold up, and even transcend generations. My kids are huge Star Wars fans.
But I always tell them "I feel bad for your generation. Star Wars was so much better than A New Hope." :~}
Another film I 'd liked to add is The Picture of Dorian Gray–the 1945 film with George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, and Angela Lansbury. The film hasn’t aged well at all, though the movie poster I have my wall still looks great.
PeeWee was an idiot; a goddamn imbecile. I cringed watching his screw-ups.
I saw what you did there.
I recently watched it again with the wife. She had never seen it before. We both agreed it was a good change from the incompetent boobs usually tasked with taking on the antagonist.
One would hope Lloyd Dobler would be rejected by women in their 40s. He’s eighteen, and acts like, well, an eighteen-year-old.
My opinion of the 1951 Thing hasn’t really changed. The dynamic of the military men talking out and coming up with reasonable ways to combat the Thing, done on the fly and with overlapping dialogue, was pretty well-done, and a world away from the incompetents or hysterics you usually see, I’ll agree. I also love the way the nominal “commander” doesn’t really do any of this – the men nominally under his command pretty much figure it out for themselves and do it. It’s not that the commander isn’t himself competent, but the guys under him are so coordinated and good that they don’t need him.
I also love the throwaway jokes.
“This question is not a joke - what if it can read our minds?”
“Then he’s going to be awfully sore when he gets to mine.”
After I saw The Thing for the first time (On TV, as a kid), I had a nightmare about it. Pretty effective.
Slapstick ages well. A few years ago I went to a showing of Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent film The General. Hilarious; Keaton was a brilliant physical comedian. (And given some of the stunts he pulls off, had balls of solid brass.) The only cringeworthy aspect of the film was his playing a Confederate Army soldier. Everything else was as funny now as it was in 1926.
1968
Amblin’
1971
Duel
1974
The Sugarland Express
1975
Jaws
1977
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1979
1941
Even if you discount the first two -Amblin’ being a short and Duel made for tv - I count three major releases before 1941.
No, it eliminates everything that doesn’t actually MAKE something or work on something. He could make things, could make furniture or build houses or build cars. He could repair cars, do home repair, be an electrician. Lots of things don’t involve sales, processing or buying for a living.
The Thing from Another World is a damn-near perfect sci-fi/horror movie. The hokey scientist who would let all of them die just for knowledge is the worst part of it for me.
What I really like about it is the only weapons they have are what you reasonably might expect them to have. An M2 carbine, some pistols… and that’s it. Everything else is improvised. The buckets of kerosene on the monster is one of the best burn stunts out there IMO. In the 1982 remake, they have… military grade flamethrowers? Why? Makes absolutely no sense.
I am ashamed to say that as a teenager I thought Eliminators was the coolest movie ever.
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.”
"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.
He started his career as a small child being tossed around the stage like a rag doll by his father. He had practice with physical stunts! Also, he broke his neck doing one stunt (the water used for the old steam trains came down solidly on his head). He wasn’t aware of it until years later.
The stunt that always gives me the heebies is the one where he’s standing in front of a building, and it’s entire front facade falls “on” him, except that there’s an open door (window?) exactly where he’s standing. There’s almost no clearance. It had to be executed perfectly or he could’ve easily been killed.
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.