This could be a movie you heard bad things about but ended up liking, or a movie you had heard nothing about, saw it on a lark, and really liked it. And I am talking BIG movie that we all might have heard of, not some small indie that the majority have not seen, much less heard of.
Mine include:
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” - believe it or not, I had heard nothing about this movie and saw it only 'cause it was $1.00 night at the movies. Talk about getting your bucks worth.
“The Usual Suspects” - I rented this on video after Kevin Spacey won his Oscar. I now own it and watch it pretty often. Word to the wise, if you have not seen it, make sure you will be able to watch it at least twice.
Of course, I had heard the hype regarding “Saving Private Ryan” and it sure lived up to it!
“My, my. Such a lot of guns around here and so few brains.”
~Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”
The World According to Garp – loved the book but didn’t expect the movie to do it justice. So if a “pleasant surprise” is what you’re looking for, that was one for me.
Oh, and Star Wars – saw it early, a Saturday matinee, expected something a little better than the cheesey Buck Rogers stuff I grew up on – remember leaving the theater and thinking movies were never gonna be the same.
Now that I think about it, that’s not necessarily a GOOD thing. Special effects replaced good acting and plots for quite some time.
‘american beauty’. i had no idea what it was going to be about. we went in to see it only because the timing was good. really enjoyed it. neat visuals. even the surprises that seemed to logical after you sdaw them were still surprising at the time.
“The Full Monty,” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” The only thing I knew about “…Grape” was that DiCaprio was nominated for an Academy Award. I knew nothing about the plot. Turns out that it’s one of the best movies ever made, IMHO.
American Beauty
The Matrix
Fight Club
The Sixth Sense
The Breakfast Club
The Mummy
Titanic (It wasn’t worth the hype, but it was better than I thought it would be)
Galaxy Quest
Scream
I didn’t really like “The Sixth Sense” and I really like Bruce Willis.
Star Wars was another pleasant surprise.
I did not care for Titanic and am not sure why. I think it is because I don’t like Leonardo. The best scene in that movie is when Kate Winslet hocks the big loogey all over what’s his names face! Now that was great, the rest of the movie was a let down. I take that back, the last scene was pretty good.
“My, my. Such a lot of guns around here and so few brains.”
~Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”
i thought 'titanic; was the silliest, most illogical movie i had ever seen. i spent the whole thing going, ‘they would never have done that! why didn’t they look there? why didn’t anyone ask her?’ my honey almost slobbered thru it he enjoyed it so much.
sealemon, would you suggest ‘the matrix’ or ‘sixth sense’ this weekend?
I saw “The Matrix” on video, it was really good. But, I recommend making sure you have the opportunity to see it twice, because it will be half way through before you figure out what the heck is happening!
“My, my. Such a lot of guns around here and so few brains.”
~Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”
I don’t like Julia Roberts or Hugh Grant all that much but I wanted to see a movie in a theater that day & it was the only thing that sounded lightweight.
But the rest of the cast was inspired & there is some neat editting in a couple of scenes. And Julia Roberts makes fun of herself.
When I was younger, I had to watch “Amadeus” for my drama class. As is the case when one is forced to do something, I wasn’t really interested in watching it. I ended up loving every minute of it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge…others just gargle.
Sid and Nancy took me by surprise … but then I’d never heard of Gary Oldman before that.
Who would have thought they could make a love story out of all that chaos? (I liked the wicked-cool “happy” ending)
The Basketball Diaries was another sleeper with young stars.
(music, drugs, sex, despair, and hope … also PJ Harvey in the soundtrack)
… but the best surprise that I’ve had lately, was Wild America.
It made me remember what if feels like to crave high adventure.
…and I also laughed so hard in places that I thought my liver was going to come unsproiNged.
American Beauty’s still at #1 on my list…it was extremely hyped on this board, and I went just knowing that it was gonna fall about two feet short of my expectations…and then I went and saw it three more times.
Two Hundred Cigarettes ~ was advertised, looked good, disappeared. Rented it for lack of anything better on the new release wall at Blockbuster. I need to own that one.
I watch too many movies, mostly ones that everyone hates…I’m going to save you all from the agony of a long post and let someone else take over.
“Wednesday the 15th - Chris made one of her rare good points today.” Guanolad
October Sky – expected it to be boring, but it’s a surprisingly good film.
The Usual Suspects – like brdrcolle, I never heard of it until Spacey won the Oscar.
Them! – I thought it would be a stupid giant insect movie and it turned out to be a well-wrought SF tale. I had the same reaction when I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space. 50s SF was better than it’s reputation these days.
Black Moon – weird plotless movie that, for some reason, worked. Loved the unicorn!
The Well – Excellent film about race relations.
Galaxy Quest – I thought it might be fun, but not as good as it turned out.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
An oldie I had avoided until fairly recently - King of the Gypsies (Eric Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Judd Hirsch, Brooke Shields< late 70’s). It strongly resembles The Godfather, it’s great to look at, and young Eric Roberts is so stunningly beautiful you wonder why God didn’t make more men resembling him and less resembling, say, Ernest Borgnine…