I’m another one for Anne Rice. I used to think that was great literature? And I used to think koRn was amazingly wonderful hardcore music? And Fushigi Yuugi was one of the greatest anime series ever? Jonathan Taylor Thomas was so hot during his years on Home Improvement? Sonic the Hedgehog was the greatest video game series?
And let us not forget the mantra of all teens/20s when informed of threads like this:
“It won’t happen to me! The art/music/philosophy I love is Timeless/Great/Meaningful and will be forever!” 
Heck, I’m only 18 and I already have situations like this. For example, 3 Ninjas is an incredibly good movie. If I watch it for the first time in ten years, it won’t be. I know it, because I remember enough to realise that it is, in fact, really lame. I’m sure kids would find it funny, but I remember thinking it would be enduringly hilarious.
The Graduate; I didn’t see it in 1967, but it was rereleased about ten years later, when I was 17 or so. At that time, I had some identification with the protagonist, Benjamin. Seeing it recently, I found that Benjamin was annoying, and the only really interesting character was Mrs. Robinson.
It’s not TV, it’s HBO: Six Feet Under and Carnivale both let me down after intial rushes. The former was easy to give up in S2 as I realized that I wanted to bitchslap each and every one of those people including baby Maya.
The second was much worse; I know it was cancelled, so I can give this away: the epic battle that was the point of the whole series up til then didn’t count, as another character suddenly gained powers and resurrected the defeated bad guy. I could have lived with that, with gritted teeth, but then the creator blithely revealed that another character, who we’d just seen shot at point-blank range in the chest after performing a last heroic act, was also not dead. Just because he was popular and played by a cute actor, I guess. All that dirt and mystery and mysticism for nothing.
How can this horse be beaten to death when I haven’t yet had a chance for a riposte?
But never mind. I’d be the first to admit that my characterization of the women in Austen as “spirited and beautiful”, etc., is a superficial one, and based on not having read the books in some years. But suffice it to say, to the point of the OP, that I used to be a big fan of Austen, but on rereading her years later felt a sense of disappointment.
It’s an interesting topic – probably deserves to have a thread of its own.
Jesus con queso, you are making me cringe. I don’t listen to the current gimmicky faux-emo and faux-punk movement dreck, but I am still deathly afraid that all the music I love currently will age terribly. Some of it I suppose is “timeless” since it has lasted for 30 years already (Moby Grape, Velvet Underground, CBGBers), but I can’t really imagine still listening to Iron and Wine or the Mountain Goats when I am 50. For now, twee pop suits my needs just fine, but in 30 years indie rock will be a cute little niche in music history like all subgenres before it.
In a similar vein, I think Donnie Darko and Fight Club will age furiously, but classics like Dr. Strangelove and Brazil should atleast last for 20 more years.
My friends and I call “Bitches Brew” “My First Miles”, because it’s typically the first Miles kids get into, and often the last. It took me a long time to realize that I just don’t like Miles except for “Kind of Blue”, and I had to buy and sell “Bitches Brew” twice in the span of 12 years to discover it was one of the most tiresome, overrated jazz records ever. I acknowledge that Miles is one of the most influential men in jazz, but personally I just don’t like his style. Why so many kids get into that particular album I don’t quite know, because, well, there are so many others that are so much better. Is it a perfect combination of accessable/difficult?
capybara nails the high school/college art zenith/absurdity. So many sheltered kids go to college and these “My Firsts” seem like the zenith of artistic expression and experiences, so much so that they’ve turned into cliches of worldliness or something.
I can’t wholeheartedly trade Breton in for just the college years, but I would substitute Keroac, and then add Anne Rice to high school, along with Stephen King (though I’ve learned that King is picked up by younger kids these days, so he may be too outre even for high schoolers now.)
Eh. It’s not written down anywhere that stuff HAS to be timeless. I’ve been really hung up on the idea for some time, as have some of my favorite musicians, but a friend of mine pointed out that it’s only part of some traditions that art has to be timeless, and that it’s a bad thing for art to be ‘of the moment.’
Was it Mad About You where Jamie caught Paul watching SbtB, and he commented something to the extent of, “Well, they show it so much to make sure we’re home to see it that I feel guilty if I DON’T watch it?”
I used to be a Marxist atheist existentialist. I’m now a libertarian Christian objectivist. There are therefore too many for me to list.
As a teen Christian in the 70s, my religious and political life was guided by the writings of a certain Hal Lindsey.
Fortunately, I had enough interest in the writings of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer to give my heart and mind some actual nutrition.
As a kid, I remember digging up some old E.C. horror mags out fo the back room of my local comic shop (**Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, Crypt of Terror,**etc.,) and thinking they were just awesome. I recently borrowed a friend’s hardbound collection of every issue of Haunt of Fear and it quickly became evident that they were really hurting for original ideas. Just about every second story was a rehashing of a previously published story in the very same magazine…and the themes seem to be continuously recycled.
Some great art, though…
You know, speaking of Monty Python, I’d have to say that I’ve finally outgrown them. From junior high all the way through college, they cracked me up, but I recently caught a couple of episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and I was like . . . meh. My parents were right: It is kind of silly . . . and a bit suspect too, I think 
I was a huge Grateful Dead fan in high school and college. Back then they were soooooooo deep. Now I listen to them, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell they were talking about. They are my personal pick for the most overrated band of all time.
But probably the biggest disappointment upon review is Billy Jack. I was 15 when I taped it off the TV, and I must have seen it 30 times before I wore the tape out. I loved the fight in the park, I love Billy Jack protecting the hippies against the bad boy townies, and I loved all the mysticism.
About a month ago, I found the DVD in the bargain bin for seven bucks and snapped it up on instinct. I cringed through the whole thing and came away with the feeling that (a) Billy was seriously deluded and short-sighted (b) The kids and counsellors caused about 90% of their own problems either through pissing off townspeople unnecessarily or through their inaction due to blind pacifism–and never mind that someone else, usually Billy but occasionally one of the cops they despised, had to pick up their slack, ultimately with tragically avoidable results (c) My kid brother could have written better dialogue in his 8th grade English class.
But I still liked the fight scene in the park. And the theme song is still cool.
Gawd. The entire Billy Jack series was cringingly preachy, ponderous, pretentious, stilted, stunted, stupid, and stultingly sterile. All of this could be forgotten, of course, if the fight sequences were dynamite or the less predictable, but neither is the case, despite the subbing of–I think–Korean master Bong Soo Han. If you’re going to preach, please keep the martial arts out of it. And if you’re going to kick ass, just kick it. Don’t preach and pontificate. When I look back at Billy Jack, it makes me weep that an entire generation of Americans missed out on the likes of Jet Li.
Ultimately, Billy Jack the dude came across as needing his ass kicked hard. I hear Laughlin was a bit of a nutjob IRL, BTW.
OK, I’m going to get flamed for this, but here’s another contribution: Bruce Lee.
There’s no doubt “Enter the Dragon” is a classic, but the rest of Lee’s films were dreadful. This is no fault on Lee or his extraordinary talent, but “Chinese Connection,” Fists of Fury," and even “Return of the Dragon” were really, really bad–except the Colliseum sequence, of course. Sad to say, Bruce Lee was way too good for the genre back then.
How about Dead Poets Society? I still think it’s a pretty good film (I don’t care what anyone says), but not the way I used to see it. Recently I rewatched it and realized it actually sends the opposite message everyone thinks of it as having. It’s not uplifting; it’s depressing. Everyone who follows Robin Williams’ teaching ends up losing. One kid kills himself and another is kicked out of school. Meeks and the other guy are ignored throughout the movie and never do much. The one kid gets the girl in the end, but even though he becomes a Romantic he treats her as an object he has to have or else he’ll die, not a relationship. The only one that makes it out okay is the kid who betrays them all to the Realist professor.
:smack: I cringed when I read this. I was vaguely aware that there had to be people out there who thought this, but I’ve never actually heard anyone say it!
I agree. I still think it’s a good film, but not great. I used to absolutely love it.
Likewise, the animated “Gargoyles” TV show. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it. And it’s still worlds better than most animated crap on TV. But after rewatching a few episodes lately it’s been downgraded in my opinion from “absolutely terrific” to “pretty darned good, overall”.
Larry- that really made me laugh. Great point. 
Movies: Straw Dogs- I tried to watch that not long back and it was just a terribly violent piece of nothing.
A Clockwork Orange- I tried to view that last night. Even half a dozen beers didn’'t stop it being obvious, self indulgent crap.
Comedy: The Three Stooges
But some things will always remain cool- In A Gadda Da Vida for instance 