Casino Royale was the first (and only until last year) movie I saw alone. It was June, 1968, and I was graduating from junior high. I went to downtown Chicago to lunch at the Berghoff with my father, bought some “graduation shoes” at Florsheim’s, then he dropped me off at a theatre to see the latest James Bond spoof, Casino Royale* (apparently the only Bond novel Cubby Broccoli hadn’t optioned), starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen, and a host of other people who should have known better.
Boy, did I love that movie! The mayhem, the totally confusing plot, the slinky costumes for the female stars (Ursula Undress and Joanna Pettet—hubba-hubba!), the Lotus Formula 2 racer—they overwhelmed my senses.
A while back, when my daughter was interested in the prototypes of the Austin Powers movies, I rented Casino Royale. I don’t think my tastes are much more sophisticated than they were back in '68 (I was a pretentious 13-year-old), but the movie was JUST PLAIN STUPID. Not funny-stupid, either. Unfunny, incoherent, and stupid. What was I thinking?
Are there any movies you used to like but can’t stand anymore?
I saw “poltergeist” when it first came out at the movies. I was about 12 or 13 at the time IIRC. Back then I thought that this was the most kick-ass horror flick ever made. Then just a few weeks ago, I saw it again on t.v. and good lord did it look corny! I’m not even talking about the very dated special effects. The whole story was just plain dumb; these real estate developers build houses over a graveyard and don’t bother to move the bodies? How did they manage to hook up the houses with utiltities (like the plumbing) without disturbing any of these corpses? None of the dearly departed had still living relatives who might have wanted to know what happened to the remains of their relatives after the houses are erected? The plotholes were big enough to drive an SUV through!
Even worse is “the Breakfast Club.” Another flick I saw as an early teenager and thought had some deep profound meaning. Also happened to see that just a few months ago and could only think “Boy was I an idiot.”
It’s distressingly common. They make a show of moving some of the bodies, especially those with relatives that care, but there’s always a chance. A really GOOD chance.
When I hear about another develpment going in over an old cemetary I ask, "Didn’t they see Poltergeist?!?!?"
OOH-OOH! There was one a few years back where they were developing the grounds of an old mental institution. Seems they found the graveyard by accident–it wasn’t marked. They made a show of moving the bodies they found, but I hear femurs still work their way up in gardens.
SCHLOCK. 1971. John Landis’ first picture. Starring John Landis wearing a monkey suit. A horror-flick parody, steeped in leftover sixties 'tude.
(Promotional tagline: “Due to the horrifying nature of this film, no one will be admitted to the theatre.”)
Yes, I WAS high. I saw it at a SF/Fantasy movie marathon held at the Case Western Reserve University campus on the east side of Cleveland in 1977, when I was about 16 years old, and it came on at about four in the morning on the second day and my friends and I hadn’t slept for over 24 hours but we HAD been smoking enormous amounts of cheap Mexican weed.
We thought it was funnier’n shit.
A couple months ago I found it on cassette at Kim’s Video, the oddball video shop in Greenwich Village, and I bought it for about twenty bucks. Good god, it’s horrible.
Billy Jack. I saw it as a young teenager, and it held major appeal for my sense of rebellion against established mores. Seeing it again years later, I had to laugh at how truly awful it was.
I thought this movie kicked major ass when I was 12. I don’t even need to get into what I thought when I saw it recently.
same goes for Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
There was one that had 'ol Bill Shatner in it. It was called “Attack of the Spiders” or some lame god damn name like that. About a town that gets invaded by, you guessed it, Spiders (or turantula’s). It was supposed to be a horror show. When I saw it when I was about 10 I thought it was OK. I saw it again a few years after that and got did it suck. Luckily, I haven’t heard anything about it for a long time… I haven’t even thought about it again until now.
Spaceballs, and yes I was. Which would explain why I thought it was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I watched a few years ago sober and didn’t laugh once sigh. I really miss pot sometimes <smile>
When I was really little – about six I think – I saw a kiddie Halloween flick called “The Worst Witch” and thought it was great. I saw it again when I was eight or nine and thought it was pap. I guess I became jaded at a young age.
The first time I saw Stripes, I thought it was really funny. Years later, and after a stint in the Army, I saw it again. Hardly cracked a smile. I kept thinking how I would have kicked Bill Murray’s (et al.) asses if they had been in my unit.
You know, circa 1982, the movie about the scientist who accidently falls into some sort of “scientific formula” that turns him into a gentle-but-terrifying treelike being? And later the villain falls into the same formula and it turns him into a twisted swineish monster?
Loved it when I was thirteen. I remember thinking that the way the “formula” altered people according to thier inner nature was really quite thought-provoking.
For some inexplicable reason, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ was my favorite movie when I was very young (I think we got cable when I was 6 or 7).
In my early 20s Evil Dead 2 was one of my favorite movies. I re-rented it not too long ago (I’m 28 now) and it didn’t have the same effect on me - still funny, but it didn’t have near the appeal it used to.
