| FILMS YOU'VE FLIP-FLOPPED ON? (158 views) | AUTHOR /
DATE |
| Lately I've noticed there's a growing list of films that I used to hate and now like, or vice versa.
1. Do you ever re-visit a film you hated and find that it's actually pretty good?
- "Heat" HATED it first time, now it's one of my favorite films.
- "L.A. Story" I think I actually walked out on this one when it was in theaters, and now it's one of my favorite comedies.
- "Exorcist", the original, it scared the crap out of me as a kid, then I thought it was laughably bad as a teenager, and now it's a transcendent and terrifying character study!
2. Are there films, perhaps from your childhood, that you intentionally avoid re-watching because you just *know* they're not going to be as good as you remember?
- All of the "Star Wars" films...
- Many action films, now that I'm steeped in all these Hong Kong martial arts delicacies, it's just much harder to watch American action stuff from the 1980s and take it quite so seriously...
- "Dark Crystal", "Neverending Story", "Labyrinth", etc. I don't dare watch these again, they were so freakin' awesome as a kid!
You? | Choco
10/5/2008 8:59 PM |
| #2 | I flipped-flopped on a lot of movies.
Hated originally, but love now:
Marie Antoinette, dir: Sofia Coppola
A Scanner Darkly, dir: Richard Linklater
Movies w/twists, for me, usually don't hold up. Which isn't to say, that I don't love some of these. It's just that the films kind of diminish the second time:
Sixth Sense
Tzameti
Oldboy
In fact Oldboy is my least favorite of Chanwook Park's revenge trilogy, behind Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vegeance. Don't get me wrong, I love Oldboy, but there is really nothing like seeing that film the first time. "Like a virgin"--:P | Apix1
10/5/2008 11:15 PM |
| #3 | I definitely have no desire to watch "Sixth Sense" again, despite being impressed by it the first time around... | Choco
10/6/2008 12:28 AM |
| #4 | I was lukewarm on "Batman Begins" when I saw it in the theater because I had built up my own version of what it should be. My brother slapped me and made me watch it again. He was right.
I saw part of the Neverending Story on TV and turned it off because I found myself beginning to critique the FX. I can't let that one go bad for me. It was such a mainstay in the VCR back in the day.
I still love Tron, But the FX bother me a little now because they look so dated and they're so prevalent in the film. But I'd still walk around with a Frisbee strapped to my back today if it wouldn't get me locked in a padded room.
Yor. I loved that movie when I was a wee one. Now, the time-traveling caveman from the future is painful to watch.
I was a little bored with 'Ordinary People' the first time I saw it film school. Then I saw it three more times in different classes and now I absolutely loathe it with all my being.
| Garvinstomp
10/6/2008 1:26 AM |
| #5 | Anti-Ordinary People? Really? Wow. That's one of very very few realistic onscreen portrayals of therapy, I love that one. Therapists are usually used for comic relief, as neurotic nutballs.
I remember being forced to watch "Amadeus" all through school as a kid, and hating it. But now I think it's really good. Maybe you need to see OP outside of the classroom setting! :) | Choco
10/6/2008 9:05 AM |
| #6 | Interesting Topic. I don't very often flip my opinions (I tend to be set in my ways :P), but I can recall enjoying The Matrix the first time I saw it. Then I saw Dark City and realized that The Matrix ripped off EVERYTHING from Proyas and Hong Kong action flicks. Not one original note in that flick, which kinda soured it for me. | TheDenizen
10/6/2008 12:41 PM |
| #7 | Funny you mention "Dark City", I flip on that one constantly. Sometimes it seems like a strikingly original presentation of an intriguing story. But then sometimes the acting just makes it seem like amateur hour. Keifer Sutherland is just CRINGEWORTHY in this one, someone should have told him to tone it down. I own it, I do like it, but each viewing draws my attention to something new, sometimes positive, sometimes not. | Choco
10/6/2008 12:48 PM |
| #8 | Sutherland's spittle-sucking mad doctor is the film's biggest flaw, for sure. Sewell and Connelly are fantastic, though I can understand people not being into it. | TheDenizen
10/6/2008 1:25 PM |
| #9 | Yeah, OP was just thrown at me so much. By the fourth time I just kept saying "Fine, if you want to kill yourself just do it and end all our misery!!" Plus, I bear it ill will that it beat Raging Bull for the Oscar that year.
Not that it can fix Keifer's acting, but the Director's Cut was an improvement over the original. I recommend checking it out. It definitely lets the narrative play itself out a bit nicer.
Proyas' new flick "Knowing" sounds like a real winner, too.
I've flipped on 2001. I saw it when I was a kid and thought it was cool. I tried watching it a few years back and it was just interminable. Everything just took so long. Being the only person in film school that never did drugs probably took away from the 'experience' every one else had with it. Although it was a bit more watchable when they'd turn on "Dark Side of the Moon" for the last 30 minutes.
Kubrick is great, but that one just test my patience. | Garvinstomp
10/7/2008 2:32 AM |
| #10 | I'm definitely not a Kubrick fan.
But yeah, I definitely need to check out that Dark City director's cut, I keep forgetting to do that. Good call. That would be a good topic in itself, director's cuts versus originals... | Choco
10/7/2008 9:05 AM |
| #11 | The Dark City directors cut is superior if only for taking out the stupid narration (the one that spoils the entire storyline) at the beginning.
Kubrick is pretty amazing, but 2001 IS a bit of a patience tester. Choco, I'd recommend checking out some of Kubricks earlier films...they tend to be a little shorter and more "to the point". The Killing is a perfect example. | TheDenizen
10/7/2008 9:12 AM |
| #12 | You know what, I actually own "The Killing"! I always forget that's a Kubrick joint since it's so freakin' awesome! :) | Choco
10/7/2008 11:11 AM |
| #13 | Yeah, The Killing is one one of the tightest-paced and plotted heist films I can recall seeing, and I've seen plenty. Sterling Hayden is a barely contained volcano. | TheDenizen
10/7/2008 11:45 AM |
| #14 | The Killing is fantastic and probably the most overlooked of all the Kubrick films. It's probably the best, IMO, because it's the most un-Kubrick of them all.
And as for Director's Cuts versus Studio versions. . . coming right up. | Garvinstomp
10/8/2008 12:58 AM |
| #15 | I couldn't think of any for a while so I didn't respond but I got of one. Once Upon A Time In Mexico I didn't really care for after I saw it in the theater mainly because I had built up expectations of what a sequel to a John Woo style shoot em' up should be like. A little while after it came out on DVD I gave it another chance. After I realized I was previously overlooking an excellent spaghetti western/samurai flick I began to love it in way I can't talk about. Besides the acting performances in that movie are pretty much second to none. Not counting Antonio and Salma. | Bastard Ronin
10/9/2008 9:17 AM |
| #16 | Sorry it took me awhile but the law has me working crazy shifts. The first Fantastic Four movie did not appeal to me as I thought a big budget movie should after the nineties Roger Corman fiasco I watched. However it started to grow on me after viewing the dvd extended version and checking out the special features. | Sgt. T
10/9/2008 1:17 PM |
| #17 | We don't carry it here at HKFLIX, but I flip flopped on MIAMI VICE. In the theater, it was boring. On DVD, with subtitles turned on so I could catch all the complex dialogue, it was much better. | YoMama
10/9/2008 8:49 PM |
| #18 | YoMama- I'm with you. The Director's Cut was even better. The two additional scenes actually explained things. The new opening was absolutely fantastic. Totally true to the what MV is. And they deleted some unnecessary stuff, odd for a DC.
I flipped on Fargo. I was just too young to appreciate it when it came out and won the Oscar. People were talking about how funny it was. I frankly didn't get it. Comedy, to me, were Naked Gun and AIrplane movies. Fargo wasn't quite there with it.
Once I got to film school and somebody told me to give it another chance it was a whole different story. Unfortunately, maturity has ruined a lot more movies for me than it has helped.
But Krull still kicks all forms of ass, no matter how old it gets!! | Garvinstomp
10/10/2008 1:29 AM |
| #19 | In the non martial arts film area, I would say Napoleon Dynamite. First time I saw it I hated it. Now every time it comes on TV I have to watch it. Same with The Big Lebowski. I didn't get it the first time but now I think it's great. | William Giordanella
10/17/2008 7:56 PM |
