Movies that were panned at the time, but now seem kinda okay

Star!

It’s a wonderful life.

A Christmas Story

I love 'this property is condemned ' I think Wood is wonderful in it. And I am kind of fascinated by ' secret ceremony '. Also I re-watched ' the Roman spring of mrs Stone ' last week. It's really weird and half baked, but Vivien Leigh is extraordinary in it. She creates a full blown character out of nothing really. It's all her. There 's absolutely nothing in the script or the dialogue. And you couldn't credit the director for her tour de force, because everyone else is shit.

I love Eyes of Laura Mars...it has such a great Disco feel from the time and the sound track was great

Speaking of Umbrella B**ch, I think Darling Lili deserves a reappraisal.

Clue!

Dune

"The Misfits" and "Eyes of Laura Mars" were not panned.

Not quite.

Sylvia Scarlett owns this thread.

The Big Lebowski was dismissed when it first came out and now it’s considered a classic.

Stop lying, R9. Eyes of Laura Mars got panned. More than a few used the byline Styes of Laura Mars.

That was my first one I thought of r11. Big Lebowski was panned by a lot of critics when it came out.

The Blue Lagoon. Isn’t there going to be a Criterion release?

Willy Wonka (1971)

The Wizard of Oz (huge critical and box office bomb when it was first released)

Everything Joan Crawford made in the 1950s.

A Wrinkle in Time

Two Scorsese films: New York, New York and King of Comedy

The Way We Were

John Carpenter's The Thing

It's a Wonderful Lift

New York New York

At Long Last Love

Maxie

Superman 3

Xanadu

[quote]John Carpenter's The Thing

+1. Fantastic classic of America cinema.

Completely panned when it came out.

Holiday, with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Judd Law and Jack Black.

Showgirls

R4. I agree. The Roman Spring and Mrs. Stone is a pretty flimsy movie but Vivien Leigh makes it watchable.

Lady on a Train starring Deanna Durbin. The reviews were unbelievably bitchy for the time, but the movie is now noted as the only Christmas-themed musical noir film ever made.

Groundhog Day. It opened early in it's year, got middlling reviews and was basically dismissed. Now it's universally considered a classic.

Willing to wager A Wrinkle In Time will grow its base a lot in the next decade.

Night of the Hunter

Blade Runner

I doubt it will, R26. Not with Oprah in a major role.

[quote]It's a Wonderful Lift

That one must still be pretty obscure.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. It was so different in tone from the show's first season -- and really played up the horror stuff from the second season. It's a batshit crazy movie but, at it's heart, its a devastating story of a cycle of abuse and the insanity associated with it. Sheryl Lee deserved an Oscar for surviving what Lynch made her go through playing Laura Palmer.

Ishtar. It's not a great movie, but it's certainly entertaining enough if you just go with the flow.

I'm gonna get raked for this one: Godfather III

Not the masterpieces the first two were. Sofia was woefully miscast. They should have given Robert Duvall the money he asked for. But aside from all that, it was still pretty decent. Pacino, Keaton, Andy Garcia and Talia Shire really gave great performances. And I thought the last 15 minutes were brilliant.

Scorcese's "New York, New York," already quite rightly name-checked above.

Coppola's "One From the Heart"

Coppola's "Cotton Club"

All panned, all wonderful, albeit off-kilter/cock-eyed. The soundtracks are gems.

R15, that's not true about The Wizard of Oz

Here's an except from the original Variey review:

[quote]'The Wizard of Oz,’ which springs from Metro’s golden bowl (production cost is reported close to $3 million), is likely to perform some record-breaking feats of boxoffice magic. Given a sufficient period of pre-release showings in selected major spots, favorable word-of-mouth on the unique and highly entertaining features of the film should spread rapidly. It’s a pushover for the children and family biz.

And the opening paragraph of the New York Times review:

[quote] By courtesy of the wizards of Hollywood, "The Wizard of Oz" reached the Capitol's screen yesterday as a delightful piece of wonderworking which had the youngsters' eyes shining and brought a quietly amused gleam to the wiser ones of the oldsters. Not since Disney's "Snow White" has anything quite so fantastic succeeded half so well.

And according to Wikipedia it was the #9 movie of 1939, out of 365 releases

Ghostbusters II. I really disliked it in 1989. It just didn't live up to the first one, but now I enjoy it. It's much better than I remember.

Thank God It's Friday. Yeah it won the Oscar for Best Song but it didn't get great reviews. But it's fun.

Has anyone bought the recent Blu-ray of The Eyes of Laura Mars?

R34 One From the Heart. Good choice! One of my all-time favorite soundtracks as well, and visually stunning!

Not so sure about Cotton Club, though.

Eyes of Laura Mars was not only panned but received a sketchy release as well, due to a lack of confidence from the distributor.

It was one of those odd films where the soundtrack was in the record bin but it was like, where is the film? When’s it being released? Oh, it already was and tanked. The single, I should say Barbra’s single, charted outside the Top 20, I believe. Or peaked at No. 18.

I know the young gaylings are trying to resurrect this awful film. Good luck. I saw one suggesting on FB a few weeks ago that it would’ve been incredible to see what Elizabeth Taylor would’ve done with the role. Elizabeth Taylor - whom I think was Mrs. John Warner at the time - in The Eyes of Laura Mars! I pissed myself laughing at the sheer, inspired absurdity of that.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever It was considered the last of the great Hollywood musicals, only it wasn't considered great. Not even very good.

I watched it on TCM not too long ago. It was charming, whimsical, and Barbra's voice was in her prime. If they revived it and gave it a special screening at some old Hollywood theater, I bet it would be sold out.

Pauline Kael liked Laura Mars, but I think she was on hiatus when it opened, but she did praise it. Otherwise, yeah, it was panned.

Idiocracy. The studio itself (Fox, of course) tried to get it shit upon by critics while graveyarding the release.

But it's now proven to be the most prophetic film of the last 15 years.

Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn were both nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress for Suddenly Last Summer.

Death to Smoochy is surprisingly good. The last 20 minutes or so are a mess but before that it's very sharp and funny. Ed Norton and Robin Williams are great.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a delight. It's held up a lot better than other Streisand films that were better received at the time.

R43, great minds . . . etc. etc.

Vertigo and The Searchers were panned at the time of their release. Now they're considered to be among the greatest films ever made.

Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" was destroyed by the critics when it was released and was such a financial bomb it bankrupted United Artists. It has been revisited in recent years, getting a Criterion DVD release and is considered a underappreciated masterpiece.

Ernst Lubitsch's 1937 Angel starring "box office poison" Dietrich.

So when is 'SPEED RACER' considered an unappreciated masterpiece ?

I have found every version of "Heavens Gate" unwatchable. It's just a colossal bore.

“ET The Extra Terrestrial” was a critical and commercial bomb when it was released but people seem to enjoy it these days.

Am I doing this right? Posting bullshit information on this thread?

i was anout to say Heaven's Gate too. never seen it but i read it's magnificent. and it features Isabelle Huppert so at least it's got that

Nobody heard of Gone With the Wind until it fell into public domain and started appearing on local TV stations

Lol R57. I have seen Heaven's gate. It is visually stunning. Absolutely breathtaking. But also unbelievably boring and offensive for the spectator. Who needs to see people shooting themselves in the mouth with a rifle in close up, after 2 hours and a half of carnage ? Isabelle Huppert is a wonderful actress and she was then at her most beautiful, but she is unbelievably miscast as a wild west madam. The true story behind the script has been so distorted by cimino that it's dishonest at any level. Also You can see every dollar spent on the screen, and it's quite uncomfortable. That's a lot of $$$$

It’s only a select few who’ve called for a reconsideration of Heaven's Gate. And, honestly, I think they’re being contrary just to be contrary. It’s still a boring, inert and lifeless thing.

Dirty Grandpa. I watched it on cable and laughed my ass off. I don't understand why it didn't become a DL fave.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2

Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Overboard

Charlie Chaplins later talkie "Limelight" is now deservedly considered a masterpiece and possibly his best film ever but was not recieved very well when first released, partially due to controversy over his political leanings at the time.

"Sex and the City 2" while certainly not the greatest is decent--mildly entertaining fluff that doesnt deserve the rep it has as being terrible.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

[Quote]Although largely critically panned on initial release, it soon became known as a midnight movie when audiences began participating with the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audience members returned to the cinemas frequently and talked back to the screen and began dressing as the characters, spawning similar performance groups across the United States. At almost the same time, fans in costume at the King's Court Theater in Pittsburgh began performing alongside the film. This "shadow cast" mimed the actions on screen above and behind them, while lip-syncing their character's lines. Still in limited release four decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It is often shown close to Halloween. Today, the film has a large international cult following.

[quote]Groundhog Day. It opened early in it's year, got middlling reviews and was basically dismissed. Now it's universally considered a classic.

Really? I saw it when it was released and even then I knew it was a pretty good film, and it was profitable, well-reviewed, and not very expensive to begin with.

[italic] 2001, a space odyssey [/italic] received very mixed reviews when it opened in 1968. Now it’s considered Stanley Kubrick’s best film by some critics.

I liked Dirty Grandpa.

You have to love any thread that includes enshrinements of both 2001 and Dirty Grandpa.

R67 isn't allowed to sleep with men anymore.

Bad Santa? I love that movie. 2 sucked.

[quote]Nobody heard of Gone With the Wind until it fell into public domain and started appearing on local TV stations

Just checking: that's a joke, right?

Bonnie and Clyde was dismissed by most New York critics as being too violent, and the acting and story too countrified amateurish.

Pauline Kael saved if from the trash heap, and it became one of the most successful films of the 60s, ushering in a new era of young, bold filmmaking.

Dream on R16

Not just Kael, R72.

The opening line of Judith Crist's review:

"With [italic]Bonnie and Clyde[/italic] Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn firmly establish themselves as one of the most excitingly creative teams in American moviemaking."

R71: yes

The Magus. even Candice called it "a terrible movie." But I liked it. And the book too.

The Star - Bette Davis

[quote] It's a Wonderful Lift

[quote] That one must still be pretty obscure.

You've never heard of it? It's a heartwarming drama about the man who invented the elevator.

I love "The Boyfriend" but I think most people didn't get it. That it didn't launch Twiggy into superstardom tells me it might not have been succe$$ful.

I kinda liked The Boy Friend, too. Wasn't it viciously edited for the U.S. release? Another super edited movie musical from the 70's that flopped and has gone on to cult success is The Slipper and the Rose - a musical version of Cinderella starring Richard Chamberlain. It has a lovely score by The Sherman Brothers, but I honestly think I lot of the edits in the U.S. version were wise. The pacing can drag a good deal.

The cut versions made no sense and whoever did them paid no attention to the plot and every attention to the clock. That's bad editing.

"On a Clear Day..." really does show off Streisand at her best in my opinion -- both as a comedienne and a singer. "He Isn't You" is the most beautiful she has ever sounded and she doesn't remotely push it. "Love and All the Trimmings" too. And those Cecil Beton costumes.

The Slipper and the Rose was one of the nails in the coffin of Radio City Music Hall as a movie and stage show venue, although it did limp along for three more years after this March 1976 release.

See for yourself on TCM early Monday morning (late Sunday night) on May 14 at 12:30am.

Jeez, Cinderella with a 2.5 hour running time? No wonder it bombed.

There was a movie called The New Age starring Judy Davis and Peter Weller. They played a Hollywood wealthy power-couple who both had high level entertainment industry jobs. They quit their jobs and decided to open New Age clothing store on Melrose. The movie came and went very quickly with scant attention. Try to seek it out. It has stayed with me all these years.

It also featured an unexpectedly great performance by Adam West. I'm talking Oscar-worthy.

Cinderella had Richard Chamberlain singing - and singing songs by the Sherman Brothers (who also did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins - and wrote the song "It's a Small World After All")

How could it turn out well?